Bryce's Blog

I hope everyone is doing well, as we get closer to an official
changing of the seasons.

Things have been
alright here, with some moments of feeling pressured, but I am still
glad that I can do things that I enjoy.

A while back, I went
looking through Amazon’s catalogue to keep up on some series that I
follow and I managed to secure a few titles.

Of which, one
arrived this week, which means that 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 20 by Kazuma Kamachi.

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

Things have started
to get messy around Academy City, with attacks on companies
purportedly being perpetrated by students of Tokiwadai becoming more
frequent, to the point where Antiskill has decided to directly
monitor the students.

However, when Kuroko
and Uiharu uncover a message left behind by a recent graduate, things
start heading towards a momennt that the mastermind of everything has
been waitng for.

While I did enjoy
the previous
volume, I still need to make sure that I keep myself on my toes,
so that I can remain as fair as possible.

And after reading
this, I can say that I very much enjoyed it.

From the moment that
I opened up this volume and started reading it, I found myself
engrossed enough that I did not want to put it down for any reason.

As I have said a
countless number of times already, possibly to the point where I feel
like puking, one of the most important things in a work of fiction is
how things begin, as the beginning is supposed to bring the audience
into another world, thereby giving them the temporary escape that
they desire.

While this can be
accomplished through a variety of means, depending on the genre and
the medium used to present the work, this series, like many other
manga, was originally published as part of a serial publication,
which means that things need to pick up in a way that makes sense
based upon where the previous installment ended.

In the previous
volume, Misaka’s seniors graduated from Tokiwadai, which caused Sha
to grin, as that meant her plot can finally begin, before finally
ending with Kuroko finally being admitted to Tokiwadai and Kiyoshi
revealing her reservations about what is to come.

In this volume, we
see Sha training somewhere trying to get a grasp on her powers for
the next stage of her plan, now that there are no perceived obstacles
in her path, and Kuroko notices that Misaka is still searching for
her hairpin, even though we, as the audience, know her roommate took
it.

Even though there
were multiple points in how the first chapter of this volume could
have started, I think the way this one started is the best that we
could have, as the year long wait between volumes can and has
caused issues in the past for me, and likely others out there, and a
training session on its own creates enough intrigue about what is to
happen, even though I am aware of what will happen because I am up to
date on the Japanese releases of A Certain Scientific Railgun.

If this volume had
started out in any other way, I do not doubt that it would have been
good, due to how many points of interest came up in the last volume,
but I think I would have been disappointed because only a few of
those options would be able to pick up the excitement that we should
be having right now.

Fortunately, the
volume started off in the least problematic way possble, which makes
me feel like Kazauma Kamachi and ASCII Media Works, or whoever they
had put this volume together, did a very good job.

Normally, I would
say that I hope future installments of this series will start out as
well as ths one did, but considering that it was recently announced
that A Certain Scientific Railgun will end serial publication
this month, according to an article
by Orpheus Joshua back in February on Noisy
Pixel, I can only say that I hope future publications would be
able to start just as well as this one did.

I also liked how we
got some pay off on Kiyoshi’s reservations about Sha’s desire for
revenge.

While there was not
much hint of it during this arc, from what I can remember at least, I
do remember that Kiyoshi specifically told her sister to not involve
Misaka in their affairs and only gave off slight hints about how she
was feeling.

Yes, Kiyoshi did not
really do anything too much to stop her sister, so she is still
complicit with what is going on, but it started to show some
development in Kiyoshi as a character to the point where I wish she
would appear in the series again, like the flashback back in volume
17 had suggested would happen.

Instead of the
immediate pay of Kiyoshi growing a backbone, we get to see treated to
a great fight between Kuroko, before she became so annoyingly
obsessed with Misaka, and Kiyoshi, who we learn was not that bad of a
roommate, seeing as I do remember Kuroko suggested something went
down near the beginning of the series.

