A Certain Scientific Railgun T

Episode 12

At the end of last episode, events were heading in the direction of a battle on three fronts, with each front tackling one aspect of the overall problem. This episode spends all of its time playing out those three fronts, as well as filling in some previous gaps in knowledge about the overall scheme. The result is a set-up for what I'm presuming will be the arc's climax next episode.

The front which gets the least attention is the attempt by Touma and Sogiita to contain Mikoto as her power rages. The transformations of her power are somewhat interesting, but this part is mostly about the two strategizing and Sogiita demonstrating that he's tough as well as powerful, and that part is over (for this episode, anyway) by the time the opener starts. The one key part here is that Touma is fully aware that someone else is working to shut down the power feed to Mikoto, so the two of them really just need to fulfill that role instead of try to solve the whole problem themselves. I'm guessing that this will involve Touma having continuous contact with Mikoto (it would be a great excuse to justify a non-harassment hug!), but we'll see.

The second front involves Kuroko going after Mitori Kozaku, who is the one most directly controlling Mikoto at this point. Kuroko can be an interesting character when she is not losing her mind over her attraction to Mikoto, and she has shown before that she can be a dynamic figure to watch in a fight. She reminds us again here how sharp-witted and resourceful she is both at strategizing and at getting the maximum benefit from her teleporting ability, though I do have to wonder what the practical limit is on how often she can teleport; her limits have always been displayed more as distance and carrying capacity. Regardless, she and Mitori have a pretty good cat-and-mouse game going on here (though who's the cat and who's the mouse varies). Also nice to see that Saten and Uiharu are providing useful back-up.

The most featured front is the third: the duel of wits between Misaki and gensei. This is the most pivotal battle, as without the codes Misaki has, gensei can't use Exterior to keep control over Mikoto past a certain point, while Misaki can potentially shut the whole thing down if she can stop Genei. As the battle plays out it spills some key clarifications, such as that Accelerator isn't the only Level 5 who could achieve Level 6; he's just the only one judged capable of doing it stably. Mikoto is, instead, expected to lose her sense of self as she approaches godhood. We already saw signs of that last episode, but I find it interesting that she – perhaps the most stable of all of the Level 5s under normal conditions – is judged incapable of handling it. But Misaki is stressing less over Mikoto's safety and more over Mikoto reaching that state will likely result in the city's destruction from the energy release. Seeing that peak achieved – if only for a moment – is gensei's goal, I guess? It still seems rather vague.

What isn't vague is how much of a disadvantage Misaki is at here. Though she's on turf she controls, she's forgetting that in a battle of two schemers, the more veteran one always has the advantage. gensei's solution to normally being powerless is to set up use of Multiskill, and on top of that Misaki doesn't realize that she's giving away too many “tells” in trying to lure him into traps. The fact that she's unathletic (too much curves, too little muscle, which the camera seems determined to remind the viewers of) also once again works against her. The end of the episode has her in dire straits, and of the three fronts, hers is the one where I can least see how she's going to pull out a reversal. But that does make for a nice cliffhanger for next episode – whenever it finally airs.

As a final thought, I am pleased to see that the virus-related production problems the series has had have not kept it from maintaining a high level of artistic quality control. Delays are more tolerable when visuals which don't slack one bit eventually arrive.

Rating:

A Certain Scientific Railgun T is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.