Summary:

There have been more earthquakes lately, however a more important development has been occupying Uiharu: a new transfer student is becoming her roommate. The girl’s name is Haruue Erii, and after helping her move in, Saten and Mikoto show her around because Uiharu and Kuroko have to go to a meeting with the Anti-Skills. During the meeting, Yomikawa and a member of the Multi Active Rescue unit named Telestina explain that these recent earthquakes aren’t actually earthquakes. Instead, they are Poltergeist events that resemble earthquakes, caused by the simultaneous occurrence of RSPK syndrome where ability users lose control of themselves temporarily. Uiharu and Kuroko don’t give this too much thought though, and they instead join back up with Saten and Mikoto for a day of fun with their new friend. At one point, Haruue gravitates towards a poster for a fireworks display, so the girls decide to go.

While helping Haruue into a yukata, Uiharu notices her wearing a pendant, and Haruue explains that it’s like a charm. Uiharu has been doing her best to support Haruue because she feels that it’s now her turn to do so after Saten and the others helped her so much in the past. The girls eventually get dressed and meet up, and they enjoy themselves at the event grounds. During the actual fireworks display, Haruue mentions that she remembers experiencing something like this a long time ago, but she doesn’t finish what she’s saying and instead wanders off suddenly. While Uiharu and Saten go after her, Kuroko gets a phone call from Konori who has discovered that man-made interference to AIM dispersion fields might be behind the simultaneous occurrences of RSPK syndrome. At this exact moment, an earthquake-like event hits, and Kuroko has to teleport Mikoto to safety. Uiharu meanwhile tries to protect Haruue, and they’re saved from a falling lamppost by Telestina in a power-suit. When Haruue regains consciousness, she questions where a certain person is, and unbeknownst to the girls, Kiyama is in the crowd below.

Preview

So it looks like all the side character episodes are over and we’re finally back to the main plot type material again. Unfortunately, that was accompanied by a fair amount of techno-babble about RSPK syndrome and Poltergeist events, but I think the main important thing to take away from it is what Konori figured out about man-made interference towards AIM dispersion fields. It means that someone is behind all this – Telestina seems like a pretty good guess – and is manipulating people like Haruue. As for Haruue herself, given what we saw in her locket a few episodes ago, I’m guessing that maybe she was the friend or sibling of one of the Child Errors that Kiyama oversaw and is looking for her or something. There’s probably another plot twist in there somewhere. Speaking of Kiyama though, how is she out of jail already? I’m pretty sure it’s been less than a matter of months since the events of episode 12, if even that long. Hopefully there’ll be some explanation for it since she’s probably going to play a not-insignificant role this final story arc.

21 Comments

  1. It’s probably been a summer’s worth of time, maybe 3 months since the giant fetus incident. Either Kiyama made a deal with the higher ups to remain in Academy city and continue/help with ongoing research of AIM fields to spare herself from rotting in a cell, essentially making her a bird in a cage, or she has a level 5 dummy check ability that fools even the cameras and other surveillance equipment. I say she took the deal, and she plans to use her limited freedom to secretly try to free the comatose child errors. The earthquakes may be connected to Erii. My guess is that she’s unconsciously causing it. RSPK syndrome is BS by Telestina. Being placed to live with Uiharu was probably Telestina’s doing, knowing that she’s friends with a level 4 and level 5(she was there at the fetus aftermath), and if Erii can affect them, that results in some very interesting data.
    How the hell did Uiharu get herself and Erii tangled up like that? Saten has been taking care of her for a while!
    And did Kuroko teleport the yukatas onto herself and Mikoto and then outside the dorm? She’s not too far from becoming a level 5 teleporter with Mikoto around. Those boxes of stuff she teleported during the move-in scene had to weigh a lot.

    samu
  2. In episode 17, Haeuue’s pendant can be seen containing a picture of one of the Child Errors that fell into a coma during Kiyama’s experiments. Indicating Haruue is probably deemed a “successful subject” by Telestina from that experiment, which involves something about the artificial manipulation of AIM and all that stuff as explained.

    Besides the faint smirk that hints at her being the antagonist, Telestina’s timely arrival in her pink-issue mecha to save Uiharu and Haruue is just way too convenient.

    Kiyama probably escaped as I can’t see how her actions in the Level Upper incident allows for a light sentence or even a bail.

    A bit off-topic, but just to drill this point to some of you guys once again, at the risk of sounding like a repetitive a-hole:

    From an extract from the Japanese wikipedia entry of the series (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%82%E3%82%8B%E9%AD%94%E8%A1%93%E3%81%AE%E7%A6%81%E6%9B%B8%E7%9B%AE%E9%8C%B2)

    “後半の展開は原作者の鎌池和馬の意見を取り入れたオリジナルエピソードで構成されている。”

    “The original episodes in the second half is conceived with input from author Kamachi Kazuma himself.”

    With Kamachi’s involvement, it is very likely this arc can be considered “canon” for the Index-verse, despite all these being “original filler”. (Of course, some of you purists will still consider fillers to be travesties, original author input or none. :p )

    Kinny Riddle
  3. So much going on. Too bad Saten power didn’t save Uiharu and Erii. I was expecting that argh so mad now >:
    What happened to Kongou and her great doll collection ??!!! I had a rozen maiden flashback. The piton with a bow was pure win! 🙂
    I have to agree with the theory that Kiyama cut a deal to be “free” she is too smart. There are hidden powers that we don’t know manipulating academy city, they need her.
    Uiharu acting so adult felt weird , until the yukata incident we get the real her. Another save for Saten.
    Saten’s network of information is way better than Judgement’s She is one step ahead always
    The escape from the dorm using a port was lame (way to easy), the girl and the dorm master should be past that kind of game.
    Oh man have to wait another week.

    Island Esper
  4. @Kinny Riddle
    Assuming everything after episode 12 has been presented in chronical order, It’s actually impossible for it to fit into the novel/railgun manga “canon” timeline anymore.

    That said, you can probably just look at the anime adaptions as their own canon. Since they didn’t go with adapting the manga’s following following arc, it seems clear they’re simply expanding upon the previous one, the Level Upper arc, to give it more closure. In the manga, the Level Upper functions as a lead in to the next arc, but is otherwise concluded and left as is, after the AIM Burst is defeated.

    Yufankun
  5. Filler is over let the action begin!
    Loved the switches between the antiskill briefing and Saten gleefully sowing conspiracy theories… she might be right about secret experiments after all…
    I told ya you can’t keep Kiyama behind bars! She probably hacked the surveillance network to not notice her, or something like that. Or managed to get a deal with the Academ City higher-ups.

    ewok
  6. Damn! When will they get to the Imouto-Arc! I wanna see some dead people, ImagineBreaker in action, Railgun versus others and Accelerator versus ImagineBreaker/Railgun in a bash-fest one more time!

    The Enigmatic Moondoggiebuiscuit
  7. This show isn’t worth watching since the end of the arc about the lvl upper. It’s only very bad fillers, and “single episode plot” (or 2 max).
    Really not worth watching. Where are the clones etc…?

    Francky
  8. These character side plots imo have theen the weakest in the series. Started to loose interest after the level upper(the episode after it was excellent character development though. And I don’t mean the bikini episode.

    ninjikiran

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