What They Say:
Misaka and Kamijo meet again at the malfunctioning vending machine in the park, where Shirai mistakes him for being Misaka’s boyfriend. Misaka becomes shaken when she bumps into another Misaka clone, and learns that the experiments are still ongoing.
The Review:
Touma Kamijou: the one person who can resist Misaka’s electromagnetism. And seems dumb enough to resist certain other aspects of her personality, too. Misaka runs into him by chance on the way back from her lab, and it’s the cue for some much-needed fun for her. Meanwhile, Kuroko & the others are still worried about what their friend has been up to. Putting two and two together and getting somewhat more than 4, Saten decides that Misaka’s strange behaviour can only be the fault of a man. And that’s an idea that really pushes Kuroko over the edge – especially when she decides to trail her onee-sama, and finds her with Touma. There’s also the small matter of another encounter with one of her clones, who tells her that the Level 6 Shift project is still going to plan…
For the first few minutes of this episode, I thought we were going to get some fun downtime, with Touma and Mikoto goofing around town and driving Kuroko up the wall in the process. We do get that, but only for around five minutes – until one of the clones turns up and points out that, despite Mikoto’s efforts – and all the trouble she had dealing with the ITEM girls – the Level 6 programme is still ticking along just fine. The experiments are continuing, and the clones are continuing to die. So just what has Mikoto been fighting for so far, and what must she do to put things right..?
We were due a breather, after the action-heavy episodes of the past few weeks. This episode sure does cut out the action, but it fills in a fair amount of background again – on Accelerator’s recruitment, on the true scale of the Level 6 Shift programme, and on what that means for the level of official support it must have, that it leaves Mikoto with a lot to think about. And us, by extension.
Touma seems to almost universally loathed by Railgun fans. Never having seen Index (where the pairing originated) I can’t say I understand where that comes from – although I’ll grant that he’s not the most interesting character out there. Still, his scenes with Mikoto helped lighten the tone, however briefly, and that counts as a plus. Also on the fun side of the episode is Kuroko’s reaction to any speculation that Mikoto may have a man on the go – for pure comedy, there’s very little in Railgun that can touch the sight of jealous Kuroko
Against this, though, comes the mood whiplash that goes along with Mikoto finding that her efforts so far have been wasted, and that she’s going to need to come up with a better plan if she’s to achieve her aims. And her realisation of just what level of impact she’s going to have to cause. This week’s episode may have some fun moments in it, but the main thrust of it is deadly serious, and you’re left watching a girl who’s being slowly backed into a corner in terms of the options that are open to her. There may have been some big set-piece scenes recently, but I’d be willing to be even bigger is just around the corner.
In Summary:
Unusual to get an episode that takes a breather, as it were, and yet keeps the tension just as high as the action episodes, but this week’s Railgun just about pulls it off. Another engrossing piece of entertainment, that’s left me – again – eagerly waiting for next week’s installment.
Content Grade: B+
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment: 27” Apple iMac, 2.9GHz Core i5, 32GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.8.3
