Earlier this month, my colleague Chris walked you through his review of volume 1 of the Steins;Gate 0 manga. Today, however, we’ll be taking a step back. Today, we’ll be returning to the world… of Steins;Gate.
Let’s establish some context. Whenever “Steins;Gate” is brought up, most people’s minds jump to the stellar visual novel, or the wildly popular anime adaptation. What’s rarely discussed, though, is the three-volume manga adaptation, which was originally brought over to English-speaking audiences in 2015 by UDON Entertainment.
Unfortunately, this release eventually sold out; what was already a little-discussed release fell further into obscurity as a result, with scalpers capitalizing on those who were genuinely interested in acquiring it. And this continued to be the norm… until this year, when UDON announced they were publishing Steins;Gate: The Complete Manga, an updated, omnibus edition of the series.
The gorgeous release you see above is the silver bullet this manga series needed—not only has the entire series been packed into one beautiful, accessible hardcover book, its translation has seen an update, headed by Andrew “Steiner” Hodgson, one of the source material’s translators.
Today, I’ll be examining this release in depth—its physical release, story, art, and writing are among the aspects I’ll review, to give you all an idea of what to expect from this manga. Whether you’re a Steins;Gate fan or a fan-to-be, it’s my hope that you’ll come away from this review with a good idea of what The Complete Manga has to offer.
(Note: Physical and digital review copies of this release were provided to Kiri Kiri Basara by UDON Entertainment for review purposes; this has not affected my impressions in any way. Images used from our digital copy may not reflect the quality of the physical release 1:1.)
THE PHYSICAL RELEASE
Sure, I might be jumping the gun by talking about the quality of the physical release first. But to me, this is one of the highlights of the The Complete Manga, and I’ll be damned if I don’t talk about it as soon as I can.
At risk of mirroring Chris’s thoughts on Steins;Gate 0 Volume 1… this book is big. It is hefty in all the right ways. When I first received it, I was surprised by its sheer presence—nonetheless, the size makes sense. The Complete Manga collects three full manga volumes; its satisfying weight is just a natural consequence of that.
My favorite part about all this? The collection is presented in (a most-satisfying) hardcover format. This is probably a very subjective preference, but I generally don’t enjoy reading softcover manga; they can feel pretty flimsy and annoying to hold as I go through them. The Complete Manga, however, doesn’t suffer from this problem at all. From first page to last, the hardcover held up, never felt flimsy, and was always comfortable in my grip.
Hardcover manga are a big deal, which makes it clear to me that UDON wasn’t messing around when they decided to reprint this series. This is exactly the kind of release I’d buy on impulse if I spotted it in a bookstore, on the basis of its exterior quality alone.
I’m not an expert when it comes to print quality, but my novice eyes tell me the quality of the pages doesn’t fall behind the exterior. Dark blacks, light grays, and shiny whites blend to compose scenes that, though lacking in color, are far from lacking in life. Various gradients, too, are used to set the tone of panels, and none of these look underwhelming or cheaply printed.
One of the selling points of this exclusive release is the included fold-out poster of Kurisu, which I can confirm is beautifully printed. The art doesn’t pop out, which is fine—it’s got an almost grimdark tone to it that stands out in its own right. Also included in the collection is a full-color illustration of Mayuri, which was previously used as the cover for the second volume of the original release. This piece pops out, with its bright colors and beautiful lines crafted by the talented Yomi Sarachi. What I find disappointing is that the other two original covers are nowhere to be found in this release; I personally think their inclusion would have cemented The Complete Manga as the definitive release. Granted, that’s just a nitpick.
The physical quality of this release is, overall, extremely high. If you’re a Steins;Gate collector looking for the perfect addition to your shelf, this one’s a no-brainer. And even if you’re not a collector, there’s plenty here to satisfy just about anyone looking for a high-quality pick-up.
THE STORY
This section contains minor spoilers for Steins;Gate.
Unfortunately, the Steins;Gate manga’s interpretation of the story is a step down from everything else the manga offers. I mentioned above that the manga often isn’t mentioned in Steins;Gate discourse, and there’s a compelling reason for this: Yomi Sarachi had only three manga volumes to adapt Steins;Gate’s story, which is an extreme detriment to it. With so little space to convey the story’s many details, the manga adaptation often falls short of the visual novel, and even the anime adaptation.
