Anime Discussion Thread - Page 1724

Regarding his "annoying" mad scientist shenanigans:
Not sure how well it was conveyed in the anime but a recurring image in the VN was Mayuri standing in front of her grandma's tombstone staring into the sky. She did this every day for hours upon hours, such that it made a young Okarin think she was letting herself die. Bear in mind that Okabe thinks of Mayuri as a little sister, as a very crucial family member. So much that the young Okabe comes up with a bizarre excuse to give her a reason to live: that he's a mad scientist, and that he's holding her hostage. That doesn't make any sense if you think about it, but it gives her a reason to live, however contrived (I think they both know it, honestly), and it sort of forces Okabe into acting like a mad scientist, both to remind her (she doesn't need reminding though) and mostly to mask his anxiety regarding her state of mind. In the VN he has an amusing habit of forgetting to act a mad scientist. Also, this plays an important part in the final chapter.

But let's go through some of the annoyances and their reasoning.

The characters. In my defense, I said most of the characters do their thing for a reason. Daru was obviously a stereotypical 2channer, and Luka was a useless character. Akiha (Feyris) acts the way she does because she's trying to atone for what she perceives her killing of her father. Overall most characters do their shit on purpose, with the exception of Kurisu, who was a pretty natural tsundere, for better or for worse.

With regards to each part of the pattern,
Suzu's arc was pretty straight-forward I think. It begins his agony, because during the partying she mentions it's the happiest she's ever been, and he also has to face the fact that his "discovery" has essentially destroyed the future. As such, he's robbed her of her family (Daru has abandoned her, she's left her mother, etc.), her future, and any semblance of happiness. He's especially hit hard when he realizes her machine is a one-way trip, because it means she has no hope of salvation of sorts, all she is is a carrier of the IBN. He "goes emo" then in ripping away her one happy moment to allow her to fulfill her robotic mission... all in favor of Mayuri. Because that's what it amounts to - he's crushing her happiness and future in favor of Mayuri. It's also worth noting that Suzu's "end" involves him unable to make that decision, instead escaping into a time loop where everyone's happy in order to find some solution, but he never does, and goes insane.

I forget order but Feyris arc was one of the comparably useless ones, but served an important role in his diminishing psyche. Because after this route he literally has blood on his hands - he kills her father in favor of saving Mayuri. Now, philosophically you can argue that because he's essentially just going away from that branch, he's not really affecting it so much as simply shifting his location, but it's clear he doesn't think of it that way. A lot is made over the fact that he doesn't care if you could justify it via apathy and distancing, the fact that he's experienced the happiness on the other side of the branch makes it his responsibility when he cuts out someone else's happiness in favor of his own. So in his mind, he kills her father, and along with it a significant amount of her happiness, for his own selfishness. It's also worth noting that, as I mentioned, Feyris is one of the very few characters that really show trans-node remembrance: she has an inkling as to what's going on with his time traveling, as she thanks him in the end for her happy dream. I don't remember what her end was exactly but it was the only "happy" side-character end despite Mayuri's unavoidable death.

Luka's route was worthless. I don't think it's even worth mentioning except that in his (her?) end they basically allow Mayuri to die and have to live with the guilt. This was the primary "filler" that annoyed me. The removal of happiness simply gnaws at him more.

And Moeka's route was the second super important one (aside from Suzu). Here he realizes the full extent of how much he fucked up history, because it's revealed around this time that his discovery of time travel caused SERN to create a direct line to his house (wow) in order to keep watch, and fucked up the lives oh dozens of people whom were simply used to watch over him and attempt to find the IBN. He realizes that as much as he despises Moeka for killing Mayuri, a lot of it has to do with his discovery as well, and he begins to transfer his rage at himself, the time machine, and fate. By this point he's just mentally spent. And the tipping point of sorts is when Mr. Braun shoots himself. As much as they argued, they liked each other a lot, you know? And something that was apparently skipped in the anime is that the loli actually is a psychotic version of herself, in that she stewed over her father's death, so in the future, she kidnaps Okabe and brutally tortures him to death, recovers and repairs the original (Kurisu's) time leaper, and leaps back in time, three days at a time, for some 20-30 years until she came back to this moment, in order to stab Moeka for vengeance. He's crushed by how he absolutely demolished her life, and also apologizes for ruining her vengeance, as he changes time again. And again, he has blood on his hands. By this point he feels the weight of the world, having caused SERN to dominate the world and create a dystopia that ruined everything. He also feels responsible for Mr. Braun's death, Moeka's death (he struggles mightily with that one, as part of him feels like she deserves it, but part of him is still appalled at slaughter), etc.

... imagine the relief he felt when he found the IBN again. Everything was good! He doesn't have to wreck anymore lives, doesn't have to kill anymore people, can just go back to his ordinary life.

And then the hammer that you can see coming strikes, which is that he needs to reverse the first mail, to return Kurisu to death.

I mentioned in the IRC channel that the VN does a fantastic job of building this up, because over all the above arcs, as he breaks down mentally more and more, he relies on Kurisu more and more, to the point where most of the stuff he does is per her orders. She's the one he confides in every time (no one else is useful), she's the one that enables him to do everything (she begins to speed up construction of the time leaper for him every time, etc.), she's his mental support whenever he's about to just give up, she's there every time.

So when it comes to the relatively short final chapter, it's all about his final pre-determined decision. Of whether he can kill his beloved for family. But we say pre-determined because he never really had a choice at all - the reality is that he HAS to kill her, because her survival leads to SERN's world domination and dystopia. You also get all the interaction with Mayuri back, as she feels she's "done her job" of keeping Okabe alive to this point, and implores him to let her free and just live his life.

And then of course the Epilogue happens, but that was mostly to provide a happy ending, a sort of salvation for Okabe, who'd been so beat down over the ideal that he totally doesn't want to give a shit about anything anymore. Not really surprising.

I'm not sure how well the anime got all of this psyche stuff through, unfortunately, and obviously in non-VN form it's a lot more difficult to become emotionally invested in someone. It's a strength of the medium. Kara no Shoujo (similar style of abusing emotional attachment to a character) takes advantage of it too.

Sorry for the wall of text, but hopefully that clarifies some stuff for you :>