A Certain MoeMoe Railgun S – Ep.14 – (and How I Came to Accept Touma)

Probably – no, easily the most powerful and incredibly made episode in the entirety of Railgun, Railgun S, and I’m willing to bet Index as well. Hell, one of the best episodes I’ve seen of anything in a long time. It’s another episode that was covered before in Index, however it just was not done REMOTELY on the same fucking level as it was here. As much as I hate Index, I’m not saying it for that reason – even huge Index fans are talking about how much better this was done here. It was just so fucking perfectly done. Every single aspect of it was above and beyond even the best other shit in the franchise and some of the best that I can think of in anime in general.

“Masterpiece” doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s truly one of the very best things I have ever seen in my entire history of watching anime. It’s fucking so amazing I genuinely cannot describe it at all.It’s something you have to experience yourself – and then when you do you’ll be in the same situation I am. I have felt pretty strongly about some stuff in anime before and how amazing it was – but this is the first time I’m seriously just incapable of finding the words.It’s the first time I’ve ever felt this way over anything in any entertainment medium.

One of the most amazing things about this episode though was Rina Satou, Biribiri’s seiyuu. The performance wasn’t only perfectly spot on, but felt so fucking real every step of the way. It was to the point I wouldn’t be surprised if Satou was genuinely feeling exactly what Mikoto was throughout the episode. Afterall it is a character she’s grown to know and love very deeply after working as her for so long, and this was a really both painful and beautiful episode. Her performance was just outstanding though and, without a doubt, her best work ever. Not just as Mikoto, but against all her other roles as well. Hell, it was one of the most well performed scenes I’ve seen in anime period.

This stuff was way too horribly sad and painful to hear from her.

It wasn’t just the intonations, the shaky scared and hurt yet strong as you’d expect from Biribiri way of speaking she had; it was that you could really feel her breaking, you could feel her resolve to do anything yet at the same time her knowledge of being helpless, the desperation, you could feel all of it through her voice so genuinely and sincerely. The writing of the dialogue itself helped a lot too. Just hearing that stuff was so fucking difficult to listen to that I almost couldn’t bare watching – I know I’ve said things like that a lot lately with this show, but this episode had some parts I literally had to pause for a few moments because it really was just so horrible hearing her say these things and sounding so sincere about all of them that I couldn’t take it.

Of course, just seeing her like that alone was also amazingly impactful because they did such a perfect job of it, just look at her – this is something genuinely special and that isn’t done this well almost ever. The level of animation, art quality, cinematography, and directing in this episode is some of the best I’ve ever seen.

It was so fucking powerful and moving throughout the entire latter half of the episode that I can’t even explain it well at all. It’s one of those things that has to speak for itself, and oh it does it ever do that. I’d say the MOST amazing thing about it though is that it did all this on such a high level, yet managed to feel so real and natural. Most stuff like this in anime, no matter how well done, comes off as a little forced or done in a way that makes it feel less than realistic. This though, it felt real. It really did. Nothing about it felt less than natural, which made it so much more powerful as well.

I remember in Chobits when I was a kid and first watched it the dude boning his teacher said something that wasn’t original or anything, but it was the first time I had heard it at that age. He said that a woman is most beautiful when she’s crying – and it’s never been more true than with Biribiri in this episode. She was simultaneously at her most beautiful while also being so painfully heart breaking to look at, especially after everything she was saying.

I did have more I wanted to get into, but I feel like it’s best if I leave the post as it is now. I’ll quickly add though, Touma was great in this episode too – and I really do mean fucking great. It made me like him a lot more and, for just a second, I felt a bit like supporting the two of them as a couple. Yeah, the episode made me like him that much, so much that I’d genuinely be happy with them ending up together at some point waaayyy down the line of the light novels or whatever. It was a beautiful episode and his role in it was a huge reason for that; I still don’t feel that, as the sole main character in Index he’s a good character, but maybe in the light novels and definitely in Railgun he’s a good character and someone who, amazingly enough, I have to say I’m glad exists in the franchise after having watched the past few episodes.

Anyway, I really fucking loved this episode and every single aspect of it. I knew Railgun S was on a different level than a lot but holy shit. I’m going to stop here though because the mood I ended up setting by mistake is something I’d rather not ruin.

I hope you enjoyed this ep as much as I did. See you next week, and remember – be power smart and conserve electricity ~biribiri!

And yeah, I had some tears. Just a little though.