So Railgun’s finale manages to be a pretty darn good blast of a ride – but also, simultaneously and rather oddly, a little bit of a tragedy. The final episodes managed to deliver quite well on the emotional tension, intrigue, and of course the sheer electricity one would expect of the finale of a show like Railgun. Absolutely a thrilling ride, but at the very end of it, casting our sights back over the entirety of the series, one cannot help but feel like we’ve been here before, that significant parts of the adventure we just went through bore unmistakable echoes of the series’ midpoint. I had been very happy to learn that level upper wasn’t the end, and in my opinion the episodes that followed it really weren’t bad at all. They were just nothing more, you didn’t feel like they really added value to the series – especially when a sizable chunk of them is spent on side characters who, though interesting, really didn’t matter too much when we got back to the grander scheme of things around the time of the finale. Outshining level-upper is a formidable task that the finale expectedly fumbled at, and as much as I am thankful for Railgun’s continued presence throughout this relatively dry winter season, a small part of me cannot help wishing, for it’s own sake, that Railgun had gracefully drawn the curtains in the wake of episode 12.
Even with all that said, though, the finale was one heck of a ride.
Just to make things clear on the outset, my infatuative fanboyism for Kana Hanazawa-voiced Haruue had cleanly fallen off as it swiftly became apparent that she was being positioned as a catalyst for character conflict, as well as damsel in distress. It would have been nice to have her around during “times of peace”, but in dire situations like these the people that really need to shine (and do) are our main four.
It feels like JC Staff is taking quite a bit of liberty with the portrayal of the four, especially with Uiharu’s uncharacteristic anger and over-protectiveness. It is also true though that the first half of series have had the characters well-developed enough for them to have some license to play around with their interactions, and JC Staff didn’t push it too far. Just enough to create interesting conflict – and to ultimately give this scene the lovely glow it needs:
Quite possibly my favorite moment in the arc. “What do your eyes see now?”. Excellent call. There are a tonne of important things we could miss that we wouldn’t if we only took a step back and looked, as Mikoto discovered. I loved how it was Saten who ultimately stood up to the distraught Mikoto. The events leading up to this point must have been especially hard on her – she had evidently put some difficult distance between herself and Uiharu when she had to yell her down for being unfair to Kuroko. But even with tensions between the four at all time high she found it in herself to do what the others couldn’t – stand up to the Level 5, with whom she had understandably never quite been comfortable.
She went on to smoothly carry the momentum over to Uiharu and Kuroko’s strained relationship, and as they murmured their apologies it feels like a great uncomfortable rift has at long last been mended again, and the four is at long last restored to the fond friendship we have always known them for – much, I’m sure, to Saten’s own thankful relief. Thinking back on how she had quietly withered in the agony of her own problems during level-upper, this really shows how much she has since developed as a character, though it’s really something of a pity that she still does not have any abilities.
Oh, and I was pretty darn glad Kongou Mitsuko got herself some sincere gratitude at last! And that brings me to the one thing unique in this arc that I really digged.
YEAAAA! You go girl :D I never cared much about her in the first half of the show, but she had taken so much abuse by now that I, like Keiri, had begun subconsciously wishing that she’d also get her time to shine – especially since she’s really not a bad person at all. I was pretty happy at this point:
Kongou Mitsuko literally saves the day here! Never mind that we never saw how she did it, I thought, it’s great that JC Staff finally affirmed her as a good and responsible person despite her ridiculous personality. But hell I sure never expected that we’d get to see this as well:
Bad-assery! I had been hoping (thanks to the OP’s constant tease) for a well choreographed Kuroko-Misaka team battle at some point, but this completely works too! It’s great to see Kuroko and Mitsuko put down their differences for once – and how well they end up complementing each other when they actually do.
Come to think of it, it seems like JC Staff really pulled out all the stops on this arc. Who’d expect both Uiharu and Mitsuko’s powers to be revealed in an anime original?
