a certain scientific railgun

By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Nan Rymer.

The beloved and sadly very out of print Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga had one of its chapters dedicated to the subject of “power creep” in shonen manga, which Railgun definitely falls under, despite its magazine technically falling under the seinen umbrella. (Dengeki Daioh’s readership is basically “otaku, of any genre”.) If you have a bad guy that you defeat, then the next villain has to be slightly more powerful, and so on and so forth till you’re eventually fighting against the biggest threat in the entire universe, and it all gets a bit silly. Railgun has that issue, but not for its villains – instead, it’s the heroines who struggle with it. We’ve already seen Misaka nearly go out of control when they tried to force her to evolve to Level 6. Now here we see Uiharu, who is supposedly a Level 1 “thermos”, force-evolving her hacking powers to literally rewrite reality in order to save the day, which… I suspect we won’t be seeing down the road.

Of course, that is not the only thing that Uiharu does in this volume. This is her arc, after all, and after spending most of the last volume on ice, she’s back in command here, showing us the same strength that allowed her to stare down Kakine and suffer only a broken collarbone. We even see her – gasp! – use her ability, rather than her hacking, in order to escape from her guards, and it’s a very clever usage as well. That said, the bad guys also know what her weak spot is. Railgun’s yuri poster child may be Kuroko, but I suspect the number of fans who think Misaka and Kuroko will end up together is zero. But Uiharu and Saten have just as much if not more subtext, and this volume really hammers it home. Uiharu is so dedicated to Saten that she’ll suffer great pains to get to her. And when told Saten has been fatally poisoned, Uiharu almost turns evil, to the point where she is literally just a cloud of blackness… until Saten, who is dying but not dead, snaps her out of it, saying that’s not the path she should follow. The Fullmetal Alchemist fan in me was recalling a similar scene, let me tell you.

On the down side, it’s not that I dislike any of the young kids who are being forced by Academy City’s evil science department to become supervillains, it’s just… we’ve seen this backstory about eight different times in Railgun alone, and it’s hard not to have the first thing I think be “here we go again”. Honestly, it’s something of a wonder that Mikoto ended up as well-adjusted as she is, and she’s the one with a super fiery temper. The other problem is that the arc doesn’t end in this book – there’s one epilogue chapter to go… which means we’ll have to wait till (presumably) 2022 to see if Saten survived (signs point to yes) and if Uiharu remains the most powerful being in the world (signs point to no). That said, this volume is quite strong and fans of the series should love it.

By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Nan Rymer.

In my last review I extolled the praises of Uiharu, whose mad hacker skills were impressive enough to break someone out of an unbreakable prison. Sadly, it turns out that she got noticed by the Dark Side of Academy City, as she’s kidnapped here. Unfortunately, she’s pure peril monkey for the rest of the volume, so it’s up to the other three members of the cast to step up. Do they rescue her? Not yet. Are they badass? Aw yiss. We get to see Mikoto, Kuroko and Saten all show off their best sides as they fight to rescue their friend. Which is not so impressive for Mikoto – it is her series, after all. And we’ve seen Kuroko be badass before, both here and in Index. The more Railgun manga we see, though, the more I remain convinced that it’s an excuse to show off Saten rather than any other Biri-biris who might be lying around. She doesn’t even have a baseball bat this time, but is amazing.

The first two thirds of the book are well done and yet will feel familiar to the Railgun reader. The bad guys here are all teenagers, for the most part, and Index/Railgun has hammered home over and over again that their lives are basically experiments for various bad adults. As a result, Mikoto gets a chance to try to talk the enemy down, which… well, doesn’t work, but hey, she tried. I like the fact that the enemies by now are expecting Mikoto to be, well, a goody-goody, and while she insists that this is Touma’s job and not hers, it’s more or less accurate anyway. Also, salt-based attacks allows for more Biblical imagery in this Bible-heavy series. As for Kuroko’s battle, well, she’s cool and clever, but the “my yuri fantasies can beat up your yuri fantasies” bit was as ridiculous as ever.

