Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T – 04 – Starry Eyes

Saten’s quest to find Shadow Metal hits a dead end with a dull thud when she’s caught snooping by ominous men in isolation suits. Misaka and Kuroko teleport to her and zap the men, but it’s all a misunderstanding: they’re a deep-cleaning crew responsible for preventing the illegal acquisition of esper DNA. The girls were the ones who were somewhere they shouldn’t have been.

I doubt that’s the end of Saten’s search for the semi-mythical metal. But it may be a while before it’s mentioned again, at least not until after a brutal cascade of events that end up all but burying Misaka are dealt with. Before that, however, the quartet finds a prime viewing spot for the nightly Daihesai fireworks display. I didn’t know it would be the last time for a while that the four are together as friends!

The next day, Wannai meekly asks Misaka for her gym clothes back, and Misaka realizes MISAKA never gave them back. With no events on her schedule, she uses her free time to fly around the city checking cameras for signs of MISAKA’s whereabouts. That leads her to two ambulance drivers she eventually suspects to be under Shokuhou’s influence.

Frustrated over her lack of progress in finding MISAKA and unwilling to reveal the secret of the Sisters, Misaka loses her temper and nearly assaults one of the drivers, leading to a confrontation with Antiskill and a punitive ride back to school and lecture about comporting herself properly from Headmistress Watanabe. Meanwhile, Kuroko, Uiharu and Saten are all “paused” by Shokuhou’s remote when her accomplice distracts them.

Due in part to Misaka’s own actions and loss of her cool, Watanabe assigns members of Shokuhou’s clique to “keep an eye on her” henchforth. One of the members is a telepath who can track Misaka wherever she goes. She may be a more powerful esper than any one of them, but all of them will be tougher, especially when she has to try to undertake a coherent investigation.

The last straw is when she encounters her three best friends…and they have no idea who she is. You do NOT mess with Misaka’s friends. Now no matter what Shokuhou says or does from here on out, we can be assured she’ll be on the end of some shocking retribution. Misaka also still has a few allies not yet under Shokuhou’s web of control. Fun-and-games time is officially over.

Dropped: RikeKoi

I couldn’t even get through the sixth episode, so it’s time to cut bait on this one. Himuro can be cute at times, but she and Yukimura are almost too (romantically) dumb to live, the art sucks, the science is very shaky and the show has become a repetitive snooze-fest.

Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun – 04 – Foxy Lady

When a beautiful woman appears she’s initially delighted to find that Nene, Kou and Hanako have constructed a human-ish body. But when she makes it move, it crumbles into a pile of parts; another “failure”she’ll add to the growing heap behind her, where Aoi and all the others who fell into her stairs lie, neither dead nor alive.

However, her scissors have the ability to turn a human (or a part of them) into a doll, so Hanako reiterates their goal of finding Misaki’s Yorishiro (or weakness). If the highest spot isn’t the deepest, then perhaps the lowest spot is…so he shoves Nene off the edge, and she falls, falls, and falls some more.

When she comes to she’s lying near the gate to a temple, surrounded by concerned Mokke. She finds a desk, an old photo, and a notebook that contains a kind of dialogue between a girl and her handwriting teacher. The handwriting gets better as the pages go on, but one day the teacher, named Misaki, doesn’t return.

Misaki, then, isn’t the woman in the kimono trying to turn everyone into dolls, but the teacher who abandoned her, likely when he died, or simply moved away. In any case, Nene now knows the woman’s weakness: a pair of haircutting scissors gifted to her by Misaki.

When the lady finds Nene and attacks her, Hanako intervenes, protecting Nene and giving her cover to make a run for the shrine containing the scissors. While the woman’s story is a sad one of unfulfilled love, she’s gone too far and way beyond her duties as a School Wonder. With her Yorishiro broken, Hanako strips her of her power.

Back in the realm of the living, Nene is safe and sound, while both a doll-ified Aoi, Kou, and all the other victims will be restored to their humanity. They were never dead, just trapped in between worlds. Then Hanako reveals the true form of the woman: an Inari statue in the form of a kitsune, or fox spirit.

