Bryce's Blog

I hope everyone is doing well, even if the seasons have yet to
change.

Things are going
fairly well here, since I can still do what I’d like.

A while back, I was
looking around on Amazon for the titles I currently follow and I was
finally able to secure a copy of the one I was anticipating the most.

Now that it has
arrived, it is time to get off my butt and take care of it.

Today, I will be
reviewing that title, which is called A
Certain Scientific Railgun Volume 19 by Kazuma Kamachi.

As I have given a
series synopsis in an earlier
post, I will not go over it again.

After completing
their raid of the Montgolfier company and its funding company, the
students of Tokiwadai believe that things can get back to normal.

However, even with
the dust settled, other parties start to make their move and have
expressed their desire to take down the prestigious Tokiwadai for
some yet undisclosed reason.

While the previous
volume was quite enjoyable, I still need to keep on my toes, so
that I can remain as fair as I try to be.

And after reading
this, I must say that I liked this quite a bit.

From the moment that
I opened up this book and started reading the first few pages, I
found myself engrossed enough that I did not want to stop reading for
any reason.

As I have said
numerous times before, one of the most important aspects in a work of
fiction is how things begin, as the beginning is supposed to
transport the audience to a different world, thereby giving them the
temporary escape that they desire.

While this can be
accomplished in many different ways, depending on the genre and the
medium used to present the work, this series, like many other manga,
was originally published in a serial publication, which means that
things need to begin in a way that makes sense based upon the
previous installment.

In the previous
installment, after the three biggest cliques get together and take
out who they think is responsible for the animosity between the
second and third largest cliques, the guy in charge of the company
starts to realize that things seem to not make sense, wondering why
he would go after Tokiwadai, we see somebody using Misaki’s ability
approach the man who turns out to be Sha.

Not long after her
reveal as the true mastermind, the final panel shows her telling the
group that they had outlived their usefulness.

In this volume,
things pick up not long after this, showing the guys Sha had been
manipulating the entire time being disposed of while she continues to
take care of whatever business she had being there, before
transitioning to a conversation between Sha and Kessai, where it is
first revealed that they intend to harm Tokiwadai.

While I am still not
particularly a fan of starts like this, as the time between releases
of A Certain Scientific Railgun has the potential to decrease
the excitement of certain events, such as if the volume had ended in
the middle of a fight, the way this volume begins had me on the edge
of my seat and had me wondering exactly what was going to happen
next.

Even if I had
forgotten that Sha was up to something at this time, which would be
hard to forget because this arc has yet to conclude in the Japanese
releases, which is not as far ahead as the Detective Conan
Japanese releases in comparison to the Viz translation, I don’t
think I there is a way in which my interest could not be piqued from
what is seen here.

If things did not
feel like they were just beginning, then that might be enough to hurt
a great beginning, which could possibly hurt the sales of the series.

However, because
ASCII Media Works, or whoever they had compile this volume for them,
and the rest of the people involved in bring A Certain Scientific
Railgun to the rest of the world decide to have the first chapter
pick in the way that it did, I feel like giving them very high
praise.

Hopefully, future
volumes will be able to start off just as well as this one did, but
because the Railgun series kind of feels mostly disjointed after the
Sisters arc, with the exception of how the Jailbreaker arc
transitioned to this arc by capitalizing on Misaka reminiscing on the
past back in volume
17, I would not be surprised if things take a turn for the worst.

I also liked how we
saw the beginning of Shoukoho Misaki’s clique in this volume.

Even though I was
never really that interested in that history, especially because I
like Mikoto Misaka more than Misaki, and I could certainly live
without knowing how things came to be in the Raildex universe, with
the only possible exception being the infamous bridge scene from the
first
magical index novel that only got a good explanation in the first
volume of this series, I was kind of curious because Misaki was
shown to mostly be a loner at the beginning of this arc and we even
got to see who Misaka’s roommate was before Kuroko.

Here, in this
volume, after Sha’s intentions were revealed to the reader, time
skips to Junko giving Misaki a list of the members of the top three
cliques, making Junko wonder if Misaki was planning to start a clique
of her own and then showing Misaki kneeling beside Touma Kamijou
while she gives her answer.

