Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

[Ryllharu]

Well, upon review I was mistaken. It was Uiharu who gave the speech when she was in the offices, but Konori certainly was thinking along similar lines, which is why they were putting top priority on it in the first place.

Mikoto was basically only using the incomplete information she got from Uiharu and her complete ignorance about what Judgment does to assume that everyone was working on the bomb threats. She misinterpreted the phone call Konori got to be about that topic, and let her imagination and dreams of glory (and showing Kuroko that she is capable of doing Judgment stuff) take over. She just assumed the worst the entire time.

Mikoto didn't really know anything about either case this entire episode, and her ignorance got the better of her. It was funny seeing Konori getting taken aback at why Mikoto was getting so zealous about the search right after the call.


EDIT:

I also forgot about Kuroko at 20:31 (eclipse). She says "Onee-sama" in a super deep voice. Satomi Arai (her seiyuu) was all over the octaves in that scene. It makes Kuroko so much weirder and hilarious.

[Archangel]

Lol, i was bored throughout most of the episode and then that last scene made my whole day and it didn't matter anymore

Seriously, Kuroko takes sexual harassment to a whole new level

[KrayZ33]

The "last scene" with Kuroko (the way she says "One-sema" was really awesome :P) , or the bomb explosion at the end?

btw I expected so much more from this series... this is really boring.
I hope next episode is going to be better.

[Archangel]

The "last scene" with Kuroko (the way she says "One-sema" was really awesome :P) , or the bomb explosion at the end?

The awesome sexual harassment scene obviously

And just hang on a bit, the first main arc is starting next episode

[RyougaZell]

Wikipedia (as unrelaiable it is) updated Railgun number of episodes to 24. I still haven't found info on the official railgun page (via google translator) so I still have my doubts.

[RyougaZell]

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun's Opening Theme Lands at #3
posted on 2009-11-10 11:22 EST
Anime's "only my railgun" song by fripSide sells 26,000 CDs in debut week

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The CD single for "only my railgun," fripSide's opening theme song for the To Aru Kagaku no Railgun television anime series, debuted at #3 on Oricon's CD single ranking chart for the November 2-8 week. It sold 26,000 copies in its first week as fripSide's first top-10 single. Producer Satoshi Yaginuma formed fripSide in 2002 and Yoshino Nanjou (CANAAN) had only just been hired as the group's new vocalist earlier this year. The group had previously sung the Koihime†Musō anime's opening theme "flower of bravery," which landed at #26 in July last year.

Director Tatsuyuki Nagai (IDOLM@STER: XENOGLOSSIA, Toradora!) and J.C. Staff are adapting Motoi Fuyukawa's To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun) manga for Japanese television. The To Aru Kagaku no Railgun manga is itself a spinoff from Kazuma Kamachi's To Aru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index) light novels that are set in Academy City, a city where about 80% of its 230,000 citizens are students. The spinoff deals with the adventures of Mikoto Misaka, one of the Level 5 psychics in the original light novels. The anime premiered on October 2.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web

Source: ANN

[Archangel]

That's surprising, i didn't think the single was that good

[Marik]

[Mazui]​ To​ Aru​ Kagaku​ no​ Railgun - 07 - HD | SD

[Ayako] A Certain Scientific Railgun - 07 - HD | SD

[RyougaZell]

That was fast o_O

Too bad im at the office. I shall download it in about 4 hours when I get home.

[Ryllharu]

Mazui's version was not very good, and it had technical problems. The technical issues seem to be from an incomplete copy I got off of Mazui's bots (fixing with the torrent now), but I didn't really like the flow of their translation, and there's just way too much crap on the screen during the OP, which surprisingly caused slowdown on my computer.

I will never download their version again. Ayako is worth waiting for.

Will comment on the episode when I can finish watching it.

EDIT:
Got Ayako's version instead.

No wonder Mikoto is all tsundere around Touma. He's a really nice person, helping some random little girl around like a brother, then saving her ass like some action film hero, and modestly denying he had any part in it when she gets the credit instead. Which of turn, pisses her off more.

It was a very dramatic visual looking at the scene with Kuroko standing in the same spot he did, with a spotless section of floor.

I wonder if they are starting to build up a sub-plot about Saten being powerless compared to her friends (even the ultra-cute Uiharu).

[Archangel]

My main concern with Ayako was their video quality, but that's all taken care of now right?

I wasn't really happy with Mazui's subs and Nuke was a but too literal for me, so maybe i should start archiving them instead?

[Buffalobiian]

Mazui's version was not very good, and it had technical problems. The technical issues seem to be from an incomplete copy I got off of Mazui's bots (fixing with the torrent now), but I didn't really like the flow of their translation, and there's just way too much crap on the screen during the OP, which surprisingly caused slowdown on my computer.

I will never download their version again. Ayako is worth waiting for.

Will comment on the episode when I can finish watching it.

I grabbed Mazui's this time round simply because Ayako's didn't finish downloading by the time my off-peak download quota rolled to peak today.

