Character · Steins;Gate
Kurisu Makise
Eighteen years old, published in Science, and stuck arguing with a man who introduces himself as a mad scientist.
In Otakana the clue reads: Teenage neuroscientist published in a journal
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Steins;Gate
- Letters
- 6 · Normal
Kurisu Makise came back to Japan for a conference and ended up in a rented room above a television shop, watching a group of amateurs microwave bananas into green jelly. She is a neuroscience researcher with a genuine publication record and a working theory about memory, and the lab's accidental time machine sits directly on top of her field.
The relationship the story runs on is the argument. Okabe calls her Christina, Assistant and The Zombie, insists he does not need her, then brings her every problem he has. She answers with sarcasm, corrects his physics, and posts anonymously on a message board about her feelings because she cannot say any of it out loud. Both of them are pretending, in opposite directions.
Steins;Gate started as a 2009 visual novel from 5pb. and Nitroplus, and White Fox animated it in 2011. It works because the science, the humour and the panic all come out of the same small cast in the same small room. Kurisu is the character the plot eventually stops being funny around.
Spelling KURISU
KURISU is six letters and an English name in disguise. The Japanese renders Chris as ku-ri-su, which is why Okabe calls her Christina, and those U sounds exist because Japanese syllables want a vowel after each consonant. So the trap is expecting it to end in an S. It is KURISU, and the game wants the given name rather than MAKISE.