"Prologue of the Beginning and the End" (始まりと終わりのプロローグ, Hajimari to Owari no Purorōgu), also known as "Turning Point," is the first episode of the anime adaptation of the visual novel Steins;Gate.
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.
Synopsis
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.
Suddenly, Rintarou'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, Rintarou gets the rarest of the items available and, since he is not interested on the stuff he got, he gives it to Mayuri.
Soon, an announcement of the start of the conference is broadcast, and Mayuri and Rintarou part ways for the meantime.
The conference later begins, led by a certain Dr. Nakabachi. Rintarou attends the meeting, while Mayuri stays outside; Mayuri later tells Rintarou that she lost her newly-acquired Metal Oopa toy figure and is looking for it. Rintarou 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.
Before Rintarou could make any more fuss in the conference, he is pulled away by a young woman. At first, Rintarou 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. Rintarou resorts to his phone, in which he reports to "someone" regarding being caught by an operative of a certain Agency.
Kurisu manages to snatch his phone and discovers that it is turned off.
Rintarou tries to keep himself from being humiliated by the female to no avail. Kurisu, however, goes straight into the topic, asking him about what he wanted to tell her earlier. In response, Rintarou just gives a farewell remark and sprints downstairs.
For a moment, Rintarou 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 noise movie on his phone...
He is soon accompanied by Mayuri, who now laments on the loss of her new toy. Rintarou tells her to forget about finding it, but Mayuri's remark about the auctioning price of her new toy made Rintarou 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 from nowhere. Mayuri wonders where the sound came from, but Rintarou decides that it might not be safe and tells Mayuri to leave the building.
Rintarou 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 Rintarou exits the building, and he could only tell 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 presses "send" on his phone...
Unknown number: 0.571024...
After Rintarou sends a message pertaining to Kurisu Makise's death, he suddenly finds himself on the same place he was in Akihabara, only that there was no people in sight. He returns to the building where the conference was held — and the place where Kurisu was killed — and finds only Mayuri accompanying him. Mayuri appears oblivious to what happened, and this caused Rintarou 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 floor.
Rintarou and Mayuri are soon joined by Itaru Hashida, a skillful hacker, and Rintarou "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 Rintarou are initially at odds with each other; Itaru is too busy browsing the Web while Rintarou is busy praising himself.
Soon, Itaru changes the channel to the news using Futuristic 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 Rintarou about his supposed reaction on the crash; Itaru even tells Rintarou about how angry the latter was when the conference was canceled.
What's unusual is that Rintarou did attend a conference. However, he concludes that it might be the doing of a certain "Agency".
Rintarou soon finds out that the only TV in their Lab has stopped working, and since Itaru did not want to cooperate, Rintarou is forced to carry the defective TV under the hot sun. He and Mayuri soon arrive and Rintarou demands a rigorous fixing of the TV. The CRT TV shop master Mister Braun agrees to fix it under the payment of a couple thousand yen, which Rintarou 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.
Rintarou finally snaps from Mister Braun's "oppression" and asks Itaru to activate Futuristic Gadget #8. Itaru was disgusted with Rintarou'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 inedible jelly. However, Rintarou remains stubborn, so Mayuri is forced to play along.
As expected, Mayuri's bananas turned into jelly.
Rintarou 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), Rintarou heads on. To acquire academic units, they are going to attend a seminar on the Akihabara Techno Forum (ATF) at Dai-Building. Inside, Rintarou 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 Rintarou more is that the subject of the message, Kurisu Makise is standing outside the elevator, and is nothing compared to the girl who was doused in her own blood.
New Characters
By order of appearance:
- Rintaro Okabe
- Mayuri Shiina
- Kurisu Makise
- Itaru Hashida
- Shouichi Nakabachi
- Yuugo Tennouji (as Mister Braun)
- Kaede Kurushima (mentioned)
New Locations
- Radio Hall, Akihabara
- Chuou Street
- Future Gadget Laboratory
- Braun Tube Workshop
- Hourin Park
- CROSS FIELD building
- Dai Building
Trivia
- Rintarou's first speaking line is a variation of the subtitle text on the logo of Steins;Gate.
- The Radio Hall was demolished in 2011 due to the recent earthquakes. The building is approximately 64 years old so the structure must be replaced with a new one.
- It will be replaced with a new Radio Hall by 2015.
- 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 Building.
Cultural References
- John Titor is referenced by Rintarou, pertaining to Dr. Nakabachi's claims of an effective time machine.
Unanswered Questions
- Who killed Kurisu Makise? And why is she seen unharmed later on?
- How do the bananas turn into jelly?