In the past, Misaki-sensei befriended the ghost who inhabited the kitsune statue, name turns out to be Yako, and even included her when a photo was taken of him and his class. Yako grudingly agrees not to continue her mischief, but isn’t in a hurry to befriend Nene nor anyone else.

This latest School Wonder case thus solved, the black crane, really a black Haku-joudai  hiding in Nene’s hair, returns to its master, who then returns it to his master, a green-haired girl wearing the same uniform as Nene. She seems pleased things worked out. I assume at she’ll reveal herself and her intentions to Nene and/or Hanako at some point.

Somali and the Forest Spirit – 04 – Despair, Deferred

In what seems to be a recurring practice of presenting then defusing potential threats to Somali, the wolfman turns out to be good people. He is Muthrica, one of the force that patrols the vast underground, and whom Kikila calls “shishou.” 

As we’ve seen, the underground is no place for children, but that hasn’t stopped Kikila from making regular trips and getting caught roughly half the time by Muthrica.

Despite his gruff appearance and manner, Muthrica can sense how desperate Somali is to have a wish granted, so he guides her and Kiki to a tree where she’ll be able to harvest a bloom that will survive the trip back to the surface. In the process, a giant “tsuchilizard” confronts her.

Kiki protects her with his body, but when Somali explains her reason for needing the flower—so she can continue being with her dad—the lizard, being a parent of two offspring itself, understands, and trudges off.

They make it all the way back to the restaurant with the flower intact, but as it is after dark, Golem has nothing for Somali but scolding. Somali drops the flower on the ground and runs off to her room in tears.

Later, both Muthrica and Kokilia gently admonish the Golem for being so strict and inflexible, rather than hearing the reason Somali didn’t follow his orders to the letter. It’s good to hear them both saying what I was thinking last week—he just needs to learn to lay off sometimes!

Then, Kikila finds Somali has collapsed from a fever. In as much of a panic as a Golem can be, Golem spends all of his amassed pay on a rare medicine that “works on all clans”, unwilling to betray her true species to the apothecary.

He and Kikila then stay with her as she slowly recovers, and Kokilia gives him some advice as a parent to know when you’ve instilled too much fear, when to take your child in your arms and apologize, and to make sure they know they’re loved and wanted.

When Somali awakes in slightly better shape, Golem, who regrets pushing her so hard to exhaustion then piling emotional distress on top of that, and does indeed apologize. He also does something he may not have done even a few days ago, before he received advice from other parents: he makes a promise to Somali to be with her forever.

As a Golem entering his final days, keeping such a promise may well be impossible. But Golem understands that now is not the time to say that to her. Somali’s emotional health must be looked after in the here and now, and that means postponing hard truths.

In the scenario that Golem does die, hopefully Somali will keep living, growing, and learning about mortality, both her dad’s and her own. What seemed like broken promise at the time may prove not to be, as long as the memory of him remains in her heart.

Or heck, maybe the superstition proves to be true, and Golem’s life is extended. In any case, postponing her despair even a little bit longer is worth everything.

P.S. Yoshimata Ryou’s epic fantasy score is on point, particularly when Somali locates the tree from which she plucks her flower. It called to mind the theme to the Sacred City of Aquios in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time—Not a bad track to be reminded of!

Bofuri – 04 – Bird (Ice)Box

Maple and Sally’s foray into the sprawling second level is uneventful until the former falls through a hidden trap into a large cavern containing a club-wielding jester boss. The girls work together to defeat it relatively easily. Maple exhibits her new skill “Cover Move”, which enables her to finally keep up with Sally by mimicking her movements in exchange for double damage. Since zero doubled is still zero, it’s another NWO hack for Maple.

After one day they only have two medals, but when they encounter Kuromu and his party on the snowy but notably not cold mountain (a nod to RPG characters rarely bundling up in cold locations), he reports they’ve got zilch. Feeling indebted to him for his earlier assistance, Maple lets his party go through a one-time use teleport gate, only for the gate to almost immediately reappear, suggesting the boss made quick work of the Kuromu crew.

