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「STUDY」
Nothing like confronting an old foe to start things off. Therestina Kihara Lifeline is back, and ah, who am I kidding? It’s pretty clear the highlight ain’t more so Therestina as it is us getting to see ITEM again—especially when they’re all in their swimwear. Am I right? No?
With that said, the conversation between Therestina and Misaka does end up being quite important. I can’t say that I approved of the way Misaka approached Therestina, and I’m shocked that she actually got some semblance of an answer from her as a result—but I guess it’s an apt representation of the type of person Misaka is. Indeed, not only does the conversation represent her tendency to be straight forward, but also the fact that she tends to feel so strongly about particular things that she ends up being led by her emotions quite a bit. In many ways though, they’re characteristics that are double-edged swords more than anything, and while they’re great traits to have, they’re also traits that are apt to get you involved in things you normally wouldn’t. Furthermore, when you consider the fact that her being Level 5 is probably the only reason she’s survived up until now (and may be the only reason she has these characteristics in the first place), it becomes even more clear how these traits (and the others that she possesses) belong to Misaka and Misaka alone.
Moving back to the importance of the conversation itself, it also has to be noted how Therestina ends up bringing up the darkness that exists in the city—specifically the darkness that exists in the hearts of the ones without significant powers (“those who can’t even be guinea pigs”). And it’s important not only because it kind of serves as an indication that Misaka is still somewhat “naïve” when it comes to matters like this and because Therestina actually gives us a valid explanation of sorts in regards to why the scientists behind Febri—revealed to be a Chemicaloid—made her in the first place. Granted, the notion of people doing things “just want to show the world they exist” isn’t a great reason when you view it from an outsider’s point of view, but if you look at it from the other side of the equation, it just might be the only thing that keeps you from living a life where no one acknowledges your existence. Still, I gotta say… I’m surprised Therestina even gets access to her box of chocolates (guess life really is like a box of chocolates, ain’t it?) in whatever prison she’s in—even if it does set up a nostalgic “do you want to take the blue pill” scene.
Either way, the general thing this week is that the net starts tightening on Haruki Aritomi and his cohorts at the “Study Corporation”—even if it turned out to be more of a trap than anything, as Misaka and Shinobu (who reveals her true colors this week) both end up fooled by the false data on Febri’s poison neutralizers. To make matters worse, they fell for his other trap too, and now Misaka is down for the count and the real data’s been destroyed as well. I still can’t believe the guys made it so they actually fell for that lie… But yeah, I’m quite sure there’s still extra copies that data elsewhere, so pressing question is how exactly the two of them are going to get out of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys from ITEM end up being the solution to this predicament however, and considering they’re the ones trashing the labs this time around instead of Misaka, it’d be quite ironic to say the least.
Ultimately, things really start ramping up a bit as we reach the penultimate episode of Railgun S. It’s still short of what the previous arc had to offer, but it had much less of the hit/miss nature of the last few weeks, and it looks like we might get a pretty nice send off for the series in the next few weeks. I am a tad worried in regards to it potentially being a rushed ending more than anything though, as we just got the reveal of “Janie,” and there’s just a little more here left to be resolved than I’m feeling comfortable with. Of course, that’s not to say it can’t be done and that it’s not likely they’ll pull it off, but there also seems to be a somewhat realistic chance it falls flat too. Guess we’ll see how it goes.
Full-length images: 4.
ED5 Sequence
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Preview
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I’m just gonna leave this here(contains some spoilers in Index).
It’s Academy City and the DEEP DARKNESS.
While I agree there is truth to Aritomi and Co. being too big for their britches (just compare the scale of things in the previous arc to this one), people are making far too big of a deal out of “DEEP DARKNESS”.
Agreed. I think the “Deep Darkness” Thelestina is referring to is that they’re too insignificant to even be considered part of Aleister’s Master Plan, rather than them being part of a bigger conspiracy as the diagram seems to suggest.
Deep darkness must be WWIV considering WWIII isn’t go quite well , that Aim burst anti Magic in Index II and mass lv6 and Mikasa sisters’ army may come in equation soon in NT
Love how certain someone is written inverted… 😛
I did like the touch of Takitsubo seeming to notice Mikoto and recognizing that she was not an adversary.