And then there’s Saten, who discovers that Uiharu has been kidnapped and begs her friends to have her come along and help. This proves sensible, as while Mikoto and Kuroko both pursue leads that turn out to be false, Saten does what she does best – play detective. She’s questioned for the fallout of the battle between powered folks that happened around her, and, due to various plot-related reasons, this is done in the very prison we’d seen before… where, as it turns out, our enemy is really based. Sadly, they have the world’s dumbest prison guards there, and as a result Saten is able to break out pretty easily. Of course, getting to where Uiharu might be requires jumping between two buildings that are not that close together, and Saten is, as she reminds us, a Level 0. Does she make it? Of course. She’s fighting for her girlfr— erm, best friend!

Again, I suspect Saten is in this story, along with Hamazura in the main Index series, to remind us that Academy City’s “Level” system is complete and total bullshit. That said, I’m fairly sure she’s not gonna rescue Uiharu all on her own. This is shaping up to be another big arc, so we’ll have to wait a month or two… or ten… to find out what happens next. (And with the Index novels now seemingly over in North America, we’re not even getting to tide ourselves over with the main series.) Still, this was an excellent volume. If you take away anything from it, think of Saten, leaping between those buildings and making it – bear-ly – due to the power of conviction and borrowing other people’s technology.

By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Nan Rymer, Adapted by Patrick Sullivan.

Out of the ‘core four’ heroines in Railgun, Uiharu Kazari has probably gotten the least amount of focus time. She’s the hacker friend of the bunch, and would be the weakest esper except that Saten is a Level 0, and Saten is also outgoing whereas Uiharu isn’t. But we’re past the events of Index 15, where Uiharu stared down a dangerous Level 5 in order to protect a child (and got a broken collarbone for her troubles), so we know that she’s made of sterner stuff. As a result, she gets a bit of the spotlight in this volume of Railgun, though true to her character most of the “spotlight” is spent offscreen. A prison is trying to boast of its impregnability, and asks students to try to infiltrate it and free a prisoner. There’s a big cash reward, so Saten’s in, and Mikoto’s pride is tweaked, so she’s there as well. But how impregnable is it really?

The volume opens with a lovely series of scenes where Uiharu takes Saten out on a date to try to cheer her up as she’s been down lately, and Saten admits (though doesn’t specify) that she’s upset about Frenda’s disappearance. (As with most yuri relationships in Railgun that don’t involve Kuroko, there is plausible deniability here, but the entire chapter reads as REALLY yuri if you ask me.) The majority of the volume, however, shows off the huge cast of Railgun that we’ve met over the last few volumes, as they’re also trying to get into the facility – along with some “new” characters, who readers of Index will recognize from the New Testament novels but we’re seeing in the timeline for the first time, who run the gamut from goofy to helpless to dangerous – well, actually, the goofy and helpless girls ARE the dangerous ones.

Everyone is busy using their powers to break into the facility, fight the robots that try to stop them, and get taken out by various scientific marvels, but it’s Uiharu who (we see, after the reveal that the contest is over) comes up with the best plan – hack the robots, hack the cameras, hack the security and waltz away with the prisoner. It’s a good reminder of how lucky we are that she’s on the side of the angels, and there’s a very amusing joke where she talks about donating all her winning to charity because after all, she can always hack into a bank for money anytime she wants. Unfortunately, there was a new “villain group” of students at the event, all of whom are traitors of some sort, and they’ve decided that their plan really needs someone like Uiharu in it. I smell a kidnapping coming up. In the meantime, let’s hope the wait for the next volume of Railgun isn’t as long as this one was.

By Kazuma Kamachi and Yasuhito Nogi. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Astral Buddy” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Nan Rymer. Adapted by Maggie Danger.

