Sunday 21 February 2010

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Episode 20

After what seemed like endless weeks of filler of late, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun's twentieth episode finally sees us begin a new story arc proper; needless to say, it focuses on the cause of all of the earthquakes we've been seeing in recent instalments by way of foreshadowing this particular tale.

It probably also goes without saying that these "earthquakes" are in fact rather more than simply that, and we see this demonstrated at first-hand in Mitsuko's bedroom as some decidedly freaky things occur around the same time as one of the earthquakes. Of course, she isn't the only one to see this, and so rumours begin to spread of supernatural phenomena and poltergeists causing these strange happenings, causing both excitement and (in the worried minds of Antiskill) some panic amongst Academy City's students.


Before you start hoping for a Mikoto/Ghostbusters cross-over however, members of Judgement and Antiskill are called together to have the real reason for what has been happening explained, as these "earthquakes" are put down to RSPK Syndrome, a situation where a number of espers losing control of their powers at the same time and thus cause strange happenings to occur. Is this really the reason for these events however? Konori isn't convinced, and continues to investigate, even while the rest of the girls have an evening out at a fireworks display along with Uihara's new room-mate, a shy, clumsy and simple girl named Eri Haruue who certainly has something odd about her....

After all those filler episodes, I think any "proper" new story arc in this series is bound to feel like a work of William Shakespeare, but even so this instalment did feel like a return to To Aru Kagaku no Railgun's "good old days", providing us with a far more interesting plot that looks set to bring us some far stronger episodes as we move towards the climax of the series. It's a little early to say how this arc will fare against the first half of the show's Level Upper saga (which was certainly built up to far more smartly and slowly than our Poltergeist story here), but the early signs are promising, so here's to a return to the series we knew and loved

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