「学園都市研究発表会」 (Gakuentoshi Kenkyuu Happyoukai)
“Academt City Research Exhibit Assembly”

Hello everyone, Stilts here filling in for Zephyr this week. First of all, let me get my Railgun C.V. out there – I haven’t read the manga. Okay, now that that’s all done, onto the episode!

Febri-chan Is Adorable

While you can accuse many little girls in anime of being portrayed as…well, you know what I mean, Febri is designed to hit you right in your fatherly/motherly instincts. Personally I kept thinking about my nieces and nephew, who Febri is a lot like, except there aren’t four of her and they aren’t constantly running around driving my older brother insane. So a downgrade all said, but she’s still pretty cute. I know Saten-san and Uiharu agree. Saten is the papa and Uiharu is the mama, what an adorable family, d’aaawww!

Misaka Is Childish

Not that this is news, but an episode revolving around Misaka trying to get a kid to like her – and her subsequent depression whenever she failed – once again highlighted how childish our Biribiri is. Not that her Gekota fascination doesn’t keep reaffirming that. It says something when the only other character that likes Gekota is Febri, even though Touma’s friend Aogami Pierce may have ruined that. Don’t destroy a little girl’s dreams, Pierce-kuuun!

These Students Are Bad Scientists

Okay, so they could be good at the actual science part, but Academy City seriously needs to implement some ethics courses. You don’t experiment on people without their knowledge! That’s just part of doing science in a modern society. Also, that pretentious bastard who does most of the talking acts like a total tosser, so I look forward to his eventual (and hopefully disgraceful) defeat.

As for what experiment they’re running, I have no idea as usual. The only major clue we have are those lolipops with the interesting taste, and how the students are excited to be experimenting on Misaka like they did on Mugino last episode. I’ll let you draw your own inferences from there.

Looking Ahead

Once again, Misaka is wrapped up in another twisted experiment. I would be lying if I said another amoral experiment excited me, but then again I don’t know all the details yet. The fact that it’s another dumb experiment could quickly become a non-issue if it’s an interesting experiment, which I hope (and suspect) it will be. Time will tell.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Saten is the papa, Uiharu is the mama, Febri is the daughter, & Misaka is just childish. Still, haha! #railgun 19

Random thoughts:

  • The first episode centered on a loli, and I’m covering it. Seriously, what is up with this season?
  • That…that’s not right, Kurokooooo!! Stay a crazed, strangely mature lesbian please. Leave that immature stuff to the K-ON girls.
  • Disclaimer On Spoilers: Don’t post them. If you feel compelled to post them, use the spoiler tags, and make sure to clearly explain what your spoilers are about. I haven’t read the manga, and I’d like my one week covering this show not to end with me being horribly spoiled. Thanks for your cooperation, because I’d prefer to not have to kill anyone.

For more from yours truly, check out my blog on writing, art, and the book I’m working on at stiltsoutloud.com.

Full-length images: 20, 32.

 

Preview

46 Comments

  1. spoilers? I thought this last arc is anime original since Shinobu’s fate was left unknown in the manga after she was captured in the lab?

    1. Those nerds…man I want to punch them so bad…
    2. Misaka dear I think you may possess some challenges when you’re a mommy!
    3. Check out the Much More Railgun III cause I can’t remember laughing this hard only in 8 minutes ever before.

    gawrshness
      1. Stilts as a fan of this series tell me, have you ever fantasized about the author finally making an event in which Last Order and Misaka meet? I only brought it up because I think the premise would be very similar to this episode except Last Order is much more hyper than Febri.

        gawrshness
      2. To answer your question, I hadn’t really thought about it. I feel like meeting a cute young girl and meeting a cute young girl that is your clone are two totally separate events, though. Misaka’s reaction to one don’t necessarily have anything to do with her reaction to the other.

        Stilts
  2. This is an original storyline that is not reflected in the manga/novels.
    They were too close to the manga to start the new arc that is raving amongst fans… (and I’m telling you it is fricken epic that it’s hard to not spoil because it’s that good).

    Overall I’m interested how this arc will pull off with its remaining episodes, considering its somewhat filler material and whether we might see some magic action remains in the air (though its unlikely) is intruiging (let alone a certain scientist that is part of the experiment).

    I quite like this episode shaping up the child in Mikoto, and just having Saten/Uiha as parents just makes it even better. I’m all for this arc so far!~

    neckzor
  3. Well, at least this is less infinitely boring and less melodramatic as last episode. Seems like they’re fitting in these “evil plots” in a single day in-universe since next episode seems to occur during the evening.

    Also Aogami was the highlight of the episode. Since that interview about the arc said that the current arc would be like a “festival” and have many characters appear, I can only guess and expect, since the story of this filler arc isn’t doing much for me, for cameos to be forthcoming.

    Also, FROG WRAP EXPERIMENT? Could it be a Show Spoiler ▼

    Gaze of Providence
  4. @Stilts – as you pointed out in the season preview, it’s a loli summer so no surprise here. Can’t throw the proverbial stick without hitting a loli these days.

