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「SYSTEM(神ならぬ身にて天上の意志に辿り着くもの)」 (SYSTEM)
You can say whatever you want about J.C. Staff’s overall production quality, but I think they deserve some credit for bringing Railgun back just as everything is going on hiatus. With the world going to hell and the future remaining wholly uncertain we are definitely in need of some levity, and thankfully with this arc at its climax we’re set to get plenty of it. I’m not going to say Biribiri and friends are here to save anime, but I’ll be damned if they aren’t helping salvage this spring season. Even if the next episode might be, erm, delayed too.
Considering the number of starts and stops Railgun has had since January, I got to hand it to the show for cheekily inserting a Kuroko narrated recap right at the start. While debatable if even needed (and likely down to minimizing production time—note that you can hear the original episode voice tracks under Kuroko’s narration), it does show some consideration for viewers who might’ve lost track and helps keep plot matters consistent. Also for compressing the fight scenes, which frankly made them all the more awesome. The big one this episode was naturally Kuroko and Mitori, with our shadow metal girl going all in on tactics while ignoring overall strategy. You’ll never identify all the moving pieces in combat, and failure to account for even the most unexpected of circumstances can often prove fatal. Mitori didn’t have to know that Uiharu would get involved, but the girl definitely should’ve had a tertiary escape route on hand on the small chance of moeblob-induced technological glitch. You know, because Murphy’s law.
The other running fight concerns Misaka, although outside of some choice Sogiita bashing the real fun lay with our well-endowed, starry-eyed blondie. For all which one may loathe Misaki (and she deserves a lot of it), a willingness to twist her own memories to beat the biggest baddie of them all is not half bad, particularly when her own life was very much on the line. It shows a level of thinking Mitori currently lacks, and while still tied up in Misaki’s own inherent distrust of anyone else, does give an opening for some interesting developments later down the line. Not hard guessing for example that Misaki possesses a means of reverting her memory manipulation if she can use it on herself. Likewise, not too difficult seeing the solution to Misaka’s current predicament lying firmly in whoever can reach her first now that one barrier has been conveniently broken through. Plenty of denouement (and happy reunions) left before this arc concludes, and only so much time for which to realize it.
Good thing Touma has got the Fist of Justice ready to go, because it certainly looks like that timer is quickly ticking down.
Preview
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A 3/4 finished episode is better than no episode at all, I guess.
What a nice surprise. Considering past comments I expected someone to save Misaki (well, maybe later), but no, she did it all by herself and outsmarted him by manipulating her own memories. That’s next “level” usage of her skills.
Mitori got the smack down that she deserved.
> and outsmarted him by manipulating her own memories
It’s something Lelouch did more than a decade ago: set up a countermeasure beforehand, then erased his memory of it to thwart a mind-reading opponent.
It would be funny if she accidentally swapped back the codes because she removed her memory of doing so in the first place. :I
The funny thing was that Gensei couldn’t even read her memories, he was just going on prediction and the reading of bodily motions. His issue was that he never considered Misaki would actually risk her own life to bring him down, so arrogance let him overlook the potential of memory erasure.
Both were playing by the villain rulebook, so whoever gloats longer loses. LOL
Ha! We fell just short of the scene I was predicting for this episode. Well, it’s not like I could have anticipated that 4+ minute long recap. So the crazy comes next ep. Having said that, this ep brings us to Mikoto’s wild 3rd form. A form the character designer describes as being “like a relative of Aiwass” and which has “‘the aeon of Horus’ reflected in its shadow.” Stew on that, folks who watched Index III.
Quite the pleasant surprise that it aired since I figured it’d be another week or
two like last time.
The recap didn’t bother me at all and I thought it was actually well done
and had its funny moments with Kuroko’s digressive narration. And Kuroko
taking the blade to the hand was tough to watch — ouch! But it was worth
it in the end as her strategy payed off.
Hopefully, the episodes will continue to come.
This, Honzuki no Gekokujou, Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai Deshou!
(gawd, I love how stupidly isekai that series is), Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045
(God knows why), and a few others are getting me through this covid-19 stuff.
