Summary
- Steins;Gate celebrates 15th anniversary with new bunny girl artwork & merchandise in Japan.
- Limited edition merchandise available via online lottery only, with a variety of items featuring bunny girl versions of popular characters.
- Anime anniversaries (like Steins;Gate’s 15th anniversary in 2025) often celebrated in advance to release new merchandise and events.
The hit sci-fi anime Steins;Gate is getting ready to celebrate its 15th anniversary, and with how popular the anime has continued to be even a decade after first airing, it comes as no surprise that some exciting things are happening to celebrate. In Japan, we can expect to see some pop-up shops and special collaboration cafes likely to happen in the next year, and if fans are lucky, there may even be some museums or art exhibitions as well. The latest news for how Steins;Gate is starting to celebrate such a big anniversary is a brand-new set of artwork, and merchandise to go along with it, featuring the series’ leading ladies as bunny girls.
The news was just published via the Japanese news aggregate site PR Times today. The announcement included a reveal of the bunny girl versions of some of Steins;Gate‘s most popular characters. It also revealed the merchandise line that is going to release inspired by this new artwork. Everything will only be available to purchase via an online lottery system, which is likely to make this exclusive merchandise challenging to get your hands on.
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Steins;Gate Gets a Bunny Girl Makeover
The Art You Never Knew You Needed
When an anime like Steins;Gate turns 15 years old, and has maintained popularity for that entire time, it can be challenging to breathe new life into its merchandise. Fans already have the figurines, key chains, badges, posters, and t-shirts that they want. In order to get their attention again – and, of course, get them to spend their money – new merchandise has to stand out from what has already been on the market for more than ten years. Hence, this kind of unexpected and new “makeover” happens, giving fans a totally new version of their favorite characters.
That is exactly what has happened to the women of Steins;Gate. They have all been transformed into bunny girls in this new celebratory artwork, and the artists certainly didn’t hold back when it came to making them quite sexy, too. The women in the new artwork are Kurisu Makise, Mayuri Shiina, Akiha Rumiho, and Suzuha Amane. They are all depicted in bunny girl costumes with a “Las Vegas” party vibe, with the women holding props like playing cards, drinks, and server notepads.
The press release describes this special lottery as (translated from Japanese),
This will be the first lottery for Steins;Gate in 1 year and 6 months. The theme of the original illustrations is the four heroines (Kurisu Makise, Mayuri Shiina, Akiha Rumiho, and Suzuha Amane) who appear in Steins:Gate, which is currently celebrating its 15th anniversary, in bunny girl style escorting everyone at the party.
The artwork is titled “Steins;Gate 15th Anniversary Party,” and is part of an online lottery being put on by the company MAGIC KUJI ONLINE. What this means is that the associated merchandise will only be available via an online lottery system, where you pay 990 yen ($6.65 USD) per ticket, and win a prize at random. All tickets are winners, but some prizes are rarer than others. None of the merchandise will be available to purchase firsthand individually, and will all be exclusive to this special lottery.
The new merchandise includes big wall scrolls of each of the characters and large acrylic standees, other smaller acrylic standees, acrylic key chains in a chibi art style, metal pins, and some smaller wall scrolls as well. Almost all the art depicts the characters in their new bunny girl form, though the smaller acrylic standees are unique in that they feature the women in formal dresses alongside other characters from the series. The merchandise will definitely be hard to get outside of Japan, at least when it first releases on February 26th, so international fans will have to settle for just enjoying the artwork itself for now.
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Is Steins;Gate Really 15 Years Old?
Anime Anniversaries are Weird
You may be wondering how Steins;Gate is already celebrating its 15th Anniversary when it first aired in 2011. If you do the math, that makes the series only 14 years old in 2025. This is not uncommon for anime to do, however, especially for big titles like Steins;Gate. Popular anime, and sometimes games as well, will start to be celebrated over a year in advance for major anniversaries. This gives the series plenty of time to release new merchandise, just like this, or to have special celebration and collaboration events over the course of a year or more.
For Steins;Gate, celebrating 15 years in 2025 is not entirely inaccurate, though. The series is set in 2010, after all, which would make 2025 the 15th anniversary of the events that happen in the story. That makes now a great time to start celebrating Steins;Gate‘s 15th anniversary. There is likely more to be coming in the next year as well as the anime gets closer to its actual air date anniversary in 2026, so it’s looking to be a good year for Steins;Gate fans.
Watch Steins;Gate now on Crunchyroll.
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Source: PR Times