Let’s face it, spinoffs from A Certain Magical Index are obvious. Leaving aside the fact that both Mikoto and Accelerator, owners of the two other manga spinoffs, are far more popular than either Touma OR Index, the series is simply littered with people you want to have their own series. Even if you put that aside and regard this as purely in the “Railgunverse”, which it is, there’s still an awful lot that you could focus on besides the adventures of the main four girls in the cast. The most obvious, of course, being Misaki, but she’s already gotten a sizeable role in the Railgun franchise already. So who do you turn to? Who’s the next breakout star? If you answered “that princess curl girl with no name that Misaki mentally abuses”, then you’ve cheated and read ahead. Let’s face it, no one expected this girl to lead a series.

See, even the cover artist agrees with me. Front and center are Kuroko and Misaki, posing as if they know why readers are REALLY buying this book. Way in the background is princess curl girl, who finally gets a name, Junko, and the “astral buddy” (awful pun there, btw) who is haunting/stalking her and drives the main plot. Someone is theoretically assaulting people around Misaki… only it turns out they’re assaulting people around Junko, who is a bright and shiny pile of naivete (as we’ve seen in the main Railgun series when she’s made brief appearances). Once that plot point is resolved, and Junko is assured that girls can in fact like other girls (a constant thread in this volume, no surprise given Kuroko’s all over it), we move on to Junko’s new ghost friend, who may or may not be a ghost. And Misaki’s still around, of course, but for once she’s the damsel in distress.

This takes place right around the Indian Poker arc in Railgun, for timeline fanatics. Mikoto is not in it, probably as she’d match up too well with Junko – Junko is bright and shiny where Mikoto runs on frustration and grumpiness, but they’re essentially very similar people. The rest of the Railgun core all have significant appearances, though. As for Junko herself, the narrative is a bit kinder to her now that she’s the focus of a series. We see she’s a Level 4, and her powers do indeed look pretty damn handy – it’s almost like a “quirk” from My Hero Academia. (Arguably, all of Academy City is.) Even the annoying mind control gag from Railgun, where Junko is always dieting but Misaki, when annoyed, makes her overeat to offset it, gets an “amusing” spin – Junko is gaining weight, but it’s all in her chest. The actual plotline has barely started, but that’s certainly an impressive cliffhanger.

So in the end, I was prepared for this to be the most cynical franchise cash-in yet, given it’s a spinoff starring “who?”, but it proved surprisingly entertaining, and I have new respect for Junko, who’s a bit of an airhead but sweet. Aside from the usual “Kuroko is a predatory lesbian” warnings, this should be an excellent pickup for Railgun fans.

By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Nan Rymer, Adapted by Maggie Danger.

I’ve talked before about how the Railgun manga is far more tied into its parent than most other spinoffs I’ve seen. For one thing, it actually feels like it’s written by Kamachi. Most spinoffs tend to have the original writer simply give approval to stories that the artist has come up with themselves (the Nagato Yuki spinoff is a good example), but events in this book and the previous one are interconnected with Index’s 15th novel. Not only that, they enhance the novel itself – the last book saw Frenda get the character development she never got in Index for obvious reasons, and allowed someone to actually grieve for her. And the use of Scavenger, the spinoff Dark Side group that’s appeared in both Railgun and the Accelerator spinoff, allows us to expand on the purpose of these dark Side groups: they’re broken kids who’ve been screwed over by authority, but not necessarily evil.

Touma wasn’t in Index 15, and readers of Railgun who always dread his spotlight-stealing appearances will be grateful to know he’s not in this volume either. This puts the focus on Mikoto, who is in heroic good guy mode here, even though she’s missing the rest of her core team. (I assume that Kuroko and Saten are helping Uiharu recover from her broken collarbone.) Misaki steps in admirably, though, and the two are almost getting along, though that thought may make Mikoto ill. (It’s notable that the only time Mikoto really gets (offscreen) pissed off is when Seike mistakes her for a guy. Femininity is always a touch point for her.) One of the best things in this volume is seeing Leader, the cold-mask-wearing Scavenger girl, constantly trying to outthink Mikoto as she assumes that she’ll die going against a SECOND Level Five, only to finally be won over by Mikoto’s innate niceness.