I already had an idea that the softsubs during the OP was causing momentary pauses, and I took the opportunity to confirm that today. Every time the soft-subs change to a new line, there will be a slight pause, making everything chug intermittently.

I didn't notice anything about Ayako's video being subpar from episode 02 onwards, so give that a go Archie.

It was a very dramatic visual looking at the scene with Kuroko standing in the same spot he did, with a spotless section of floor.

That is certainly true. It feels like we were looking through Kuroko's eyes as she imagined how the crime (or action, in this case) happened. The starkly contrasting floor had an awe-inspiring effect.

I'm confused at how Touma managed to block that though. My logic tells me blocking an explosion like that is like trying to block Mikoto's railgun (to my knowledge, that hasn't happened before/yet). If he had grabbed the metal or the graviton I would have understood, but an explosion seemed like an after effect. Wiki isn't very good at telling me how gravitons can cause explosions. (high gravity causing objects to crumple, compressing atoms to force a small scale atomic fusion reaction? No idea)

They keep bringing up the AIM field, which was interesting, because I always had a hunch that nullifying that has something to do with the basic principles of how Touma's arm works ever since they first introduced the concept in Index, since he would destroy the girl who was manifested by its accumulation.

Apparently only espers emit this, but they can't control it. In which case, I wonder if magic is but the result of harnessing and control this An Involuntary Movement in a way that users (magicians) can control its effect. It could explain why Touma's hand works against magic as well.

Kuroko mentioned that Mikoto increased her power through hard work, while AIM by definition suggests that espers have no control over emitting it or not. Evidence which may back this up exists already, such as how Mikoto always has a residual charge on her that makes animals uncomfortable, and how Touma's hand keeps nullifying his luck.

In that case, it implies that espers, through use, can gradually improve or refine their ability, but they won't be able to change the nature of that (or induce a rapid change).

Tying this in with AIM talk <-> Sudden power improvements <-> Level Upper <-> developments in AIM research, it only makes sense that someone (stripper *cough*) is doing some unreported/unauthorized experimenting.

[RyougaZell]

I haven't had slowdowns with Mazui's version as of yet. Guess its my 4GB of ram =P. I just can't go and get Ayako. I won't take it well if they drop the show middway, like they did with Valkyria Chronicles.

The episode itself was as I expected, due to the differences with the manga. One thing I didn't like was the fact of the little girl meeting Uiharu until she had the gravitoned toy. In the manga she saw Uiharu just as soon after Touma saw Mikoto in front of the mirrors. Without this scene... how can you explain the girl running at her saying Onee-chan? Just because of the crazy guy? I know its plausible, but the original scene made more sense.

For a moment I thought Mikoto's remembrance of what really happened was cut out, but it was fortunately at the end of the episode.

Like Ryll pointed out a few episodes ago, we are truly seeing the impact Touma had upon losing his memories. He doesn't go preaching everybody like he did in Index. He just acts.

[Buffalobiian]

I haven't had slowdowns with Mazui's version as of yet. Guess its my 4GB of ram =P. I just can't go and get Ayako. I won't take it well if they drop the show middway, like they did with Valkyria Chronicles.
.

I highly doubt having that much RAM makes the difference. I've got 3GB, and I never use more than 1.8 anyway.

From playing Mazui's Railgun Ep07 OP, peak physical memory usage was all of 90.7MB.

[Kraco]

The OP video seems to have some jerking in the Mazui version but otherwise I find no problems in their release. The translation is also just fine. I've been getting them and I intend to archive them as well. I skip the OP anyway, and even if I didn't, the problems aren't really intolerable (unless you have David's sensitivity).

I'm really liking Mikoto's tsundereness, more and more episode by episode. This show always becomes several times better when a scene is shared by Mikoto and Touma. Like RZ said, if anything this show makes Touma's memory loss really tragic. Good thing for the English church Touma isn't vengeful or he would travel to the UK to personally thank a few members of the church. Although he should still do that for what they did to Index.

I also don't get how Touma stopped the explosion. I thought they were caused by the dude compressing matter beyond what it should be able to be compressed and thus when the ESP power effect is cut, the compressed matter would expand, like a ruptured gas cylinder. I guess it will remain a mystery, though, since the dude wasn't really the real focus of the arc but the Level Upper.

[Ryllharu]

The episode itself was as I expected, due to the differences with the manga. One thing I didn't like was the fact of the little girl meeting Uiharu until she had the gravitoned toy. In the manga she saw Uiharu just as soon after Touma saw Mikoto in front of the mirrors. Without this scene... how can you explain the girl running at her saying Onee-chan? Just because of the crazy guy? I know its plausible, but the original scene made more sense.

I didn't see any problem with that scene.

The girl was young, and Uiharu is an authority/helpful figure simply because she is a member of Judgment. It isn't uncommon in anime to see someone completely unrelated to an older girl/woman who helped out (or disciplined) a younger child being called "Onee-*" by that child. Actually, it's very common.


