A Certain Scientific Railgun - Reviews

Introduction:

So roughly a year ago I picked up ‘To Aru Kagaku no Railgun’ right after finishing To Aru Majutsu no Index’s first season well knowingly that Railgun was nothing but a side story. “But it has Misaka!” I said to myself. “Surely, a show that has Misaka Mikoto as main character can’t be bad, even if just a side story.” Oh my, how wrong I was…

Story: 5 (mediocre)

The main plot in this anime is about some sort of “Level upper” that supposedly can increase the level of espers. So it becomes incredibly popular among level 0s but unfortunately many people start abusing their powers for illegal activities. The start is quite frankly boring since the first couple episodes are nothing but episodic events of Misaka and annoying, under-aged lesbian fighting petty criminals. Naturally, since Misaka is level 5 esper, the grunts stand no chance against her and action scenes aren’t nearly as suspenseful or exciting as Index’s. 

The second aspect of story is the everyday life of Misaka and her friends. This is hand-down the worst aspect of story and the reason why this anime’s pace is slower than a snail trying to climb a mountain of glue. What doesn’t help is the fact that 2 of 4 main characters are unlikeable and hasn’t got a single line that doesn’t sound like is written by obnoxious 10 year-old. (I blame the writers!)

Speaking of writing, I start to think that the writers didn’t get paid or something because they sure as hell weren’t trying. The dialogues are just plainly dumb or dull. Since episodes often have exciting (sarcasm intended) scenes such as ‘Girls eating ice-cream’ expect to see a lot of girlish talk and friendship nonsense. There are also a lot of dialogues consisting of fictional science and although this ‘science’ talk wouldn’t normally bug me, it was just dull and imaginative. Not to mention this whole science crap was spoken by middle-school students. I don’t care if it’s some advanced city of science or not, people at that age don’t talk like that.

To make things worse, the pace of the story is way off as you constantly get filler episodes which are concentrating on more daily aspects of main characters. The first 12 episodes did follow closely on the ‘Level upper’ case but after that the anime just lost its pace.

The story did have some strong parts and has some pretty cool fight scenes. But they just seem to be scattered all around anime and feel too far in-between since the pace of the anime is so off.

Animation: 7 (good)

So we finally move onto next category which is animation. Although nothing special and definitely not great by today’s standards, the animation was pretty good and stayed consistent through-out the entire anime.

Sound: 8 (Great)

The voice actors did great job to represent their character. I was annoyed by the teleporting lesbian’s voice but I guess it did fit the obnoxious character nicely (yay?). The most interesting performances were definitely for the villains.

The openings/endings consist of lighthearted songs which fit the whole feel of the anime. The OST for the anime did its job nicely although none of the tracks really stood out.

Characters: 6 (Above average)

You get 4 main characters and unfortunately 2 of them are annoying as hell. Naturally, the main character is Misaka Mikoto which sadly didn’t get nearly as much attention as I hoped. She did get couple cute/funny scenes but they were extremely rare. The main Index’s character, Touma makes couple brief cameos for extremely short moments but he’s pretty much non-existent in this anime.

One of the other 3 main characters is the loud, obnoxious and annoying Kuroko. If you didn’t like her in Index series, don’t worry – you’ll utterly hate her in Railgun.  At first I thought she’s just a psycho, obsessed with Misaka until I realized she really is gay (literary) for Misaka. I’m not sure whether her constant harassings of Misaka were meant to be funny or not but I sure as hell know they got redundant and old fast. I wish Kuroko was never in the show but I must say there were couple enjoyable scenes with her. Such lovely scenes as getting electrocuted by Misaka’s attacks or where she was getting strangled and beaten up by dorm mistress ^.^

Then there was the incredibly childish and naive Uiharu which dialogue I found highly clichéic and irritating. Finally, Ruiko Saten. She is the most normal and relatable character in the entire anime and is actually likeable unlike Uiharu or Kuroko.

The rest of the cast consisted of secondary/minor characters, with one the most memorable being the female scientist that strips for no reason :D

Overall: 6 (above average)

The story definitely had potential. There were couple great action scenes and both sound and animation did a good job. Even some character developments and their stories were great. But in the end, whatever good qualities this anime had were buried under slow-paced, dull every day moments and shit loads of piss-poor writing and bad pacing.

I rate the anime 6, it definitely has quality production-wise (and Misaka) to set it apart from majority of anime but at the same time there are way more exciting series out there. I can’t really recommend this anime unless you’re huge Index or Misaka Mikoto’s fan. 

Fun fact:  I started watching To Aru Kagaku no Railgun in July 2011 and only finished it recently in July 2012. It took me a year to finish this show as opposed to To Aru Majutsu no Index season 1 which only took 3 days.

