Steins Gate 18 ~ first date

August 3, 2011

Hououin Kyouma makes Rukako cry again.

Steins;Gate episode 18 continues pretty much as expected. Okabe (AKA Hououin Kyouma) needs to reverse the change he made for Ruka. This episode featured a lot of Ruka, played by the great Yuu Kobayashi, but what really impressed me was that they followed up on the “bleed-over” of the Reading Steiner.

I mentioned last episode that I was worried about Feyris-nyan’s ability to remember across world-lines. This time they did not explain the phenomenon, but they did address it, which gives me hope that there is a reason for having introduced it, beyond the convenience of the plot in a single episode. Random Curiosity has a good summation:

Just why is it that both Feyris and Ruka regained memories of the old timeline, even before the timelines themselves reverted? Is Okarin somehow able to share his Reading Steiner by touch? Is it the mere act of telling the person what happened that causes the memories to become confused, a kind of archetype of the collective unconscious hidden inside their brains waiting to be triggered?

It is possible, I suppose that they both were affected by touch. Personally I think this is potentially dangerous, because I’m not sure it is a good thing if Okabe accidentally causes Moeka to get memories of him running away from her over and over again. Although, I suppose, it might freak her out since she is already afraid of lost memories. I guess we just have to wait until next week to see what happens.

Posted by Joojoobees
Filed in Steins Gate
4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Steins Gate 18 ~ first date”

  1. tomphile Says:

    August 3, 2011 at 10:57 am

    Well I don’t think RandomC’s got it quite right. Rather than sharing the Reading Steiner – the characters who have sent DMails remember the other lines. That would explain why Makise and Mayuri and Daru have no knowledge whatsoever of what happened.

    • Joojoobees Says:

      August 3, 2011 at 1:38 pm

      That’s a pretty interesting theory. As long as they come up with a good explanation for it, I will be happy. I was kind of dreading this episode. The “science” behind Ruka’s sex change was so questionable, and then we had Feyris’ acquisition of the Reading Steiner. Regardless of how they explain it, I want it explained, not hanging out there as a plot hole.

  2. Tsuki Says:

    August 4, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    My theory goes that “everybody has the reading steiner ability”, but it’s only Okabe’s that is strong enough to stay consistent no matter what.

    For everybody else, their reading steiners are extremely weak, so they need a huge “shock” factor in order for theirs to kick in.

    For Feyris it would be walking back into the store/maid cafe that she founded, whereas for Ruka, it was the shock from Okabe’s persistence about her/his gender.

    We could maybe even argue that Okabe’s reading steiner is weak as well, but his “shock factor” is the actual divergence number changes.

    All just my speculation though, so yea. Don’t take my word for it >.>;;

    • Joojoobees Says:

      August 4, 2011 at 4:58 pm

      Well, at this point that is as consistent with what we know as anything else.

      On a different, but somehow related, topic: has anyone seen the recent news about scientists who may have detected measurable traces of alternate universes that are diverging from our own universe? I’m not saying that the multi-verse divergences they are trying to measure are in any way similar to the divergences of the world-lines in Steins;Gate. Just saying, “hey that’s cool”. LINK: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1108/110802-first-test-of-multiverse


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