And of course, when Biribiri wants to be bad-ass, she sure looks (and sounds!) bad-ass. Having Kuroko warp in at the last minute to smoothly supply the bullet for Misaka’s waiting railgun was a nice touch, and really shows something of the chemistry between the two. I wish we could have seen more of this. Still, lots of great Level-5 action there, and I gotta say, Rina Satou shines best as Mikoto when she has to be bad-ass awesome. There’s something about Mikoto’s ringing challenges and her arcs of potently crackling bolts that really quickens the heart, and of course Level 5 Judgelight and Only My Railgun blasting gloriously behind only added to the effect.
Underneath the bad-assery though, it didn’t feel like Misaka was as central to this finale as she was to level-upper’s. Sure, she delivered the obligatory final blow on mad-woman Telestina’s weird machine-bolt, but really, unlike last time where relatively unexpected key parts of her personality (and powers!) were brought to light, we don’t really get anything at all this time round.
It was still a moving end though. For me this is a show that thrives on relationships. Uiharu to Haruue, Misaka to Kuroko and Saten to Uiharu, the four to Kiyama, Kiyama to her students. And it is in the joy of seeing these relationship bear fruit that this series really shines. I’m actually a little sorry that we’re finished already at this point. An episode or two more of quiet plot resolution, with some more interactions between Kiyama and her now-revived students, would have been a nice touch. Maybe we’ll get an omake or an OVA?
Still, while almost everyone important had something precious restored to them, the profoundness of what was achieved at the end for Kiyama could hardly be overstated. How many of us have born such a terrible burden, and lived to see it lifted? How many of us have so tirelessly and earnestly struggled towards a cherished goal, and lived to see it attained? How many of us have found a cause to devote our entire soul to, and how many of us, have had a dream come true?
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Dustin
Jason, I don’t know what it is about this series, but you really are seeing things I am just not :) . Hmmm, this episode really messed me up in terms of physics. I couldn’t take all of the bad science being applied when normally I let that stuff slide. As for the show being central around the importance of relationships… :P … XP!!!
Besides Kuroko X Misaka and Kuroko X Uiharu I didn’t see much evidence of the relationships being all that deep. Quite honestly they alway felt shallow, like they never really developed them. The difference between Railgun and Shakugan no Shana would have to be the way Shakugan toiled over the relationships. Every episode the characters internal conflicts would come to boil and directly affect all of those around them. In Railgun there just wasn’t enough built there. I couldn’t justify in my mind Saten saying the things she did to Misaka because all of their meetings besides a little of the level upper arc were light hearted and shallow. This is not even a manga x anime adaptation argument either as I’m talking directly about the material presented. Instead of tangenting onto different subcharacters they should have spent a couple of episodes dealing with our main fours relationships besides them just hanging out all the time. Our friendships are forged through hardships to be sure, but often times it’s the little things like Kuroko and Misaka being forced to clean the dorm and swimming pool together. In this final arc I found the main relationships were really lacking. They focused on this group mentality that I don’t really think they justified like Hanamaru or Durarara!! did. Not mentioning that coins are almost always purposefully made non magnetic and even if that were the case when you flip a coin a moving car going really really fast there’s this little thing called air resistance that wouldn’t allow it to come down straight to Misaka (Facepalm) [along with a million other things]. Some of these writers really need to take a physics class. (The range on a railgun too was a little ridiculous seeing as it’s power would come from the momentum of them moving object which could only be hindered by air resistance… *Dustin Rambles*]
Despite the way they adapted the characters that I didn’t like you’re right the series wasn’t bad… but I wouldn’t really call it good either. It didn’t do anything special and most of the time just rubbed me the wrong way. They had Misaka Mikoto the freaking Railgun and Kuroko the teleporter and that was the best they could do…. Sigh… I felt like I should leave some kind of comment sorry it was so critical. You’re probably just trying to balance out all of the lackluster it’s getting from me and Keiri and I can respect that :) . But be careful not to go too far ;) !
Jason "moofang"
Hey comments critical or otherwise is always welcome! In fact critical comments are more interesting. I should point out though that I wasn’t trying to do any balancing work – in fact I deliberately avoided reading Keiri’s posts and any responses you might have made there for this past few episodes so that I could write impressions that are just my own. I had somewhat hoped to find us in better agreement in terms of final impressions when I next visit Keiri’s, but it seems like this is not to be :P
Reading over your comment, I think the best explanation I have is that Railgun is a show with lots of points both in the well-done department and in the sloppy department. So, probably, a person who manages to take a solid initial liking to the show (like me, probably from lower initial expectations?) would relish the abundance of the former and be inclined to turn blind eyes to the latter, while a person who comes in more skeptically would probably find it harder to be forgiving given the sizable amount of the latter.
