Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S Episode 14 Review
とある科学の超電磁砲（レールガン）S
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As Kuroko worries about Mikoto, she hears the door chime and sees on the monitor that it is Touma. She’s not happy to see him, but decides to speak with him and buzz him in. After reaching their room, Touma finds Kuroko lying on Mikoto’s bed and figures she must be a pervert of some kind. While they chat, the dorm supervisor comes by. Since Kuroko’s powers don’t work on Touma, she stuffs him under the bed so that when the dorm supervisor enters the room, he’s not seen. Kuroko says Mikoto is sleeping and complains about noise.  While she is gone, Touma discovers the evidence Mikoto had gathered on the Level 6 Shift project and decides to go after her.

As he looks through the city, he realizes that Mikoto must have known about the project and the murder of the Sisters. Meanwhile, Mikoto ponders her situation on a bridge outside the city when she is found by Touma. Mikoto tries to act like her normal self when she’s around him, but he’s not interested in the games, revealing he knows about the Level 6 Shift project by revealing the documents. Mikoto is briefly taken aback, but again tries to play cool.  Again, Touma isn’t in the mood for games and says he was worried about her. She’s surprised by this, saying it is nice for him to say, even if a lie. Touma firmly states it isn’t a lie, causing Mikoto’s act to fail completely.

Mikoto speaks of how docile the Sisters are and of her determination to save them, even at the cost of her life in a final fight with Accelerator.  With Tree Diagram gone, she feels sacrificing herself is her only course of action. Touma disagrees with her logic, angering Mikoto. Since he won’t let her pass, she says she’ll attack. He puts his hands up and says he won’t fight her. Eventually, Mikoto calls his bluff and blasts him. She’s stunned it worked as Touma is sent flying back. He gets up and has kind words for her, which she feels she doesn’t deserve.

Since he still won’t move, she sends a devastating attack, knocking Touma out. When he comes to, Mikoto is crying because she could have killed him. Touma comforts her, saying that he has a plan. If a Level 0 beats Accelerator, then that should stop the experiments since it would be completely outside of anything that had been predicted by Tree Diagram and show Accelerator has a weakness. Mikoto warns Touma that Accelerator is a monster in power level compared to her and that Touma will die.  However, Touma doesn’t intend to die and promises he’ll bring back Misaka Imouto.

Thoughts/Review:

On the off chance you were wondering, this chapter was adapted from A Certain Scientific Railgun manga volume five, the last half of chapter 34, most of chapter 35, and elements from the light novel A Certain Magical Index volume 3.

Changes. Since the entire Touma visit with Kuroko was from Index, it is sorta hard to know the extent of the changes there. However, the manga had Kuroko accepting the fact that “Oneesama” probably needed Touma right now (prior to his visit) whereas that element wasn’t in this episode, nor episode 11 of Index.  Beyond that, there were no significant changes.

As I indicate above, I did watch episode 11 of Index.  It still surprises me how the tone of things are not as dark in Index as they had seemed when I first watched it. The scenes played out are the same, but the tone is just different and better in Railgun.

Regardless of that, I loved this episode. Yeah, Mikoto became all filled with angst, but her thinking is what I’d consider normal teenage thinking. “Maybe my death will have some effect on the world around me.” She’s too emotionally involved now to think straight, and that’s proven not only with her suicide attack strategy, but the fact that she hammered Touma hard; the second time could have been fatal.

While I’m not much of a Touma fan when I watch him in the Index animes, this episode is Touma at his best. He’s being rational, forcing Mikoto off her suicidal path. Further, he has a plan that would actually work. After all, if a Level 0 defeats the most powerful esper in the world, then the research on the Level 6 Shift project goes into chaos because something happens outside of the expected norm.  I’m looking forward to seeing how Railgun handles the fight between himself and Accelerator even though I’ve already seen it in Index and read it in the manga.

Beyond that. I don’t find a lot more to comment on. Again, I am so thankful that the production team is being so faithful in their adaptation here, including the Index elements of the story that are incorporated to give us the entire Sisters story. I look forward to seeing more of this.