“Prologue of the Beginning and the End -Turning Point-” (始まりと終わりのプロローグ -Turning Point-, Hajimari to Owari no Purorōgu -Turning Point-) is the first episode of the anime adaptation of the Steins;Gate visual novel.
Overview[]
A self-described mad scientist attends a lecture on time travel, stumbles upon the dead body of a familiarly unfamiliar woman, and discovers that his text messages are no longer bound by the rules of space and time.
Plot[]
July 28, 2010. Akihabara.
Within the bustling electronics district of Tokyo, a man with brushed-back hair and dressed in a lab coat takes a girl to a press conference. The man, named Rintaro Okabe, explains to his childhood friend Mayuri Shiina about the press conference at Radio Hall, which is about "The Invention of The Century": a Time Machine.
Something strange here
Suddenly, Rintaro's thoughts are disturbed by what he thought was an earthquake. Upon closer inspection, he finds a strange object on the roof. Soon, however, he is called back by Mayuri, who wants to take him to somewhere more interesting.
Mayuri is in front of vending machines. She laments on lacking 100-yen coins to play. What appears more unfortunate for her is that her childhood friend plans to waste his 100-yen coin on a blind spin on the vending machine. Ironically, Rintaro gets the rarest of the items available and, since he is not interested on the stuff he got, he gives it to Mayuri. The item she got is the Metal Upa toy figure in which she puts her name on it.
Soon, an announcement of the start of the conference is broadcast, and Mayuri and Rintaro part ways for the meantime.
Time traveling conference
The conference later begins, led by a certain Dr. Nakabachi. Rintaro attends the meeting, while Mayuri stays outside; Mayuri later tells Rintaro that she lost her newly-acquired Metal Upa toy figure and is looking for it. Rintaro soon continues on listening to the lecture, however, he finds out that there is something alarming about Dr. Nakabachi's theories on a time machine, which he describes as something pulled straight from the John Titor theory. This left Nakabachi angry and annoyed at Rintaro.
Before Rintaro could make any more fuss in the conference, he is pulled away by a young woman. At first, Rintaro complains about what she just did, but the young woman turns out to be Kurisu Makise, a famous figure in the field of scientific research. Rintaro resorts to his cell phone, in which he reports to "someone" regarding being caught by an operative of a certain Agency.
Kurisu manages to snatch his cell phone and discovers that it is turned off.
Deceiving the organisation's agent
Rintaro tries to keep himself from being humiliated by the woman to no avail. Kurisu, however, goes straight into the topic, asking him about what he wanted to tell her fifteen minutes earlier. In response, Rintaro just gives a farewell remark and sprints downstairs.
For a moment, Rintaro feels nervous, still denying the fact that they have met before.
Soon, he receives a message on his phone, but instead of seeing a message, he finds a video displaying static on his phone...
New founds incoming
He is soon accompanied by Mayuri, who now laments on the loss of her new toy. Rintaro tells her to forget about finding it, but Mayuri's remark about the auctioning price of her new toy made Rintaro change his mind; Mayuri, however, reminds her childhood friend that they would not sell the toy anyway.
All of a sudden, their conversation is interrupted by a blood-curdling scream of a man in the building. Mayuri wonders where the sound came from, but Rintaro decides that it might not be safe and tells Mayuri to leave the building.
Why is she dead?
Rintaro takes a look himself and discovers that there is a room that has its door ajar. Upon closer inspection, he sees a shocking sight: Kurisu Makise, the young woman who talked to him earlier, is dead, bathing in a pool of her own blood.
A pale-faced Rintaro exits the building, and he could only say a few words to Mayuri about what happened.
"Someone stabbed Kurisu Makise in the eighth floor of Radio Hall."
The sound of ambulance sirens soon interrupt the bustling tempo of people in that stretch of Akihabara road. Although shaken by the incident, he manages to walk away unscathed, only to find himself in another unusual situation when he presses "send" on his cell phone...
Unknown number: 0.571024...
???
After Rintaro sends a message pertaining to Kurisu Makise's death, he suddenly finds himself alone in Akihabara. He returns to the building where the conference was held — and the place where Kurisu was killed — and finds only Mayuri with his favorite drink. Mayuri appears oblivious to what happened, and this caused Rintaro to be a bit paranoid, but his fears are soon replaced by shock, when the same building he exited a while ago now has what appears to be an artificial satellite crashed on the top of the building.
Rintaro and Mayuri are soon joined by Itaru Hashida, a skillful hacker, and Rintaro "officially" christens his Lab members... in front of a TV monitor which displays the picture of an alpaca with the face of a man. Itaru and Rintaro are initially at odds with each other; Itaru is too busy browsing the Web while Rintaro is busy praising himself.
Soon, Itaru changes the channel to the news using Future Gadget #1 (which is simply a remote control shoved inside a light-and-sound toy gun), where the satellite crash that happened in the Radio Hall is flashed. Mayuri then reminds Rintaro about his supposed reaction on the crash; Itaru even tells Rintaro about how angry the latter was when the conference was canceled.
The Future Gadget Laboratory
What's unusual is that Rintaro did attend a conference. However, he concludes that it might be the doing of a certain "Organization".
Rintaro soon finds out that the only TV in their Lab has stopped working, and since Itaru did not want to cooperate, Rintaro is forced to carry the defective TV under the hot sun. He and Mayuri soon arrive and Rintaro demands a rigorous fixing of the TV. The CRT TV shop master Yuugo Tennouji agrees to fix it under the payment of a couple thousand yen, which Rintaro is shocked at initially. He soon gives in to Mister Braun's offer and leaves the shop with a disgruntled face. Luckily, Mayuri is there to cheer him up a bit.
Rintaro finally snaps from Mister Braun's "oppression" and asks Itaru to activate Futuristic Gadget #8. Itaru was disgusted with Rintaro's way of talking, but decides to let him do what he wants. The experiment involves bananas, like always, and Mayuri protests to turning bananas she buys into green jelly. However, Rintaro remains stubborn, so Mayuri gives in to the experiment.
Who wants jelly bananas?
As expected, Mayuri's bananas turned into green jelly.
Rintaro soon takes the recluse Itaru outside; although the professional hacker continues on his complaints about being under the sun for too long (in fact, ten minutes), Rintaro heads on. To acquire academic units, they are going to attend a seminar on the Akihabara Techno Forum (ATF) at Dai-Building. Inside, Rintaro discovers by accident that the message that he sent (to Itaru) about Kurisu Makise's death on the 28th is sent five days into the past, on the 23rd.
What shocks Rintaro more is that the subject of the message, Kurisu Makise is standing outside the elevator. He can't believe that Kurisu who is dead is actually alive, in total disbelief.
Appearances[]
Characters[]
By order of appearance:
Locations[]
- Akihabara
- Akihabara Radio Kaikan
- Chuo Street
- Future Gadget Laboratory
- Braun Tube Workshop
- Hourin Park
- CROSSFIELD Building
- Dai Building
Musics[]
Important Terms[]
- Term 1: El Psy Kongroo
- "El Psy Kongroo" is the password that Rintaro Okabe uses whenever he ends a phone conversation pertinent to his mad endeavors. However, it is revealed that these supposed conversations he ends are simply to himself because Rintaro has his phone turned off for them. The phrase itself is a reference to the meme "La Yohasoh Steana," and possibly something related to the real world John Titor's codeword, "Tempus edax rerum," meaning "Time, the devourer of all things."
- Translated as "Congroo" in most of the Steins;Gate anime localizations, the official English translation of the visual novel romanizes it as "Kongroo", which is the canon translation. This is supported by the video D-Mail in the final episodes coming from the e-mail address "sg-epk@jtk93.x29.jp", where the initial five letters stand for "Steins Gate-El Psy Kongroo".
- Term 2: Organization
- This is Okabe's delusional agency, supposedly a highly secret group who is sought after by many opposing organizations, whose secrets would be vital to radical change, which nobody but Okabe cares for. This is the initial irony to the series, as something initially imaginary becomes all too real...
