A Certain Scientific Railgun is a 24 episode anime based upon the light novel series, which itself was a spin-off to A Certain Magical Index. The anime follows Misaka, who was one of the more interesting characters already. She lives in Academy City, which are full of people with special powers. They’re known as Espers, and they’re ranked from Level 0, for people without abilities, to Level 5 for people with the strongest powers. Misaka is one of only seven Level 5’s currently in the city. She has electric powers with her trademark move being shotting a coin by flicking it from her hand as a makeshift railgun.
Misaka s joined Kuroko, who is part of the organisation Judgment. Judgment is responsible for uploading the security of Academy City and complements Anti-Skill, who deals with the more serious threats. Kuroko has a strong ability herself, ranked as Level 4, she is a teleporter. Rounding out the main cast are Uiharu and Saten. All of them attend middle school in Academy City.
This is a slice-of-life type of anime with the beginning just chronicling their days. Therefore, it’s just normal things like going to shops, to slightly more intense events like fighting criminals or catching troublemakers. As you’d expect of a city full of people with special powers, the negative elements are amplified, so there’s more bullying, more crime and more troublemakers. There’s quite a significant amount of fan service in the anime, and if Kuroko was male, there would be an uproar on the kind of stuff that she attempts to do on Misaka.
Toma from A Certain magical Index makes plenty of appearances here. He’s basically a reoccurring side character. These are events that we never saw in that anime so it feels a bit too forced here when Toma and Misaka “coincidentally” bump into each other so frequently. Other characters like Index and Toma’s sister also make appearances, so they’re like bonuses for viewers who have see both anime.
The first quarter of the season has the anime feeling itself out, getting us familiar with the characters, since it doesn’t feel as if anything important happens. However, the first real big arc comes after that quarter, and ends by the middle of the season. This arc really ups the pacing and stake. The arc was interesting by playing into the characters’ strengths and weaknesses. It creates a good backstory to make us sympathise with the characters’ actions and rounds it out with an excellent display of Misaka’s powers.
Misaka is Level 5 for a reason and even though her ability revolves around electricity, we’re shown that she can use it in various versatile ways. She can naturally electrocute her opponent but can also use it to magnetize iron in her surroundings to create a physical shield or a weapon. She is rarely shown to be using her full strength, so it feels that she always has a reserve of power that will allow her to overcome her enemies.
After the first major arc, the anime goes back to random chilled slice-of-life episodes. The pacing gets quite slow, and it’s filled with standalone episodes that doesn’t feel like it has much impact to the plot. Eventually, it strings back together into the next major arc, just in time for the season finale, and it was actually worth it. It had a nice tie-in to the events so far, and while it wasn’t as interesting as before, it was still engaging. Misaka is shown to be a flawed character, in the best way, where she is strong and although she makes mistakes, she still places a high priority on loyalty and justice.
The biggest asset of the anime are the characters. Some of them may be annoying (e.g. Kuroko and her obsession with Misaka) or unfathomable (e.g. Uihara and her sudden personality change to be overly protective, to the point of being angry at others), but the four are good friends and works great as a team. This is shown in the season finale where they rely on each other and the climaxes were a culmination of everything to reach the peak thus far. The action sequences may be infrequent and short, but they are spectacular. Although Misaka seems to be able to let loose without any regard for the damage she causes with her powerful attacks.
And of course, the voice acting, for Misaka in particular, were amazing. Although the villain at the end was a tad bit overdramatic, so it was hard to take them seriously. The animation, just like the pacing, is uneven. There are rough patches where it was lacking in so much detail to the point of certain objects looking like blobs, while other scenes looked flawless. Both opening themes were instantly addictive, particularly the first one, Only My Railgun, which just instantly set the tone with its lyrics and beat.
Overall, A Certain Scientific Railgun is a solid anime. At first, it might be a bit off-putting since it felt like another generic slice-of-life friendship happy anime, and it is, but it eventually builds up to several intriguing plot points. The season has uneven pacing and at times, it’s hard to tell where it is going, but it is worthwhile sticking until the very end as it becomes rewarding with its plot developments and how it portrays its characters.
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