English Dub Review: A Certain Scientific Accelerator “Something to Protect”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Isaac continues to gloat as his power continues to escalate to the point that even Accelerator can’t resist its force. His form begins consuming the remaining DA agents, but that unexpectedly starts to influence his goals into finding “true justice for Academy City” just as DA sought. This flux allows Esther’s group to break through so that Accelerator can use his powers to escape and confront Isaac directly. Esther then attempts to strike him with her dagger, but he uses Hirumi’s voice to make her hesitate and miss her shot. Though it’s not like he’ll be able to take advantage of this, as Mikihito and Misaka 10046 cut off the access to the Coffin machine in order to cripple him and, along with everyone else helping, finally have Esther stab him with the dagger. With that, Isaac’s soul is finally exorcised from Hirumi, allowing her to have one last moment before dying to say goodbye to Esther and Mikihito, who also dies shortly after.

The monstrous form of Isaac’s body begins to break down, threatening a massive shockwave that will devastate the city, forcing Accelerator to use all of his power to contain and deflect the explosion, including unconsciously summoning his black wings. It works, though he’s gravely injured, because we all know he has to be alive in the second and third seasons of Index, he survives. In the aftermath, Yomikawa thanks him for his help in both stopping the experiment and finishing off DA. Esther tearfully removes Huotou’s pseudo-soul from Hasami Hitokawa’s body, which also removes Huotou’s memories of fighting together, but those memories will stay with Esther. She also says goodbye to Accelerator, who tells her to stay in the light.

As he contemplates the nature of “villainy”, Accelerator is attacked by drones who drop a mysterious package-carrying…a sleeping princess? To be continued?

OUR TAKE

And so ends the first season of A Certain Scientific Accelerator. It’s an ending with about as many questions as it provides answers, though it still ends up feeling pretty cookie cutter for a short anime season like this. I’ve probably reiterated this enough by now, but it really does feel like Accelerator himself has gotten pushed out of the spotlight of a series that has his name in the title. Luckily this finale does allow him to regain that to a degree, with him making the final struggle to save the city if only to protect Last Order AND to give us a peek as to where his powers will be going from there. Because, having covered the third season of Index, it’s a pretty rocky road ahead for the strongest Level 5 Esper in Academy City. However, while he certainly gets time to shine, it ultimately still feels like his development is stuck in a cul-de-sac because of where this series is placed. I feel like that wasn’t entirely necessary, as I’ve seen many interquels in other franchises that still manage to do interesting things with characters stuck in specific points in their character arcs, but I’ll get into that more in the Season Review.

We also see the wrapping up of the matters with the Rosenthals, the Hishigatas, and DA, who I didn’t think would come back in such a capacity as to be part of the villain’s downfall. I guess it does sort of bring us full circle to a degree, as they were part of what kicked this story off, but I’m having a hard time placing what this is supposed to say. Is it that having a zealot like a conviction for justice will only ever harm your cause? As for the Hishigatas, they at least got to go out on a high note, even if I still don’t have much idea as to how they allowed things to get this bad in the first place. And the Rosenthals, who apparently Esther is still the head of, will probably continue to screw up more science experiments in the future.

And we should probably mention that hook for the next arc at the end. At the time of this writing, the manga on which this series is based has not finished its second arc, which the next season would likely be based on, so I wouldn’t expect that season for quite some time, if ever. And frankly, with how the events of this arc never seem to come up in arcs in the main show that takes place after it, this might be an “Agents of Shield” situation where these things aren’t even actually connected, but in similar-looking universes that share a lot of characters. Though frankly, I don’t think I’d want the characters introduced here interacting with the main group anyway.