To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating
 

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
• Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun :)

Overall, pretty good. 8/10

The Sister Arc knew exactly how to make its emotional punches hit hard, by using the more slice of life moments (mint ice cream, Dog the cat) to build up character empathy... so when the horrors came in, they hit hard (reminds me a bit of the Cloverfield in the basic method).

Art and sound were of a high quality throughout and I like Sister Noise enough to put it on my Youtube list. :) I know Index and Railgun sessions 3 should least look good and sound prey

Script writing was good.... for the Sister Arc. The Silent Party arc writing was the weak link in otherwise strong session with all sort of plot holes and general problems.

In balance however we did get the adorable Febri and a chance to see Saten play the role of big sis.. which was cute! :blush: The filler arc also wisely decided to go for a more optimistic and silly mirror to the Sister arc which I feel was best shown in the huge mech fight at the end, but was a nice balance to the dark first arc.

Character wise as sessions, Mikoto got bucketloads of depth added, Saten got to show a different side to her character and Kuroko "affections" were certainly handled better this session.

Overall a lot better second session than the first, Can't wait for the next!:D

The series started very good. The Sisters Arc was actually surprisingly well adapted; as a standalone adaptation I would give it a 9/10; the only detraction I would give is the odd filler episode with Kuroko and the clover and a few things with ITEM (mainly the change of shape of Body Crystal and that I didn't particularly like Saiai voice)

About the filler, the Silent Party Arc; it's obviously made for the people who prefer the light-hearted atmosphere of the first season. While it has more issues than even other Railgun filler (so many that my first run through the arc left me a bit pissed off) it can be enjoyed if you like that kind of things and don't mind some silly moments. After seeing it a second time I could enjoy the action and the visuals but the plot was obviously the weakest part of the arc with many moments thrown in for fanservice. Definitely the worst arc in both Index and Railgun for me in that regard.

All in all I give the series 8/10 mainly because the Sisters Arc and some things in the second arc like ITEM fighting Powered Suits. Hopefully if they go for filler next season they will step up their game.

Animation Quality: 9/10
Voice Actors: 10/10
Script: 7/10
Soundtrack: 8/10
Editing: 7/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Emotional Involvement: 7/10

Overall rating: 8/10

Railgun S was really successful for the Sisters Arc. It had great script, animation, script as it was done by Kamachi himself mostly, and had good storyline. It was very enjoyable and made great expectations. Also had great emotional involvement as Mikoto was in despair and such about the Sisters getting killed and was really emotional and epic after Touma shows up.


However after entering Febli arc, things have gone downwards in terms of plot, character, personality of the characters, and original script. It had terrible antagonists and characters did things they normally wouldn't have done at all, such as Mikoto talking about the darkness towards her friends which would obviously put them in danger.

If it wasn't for the Febli Arc, this anime would have gotten at least 9~10/10 overall, but Febli arc gave a lot of minuses.

Animation Quality: 8/10
Voice Actors: 9/10
Script: 8/10
Soundtrack: 10/10
Editing: 8/10
Enjoyment: 7/10
Emotional Involvement: 8/10

Average = 8/10

Fairly good adaptation of the Sister's arc overall. Which was surprising for me as coming from Season 1. Outside of an odd episode and few -forced- SOL injections to include other characters, it was great. The pinnacle being the ITEM sub-arc and the final confrontation between Accelerator and Touma. However, it did feel like it dragged on a bit near the end. Where things felt they could have fit in one episode rather than pushing it to the next.

The animation quality was absolutely great. It pushed a lot from JC Staff I didn't expect. To give a comparison, it was like a slightly toned down Endymion.

However, for the filler, I couldn't enjoy it as much. Even when accepting filler is filler though it was a nice visual feast in the final episode. But there was a noticeable drop in animation quality. I could not get attached to Febri. And it was generally poor compared to season 1's.

The Soundtrack was great all around. Iuchi Maiko usually captures me with her high-tempo electronica themes that's done in Toaru series, but most of my favourites ended up being the more sombre pieces. One in particular, was from episode 14- the bridge scene. Very big improvement.

Overall, even with the poor 2nd half, the sister's arc adaptation was quite good minus some issues here and there and that far outweighs it thus, 8/10.

Animation Quality: 8/10
Voice Actors: 8/10
Script: 7/10
Soundtrack: 8/10
Editing: 7/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Emotional Involvement: 6/10

I had to rate the Sisters Arc here I would give a 8.5/10 with no doub but since this is abou the whole season...

Overall I'll give a 7/10.

It was a fun ride until the last arc I want to not remember.

Overall this was a great season. I give it a 8/10 (I'd do 7.5/10 if the polls here allowed it)

The Sister's arc was done almost perfectly. Misaka was so incredible in this arc, her complete emotional breakdown was done so perfectly it was painful to watch (in a good way), and her use of her powers was so cool. Her fight with ITEM was done incredibly well aside from a few small changes I didn't like (listed below). Accelerator was as incredible as always and I enjoyed seeing the flashbacks of his life and why he started the sisters. The fight of Accelerator vs Touma was so epic as well that I did not care that I've already seen/read it four times before this. I didn't care for the "let's all pick four leaf clovers as good luck charms" episode but I can ignore that. Overall I give this arc 9.5/10.

The Silent Party arc was crap. The villains were awful (and I mean awful), so damn many side characters were stuffed into it, Both the villains and the main characters had to do stupid things to keep the plot going, and the whole thing was campy as hell. 3/10.

