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Alternate Titles: A Certain Scientific Railgun S

By Mitsugi:

The first season of Railgun was largely a disappointment.  The anime really underachieved in what could have ended up being a great science fiction, action anime.  However, the show just couldn’t break away from the moe, fluff and inevitably, the show threw away episode after episode, spending their entire run times on moe and filler.

When I started Railgun season 2, I was very tentative that it would be more of the same of the first season of Railgun.  This was a fear that I think a lot of people shared and as a result, many people didn’t make the plunge into Railgun S.

Railgun S is broken down into two stories. The first arc, the Sister’s Arc, is a story about Accelerator, Misaka, and her sister’s.  This arc makes up about 16 of the 24 episode run time, with the final fist full of episodes being devoted to an entirely different, but not necessarily lesser story.

This review will mostly cover the first, and primary arc of the Railgun S story. Long ago, Misaka agreed to have her genetic code copied for use in disease curing experiments.   The real intent behind this borrowing was the advancement of Accelerator, a level 5 esper, and currently the most powerful in academy city.  To this end, Misaka’s genetic code is cloned many times to create, “training dummies” for use in combat practice. This of course, doesn’t sit well with Misaka and driven by guilt, she sets out on a personal mission to destroy the experiments.

This was a really great story arc.  In addition to having a huge amount of action, and very little moe filler, the antithesis of the prior season, it also touched upon ethical and moral issues such as the value of human life.  The stunning action was on par with other fantastic action based shows from the Spring/Summer 2013 seasons such as Attack on Titan and Majestic Prince.  The animation also received quite a substantial boost from the prior season of railgun.  Railgun was a hugely popular series in Japan, so the budget boost for its sequel wasn’t too surprising.

The morale issues are something that torment Misaka throughout the first arc.  She understands that life is valuable no matter what and rejects the experiments that clearly have no respect for this viewpoint.  The story also touches upon “what it means to be human”, as the Sister’s are born into the world through science and not through normal biological means.

The only thing I really didn’t care for from the first story was the conclusion.  It really ended quite anticlimactically with the final fight with Accelerator.  It lacked the length and intensity of prior fights we had in the season despite the build up that the Accelerator fight carried.

All in all, this first arc was excellent and a huge improvement over the first season of Railgun.  I thought it was action packed, incredibly well paced, well animated and fun.  It lacked a large amount of the moe fluff filler that plagued the first season.    All in all, I enjoyed it more than some other anime, including Attack on Titan, which were touted as the best of the season.  I thought it had better action, was just as engaging and certainly had a much higher budget.  I recommend this show to anybody who likes action, science fiction and generally a lot of fun.

 [starrater]