Score: A

It has been a while since I had to stop and ask what the heck is up with Touma’s body. And yet, here we are. Seriously, what the heck is up with that guy’s biology!? Never thought I’d be shocked by events happening around the Daihasei arc at least when it came to Touma himself. I sort of figured that we had a good grasp of what Touma was capable of. All the more so after Index 3. Now that season was a disaster of pacing and good storytelling, but at the very least I thought his powerset was fairly well established. Still ended up blinking at the screen in utter shock as he launched an army of dragons after his arm was…tossed. I don’t even have a big issue with his arm re-growing or re-attaching. I’ve seen enough weird stuff to somewhat buy it. But dragons definitely shocked me.

What?

I do legitimately hope the next major arc for Railgun does let Mikoto follow through on her feelings in this episode. Because it is unfortunate that she was left utterly unable to affect the outcome in the slightest here. At least not directly. You can say that the feelings that her friends, Touma, and even her enemies had for her lead to this end result. That her actions did create a response from others that lead to her salvation. That’s fine and dandy. But, it did feel like she was truly unable to do anything herself. Now that sort of was the case with the Accelerator arc as well. But at least in that case she actively took action for much of it and did contribute to the end result. If she didn’t push the clones to help then Touma would have died.

Not so much here. I do think that while Touma is the big guy of the Index universe when it comes to protagonists, Mikoto does need to do something spectacular herself in the future. They usually do balance things out with Railgun by introducing an anime-original arc that lets Mikoto take centre stage. But, I do hope the source material itself does have some good stuff lined up for Mikoto in letting her really be the hero of her own story. Everyone needs help now and then. It is a good thing for the franchise to let Mikoto have to rely on others and be saved now and then. But she also needs to have those hero moments for herself.

I will say that unquestionably the best girl of this arc was Kongou. She did get put aside after her big showdown, but she left a big impact on this story. They did a nice job framing the focus on the remains of her injuries and of course Mikoto was utterly upset by what happened. But of course Kongou was really honourable about the whole thing. She didn’t let her injuries weigh her down nor did she regret her actions. A friend of hers was in need and so she put everything on the line to do something about it. For Kongou, Misaka is someone that has given her a strong example to follow and helped make her a better person. Kongou can look at herself as having improved from where she was at the start of the show.

And of course it was utterly sweet to see her overjoyed at hearing about her rescue. Because it is true that this would be the first time she was told who saved her. Mikoto was important to it since if she didn’t crush that guy then he may have been able to go back after Kongou, Wannai, and Awatsuki. But in the end it was those two that stepped up to protect her. And rather than being down about them being in danger to protect her…she was truly overjoyed that they came to save her. Being saved by others isn’t always a bad thing.

Saten is a treasure herself though. Not only did she manage to score some points in the festival, but she set up a great moment for Mikoto. It is easy to see how Mikoto feels, but not easy for Mikoto herself to do something about it. While Touma kind of stumbled into things and Kuroko launched herself into it…the moment was overall a great one. Those two just don’t get many chances to have a heart to heart. They do often get involved in what each other are doing (though mostly Touma getting involved) but there isn’t often a chance for honest conversation. Also I’m just glad Saten didn’t let Mikoto tsundere her way out of an opportunity. She went all out for that ridiculous performance, so the least Mikoto could do was follow through.

This was definitely a memorable episode. We had inexplicable dragons doing…things. But beyond that we also got to see some truly adorable moments from Mikoto and Kongou. Whatever Shokuhou has planned isn’t too big a deal. Considering the shown off connection between them and Dolly it makes sense she would go after her. The girl certainly deserves to be incarcerated for her attempted mass murder, but oh well. Not exactly shocked that Shokuhou doesn’t hold much respect for any kind of legal system. And who is going to argue with the brainwashing person anyways? This arc certainly wasn’t the Accelerator Arc in terms of quality. It just wasn’t that good. But this episode was pretty enjoyable.