Don’t get me wrong: The Complete Manga will take you from Steins;Gate’s prologue to its conclusion. It will tell you the story of Steins;Gate. The problem lies in the many compromises taken throughout the journey to manage this.
A great number of cuts were made to the plot in order to meet the three-volume limitation. They range from minor and understandable—the scenes of Luka and Okabe carrying the IBN back to the lab, Kurisu’s conference lecture, and the search for Suzuha’s father are all cut or significantly shortened, for example—to major and quite puzzling; some plot points that are critical to the conclusion, or are critical to Steins;Gate 0, for example, are nowhere to be seen. Heck, even the Steins;Gate 0 manga calls back to details that the original manga is missing.
The general need Sarachi had to condense the story is pretty disappointing; even details that aren’t outright cut from the manga are significantly stunted. Scenes with important character development are often minimized, hurting how well one can connect to the characters. Some points of foreshadowing—carefully crafted for subtlety in Steins;Gate’s other formats—are rushed so much, they come off as too blatant. Minor characters like Mr. Braun and Nae essentially disappear from the story unless they’re needed by the plot.
I can’t, in good faith, recommend this adaptation to anyone who’s a newcomer to Steins;Gate. At times, it feels too much like a sped-up highlight reel to be enjoyable, with its many lost details significantly hurting the overall strength of the narrative. Much of the magic that makes Steins;Gate’s plot so compelling to me is simply… gone here. I wouldn’t want that magic to be lost on anyone who hasn’t experienced it yet.
But, I will say this: if you’ve already watched Steins;Gate’s anime adaptation or played its visual novel, The Complete Manga may still be of interest to you. It undeniably has quite a few faults, but it can still serve as a quick, okay-ish refresher to Steins;Gate’s plot. Plus, its other factors—such as its art and writing—make it a compelling, original take on the story. I was personally so used to thinking about Steins;Gate in terms of its anime and visual novel that going through the manga was like a breath of fresh air to me—it was just plain fun to see the characters, environments, and events in an alternative light.
THE ART
The Complete Manga‘s art, thankfully, suffers from fewer problems than its story. I discussed two specific bonus art pieces above, but I think this subject is important enough to warrant its own section.
The Steins;Gate manga has no shortage of beautiful panels and scenes. The biggest barrier to entry, for me, was how different it looks from the existing anime and visual novel artstyles; characters like Kurisu and Daru, for example, look somewhat different from how you might be used to seeing them. But once you can get over the barrier of that slight dissonance, you’re in for some eye candy.
Sarachi is great at depicting humorous and dramatic scenes alike; for the former, drawings are simple and do away with heavy details, which I feel is great for carrying across punchlines and funny events. Dramatic, sad, and emotional scenes, though, don’t hold back from incorporating heavy detailing, shading, and an overall ambience of intrigue. One of the things Steins;Gate has always been great at doing is balancing the lighthearted and the emotionally heavy; Sarachi generally translates this well in their manga art.
The good illustrations are occasionally mired by some misses, though. For all the scenes depicted well, there are a few that I felt were depicted with humor as opposed to a more appropriate tone, such as confusion or dread. This does sometimes hurt the narrative—if you’re meant to consider the serious implications of a certain plot point, it doesn’t help if that same plot point wasn’t taken seriously in its depiction.
But for the most part, panels that are meant to be funny are depicted that way; the examples above exemplify that. These humorous shots do a good job of spicing up the scenes they appear in.
I want to highlight this specific artistic choice Sarachi frequently makes throughout the manga: some shots of Okabe depict him with a number of twisting swirls covering his body, which serves to emphasize his role in the story—the effect might be used to highlight his mental separation from others in the scene, or to emphasize his role as the “observer,” or just to highlight the strong emotions running through him in a dramatic scene. I’m a big fan of this depiction style—it’s not often used in the anime adaptation or visual novel, so it helps give the manga its own identity.
And yes, the manga’s unique artstyle does an overall great job of giving this version of Steins;Gate its own unique, alternative identity. It’s not always as consistent as it could be, and it can be rough around the edges, but it’s nonetheless fun to look at, especially if you have previous experience with the anime adaptation or visual novel.
THE WRITING
Lastly, let’s talk about the writing in The Complete Manga. Those of you who have read our previous reviews know that we usually dedicate a section of our reviews to translation quality; I don’t believe I’m qualified to extensively examine translation quality, however, and I generally tend to put more focus on how well a given work is written and edited—and, in the case of translated material, how consistent it is with other entries. So, for this review, I’ll focus those aspects of this release.
