[Haak]

Originally Posted by Jyang

In my opinion, I honestly don't think she even "thought" about who he was [let alone remember that he was level 5]. She was probably thinking more along the lines "F*** THAT GUY KILLED MY CLONE I'M GONA KILL HIM" *exaggerates*.

She was going berserk. She wasn't thinking rationally. You can see her go full out throwing all her power at Accelerator. I'm sure when you utterly want to destroy someone...you couldn't care less who they were. You just want them defeated.

I think the problem is that YOU know he's Accelerator, but SHE doesn't. From her point of view, out of the all the people in this city that she met, NO ONE [except Touma] was able to come out unscathed from her attack. She is Ranked 3 out of 2.3 million people and she's proud of her power. When she can't defeat someone with her power...of course she would be surprised.

Spoiler for Comparison to the manga:

When I first read the Railgun manga [and did not know who Accelerator was], I was genuinely surprised as well. Because all the previous stories showed how OP Mikoto was...then suddenly...there's someone who can defeat her with little effort. Unlike Touma [who I've already heard about his right hand], this guy just came out of nowhere and was able to deflect Mikoto's attacks. I had no idea who No. 1 was, so when she was shocked to finally made the connection that the guy was No. 1 of Academy City, it was actually surprising.

I think in the manga, Mikoto suspected during her fight, but she couldn't be sure because she has never met Accelerator before. It was only when she connected his speech with his powers that she was 100% sure that it was Accelerator. Even if she knew he was Accelerator beforehand, she would have tried to attack him regardless because she has never seen his power before.

-------Sorry post getting long------

tl;dr: She went berserk. She wanted to kill the guy. She wasn't thinking straight. She doesn't know what Accelerator looks like and has never seen his powers before. She's rank 3 and she's proud of her power that has allowed her to defeat so many people in the past [except Touma, but he's an special case].

Seeing another person [who she doesn't know] be able to deflect her attacks are surprising for her. The audience on the other hand, may or may not know who Accelerator is. How surprised you are depends if you knew who he is and his powers. Mikoto in my opinion, was genuinely surprised and it's justified.

Whether you think it's genuine or not is up to you, I just wanted to explain my point of view of why it's justified and have no mean to cause conflict whatsoever.


----Side Rant----

The problem with a lot of people is that they KNOW who characters are....they KNOW the ending due to outside sources [aka Index series]. Now everyone needs to put their feet in Mikoto's shoes and understand that she knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about ANYTHING. She only knows the stuff of what we've seen in the RAILGUN SERIES and not the Index series.

Like I said, I thought she knew he was Level 5 (but as I said that might not even be the case either) and that she doesn't have to be thinking it rationally in order to not be surprised. So no, that isn't my problem.