Recap: Mikoto attacks the second to last research facility but encounters resistance from ITEM, a group hired to stop her.

Jel’s Thoughts: The showdown with ITEM is pretty much what I’ve been looking forward to all season and this was a good way to kick things off. I love the idea of someone without powers using knowledge and preparation to go toe to toe with someone much stronger. Even as Mikoto was Mary-Suing her way out of attack after attack, Frenda was always one step ahead of her. Gotta watch out for the old flashbang in the skirt trick! Needless to say it was pretty cool fight and even though we knew Mikoto had to win (she obviously isn’t going to lose to the first girl), Frenda was a worthy opponent.

In the B plot, it looks like Shinobu is finally going to earn her screentime by taking down the other remaining facility. I kind of keep forgetting she exists, so I suppose it’s good they finally put her to work. I appreciated they only spent the minimum time necessary to show us what she was up to and only used her scenes to give us a breather from the fight. Keeping that balance has kind of been the Achilles Heel of Railgun S thus far, so I’m glad they got it right this time. The milk tea was also a nice little reference they managed to work into the flow of things without shoving it in our faces.

Seeing as the majority of the episode was a battle, there’s really not too much more to say. Aside from Mugino, I have somehow managed to avoid spoiling the other ITEM girls’ abilities, so I’m looking forward to seeing how their fight goes down. Hopefully as the story winds down we’ll also keep seeing this same balance between action and exposition and Railgun S can keep its momentum going.

Zigg’s Thoughts: It’s kind of annoying how since ITEM have been in the credits since the very first episode their appearance is pretty much completely spoiled. I’m also not super keen on the idea of them in general – shipping in a quirky miniboss squad is out of the deepest pages of shonen cliche and these girls don’t really seem to have much to set them. We’ve got the sadist leader, the giggly psycho, the straight man and the shy one, and it’s all rather predictable really. There’s also the continued ‘everyone in Railgun is female and under 18′ which is beginning to get wearying if I’m honest.

With my customary kvetching out of the way, I will admit that I enjoyed this episode a lot, though it’s mostly because of some very solid action. The centrepiece fight between Frenda and Mikoto is exciting, well animated and well choreographed and it scales well from the wide open beginning to the down-and-dirty fistfight at the end, a welcome change from the standard Raildex fight which often involves people standing apart and pointing their fingers at each other.

If there’s a criticism here it’s perhaps that Frenda’s tactics rely a little too much on what I dub ‘Batman intuition’ – an implausible level of preparedness as to exactly when, where and how your opponent will react. Mikoto also gets to show off more of her ‘Electricity can do anything!’ powers and while some of it is super cool (sensing your surrounding via electromagnetic waves is *just* on the right side of completely implausible) some of it just shakes my suspension of disbelief. That ceiling and floor are clearly mostly concrete, and concrete is not magnetic, no matter how hard you try.

Frenda herself is…ok I guess. ‘Childish psychopath’ is basically a stock character trope at this point and I find her voice intensely annoying but she’s pretty good at playing the gleeful killer and it’s to the show’s credit she gets decent battle smarts. I liked her trick with the explosive gas – it’s totally in character so even I was surprised when it’s revealed to be a bluff. Nice touch of the Rosa Klebb with the shoe there too, and the joke where she’s perfectly willing to spill the beans at the end but physically can’t was pretty great too.

I suspect I sound a little grouchy but I’m just nitpicking because there’s otherwise not too much to discuss – fights don’t really move the narrative forward meaningfully. But this was still an extremely enjoyable episode that reminded us Railgun can have great action chops when it gets down to it. Looks like more of that will be coming out way next week too.