Maple and Sally use the gate, which takes them to the lair of Silverwing, their toughest boss challenge yet, featuring multiple attack vectors. For once, the usually OP Maple is pushed back by attacks, her HP is depleted, and even the outer layers of her armor is destroyed. Thankfully, ten Devours are enough in concert with Sally’s quick harassing attacks and Mirage skill, which enables Maple to slip in under the big icy bird and deliver a Hydra coup-de-grace.

For their trouble, the duo gains give medals for a total of seven, as well as two mysterious monster eggs. They head to warmer climes and warm them until they hatch, revealing a turtle familiar Maple names Syrup and a white fox familiar Sally names Oboro. Like their masters, Syrup and Oboro feature high defense and agility, respectively, and level up and gain skills as they’re used. They both make adorable additions to the party.

The familiars can also be stashed away when not needed, or in the case of Maple and Sally trudging through a desert inhospitable for either animal. Upon reaching an oasis, the two meet their first PvP opponent: a raven-haired maiden in pink samurai garb, brandishing a katana. She placed sixth in the previous event, and looks to rise in the player rankings and is perhaps thinking of adding Maple and Sally’s seven medals to her own collection.

Chihayafuru 3 – 16 – Karuta in the Streaming Age

No sooner does Chihaya lose to Suo (and be told the simple yet devastating two words “you can’t”) than Taichi is challenging him for a match of his own. Suo refuses until Taichi bribes him with sweets, and then Suo proceeds to beat him by fourteen cards. But Unlike Chihaya and most of Suo’s opponents, Taichi didn’t commit a single fault. That’s because Taichi is starting to want to play his karuta the same way: through the mistakes of his opponents.

Taichi also tells Suo that Chihaya isn’t really his boyfriend, which means now Suo thinks he has a chance with her. I’m sorry but I could not care less about this creep’s further attempts to woo someone who is already thoroughly in love with someone/thing (more on that later). What I do like? Chihaya wasting no time reporting to Harada about a possible weakness in Suo’s game.

Christmas Eve arrives, and the karuta club celebrates at the Tsukaba residence. This party feels like it could have been a lot longer and probably should have been. Not a whole episode, mind you, but at least half of one. Chihaya’s appearance as Santa comes and goes so fast there’s barely any time to process it.

But more than the hasty Chihaya-as-Santa cameo, the party just isn’t given any time to breathe the way slice-of-life scenes should, especially when Desktomu tells Chihaya how he considers the club a family, and they all consider Tsukaba’s little brothers their own little brothers.

When Christmas arrives, Shinobu spends it practicing in her hoity-toity family’s reception room, drawing her mother’s ire. Shinobu considers karuta to be more her family than her mother, but her grandmother likely scores some family points by letting Shinobu keep practicing and even writing on the tatami with a marker!

Shinobu is desperate to practice because she missed the Fall tournaments with illnesses, and she’s rusty. She also has no choice but to look towards the future she must discuss at high school, although because it’s a school full of “rich girls” the counselor kinda half-asses it. When Shinobu said she’d have “nothing” if she loses the queen match, it made me sad, but also made me wish she had a home that accepted her foibles, and the proper guidance at school.

New Years and the next week after that pass by in a flash, and the day of the Master and Queen tournaments arrives. There’s notably less pomp and spectacle at Omi Jingu since NHK decided it would not televise the matches live on TV. Tsukaba fears it’s a sign that karuta is “in decline”, but Desktomu assures him, the opposite is true.

Karuta has found a larger, younger audience via online streaming, and there’s more interaction thanks to the live chat. The first year of this change comes with a very convincingly intimidating challenger in Harada, a shifty creeper in Master Suo, an adorable mother in Inokuma, and the ethereal-yet-also-goofy-haired Queen Shinobu—so there’s plenty to chat about besides karuta!

As for Chihaya, she’ll be watching the matches in person for the first time, and had expected/hoped Arata would be there too. Alas, he’s come down with a fever. In a way, they both have. As their mutual love of both karuta and one another ever-so-gradually untangles, it seems to be affecting both their games. Chihaya notes how warm she feels just by dialing Arata’s number and talking to him for a minute, and feels like she’d “blow up” if he were really there.

