Toaru Kagaku no Railgun - "YOU WA SHOCK!", Grudgeal expresses in an attempt at a pop-culture pun to provide suitable introductory amusement for this review.
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun ("A Certain Scientifical Railgun", just "Railgun" from now on) is a 2009/2010 anime based on the manga of the same name, which in itself is a spinoff of the shonen light novel series Toaru Majitsu no Index (hereby referred to as "Index"),, which was animated in 2008. Set in the same universe as that of Index, a world where superpowered humans called "Espers" rub elbows with normal people as well as institutions devoted to the study and use of magic, Railgun is a side-story focused on the character Mikoto Misaka: A side-character in Index who proved to be wildly popular with fans of the original show.
I originally watched through Index at its inception and was somewhat less than impressed. I did, however, consider Misaka to be one of the series' high points and the esper system to be a lot more interesting a premise than the arbitrary magic and spiky hair of the main series. Thus I wasn't entirely without some positive expectations from this series. Let me just get this out of the way right off the bat: This show isn't bad, and it's certainly better and more entertaining than its parent story. What it does have some definite problems with, however, is that it's a 24-episodes that only had enough fresh and manga-based material for 13, at best. What I ended up looking at in the end was a fairly entertaining first arc, and then half a season worth of less-than-optimal filler.
Graphics and Animation: 5/10 -- "Shiny battles, but alas a limited character design and backgrounds.", Grudgeal sparingly describes with intent of further expounding.
Studio J.C. Staff animated both Index and Railgun (whose manga were drawn by the same artist) and the two animes, for obvious reasons, look quite similar as a result. As with Index, Railgun has generally 'ok' animation, though nothing I haven't seen before. The backgrounds are decently drawn enough, though usually quite sparse, and the colouring is a bit bland. The character designs are a bit limited; most of the girls seem to be drawn the exact same facial features, as do most of the adult females, and all the men. Some of the character designs are actually quite similar to ones found in the Shakugan no Shana series as well, so it can be said to be something of a studio trademark/weakness (they don't resemble Hayate no Gotoku!!, though). Although the characters are fairly expressive, seeing those same expressions are being used across about ten similarly drawn faces limits how impressed you can get.
The saving grace is in many ways the combat and the animation, which is nice and fluid, and the general lack of stock footage -- most things that are animated, are animated only once. The similar facial features are a bit mitigated by dissimilar hair- and clothing styles too, although there is a bit too much overabundance of 'moe' designs in the girls for comfort. Same as Index, in other words.
Audio: 5/10 -- Having heard and remained mostly impassive by the audio impressions, Grudgeal sparingly emotes "Ok voicing and generally unimpressive background music. Again, nothing beyond 'average'."
The audio of Railgun isn't much of a strong point either; the show is pretty fairly 'average' in this regard as well. The background music is generally techno-based, as are the 2 OPs and neither leave much of a lasting impression, though I do at least *have* an impression of it having been there. The voice actors give as good as they feel but none of them feel much like they're putting all that much life into it either. They sound like what they're supposed to sound like, but with me having now seen and mentally noted the sound and voicing of some 140-odd anime of various types Railgun doesn't feature what I'd call a stellar or exceptional voice cast -- none of the characters are voiced by particularly famous and distinct Seiyuus and with the risk of sounding rude, I don't think any of them are going to become either in the near future. So I'm going to mark this one as average as well.
Story: 6/10 -- "A decent 'superpowered human' action story bogged down by a bit too much filler and a subpar ending.", Grudgeal concludes after 24 episodes of the show.
Railgun is mostly made up of two segments: One 12-episode arc that covers the contents of the first few volumes of manga, and then 12 episodes of filler, fractioned a bit between some beach fanservice, some slice-of-life comedy, a few short action episodes, and finally a six-episode action/drama arc that ties in a bit with the manga arc. As stories, the manga material is workable if not one of the greats of shonen storytelling, while the filler shares its time between some slightly more ham-handled but similar action-drama, and some light-hearted and ultimately irrelevant slice-of-life episodes. Even at its best Railgun is hardly the epitome of originality, and the filler is particularly bad in this regard -- the swimsuit episode made me groan, and some of the other episodes are just plain boring in setup and content. Although the battles are a bit inventive, they ultimately face the problem of being just unrealistic enough that, when compared to Darker Than Black, you might get affronted by all this posturing and in-combat taunting and skinny 12-year olds taking roundhouse kicks into concrete walls without blacking out or suffering head injuries, but realistic enough that you can't explain it away with magic or 'that's just how the universe works' like with most shonen shows.
The attempted usage of real-world physics is interesting but ultimately feels silly: Fine, Misaka could potentially walk on armoured concrete by inducing a magnetic field in the armouring, but she'd have to wear iron soles in her boots and the ensuing electric field would be strong enough to charge the resident air and kill pacemakers within a few dozen feet. Because Railgun is based on the scientific Espers, there's also a lot of Star Trek-style technobabble involved. While it's nice to see a show try to explain its own internal logic and rules, the explanations for the Espers are occasionally rendered a bit too obtuse and as a result are "hit or miss" -- interesting background material when they work, frustrating waste of space when they don't.