To be sure, this series doesn't quite hold a candle to its predecessor. The series isn't chunked into obvious arcs like the first series, there are more filler episodes, and the overall feel of the series is more like a magical girl/villain-of-the-week genre than anything else. That being said, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun will still be an enjoyable series to watch for those that liked To Aru Majutsu no Index. A few familiar characters make a reappearance, some of them constant, others brief. The main attraction will be seeing a different story told in the same location that the first story took place.

Fans of the first series, be warned though. The storytelling style is much different than in the first series, and that was one of the factors that was hard to adjust to after having seen To Aru Majutsu no Index. Whereas the first series approached conflicts and problems with a more open-minded, even philosophical point of view, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun often charges in with guns blazing, complete with esper-filled episodes packed with superpowers everywhere, sometimes to the point where it seemed more like an X-men rip-off than anything else. Of course, this is understandable, as our main characters consist no longer of a semi-helpless sister and a power-nullifying self sacrificing level 0. Rather, the story focuses now on the level 5 Misaka Mikoto and her roommate, as well as several other characters, most of which happen to be espers.

With these changes, it's natural for the amount of action throughout to be higher than in the first one. At the same time, it's not as if action and fights and superpowers are all the series is about; there are a fair few "thinking moments" as well.

I guess in the end what I'm trying to say is that the series is still worth watching. It's different, and (in my opinion) not as good as the first series, but has its share of high points that make the time spent worthwhile. I do recommend, however, that you watch To Aru Majutsu no Index first if you haven't already. If you end up not liking that series, the chances of you liking this series will also be pretty slim.

As someone relatively new to anime, the biggest thing that drew me in to this particular series was the main characters: good, strong female leads who aren't the brunt of ecchi scenes, fanservice, and loads of panty shots, which are all things that seem to be just all over any shounen series with female characters. In addition, two of the four main characters don't even have any of the powers that the other two do, so it's very touching to see the unique ways in which their own personal strengths show through as well.

With these good characters, well-animated fight scenes and effects, and some really great theme tracks, my only minor complaint would be that it went completely away from the manga's story in the second half, along with having a full quarter of the episodes dedicated to various side characters. Although the stories aren't bad by any means, and it does get back to the manga's plot in the second season (To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S), I was really looking forward to the clone arc but ended up having to wait through over 10 episodes of other stuff.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun can simply be described as a heart-pounding, suspenseful, dramatic, and overly lovable anime that will leave you wanting more. I came across the anime while browsing through an anime site and I had decided to watch it as it struck me as  intriguing at the time. After I had watched the first episode I decided immediatley that I was going to watch even more. That cycle continued as the plot is designed to never have a dull moment. Where one part of the story ends, the next part picks up pace without haste. It is that that had kept pulling me back into the series. I eventually finished that first season in sorrow for the fact that I had thought that was all the series had to it, but I was wrong. Excitement overwhelmed me when I came across the second installment of the series in that website's series listings. I absolutely didn't want the series to end as it unfortunatly had after the second season came to an end. The story and plotline is the best that I have come across yet and I doubt that I will ever find another anime that comes close to the purely lovable one in this anime title.

While watching the anime, you will come to notice multiple character developements in almost everyone of the characters escpecially Mikoto. She is the protaganist of the anime and her changing relatioships and personality can be observed throughout the anime. Mikoto is by far my favorite character in the entire series.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun is a truly a satisfactory and well-rounded anime that is absolutely worth investing time into. It is assured that you cannot go wrong by watching this anime. You will not be disappointed.

The manga storyline was very slightly, and I do mean very, intriguing, and since the anime is rated so highly, I decided to give it a chance and hope the animation would not be the typical fake glossy stuff we get now, the voice acting would not be shrill typical moe quality, and that the promised added details and stories would be interesting. Unfortunately, every one of those hopes was failed.

First of all, the art and animation is mostly terrible. Sure some of the movement is "slick", but the animation is always glossy, the character art is as bad as you would expect from the manga made worse with coloring, and the awkward zooms and movement during action scenes ruins any hope of excitement. This is definitely not enjoyable to look at any time in the episodes I watched, and was cringe inducing with the bigger mistakes (like during the first episode with the first time she fires lightning, and her face practically melts).

The voice acting is terrible shrill typical bad moe stuff. Not a single character sounded good, and even as someone who hates this type of fake "cute" voice acting I usually find that some will sound good. Furthermore, the sparkly sound effects are again cringe inducing.

The added details in the story so far involve more bad gags (like HRHR LOOK AT ALL MY SEXY PANTIES or THE STRIPPER LADY!!) and not much else. Yeah, some extra "depth" to the characters was added in like episode 6, but the additions were not interesting because the characters were not interesting. For the first couple of episodes, the extra slice of life storylines might be nice for some people, but I spent the first two episodes skipping to the action after a few exasperated minutes.

All I can say is that this seems to be an already extremely typical manga made into a typical anime that was very poorly executed. The action scenes I skipped to hoping for something to salvage matters were really bland...just nothing worthwhile here as far as I can see.