English Dub Review: A Certain Scientific Railgun “Exterior”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Misaka’s Level 6 transformation becomes more and more elaborate and alien like as Toma and Sogiita try to turn her back to normal. As that’s happening, Kuroko continues battling Kozaku’s puppet and Misaki tries tailing Gensei to learn what exactly he wants with Exterior, but does put together that he’s going to use Misaka’s new power to control it. In fact, her power will be so great that she’ll completely come apart as a person if she reaches 100% of it. Misaki tries trapping Gensei in a room full of sleeping gas, but it seems he’s used some kidnapped Espers in order to absorb their powers, one of which is being able to melt through walls and freeze the air to trap her back. With that, he goes to observe Toma an Sogiita’s fight, but Misaki gets away.

Saten and Uiharu help Kuroko locate Kozaku in an abandoned building, but she takes a bit of damage in the fight. And while they deal with that, Misaki tries to get Gensei’s attention under the guise of trying to make a deal about information when really she’s trying to lure him into falling through a floor made up of changeable tiles. But he catches wise tries to catch her, only for those tiles to form a barrier to hold his hand in place! Except he also planned for that, turning the tables gaining control over her mind, as well as the limiter unlock code to Exterior.

OUR TAKE
Alright, the plot thickens as all the threads start to overlap our converge on each other, most notably Misaki versus Gensei. Much like Misaka trying to confront Accelerator, this is filled with the vibes of someone confronting the source of a major problem in their lives, which fits the relationship between Misaki and Gensei to the letter considering how much of a role he had in creating Exterior and was in charge of the traumatic experiences she dealt with in the past. Though to contrast Misaka and Accelerator, the battle between these two is one based on deception and planning, as both have cards to play all around that facility. Having gained control over the staff there, Misaki knows the building’s layout inside and out, while Gensei is someone who has planned for this at least a few dozen steps ahead of most people. And this is showcased in how much of Misaki’s plan he was able to pick up on and turn back on her, though we’ll see how much of that really sticks.

As for everything else happening, there isn’t a ton to report this week. Kuroko has made some major steps to finding Kozaku, which will probably lead to that fight’s conclusion with a strong game of cat and mouse, while Toma and Sogiita haven’t progressed much in stopping the ever evolving Level 6 Misaka. Although while it is a shame seeing the title character put in the back seat in this major battle within her own show, I have to say that they’ve managed to use the time and the focus wisely on a lot of interesting characters to fill her place for the time being. Although I imagine we’re pretty close to getting her back to being involved with the story pretty soon, as the arc only has a few episodes left. This was actually the last episode that aired regularly back when it came out in Japan, leading to sporadic releases of the last three episodes and the break the series is on now until later this month. Maybe the dub will catch up with the sub once again? Wouldn’t be the first time this season to happen, though I’m not sure what it’ll mean for how they approach it with so much of a backlog still left to go for Funi. I guess we’ll see what happens both in and out of universe whenever Railgun gets another release, which will hopefully be soon.