At that very moment, on the NatsuYume forums and across countless fan groups, everyone following the plot of Steins;Gate had completely lost their composure.
"Damn it, Kantoku Sora, if this anime was that kind of story, you should've said so earlier!"
"If they'd told us from the start that this was a time-loop anime, the ratings would never have fallen below five points."
"Holy crap, guys, I've got goosebumps. This reminds me of the chills I felt when I first watched Re:Zero."
"They should've cut all those boring slice-of-life episodes from the first twelve episodes and used two or three episodes to rush straight to the completion of the consciousness-transfer time machine. If the story had reached this direction earlier, this anime would've exploded ages ago."
"It's not too late yet. Who could've guessed that only in episode twelve would the anime reveal that the protagonist's reason for building a time machine was to go back in time? I guarantee that tomorrow, a huge wave of Re:Zero fans will start catching up. They'll go after the TV reruns of Steins;Gate, and by next week, they'll be watching it live."
"Kantoku Sora has found the ratings password. That's right, this is exactly the kind of anime we want. If he's willing to create ten, twenty works like this, we fans will buy into every single one."
On the third repetition of that worldline, Rintaro immediately realized that he, Mayuri Shiina, and every member of the laboratory were being monitored by SERN. And the person leading that surveillance was none other than Moeka Kiryu, Future Gadget Laboratory Member 005 - someone Rintaro himself had invited in, and someone before whom he had exposed both the IBN 5100 and the information about the time machine he and the others were building.
On the third attempt, Rintaro finally managed to shake off the SERN agents following him. Only then did he drag Mayuri to the station, determined to buy tickets and escape.
But once again, that familiar moment arrived.
"Huh… Shiina's pocket watch… why did it stop?"
Yui Otonashi's pupils widened.
Three worldlines in a row.
Three times, at that exact same moment, her pocket watch had stopped.
And in the previous two attempts, Mayuri Shiina had died.
The first time, she was shot.
The second time, she was run over.
And now?
The protagonist, Rintaro, wore the same look of terror. His eyes turned toward Mayuri, the girl who had grown up beside him since childhood, the girl with whom he shared a bond far too deep to be explained in a few simple words.
A young girl tripped by accident.
Through a cruel coincidence, she pushed Mayuri, who was standing there waiting for the train to arrive.
The platform warning rang out.
And then…
Blood and flesh scattered everywhere. Beneath the iron wheels, not a single part of the girl's body remained whole.
Yui swallowed hard.
What kind of development was this?
Three times in a row.
Mayuri Shiina had died three times, always at the same point in time.
Could that still be called a coincidence?
The first death, being shot, could still be explained.
But the second, being hit by a car, and now this - being accidentally pushed onto the tracks by a little girl at the exact moment the train entered the station…
It was almost as if…
As if fate itself demanded her death.
Was this anime the same as Re:Zero?
No.
It was completely different.
Re:Zero didn't have this sense of predestined death.
Yui's thoughts raged in silent protest.
Tangible enemies like SERN could still be dealt with. They could be deceived, avoided, defeated. But how was anyone supposed to fight fate?
How could someone prevent a death caused by a simple fall in the street, a blow to the head, a cold that suddenly worsened, or an unexpected cardiac arrest?
There was no possible defense.
It was despair.
Inside Yui, Mayuri's three consecutive deaths in episode thirteen had already become something suffocating.
"Shiina… I'll save you. I swear I will."
Tears clung to the corners of Rintaro's eyes, and his expression was almost distorted. He had understood it too.
This was fate's cruel game.
That worldline needed Mayuri Shiina to die on that day, at that exact moment.
And in that instant, Yui understood.
The main plot of Steins;Gate was not simply about saving one person.
The true core of this anime was about defeating fate.
As the ending theme began to play, a shiver rose from the soles of her feet and shot through her entire body all the way to the top of her head.
It took Yui nearly half a minute to steady her breathing. Only then did she realize what had happened.
So that was it?
It ended?
It ended right there?
Sora, you heartless bastard… cutting the episode at that point doesn't make your conscience ache?
Online, many fans of Steins;Gate had guessed that this episode would be worth watching.
But no one had expected a turn like this.
"Re:Zero. This anime really feels like Re:Zero."
"No, the setup here is even harder. In Re:Zero, the protagonist at least had clear enemies. He wasn't being toyed with by fate itself."
"I don't even understand how someone could come up with such a twisted premise. Once that time arrives, Mayuri Shiina will definitely die. How are you supposed to save someone like that? External factors can still be controlled, but what about internal ones? Humans are fragile. Even if they do nothing, their heart can fail, stop suddenly, and they die. You can't guard against that."
"My God, this episode left me numb."
"How did Kantoku Sora even think of such a cruel plot?"
"I can't take it. Starting tomorrow, I'm rewatching the Shikoku Union TV reruns of Steins;Gate. There are so many details from the earlier episodes that I don't remember anymore."
"My brain has turned to mush. I want to watch episode fourteen of Steins;Gate so badly. That cliffhanger hurts."
