A Cetain Scientific Railgun
Short Synopsis: Our lead character possesses a godmode beam and fights crime.
Well, I now see why Solaris wanted me to blog this series. Talk about something completely different from A Certain Magical Index. Instead, this series takes place in a magic academy that is the most scientifically advanced city in the world, and whose 2,3 million population consists 80% out of students (they seriously expect us to take that seriously?). Overall, the only thing that impressed me here was the animation, which is indeed very smooth and a lot of time went into it. The rest failed to stand out though. Here we have yet another group of teenagers that fight crime, while the police is pointless and non-existent, and it’s another one of those series with a “teens rock adults suck”-mentality. The characters… well, they aren’t bad but overall they feel pretty bland and failed to catch my attention.
ED: Decent J-pop song, but nothing special. This probably is going to be the OP in the future episodes.
Potential: 30%
White Album II
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is well on his way to become the next Makoto Ito.
At this point, I’m really debating whether or not to blog the second season of this series. The first season started off so well, and I loved the subtlety in the storytelling, only for the characters to start incredibly overacting during the dramatic parts. Especially after Aoi Hana showed how to do such a premise properly. This episode really seemed to continue the series in the same veins: some of the subtle parts of this episode were really good, that sea was animated beautifully, I loved Kouta in the hospital near his father, but the dramatic parts were just too much. Considering that the shit hasn’t even hit the fan in this series, I really wonder whether it’s going to be able to deliver properly. It can still turn out to be a great series, the question is just whether or not I want to blog it if it does end up as a bad soap opera.
OP: Like the first, simple yet pleasing to the eyes with a nice song to boot.
ED: Slideshow, but a nice song nonetheless.
Potential: ??%
Koi Shigure
Short Synopsis: Our lead characters get dumped by the ones they’re in love with.
Ah, why not? I might as well write a short blurb about this one. Remember Vanessa from Michiko e Hatchin? Well, her voice-actress stars in what basically is a narrated slide-show about a bunch of love stories. The first instalment features three stories of about five minutes long, which tell about different women as they tell about their experiences in love, and how they were disappointed by it. If you’re not into these things, then Koi Shigure probably isn’t going to make you see the light, but nevertheless the short stories are nice to relax to. They’re nicely build-up considering their short length, and the background songs gave it a bit of a serene atmosphere. It’s a shame that after each story, this atmosphere gets brutally broken by an appearance of the song’s composers that tell about their experiences with this project… or something…
Potential: 40%
I don’t think White Album II has much chance of becoming a great show — but I didn’t think much of season 1 either. I, however, still plan to watch it for the trainwreck-potential.
i think you should blog the second season as well,its true that the former has its bad points,but this is one kind of unique harem that you wouldn’t see in many following years…
few harem that has so little comedy elements in it,and focusing more on its tragedy than anything.
And yeah,even the OP shows that.
Hello there. Hope you don’t mind my dropping by.
I’m amazed at how quickly people get on with the new season. I feel so behind! Thanks for writing about these ones in particular, though– I’ve been quite curious, with the new director for Railgun and all that. Cheers.
I don’t know if anyone would agree with me on this but the music in this episode of White Album was really good. I don’t really remember much about the first season, but the music and potential stabby stab Makoto Ito v.2 makes me want to continue watching this series! Women can be scary.
For a comparison with reality concerning Railgun : Toulouse, whose is both a major agglomeration (approximatively 600.000 persons) and the second university city of France has a student popultion over 18 of 120.000 i.e. 20%.
I actually liked the first Railgun ep.
It may be a bit unoriginal, yes, but that’s nothing a beamspam railgun can’t fix (I love railguns, both IRL and in fiction ;P) and upon scanning the manga it shows potential.
I would maybe buy 80% being students and scientists, but 1,8 million studetns alone is a bit too much for me ~~’
Railgun is your typical action serie. There’s nothing deep, just pure entertainment. As long the char doesn’t result too flat in their godly powers and the linear story will have its own touch of humour, this serie may result good.
On a side note this serie should be more mindless action than Index. Not that Index wasn’t good enough as a light entertainment story. Its greates fault was to try to explain an universe made of science and magic by words and not by facts, sacrificing a lot of action for blabberin about gibberish concepts that audience didn’t understand at all!
Sure this is exactly the opposite of the kind of series Psgels would blog on his own free will, isn’t it? 😛
White Album II is already going down the path to being a bad soap opera. Seems like almost every character has emotional problems and the main character has some serious issues. He can’t seem to make up his mind either.
they say railgun will become dark later..
@ Solaris
In my opinion it’s not “your typical action series” any more than FMA, which psgels enjoys (me too, even if new chara design is killing me). Granted, it doesn’t have anywhere near the screentime FMA has to develop the characters and setting, but upon reading the manga I think that it has enough potential for drama and – as mentioned – dark if it’s executed right.
It will be it’s make-or-break, so we’ll just see if it turned out decent or not in the end.
@reltair :
so what’s the problem with it then? if every character has emotional problems and serious issues so it always means signs of bad soap opera? Can’t it become a great tragedy series?
We don’t know yet.
I hope you blog White Album II, your efforts last season were greatly appreciated.
And to the readers expecting School Days MkII .. Ain’t happening. Though Touya is probably the most broken of the characters.
Since the police in Academy city are actually composed of plucky kids and teachers, it should be enough to say that this world has different rules, and enjoy the characters. 80% of students make a little more sense if many facilities in the city, such as trash collection, are automated.
i loved so much to aru kagaku no railgun , this anime isn’t yuri , the lesbian character is only for comedy , and is because of it i can tolerate it (i don’t like much gay romance in anime ) but kuroka was the funnier character but mikoto is the coolest