As for the main plotline involving Kuriba, it continues to get into the nature of existence in the Indexverse, and how that’s a fluid, individual and personal thing. Her doppelganger is rampaging as she knows that she does not, in fact, have a soul. This doesn’t seem to bother Mikoto, but once it’s clarified that living with that knowledge is agony and torture, she’s willing to help end her pain. And, as with almost every Railgun plotline since the beginning that hasn’t involved Touma, this all turns out to be the result of scientific experimentation gone amoral. I’m not sure how I feel about Misaki solving the problem by memory erasure, but then she’s always been a morally ambiguous girl herself – she’s never going to be the innocent sweetie pie Mikoto has at her core.

So we wrap up the Indian Poker arc here, and I assume the next volume will start a new one. 14 isn’t out in Japan yet, so expect another long wait. In the meantime, for Index fans who always liked Railgun better, this is a perfect volume for you – Mikoto really shines!

By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa. Released in Japan as “Toaru Kagaku no Railgun” by ASCII Media Works, serialization ongoing in the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Nan Rymer, Adapted by Maggie Danger.

Warning: the first paragraph of this review, above the picture, is spoiler-free for the most part. After that I will not only be spoiling the volume itself, but also A Certain Magical Index 15, which comes out in May 2018 from Yen On. Most Index fans know this spoiler well, but for the casual readers among you who have only read Railgun, stop after the first paragraph. This is a solid Railgun volume, with thankfully little to no fanservice (Kuroko is absent, which helps). It’s a book of two halves, the first of which features Saten and Frenda meeting by chance and bonding over canned fish, then getting caught up in a nasty situation because Saten has once again been mistaken for something more than she is. The second half sets up a new arc as Mikoto and Misaki investigate a girl who is yet another Secret Project of Academy City’s endless array of mad scientists. Railgun readers should enjoy this.

OK, spoiler-free time is over. THIS BOOK HAS SO MANY DEAD PEOPLE. A lot of what Kamachi has been doing with Railgun (and unlike most spinoffs of popular light novels, you can tell he has a major hand in this series) has been to fill in the blanks between Index volumes where Touma wasn’t around, not just from Mikoto’s perspective but also others. He’s also taken a lot of the cast and expanded their roles immensely to give them depth, and no one’s a more obvious example of that than Frenda. We’ve seen Frenda multiple times through Railgun, first as a villain in part of the Railgun-only Sisters arc, then again in the Railgun anime ending helping Mikoto take out a Big Bad, and then various spotty cameos. Now she gets a big focus story as she works to help save Saten – despite the fact that she wonders why the hell she’s doing this – from the machinations of SCHOOL, a dark organization which is using Indian Poker for its own nefarious ends. Frenda really is likeable here, and when she and Saten text each other at the end, you smile, hoping she’ll turn up again.

But to the reader of Index Novel 15, which came out 8 years before these Railgun chapters, this is tragedy. Because Frenda dies, ripped in half as revenge for being “a traitor”. The “One Week Later” at the end of the arc, showing Saten texting Frenda and getting no response, and seeing Uiharu at her door instead, is horrible, and meant to be incredibly depressing. Also, note that Uiharu’s shoulder and arm are in a sling – I suppose I should be grateful that Railgun isn’t going to cover that as well, as that’s also an Index 15 thing. Oh yes, and SCHOOL will, with one exception, also be entirely dead by the end of Book 15 (and in one case, good riddance – my lip curled when I saw Kakine on the page). As I said, this volume is crawling with people who, in the main series, die horribly. It CAN be read without knowledge of those events, and is still quite good. But for those who know what happens next, the first half of this volume is very different. I definitely recommend coming back to it later on after you read Index 15.