English Dub Review: A Certain Scientific Railgun “SYSTEM (Those Who Arrive at Heaven’s Will in an Only Human Body)”


OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After a recap that goes way too long, Gensei gloats about gaining the limiter unlock code from Misaki’s mind, supposedly leaving her a catatonic husk. But as it turns out, the code he inputs is actually the self-destruct, destroying Exterior much to Gensei’s dismay. Apparently she Mental Out’d herself in order to lay a trap for him to take the wrong code and get rid of Exterior herself, which she still pieces together after waking up. Meanwhile, Kuroko continues her hunt for Mitori Kozaku, having cut off information coming from her to her goo clone. To make up for the lost camera, Mitori gains control of a relay camera to keep controlling her clone and keep Kuroko on the defensive, especially with her injuries and exhaustion catching up with her. However, Uiharu hacks into the camera to make a composite image to fool Mitori into thinking she’d killed Kuroko, which buys Kuroko time to find Mitori in the sewers and apprehend her.

Outside, Misaka’s Level 6 form becomes far more unstable and chaotic, but without Exterior or Mitori to control her, she begins to wake up and become conscious of things. Toma and Sogiita prepare themselves to finally stop her.

OUR TAKE

So, about that recap bit. In Japan, this was the first episode shown when the delays happening at certain studios started to happen, causing Episode 13 to air a week later than originally planned. After that, Episode 14 took another two week break followed by Episode 15 a week later, finishing the arc and I guess finally allowing the studio to go on break until later this month to cover the other story arc of this season. Considering that Funimation has been pretty consistent with releasing this series lately, we could see them finally catching up right in time for Episode 16 to air. But in the meantime, let’s discuss the episode at hand, which acts as a climax for two of the three major fights going on.

First is Kuroko’s fight with Mitori, which is a pretty cool balance of direct combat and technological deception, helped by Uiharu sneakily entering the battle in order to throw Mitori off just long enough for Kuroko to unleash some Judgement-brand judgement. It’s a very carefully plotted chess match all the way up until the end, which makes it a real thrill to watch. This could have been a lot less interesting to see unfold under the wrong directing or animation team, but it seems that extra week they got really paid off. We also get a little hint at more of Mitori’s history with Dolly, which is not the last we’ll be touching on with that.

Similarly, while the battle between Misaki and Gensei was pretty much over last episode, seeing the last reveal of Misaki’s final trump card was quite the psyche out. What do you do in a battle of the minds when one of the tools is reading the other player’s mind? Simply forget that you laid a trap so that even you don’t see it coming. The only other time I think I’ve seen that done in a similar fight would be Lelouch against Mao in Code Geass, where similar powers were in play and ended with a similar twist, but given that’s the only time I’ve seen that used in the fourteen years since that episode and it ALSO ends up being just as awesome is more of a testament to clever writing than much else. And again, more focus on Misaki’s connection to Dolly, which we will be seeing more of soon. Now that Misaka is finally awake again, it’s time for her to take her show back, though not without some crazy awesomeness from the protagonist of the main show first, which we will see in all its glory and confusion next episode…which will hopefully be next week.