[ellymate]

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - 06

Summary:

After a rash of small firework-like explosions around town, Kuroko tells Mikoto of how they’ve detected the rapid acceleration of gravitons prior to each explosion. The culprit is essentially turning aluminum into explosives, and the only person in the city who theoretically would be able to do this is currently in the hospital and thus has an alibi. Mikoto wants to help with the case, but Kuroko doesn’t want her getting involved. Mikoto, however, gets her chance after Uiharu accidentally leaves behind her Judgment armband, and Konori runs into her and mistakes her as a new member. She’s surprised to find that a lot of Judgment work is menial, such as having to clean up after people, but she also gets to do her share of helping people in need, and it’s harder than she expected. In the middle of this, Konori gets a call from Kuroko and Uiharu who had run into a little girl who had lost her bag. Remembering how Uiharu had told her earlier that the culprit was putting aluminum in children’s bags, Mikoto assumes this to be a dangerous case and searches all over the place with Konori.

While she’s doing this, Mikoto happens to pass by a couple of thugs who proceed to beat up a kid, and by the time she tries to break things up, the thugs have already backed off and the kid is already injured. The kid doesn’t show her any thanks though and instead is pissed off that she didn’t act quicker. In any case, Mikoto and Konori eventually find the dog that took the bag in a playground, and Mikoto is able to save the bag from falling into a fountain, though she herself gets soaked in the process. Even worse for her, she finds out that there was no bomb in this bag. In the aftermath, Kuroko and Uiharu arrive with the little girl and reunite her with her bag, and they’re surprised to see that Mikoto was helping Konori. For her part, Mikoto has a new appreciation for what Kuroko and Judgment does. Sometime later, two members of Judgment try to evacuate a convenience store, and one of them gets caught in a huge explosion that originates from a stuffed animal.

Preview



Well I guess that preview totally gives away who the culprit is. Not that it’s supposed to be a huge surprise, but at the same time, they don’t have to be so blatant about it. The episode itself wasn’t too bad though, and I loved watching Mikoto be hapless for once, particularly with her fear of bugs. I think my main problem with it was that, aside from some character development for Mikoto and a bit of set-up for next episode, a lot of the stuff about helping the little girl find her bag felt relatively inconsequential. It wasn’t until the epilogue part of the episode that things got exciting, and that’s mainly because there was an explosion and someone finally got hurt. Having read some of the manga, I know what they’re building up to, and while it’s not unexpected, it’s still worth mentioning that things are proceeding a bit on the slow side. On the bright side, next episode should be a lot more interesting to watch.


Reviewed by OMNI