This episode’s breathless progression through the holidays made for some odd pacing I wasn’t really a fan of, while Suo continues to cast a pall on the whole show with his eccentric unpleasantness. As such, this is the first episode of Chihayafuru’s third season I cannot enthusiastically endorse. That said, if the Master and Queen challenger matches were any indication, the impending Master and Queen tournaments should be lit.

P.S. Chihaya mentions in her inner monologue that she’ll never wear earbuds lest they hurt her hearing, but does so while riding on a train. Trains, and especially subway cars, can get pretty piercingly loud. Just sayin’!

Isekai Quartet 2 – 03 – Friends in Need are Friends Indeed

When the class is informed that Kazuma, Aqua, and three of Tanya’s underlings have been given “detention”, it’s natural for them to be curious about what form their punishment will take. When Darkness encounters them in a hallway, they look like they’ve been scarred for life, which only makes Darkness more curious (not to mention jealous!)

As we learn, detention duties have been left to Nazarick Area Guardian Kyouhukou, as the offenders are thrown into the roach pit, where instead of eating them alive, the bugs simply crawl in and out of every one of their orifices. Naturally, their friends consider the punishment too severe for the crime of stealing booze, and wish to reduce their sentence if possible.

Emilia, the nicest and most “good” of all of the students, makes a passionate appeal to Mr. Rerugen, who decides that the punishment will be reduced if the offenders do a good deed. Their classmates then create a situation during a lab experiment that, while providing an opportunity for that good deed to be done, is still innocent enough on its surface to be overlooked by Roswaal.

In practice, this means allowing Megumin to light a Bunsen burner. Even though steps are taken to control her Explosion, the entire lab table within the bounded field is obliterated, and the broken pipes soon flood the school. Roswaal takes the hint that there was no malice in Megumin’s act (it’s the only magic she has!) and that people just have “bad daaaaays.”

When the water threatens the principal’s cigar stash, he agrees to lift detention if the offenders can solve the flooding problem. Grantz, Neumann and Koenig capture the water with their boundary magic, which allows water goddess Aqua to finally show that she is, in fact, a water goddess, redirecting the water out the window Kazuma opens (he did his part!) and dispersing it into the sky as a lovely rainbow.

Not only was this a great showcase for various characters powers, but a nice capper to a serial “two-parter” in which the classmates have each other’s backs when school discipline goes too far. Finally, it’s a reminder that no matter what isekai show you’re from, nobody (other than Darkness of course) wants bugs crawling all over their bodies!

Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! – 04 – The Advantage of High Standards

With only a month to go until the budget committee, we open on an Eizouken in crisis. For all the work Midori and Tsubame have done, they only have a few seconds of finished work to show for it. Midori can get los in her detailed worlds, while Tsubame is a proud perfectionist. Sayaka knows they’re dead in the water at such a slow pace, which means corners have to be cut somewhere.

That said, Midori and Tsubame wouldn’t bother making an anime, no matter how short or shallow, without showing off the skills they’ve amassed. Sayaka must always walk the delicate line between keeping the girls on schedule and not crushing their dreams. The three exhibit the flexibility needed in such a venture to agree to compromises they can all live with.

Yet even with a good final product (and the episode is coy about how much progress they make in realizing their vision), the Eizouken is up against a circus-like atmosphere the day of the committee, and a hostile student council intent on suspending their activities before they even have a chance to show their work. When Sayaka’s lawyering scares the adults but not the StuCo, Midori insists they at least see what they’ve been working on.

Then their anime plays out more or less in real time, and the animation, while simple and rough, is so dynamic that everyone in the auditorium reacts like they’ve been flung in the middle of the kinetic battle between the Machete Girl and her tank nemesis. Everyone in attendance is bowled over…except for our perfectionist creators, constantly critiquing the work and coming up with improvements for the future.

Having witnessed just how much the Eizouken can accomplish without a budget or a fair deadline, the StuCo has no choice but to see what they are capable of with both. That could possibly backfire—having backs against the wall is a common motivator—but I doubt it.