Miscellaneous positive things:
-Accelerator realizing he can control the wind and then proceeding to do so was incredibly well done. It just looked so cool. Much much better done then it was in Index I
-The first SoL episode after the Sister's arc actually managed to be funny.
-Kuroko's love for Misaka was handled a million times better than it was in Railgun I. I didn't feel the urge to strangle her out of annoyance at all
-Animation was great
-Every Misaka clone death hit so damn hard.
-The ending of episode 5 was really done well
-Probably some other things I'm forgetting about.

Miscellaneous negative things:
-Everything they did with Shinobu. First of all they made her attractive (I mean having a non attractive female character would just be ridiculous right?) and then they saved her. Her getting dragged off to some unknown dark fate was an incredibly powerful scene that highlighted just how dark things got in the Sister's arc. Then this arc show up and says "no don't worry guys she got out a week later and all possible legal issues were swept under the rug for her" It ruined her character for me.
-Mugino just ignored Misaka upon meeting her again instead of going crazy and trying to murder her, which is completely against her character.
-Takitsubo's Body Clear was turned into a pill instead of a powder. Just not the same effect.
-Study didn't think to give any of their 20,000 powered suits guns? Really?
-How on earth did Saten learn to drive a super-advance-robot in one day of reading a manual?
-The timeline of the Silent Party arc clashed with the rest of the series.
-Really, pretty much everything about that arc.
-Probably some other things I'm forgetting about.

I'm going to split this by arc and then review it.
Sisters Arc
Animation Quality: 10/10
Voice Actors: 10/10
Script: 9/10
Soundtrack: 10/10
Enjoyment: 10/10
Emotional Involvement: 10/10

There is not much I can say. Aside from that one SoL episode in the middle of the arc (Cloverfield), this arc was simply amazing. The music meshed really well with the actions. The arc did a great job of making me invest myself in the characters, story, and so forth despite the fact that this was the fifth adaptation of this arc (Index Vol 3, Index manga, Index anime, and Railgun manga came before). Let's not forget ITEM's debut into the anime. From the build-up to the denouement, this arc was consistently amazing.

Overall: 59/60=9.8/10

Silent Party Arc
Animation Quality: 9/10
Voice Actors: 8/10
Script: 2/10
Soundtrack: 8/10
Enjoyment: 2/10
Emotional Involvement: 1/10

Ugh...this arc...where to begin...
Febri...Febri...Such a moeblob. All style no substance. The watered-down clone of Vivio Takamachi. Unlike Vivio, I couldn't care less about Febri. She had some cute moments but beyond that there was nothing to make me even care about Febri.
The arc was a mess, the characters went OoC, and the villains were lame (although considering that they were rejects of the Darkness, that is sorta acceptable). It completely ruined the timeline--I'm looking at you, Episode 24. It was basically full-frontal fanservice and nothing more.

Overall: 30/60=5/10

Total Series Score-
Weighted Average by episode count:
Sisters Arc=16 episodes
Silent Party Arc=8 episodes
Weighting=Sisters:Silent Party=2:1
Overall Score: [2(9.8)+1(5)]/30=8.2
Round Down to 8

The Sister's arc was excellent, It was not just a good adaptation, but had a great execution. Any defect the story had, came from the source, but I say those were minor anyway.

Still, the season seems too short with only 17 episodes, it feels like I'm missing something... :eyespin:

At any rate, 8/10 sounds about right, IMO. :D

It wasn't bad, but unlike the previous season, the last arc bombed. The enemy was pathetic and the last episode was beyond stupid in almost every way.
The middle arc was a remake of Toaru Majutsu no Index, which I could barely care less about (though the quality was great!).

But well, one good thing about the Railgun anime is the amount of original material. Gotta love how the novel followers can't spoil anything to save their lives.
I've stopped reading the manga, so I don't know if anything comes up about Shinobu, but I am glad the anime brings her back in to the story and saves her. Oh, and anime version is pretty cute. Great job there, designer.

And Saten-san.
7/10

I enjoyed this season. Music was good and they did the sister arc quite well. I was quite surprised at Shinobu. I did not like febri and STUDY much, but I do enjoy filler episodes which gives us more Saten and Kuroko. The end episode was a bit campy.

9/10

8/10
nice music, sisters arc was great
silent party was plain,
hopefully we get to see febri, kongou, shinobu in the novels,

- Last story arc was weak compared to the first one.
- Not very fond with the visuals. Some of it was too 3D for me. Especially the damned powered suits.
- The final villain was unbearably uncool.
- Action scenes were a bit too slow, and some of the emotional scenes fell a bit flat.

+ The rest was pretty cool though. Like, wow.

8/10 would watch again.

Sister's Arc = perfect!
Silent Party Arc = good start, horrible climax

A single bad episode can't overcome the greatness of the Sister's Arc so I give it a 9.

without the last arc, I would have given it 10/10.
with it though, im giving the show 8.

also guys I found this:
http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Cloverfield

Kind of late to the party :heh:

that pretty much sums up my review of it. and most animes as well.

I give Railgun S a 10 for animating the Sisters arc and expanding the story.
It had great characterization, good music and action packed.

Sisters Arc was perfect. The second arc wasn't so bad but it really looks terrible in comparison to the Sisters arc. The ending is awesome though.

Sisters Arc is 12/10, other Arc is 6/10, ending of other arc is 9/10 so it's a 9 for me.