You Can (Not) Undo (Steins;Gate)

 A Commission for Hunter O’Connell

A lot of conversations I've had involve awkwardly standing
and hoping the other person would speak first.

You ever watch something and realize very quickly that you watched it too late.

This isn’t just me bemoaning the fact that it took me roughly five years to actually watch Steins;Gate, between the time I was commissioned to watch it and when I actually started the damn show. But rather, it’s the sort of show that I would’ve absolutely loved if I watched it back when it came out in 2011, when I was sixteen years old.

 

It’s a good show, don’t get me wrong. The plot is well structured, the character work is charming (if problematically so), and the animation works for what the show is going for. But it’s also not a show for me. There are a number of reasons for this.

 

The most obvious being the gender shit. One of the supporting characters, Urushibara, is very flagrantly a trans woman, such that it’s a major plot point that Urushibara uses time travel to speed up her gender affirmation via ensuring that she was AFAB. There are many works of fiction I love that have problematic relations with trans people (the Morrison/Chase Doom Patrol being an obvious example). But where those works had moments of transcendence and/or were experienced at a point in time where I could overlook the flaw, Steins;Gate is a well-made show that doesn’t transcend in ways that appeal to me now. And, well, they don’t involve plotlines wherein the crux of saving the universe is forcing someone to detransition.

 

The other obvious aspect being the show’s approach sexuality. More specifically, there’s a scene midway through the show where the main character, Okarin, puts himself into a position where it looks like he’s trying to rape an antagonistic figure, Moeka. There is also a running gag that runs out its welcome a bit too quickly in which another supporting character, Daru, asks the various female characters to repeat what they just said in tones of voices that highlight their sexual undercurrent.

 

There’s a degree to which this is to be expected from both an otaku and tech bro landscape. Indeed “Mad science losers try to make their mad science actually work” is a pretty good description of Urbit. And considering the show’s extremely deep state approach to the semi-fictional SERN, the heroic actions of a bunch of conspiracy minded tech nerds has some implications it didn’t in 2011.

 

But, if I’m being honest with myself, I just wasn’t grabbed by the show. There are moments that I liked, scenes where the character dynamics charmed me. I liked the card game that Okarin loses because he only had to play the game. I liked the adversarial romance between Okarin and Kurisu. Mayushii is a delight. And I do rather like the ending, bar the OVA which felt a bit too complete to fully work for me. But for most of the show, I kept asking myself if I could be doing something else.

 

Sorry it took so long to write, and I only had so little to say.

And Once Again, We Return to This (Grendel: Devil Child)

Commissioned by a Kickstarter Backer

Nothing ever ends.

I should begin by noting that I am unfamiliar with Grendel. This is the first Grendel comic I ever read. As such, there may be things I am missing out because of this. For example, throughout the story, there’s reference to a character named Argent who is depicted as a big bad wolf. Now, it’s quite possible that this is a metaphorical representation of the character (someone who should not be trusted, even if they seem friendly), a fabrication on the part of our unreliable narrator, Stacy Palumbo, or a literal, actual Big Bad Wolf. I do not know.

What I do know is that this is a hell of a comic. It’s certainly not for the feint of heart. It deals in various touchy subjects matter including rape, mental illness, suicide, and child murderers. It tells of the life of Stacy Palumbo in the years following her murder of the first Grendel. In these years, she’s confined to a mental hospital where she does not get the help she needs. Her first therapist, a man named Erik, physically and mentally abuses her up until the point where she murders him shortly after he rapes her. It’s not a pleasant sight, to say the least.

Grendel: Devil Child is the story of what happens to people who are treated as mere objects of use. Not in the sense of, say, the horde. But rather as a thing to be flaunted to other people. Not someone to be cared for, raised, treated as a person. Stacy was raised by men who couldn’t tell her basic things like what periods are or what it means to grow up. They just left her alone with other people, never giving her the attention she needed. They didn’t notice she was coming undone until it was far too late.

 

In many regards, it’s fitting that Stacy is, time and time again, referred to as the Devil’s child. There’s an air of cyclicality to the stories of the Antichrist. The same players of God, the Devil, and those in-between is played out on a different landscape. The most interesting of Antichrist stories tend to be the ones where the child of the Devil attempts to prevent the apocalypse. But here, the apocalypse has already happened. The wolf and the devil are dead, the antichrist locked in a cell, never to be freed.

And when Stacy talks to her daughter, Christine, for the second and final time in her life, she understands that the cycle has come again. There will be another Grendel in the form of Christine. Another war between the Devil and the Wolf (who is shown to be alive and well, witnessing Stacy’s funeral). Another child to be left aside in the name of cruel intentions that care little for them. The circle closes and once more we begin again. There is no escape.

The art by Tim Sale is some of his best work. While not to the degree of his work on Spider-Man Blue or The Long Halloween, each page is nevertheless filled with the melancholy flatness one expects from his work, especially with the help of Teddy Kristiansen’s colors. But it’s Diana Schutz’s script that really takes center stage. She paints for us a picture of isolation, depression, and inevitability that few writers can. It’s an absolutely miserable story to read and one that isn’t going to be for everyone. I’m sure I’d get more out of it if and when I actually read more Grendel than this.