Comment on [Discussion] Steins;Gate Is Still Influencing Sci-Fi Anime 15 Years Later
Krauerking@lemy.lol 2 days agoAnd I didnt even downvote your original comment because I liked the idea of having a discussion on this because you are not wrong to find the MC grating.
You have your own sonder and I respect that. I appreciate you giving me a place to put my thoughts in this discussion by starting it. And yeah, some of us with our own flavor of life will take different things from it. Its why I think Steins;Gate is great at being art even if it isn’t always easy to watch.
Rottcodd@ani.social 2 days ago
I think the key is that I hadn’t realized, or even teally considered, how much of it hinged on wish fulfillment not as a way to handwave the science and move the story along, but as a way to do a sort of end run on Okabe’s defenses and force him to confront himself. So even though I did appreciate the later parts of it, I didn’t appreciate the parts leading up to that.
And oddly, wish fulfillment puts me in mind of one that I’ve found myself mostly alone in appreciating - Maebashi Witches. A lot of what impressed me about it is that it explores the idea that having ones wishes fulfilled might turn out to not be what one actually needs, or even particularly actually should want.
The first and most notable difference is that it’s not through a brash, self-absorbed otaku, which immediately sets my teeth on edge, but through cute girls doing cute things, which I’ll always welcome.
Huh…
Krauerking@lemy.lol 2 days ago
Yeah, if you pay attention you will see Okabe gets his every wish. So that when suddenly he has to pick what level of pain he is ok with for payment, it puts him in hell. And since he is a loner and doesnt think of everyone else he doesnt have anyone else to talk to to the point that he doesnt even realize that everyone else is still remembering what he did and that his actions have never been without consequences. And he has to live up to them to undo them.
But yeah wild how the wrapper on a story can make such a difference, I mean this is the same story as Its a wonderful Life and yet the method of telling it makes it completely different and makes a slightly different take on the answer. The author clearly thinks its still ok to be absurd with reality at the end as long as you take it seriously.
By the way I don’t know Maebashi Witches but I do love Studio Sunrise and how they do personal stories, so it will go on the list after I catch up to Frieren.