Wakaranai

Rating:    

My views on this episode are distinctly mixed. Along with the usual ‘doesn’t do the manga justice’ mantra, this episode has its own unique problems in terms of the way it was directed and produced. While watching I found it hard to put my finger on it, but there was just something off-kilter about the way the ep was animated. Seemingly arbitrary shots to static backgrounds or wind-turbines accompanied many scenes, and occasionally the characters’ mouths didn’t seem to match what they were saying. At times, there was plenty of motion to a scene, yet at other moments the characters looked unnaturally frozen as they conversed. It’s hard to describe what went wrong here, because overall, in terms of the art-style and the way scenes were captured, this was one of the most attractive Railgun episodes to date, but every so often the production just missed a beat to jarring effect. One of the most obvious examples of the shot of Saten jerkily running up the road, which was actually repeated in its entirety and didn’t seem to fit in with what was happening in the adjacent scenes. Maybe it’s just me, but there something was off here.

That was the bad part of the mixture, the good part is that, on par with the manga, this episode managed to imbue the story of Saten’s hesitant misuse of the Level Upper with real emotion and sympathy. This anime has missed the mark a few times in the field of believable characterization, but it handled Saten very well, to the point where you can genuinely empathise with her situation and understand where she’s coming from when she decides to use the Level Upper. I’m extremely relieved that this came off well! I found Saten’s part in this arc to be one of the most affecting pieces of character drama in the entire Index franchise so far, and I think the anime, with the help of the talented voice-acting of Kanae Itou, might have even delivered it in a more profound manner (we’ll have to see where it goes from here before I’ll say for sure!).

And also contributing goodness was the presence of a lengthy and relatively well-executed action scene. Kuroko’s teleportation vs. nondescript deliquent’s light tricks might not have made for the most frenzied and exciting battle, but it provides some really tense moments as the usually composed Kuroko (ignoring her Misaka <3 moments) finds herself in a scary situation. It’s also interesting seeing how these two powers interacted. What wasn’t so well-executed was the yuri moment between Kuroko and Misaka, which was so sweet and romantic in the manga, but just came off as run-of-the-mill another yuri gag here. I think it’s probably what they’ve done with Kuroko’s character so far, that has diminished the chemistry between her and Misaka, both in terms of their friendship and their one-sided yuri relationship. Because that was such a core draw of the manga, it has become one of the major flaws of the anime.

Overall this was a pretty entertaining episode thanks largely to the affecting portrayal of Saten’s Level Upper temptations, and despite the strange animation flaws.
 
 

✔ It’s a bit annoying that this episode had some awkwardly animated moments because in general it looked a lot sharper and more attractive than usual. The way it was directed and the use of lighting gave it much more of an atmosphere than this series typically has, giving the episode more visual depth. It also featured some of better background art of the show so far.

✔ Probably my favourite scene was shared between Misaka and Saten. As I said last week, these two have a really interesting friendship forming that the manga never really went into, and their dialogue with each other was equally good here. Saten’s dejected heart was visible through her body language and the subtly depressed tone of her voice. It’s a sign of a good director and voice talent when emotions and themes can be conveyed like this, a bit indirectly. In terms of Saten’s feelings, I think it’s really interesting and believable that Kuroko and Misaka can’t really understand her. Sure, they’ve worked hard to obtain their high levels, but I still agree with Saten when she says they’re living in different worlds. As such, I think it’s very reasonable that neither Kuroko nor Misaka can console her with shallow lines like “Stuff like levels doesn’t really matter”. Quite frankly, it does matter!