Thus, if nobody has any memory of him because he has never existed in Steins; Gate world line, how would Kurisu just go back in time when he is little? How crazy it must be for her to know that no matter how hard she tries to forget Okabe, bringing him back will become the obsession that defines her life?Toshi: Which is what makes the movie—and the preceding TV series—so good: It’s character-driven as opposed to plot-driven.
Kurisu decides to go back to a time that predates all of Okabe's original timeline jumping and, after failing the first attempt, meets up with young Okabe and tells him the story of "Hououin Kyouma", which inspires Okabe to take on the persona for himself and gives him the strength to help young Mayuri. That implies Okabe can physically move himself from world line to world line without anything external.
Gotcha. Steins;Gate: The Movie - Load Region of Déjà Vu (劇場版 シュタインズ・ゲート 負荷領域のデジャヴ, Gekijōban Shutainzu Gēto Fuka Ryōiki no Déjà vu) is an animated film based on the visual novel Steins;Gate.
She didn't jump world lines, she just went back on the one from which he completely blipped out. More specifically, how was Okabe exactly able to return back to Steins Gate? Not being able to differentiate which World Line he is in and put him in a comatose state of mind, from there isolating himself from the world.
In the movie, we get to see how they affected and continue to affect people who share his secret—namely Kurisu.Richard: Agreed. Her complete breakdown at not being able to remember him but knowing somehow he was gone made me want to give Asami Imai (Kurisu's voice actress) an Oscar.
Anyway, Okabe's reaction to finding out Kurisu had created the time leap machine was awesomely well acted. The movie would have been nearly identical if everyone sans the big three—Okabe, Kurisu, and Mayuri—were completely absent from the film.Don't get me wrong, I loved seeing all the supporting characters again and I felt they were all acting in character; I just wish that they had been less cameo roles and more vital to the final resolution of the plot.Toshi: I respectfully disagree. We can assume this memory is meant to make Okabe believe that he is actually "from" the S;G worldline. Things don't just fall for no reason.Basically, the movie completely renegs on a lot of core idea (only way to shift timelines is to change something in the past, only one timeline is active at a time) which is a damn shame.The Dr. Pepper complaint sounds super nit-picky to me. This includes Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate 0, Chaos;Head, Chaos;Child, Robotics;Notes, Robotics;Notes DaSH, as well as Occultic;Nine and Anonymous;Code. Where the film starts to be hit or miss for me, however, is the difference between Okabe and Kurisu as the main protagonist. The “later” has become the “now.” Spoilers incoming!The strain of the memories of the other world lines continue to build until they result in Okabe’s deletion from existence, leaving Kurisu with only a vague sense of déjà vu and a drive to somehow find a way to get him back.Richard: Can I just say that I loved the explanation of Okabe's “Reading Steiner” and how having a sense of déjà vu is really just you remembering doing the same thing in another reality?Toshi: Same here. Like, I wanted to stand up in the theater, point to the screen and proclaim: “That, people, is what crippling emotional pain sounds like.”Toshi: Another argument for seeing the subtitled version (if/when it comes out). Or maybe it’s just that the main plot of the film was resolved before this sub-plot, and thus the movie ended before we could see its resolution.Toshi: Which is why I can’t fault it outright, since the main plot is much more important, and I do like an atmosphere of ambiguity at times where the viewer gets to decide what happens, but at the same time, that was a thread that could have been resolved with just a couple of lines between Kurisu and Okabe at the very end of the movie.Richard: Or a single line from Farris (aka, the girl who owns every building in Akihabara).Richard: So Toshi, what are your final thoughts on Toshi: If you love the TV series, or the original game, you have no excuse not to see this movie when it’s made available.
Every scene with Okabe and Kurisu was amazingly well acted. I like to think of the movie as "official" fanfiction. That alone makes watching the entire TV series worthwhile. The fact of the matter is that Toshi: I have trouble with this statement. Deceptively so, considering the story involves time travel.Richard: Now on to the bad aspect of the film—the problem in the film from which all others spawn. Keep checking back with us at As more and more publications are dialing down their Japan coverage, Kotaku had this crazy idea:…I only red up to the spoiler warning then scanned a bit as I scrolled down. But while that is the case, I didn’t necessarily feel that it was a detriment to this story.Richard: The only other minor issue I had with the movie (I'll save the more major ones for the spoiler section) was that it really didn't seem to do much with the supporting cast. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts I also loved the amount of development that both Okabe and Kurisu got in this film—from Okabe concluding that being erased from time was well worth creating a world with both Kurisu and Mayuri alive in it to Kurisu finding out that despite trying to move on without him, she will never be able to forget about him. She should not have been able to find him back in 2005. There are key moments where, through the voice acting alone, you can actually hear their hearts breaking.Toshi: I’ll admit, there were several times in the movie I teared up.Richard: Seriously Toshi, the moment where Okabe disappears for the last time—in a scene that perfectly mirrors the scene where he erased Kurisu in the series—is some powerful stuff.