Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T - Episode 16 - 10 Second Anime

Mikoto and her friends in Judgment become involved with a boy who can tell the future.

#16 – “Dream Ranker”

Hmm.

Whenever Railgun does a slice-of-life episode, I remember how badly Index does them in comparison. And Index doesn’t do bad slice-of-life episodes! In Index’s case, they’re over far too quickly before the big drama arc starts up. Touma has so many friends to spend time with that Index should just spin off a slice-of-life anime season, call it Touma’s Unfortunate Days, and show us all the lame little things he ends up doing for his classmates and friends. We know this happens to him every day because Railgun always shows Mikoto running into him while he’s running some ridiculous errand. Oh well. At least Railgun is here to show us cute girls doing cute things with their ESP even while the big drama arc is happening.

I bring all this up because these dream cards the kids are trading with each other brought in one of Touma’s classmates, Aogami Pierce. It’s such a made-up name, meaning Blue Hair Earring, because that’s the only thing you know about him. He, along with Touma and Tsuchimikado, carry the nickname “idiot trio.” We know how much Touma and Tsuchimikado involve themselves in Academy City’s dealings (Touma even ended World War III!), so it would be strange for their third friend not to have some important parts to his story. It can’t be just making dirty dream cards to distribute to other horny teenagers! Aogami has persistent rumors that he’s the 6th Level 5, but who knows? Still, Mikoto can’t get away from Touma, even by way of association.

Heh.

Aw. Junko, one of Misaki’s clique members, wants to be nice to Mikoto, as a fellow Froggie fan. Mikoto’s “geh” when she sees Misaki gets me every time. They get along so well…

Ah. These Indian Poker cards are the plot device into the Dream Ranker arc. Junior high school girls follow a lot of fads.


The opening credits show the girls from ITEM. Still so jarring to see all of them after Index III.

Saten knows all about Indian Poker, of course. People record their dreams on those cards to let other people have them. Users call popular creators Dream Rankers. There’s your title. It looks like idea inspired from all those sticker printers when the author wrote this Railgun story. Look at Saten’s version of herself in her dream! There will be no sharing of beds, Kuroko, while Mikoto shares Junko’s dream.

Fun. Junko really is a fan of Gekota. Oops. This is Junko’s dream, so naturally the queen would be Misaki. Oho. Mikoto Maid-san! Awwww, if Mikoto doesn’t do what the queen asks, Gekota becomes sad. What a wonderful way to say goodbye to the Misaki fanservice machine. She won’t be taking part as much in this next arc as she did with the whole Dolly story.

Kuroko continues to supply yuri comedy. Mikoto continues to supply constant rejection. How does Saten find these urban legend apps all the time? This one which predicts accidents will surely connect to the dream cards somehow. Aw, Junko wants Mikoto to be good friends with her “queen.” Not going to happen. Misaki wants nothing to do with those dream cards. Smart. The clique is over it too since the Queen has spoken.

Hahahaha! Aogami Pierce, the most perverted character in the Index Universe, is notorious as the Dream Ranker BLAU. Touma is with us in spirit today. The girls don’t want to hear all the praise for Aogami’s dirty dreams. Big mistake! He made a dream starring Mikoto and Misaki together! Junko knows how dangerous those two can be together. Righteous revenge! Oh. Did the two of them just admit to dreaming about a certain boy with a powerful hand? Aw, poor Junko left behind.

Now we come to the drama. Uiharu tries out that accident predicting app Saten found. It works by geotagging and timestamping reported incidents, but some of the timestamps are in the future. Uiharu guesses that even the past events were future ones when the app appeared.

Uiharu and Kuroko stake out a future accident. Recruiting new Judgment members will become important. Lots of moving parts and nice red herrings, but Kuroko saved a life. The timestamp wasn’t exact. This boy wrote the app. Miyama is a cute kid. He’s a precog psychic using photography. He based the published app on software written for other psychic photographers to find missing items and people. Miyama’s photos are only of misfortune. Ha. He called Kuroko and Uiharu “ribbon girl and flower girl.” He wants to find someone to help him prevent these unfortunate events.

Fun. The Railgun end credits have the four best friends swapping uniforms.