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Steins;Gate ranks as my favourite anime of all time, a great cast, a great story and an emotional rollercoaster ride that ended perfectly.

I was not a fan of the OVA, which was the epilogue the series didn't need and was therefore nervous about the film. I wanted more, but the story was so perfectly self-contained, could they pull it off?

Unfortunately the answer is no. It's not a film without merit, there is the kernel of a good idea in here, but it's not well realised. The opening features too much fan service, and too many callbacks to characters traits without there being events to merit ... this. The emotional moments are simply repeats of things done more effectively in the series. And then the ending comes across as a rush job, sloppily trying to fit everything back in the box to provide the happy ending the fanbase wants.

The problem with the film is it never really gains its own identity, it's a lesser repeat of series moments with a different lead, and that's not enough to justify its existence.

This is an anime I at times loved and others hated.

It has a great sense of timing, there's some fantastic "OH SHIT!" moments and it's not afraid to just dump all over the middle of someone's power of friendship speech. Whenever this anime is about the titans it's a really good anime, the sheer unstoppable force of them combined with the mystery of who or what they are and how they came to be carries the anime forward.

Unfortunately the writing is dire. Absolutely dire. In episode 4 the writers actually have a character tell us what the personality traits of the characters are. That's right, ... they've done such a terrible job of getting this across that they just come out and tell us. You're so uninterested in the fates of most of these people because the anime spends no time building them up or ensuring you get to know them, and the action is less because of it.

It also suffers from endless internal monologues. The writers will just not shut up and show us something, they need to have someone sit on screen for three times as long as necessary and think it at us. In one scene one character monologues about how another is pale and breathing hard. It's insulting. It's a goddamn visual medium but rather than show us these things the writers vomit their awful dialogue all over everything.

Unfortunately this bad writing takes its toll and the anime rather jumps the shark around episode 10. An intriguing ride up until then though, with some moments good enough to compensate for the writing.

I am a huge fan of the Steins;Gate series, but this is a really unnecessary addition which has nothing to say.

The OVA trots every character out just long enough to do something in-line with their dominant character trait before trotting them off again. Even the main characters feel underdeveloped, you learn nothing new about them and the build-up to the finale is almost non-existent.

The problem is it's about the relationship between Okabe and Kurisu and the main series has already told this story and done it a million times better. All we're left with is the bits we didn't need to see told in the ... dullest, least imaginative way possible.