    Huh? It’s “too late” to call Anti-skill about a missing child? What kind of working hours/dedication to public safety do these people have? >_<

    Props to Misaka for making the "ultimate" sacrifice in giving up her Gekoto finger puppet. A heroine's life is sure full of sacrifices. LOL.

    You know you're in dire straights when you lose out to Kongou-san when making new friends.

    Yeah, Misaka has her childish side, but that's part of her charm – especially when you consider that she's the #3 level 5. Unlike Accelerator or Meltdowner, she's never drunk on her own power or looks down upon other less talented individuals.

    While this is one of the "light hearted, slice of life" Railgun episodes, I still found it quite entertaining (LOL'd more than just once or twice) despite the lack of any "real" action. Sign of a quality show IMO.

    daikama
  5. *Yuri goggles on* (aka don’t take this too seriously folks)

    Go Saten-san at using Febri-chan as the opportunity to move in with her love Uiharu after Haruue dumped her for Edasaki last week. :3 The three just look like a family together. XD

    *Yuri goggles off*

    Curse those mad scientist folks for bullying a loli. But even after saving Febri-chan from those berserk bots, Febri-chan still won’t endear to Mikoto. lol

    LOL at Pierce cameo.

    echykr
  6. Being a loli means you can befriend anyone. Maybe save the twisted scientists, but even a scary person like level 5 can be befriended if youre a loli. Even Mikoto.
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Other than that, not much to say – now gimme some explosions!

    ewok40k
  7. My Speculation is, that Febri can control their Machines like a Swarm. So in short, she is the “Master CPU” for them. And this Loli is nearly the same as the Pills for the Girl in Team Item. This Enhanced Scan Girl

    Germanguy
  8. Stilts, isn’t there something awkward at this point to how the story is introduces and paced?

    Since this is Railgun S[ister], and after the Sisters Arc is finished and everything is original now. In order to stay with the sister theme, they probably made a new arc with Febri being everyone’s imouto.

    Now here’s something that bothers me. So they went through all that effort to introduce the famous Shokuhou Misaki scene with Misaka in episode 1, then she hasn’t appeared once since then in the story. So what now? Is Shokuhou somehow supposed to be involved in this Railgun S original arc? But doesn’t that disrupt her story in the actual timeframe? And if they’re just eliminating her completely from the Railgun S story, why bother to introduce her out of chronological order in episode 1 when her debut in the actual story is much further away?

    I guess the whole thing just doesn’t make sense to me that they pushed Shokuhou’s introduction to episode 1 and then just leave her out of the story. At least with Kongou Mitsuko, they introduced her at the beginning of Season 1 and she’s been a consistent side character when she technically is supposed to enter the story AFTER Sister’s arc.

    RuriNeko
    1. Nah, S now stands for Saten 😉

      To answer seriously, (spoiler tagged for length and possibly minor spoilers)Show Spoiler ▼

      Lastly, Stilts already said he doesn’t read the manga. He couldn’t have answered your question if he tried.

      1. I see, that makes sense, she did gets a crazyload of doujins afterall. I guess I was just so looking forward to her appearance after all those doujinshi that I was a bit thrown off by lack of her.

        RuriNeko
      2. RuriNeko,

        Misaki gets a lot of dounjishi because she has big boobs and is blonde with a troll personality(Remember what sells doujinshi). Her current character development is that of a secondary character. She is just now beginning any type of development in the manga and novels. However, there is nothing to say that she can’t become the next Itsuwa, Himegami, or any other females that know\like Touma.

        Personally, I’d rather have seen the fight between Mikoto and Gunha Sogiita. That’d been fun to see.

        rh75
      3. Didn’t click on any spoilers because, as belatkuro mentioned, I haven’t read the manga, but I can assay a guess as to why she appeared in Episode 1.

        Fanservice. Pure fanservice. She appeared for the same reason that Aogami Pierce popped up this episode when any mildly suffering character would have done just as well. Give her a little cameo just to get the fans interested (and maybe fill up some extra time in Episode 1), and that’s a good enough reason from J.C. Staff’s point of view.

        Stilts
    2. In a magazine scan, it is state that only the first cour will be “about,” about as in with regard to or with focus on, the Sisters. The second cour is about the Silent Party, as you can see, the end card of Railgun has changed from Sisters to Silent Party.

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Gaze of Providence
  9. Is this written by the studio itself? I’m pretty sure it’s filler material either way. Some writing; such as when the man with the glasses sent those robots was awful. He stood there pretty much in plain sight. The robots came from his direction, and I’m pretty sure three robots wouldn’t have the same malfunction and drive to the same direction at once (if I was a bystander and thought it was a malfunction, that is). I feel like this wouldn’t have happened in the source material, but I might be over-thinking things.

    Crook
    1. Actually, all good points. It all fits in his pretentious bastard vibe, but you’d think such a smart guy would think things through a little more clearly. Though perhaps he was just too arrogant and didn’t care. Your suspicion is understandable, though.

      Stilts
    2. Those police robots often wander round in flocks of three to six as a replacement for beat cops though.

      So he could just asssume people would think they were helping February when she was lost or otherwise going about their duties.

      Adam

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