I had expected Touma to grab the toy and stop the reaction completely when Mikoto dropped her coin. I don't get it either, since the explosion itself should be like Accelerator's thrown I-beams, and be unblockable. Perhaps the explosion itself was a continuation of that power. It was rather sustained for an "explosion," so perhaps gravitons were still influencing the distribution of that compressed matter, which Touma could negate from the arc that contained the three girls.

[Buffalobiian]

The girl was young, and Uiharu is an authority/helpful figure simply because she is a member of Judgment. It isn't uncommon in anime to see someone completely unrelated to an older girl/woman who helped out (or disciplined) a younger child being called "Onee-*" by that child. Actually, it's very common.

To add to that, in various Asian cultures the terms "older sister (onee-chan), "older brother", "uncle/ middle-aged man" and "gramps" are used to refer to a person of that age bracket when you don't know their name (and hence can't use an honorific). The use generally implies a level of respect (hence the common use of referring to older people), rather than a level of familiarity.

edit: At last, a decent Index/Railgun figure

http://www.animeraku.com/2009/11/gsc...c-preview.html



I have no intention of getting her, but it still looks great.

[RyougaZell]

I do get the meaning behind the 'Onee-chan' Ryll and Buff.
But remember this was the same little girl from the previous episode. The one that slept on Uiharu's legs.

The meaning would have been the same, but the girl would have been more eager to give Uiharu the doll, to her onee-chan, if she had seen her before getting the doll.

Or maybe she did see her and ran happily... oh whatever. The scene works like that as well. I was just ranting about a different scene... but many have been adjusted anyways.

I never stopped to think about the explosion being stopped by Touma... but I guess you guys raise fair points. Was the explosion still influenced by the gravitons? We could only conclude they were.

@Bill: Let me know when a new Mikoto model comes out. The last three have been dissapointing, only the first one was good, but the features are really different from the anime Mikoto, solely based on the fact that the first figure (which I own) was based on the novel version of Mikoto. This is Index's second figure btw.

[Yukimura]

I liked the moral of this episode in part because it once again raised the question that has been an underlying theme of this show for the last few episodes, what do you do when 'the system' fails?. Bomber-kun was basically a bullied kid who got his hands on some power and choose to use it to try and redress wrongs he perceived in the world. Traditionally the line fed to bullied kids is to rely on authority figures to protect them because fighting back makes them just as bad as the bullies. Rarely do you hear anyone 'official' telling this type of person what they should do when the authority figures fail them repeatedly. Bomber-kun's actions struck me as those of a person who believed very strongly in the idea of the system, in this case Judgment, but was embittered by it's repeated failures to help him. Thus he sought to punish the agents of the system for failing in their duties rather than attempting to punish the people directly responsible for his problems, which the system would probably frown upon.

While he's quite deplorable I can see some twisted logic in his actions and I think it raises interesting questions about 'proper' behavior in a society with a system meant to govern and regulate society which is unreliable for some members of the society. When systems like this fail it's generally still expected that people play by the rules and continue to rely on the system in the future. A similar scenario can be seen from the ESPer database's recent shortcomings. Kuroko, and apparently everyone in Judgment, seem to have strong faith in this system being foolproof and thus have a hard time discarding what it says. In contrast, Misaka doesn't follow the philosophy of 'trust in the system' as closely as the others from what I've gleaned. She advocates taking matters into her own hands and solving problems herself. Thus I took her comments chastising Bomber-kun as a criticism not of his use of his power against people but of his use of his power against people who didn't directly hurt him.

The key contrast I see here is faith/expectations in the system to solve your problems. Misaka seemingly doesn't have it, Bomber-kun seemingly does, in spades. The system asks people to forgo using their individual power to protect themselves and promises to provide them all protection through agencies like Judgment and Anti-Skill. I gleaned this from Kuroko's constant chastising of Misaka for taking matters into her own hands rather than relying on Judgment. For Bomber-kun, who perhaps represents undue attachment to the system, this principle can be seen as his fundamental guide. He only hurt the people who volunteered to put their lives on the line to protect others but didn't protect him when he needed it. I certainly wouldn't argue he's not a bad guy and his actions weren't deranged, but he's good food for thought about the expected consequences that can arise from having a system that people are taught to believe in fail them again and again. Misaka on the other hand seems to represent lack of faith in the system (as opposed to herself) and I won't be surprised if that trait ends up coming in handy in the ultimate conclusion of this story.


TL; DR Mikoto goes rogue once again and catches the bad guy. Then she indirectly advises a terrorist bomber to go rogue against the people who hurt him instead of going rogue against the people who failed to protect him. Misaka Logic: If you're weak and it causes you problems, get stronger so you can blow up your problems yourself, don't take your anger out on those who we supposed to protect you but failed.

[Ryllharu]

In contrast, Misaka doesn't follow the philosophy of 'trust in the system' as closely as the others from what I've gleaned. She advocates butting in to situations where she really doesn't have the authority or fully understand the responsibilities of those positions and getting herself into trouble where someone else ends up having to save (or at least assist) her despite her overwhelming power.

I think you had a mistake or two in there. I fixed them for you, no need to thank me.