Episode 20 – “Febri”

The babysitter’s club continues in this week’s episode of Railgun S. Did anyone else read those books, or was that just me? Anyway…it looks like it’s time for our seasonly dose of fanservice! Well, it’s not really that much, especially when compared to the swimsuit episode from the first season. Also, did anyone else notice a drop in animation quality this episode, or (once again) was that just me?

I guess it kind of makes sense that since most of the events this episode are largely inconsequential, save for a fairly big reveal towards the end, a less experienced team of animators would be in charge. That is, I’m assuming that’s what happened because it’s definitely not the same people in change of every single episode, otherwise I don’t think much work would ever get done. Overall, the animation looks pretty freaking great still. Anyways, we have some fun going into the bath with the girls and Konori. She always seems to just pop up just in time for the fanservice episodes. Oh yeah, and even Kongou plays a pretty big part this episode.

After some getting tricked by road signs (what is this, Neptunia?), Misaka and company find themselves fighting an angry yet unmanned robot. Misaka tries to override it with electricity, but to no avail. I seriously felt like I was watching an episode of Pokemon. You know how Pikachu always tries to shock Team Rocket’s robots, but they’re always made out of rubber? Yeah, that’s the feeling. Except in this case, Misaka’s electricity doesn’t work because the robot doesn’t seem to be running on any sort of electricity itself.

That team of scientists is obviously behind the attack, but its exact motives are still unclear. All that I can gather right now is that they want to show espers that their powers are not be-all end-all. They’re also the likely creators of Febri, who happens to not be human. For this reason, Heaven Canceller (Mr. Frog Doctor) can’t save her from her illness. I had a feeling that she’d be something like Hyouka from Index, but the question is what Febri’s purpose is. All we know right now is that she can somehow take over control of the scientists’ robots, kind of like how Index can redirect magical control.

Probably the biggest question I have still is who Nunotaba will really side with and how she ended up on the board of scientists in the first place. The last we saw her, she was being carried off by ITEM. Since she feels so much empathy for things that aren’t considered humans, as evidenced by her attempt to impart emotions to the Misaka clones via Testament, I think she’ll end up wanting to protect Febri. Despite being an offshoot kind of story, I like that Railgun S still has me guessing about what’s going to happen next.

B.W.