とある科学の超電磁砲（レールガン）/Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 16 (manga review) 

–> Purchase A Certain Scientific Railgun Volume 16 from Amazon.com!

When we left off, the plot forced things so that Saten could be useful. Let’s see where A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 16 takes things.

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  

Kimi physically roughs up Uiharu to get her help as a hacker. She then threatens the orphanage Uiharu donated her prize money to. Since the guards are mindless under Kimi’s control, Uiharu pretends to go along. She raises the room temp, using her own esper ability to not pass out. Once the guards pass out, she escapes. Meanwhile, the disguised Saten looks for Uiharu.

Meanwhile, Kimi recalls how she met Raifu, Suzuran, Tsurigane, and a girl named Honoka in an orphanage for Child Errors. After the older Suzuran became too old for the orphanage, the other four girls were given over to scientists, supposedly to help them. Instead, the experiments were part of the Dark May Project, where their brains where operated on. This caused some change in personalities and power levels, some good, some bad. Eventually, they escape and destroy the lab, thanks to Honoka sacrificing her life.

In the present, Uiharu’s escape becomes known. Saten heads to the roof, knowing how her friend thinks. However, Kimi waits for them at the gate, attacking Saten. Mikoto arrives and engages Kimi in battle. She creates decoys to try to let Saten and Uiharu escape. As such, Kimi uses the Angel Dragon feathers to poison Saten. Kimi tells Uiharu that since Saten wasn’t prepped, she can do nothing short of getting the dragon separated from her.

Suzuru takes Saten to the infirmary. Since the dragon is taking over Kimi, Suzuru helps Uiharu learn the truth of Kimi’s powers. She can create black holes. Uiharu believes the dragon feeds off the energy of one Kimi created in another part of the galaxy. Somehow, Uiharu begins changing reality to cause the dragon to separate from Kimi and turn to bone, allowing Mikoto to destroy it.

Saten Continues

I love Saten as a character. I really do. Despite this, I don’t like it that Kamachi-sensei wrote a lot of rubbish in A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 16 to try to make her relevant. While I get and accept young espers doing amazing things, I can’t accept some middle age guard blindly accepting a 13-year old girl as one of the prison guards. Yes, everyone wore convenient eye masks ’cause “plot”.

“But AstroNerdBoy–Kimi controls all the guards. They aren’t thinking for themselves.” Well, they think well enough when the plot requires it. Even still, it is an impossible stretch for Saten to pass herself off as a guard. And I think Kamachi-sensei knows this, since he had Saten fantasize about beating up the guards, then coming up with a logical escape plan. Even that plan, putting Uiharu in a guard uniform, is a stretch. I doubt in reality, guard uniforms would come in petite sizes for young teen girls. 😅

While Saten’s escape with Uiharu was foiled, that too was apparently all part of the plan. Yes, it allowed Mikoto to make a dramatic and cool entrance. However, it is still a major plot convenience. It required Kimi to discover Saten and Uiharu running to the gate. And it needed Kimi to kill the power to the gate to prevent Uiharu from hacking it. Thus that allowed Mikoto to detect them and blast through. Cool or not, everything is contrived.

Still, while I have an issue with this, because I find the overall story and characters so interesting, I can let it slide.

More Child Error Horrors

It has become a cliche at this point, but A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 16 gives us another horrifying tale of child abuse, this time with Child Errors again. It is already tragic enough that a Child Error is an esper child, abandoned by their parents. (They could be orphans as well.) No wonder Tsurigane became so messed up and turned on her ninja clan. Her brain had been operated on for this Dark May Project. So she was no longer the same person.

Likewise, all of the other girls were changed as well. But, they still had a strong bond to each other, which seems to have been enhanced by their time together. That would explain why Honoko’s death still haunts Kimi, even though Kimi only wants excitement. It also explains why the girls came up with the scheme to break Kimi out of prison. Hopefully, we’ll learn why she was in the prison. It is possible that due to the AIM jammers in the prison, it was to contain Kimi and her terrifying black hole power.

Regardless, it makes these Child Errors an object of pity. This is a case where their actions are due a great deal to what was done to them. If I had to guess, we may see these girls sent to some special psych ward. Suzuru didn’t get operated on, so I’d guess she goes to prison, but maybe with a lenient penalty. After all, her motivation was to get her “sisters” from the orphanage back together as a family.

As for Kimi, assuming the Second Reformatory Prison gets back to normal, I guess she’d have to stay here to block her powers from accidentally destroying the solar system with a black hole. The other choice is to kill her.

Mikoto vs. Kimi, Round 2

In their first clash, Kimi surprised Mikoto by summoning the Angel Dragon. However, in A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 16, Mikoto is certainly more prepared. Despite having fought Raifu, Mikoto is still able to hang in there with Kimi. Just as in her battle with Raifu, fighting isn’t Mikoto’s objective. At the start, Mikoto’s engagement of Kimi was to try to allow Saten to escape with Uiharu. I really appreciate that about Mikoto’s strategy.

Granted, Mikoto got knocked down again, but she got up again. You’re never going to keep her down! 😜

I do like Mikoto’s growing maturity in combat situations. Even though she failed to get Saten and Uiharu out, she didn’t panic, nor lose her cool. She’s got a lot of battle experience at this point and it shows. To that end, she’s able to figure out Kimi’s disdain for those who protect. What I liked most about this is how Mikoto reflects on her own weaknesses as a person. While Touma is not mentioned by name, it is clear that his actions have impacted Mikoto greatly.

The volume ends with Mikoto apparently obliterating the dragon and punching Kimi in the gut. In my mind, this fight should be over next volumes, but we’ll see.

Uiharu’s Power

Uiharu gets her chance to shine in A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 16. I don’t think I knew what her powers were until this volume. But this volume not only shows her using her esper abilities, but there’s even a page within chapter 117 about Uiharu and her abilities. I always figured she had some sort of ability with computers, since she was so good at it. Either that or she had some sort of botanical power, considering the flowers she wears on her head.

At the end of the volume, Kamachi-sensei gives Uiharu a deus ex machina moment. However, unlike Saten’s “let’s give the mostly useless person in a combat situation something to do”, Uiharu’s felt more earned. Her computer skills have long been established. So I can more easily believe that she reprogrammed the prison’s AIM suppressors to give her a temporary, deus ex machina power.

I’m still not a fan of this deus ex machina moment, even if I like seeing Uiharu doing something amazing. The problem with deus ex machina is that the writer put themselves into a corner and need that big, magic, red, reset button to get themselves out of the corner. So it feels cheap, though as I said, at least with Uiharu, it comes off as more earned, with a side of “nakama power.”

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 16 covers a wide range from action, character growth, deus ex machina, and more jacked up goings on in Academy City. I’m looking forward to seeing how the resolution goes.