Kuroko investigate an incident involving a stolen luggage case that has links to Mikoto. You knew this day would come, Kuroko. Summary: Kuroko gets Mikoto to go shopping with her after school. While Kuroko is busy picking out lingerie, Mikoto is watching the news blimp about the space shuttle being launched. Kuroko and Mikoto spend the next few minutes joking around in the lingerie store but Kuroko is called by Uiharu for some Judgment work. After Kuroko arrives at the Judgment office, Uiharu briefs Kuroko on an incident where two people inside a car were attacked and a luggage case was taken from the back of the trunk. Through the surveillance video, Uiharu can tell that the case was a special case used by astronauts and it had the insignia of the 23rd school district. Uiharu informs Kuroko that due to an unexpected traffic light malfunction, the assailants are probably ditched their vehicles and are running on foot, and Kuroko decides to go take care of things by herself. You don't get to Kuroko's position without stepping on a few people. Because I was bored, I decided to rotate this screenshot to spice things up a bit. ... I lied. The show decided to rotate the shot for some reason. Kuroko tracks down the assailants and easily disarms them by pinning them to the ground with needles. Kuroko then turns her attention on the case, but she gets a phone call from Mikoto. After Kuroko finishes the phone call, the luggage case suddenly disappears from under her and she is then stabbed in the right arm with a needle. Kuroko then spots a girl sitting on the luggage case in front of her and figures out she's facing a teleporter. The girl explains that she can teleport objects without touching them. Kuroko charges in but is stabbed in the ribs with her own needle which forces her to her knees. While Kuroko is down for the moment, the girl starts to explain how the case and everything has to do with the remnants of Tree Diagram and some experiments related to Mikoto, but Kuroko doesn't know what she's talking about. While the girl is monologuing, Kuroko reaches for another needle. Kuroko has a tendency to get herself banged up. Sometime later, Kuroko is back at her dorm washroom to patch up her wounds. At the same time, Kuroko is talking to Uiharu on the phone about the situation. Uiharu IDs the girl Kuroko fought as Awaki Musujime who is rumored to be the guide to the windowless building that the head of Academy City resides. Uiharu also informs Kuroko that the luggage case was probably being transported to a research facility when it was taken and the matter is probably out of Judgment's hands. At this moment, Kuroko notices that Mikoto has returned and hangs up. Through the glass door of the washroom, Mikoto wonders what Kuroko is doing in the washroom while not having the room lights on, and Kuroko lies that she wanted to lure Mikoto in. Kuroko then asks where Mikoto has been and Mikoto answers that she went out looking for some accessories but didn't find any, and she is going to go out again. After Mikoto leaves, Kuroko decides to go track Mikoto and help Mikoto in any way she can. The good thing about Mikoto is that she's usually not hard to find. Just look for smoke, explosions and/or blackouts. It doesn't take Kuroko long to track down Mikoto as smoke is rising from a construction site. At the site, Mikoto blows away a bunch of guys with guns and then confronts Awaki who has the case. Awaki taunts Mikoto and states that she'll escape by any means necessary, and she teleports a bunch of people including innocent bystanders in front of Mikoto to cover her exit. Having seen what happened, Kuroko takes it upon herself to stop Awaki and teleports away. Since Mikoto is one of the main characters of this arc, she gets to fire her railgun. It's rainin' men! Hallelujah! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The start of the new story arc featuring Kuroko and Mikoto, and with it came plenty of chattering, exposition or otherwise. The talking wasn't too unbearable since it wasn't too much into the pseudo-science/magic and was broken up by bits of action and scene changes, but some of the transitions were quite abrupt. For example, what exactly happened at the end of the confrontation between Kuroko and Awaki? Whatever happened, it certainly wasn't answered by cutting to Last Order and Accelerator playing in the bathroom. I liked both of the fights though despite the short length and Awaki and Mikoto's tendencies to chat during the fights. I couldn't make sense of what Mikoto was ranting on about during her fight, but at least the sparks and crackles looked nice. So this arc is shaping up as the continuation/aftermath story to the Sisters arc and is centered around the case containing the remains of the Tree Diagram. Mikoto wants the case destroyed to prevent the experiments from restarting, but it's not known what Awaki's group is after by stealing case from Academy City people. The main "villain" so far appears to be Awaki, who certainly has the abilities to be a challenging adversary, but personality-wise she seems like the generic over-talkative villain. It's not big deal if Awaki will have some cool battles with Kuroko though. From the preview, it looks like everyone including Touma, Accelerator, and the Imoutos will be involved next week, and let's hope it'll lead to battles instead of people giving long winded speeches. From the feed of A Product of Wasted Time
Read the rest of this entry Entry meta