The enthusiastic fires in Midori and Tsubame have never burned brighter than at the end of their presentation, and Sayaka seems pleased that other outsiders saw what she saw in these two: they’re special, and they are capable of great things no matter the conditions.

ID: INVADED – 05 – Kiss or Kill

Hondomachi may not be a superhero who got her deductive powers from a hole drilled in her head, but that bizarre injury offered her unique perspective into someone like Kazuta Haruka, whom she meets in the street and who kisses her before fleeing.

For her, everything suddenly points to Haruka, a former victim of the Perforator, being the Gravedigger. Their equipment hasn’t been able to detect his killing intent because when he has a sudden urge to kill he reacts with a gesture of love instead—a kiss—and would therefore kill those whom he loves.

Sure enough, cognition particles are found an an Id Well is opened, into which Sakaido is injected. He enters the well in the middle of the sky falling at great speed, but manages to land on a floating island containing a house later identified as belonging to Kazuta.

Once Sakaido’s memory is activated by the sight of a murdere Kaeru, he looks under her carefully-spread pool of blood to find a girl hiding who has shifting features and voices—a composite of the Gravedigger’s victims.

Sakaido also finds shards of a photo also found when Kazuta was a victim, and Hondomachi and Matsuoka are dispatched to meet with those in the picture one by one while Nishimura and a SWAT team head to the site of Kazuta’s house, now a soy sauce brewery.

The composite girl said her boyfriend went out of the house to fight the “monster”, and when Sakaido heads out he quickly learns that monster is John Walker, who kills the “boyfriend”, dodges Sakaido’s attacks, and flies off with that trademark tip of his hat.

As Hondomachi diligently interviews the “cutest” of the people in the photo, Inami Nahoshi, Nishimura and his team discover vats that could contain victims, but are blown up in the brewery—it was all a trap. Meanwhile Hondomachi is unafraid to pry as far as she can with questions relating to Inami’s love life. Inami also seems all too happy to clean her head wound when it suddenly starts bleeding.

By the time Matsuoka gets word of the trap, Hondomachi has Inami cornered, revealing her to be a sadist using Kazuta’s scrambled romantic and murderous urges to her advantage by having him commit the murders for her. Hondomachi moves to arrest Inami and demands to know where Kazuta is; meanwhile, he’s lurking nearby with a knife.

It’s interesting to see how both Hondomachi and Sakaido have been elevated in their deductive ability by their respective marks (the former, her head wound; the latter, his crime) In the Id Well, Sakaido is the Brilliant Detective, as well as a Mission Impossible-style action hero.  But in the real world, the ace detective is without doubt the recently wounded but no-less-relentless Hondomachi.

Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front – Babylonia – 15 – Careful What You Wish For

Thanks to Ana’s immortality-nullifying Harpe, Gorgon/Tiamat is defeated in the episode’s first five minutes, which should have been the herald of good news, were this the final or penultimate episode. Of course, with a whole half-cour remaining in F/GO: ADF-B, the humanity and it’s heroes climb out of one hole only to find themselves at the very bottom of an even larger one.

Depsite Ana’s sacrifice, Gorgon did not possess the grail required to collapse the seventh Singularity and end the war. Kingu still has the grail, and was planning on killing Gorgon all along in order to awaken the real Tiamat, which Merlin calls an “Evil of Humanity” before vanishing after a massive “spacetime quake.” That’s right, Ritsuka, Mash & Co. will have to fight the true boss without Ana or Merlin. Bummer.

The real Tiamat doesn’t awaken immediately (though we do catch her seemingly yawning), but from the epicenter of the quake, an impossible force of 100 million beasts emerge, and thousands of them are already attacking Uruk by the time the heroes get back there. These creatures are apparently the species that will serve as the “New Humanity,” and they’re effectively fearsome, offputting, and implacable.

Those attacking the city suddenly withdraw without explanation, enabling Ritsuka’s party to meet with Gilgamesh. He has no orders for his people but to either fight and die in Uruk now or flee north, and perhaps live a bit longer.

