Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T – 15 – Clones Aren’t Just People…They’re Some of the Best

Suck up to the researchers. Words Kozaku Mitori lived by while she was at the facility. Put on a happy face, be chipper, never show them you actually hate their guts and everything they’re doing. But even if it was an act, her secret rebelliousness was futile. As long as she was cooperating, she was giving in to their control.

This became untenable when her chipper attitude led the researchers to pairing her up with Dolly. Like Misaki after her, Mitori initially found the lonely sick girl to be a pain in the rear, but Dolly’s sad, beautiful soul eventually wore her down, until she was looking forward to their visits. More importantly, her smiles were always genuine.

More than anything, Mitori saw Dolly as neither a clone nor a lab rat, but above all, a human being, deserving of rights and care. So when she saw the condition of Dolly’s body as a result of the researchers’ merciless experiments, she used her ability to learn more about her, and became even more outraged.

Sadly, nearly every adult in a white lab coat is a psychopathic, redeemable monster who tortures and murders children without blinking an eye. So it’s no surprise that her protests don’t just fall on deaf ears, but mocking laughter, which fuel a smoldering fire of hatred for The System in Mitori’s heart.

For dropping the nice girl act and breaking the rules, Mitori is held in solitary for months, never getting to see Dolly again. But one day her cell door is unlocked and she finds the place deserted. She vows to wage a one-woman campaign of vengeance against the Governing Board who approved what was happening to Dolly.

Her attempts ended in failure, mostly because she was acting alone and even 10,000 of her wouldn’t be enough to tough the bigwigs. Enter Kihara Gensei, who puts his trust in hatred and thus in their aligned desire to bring Academy City to its knees. Again Mitori picked the losing side and lost, this time to the good guys”.

Following Kuroko’s beatdown, Mitori lies in the sewer having utterly given up…until Misaki pays her a visit. She still has every intention of turning her over to Judgment, but before that, she has a personal matter to attend to and could use Mitori’s assistance. You see, the Dolly they know may be gone, but her memories were transferred to her clone sister, who is still alive…and they’re going to free her.

Where as everything involving her researcher handlers at the facility was about bending to their physical and psychological control, Misaki spares the Mental Out remote and plainly asks Mitori if she’ll accompany her. Aside from Mitori not having much else going on, Misaki knows that if Mitori felt the same way about Dolly as she did, she’ll gladly tag alone of her own free will.

Thanks to Misaki’s ability, the pair are able to easily infiltrate the facility and remove “Dolly II” from her stasis tube. A tearful reunion ensues, where again Mitori doesn’t have to put on any act; she’s overwhelmed by emotion upon finding this girl who is for all intents and purposes the same Dolly who knew and loved her, and whom she knew and loved.

This episode and scene in particular are the perfect way to wrap up the arc of Kozaku Mitori, who started out as a shadowy, one-dimensional baddie but soon evolved into a full-fledged character beyond black-and-white labels. Her alliance with the geezer and resulting actions may have been misguided, but everything she did was out of a desire to hurt those who hurt Dolly, and you can’t argue with that.

Misaki too, gets a nice catharsis in this reunion scene. At first she’s so guilty about misleading Dolly and failing to learn the whole picture before it was to late, and feels like she’s not entitled to forgiveness or affection. Dolly, of course doesn’t care about what happened in the past; what matters is that she, Misaki, and Mi-chan are together again. It’s what she’d been dreaming about in that tube, and now it’s a reality.

Thanks to Dolly, and her clone, Misaki and Mitori not only became strong individuals capable of setting their own courses in life, but were able to endure the cynicism and cruelty of the villainous scientific complex and retain their humanity. As Mitori tried to make clear to one of those villains, Dolly is a person, not a clone of fodder.

She also happens to be one of the best people, with a warm and kind soul. But even she wouldn’t be who she was (not to mention free of captivity) without her two friends. Hopefully they’ll never be separated again.

In other housecleaning, Mikoto’s circle of friends celebrates Kuroko finally being 100% and out of her wheelchair, and then Mikoto visits a recovering MISAKA in the hospital. But Mitori, Misaki, and Dolly were the refreshing narrative and emotional core of this epilogue, and I was more than fine with that.

The effects of their reunion seemingly carries across the network of Sisters, as MISAKA has a vague sense of deja vu and a sudden desire to visit the ocean. She’s most likely glimpsing Dolly’s beautiful dreams—which can now be a reality.