A similar situation, I’d imagine, to how Sora no Woto first appeared to both of us :)
About relationships in this show, I think our disagreement stems all the way back to how we never quite were able to see eye to eye with regards to Kuroko-Misaka yuri and Saten flipping Uiharu’s skirt, which I have always considered an integral part of their relationships but that you (if I understood your writings thus far) have never quite regarded as much more than comedic fun. I don’t personally think it takes constant internal conflict or detailed events to develop interesting relationships – though those could be interesting too. I think one thing Railgun tends to do is instead of “actively” building up their character relationships from the ground up block by block in from of our eyes, it tends a lot more to just assume first that the relationships already exist, and then streak occasional flashes of “passive” insight through the layers in the form of indirect character behaviors and key events. A good example here is Kiyama and the kids – their relationship was never “actively” developed except in the short flashback sequence Misaka saw, but the devotion she had to their revival and how emotionally she reacts in the various difficulties and failures she had along the way casts “passive” light on what the children must have meant to her. Thus we (well, I) were able to feel something for her at the very end even though we only ever saw her interacting with the kids for less than 10 minutes.
This goes for most of the rest of the cast too. You don’t directly see the relationships taking shape – most of it was already there at the beginning of the show. Instead you see something happen, and you see a character behaving in a particular way, and you realize then what the other person must have truly meant. Seen in this light, it actually makes sense that 90% of the time we only see “shallow-ish” things being done between the four because that’s what real relationships are like. I don’t treat my best friend a lot different from my average classmate during lunch-break – I might even be inclined to side with others and pick on him/her more because I know he/she won’t take offense. It is only in the critical moment when push comes to shove that the meaning of something like “best friend” becomes actually visible. Back again to Saten, I think it is in part a sign of closeness that she stood up to Misaka that time. One doesn’t just stand up to a person like that unless she cares about the person – and unless she knows the person can take it, takes her seriously enough to think about it, and will benefit from it. Personally I don’t think it takes anything “deep” or such to create a relationship like that. Friendships are built on simple constant togetherness, learning about the other person in course of normal interaction until one understands who the person is, and what would help the person and what would hurt.
Well, I guess it could also be that I’m reading too much (or too little!) into all of this. Oh, and I do absolutely agree that there was not enough focus on the main four before the final arc began. I think the decision to scatter out into the side characters is one of the main things that prevented the finale from outshining level-upper.
I’m used to giving Railgun scientific leeway by now but oddly most of the stuff you mentioned didn’t really hit me – I had been mostly skeptical at how Misaka’s coin at the end manages to strike Telestina’s projectile pin-point for them to have their electricity tug of war. Just for fun though, let me try addressing some of your objections. About coins, I know that there are coins that are magnetic, at least here, we did experiments on them with magnets back in grade school. Besides, Misaka’s doesn’t actually use regular coins but tokens from the arcade – she probably knew in advance that those were magnet-friendly. The range thing might be possible to explain too. Normal railguns fire decidedly large projectiles, so one might argue that a coin as a railgun projectile might not pack that much of a punch and that the reason they do with Misaka is that she had always been extending her magnetic rings along the entire path of the coin – so that the coin isn’t just colliding with the target but is literally being forced through it. In which case it might make sense that a coin out of the range of the rings would not be able to penetrate thick steel. When Kuroko warped her a suitably large projectile on the other hand, we get the equivalent of a conventional railgun and the momentum of the projectile alone is now enough to tear through Telestina’s mecha. The air-resistance thing was a good point though.
Zhiwei
Okay, breaking the law of energy-matter conservation, before this goes further, I’d like to point that the mechanism portrayed is a coilgun rather then a railgun. If you’d like to know why, please wiki it or something.
Just my guess but perhaps the range limitation has something to do with the range of her AIM field? If you payed attention to the mumbo jumbo, perhaps their AIM fields are limited in range and beyond that they can’t alter reality as they please and hence none of their powers or its effect can manifest itself?
