A Certain Scientific Railgun #02 — Service, Service, Service

October 9th, 2009

Gee, I wonder what their plan for this episode was.

Impressions:

I’m glad I decided to watch this first instead of Hekiyoh. Most of the episode was little but fanservice, even the somewhat incomprehensible retcon of showing Mikoto attacking Touma in an alley. At least it was more entertaining than the first episode for the most part and Kuroko’s delusional ramblings remained the highlight for me. Regardless, I’m not terribly happy about being bombarded with panties, wet t-shirts, and boob shots. Not so much because of those, but because it’s convincing me more and more that this show is a one trick pony, and we already saw this trick back in Index.

The ‘plot’ for the episode, if you can even call it that, was Kuroko getting herself all wet and ready to celebrate the anniversary of meeting Mikoto, and other people kept getting the way. Yeah, creative and action packed, I know. Like I said, this episode was a bit better paced and more entertaining than the last, but still lacks any sense of purpose or direction. The most exciting thing that I expect to happen next week is another one of Kuroko’s delusions. That’s really not where the show should be after two episodes.

Preview:

Oh boy, an evil waiter.

Posted in Railgun | 16 Comments »

16 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Anonymous says:
    October 9, 2009 at 4:02 pm

    all this delusional fanservice would make a hell of a lot more sense if they actually stuck with the ordering of the plot of the manga. its like theyre planning on doing the entire plot in reverse.

  • longhaul says:
    October 9, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    Not having watched the episode yet, how is the alley scene a retcon? The restaurant/bridge bit wasnt the first time they met.

    • Aroduc says:
      October 9, 2009 at 7:05 pm

      Actually, he knew her, but she didn’t know him. They probably meant to slot it in somewhere between episode 1 and 10, but even that doesn’t make a whole ton of sense because she knew her power wouldn’t hurt him at that point, and certainly not the tiny little static jolt in the alley after he was unaffected when she wiped out a city block trying to get him. Oh yeah, and he had his memory wiped too and wasn’t sure what her deal was when she showed up again.

      • longhaul says:
        October 9, 2009 at 11:12 pm

        Ah I think I get the misunderstanding. I dont think it was ever stated when they actually first met. And having seen the episode now, that scene dosnt give off the first meeting impression either. It fits the misaka trying to pick fights with touma that was going on at the time.

      • longhaul says:
        October 9, 2009 at 11:16 pm

        misaka = mikoto, the edit function didnt want to work

  • Shinji103 says:
    October 9, 2009 at 7:30 pm

    Wow, so we’ve got a whole bunch of new, random stuff, a retcon on Touma and Mikoto’s first meeting, and chapter 17 from the manga. We are /so/ off the manga now, lol.

    And quite unfortunately, in this case; take screenshots kids, ’cause this is one of those RARE times I’ll say that the manga was done better. They should’ve stuck with the manga for this one.

  • TJ says:
    October 9, 2009 at 9:05 pm

    Lol Touma finally showed up, but a retcon of the first meeting? weird.

    and when does the real story with the Level upper actually begin?

  • Yue says:
    October 9, 2009 at 9:47 pm

    Guys take the back row seat and women are doing all driving now!

  • Alt says:
    October 9, 2009 at 11:39 pm

    Shinji,
    I really cant think of a single anime that is based on a manga that was not followed, and it turned out better than the manga.

    • Shinji103 says:
      October 10, 2009 at 2:44 am

      Yyyeah, and I disagree with the idea that the majority of the anime-dom has that all manga-based anime are bad; hence why I said I rarely say this. But I digress as that is a totally different matter.

    • Kikaifan says:
      October 10, 2009 at 12:42 pm

      Shikabane Hime anime is a lot better than the manga it completely deviated from.

  • Alias says:
    October 10, 2009 at 6:44 am

    2 things your should know:
    1) The suimsuit thing towards the end of the episode actually took place during the epilogue of the manga, so it’s really more of a restructuring of events than anything else. I suspect they did so to move all the light hearted parts to the beginning to avoid mood whiplash when the plot kicks into high gear.

    2) The railgun manga expands on the relationship between Touma and Mikoto quite abit. Without spoiling too much, the upshot is that their rivalry extends quite abit before the beginning of Index. Railgun is ensentially a prequel to Index, with the story ending just after Styx attacks Touma. So, yeah, it does not happen between episodes one and ten.

    • Shinji103 says:
      October 10, 2009 at 8:54 am

      1) Actually the swimsuit thing took place after the major fight of the Level Upper arc which was chapter 17, not the epilogue; the manga continues on after that.

      2) No it doesn’t end there, it’s still on-going and continues into the Index series timeline. In order to deomnstrate this, I have to put the spoiler that right now in chapter 23-25, Misaka is facing off against Accelerator for the first time. So no, the manga isn’t over yet, it’s still continuing on into the Index storyline.

  • The Phantom says:
    October 11, 2009 at 4:16 am

    I’m just hoping to see more of Touma X Misaka, certainly the best part of this episode was Misaka chasing touma, but sadly it just lasted like 1 min and touma never appeared again, well the episode was alright but kuroko jumping over misaka who in return pushes her away is getting old, I just hope that they dont spend the damned whole season doing the same thing over and over.
    Moar Touma X Mikoto please ^o^ .

  • rincewind says:
    October 13, 2009 at 8:04 pm

    Kuroko is hilarious!!
    Go Kuroko, chase your dreams!!