When Ritsuka notices Siduri is missing and hears what happened, he demands to be given leave to rescue her in Eridu, where she was taken by the demented monsters Romani names lahmu. What seemed like an opportunity to raise some spirits in Gilgamesh’s court by rescuing his beloved scribe turns sour almost immediately…this episode is merciless in the crap it throws at the heroes.

Siduri has already been transformed into a lahmu, who are totally indescriminate in their torture, mind-manipulation, maiming and killing of “old” humans. Kingu stops this chaos, disgusted by the behavior of his “siblings” but determined to lead them and whip them into shape. For his trouble, he’s stabbed in the back by a lahmu, who sadistically tells him he’s “boring”.

Allies and villains are dropping like flies, replaced by ever more unreasonably monstrous foes. How Ritsuka is going to be able to salvage this situation short two servants is beyond me. And, as always since her capture, Ushiwakamaru remains an unseen, heartbreaking threat

In / Spectre – 03 – From Snakes to Steel

Kotoko finishes explaining the Tanio Aoi case to the serpent guardian spirit’s satisfaction: Aoi wanted the police to find the remains of a fetus she miscarried and buried in the swamp after learning of Machii’s betrayal and then learned that he was innocent. Kurou escorts her to a taxi where she falls asleep on his shoulder after he admonishes her for taking such risks.

It was odd that the showrunners chose to end this case so quickly into this episode before a new case began; it might’ve been more elegant to simply wrap up the serpent case last week. At any rate, two years suddenly pass, and we’re re-introduced to Kurou’s ex Yumihara Saki, now a traffic cop but still haunted by the supernatural things she became aware of through Kurou.

A rumor has spread of Nanase Karin, a busty idol killed by a steel beam now using that beam to attack people as the faceless ghost “Steel Lady Nanase.” Saki heard a statement from one of her victims who survived a car crash but it was later discounted due to him being under duress/in shock. Saki doesn’t deny to her supervisor that whatever caused the accident, she believes there are “beings that surpass logic and reasoning.”

She also has a nasty flashback to her traumatic incident with Kurou and the kappa that led to her eventually breaking up with him. Saki still lives every day in fear and depression, and has only become more aware of youkai and such since the breakup. That’s when she encounters Iwanaga Kotoko, who just so happens to be battling Steel Lady Nanase on the hill Saki uses to get home.

Sick and tired of being ruled by fear, Saki charges Nanase recklessly, dodges her steel beam and punches her right in the gut, only for her fist do go right through the ghost. Kotoko swoops in, loses her false leg, and delivers a solid kick to Nanase, forcing her to withdraw. Saki, a cop, was just saved from a ghost by a petite amputee in a sun dress.

It’s a lot to take in, but Saki still does her duty, not letting Kotoko slink away without treating her wounds—and in the process, hopefully gain more answers about WTF just happened. That’s when she flashes her badge, Kotoko realizes the cop is Saki’s ex, and re-introduces her as Kurou’s new girlfriend.

As this is a bit much to take after such a harrowing incident, Saki gives Kotoko a good slug to the face for her lack of tact! But despite the bad vibes surrounding Kurou, who doesn’t yet appear after the two year jump, I think Kotoko is just the person Saki needs to know at this point in time. Not just for the Nanase Karin case, but for her own emotional benefit.

Magia Record – 04 – The Price of Miracles

Iroha is worried she’s already put out her fellow magical girls, but Mitama, Momoko, Kaede and Rena are happy to continue helping in her search for Ui. Turns out the aloof Yachiyo is the exception and not the rule in Kamihama magical girls. Iroha is sent to the restaurant owned by the family of Yui Tsuruno, who is also a magical girl eager to help, but she does know someone who could.

Demonstrating that the network of Kamihama magical girls is a small world, Tsuruno introduces Iroha to…Yachiyo, who has a lead on a new rumor: the Seance Shrine. The three team up to search the nearby Mizuna Shrine, which has a legend of tragic love in which a woman sacrificed an entire town to be reunited with her lover.

