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This anime is a love letter to love itself. The feelings this show will make you feel cannot be put into words - and feelings for someone that we're afraid of putting into words is one of the things Ao no Hako (Blue Box) does best.

This anime captures perfectly the feelings of falling and being in love. And what it does best is not the good part of it that everyone sees in songs, but the insecurity, the vulnerability, the inexperience, the uncertainty, the worrying, the despair, and, finally, the hope that it all works out. Each and every character is extremely relatable, and the ... anime overwhelms you with a huge abundance of the character's vulnerability in such a way that you, the viewer, become vulnerable as well.

This is an anime you'll never be ashamed of showing others your love for it. It treats every scene, every character, every interaction with the upmost respect. This is a brilliant adaptation of its not so well known Manga, and has animation that is much much more beautiful than what you would expect for this kind of anime.

Blue Box is a traditional romance anime, but honed to perfection. It uses all of the tropes you have seen before, yet either adds on to them, or perfects them, in a way that feels extremely comfortable and reassuring. It is also an anime with a ton of self-respect. Sometimes you would assume that the story will go one way since it would be marketable to, but it doesn't. Sometimes you think it would use cheap tactics to keep the viewer engaged, yet, in the end, you feel completely fulfilled. Sometimes you think the anime would sexualise its female characters, or make the main character gather a harem, but it never does any of that.

There is beautiful music in here too, as all of the songs manage to pass on the feelings that the show is trying to purvey onto you. The blend of sports and romance is perfectly done - it almost makes you feel like this isn't a "sports" and "romance" show, but a "sports-romance", as if they were completely intertwined.

This anime is an ode to the beauties and tragedies of love. It's a reminder that love can bring suffering. But that its beauty is still attainable. And that's why it's a hidden gem that you definitely should watch.

Steins;Gate is an intriguing anime title that has much to be said about. It isn't your normal shounen anime where you can watch for pure senseless entertainment. It is a story that you should not binge, but rather watch in due time, as it has plenty of information and details that can be easily missed and play a huge role in the story. It is an intelectual anime who I believe every anime enjoyer should watch.
Nonetheless, I believe the anime is very overrated. Top 3 in MAL's ranking is definitely an overstatement of the quality of this anime. In this review, I will go over ... the bad and the good this anime has to offer.

Focusing firsthand of the bad, the anime is extremely slow. It is mainly comprised by four different parts: the first episode, the build-up (the first 13 episodes), the actual plot (the following episodes), and, finally, a secondary main plot at the end of the previous part (the final 2 episodes). The first episode is very confusing. It does not serve as a good introduction to the characters, but it serves as
a crutial plot point that will be talked about later in this review. The second section of Steins;Gate is extremely boring, long and badly driven. The first 13 episodes* serve as an introduction to the main cast and the tools that the characters will use when the plot actually starts. It is an extremely long introduction that is driven mainly by shallow humor, fan service and "pervert" jokes and no narrative, which makes it extremely hard for the viewer to enjoy, and overall hurts the rating I must give to this show by much.

However, the first 13 episodes* are extremely important, and feel as if they were a good investment to watch after ending the series. What makes this possible is that every minute detail exposed in the first 13 episodes* get relevant in the aftermath, and every character that seemed pointless and unimportant is revealed to have always had a significant role to play, which is what saves the story if you managed to get through those boring 13 episodes*. In Steins;Gate, everyone is hiding something, and that only gets revealed after the first part.

The second part of the story is where it gets interesting. It is a marathon of plot twists, betrayals and quick-thinking, all leading to a very rewarding ending in episode 22. The third part, episodes 23 and 24, is an add-on to the previous story that connects extremely well with the first episode and the rest of the story, giving you a banger of an ending that leads you to reminisce on everything that has happened until the moment. Steins;Gate's cherry on top of the cake really is its (second) ending, which leaves you with a nostalgic memory of this story.

Warning: Do not skip episode 22's ending credits. They are very important for context in episodes 23 & 24.

The characters are both very good and very bad. We have very good characters such as the MC, Kurisu, Suzuha, Moeka, and others. However, there are very bad main characters, such as Hashida, whose only personality trait is being perverted, or Feyris and Rukako, who are only there to serve the audience with fan service and dirty jokes. Mayuri is a passive character, but is a nice addition to the cast.

Overall, it is evident that the plot for this anime was very carefully constructed and nitpicked, and the story revolves around itself very well, making it feel like there were no plot holes in the end. It is a good roundabout journey that messes with the concept of time in a way unseen before to me in the medium.
Unfortunately, the first 13 episodes really let this anime down, as they extremely boring and could have been handled much better, and five of them would have been enough. It really feels like you're wasting time while watching them. All the fan-service, and constant "pervert" jokes also bring this anime down a lot. Without them, the show would definitely have been better.

This way, I believe that this anime is befitting of the classification of 7, since I am rating episodes 1-13 as a 4/10, and episodes 14-24 as a 9/10 (yes, the disparity in quality really is that big). Overall, Steins;Gate was a great experience, even if it was tough to get through.

*(excluding the first one)