I would love if our cute mercenaries ended up saving Mikoto this time, but it seems whoever hired them wanted only to trash the lab and they are gone.
If I’m not remembering incorrectly, they only left the lab because there was no one there. Seems like they’re aiming more for the people behind it all, rather than just the lab itself, so I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them here.
Finally things are clearing up. Droids are remotely controlled by ESP of artificial human –
VocaloidChemicaloid… And Febri was “spare” which is being disposed of now. Shinobu was indeed trying to save her and has imprinted into her info on Mikoto. I doubt the destroyed data was only copy existing – apart from that would have meant certain death for Febri, even mad scientists keep backup records of research. Smug bastard Aritomi was telling that “lab one” was a decoy so there must be some other facility – at least the one where real Chemicaloid is stored, by the way…I am glad Shinobu still is a scientist with conscience, but I am at a loss about Mikoto being still wide-eyed idealist. Against types like that Aritomi, shoot first, ask questions later, preferably with liberal dose of electroshocks, dear Railgun…
ah that bastard, while Touma isn’t present in this arc I hope Misaka gives him a dose of a two million volt falcon punch. I just hate those kind of bad guys…
I’m going to leave this here, just wondering how many get the reference. If you do, just use thumb up and down to indicate, don’t spoil it for people who doesn’t know.
ITEM: Fren da
Wasn’t it Fre nda?
Pretty much everybody and their mom was saying that here back when ITEM appeared in the Sisters arc.
I wish Touma could come back from his ‘holiday’ quickly and preach to that 4-eyes and his gang about the strength of a non-esper before giving each of them a Touma punch to the head . Damn the 4-eyes is annoying . And he’s not even a Kihara! I think it’s a better deal than having Mugino finding them out and laser beam them apart.
I still wonder how Shinobu ended up in STUDY after she was captured by ITEM. That’s probably the “long story” in the next episode.
Did they just conveniently forget that Mikoto doesn’t need her powers to take down some smug ass nerd with glasses? Did they just conveniently forget that Shinobu don’t need powers at all to take down some smug ass nerd with glasses?
Did they just do this on purpose as to punish Mikoto for going off alone again so they can force their “gathering of pals for final fight” from the first season again?
CLOVERFIELD!!!!!!!
More importantly, the serum supposedly only paralyzed her…and I don’t think she needs to move to generate electricity.
Well if this is a prequel to the other Railgun series and there is no Febri in them can we assume she doesn’t make it out of this alive?
This is a sequel to the first Railgun season.
Sie, you went half-retard. You’re 22 episodes in and you STILL think Railgun S could be a prequel? We’re you asleep for the most part or did you not understand some huge plot lines, like why Thestina is in jail, or like Banli and Eri? I forgot their names since they don’t appear much but it’s still relevant.
Please tell me you’re kidding. If you seriously still think this is a prequel the you have gone full retard.
If Karmafan meant the Index series then technically he would be right since the first season does start before the Index series does.
Going a little too far, calling someone a retard, he was just asking a question. But in terms of the timeline, since this is a little after Misaka’s encounter of the “stalker” incident, its just about in the middle of the chronological events in Index.
Why is a Kihara serving time in jail? Was her grampa too busy with Level 6 shift that he just happen to forget about her?
It’s likely that Heaven Canceller’s authority that made that happen. Not to mention, while they can’t ever agree with each other, Aliester has some form of respect towards his savior. So I can guess, especially since Aliester has no use for a useless Kirihara, that a Kirihara can be put into jail if Heaven Canceler can ask Aliester to help him in terms of security. .
On my side note
It is good to see some ITEM fanservice. Still don’t know the name of Frenda’s swimsuit, but it gives me a different nice feeling, for some reason, compared to seeing Kuruko. I would be sad to see any of these girls be punched by Touma.
Sigh, being punched by Touma would not be half as bad as what can happen to ITEM members…
She has been captured by Anti-Skill after her failed experiment, complete with using helicopters, mecha, etc. There were too many witnessess to be silenced, and she probbaly went too far for the Crowley’s to tolerate. And since when Kihara senior REALLY cared about his family?