However, their stamp-collecting circuit turns up no further clues. Yachiyo still uses the time to impress upon Iroha the importance of becoming stronger, for the times when more powerful magical girls aren’t around to bail her out. She also asks Iroha and Tsuruno to help her out with a limited-time sale at the supermarket.

In the middle of their shopping trip, a Witch’s Labyrinth appears, and the three are locked in a battle. Iroha is overeager and very nearly gets herself killed, but she’s saved by Yachiyo (she may not like Iroha much but she’s not one to let a fellow magical girl die needlessly).

Tsuruno ends up defeating the Witch with authority, demonstrating why she has a strong claim to the title of “mightiest magical girl.” When the Labyrinth is dissipated, Iroha finds that her Soul Gem is starting to become corrupted. Yikes!

On a hunch, Yachiyo decides to give Mizuna Shrine another chance, this time at night, and sure enough, it and Seance Shrine are one and the same. She and Iroha write the names of lost people they wish to see and then pray; Tsuruno is harassed by a Witch for not writing down a name so she can stand guard.

Then Yachiyo and Iroha are transported to a dreamworld full of bridges where they each encounter the one whose name they wrote down. In Yachiyo’s case, a girl named Mifuyu whom both she and Tsuruno knew (perhaps the three were once a team together). In Iroha’s case, Ui. But even if it’s the real Ui, there’s sure to be a not inconsiderable cost to seeing her.

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T – 03 – In Borrowed Clothes

Railgun T has done a great job so far putting a fun esper-y twist on the classic sports festival formula. Like the three-legged race last week, the balloon hunt is made more creative and exciting with the use of abilities. Adding MISAKA 10032 while Misaka Prime takes a rest takes things up a notch.

MISAKA is never not fun to watch as she calmly assesses her environment dodges attackers and adds notches to her belt. Unfortunately the rest of the Tokiawadai team is so confident of victory they don’t bother with any real teamwork and are undone by the scrappy underdogs’ simple tactics.

That said, Kongo’s melodramatic “death scene” was so worth it, and I liked the idea of Tokiwadai’s adult leaders being glad their pompous rich girl students are having their asses handed to them. They intend punish them with extra dorm chores, and hopefully the sting of the loss will make them rethink their strategy next time they face a seemingly easy opponent.

Speaking of stings, MISAKA probably only loses because Baba-kun (the other team’s leader who had intel on all the Tokiwadai students) uses the balloon hunting fracas as a distraction so he could sting her with a tiny robotic bug. When MISAKA meets with Misaka later, the real deal tells her there’s no reason to hang her head as long as she had fun.

This week marks the first Kamijou Touma cameo, as he runs into Misaka quite by chance as she’s in line for drinks. Misaka is uncharacteristically civil with him as he offers to grab drinks for her, but things take a turn when Misaki spots her with him, is momentarily embarrassed, and takes Misaka’s arm like they’re BFFs.

The last straw is when Misaki, seeking to insert herself into their relationship, gloms onto an unwitting Touma, and her much larger breasts press against him, leading Biribiri to shock him—and for him to cancel said shock with his Imagine Breaker, which sports yet another new sound effect.

As packed as this episode was with Misaka, MISAKA, Touma, and the Balloon Hunt, the show doesn’t forget to check in on the rest of the central quartet. Whether it’s Shirai not losing a step with her Judgment duties (thanks to her teleportation) or Uiharu agreeing to help Ruiko locate “Shadow Metal” for the thrill of it, it’s just great to see these characters back in action and in the spotlight.

If all the preceding events make it sound like a lightweight episode, the episode’s conclusion certainly changed that perception, as the effects of the robo-bug hit MISAKA when she’s alone and isolated (aside from her cat) while Misaki and a suited fellow move in to apprehend her.

Earlier, Misaki was watching a big screen and I could have sworn she could tell the real Misaka wasn’t participating in the balloon hunt. She also mentions how her Mental Out ability is another tool she can use to prove someone’s identity.

Either she’s still fooled into thinking MISAKA is Misaka despite all that, or she’s going to use MISAKA as bait to nab the genuine article. Either way, Misaka’s troubles are about to outstrip Misaki glomming on her guy…