Yes, it escapes me too why we’re arguing about fiction here -.-
Dustin
@Zhiwei
I was paying attention Zhiwei :) and I did realize that the range was probably referring to her personal reality, but that just means she has a range of 50 meters for accelerating the coin which is quite a lot. I would actually think that you would be able to thwart her more if you were to get way inside of the 50 meter range instead of sitting at 51 meters thinking “He he, she won’t be able to accelerate any further here” because at that point it’s already at full force. As for Railgun vs. Coilgun I’ll have to wiki it. All I know is the writer named her ability Railgun further telling me that he should take a physics class :( .
I just wikied a coil gun and it’s very basic in principal :) . Ok so even given that she is acting as a coilgun I have a question for you. When you fire a gun would you consider yourself safe as long as you weren’t standing in th actual barrel? Of course we know this to be ridiculous but the barrel would be the equivalent of Mikoto’s personal reality being the space at which she can pass an electric charge to enduce a magnetic field while we all know that a gun still does it’s damage quite a ways from a barrel though admittedly it does have a range. I doubt very highly however that you could find a gun that only has a range of 50 meters and Mikoto is a level 5 esper.
I don’t know why we’re arguing either, but the plain unwilliness of the writers to go on wikipedia like I just did makes me a little peeved. I’m not saying you have to research a lot, but you should definitely know what makes sense for your abilities. Don’t just throw in crap like range for plot convenience.
@Jason
Not to continue to be negative (but that’s exactly what I’m going to do) what your describing is kind of the stuff I’m talking about. I hate when writers just have two characters meet and all of the sudden they have a relationship. It’s the worst kind of cop out. Misaka met Saten and Uiharu in the first episode so we know that relationship is new. Mikoto was the only one who saw inside Kiyama’s memories and she still treated her pretty badly in the final arc when she didn’t trust her. If I had been the one to see Kiyama’s memories I probably would have been prone to forgive her. I also would have been extremely pissed off as one of her students to wake up after 6 years of being comatose. “You just wasted 6 years of my freaking life sensei”, they were all just a little too happy. I do not believe for a second that an entire class of people would be able to look on the bright side of the situation and say “Well at least we’re awake now”.
In terms of skirt flipping and yuri I have to say that I didn’t dislike them it’s just that they relied to much on it. They built your so called relationships on one repeatable action? They really didn’t have to do much for instance any of these scenes would have curbed my griping considerably.
The girls talking about stupid stuff like Windmills like they did in the special.
A show of consideration: Providing a meal after a long day, talking about characters small problems (Not every problem has to be as huge as the level upper or poltergeist), dealing with visiting family members together, escaping hilarious situations.
That’s obviously a little thought out list, but didn’t it seem to you like most of these girls only had one to two problems that kept resurfacing. Saten is a level 0, Kuroko has a problem with Uiharu, Uiharu… what even were her problems besides caring about everyone else. That to me makes one dimensional characters, there wasn’t any amount of self absorption. The pool cleaning epiode is pretty much the only one I remember with fondness anymore because at least there Kuroko was actively pursuing something other than end of the world type scenarios. The fact that they had twenty four episodes and couldn’t spare one or two for these sort of developments was kind of irking. Even the swimsuit episode was concentrating so much on fanservice it didn’t really flesh out anything that we didn’t really already know (Misaka likes cute little kidsy things, Kuroko wants to jump Misaka,… so on so forth). One to Two dimensional characters for your main characters just doesn’t cut it for me anymore. That said, multi faceted relationships can’t happen on a single dynamic either :( .
Railgun is not the worst by any stretch of the imagination and it still stands tall above other similar animes in the Shounen genre. It was definitely on my watch list and I wouldn’t dare comparing it to something as bad as Kaze no Stigma or even Hayate no Gotoku. If it hadn’t been Misaka and Kuroko I probably would have let a lot of stuff slide, but they are two of my favorite characters so I wasn’t able to ;) . Still even if it weren’t the case I doubt I would be able to really defend the show as being well written because even in fanboy mode some of that stuff was pretty glaring. JC Staff needs to work on their balancing building relationships and shounen action. If they do that I won’t even have time to notice the epic physics fails.
