Any fan of the genre would have likely heardSteins;Gatewhen it comes to iconic anime within the science fiction genre.Steins;Gateshows the misadventures of Okabe Rintarou as he and his friends discover a way to send messages back in time. However, as iconic as this anime is to fans, not everyone would realize thatSteins;Gatewas actually an adaptation of a visual novel of the same name.RELATED:Best Psychological Anime, RankedWhile theSteins;Gateanime generally takes cues from its visual novel source, some fans would admit that there’s something to the adaptation that the visual novel just didn’t have. In fact, certain aspects of the anime make it superior to the visual novel, to some extent.
8A More Straightforward Experience
Before emphasizing specifics, perhaps one of the best things theSteins;Gateanime offers is a more straightforward experience regarding Okabe’smisadventures with time travel. Given its focus on an animated format, theSteins;Gateadaptation offers a more straightforward look into Okabe’s journey with the PhoneWave and the D-Mail mechanism.
Unlike the visual novel, which spares no expense when it comes to elaborating even the tiniest of details, the anime ensures that viewers get only the essential details in telling Okabe’s story. This is the element that makes most adaptations hit-or-miss, and thankfullySteins;Gate’s anime adaptation won the hearts of many with its cohesive yet captivating take on the visual novel’s story.
7Standard Viewing Experience Is Always Safer
While it’s true that the visual novel offers more features compared to the anime, theSteins;Gateadaptation shines in its simplicity. Gone is the need to tinker with interfaces and menus just to get to the reading part of the game; instead, the screen does all the work for viewers.
There’s no need to interact with menus, read text messages from the in-game smartphone, or even think about what to do next. Instead, it’s already implied that Okabe will act in the way expected of his character, making everything muchmore fast-paced and thrilling.
6Meets The Challenge Of Cohesion
As with any anime adaptation, the main challenge ofSteins;Gateas it was being adapted was condensing its main story arcs into 24 episodes, and a single original video animation (OVA). Again, as with other anime, eachSteins;Gateepisode lasted around 20 minutes or so, meaning White Fox had toadapt the visual novel’s hours’ worth of storylineinto an 8-hour or so viewing experience.
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Thankfully,Steins;Gatedid manage to pull this off. By focusing on the game’s main arc and streamlining the way other arcs happened,Steins;Gatemanaged to present a cohesive narrative that adapted most of the events in the visual novel.
5The Cinematic Angle Makes Things More Dramatic
Compared to the first-person focus of the visual novel, theSteins;Gateanime takes its story and shares it from a third-person point of view. This gives the animea cinematic feel, with the viewers acting as witnesses rather than entities living inside Okabe’s head.
This provides more room for the plot to go around, since viewers as witnesses can finally make room for things to happen outside Okabe’s point of view. Not to mention, the cinematic angle adds more drama to the suspenseful scenes, as there’s no way of telling how Okabe might react to the more intense happenings throughout the story.
4Animation Adds Action To The Drama
Fans of the media who just want to go straight to the action will appreciate the adaptation’s emphasis on animation. Unlike thereading-heavy visual novel,theSteins;Gateanime puts a lot of focus on showcasing exactly what’s going on in a scene, possibly shortening hours’ worth of reading into a few minutes of dialogue and action.
Thanks to this element, there’s a lot of room for White Fox to play around with how Okabe and his friends act out scenes, akin transforming a script into a film. Moreover, the aid of animation adds a greater level of detail to the more suspenseful and dramatic moments in the visual novel. For the busy viewer, seeing a story unfold in mere minutes instead of having to read for hours can be a godsend.
3Visuals Demonstrate Difficult Concepts
For an anime with heavy emphasis on time travel, it’s predictable how intense the narrative could get by the timeSteins;Gatereaches its climax. Thankfully, the visuals within theSteins;Gateanime make it easy to demonstrate the tricky nature of time travel.
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A good example involves the times Okabe and physicist Makise Kurisu debate and explain the concepts involved in time travel. The anime takes the time to visually demonstrate to viewers. While the visual novel does have narrative emphasis and explainers in the form of text, viewers who like to see things in action may prefer animations instead.
2It Cuts To The Relevant Choices
Some visual novel loyalists might argue that fans aren’t getting the fullSteins;Gateexperience if they don’t play through all the endings of the visual novel. While this is true from the perspective of completionists, playing through all of Okabe’s choices and paths doesn’t necessarily change the fact that there’s a single True Ending to the story.
As such, the anime taking that True Ending and rolling with it is the choice that makes the most sense. While it’s true that the anime did cut some minor details with regards tocertain shocking plot points, it was still able to portray all the necessary parts of Okabe’s story in trueSteins;Gatefashion.
1Replay Value Makes For An Enjoyable Experience
Given the rather abridged nature of the anime, it makes sense for some people to be concerned as to how it encapsulates theSteins;Gateexperience. However, its condensed format makes it quite ripe for rewatching, making it much easier for fans to find details they might have missed or plot points they might have misunderstood throughout their initial viewing.
Perhaps most importantly, the condensed nature ofSteins;Gatemakes it quite easy for fans to try and get into the series’ other media should they wish to do so. These includeplaying the visual novel source material, playing the visual novel’s sequelSteins;Gate 0and even watching its anime adaptation.
Steins;Gatewas released on June 21, 2025 and is playable in the PC, PSP, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, iOS, and Android.