Well, considering that Kiharas operate at the level of the board of directors or higher, you’d think mere prison bars would not hold a Kihara.
Because they don’t have much use for her right now? When they do need her then she’ll be out of there in a second.
She doesn’t really seem too bothered about being in jail herself.
(Pardon if this ends up as a double post, as my browser seems to be acting strange and refusing to respond even after clicking Submit Comment)
https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Kagaku%20no%20Railgun/To%20Aru%20Kagaku%20no%20Railgun%20S%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2003.jpg
Damn, why didn’t they show more of Kinuhata in her bikini? It’s as though the producers favour Mugino and Frenda service more than Kinuhata and Takitsubo.
I wonder if this “There is no one here!” Item Girl, made this on purpose. She surly noticed Mikoto. Perhaps they came back to see why she is there?
and i hope they someone can save Febri from running out of Gas. Something little inside me, would hurt, if it does. But, from the feeling of this Anime. There will be an Impact that will hurts. Perhaps they can save Big Sister
But Big Sister will need Testament, to be Human. Until now, she still stuck in her Life Pod, and they use her as Life Form, no need of Testament function so far
Well, it appeared that both Misaka and Mugino’s team appeared at the same time, but the AIM Stalker just disregarded Misaka because she wasn’t a target anymore as probably supported by how she said that they got rid of the job’s targets.
If Janie was the first and Febri was the second, then the third must be machi?
Wow… and not in the good sense. Zephyr, you left out a word in your review: “It’s still [far] short of what the previous arc had to offer…”. Up until this episode I thought the filler was “decent” to even “pretty good”, but IMO, things went downhill fast in EP 22.
– OK, wait a minute. We go through this whole “I’m going to rely upon my friends from now on, etc.” theme, YET, not ONLY does Misaka meet Therestina Kihara alone (at least it was in a controlled environment), but much worse, she runs off again on her own to some mysterious lab which of course has the obligatory bad result. >_> Certainly that time Kuroko (and maybe Kongou) could go with her. They are level 4s. Kuroko could have teleported instantly beside the guy, grabbed the flash drive and teleported away in a couple of seconds. Problem solved. *sigh* So much for progress in terms of “relying upon your friends”…
– HUH!? Do NOT “drop” the (rail)gun when some criminal says “Hey, if you just drop the (rail)gun, I’ll cooperate.” Sure. Reminds me of the opening scene in the movie 48 Hours. Didn’t she learn anything from the Sisters Arc? Why would these “scientists” be any different? The guy has not shown any compassion for Febri, so all of a sudden he just happens to have a change of heart? It’s not called the “darkside” because of poor lighting. GAH! Instead we get “OK, I’ll blindly trust you. Inject me with some completely unknown substance – I’m sure it’s safe. What could possibly happen? It’s not like you’re some sort of biochemical genetic engineer… oh… wait…”
– For someone so smart, Nunotaba sure played right into evil scientist guy’s hand. Again, didn’t you learn ANYTHING from the Sisters debacle? Why are you waiting this long to get the formula (or any other important data)? Why are you trusting these people? Was there NO chance of a trap? Nunotaba is not unfamiliar with the “darkside” and she’s not stupid, but this arc isn’t doing much for her reputation on either front.
I’ll stop here. The filler had potential and a few bright moments, but IMO has quickly degraded into very formalistic plot lines. I can’t state it better than Stilts did in his Gen’ei wo Kakeru Taiyou Episode 10 review so I’ll just quote him: “There are many unforgivable storytelling sins…and here’s one of the biggest ones – characters acting stupidly in order to push the story along”. I’ll finish the season, but any enthusiasm I had for the filler arc was just erased.
Did Mikoto and that girl have to act stupid? First she can beat those two without moving, even paralysed they are defenseless in front of her powers. And second, those two should have paralysed HIM with a fast attack (with electricity or that drug he kindly lent them 😀 and recover the data). It was too obvious he was not going to give them the info.
You’re forgetting that Misaka will always be Misaka, even if she learned about the darkness of the Academy City. She would still resorted to negotiations, and in this case her decision is probably the best way since she needed the data to save Febri.