Another long comment for you! :)
Monic
I’m glad to see there’s another fan of Railgun around, its surprising to see how few fans this show has!
Quite possibly my favorite moment in the arc. “What do your eyes see now?”. Excellent call. There are a tonne of important things we could miss that we wouldn’t if we only took a step back and looked, as Mikoto discovered.
This is one of my favorite moments too– Saten really has become an invaluable member of this group and this moment shows why. While Mikoto and Kuroko can open a can of whoop ass, Uiharu and Kuroko’s job in judgment constantly contribute to society. Saten’s the most down to Earth person in the group and capable of seeing and saying things other people in the group can’t.
I was also impressed with Kuroko and Kungou’s team-up and an effective team-up it is! There’s something about two people who were almost always at odds with each other.
But what I really love about this series (aside from the fantastic character dynamics and scenery) is that this show delivers in the action front since the first episode and to the last its really done well with its action scenes.
This arc also provided a wonderful closure for Kiyama, whom I wished for closure in the manga and finally got it here and I think no one deserves it more than Kiyama. I love the sense of wonder and disbelief that she finally achieved this.
I do have to wonder how if/when the second season rolls by and the Sisters Arc is finished in the manga, they’ll adapt it to the anime. As the group are now its hard to see Mikoto go off alone during the Sisters Arc, not when the main lesson in this season was that Mikoto wasn’t alone and she’s stronger if there are other people around to help.
Jason "moofang"
@ Dustin:
Maido Ari!
I do agree and I wouldn’t quite categorize railgun as ‘well written’ either. Before I dive into your detailed comments let me first note on the outset that I don’t consider railgun an extremely awesome anime or any such like, and I don’t think my post up there quite qualifies as a ‘raving review’ or anything more than just a positive one. I liked it, it could have been better, but I was happy to have it on my watchlist. I’m not the only one by a pretty good margin too, as I discovered on (finally) reading around.
While I readily agree that some things weren’t done so well in railgun (this isn’t an After Story or even meant to be one by any metric), frankly I think you are being a little unfair with it here. I don’t personally think Misaka made a bad decision at all defying Kiyama that time – it’s not simply about trust, and Kiyama obviously appreciated that. You may not agree with Misaka (or me) but I’m sure you can at least tell that there is some debatability here and she wasn’t being entirely stupid. The same goes for the children being angry thing. I’m not gonna use up space here on a side point but if you really want let me know and I’ll write you a case for why the children might have behaved as they did. My point is that some of these may not be very beautifully fleshed out (when all is said and done it’s a shounen anime after all), but most of them aren’t stupid. And I’ll also make clear here that I haven’t been going out of my way to think up counter-explanations to block off these objections while I’m watching the show, some of your objections were simply completely off my radar.
It seems we are doomed to disagree on just about every nook we bring to the discussion table :( I thought we did get a good serving of the sort of stuff you mentioned that would curb your griping! The pool cleaning was one (that didn’t really stand out in particular to me). To quickly name a few more “shallow interactions” there was the time they were talking about “scary” urban legends under a cloth – and on thinking of that I remember a bunch of times when Saten was gossiping away with some of the others. There is the dorm open day (maid outfit) episode, Kuroko and Misaka (mostly Kuroko) getting pwned by the dorm mistress, them cooperating to catch that eyebrows girl (Jufuku or something), the gang going to meet Saten after her post-level-upper “lessons” – which the latter obviously appreciated deeply. It is this sort of thing that I find myself liking a lot in Railgun – simple things that look commonplace and every-day on the surface, but that is in fact deeply and personally valued by the characters involved in them.
