To Aru Majutsu no Index II - Episode 6

Having finished off its slightly convoluted storyline last episode, it's time for a new story arc for To Aru Majutsu no Index II's sixth episode, beginning as it does with a rather clunky way of pointing us in the direction of Academy City's usually reliable weather reports as they prove to be less accurate than would be normally expected of late.

From this point onwards, we might as well be watching an episode of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, as the episode focuses entirely upon Mikoto Misaka and Shirai Kuroko, with the latter leading the way for this particular instalment.  After some of the usual light-hearted banter and one-sided flirtation between these two, we get to the real heart of the matter as Judgement and more specifically Uiharu (yep, she's now part of the cast for this series too) pick up on a rather odd robbery within Academy City. 

After analysing video footage of the event, Kuroko heads off to use her impressive teleporation skills to stop the culprits in their tracks, only to find that she soon meets her match in a fellow teleportation user... indeed, this particular individual can teleport items without even touching them, putting her one step ahead in this field.  More intriguingly, this woman knows all about Kuroko, and more to the point more about Misaka and why she's so rarely at home these days, as she explains to a confused Shirai a situation involving the Tree Diagram supercomputer, so-called "Remnants" of which are being recovered and thus posing the possibility of the experiments involving Mikoto and her "sisters" being restarted.  While Misaka is trying to handle this alone, Kuroko is determined to do her part to resolve the situation, setting us up for a decidedly interesting story arc.

Having espoused my preference for To Aru Kagaku no Railgun over this series from which it was born, it's practically music to my ears to be able to enjoy an episode that relies so heavily on Railgun's cast that it could almost be that show to all intents and purposes.  Of course, this is still very much To Aru Majutsu no Index at its heart in terms of the continuation (or rather, rebirth) of perhaps the best arc from the original series, but either way this was a great and slickly presented episode that's left me excited for more.  Let's just hope it doesn't flounder around from time to time like the story arc which preceded it.