Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T - Episode 12 - 10 Second Anime

Misaki matches wits against Kihara for control of her facility which Kihara needs to direct Mikoto's development toward Level 6. Season Hiatus.

#12 - "Exterior"

Hmm.

Railgun T's plot is in a good place for a midseason cliffhanger. Mikoto is doing unpredictable things that make Touma's job of slowing her down difficult. The Mad Scientist Kihara is playing chess with Misaki, but he has a cheat code with his borrowed clairvoyance ability. Not only that, his ultimate goal is to have Mikoto blow up Academy City when she merely glimpses Level 6 for a split second. Things look rough for our heroes, which means it's a great time to ratchet up the suspense and have Gunha's wild chuuniybou power solve everything with "more guts."

I don't know if it's how it plays out, but unfortunately, we won't know what happens next on schedule. Railgun T's next season was supposed to happen this Spring, but Wuhan Virus pandemic made governments in Japan and South Korea, where a lot of J.C. STAFF does its production work, implement quarantine protocols to limit the viral spread and slow down the COVID-19 (Corona Virus Infectious Disease of 2019) that it causes. I include all this info because the Index Universe is all about Science clashing with Faith and it feels like one of their plots just happened in the real world. As bad as real-world events are in mimicking a sci-fi tragedy are, Railgun T will continue, hopefully this summer season.

Oh, one last thing to think about before this extended hiatus starts is how it took a spinoff series like Railgun to explain what Aleister Crowley's goal of the Level 6 project so explicitly. Kihara just openly said that an extra dimensional being will want to occupy the body of a Level 6 psychic. The Religion factions call these guys Angels, and they already have many of them, but Academy City never had one, and that was the point of World War III in Index III. Science wants to make an Angel. Good luck with that.

Heh.

Touma knows what’s happening to Mikoto is external to her, so to stop it, he would have to touch the source of it. Since he can't, all he can do is slow her down while others work to bring it down. Still not a fan of the Japanese convention in storytelling where "a certain someone" does all these things out of sight so the audience can have an emotional reaction to the sudden revelation of that identity.

According to that "certain someone," Touma being near Mikoto would keep her transformation in check. Growing a mesh mantle and a third eye does not look like things are "in check." Gunha agrees. He'll need to use "more guts" to help Touma out. Gunha is tough, but he's bleeding now. I'm sure he has untapped chuunibyou powers.

We're getting a good tactical fight scene with Kuroko and Mitori. Kuroko needs to figure out how she controls her metal clone. It looks like it's two against one, but it's not, because Kuroko has Uiharu and Saten doing surveillance for her. This whole episode looks like it's going to be about how things go in the different battle locations. Mitori's clone uses vibrations and echo location to fight remotely. The little skull thing is how Mitori videoconferences with its surroundings. Kuroko just made Mitori go into pure fight mode.

Misaki versus Kihara. This is going to be a pure mental battle since old and frail is opposing young and frail. Misaki has a nice body, but it's the kind of supermodel shape that relies on diet and lying down a lot. Ugh. Kihara is "borrowing" several psychics' powers. The dude really is a Mad Scientist. Look at how slowly Misaki runs. She's going to need an energy bar or something very soon.

Uh oh. Accelerator, according to Kihara, is the only one who can achieve a stable Level 6. This means he's aiming for chaos with an unstable Level 6 in Mikoto. Wow. Level 6 means "other dimensional entity." They're talking about Angels. Level 6 Shift is all about Science making Angels to catch up with Religion. Funny how we never heard that in any of the Index seasons. Uh, Kihara just said he expects Mikoto to disintegrate the moment she hits Level 6. That's not a good thing.

I always feel uncomfortable when a Science guy talks about the "Realm of the gods." Stay in your lane, old man! There, that's better. Collapse into a neutron star like a white dwarf star or go supernova and become a black hole. Neither sounds good for Mikoto or Academy City. Ah. Good old torture. Kihara can manipulate air, so he just removed it from around Misaki's head.

Hahaha! Kihara is a Touma fan boy! He can see him fighting with Gunha against Mikoto's transforming self with his clairvoyance. Imagine Breaker with the Chuunibyou powers is like "dividing the universe by zero!" Hilarious! Oops. His excitement over novel data distracted him. Slow running Misaki escaped. Misaki really is a mean girl. She'll save Academy City, letting Mikoto become the only casualty, but she promises not to forget for at least a week. So generous! Misaki just got an inspiration from those graviton panels.

Back to Kuroko versus Mitori. She'll need to figure out how to draw out the real one. What are these stickers she keeps putting down wherever she's checked? A way to keep track of eliminated locations? Saten's luck keeps saving the day. They can narrow down Mitori's location from the surveillance cameras. Ooh. Mitori is somewhere visually controlling her puppet now. It's on! Ha! Kuroko doesn't want any scars because she's saving her body for marriage. Does she remember who she's "marrying?" Are Kuroko's stickers waypoints for her to jump to?

Another round of chess between Misaki and Kihara. Let's see how Misaki sets her trap using those graviton panels. You can tell Misaki is lying her butt off because she's using that annoying mean girl uptalk. Misaki describes herself well as an "adorable knockout beauty with a smoking figure." Nice misdirection from Misaki, but Kihara's Multiskill is hard to plan for. She got him now. Oops, no, she doesn't. Kihara's body is almost all prosthetics! Does Misaki have any other contingencies after this? It doesn't look like it. Unless she gave him the wrong code… Cliffhanger! See you after Japan gets back to work.