Just have to hope the delay until episode 14 isn’t that long!
Good to see this show back after that week-long delay… (*Reads the news on ANN that Episode 14 will also be delayed.*)
Goddamned CCP Virus… (*sighs* OT: Hope the second half of Rick and Morty season 4 pushes through without incident this May. And never thought I’d feel a wait that’s more agonizing than waiting for the latest episodes of Yamato 2199 and 2202 back when they were first released. At least Studio Xebec/AIC didn’t have to worry about a deadly plague back then.)
– Still lovely to see Saten and Uiharu’s expressions in this scene. Morale-boosters like that are always appreciated.
– I feel bad seeing Mitori’s pretty face all messed up… And I haven’t seen more fanart of her yet (including R34 ones). Though yeah, Kuroko taking a knife to the hand while already injured–not quite a fair trade. That said, I wish I had her high pain threshold.
– Once Gensei lost Exterior, does that mean he also lost his ability to fully use his “Level Upper” powers as well? I thought I’d be satisfied with Mikoto giving Gensei “shock therapy”, but seeing Misaki’s willingness to manipulate her own memories to have Gensei input Exterior’s self-destruct code (and deny Exterior’s further use to Gensei) was still awesome to see.
– Level 6 Misaka basically opening a negative space wedgie… I’d rather not imagine what kind of malevolent entities reside within that, though I imagine they’d likely be watered-down versions of Warp entities from Warhammer 40K.
– And finally, Touma cheekily inserting Index‘s next episode preview catchphrase in Railgun. XD
Two more weeks.
Another delay? Ridiculous. Just conclude the season with Episode 15 or 16 which should wrap the arc and call it a day. Having on and off weeks is just stupid. They can milk the series with 8 volumes x 2 episodes and make back their cash and then some.
To their benefit it likely isn’t deliberate, it may be costlier cancelling and trying to reschedule than retain the time slot and see what each week brings. I imagine quite a bit of production is already finished and it’s simply slotting in the remaining details to push out each episode. Summer scheduling is going to prove interesting for this reason consider just how many spring series have been delayed.
If thats the case they should keep the show on hiatus until they know they can finish production on all 25 episodes without anymore hiccups. If that means a month or two wait so be it. I don’t think an episode every two or three weeks suits anyone.
And yes I completely agree on your other point. I know a lot of studios had different shows planned for the Summer & fall which no doubt will be pushed back even further. Though I have to think perhaps they’ll trim the order of some of these shows airing later so they can get everything back ontrack in terms of scheduling. I think shows airing out of season is messy from a scheduling point of view.
They’re going to rerun a partial recap? Corona-chan is making things weird.
Misaki giving herself a taste of her own medicine actually elevates her a lot. Her whimsical use of her powers so far has made it seem like she hardly values peoples memories (Probably one of the reasons Misaka dislikes her). But this episode shows how much value she actually puts into them. How little value she puts on Exterior is a good thing. It means she’s using her powers in a strategic or tactical manner. Not in a mass mind control way like what the politicians want. She’s still a little twisted, but most level 5s are.
Those cloths Mitori is wearing probably smell awful. She’s been running around in sewers a lot. Nice tablet though. Looks durable. Don’t think anyone would ditch theirs like that.
Five minutes of recap & 3 minutes for opening & closing credits. It’s like J.C. Staff only produced half an episode in terms of content and released anyway. Though to be fair most of this episode was focused on Kuroko and whats her name. Misaka’s Lv6ness was a mere afterthought until the end.
I guess with Episode 14 they’ll have to make up lost ground, as those five minutes lost to a pointless recap could have been story content had this Covid thing not happened.
Oh the girl definitely values memories because they’re something tangible–i.e. few outside of her can manipulate them so with them she knows exactly what she’s dealing with. Given her outward trust issues I can see why she would give them some degree of importance, at least insofar as they provide her a means for predicting and/or manipulating actions.
Also, a small detail but still. They confirmed that Mitori is the former Dollies friend which Misaki replaced.