Now, this scene does
show that Misaki is not as arrogant as she seemed to be when we first
encounter her in the series, but this flashback that we see in this
volume does create some questions in my mind, like when she actually
met Touma, since we do know she met him before he lost his memories
and that this arc is set one year before the present, and it seems to
be a much bigger reason for her wanting to start a clique than being
given the suggestion by the leader of an established clique.

Not only do we see
that Misaki understands her own limitations but we also get a brief
glimpse later, where takes control of a scene, which makes one of the
Tokiwadai student recognize that she has leadership qualities.

Yes, these events do
not exactly show the beginning of Misaki’s clique, but putting this
all together with the small time skip that occurs after other
characters learn of Sha’s true goal, where Misaki is revealed to
have the second largest clique, it does provide a nice history in how
her clique came to be.

If these details
were skipped over, I would have been alright with it, since everyone
at this point knows that Misaki has a clique in the present, so we
kind of knew that she would form one, but I don’t think things
would be as enjoyable because Misaki did not have a clique at the
beginning of this arc and we already had somebody suggest making one
to her.

Fortunately, Kazuma
Kamachi took the opportunity to show how Misaki formed her clique,
even showing how similar Misaki and Misaka were, which helped to
connect the arc back to the present as well as show far Misaki has
come between the present and the past.

Hopefully, this will
lead up to the first chronological time where Misaka and Misaki team
up, but seeing as things are only heating up in the arc at the
moment, I would not be surprised if this does not occur until
everyone knows what Sha is scheming.

Another thing that I
like was seeing how Kuroko and Misaka met.

While we do know
that Kuroko did have an encounter with Misaka before the events of
this arc, we only really knew that Mikoto saved Kuroko and Kuroko had
never seen her in person.

Here, however, after
the graduation of Ruri and the heads of the second and third largest
cliques find out what Sha intends to do, Kuroko is seen bad mouthing
Misaka, much like she bad mouthed Tokiwadai even though she enrolled
there eventually, and then ends up unknowingly encountering Misaka,
who was looking for her hair pins, and has a brief exchange in
helping Misaka find her things.

Yes, she does find
out that she was talking to Misaka not long after the encounter, but
seeing Kuroko get teased about her remarks about Misaka were pretty
confusing and made me wonder how things would develop into her
becoming Misaka’s roommate, as well as becoming the insufferable
character she known to be in the anime.

If this moment had
not been included in this, I would have been very much upset because
we had gotten to see the formation of Misaki’s clique, as well as
find out Misaka had only recently reached level 5 in this arc, and
this would have ruined the build up to where two of the four members
of cast are in the present.

Thankfully, Kazuma
Kamachi did not completely forget about things that had yet to occur
that the fanbase already knows about, which means I can give him a
passing grade.

Hopefully, things
will turn out to be satisfying when this arc concludes with all that
we are learning now, but seeing as there have been things that were
kind of disappointing before, I would not be surprised if this arc
ends up falling flat.

Another thing that I
liked this volume were the questions and the fights that came up in
this volume.

While it was nice
seeing things like the formation of Misaki’s clique and the meeting
between Kuroko and Misaka, the biggest draw to this series is the
battles.

One of the things
that I really hated about A
Certain Magical Index, the main series in the raildex
universe, is that the fights were pretty boring because they all
flowed the same way right up to the point where Touma lands a hit
with his right hand.

Yes, it can be
argued that the fights are a little better in the novels, as we
actually get Touma’s thoughts, thereby we get a sense of his
thinking and how he formulates strategies, even though I am still
annoyed with how he can fully utilize his body, unlike me, yet only
uses one arm to fight, but there is not that much difference in the
feeling of the fights overall, with the exception of Kuroko’s fight
in volume
8 that should have been in this series and Accelerator’s
fights.

In this series,
every fight feels interesting and unique because the fights
themselves play out in a way that makes me feel invested from the
start and no fight, with the exception of possibly the fight back in
volume
10, which should have been part of Magical Index’s Daihasei
Festival arc index of made into an arc in Railgun, ends in a
predictable a predictable manner.

In this volume, this
holds very much true for the parts leading up to where Ruri and the
other upperclassmen begin to learn about what Sha is up to and plans
to do.

However, the thing
about all of this that has me really on the edge my seat and makes me
wish I could read the next volume right now, even though this volume
is the latest release both here and in Japan at the time I wrote
this, is the questions that crop up.

