Wakaranai

Rating:    

I’m in despair! The To Aru Kagaku no Railgun anime has left me in despair! At the risk of turning into one of those wretched people who watch a series only to complain and nitpick, I should make the disclaimer that I’m still enjoying this series. At a base level this anime is still entertaining, although perhaps only if you’re a fanboy inclined towards yuri fanservice and moe. The problem is that, as someone who’s a big fan of its source, the spinoff manga of the same name, I’m stuck in an interminable rut of frustration while watching this series. I’m not usually one to complain about an adaptation being different from the original. Difference and originality is fine. My problem with the anime is that it just isn’t as good. Quite frankly, it’s giving the manga a bad name, or at the very least, other manga fans would have to agree that it doesn’t capitalise on all the potential that the manga offers. This could and should have been an excellent series. But this episode is just the latest nail in the coffin sealing Railgun’s fate as a mediocre moe/yuri series. Even if it picks itself up when it delves deeper into the story, I think we’re past the point where it can really repair its image. The art and (especially) the writing isn’t up to scratch to successfully adapt the manga. The writing is flawed in numerous ways, both in terms of the way it’s pacing the story and in the way it’s portraying the characters.

This episode suffers from that same problem: simplified characters. It wasn’t as bad as previous episodes because Kuroko actually got a certain amount of dialogue where she was in a serious conversation and wasn’t losing her composure in another extreme assault on her Oneesama. Unlike previous episodes, when she actually did get that regular moment of Biri-biri fangirlism, it was actually fairly believable. I actually think that Kuroko from the manga would have chased Misaka around the room trying to expose herself like that – it’s one of the few times she hasn’t been made too extreme in the anime. Her diligence as a member of Judgement was highlighted better here than in the previous episode, where it was overshadowed by the over-the-top portrayal of her as arrogant and foolhardy. But I still don’t get the same feel for her character. Biri-biri is still a lovely character to fanboy but she is neither as cool OR as cute as she is in the manga version. She is frequently made embarrassed in this series, and has less opportunity to show off her tough and rebellious side. Even in the Index anime she was more fiery and brazen. Well, honestly, outside of my ongoing distaste for the way these characters are being written, this episode wasn’t too badly written. I especially liked the dialogue between misaka and Kuroko at the very start – it felt very natural and in-character.

But it still wasn’t as good as I hoped, being the first proper (chronological) continuation of the manga since the first episode. The first episode, naturally, dealt with chapter 1, and this episode resumed that by covering the 2nd chapter. In between we’ve had a couple of later chapters pulled forward and some padding with original content. But this wasn’t quite the 2nd chapter I remembered.. They made a few fundamental changes to it that slowed down the plot progression considerably and made things a bit lamer. The lameness comes from the context for Misaka getting pulled into Judgement work. Here it was passed off as a kind of lesson for Misaka, who was feeling aggravated by Kuroko’s ‘self-importance’ as a member of Judgement. So she impersonates a newbie and spends the day helping another Judgement officer in a sequence of mundane tasks. I don’t really believe that Misaka would bother getting herself into that situation. Others might disagree, but it felt a little odd to me. And the bomb subplot has really suffered from the way they’re trying to stretch it out. If the original content they’ve been using to fill the gaps between the manga plot moments was up to scratch I probably would be fine with this abated pace for the story. But sadly this isn’t the case and I find that Railgun is taking far too long to get into its plot (ironically I was annoyed at the Index anime for rushing through its various arcs too quickly). I’m sure Index could have pulled off the Level Upper Arc in 4 episodes, and I’m sad to say it would probably be better than this.

Relative to the rest of the series so far, this was a pretty decent episode, but it just shows that every time the writers try to tweak and adjust the manga content, things don’t turn out as well as they should. The characters are becoming irksome – Kuroko’s crush on Biri-biri is overplayed, and Misaka’s moe, dere side is being over-emphasised, undermining what I feel is the appeal of her character.