とある科学の超電磁砲（レールガン）/Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 15 (manga review) 

–> Purchase A Certain Scientific Railgun Volume 15 from Amazon.com!

Man, I’m certainly glad I purchased A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 15 a little over two years ago, even if I’m only just now reading it. It isn’t so easy to find in print form any more, part of a growing trend by manga publishers who’d prefer you get it digitally. 😑

NOTICE!!! In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I am the adapter for the official English translation of the True Tenchi Muyo! novels, which are also published by Seven Seas.

S P O I L E R S ! ! !

The Story, in Brief  

Saten raises an alarm when Uiharu disappears. Mikoto finds the vehicle, so Kuroko teleports to discover the kidnapped Uiharu. The ninja girl, Tsurigane, engages Kuroko. However, Mikoto stops the vehicle. Kimi emerges to fact Mikoto, summoning one of the dragons that Touma previously summoned. The dragon knocks Mikoto out, forcing Kuroko to teleport her to safety. The people who took Uiharu split up with two vehicles.

Mikoto tracks one, but comes up empty. Raifu, who’d been playing a victim, decides to battle Mikoto. Further, she starts fires so that unmanned military craft come to investigate, allowing her to use their weapons against Mikoto. After a lengthy battle, Mikoto triumphs, and decides she’ll hear Raifu out, as the “idiot” would.

Elsewhere, Kuroko tracks the second vehicle. Again, Tsurigane battles Kuroko. During the fight, the ninja lets out how she was saved as a child by the Kouga ninja clan. Her mission was to infiltrate Academy City as a Child Error to see what technology could be used by the Kouga. Despite taking a wound from Tsurigane, Kuroko eventually manages to win.

Meanwhile, Saten allowed herself to get arrested for the damaged caused by the Angel Dragon. As expected, she’s taken to the prison for interrogation, where Kuroko suspects Uiharu might be at. As the holding cells are full, she’s put in a low security area, allowing her to escape. Saten then finds a guard uniform to hunt for Uiharu.

Mikoto’s Fights

Mikoto’s first fight in A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 15 proved that the dragon summoned by Kimi was in fact one of Touma’s dragons. I still don’t understand how any of that worked, but hopefully, we’ll learn through this arc. Regardless, the dragon made easy work of Mikoto, clearly setting up a rematch down the road with higher stakes.

For her second fight, I laughed at how things got started. Mikoto isn’t there to fight. She’s there to see if the first car carried her kidnapped friend. She was just going to leave, despite the fact some Mohawk-haired punk had the helpless looking Raifu. What I love about Mikoto is her analytical ability. With each fight, she gets better at it, which is only natural. So she realized that Raiful wasn’t a victim and was ready to move on.

Ah, but battles are required in a shounen manga series. And while Raifu’s gravity manipulation powers prove a challenge for Mikoto, it wasn’t her most challenging fight. Frankly, I appreciate that ’cause it helps stop power creep. Instead, Mikoto has to use her mind to overcome the challenges Raifu presents.

At the end, Mikoto’s maturity comes forward. She recognizes her own limitations, and in her mind, she’s no hero. Touma is more the hero to her. Since she took a page from Touma’s book to offer to hear out Raifu, I’m hoping Raifu gives more backstory for her group.

Kuroko’s Fights

For both of Kuroko’s fights in A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 15, she has to fight the same person. The first fight wasn’t much of one, since Kimi and Mikoto soon took over center stage, even if briefly. However, the second fight was more of a survival thing for Kuroko. All throughout, Tsurigane had an advantage. Not only did she have her ninja skills, but her esper abilities to be able to predict where Kuroko would teleport to gave her a massive edge.

What’s interesting is that Tsurigane was ready to fight Mikoto. Her only real mistake was underestimating Kuroko, who’s also a “combat veteran” (both in the Railgun and Index series). Kuroko has always been a fast thinker, and she too has a very analytical mind. However, to me, she seems to act more on instinct than say Mikoto. No doubt, that’s because as a teleporter, she’s strong, but she’s not anywhere near as strong as Mikoto. However, that wit just barely allowed Kuroko to survive and squeak out a win.

What’s jacked up about this fight is that Tsurigane is somewhat insane. Her apparent dream is to be beheaded. Then in the moments her head might still be alive, her final sight would be her headless body. Like many in Academy City, it seems that whatever this Dark May Project was, it caused her to be this way. It is sad since the Kouga rescued her from wild dogs as a child. Now, the clan leader Oumi has to abandon her for turning on the clan.

Saten’s Challenge

As much as I like Saten, her part in the adventure is the weakest one in A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 15. Conveniently, Kamachi-sensei withholds information about the plan with Saten until the end of the volume, even though she got arrested early in the volume. There is a logic in having Kuroko and Mikoto go after the cars, in case Uiharu were captive in one of them. However, there’s plot convenience that Kuroko noticed the punks came from the Second Reformatory, where they’d done the jailbreak testing in the previous volume.

I guess Saten’s plan was to stall until the busses quit running, then the prison would be forced to keep her overnight? Other than lying to Anti-Skill, Saten committed no crime. However, plot convenience means all the holding cells are filled, so Saten gets stashed in the night duty nap room. Thus she’s easily able to escape, thanks to more plot contrivance. Then we get a minor retcon, whereby Saten has jumping ability, thanks to an Indian Poker card. Isn’t that convenient.

Ah, but it doesn’t stop there. Security is ultra lax in the areas of the prison Saten needs to get to. Not only that, but her giant, wall-sticking, cat paws are in a box, in an unguarded section of stuff from the jailbreak test. Sorry, but all this plot contrivance just takes me right out of the story.

Finally, Saten gets a security guard uniform. Conveniently, the guards wear masks! We’ve already been here and done that when Mikoto helped Misaki out in volume 9 of the manga. She too put on a guard’s uniform to disguise herself. It sucks that this was the only way to make Saten relevant to the story.

Omake

There’s a guest art of Saten along with a note from some other manga artists that Seven Seas didn’t bother to identify. 😓 Then there’s two pages of character design work for Kimi. That’s it.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 15 is mostly pretty good. Saten’s “adventure” in the prison is the weak point since the writing conveniently allows her to luck her way through.