Mikoto and co. battle Telestina and MAR to save Haruue and the Child Errors.John McClane may have killed a helicopter with a car, but Mitsuko can kill two helicopters with a truck.They make a good team despite the rivalry. Kuroko has the better power though.Summary:Kiyama is chasing two MAR trucks but discovers they contain MAR mechs with grenade launchers, but Mikoto and friends (including Konori and Mitsuko) swoop in for the rescue. Kuroko and Mitsuko remain the mop up the MAR mechs while the others join up with Kiyama to rescue the kids. Along the way, Telestina emerges in a giant yellow mech to try and squash Mikoto and co, and Konori is knocked out of the chase. Mikoto ends up on Kiyama's car and tries to take out Telestina, but Telestina's mech is designed to be Mikoto-resistant, making shocks and railgun coins ineffective. Kiyama's car is chased onto a section of the highway that's supposed to be blocked off by a MAR team, but that team is busy fighting with the Anti-Skills, thus allowing Kiyama to drive past. Telestina continues to chase, but Mikoto turns up the voltage and blows up a flying arm from Telestina's mech. Kuroko teleports in and teleports the tip of the destroyed arm to Mikoto, who then launches launches the tip in a railgun blast right through Telestina's mech. With Telestina's mech destroyed, Mikoto and company continue their journey to the secret Kihara lab where the kids were being taken to.I guess the marking of "Safety First" on the mech's arm only refers to the safety of the pilot.Who the heck shoots a rifle in battle with their eyes closed? Just more evidence that Anti-Skill (or at least Tessou) never had any real training.Kamehameha with a railgun.Mikoto and friends made the bad mistake of not checking if the villain is out of commission or not.After taking out the security the lab, Mikoto and company locate Haruue and the Child Errors at the lowest level of the lab. Kiyama gets to work trying to free the kids, but suddenly the Capacity Down system is turned on and a bloodied Telestina shows up to swat away her opponents. Saten happens to be standing right outside the room and is not spotted by Telestina, and Uiharu manages to tell Saten to go back to the control room on the surface to disable the Capacity Down without Telestina knowing. Firmly in control, Telestina states that she is going to use the Child Errors and the first sample abilities crystal (made from herself) to make Haruue into a Level 6, and she doesn't care if the whole city end up being destroyed in case the Child Errors wake up. Mikoto and friends stall for time so that Saten can run back upstairs to the control room, and Saten smashes up the controls with her baseball bat just in time to save Mikoto. With the Capacity Down disabled, Mikoto tosses Telestina away and this allows Kiyama to get hold of the first sample crystal. The crazed Telestina refuse to give up and tries to kill Mikoto with her own version of the railgun, but Mikoto wins the ensuing Railgun vs. railgun showdown and blasts Telestina into unconsciousness.Mikoto got an "up"grade this episode and went from being choked to hanging off of a lance.So that's why she brought the baseball bat.I'm not sure how two railgun projectiles can have contest of force of like this, but it doesn't really matter.After the battle, Kiyama uses the first sample crystal to complete her program, and all the Child Errors regain consciousness without causing poltergeist activities. This joyous moment brings tears to Kiyama's eyes, and Kiyama thank Mikoto and friends for their help.Hurray, you finally win for once.A day or days later, Mikoto and friends are late for some event (thought of by Mikoto) with Haruue and the Child Errors. While rushing to the hospital where the Child Errors are, Kuroko receives a phone call from Konori about the case. It turns out Telestina has survived the battle but is refusing to talk, and so there is still a lot of work to be done. Mikoto and friends don't make to the hospital in time, but they are able to see the event from an overpass. In another hospital, Kiyama is recovering from her injuries. Suddenly she hears the voices of her former students from outside the window. Kiyama looks out and sees Bani and other Child Errors wishing her well and happy birthday from a screen on an airship, and this brings tears to her eyes.Happy faces all around.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It was good finale. There were stuff being blown up, cool teleporting, a nice chase scene, more crazy expressions, and a Beatrice-esque cackle or two. Also, Anti-Skill was actually useful for once (although I'm not sure how assault rifles can stand up to heavily armored mechs with grenade launchers) and Mitsuko also got in the on the action and showed off her abilities as well. Overall I have to say I'm satisfied with how the episode went. It wasn't the greatest final showdown ever; it wasn't that imaginative and was cliched at some parts, not to mention that the whole arc didn't make much sense, but at least the episode focused on Mikoto, Kuroko and friends using their skills to save the day and that's what I came here to see.Looking into the story for this episode, I have no idea how Telestina's plans was supposed to work, but at this stage it doesn't matter. I'm a bit disappointed that Telestina still relied on a stationary Capacity Down system to suppress Mikoto and friends. How is making a device bigger and stationary an improvement? I would have expected Telestina to have a portable version of the device, but then again that would rob Saten and her baseball bat of their purpose. And how come Mikoto's railgun coin can only go 50m? Does the coin get burned up in the process? Anyways, I should stop nitpicking on the plot since it probably wasn't written to make sense in the first place.The only other notable complaint about this episode (aside from plot related things) is J.C. Staff's insistence on playing the OP songs during the action sequences. Don't get me wrong. I think both OPs are decent, but they are not really appropriate as fight music (and this isn't Macross). Is it that hard to come up with a piece of music to use for the big battles? This episode and last week's episode were pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, this can't be said for many of the previous episodes in Railgun. This second half arc and the Level Upper arc were decent for the most part, but some of the other episodes (especially the fillers in the middle) really dropped the ball. Overall, I found Railgun to be an average series. I was expecting Railgun to be better than Index, but it ended up being about the same. While Index got bogged down by various scientific and hero speeches, Railgun was bogged down by the fillers and smaller amount of pseudo-science expositions.At the end of the episode, I was a little surprised that there were no announcements for the next season of Index. We probably won't be seeing Railgun season 2 for a while given how the manga is monthly, but there should be plenty of material for second season of Index. I think it'll happen eventually.
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