Summary:

Even though it’s summer vacation for the students, teacher Tessou Tsuzuri still has a lot of work, and she finds herself late for Anti-Skills duty with Yomikawa. To make matters worse, she’s been fairly inept at her job recently, and Yomikawa scolds her. Knowing that she has to put more effort in, Tessou tries harder to help people while on patrol the next day, but she again fails at everything, including trying to communicate with a boy named Kounoe to get him to go home from a game center at the end of the day. Seeing Tessou looking troubled, Yomikawa suggests that she go do something she enjoys. Yomikawa later also gives Tessou some time off so that she can catch up on her duties at school, and on her way home, Tessou passes by the game center again. Remembering what her colleague said about doing something she enjoys, Tessou goes in and teaches that same boy from before a few things about the fighting game he’s playing.

Before Tessou can play a game herself though, she gets called by Komoe to go pick up a drunk Yomikawa. As Tessou carries Yomikawa home, Komoe talks to her about how every day is fun for her because she loves all the students, including the one who led to her roof getting blown off. The next day, Tessou is once again energized to do her Anti-Skills job, and while she doesn’t exactly fail in trying to deal with situations involving Index, Himegami, and a girl who lost her pendant, she isn’t much help either. Her trip home once again takes her to the game center, and this time she actually gets to play a game. In the middle of it, she gets challenged by Kounoe, and although she loses, she feels fired up again. Walking home with him, the two talk about the next game in the series, and before they part ways, he thanks her. Sometime afterward, Tessou learns from Uiharu and company that Kounoe transferred schools so that he could study to become a game developer with the same company that made the fighting game. This makes Tessou happy and ready to do her best at her job again.

Preview

This was a decent episode that developed Tessou Tsuzuri’s character, but the story here wasn’t anything special. I mean, the episode ended on a good note, and I enjoyed hearing Endou Aya voicing Tessou, but as I sort of touched on last week, it’s hard to become really interested in side characters with just one-shot episodes like this. Having said that, I do wonder if the pendant girl will be significant later on because she seemed to get too much attention to be just a throwaway character. Anyway, what made the episode actually noteworthy is the fact that it further connected Index and Railgun by featuring Index and Himegami in a pair of cute and amusing scenes. It also had Komoe mentioning that the roof of her home got blown off, so it appears that timeline-wise, this episode occurs somewhere around Index episode seven. I’d love to see more connections between the two series, and in particular ToumaXMikoto interactions, but it looks like the Railgun anime story will for the time being continue to focus on side characters, with the dorm lady being next week.

32 Comments

  1. It’s about time they finally talk about the side characters. Nice to see Index and Himemagi again as well.

    I just realized that this series does much more with it’s non-linear episodes – most of the story arcs have gotten no where except solve some sort of temporary problem in Academy City.

    Phocus
  2. Can’t really complain much on an episode about an energetic character voiced by Endo Aya. 🙂

    And good limited cameos by Index and Himegami.

    The overall arc might involve Pendant Girl (voiced by Hanazawa Kana), her pendant contains the photo of the Headband Girl from Kiyama’s class. (https://randomc.net/2009/12/12/to-aru-kagaku-no-railgun-11/)

    Headband Girl’s subsequent coma compelled Kiyama to develop the Level Upper. Pendant Girl might have something to do with this case, as well as the mysterious Capacity Down supplier hinted last episode.

    This might mean the story of this anime original Capacity Down arc, written by author Kamachi Kazuma himself, could be intended as the companion sequel to the Level Upper arc.

    Kinny Riddle
  3. I enjoyed this episode somehow, it was good to see Index and Himegami as well 🙂 Finally they decided to make connections with the Index-series, something I was missing in the Level-Upper arc when they left out Touma.

    I’m not sure if I will like the next episode, from the preview it looks like they’ll turn the dorm lady’s character upside down. A strict woman like her, blushing and all? C’mon! 😛

    Jurkasz
  4. If you look at ToumaXMikoto interactions in index; you see that in the first episode they duke it out, and she already knows him. She interacts significantly again in episode ten and the mikoto clones appear. My guess is that mysterious lady from the baby-monster episode, will be the one to contract the cloning, and before that you should see events from index (such as Touma losing his memory and the destruction of the tree diagram). It should be interesting to see how much crossover they use

    kwantum0
  5. If it’s just going to be pointless fillers for the rest of the series, I’m not even going to bother watching. They have wasted so many episodes so far and now they won’t even have time to do the Sisters arc, which is the best arc in the entire Railgun series.

    Jaysus
  6. KeiSei: It was hinted that she died in the experiment along with the rest of the kids, so it’s higly unlikely that it’s headband girl all grown up. A sister or friend, more likely.

    Shiirn
  7. @Jaysus
    Sisters arc isn’t even done in manga yet, afaik; it’s better it’s filler now so they don’t botch the storyline down the line (this is JC Staff we’re talking about after all). In any case, it was already established they’re not doing Sisters since the end of the Level Upper arc.

    @Shiirn
    I don’t think the kids died. Or else Kiyama’s intentions would seem kind of ridiculous. Definitely, they’re in some kind of critical state, though. I could be wrong.

    mrThefter
  8. I am wondering why this episode aired. This one goes way deep on the episodes side characters, who play only a minor role in the hole story. so why the sudden detail on the life of Tessou? any theories? But i really like the flow of this anime. It has a really nice air!

    Nightshade
  9. While I’ve already accepted Sisters Arc -railgun side- won’t be animated. This craptastic episode totally broke down the damn timeline to the extreme.

    If Index and Himegami are already around, Mikoto should already be presurred and stressed because of the Sisters. Specially considering the damn satellite has been blown down already, as Konoe-sensei stated.

    In Index Mikoto stated she could only progress on her Sister-quest because of the satellite having been destroyed by an unknown force (Index forced spell), therefore… they complete broke it down.

    RyougaZell

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