Character: 6/10 -- Grudgeal, slightly conflicted, judges this show as "Just a bit too fond of grasping for the archetypes and cute girls instead of genuine character exploring."
Railgun's principal cast is centred around Misaka and her three friends Kuroko, Saten and Uiharu. All three are distinct, notable personalities that work as characters in making you believe and sympathise with them. The one main problem I have with them is they are, perhaps, a bit too much presented as archetypes rather than characters -- in many situations you get the feeling that the way they're acting according to a checklist of 'this is how character X acts because character X resembles characters Y and Z from other shows who acted like that'. We get too little rationalization at times, to be short. There's also no real hidden depth or surprises to learn about these characters: If you're looking for a show to surprise you with a new and unique take on teenage girls -- or, indeed, any of the cast members in general -- this show isn't it. None of the side characters are really that strong as a memorable supporting cast and the main characters are often left to carry episodes on their own -- which mostly works, but occasionally doesn't.
In many ways, I am a bit torn about Railgun's main cast. I'll try to explain a bit: I am of the opinion that strong, mature females is something that many anime have a problem presenting properly, or don't even bother to try to present in the first place, and I also am fully understanding of showing how middle-school children may at times have problems showing mental strength and maturity. That said, the principal cast seems a *bit* too much too me like they were created to provide an all-female 'cute girl'/'moe' fetish fanservice cast for a young male audience.
Don't get me wrong: Compared to stuff like K-ON! and whatnot, this stuff is mild by comparison, but it's still a sort of nagging annoyance that gets especially bad during things like the bathing suit filler episode. When combined with the slight lack of character exploration, the disappointing filler villain, and the 'I believe in/I must protect XXXX' moments, pile up and prevent me from praising this cast too much. Which is kind of a shame because Misaka is still not a bad character and is certainly more interesting as a character than the protagonists of Index.
Value: 5/10 -- "If you liked Index, you'll like Railgun.", Grudgeal deduces, and adds "If you didn't, you still might but I question how much this show was intended for you if you didn't." as an attempt at a profound afterthought.
As a spin-off show, Railgun has its audience quite pegged: The show is intended for Index fans and of course Misaka fans, adding to its appeal those who don't mind looking at cute middle-school girls do cute, middle-school girl things for comedy and fuzzy feelings: I'm not saying the show has no appeal outside of that, but its intended audience seems fairly well-defined in the shonen/seinen 'already fan' demographic and frankly there are better versions of this kind of show for more mature adults (Darker Than Black) and I think those of the same age as Misaka will probably prefer more mainstream shonen like Bleach and Naruto with their power levels and their five episodes to shiv some dude with an oversized flashy blast of energy. Generally speaking, people who like studio J.C's line of action anime will probably like this one as well.
If you feel like watching this show, by the way, take my advise and skip the filler. It pulls down the score, especially considering how fans were probably baying for the beginning of the next manga arc to be animated instead.
Enjoyment: 6/10 -- "Not exactly bad in and by itself, but the filler gets a mite tiresome", Grudgeal somewhat sadly concludes.
As an action show, Railgun does its job competently enough in keeping me entertained, and it had less of the annoying loli and silly villains that Index had (although it has a fairly silly filler villain of its own). The occasional light-comedy interlude does ok, but the gags grow a little stale over time and it's not up to snuff with, say, Fullmetal Alchemist or anything here. The main problem, and here *I'm* getting tiresome, is the filler episodes, who are quite unimaginative and just feel like rethreads of earlier episodes, and in some cases earlier shows. In addition there's the nagging little voice I get whenever the show begins shifting into a slice-of-life comedy with four cute girls, kind of trying to ignore that it's a superpower shonen fight anime.
While looking at the day-to-day life of Misaka and her friends isn't exactly a *bad* way to pass the time, it isn't much in the way of quality entertainment either and my interest tended to skip a lot through said sections. Ultimately, this show just isn't gripping enough for 24 episodes and I think I can say quite frankly that this show could have been more enjoyable with just 12 or 13. Sad but true.
Total: 5.5/10 -- "You are already... Dead Fairly mediocre.", Grudgeal opens the summary with, intending to make the last MISAKA impression for tonight.
In a way, I kind of feel bad about giving this show a five. Like with Code Geass R2 and Kemono no Souja Erin, I think I wanted to enjoy this show a lot more than what eventually turned out to be the case once the less stellar elements starting cluttering up. There's no real way around it, though: While Railgun is still a better show than Index, it's neither that much better, nor really that great a show on its own either. It's not bad by any means; the core cast is decent and the first arc is interesting to watch, but the aggravated filler and its own sort of lack of excelling in any particular field keeps it from being truly good.
Still. If they're animating the next arc from the manga some day, I'll be having a look at it. Just don't expect me to stick around for any filler they decide to pad out *that* season with, Grudgeal concludes... Damn.