"What are you all talking about? What Re:Zero? Wasn't Steins;Gate just some boring soft sci-fi daily-life comedy anime?"
"Exactly. I followed it until episode five. The comedy wasn't even that funny, the jokes weren't that interesting, and the entire plot kept fiddling around with some time machine. It was too boring, so I dropped it. What are you all discussing now?"
"If you dropped it that early, that's your loss. Episode thirteen made it very clear. This anime is the same kind of work as Re:Zero. Time regression, changing the past, that sort of story. And based on how episode thirteen made me feel, it doesn't lose to Re:Zero at all."
"Seriously?"
"If you put it like that, then as a die-hard Re:Zero fan, I can't just sit still."
"So the anime actually develops like that later?"
"A story where the protagonist uses a time machine to send his consciousness back and save a girl? For real?"
"Damn it, I'm watching it."
"Now that you say it like that, my interest in this anime is back."
"That line is still echoing in my head: 'Huh… Shiina's pocket watch… why did it stop?' Seriously, it almost traumatized me. I hope that old demon Sora goes a little easier on us. Why do all the heroines he writes suffer so much?"
The moment the first twelve episodes of buildup came to an end, Steins;Gate tore away its mask of daily-life comedy and revealed a story that was precise, heavy, and deeply depressing.
In Re:Zero, no matter how terrible the situations the protagonist faced were, there still seemed to be a way out.
But from its thirteenth episode until shortly before the finale, Steins;Gate gave the audience a constant feeling of impossibility.
The price of saving one person might simply be the sacrifice of another.
Defeating fate was nothing more than a fantasy.
Even so, Re:Zero had already prepared Japanese audiences for this kind of work. That was why, after the broadcast of Steins;Gate episode thirteen, word spread throughout the otaku community all night long: this anime belonged to the same thematic field as Re:Zero.
At noon, the ratings for episode thirteen of Steins;Gate were released.
5.03%.
After ten weeks, Steins;Gate had finally returned to the five-point ratings range.
But the number itself was not the most important part. The real sign was elsewhere: the Re:Zero fans, who had been dormant for almost a year, began to stir.
If someone said it was merely a light science-fiction anime, they might not be interested.
But if the protagonist was using a time machine to save someone important…
Then that was something else entirely.
For Shikoku Union TV, the reruns of Steins;Gate aired at dawn, in the morning, and around noon began to rise visibly in ratings.
It was obvious that a large number of anime fans were preparing to catch up with the weekly broadcast.
Meanwhile, the production department at Seiun TV called an emergency meeting.
In the very first week of the spring season, Steins;Gate had already caused such a commotion. Naturally, they began to worry that The Demon of Time might have its position at the top threatened.
After analyzing it over and over, however, they reached a unanimous conclusion: the early part of that anime was far too weak. Even if there were some interesting developments later, the overall impact would be limited.
The current commotion and fan excitement were only temporary. In two weeks, once the audience realized the work was still tedious, they would quickly abandon it.
Over the next two days, the television industry remained almost the same as it had been in the previous season.
The Demon of Time remained in first place, with 5.43%.
Crimson Scales came in second, with 5.29%.
AD held third place, with 5.18%.
That week, however, Steins;Gate, with a rating of 5.03%, defeated Sea of Clouds, which recorded 5.01%, and took fifth place.
As for the live-action drama sector, Liar Game remained extremely stable.
Its second season had premiered with 5.23% ratings and still ranked first among dramas airing in the same period.
And so, the first week of the spring season quietly came to an end.
Overall, there was no major difference from the winter season.
The only variable was Steins;Gate. Discussion around the work and its influence rose rapidly throughout that week.
The thirteenth episode of Steins;Gate had stirred up some waves, but those waves were not yet large enough.
Now, the entire Japanese anime industry was watching the episodes that would follow.
A similar premise alone was not enough to replicate the success of Re:Zero.
Over the past year, plenty of anime had tried to imitate its structure and failed.
A premise was only a premise. For a work to truly become popular, everything still depended on the story.
A few days later, episode fourteen of Steins;Gate aired.
And in that episode, another secret of the plot was revealed.
The so-called time traveler, John Titor, was none other than Suzuha Amane, the new girl working downstairs from the protagonist's building.
She had come from twenty years in the future, arriving at that point in time by using a time machine.
It was also in this episode that she first explained the concept of worldline convergence.
There were countless worldlines. However, according to the divergence meter, the range from 0.000000 to 1.000000 belonged to the Alpha worldline.
As long as the divergence rate remained within that interval, Mayuri Shiina would inevitably die.
In the previous three attempts, although Rintaro had returned to the past and altered the worldline, he had only moved within the bounds of Alpha. That was why he had never been able to remove the convergent result known as "Mayuri Shiina's death."
If he wanted to save her, he would need to guide the worldline toward Beta - in other words, toward a world whose divergence rate lay between 1.000000 and 2.000000.
That was the necessary condition for saving Mayuri Shiina.
And it was something only Rintaro, the protagonist capable of preserving his memories even after worldlines changed, could accomplish - adjusting his actions based on those memories, little by little, until he could manipulate the divergence rate of the world itself.
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