Summary:

While in the car, Kiyama reveals to Uiharu that the Level Upper’s real purpose is to create a network of brains that can do advanced calculations. She had originally wanted to use Tree Diagram for this, but her requests were rejected, so she’s using this now instead. Kiyama promises though that she’ll release everyone once she’s done, and she gives Uiharu the Level Upper uninstall program. Her car is then stopped by an Anti-Skill blockade, so Kiyama activates her numerous abilities and disposes of all her opponents. By now, Mikoto has arrived on the scene, and she tries to use her own abilities to stop Kiyama. Kiyama is able to counter almost everything Mikoto can throw at her, but Mikoto is very resilient, and Kiyama eventually underestimates Mikoto. It allows Mikoto to grab her and knock her out with electricity, but in the process, she experiences flashes of Kiyama’s memories.

In them, Mikoto learns that Kiyama had once been given by her boss the job of teacher to a group of abandoned children. Those children were to be used in an experiment, and although Kiyama initially hated children, she grew very fond of this bunch. However, when the experiment was finally run, all of the children’s vitals flat-lined, and the head scientist decided to collect the data and cover everything up. Realizing now that Mikoto has seen into her memories, Kiyama reveals that the true purpose of the experiment was to understand the conditions where stimulating the AIM dispersion field leads to runaway abilities. Those children never woke up, and Kiyama’s goal since then has been to try to get access to Tree Diagram to find a way to save them. She’s gotten rejected every time though, so she’s had to resort to all this. Before Kiyama can do anything else, she experiences a runaway network, and a giant fetus suddenly emerges from her.

Preview

That was one helluva episode; easily one of the best so far for the series, and it made up for last week. The battle between Mikoto and Kiyama was a great display of skills and power, but I was just as impressed with Kiyama’s emotional back-story and the revelation of her true goal. They were able to drive home the point that she actually cared for those children without overdoing it, and I ended up feeling very sympathetic towards her character. That’s what they were obviously going for, and it’s probably why, instead of Kiyama continuing to be the bad guy, this fetus monster appeared. I’m not sure how they’re going to explain its existence, but if the preview is any indicator, it appears to be a tentacle monster, and it should make for an interesting challenge. I’m also curious about what Kiyama hinted at concerning the real purpose of Academy City and developing abilities – something to be answered in a later arc perhaps.

37 Comments

  1. https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Kagaku%20no%20Railgun/To%20Aru%20Kagaku%20no%20Railgun%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2022.jpg

    Interesting. That girl with the headband in Kiyama’s class not only resembled Ritsu from K-On, she’s even voiced by Satou Satomi, who voiced Ritsu. Must be a JC Staff inside joke, since I don’t recall her even resembling Ritsu in the manga.

    Not counting Uiharu (Toyosaki Aki), we now have two other K-On cast in cameos in this series already.

    It is now revealed that Kiyama’s exhibitionist tendencies started out since long ago. lol

    Maybe my memories of having just watched the new Rebuild of Evangelion remake movie was still fresh, the angel halo on the fetus-like thing does remind me of those grotesque Angels.

    Kinny Riddle
  2. Oh please make it stop!!!! Will someone stop the switcheroos this season. The bad guy is good; no wait now is bad and the good is bad; but is bad beacuse is good!!! 🙂
    I was entranced with Kiyama, then last week she is bad (with a broken hearth we start to hate her) and now we see she is bad but not evil. It was a nice story and I think this will affect Mikoto in allowing the sisters experiments. No one want to use orphans for experiments. Too bad we all ready know the outcome of the sister experiments notwithstanding is a nice setup for her allowing the mass production of clones to save real kids.
    It was a nice touch to use the gravitron and teleport abilities to take down BiriBiri; to bad for Kiyama she didn’t have battle experience and our queen was able to counter it. Nice episode !!!!

    Island Esper
  3. Awesome episode, I think I’ll watch that fight between Kiyama and Mikoto a few more times at least :] Although it made me wonder that how come Kiyama doesn’t have any power for repelling a close contact attack out of 10000 abilities 😛 The background story was also very nice. Thumbs up 🙂

    Jurkasz
  4. longhaul: Ah, I think I know what you’re talking about. I made a forum topic about it on mangafox.

    When I saw this, I was constantly thinking “where the heck is Touma/Accelerator when you need them?!” one thousand powers won’t last long against either one.

    magnumslinger
  5. @Magnumslinger
    You’re right, they didn’t last very long against only one power: Mikoto’s. The fact Mikoto even took as long as she did was because she was worried about injuring Kiyama. Seriously, screw Touma/Accelerator, this is Biribiri’s show.

