To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Speculation & Theories (for first time viewers)
 

This thread is aimed at first time viewers of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun and its purpose is to allow spoiler free speculation and theories to be aired. Having them in a central location may help focus the discussion instead of spreading speculation over the various episode discussion threads. If you are knowledgeable of the manga and wish to speculate or discuss theories, then please do not post in this thread (use the Speculation & Theories thread instead) and do not give away any spoilers in this thread!

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Magazine previews are an exception to the said rule. You are allowed to discuss those. (Properly labeled spoiler tags required).

I was terribly disappointed with A Certain Magical Index a dropped it at episode 6. The pacing was lousy and the characters annoying. But I'm willing to give Railgun a chance, since the director is the Toradora director and the story isn't by the novel writer.

At the moment I'm watching the Index series and I must say... I'm struggling. Watching it for every possible scene where Mikoto might show up (Or her yuri companion).

Needless to say how I look forward to Railgun.

Dear god let S2 be better than the first i managed to finish S1 but i will not say i was satisfied with the progress of the series after episode 6. It seemed to jump from here and there it just was not fluid. It didnt make my eyes bleed but i was questioned why they decided to take the route they did with the animation.

Well I watched the whole of the first series and I can honsetsly say the first 6 episodes were brilliant but the rest was like several steps down. There were some cool moments here and there but it didn't quite live up to the expectations.

Regardless I'm still interested enough to watch the sequel. I hope this will be somewhat better but to be honest I don't see it being as good as those first 6 episodes were.

Somewhat off-topic, but about that:

Mmm, just to clear up any misunderstandings here; it sounds like you guys think Railgun is a sequel to Index. It isn't. It's a spinoff side-story, focusing on Mikoto Misaka during/alongside the events of Index.

And again slightly off-topic, but in reply to Sinestra, the Index anime doesn't differ from the novels.

Oh yeah, but I thought it was a sequel since it was based on the manga. Looking it up on the wikipedia i realised that the manga itself is a spin-off too. /facepalm.

The is the story is done by the same novel writer
Original creator: Kazuma Kamachi(novel writer)
Original Manga: Motoi Fuyukawa(manga drawings)
Info from ANN

Oh, darn. I can only hope the writing isn't as annoying and the conversations as long as in Index. At least the director of this anime isn't the same.

Well the manga is a diferent format,you know. Hope :P

About the weird prism thingy at the OP.

Ahh, we can't really talk about that, it'd be a major spoiler for the Railgun anime. If you really like to know though, you could ask in the manga spoilers and speculations thread.

I'm looking forward to a good show from this one, first episode was amazingly done desu.

I grabbed this series and I enjoyed it; I'm currently at Episode 16.

I think the only reason why Index has less action than any of the other people is because she's h4x. She has practically the knowledge of more than 103,000 magicians inside her brain, and right now, given the perfect variables, she could eliminate any single esper or magician.

Made few screenshots from the new Opening:
http://i.imgur.com/d3N8kD0l.jpg
Febli - blonde gothic loli with purple eyes and lolipop.
I can't wait to hear her voiced, her design looks really well done. (unlike other anime only characters)

http://i.imgur.com/FdJazfxl.jpg
SHINOBU confirmed and this is followed by another image of Febli
http://i.imgur.com/UIsXXejl.png
Which means they have some sort of connection.

http://i.imgur.com/pWsovi5l.jpg
Kuroko, Saten and Uiharu taking care of Febli, as expected :)
I wonder if the "delay" Harue had this episode was connected to it somehow.

http://i.imgur.com/PZNV2FSl.png
A small container with blonde hair in it
http://i.imgur.com/SsZhVBHl.jpg
Most likely belogning to Febli considering this image.

http://i.imgur.com/aoIv9hDl.jpg
Our group of bad guys, no known faces, most likely all Kiharas.

http://i.imgur.com/1Dp6zNil.jpg
Febli and Sister, could Febli be a clone? Most likely Sisters are going to play some role too.

http://i.imgur.com/sGN1Ortl.jpg
Mikoto is going to have it hard :D

Seems the Sisters are going to keep in Railgun for another arc at least.. :)

OK, I guess it's time to start watching again (stopped after the ITEM sub-arc). Now that Nagai-sensei has more creative freedom I have high expectations :D

The missing preview
 

WE GOT EPISODE 18 PREVIEW!!!
Evidently one of the stations airing it today showed the preview.
Here are the screenshots from 4chan, which originally are from 2chan.

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Suddenly, Harue(?) became a scientist.

Dat twist.

Yeah, their desing is really bad..
I think JCStaff put all effort into the loli :) and ignored everyone else.