Overcooled: Nya nya~ Coolnyan was lonely so she kidnapped Jrow to help tag teameow~ Get pumped up for our super duo ultimate attack, nya! It gets really annoying to write like this because I read it in Feyris’ voice, nya! <_<
Jrow: Hey there reader! Lab Member 002 here, glad to be back along with OC for an S;G tag. Last time I dropped by the lab, Feyris-nyan had sent her D-mail to the past and disappeared for a while. Guess the timing was right for me to pay OC another visit for ep. 17 upon her return.
Overcooled: Just when we thought everyone was safe, Rounder comes and kills Mayuri again. Her death wasn’t stopped, just delayed. Of course, Okarin goes back in time to stop it, this time relying on Kurisu right from the get-go. She comes to an interesting solution: stop everyone from sending D-mails until they revert back to a timeline where they have possession of the IBN 5100. Once they get it back, they can sever the connection with SERN’s server so that they won’t come after them and kill Mayuri.
Once again, Okarin leaps back in time (deleting precious memories with Kurisu) and heads to his first target…Feyris. She was the last person to send a D-mail, so she has to undo it first. He finds her at a Rai-Net tournament, but she’s being chased by rival Rai-Netters who want to kidnap her for beating them. Whoaaa there guys…Since the two of them aren’t exactly trained to deal with those types of brutes, they make a run for it together.
They manage to shake the punks off their tail long enough for Okarin to start getting into the details of why he was looking for her. The problem is, Feyris doesn’t actually remember sending a D-mail so Okarin can’t ask what she wrote in it. The whole task would seem impossible to accomplish, until Okarin somehow jogs her memory of the moe-filled Akiba. The reason she never opened May Queen in this timeline is because her father told her not too. Before they can get into any more intricacies, the crazy hooligans find them AGAIN.
After more running and panting, they arrive at the ramen shop that replaced Feyris’ May Queen maid cafe. When they go inside, Feyris has a full-fledged flashback of her time in the cafe and nearly faints because of it. What’s the best course of action after someone collapses? Shake them violently and ask them what they wrote in the D-mail! Feyris finally remembers that she wrote a D-mail to prevent her father’s death 10 years ago. As Okarin realizes how much pain it would cause for her to undo that D-mail, he’s assaulted by the evil Rai-Netters.
DON’T MOVE! I need to find my contact lens and you might crush it!
They beat up Okarin pretty badly, while Feyris is escorted away to God-knows-where. It would have been the end of catgirls in Steins;Gate if her dad hadn’t suddenly pulled up in his car (by pulled up, I mean PLOWING AHEAD) and rescued them. They take Okarin home and treat his wounds while telling him about the IBN 5100. Feyris’ dad sold after getting it from Suzu in order to have enough ransom money to pay for her safe return.
It’s hard to weigh two lives against each other, but Feyris seems to come to the conclusion that saving Mayuri is worth having her dad die again. She’s still devastated that she will have to erase those past 10 years of happiness and live a life where he dies in a crash all over again, but she’s willing to do it for Mayuri. There isn’t a trace of “nya” in the air as she says all this to Okarin. The scene ends with her crying and hugging her “prince” as tightly as she can.
“I give my daughter to you now. Just no whips, okay? Wait, oh, you didn’t save her for that? Oh…uh…”
The next morning, Feyris reluctantly sends a D-mail saying “The kidnapping was a joke, I’ll see you soon.” or something to that effect. The result is a town full of moe again and yet another shift in time. The IBN 5100 still isn’t at the shrine and now the satellite is gone in this timeline. Guess Okarin will be targeting the next person who sent a D-mail now.
More Nya for your Buck:
Barrel Titor: genius scientist, co-founder of the resistance, and obese moe connoisseur
Axe body spray….bitches love it. NOW PROVEN BY SCIENCE.
Uhh…Prince Charming? Really?
Remember! Wear a seatbelt or you’ll end up like Okarin
Jrow: On principle, Kurisu’s idea of nullifying the effects of all the D-mails is an interesting one and seems to be a unique way to revisit past episodes and provide some much desired clarity. It’s not exactly a rewinding of time that’s happening here; it simply is Okarin doing patchwork to both find a world line with an attainable IBN5100 while upping his Divergence Meter closer to 1.0. However, this first go at it felt unusual to me. I’ll get to Feyris’ dilemma in a bit, but how will Ruka cope with going back to being a girl? Send a D-mail going, “Eat Mor Chikin”? I tease at S;G’s expense, but the toughest one to convert back will be Moeka since she’s all but expelled as a lab member.
For so long, we’ve assumed only Okarin had a Reading Steiner ability. None of the other lab members have shown signs of memorization before, and now suddenly we see Feyris-tan (in a different world line, no less) be reminded of both the fact that she sent a D-mail, and that she can properly identify both the past line where her father died and the new one where her she told her dad the kidnapping was a joke; all this capped off by the closing scene of Feyris saying she and Okarin were lovers in a past life. It seems as though the only way to move things along with this plot device is to have people remember what happened and to understand the consequences of changing their own histories. I’m not bothered a single bit by the potential of others displaying Steiner-like memorization. Why should only Okarin be allowed to have it?
I’m confused on the whole point about Feyris being kidnapped and its effect on Suzu getting the IBN. Feyris sends a text back in episode 9 saying that she was kidnapped so as to prevent her father from getting on the plane that crashes. Later in this episode, she mails him saying it was a joke. But as Daddy explains it to Okarin, she was kidnapped and the only way to collect the ransom was to sell the IBN. The problem I have is this: isn’t Feyris’ initial D-mail a lie to begin with? She wasn’t actually kidnapped, right? Or did her saying she was kidnapped actually put her in a situation where she was being held for ransom? That’s the convenient way, I suppose. We’ve seen the effects of the D-mails, but the D-mails are written as a way to warn people about something rather than forcing a person to eat vegetables or buy a lotto ticket. I think Steins;Gate created a situation that didn’t actually happen just to tie Feyris’ dad to the time-traveling Suzu.
Overcooled: Interesting to see Feyris make a comeback after being silent for so long. She’s not really a major plot piece (thank God….all that NYA gets annoying after a while). Looks like the next arc will be concentrating on going through all the D-mail people. I guess we’ll go through a character-per-episode type of thing until all the D-mails are reversed so that Okarin gets the IBN 5100. It seems that fate is still intervening to keep the IBN away from him though. Something tells me that the mysterious person offering to pay a huge sum of money for the old hunk of junk from Feyris’ father was either Moeka or someone from SERN. Whoever bought it, they must have been desperate…It’s all too convenient that they’d show up and offer money at such a critical time, is it not?
As Jrow said, Feyris’ Reading Steiner was a real shock to the system. Either Okarin somehow awakened it in her, or it’s just possible for someone to have their memories return if someone else is forceful enough. I don’t think she would have realized it without Okarin, whatever the case. Perhaps he’s able to invoke it just by jogging their memories. I kind of hope we see Feyris again, because when she’s not NYA-ing she is actually quite a nice character. A go-getter who not only believes in Okarin’s mad scientist act, but fully plays along with just as much vigor. It’s a shame she’s a catgirl.
I’m starting to wonder a bit about how Okarin is handling all this. The guy has practically been to hell and back so far just trying to save Mayuri. It’s a noble cause and all, but what about saving the future? First and foremost his goal is to save her..and then thoughts about the future come second. I don’t think he’s paying a lot of attention to that, and if he had a choice between a dystopian future or killing Mayuri, he might choose the former rather than the latter. His devotion to that girl is stunning. So much that he’d ruin Feyris’ life of happiness just to have her back. I can see his sacrifices, and the sacrifices of the other characters, getting bigger and bigger just to save her. Once again, we’ll just have to wait and see. Thanks for joining me again, Jrow. To both you and the readers I say: El Psy Congroo.