A Certain Scientific Railgun S - Episode 5

Never mind all of the rumours and evidence of a cancelled project, Misaka is now face-to-face with one of her clones - but how does one deal with such an encounter?

This is a particularly baffling question when said clone is more interested in rescuing a kitten stuck up a tree than explaining the intricacies of the project to which she's attached, and even when Misaka presses said clone more firmly for information she's firmly rejected - big sister or not, she doesn't have the required security clearance to be furnished with such knowledge.  Assuming that this clone will ultimately take her back to the heart of its creation, Misaka tries to tail... well, herself, I guess - something which doesn't go all that well thanks to this easily distracted instalment of MISAKA.

Eventually, MISAKA's assertion that she's returning not "home" but to an experiment leaves Mikoto deciding that they should part ways - a decision that she comes to regret after some help from Uiharu and a little hacking reveals the new and even more horrific truth of the Sisters project and its new goal - to act as proverbial chicken feed in the name of allowing another individual to reach the much-vaunted Level 6.  Having realised the scope of this nightmarish scenario, Misaka rushes to save her "sister" - too late to do anything but wreak her revenge, but is she even capable of that?

I imagine you'll be hard-pressed to find a more chilling shift in tone than this episode of A Certain Scientific Railgun S this year - after half an episode of watching Misaka trying to fathom out her oddball clone and finding herself conflicted in her feelings towards it, such light-hearted fare as rescuing cats and eating ice cream is replaced with bloody, dismembered limbs and a desperate struggle for life.  Even with prior knowledge of these events, I have to admit that the final scenes of this week's episode were genuinely affecting - having quickly brought us closer to Misaka's clone, seeing the horrific end to the experiment in which she is involved is pretty gut-wrenching, which validates all of that fun-filled preamble.  Perhaps even more important, we're now all set for some action-packed instalments now that the truth is out and in Misaka's hands; fasten your seat belts everybody...