    Yufankun
  6. After seeing that battle with Kiyama and Mikoto, I can say that because Mikoto is a master of her ability, electricity and its manipulation, she stood a great chance against Kiyama, who, even with up to 10,000 abilities, is a master of none. Good for fighting anti-skills groups though.
    If Touma was fighting Kiyama, he’d be screwed because he can’t block everything with his right hand. Since Kiyama can use multiple abilities at once, she can hit him from all sides like she did with Mikoto, and he can’t counterattack or shield with an appropriate ability(maybe try to punch her out?). Kiyama would wear him down quickly.
    Accelerator would probably crush Kiyama, but yeah, this is the Railgun’s show! Here’s to Mikoto flinging some quarters to kill the fetus tentacle beast!
    Oh, the fetus tentacle beast monster was in the anime opening but it looked like it was in some lab; maybe this was already created by the evil doc in Kiyama’s flashback.

    samu
  7. Eh…battle between kiyama and mikoto last 4 mins…disappointing…
    J.C. staff should increase the length of the battle scene to increase the intensity of the story as the ‘foetus’ monster will be next…
    Can’t wait for the next episode…

  8. @Stigmata
    Said tentacled monster will find out it’s a very bad idea to grab a school girl that can generate 10 billion volts… Seriously though from the preview it looked like it actually tosses her, so I guess the animators conveniently forgets that for a moment.

    Yufankun
  9. Anime has almost caught up with the translated manga. I could only see this going for another 2 eps.

    … and then how long will we have to wait for more from the Index or Railgun series? gah.

    Samurai Pumpkin
  10. This arc will last one more episode, after which we get at least 2 anime original episodes. After that they may go into the currently unifinished second arc of the railgun manga, or maybe even the oneshot railgun novel. Index material will most likely only be covered in a second season of index, if they decide to do one.

    Yufankun
  11. This time the first real fight of Mikoto was fine, too bad it is the last in the manga. Well, still there is the one in the mininovels which come in the bonus dvd.

    https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Kagaku%20no%20Railgun/To%20Aru%20Kagaku%20no%20Railgun%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2029.jpg
    Why this asshole scientist has the same surname like the leader of Hound dogs?

    @Samu: Just when Mikoto is fighting Touma is KO because Kaori kicked his ass tree days ago. He has the Imagine Breaker, he fought an army of magicians at the same time and later against a fleet of ships, using TACTICS. Sure he can beat Kiyama, but Hey! isn’t this show called…”RAILGUN”?

    Lero
  12. why touma not on this arc? simple… imagine breaker can “F”ing negate kiyama’s “dual abilities/multi abilities, so basically it can be called like NO CHALLENGE and the arc will be done sooner… about the fetus a simple touch of touma’s imagine breaker will burst that shit to pieces.

    either way it seems touma will maybe back at the next possible arc, the Show Spoiler ▼

    arc. unless, they can JC can cook up some gimmicks and add a filler.

    Animeniac
  13. anyone knows is it 13 or 26 episode format?
    Kiyama pwning antiskill was great, and she gave hard time Mikoto
    I wonder how, timeline-wise this arc fits towards the 20k sisters level grind for Accelerator?
    Touma could have a lot of trouble, he is smart enought to make his hand counter any skill, but with multiple attacks coming his way this would be quite hard…

    ewok
  14. Yeah, that’s the thing…Touma can stop/negate any attack with his right hand, but he isn’t fast enough (even though he’s quick with his street-fighting moves) to stop say 60 attacks from above, below, and all around him, all the while the ground is collapsing or being manipulated indirectly. At least Mikoto can shield herself with electricity in all directions Magneto style and stick to the walls when the freeway comes crashing down. Now that teacher/matron that cracked Kuroko’s neck in the dormitory…she’d crush Touma using the same move and put him down for the count.

    samu
  15. Wow great episode. I will agree Kiyama’s back story was really well done and moving. And that’s entirely without it being long winded or preachy, which seems to be an impressive feat for ALOT of series to pull off. Then again this is the classic advantage of storytelling that shows instead of tells, it works far better. I forgot there was a lot of foreshadowing in this part of the story about what happens later, I’m impressed with how smooth and cohesive the story telling is, minus the fail of omitting the Touma scenes.

    Kiyama vs Touma would be interesting. It’s already been shown vs Accelerator that most stuff thrown at Touma that’s not directly the ability itself is effective. Then again if Touma wasn’t mentally retarded he’d just run in and grab his opponent since his hand would nullify any ability they could use. Took him a long while to figure out that with Accelerator or at least charge in and nullify Accelerator’s abilities. At least we’re spared of a sermon from Touma with him not being the main player here.

    synkronized
  16. The hint about ability development is a bit of a screwup on J.C.Staff’s part. In the manga, Harumi’s next line is a taunt, saying that it’s good for Mikoto to investigate because Mikoto is quite heavily involved in Academy City’s experiments herself. Show Spoiler ▼

    khalis
  17. well, assuming this is all before Index blew up the stellite (episode 5 or 6 of Index?) and the supercomp is still online, this means we are still early in the timeline…
    btw, even wasting 10 sisters per day it would take Accelerator 3 years to kill 10k, so levelgrind experiment must be well underway, with Mikoto fully aware…
    hmmm, will Touma’s hand stop any power if user is being grabbed by it? this would make a “grab with imagine breaker and beat senseless with second hand” his ultimate tactic…

    ewok
  18. @mia It was shown that she could teleport things when she teleported the can behind Misaka and exploded it with graviton. Kuroko is not the only teleporter in the city.

    But maybe the teleportation ability wasn’t strong enough to teleport Kiyama herself, since the Level Upper is full of people who want to make their abilities stronger.

    akani

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