- Term 3: Metal Upa
- Upa is a character from the fictional anime RaiNet Kakeru. The Metal Upa is one of, if not the rarest of a collectible vending Upa figure series. While the anime is considered a child's cartoon, some collect the merchandise for their rarity. OOPA, or OOPArt, is an acronym for "Out Of Place Artifact", a supposedly futuristic artifact found in an ancient archaeological site. The very existence of OOPArts might be evidence of time traveling that has happened before. 'Oopa' is an alternative spelling for Upa. 'Upa' is considered canon.
- Term 4: Alpacaman
- This alpaca with a man's face is a character of virtual pet video game: a parody of a SEGA Dreamcast video game named "Seaman".
- Term 5: Hououin Kyouma
- The main protagonist of Steins;Gate, Rintaro Okabe, is a self-proclaimed mad scientist and often refers to himself under the alias of Hououin Kyouma, which is also the name he uses to introduce himself to other people. He also uses this alias when browsing @channel. Its literal translation is "Phoenix-Shrine Madness-of-truth." Mayuri Shiina and Itaru Hashida refer to him by the nickname 'Okarin'.
- Term 6: The Choice of Steins Gate
- This is a phrase used by Okabe to signify the meaning of events. The phrase itself, in his own occasional confession, "doesn't really mean anything". The phrase itself is a reference to the meme "La Yohasoh Steana" (which is "the Choice of the World" there), as it is for "El Psy Kongroo".
- Term 7: Bit Particle Cannon
- The Bit Particle Cannon is one of the gadgets that Okabe and Daru made, named "Future Gadgets"; it is nothing more than a laser gun-shaped TV remote control. Its full name is "Future Gadget #1: Bit Particle Cannon".
- Term 8: Landlord
- Yuugo Tennouji, the manager of a small electronics store specializing in Braun tubes (hence, Okabe's nickname to him of "Mr. Braun") and CRT-based televisions, is also the property owner of the apartment where the Future Gadget Lab is situated. It is shown that he does not dislike Okabe, but finds his antics to be very disruptive to the property.
- Term 9: Hostage
- Explained later on in the series, Mayuri is said to be Okabe's hostage. This is because she was traumatized by her grandmother's death to the point where she would visit her grave daily during younger years. One day in 2005, Mayuri reached up towards the sky to a beam of light, and Okabe ran to hold her as he announced that he wouldn't let her go anywhere because she is his hostage—he was afraid she would be taken into the heavens and she would not be with him. It's a non-affectionate way of saying he will never have him leave her if he can help it, and he later develops the persona of Hououin Kyouma to assist in emotionally protecting her, later realizing that this is possibly detrimental to her sense of independence.
- Term 10: PhoneWave (name subject to change)
- Future Gadget #8. This is the full name of the machine used for the initial time travel-related plot in the beginning of the series. When a message is sent by a phone to the other phone connected to the microwave, it activates it remotely. Originally designed to be a remote-controlled microwave, this became the base concept for the time machine later on.
- Term 11: Gelbana
- During experimentation with the PhoneWave (name subject to change), a banana teleports back to its stalk in a green, mushy form, marking the beginning of the time-themed plot.
- Term 12: University Forum
- Both Okabe and Daru are students from Tokyo Denki University, and to acquire academic units, they attend to a seminar on the Akihabara Techno Forum (ATF) at Dai-Building.
Adapted Chapter[]
Trivia[]
- This episode had an advanced screening on April 3, 2011.
- Rintaro Okabe's first speaking line is a portion of the subtitle text on the logo of the Steins;Gate visual novel.
- The Radio Kaikan was demolished in 2011 due to the recent earthquakes. The building was 49 years old so the structure must be replaced with a new one. It was replaced with a new Radio Hall in 2014.
- Before it was demolished, the "satellite's" "crash" on the building was shown for a whole week as a collaboration promo by Steins;Gate and Radio Kaikan.
- Okabe's favorite drink is a parody to "Dr. Pepper".
- John Titor is referenced by Rintaro, pertaining to Dr. Nakabachi's claims of an effective time machine.