To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Episode 18

It seems that Kuroko will never learn when it comes to attracting the less than welcome attention of her and Mikoto's dorm manager, and come the beginning of this latest episode of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun Shirai is left out in the cold after her usual shenanigans, and in more than a little pain by the look of it too.


Thus, when Kuroko spots said dorm manager heading out into the city one day she can't help but follow her, under the assumption that she's meeting for some kind of marriage interview. Of course, she's got entirely the wrong end of the stick.... well, almost entirely the wrong end of the stick anyhow. In fact, the real reason for her trip is to go and work with a bunch of (rather cruelly named, I must say) "Child Errors" - Orphans to you and I. That said, she clearly has eyes for a young man who also works at the orphanage, and so it goes that the four main characters end up clubbing together under Kuroko's direction to become cupids in this particular situation.

From here on in, everything gets a little predictable - The girls do everything in their power to push the dorm manager and the apple of her eye together, it all goes horribly wrong, yet she eventually manages to win his respect and admiration by dropping her previous act and simply being herself. Then, of course, they all live happily ever after... or do they?

In many respects, this particular episode is simply a continuation of the weak filler story arcs that we seem to be suffering from with To Aru Kagaku no Railgun of late - There's nothing particularly great about this instalment, although to be fair it does have its moments as a comic vehicle for Kuroko's character on occasion if nothing else. We also get a couple of little teasers towards future (and doubtless less trivial) story arcs further down the line - Twice now we've witnessed earth tremors in recent episodes (this time followed up by a comment upon how many there have been lately), and Mikoto's flashback to the climax of the "Level Upper" saga is perhaps a reminder that there are still more important tales to be told yet by this series. At the moment however, those more vital tales can't come soon enough - While this series seemed to almost thrive on putting together genuinely fun yet frivolous episodes at times during its first half, it's most definitely lost that knack for the time being during the second half of this series so far.