During the course of
the volume, we learn from Ruri that there were groups doing the same
thing as the guy that the Tokiwadai students had beaten that had gone
under in the past, with a chemical company being the first to go
belly up because of an incident concerning a girl named Yayoi
Takebayashi, who was in the same position Sha holds now but was
eventually disgraced.

While the
Takebayashi family is talked about to an extent after that
revelation, up to the point where Ruri finds her first lead, it is
believed that the motivation for Sha to takedown Tokiwadai was to get
revenge for Yayoi.

Later, before a
fight ensues, it is revealed that the Takebayashi children saw each
other mostly as rivals and would not seek revenge, though there might
be some exceptions, which makes me wonder if Sha is out for vengeance
or what her exact motives are for wanting to hurt Tokiwadai’s
reputation, which last all the way up until the end of volume.

However, the biggest
question that crops up after the fight, which revealed that Ruri’s
lead was a possible target for recruitment into a group that wants
sensitive information, is if Sha is also involved with the group in
some way.

If all of these
questions were not on my mind at this moment, I don’t think I would
have liked things as much, as this would not have really been that
different from Misaka’s rampage in the Sisters Arc and this series
does need a new arc to really pull people in.

Fortunately, Kazuma
Kamachi remembered what made this series great, beyond the battles,
which makes me feel like giving him some high praise.

Hopefully, this arcs
ends just as well as it had begun, but seeing as this is a human
creation, I would not be surprised if things end up becoming
disappointing.

The thing that I
liked the most though was how this volume ended.

As I have said a
countless number of times before, aside from how things begin, the
second most important part of a work of fiction is how things end, as
the ending is either supposed to leave the reader satisfied, in the
case of a standalone work or the final installment of a series, or
make the reader want more, if it is part of a serial publication.

While the track
record of this series in how its volumes end is not exactly perfect,
which is partly due to how it can be difficult to determine where a
volume should end and another begins, the ending featured in this
volume does its job well in making me want to get the next volume
already by making me wonder how things will proceed.

After Sha reveals
her desire to hurt Tokiwadai’s reputation to the girls who just
graduated, we see Misaka scrambling around looking for her hair pins,
which leads up to the aforementioned meeting with Kuroko.

Not long after
Misaka meets Kuroko, Kessai is seen meeting with Sha, who has been
recently revealed to be her sister, and gives her Misaka’s missing
hair pins and tells Sha to leave Misaka alone, to which Sha says that
she will, with the final panel showing her saying that she will only
keep that promise if Misaka does not get in her way with a suspicious
expression.

By having things end
like this, I am left wondering how Misaka will become involved in
what is to come, as we all know that Misaka cannot keep out of
trouble, and has me anxious to see how Misaka and the others will
come out on top, even though it is no secret or spoiler that Misaka
will pull through.

If things had not
ended like this, I don’t think I would be as excited for the next
volume as I am, as this kind of ending provides many ways for things
to continue, such as seeing Sha begin enacting her plan or Kessai
doing things in the background.

Thankfully, this was
how Kazuma Kamachi and ASCII Media, or whoever they had compile this
volume together, decided to end the volume, which makes me feel like
singing their praises highly.

Hopefully, future
volumes will be able to end just as well as this one did, but seeing
as this series does have a habit of ending the current arc and
starting a new one in the same volume, I would not be surprised if
there was an ending that failed to impress me.

Because the volume
started off in a way in which the amount of time that it takes to
release volumes should not ruin the excitement, we get to see things
like the developmet of Misaki’s clique and Kuroko meeting Misaka,
the questions presented alone intrigue me enough to want more, and
the ending only makes me more anxious to read more, this was one of
the best volumes I have seen from a manga.

Although I liked
this volume, there are some issues.

However, aside from
things that are too minor to talk about, such as typos, nothing
really bothered me too much, so I will have to say that there was
nothing worth mentioning.

Considering that
there was quite a bit to like and nothing to really hate, unless you
want to be really make a big deal of small things, this was
definitely worth reading.

I mainly recommend
this to fans of A Certain Scientific Railgun, as they will
enjoy this the most.

As for everyone
else, I don’t think this would be a bad volume to start with, as it
does not feel like you need any knowledge of the events prior to this
volume, but I would still recommend checking out the previous volumes
first to get the maximum enjoyment.

If you liked this
review and would like to see more, please consider supporting me on
either Patreon
or SubscribeStar,
so that I can continue following this series and maybe find other
worthwhile reads for you guys to check out.