The skirt flips and yurimania incidentally belong somewhat in this category. I don’t think that the character relationships are “built on” these interactions, rather, I think that they are a sort of unique tag or indicators of the relationships they represent. It is something special to the persons involved. A nice illustrative example would be the end of episode 12. After Saten embraced Uiharu and told her the important words she wanted to say, she dissolved the emotional situation with a happy skirt lift. The skirt lift is something indicative of their friendship and the all the casual times the two had spent together, so for me that was Saten’s way of saying “look, no more worries alright? I’m me again, as I always am. I’m okay”. This is the sort of message you cannot truly communicate in words, and this is what I was driving at in my old post on the episode. And then we pan to Kuroko, who knew immediately that Misaka was troubled and feeling guilty, and promptly jumped her. In fact, throughout the series you find that Kuroko frequently jumps Misaka when she knew the latter was bothered by something. And the latter, as in the case of episode 12, always ends up getting charged up thanks to Kuroko’s pervertedness. For me it’s a way she could cheer her onee-sama up, as well as a way of saying “it doesn’t matter what decision you made or whether it was the correct one, you are still my onee-sama”.
Damn, I can’t believe I said those mushy words.
I don’t know, I don’t exactly see a correlation between personal problems and.. well much of anything. They can be plot devices that help you flesh things out, but that’s about as much as it gets imo. In fact I find myself irked but some shows who rely too much on characters flinging their problems about because a) personal problems are rarely ever simple enough to be conveyable in words or a couple of scenes or understood by pretty much anyone except those closest to you – and those probably don’t need the words anyway, and b) sensible characters don’t commonly “tell out” their problems because of their recognition of a). So I in fact appreciated it that in railgun Saten for example during level upper never quite told anyone about her increasing insecurities (even Uiharu, though she came close), and in fact continued to act her normal extrovertish self for awhile while hanging out with the gang.
Speaking of Saten, you are right about Saten-Mikoto being new. But I thought Saten-Mikoto was one of the few relationships that was actually somewhat “actively” developed throughout the series (in contrast with Mikoto-Uiharu for example – and sure enough nothing interesting ever really happened between the two of them). Saten and Mikoto actually ends up being alone quite a lot throughout the series, beginning with the very first episode at the crepe stall, where Saten had been markedly uncomfortable to have been left at the queue with Mikoto. Thereafter there were several more times when the two Judgements had to leave on sudden duty leaving the two alone, and you could tell that Saten had always been the uncomfortable one while Mikoto had been perfectly friendly with her – as I said, she wasn’t conscious of the level gap that Saten was. But this actually changed gradually, ummmm, let me fish out an example… ah! For example in episode 9 when they met under the bridge, they actually had a long chat where Saten spoke about her childhood and the lucky charm her mother gave to her – pretty personal stuff you don’t tell to random people, at least in my book. Something had evidently happened there after all of their previous interactions. And then as I pointed out in the post I think the sobering experiences during level-upper, and how her friends had been there for her then, had had a visible effect on the self-confidence of post-level-upper Saten – she has started speaking out more especially during critical times like the Misaka in hospital scene. I do get the feeling that Misaka got somewhat short-changed this finale (duly noted in the post), but I think Saten is a good example of a character who had developed satisfyingly on multiple fronts. And while I guess this isn’t exactly supposed to happen in an anime called “Railgun”, I appreciate it nonetheless that such a character exists, whether or not she qualifies as three dimensional.
When it comes down to it when I say “character relationships” I mostly mean “what the characters mean to each other”. And this, I think, does gradually evolve as we progress through the series. For better or for worse, it also is what much of the show revolves around, and I guess, even with all previous discussion set aside, I am somewhat in love with the very idea in itself – that other people is what drives everything in the show.
Sorry about replying slow by the way. I’m still in somewhat of a crunch in terms of school work, and (necessarily) long responses take time :)
@ Zhiwei, Dustin :
Kurogane offered an alternative theory on the coin range that I thought was a good contender: the coin travelling at that speed will have a hoot of a time with friction, and could plausibly become completely melted/vaporised at the 50m range.
Jason "moofang"
@ Moni: Oops, I guess your comment came in while I was writing that super long response up there :P
Actually, most of the reviews I’ve read are pretty positive :) And yep, Saten’s pretty much a good candidate for favorite character in the anime, as I further expounded in aforementioned super long response. The anime does indeed look very good, not just the action scenes. JC Staff has been loosening their pockets on this one. As for Sister’s arc, I know exactly nothing about it ^^; I’d be absolutely happy to give a second season a go though, assuming it happens.
Jason "moofang"
Quote Keiri: