Critical response
Steins;Gate was met with critical acclaim upon release, with praise being given to its writing, story, character development, and visuals. It holds a 100% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 6 reviews.[34] Carlo Santos of Anime News Network called it "one of the most addictive sci-fi thrillers in recent anime history", Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku stated that it was one of the best anime he had seen, and Chris Beveridge of The Fandom Post named it his favorite simulcast title of 2011.[35] Santos enjoyed how Steins;Gate misleads the viewer by spending the first half of the series on comedy before turning into a thriller for the second half, and how the finale revisits the events of the first episode, making for a "rock-solid climax".[36] Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network, reviewing the first half of the series, described it as an interesting concept with nice visual flair when needed, and that the 12th episode was a great hook for the rest of the series.[37] She found the second half of the show to be a step up compared to the first half; she also enjoyed the added urgency, character development, and how the viewer was given insight into their motivations from the first half of the series.[38] Aiden Foote of THEM Anime Reviews gave the series a 5 out of 5 stars, stating: "The build up of characterisation is effective, the show is very entertaining and the complexity is handled with insight and maturity".[39]
Eisenbeis noted the rules for how time travel worked as well-defined, which he said was among the hardest things to do when writing time travel fiction.[40] Pierce Drew of The Fandom Post enjoyed the story and characters.[41] Patrick of Cedar Mill & Bethany Community Libraries called it a "brilliant mash-up of hard science fiction, comedy, romance and drama".[42] Santos praised the character designs as memorable and found it refreshing that the anime featured an overweight person as one of its main characters. He noted that the backgrounds, while making use of muted and grayish tones, still had enough color to be visually appealing.[36]
Silverman found that the series' visuals were uneven for the first half, having some "nice visual flair" at some points, such as a black-and-white scene in episode 11, and some fan-service shots that she found ill-fitting.[37] For the second half, she found the visuals and audio design to have improved, with a focus on visual themes such as clasped hands, and the use of highly detailed and more realistic art during stressful moments in the story.[38] Foote enjoyed the visual presentation of Akihabara, which he described as "lifeless but ever moving, like sand in the desert wind"; he called it evocative of morning street scenes in the 1998 anime series Serial Experiments Lain, and proof that they had not lost their touch since then.[39] Drew thought the visuals were of high quality throughout the series, and that they were a good, albeit less detailed, representation of the art style used in the Steins;Gate game.[41]
Sales
The first Japanese Blu-ray volume of the series debuted as the week's fourth best-selling animation Blu-ray and the seventh best-selling Blu-ray overall, with 11,802 copies sold according to Oricon;[43] it remained on the sales charts for an additional three weeks, selling 14,921 copies in total.[44][45][46] At the end of 2012, volumes 9, 8, and 7 were the 44th, 46th, and 49th best-selling animation Blu-rays of the year in Japan, respectively.[47] The full-series Japanese DVD and Blu-ray boxes also charted: the DVD box, which was released in March 2013, was the 26th best-selling animation DVD of the week,[48] and the Blu-ray box, which was released in February 2016, debuted in fourth place and charted for two weeks.
Accolades
Protagonist Rintaro Okabe was awarded "Man of the Decade" at the Anime Trending Awards in 2011.[51] In 2011, Steins;Gate was part of the Jury Selections at the 15th Japan Media Arts Festival in the Animation category.[52] It won a Newtype Anime Award for the Best Male anime character of the year, for Okabe.[53] Steins;Gate was nominated for the 43rd Seiun Award in the Best Media category in 2012, but lost to Puella Magi Madoka Magica.[54]
Steins;Gate is widely considered to be one of the best anime series of the 2010s and of all time.[55][56]
