Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T - Episode 17 - 10 Second Anime

Kuroko helps Miyama prevent hazardous incidents he foretold through precognition.

#17 – “Precognition”

Hmm.

Railgun gave us a nice Kuroko vehicle, plainly to make up for all her time stuck in a wheelchair during the big sports festival, but the story had little to do with the Dream Ranker arc. There were two things that stood out to me, one obvious and one to bookmark because it might not be related.

The first was how the big fire in the park started because a small group of people used chemicals to make the cherry trees bloom out of season. Those chemicals turned out to be highly flammable and explosive when combined with the organic compounds in the trees’ sap. The tie-in to the Dream Ranker arc was that the kids involved were not chemists or studying fertilizers on their own. They found the recipe and method of injection through Indian Poker, those dream cards we saw last episode. This is like accidentally using the The Anarchist Cookbook for baking a cake. The oven will still explode even if your intention was benign. A Dream Ranker has some interesting plans starting to work through Academy City. That news report of a mass unconsciousness event might be another bit of evidence for an evil plot.

The second thing, which might not work out but I’m paying attention to it, ties in to how the Dream Ranker villain might ultimately face defeat. According to Miyama, no one has been able to prevent his future accidents until Kuroko showed up. Uiharu speculated that her teleportation power requires 11-Dimensional calculations, whereas Miyama’s precognition operates on only 4 dimensions of space-time, changing the events through orthogonal planes. I guess we know that Academy City favors a Super String Theory of Everything instead of a Grand Unified Theory. I’ll keep an eye out for people who use powers requiring complicated multiple dimensions like that. And no, we shouldn’t ask Touma to Falcon Punch the universe again, since that is a big copout. How many dimensions does Mikoto use to calculate how she changes a fundamental force of nature for her ability?

Heh.

Aw. The little kid Miyama hurts his head when he uses his ability too much. This Railgun episode feels like a side OVA, so I’m just going to concentrate on background scenery porn. Hoh. Kuroko likes the idea of being a hero of justice.

Yandere prevention, but not helping with a gyaru beatdown. Why are those bullied boys holding hands like scared girls? Mass unconsciousness outbreak on the news, huh? Totally random to the events of the Dream Ranker arc, I’m sure.

Miyama is overtaxing himself. Oh. This big park is where the big action sequence of the episode will be, since there are several incidents happening at around the same time. Miyama gave a furtive look. He’s hiding something about the fire about to happen there.

Yay! Mii-chan! And a whole bunch of Judgment people. They all trust Kuroko’s Scooby Gang. It’s so jarring to hear Kana Ueda’s voice, most famous for Rin Tohsaka and anyone who looks like her in the Fate series, because I associate her voice with long legs and flat chests. Ha. Uiharu designed an onscreen map for Kuroko, like she’s in a video game. Through hacking satellite feeds! Blooming sakura out of season is totally not related to this park fire! Not! And neither is that ampule full of green liquid. Not!

Miyama made himself anemic using his power, so says the Heaven Canceller. He’s desperate to prevent this one incident. A nice flashback will explain why. He tried saving a girl in the past but couldn’t. Then he saw a picture of his stray dog friend surrounded by fire. That’s when he published that app that Saten found, hoping to find someone like Kuroko to save Perro. Spanish for dog, come on, Miyama. Give him a real name.

Boom! Short-circuiting vending machine mixed with literal cherry bomb trees. Judgment is saving all these people but all I care about is Perro. Oh man, we need more of Kuroko teaming up with Mii. Got him! Eh? Did Kuroko just leave Mii in the middle of that forest fire? Oh, I guess not. Happy ending for Miyama and Perro.

Epilogue time. The “masterminds” learned how to make those ampules to make the sakura bloom from Indian Poker. Sounds like a terrorist attack. The girl whom Miyama tried to save earlier wrote him a letter. One of Miyama’s classmates adopted Perro. Really good endings for the kid. Now he needs to stop getting nosebleeds. Aw. Kuroko gets to act like a big sister for once. And she’s embarrassed to say she wants to be a champion of justice like a certain someone. A certain scientific railgun, maybe?

Next time, comedic slice of life! Will Mikoto ever finds a “bust upper” that truly works?