A Certain Scientific Railgun: First Impressions

For people new to the “To aru” series, you’d think To aru Kagaku no Railgun is its own anime, and not some sidestory. The studio responsible for both To Aru series perfectly pulled off a spin-off without having to rely on the first anime for reference. Railgun offers a fresh look at Academy City. The first couple of episodes are more light-hearted but still definitely as entertaining as the Index (To Aru Majutsu no Index) series.

The show introduces us (again) to 御坂 美琴 Misaka Mikoto and 白井 黒子 Shirai Kuroko. The first two episodes were more of the slice-of-life / comedy outtakes in the two girls’ lives. We’re also introduced to two new characters, 初春 飾利 Uiharu Kazari and 佐天 涙子 Saten Ruiko. The series successfully depicts the characteristics of Mikoto and Kuroko, but we have yet to fully see Saten and Uiharu’s character development. I fairly suspect Uiharu to be a dojikko, and Uiharu to be some sort of tsuntsun or something… Correct me if I’m wrong though.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the first Railgun episode was Misaka’s demonstration of her Railgun powers and Kuroko’s teleporting prowess. Don’t expect the show to be something like Dragonball or Yuyu Hakusho, where training episodes are often part of the story. The esper abilities are what defines the To Aru series. However, Railgun tries to deviate viewer attention from action to slice-of-life genres, in which, I noticed to be a bit bland and forced in the first couple of episodes. They just had to establish Misaka’s character, and unfortunately, the other protagonists were defined because of their connection with Misaka too. I’d like to see the future episodes to establish characters in their own personal way, and not something established by Misaka.

Oh, and by the way, there’s boob-groping and steamy loli shots in the series!

This is one series I’m going to follow ‘til the end. And though it’s not really required, I’ll watch the Index series too, just to get the hang of the To Aru franchise.

Sieg