Sequel to A Certain Scientific Railgun
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Action, Drama
Age-Appropriateness: 15+ (Violence, profanity, suggestive themes)
Platforms: Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation
Episodes: 24
TheAwersome Rating: 7.6 / 10 (Getting better)
Premise: Mikoto Misaka and her friends are back, investigating rumors across Academy City. Soon, Mikoto discovers something terrifying: horrific experiments are taking place throughout the city, involving the murder of thousands of espers. Moreover, these espers are far from just ordinary people: they are clones of Mikoto herself. Feeling responsible for their treatment, she sets off to put an end to the experiments; however, the forces opposing her are much more dangerous than she anticipated, and Mikoto finds herself up against some of the most powerful espers imaginable.
TheAwersome’s Thoughts: That premise should sound familiar to you, and that’s because Railgun S catches up to one of the earliest (and best) arcs of Index. Railgun S takes the appropriate amount of time to devote to the arc to really develop it and give it the weight it deserves. We get to see Misaka grapple with the discovery of her clones and associated guilt/responsibility towards them. We see how the state it puts her in affects her friends, and how they deal with it. We friggin get some solid character development and growth and boy howdy that’s a nice far cry from Index II I tell you what. We also have a strong decrease in the amount of ecchi pervery!
The second arc, however, did cheese a bit. Episodes frequently ended with the definitely evil group of scientists in an evil unlit room with their computers commenting on how plans are moving forward, etc. The finale of the second arc also felt rushed, both in action and in villains flipping an abrupt 180. With the amount that happened in the final episode, Naruto would have dragged it over at least six episodes, maybe more. I think two would have been good.
TLDR: Getting better! Less pervery, more weight.
As with our previous Railgun installment, the OPs still have a strong DDR flavor to them, so you get to enjoy that. Again, same with last time, the first arc OP is better than the second.
At a Glance Anime 