It’s become common knowledge in the Steins;Gate community that the original translation of the manga had some issues—infamous among them were Mayuri’s catchphrase being rendered as “toodle-loo,” or much more egregiously, “For FB” being rendered as “For the FBI.” I mentioned this earlier, but what I respect about this rerelease is that UDON listened to the criticism against these errors. Andrew Hodgson, a translator who worked on the original visual novel, was invited by them to go over the text as a localization editor, which allowed for a more definitive release.
The result, then, is a version of the manga that falls more in line with the Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0 visual novels. The above-mentioned terminology was, naturally, amended, among other improvements made.
On the topic of the general writing quality, I have to say that I’m pretty impressed. The translation, having been originally done by someone who didn’t work on the visual novel or anime subtitles, consequently does not resemble those translations 1:1. There are differences between how this and existing translations were written, which makes this experience feel a bit different from the norm; but, I’m of the opinion that this is what might make the manga a fresher experience for Steins;Gate veterans.
The writing generally feels natural and solidly put together—that’s not to say that I never ran into some strangely worded lines or inconsistencies, but the experience generally feels as it should. Okabe is written as the faux-mad scientist that spouts delusional nonsense; Kurisu is written as the brainy girl who calls Okabe’s nonsense out and knocks him down a peg; Daru is written as the techhead that can’t stop making perverted jokes; Mayuri is written as the pillar of the group, the calm mediator overflowing with innocence. They are as they should be, which is the biggest thing I could ask of a translation of Steins;Gate.
I’ll admit, though, that I’m a nitpicker—and as I was going through this collection, I did happen upon some smaller inconsistencies that I wish had been addressed.
In most existing Steins;Gate translations, Mayuri will often refer to herself in the third person as “Mayushii.” This self-referring quirk gives a character a more childish air in Japanese, but can come off as awkward in English dialogue. The quirk is removed from Mayuri’s dialogue in this translation, which I wouldn’t necessarily take issue with… if not for the fact that Faris, who similarly refers to herself as “Faris,” continues to do so here. It’s an unfortunate bit of inconsistency, made even stranger by the fact that Mayuri continues to use “Mayushii” to refer to herself in the ongoing Steins;Gate 0 manga translation. I can’t say I see any reason for Faris to keep the quirk and Mayuri to not, though it is possible I’m missing some valid reasoning for it.
Another error I spotted was the accidental mistranslation of the “VR” acronym into “virtual reality”; in the Science Adventure series, “VR” almost always refers to “Visual Rebuilding,” technology introduced in Chaos;Head that has shaped every series entry since. This mistranslation is a bit unfortunate, since it’s one of the few inter-series ties that the manga managed to retain.
I should stress that, again, these are largely nitpicks. If scrutinizing the smaller details isn’t really your thing, you’ll likely not even notice many of the small issues I did, if any at all.
TO CONCLUDE...
To boil my experience with this manga down to a single verdict is an extremely difficult ask; while it undoubtedly has a significant number of issues in how it tells Steins;Gate’s story, its other aspects are generally strong enough to sometimes draw one’s attention away from those problems. The Complete Manga is a collection that, objectively speaking, is probably “mixed” or “middling” in how well it does its job. But when you get around to seeing its good stuff in the moment, it’s hard to view it that way, y’know?
Overall, I enjoyed my experience with The Complete Manga; that being said, there are people I would recommend it to, and there are people I would not recommend it to. If the decision to check it out or not is weighing on your mind, I would urge you to consider the parts that make up the whole: ask yourself, “What would I care most about in this adaptation?”
If any of what I’ve written in this review has resonated with you in a way that will help you make that decision, then I’m happy to have helped.
6.5/10
Steins;Gate: The Complete Manga is an engaging experience overall, but its story is unfortunately dragged down significantly by its three-volume limitation. Those hoping to experience Steins;Gate for the first time would best look to the anime adaptation or visual novel; existing fans, however, may take interest in the manga’s unique presentation, art, and writing, all of which stand apart from other versions of Steins;Gate.
Steins;Gate: The Complete Manga will be available exclusively from Barnes & Noble in hardback around November 3. A non-exclusive softcover edition is expected to release in Spring 2022.
If you like this site, please consider supporting us on Patreon