During this fight,
we see Kuroko pull a much more effective Touma Kamijou and berates
Kiyoshi, which has me excited to see how this will contribute to the
grande finale of the arc,

If we did not this
kind of payoff, I think I would have been greatly disappointed
because I see no point in making Kiyoshi pull a heel faced turn like
Darth Vader so late into the arc if this fight meant nothing to her.

Thankfully, Kazuma
Kamachi and the other working on this series decided to not pull a
Darth Vader and gave us something to look forward to in the fight
that is about to come.

Hopefully, the
mainline Index series will be able to learn a thing or two from this,
especially seeing as Yen Press did pick up the second
part of the light novels, which I was not certain of back when I
reviewed its 17^th
volume, as that will help make things more interesting for that
series.

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

As I have said many
times before, aside from how thing begin, another important aspect in
a work of fiction is how things end, as the ending is supposed to
either leave the audience feeling satisfied, in the case of a
standalone work or the final installment of a series, or wanting
more, in the case of an installment in a series.

Even though I am not
completely satisfied with the ending, it does exactly what it is
supposed to do, which is to get me hyped for the next volume, and, if
I had not known the series will be seeing its final chapter in Japan
this month, I would have been waiting baited breath.

In this volume,
after Sha’s schemes were exposed by Kuroko, we see Sha marching
towards the final stage, to enact her plans, while Misaka, who is
concerned about Kiyoshi, pleads with her fellow dorm members to help
her, suggesting that the big showdown between Sha and Misaka is about
to begin.

By seeing this
transpire, I am left with the desire to want to get my hands on the
next volume right now, but seeing as this volume is currently the
latest both here and in the Japan and that the manga has only one
chapter left, I have no doubt that I will be waiting quite a while.

If the volume had
not ended the way that it did, though the official last chapter was
just an extra, I do not think that my excitement would be as high as
it is right now, which means that it would have failed to do its job,
even if I would have felt more satisfied with things.

Fortunately, ASCII
Media Works and the other parties involved in compiling this volume
decided to end things the way they did, which makes me feel like
giving them a ton of praise.

Hopefully, future
works will be able to end just as well as this did, but considering
that everyone working on this series for us to read are all human, I
would not be surprised if nothing can compare to this.

Outside of those
things, I cannot think of anything else that I particularly liked, at
least that stood out as much as what I already discussed.

Because the
beginning was great, there was some payoff in that of an exciting
fight to Kiyoshi starting to feel conflicted, and that the ending was
great, this was a great read.

Although I liked
this volume, there are some issues.

However, aside from
things that are too minor to talk about, such as typos, only one
thing bothered me, which is how this volume ended.

While I did say that
it did do its job in getting me excited for the next volume, seeing
as we are being teased with the anticipation of a fight between
Misaka and Sha, along with other things that were hinted within the
chapter, I did also say that I was not completely satisfied with
things.

Now, when I
initially had issues with the ending, before looking around at
things, I was going to say that it felt like this volume had gone on
too long and that the ending, while exciting, would have been much
better suited as the start of the next volume, and I will standby
that last part still, but right now I will say that with it being
close to the end of the series, that I don’t think this volume
should have been the longer between this and the next volume, which
will likely be the last.

Yes, this is the
part that will lead into the big final fight that is typical of
battle shonen, like Yu Yu Hakusho, DBZ, and many others, but I
think that the final volume of this series that I suspect will be the
next one, according the math, since the longest volume features 12 or
so chapters and the shortest volumes tend to have 6 to 7 chapters and
170 is the last chapter, I think I would have enjoy things a lot more
if the volume ended at chapter 160.

I know, I said that
my excitement probably would not have been as high as the volume
ended with Misaka asking for help and Sha heading to the final stage,
but the whole setup with the fight between Kuroko and Kiyoshi would
be the closest to that high that I got from the final chapter of the
volume and would also mean that this series can officially end on a
high note, though it still can, depending on what the final chapter
turns out to be.

Here, however, with
the lead into what may be the final volume, I think that it could
hurt the ending of the series by giving too much time to some aspects
that are more common in the anime than the manga.

Still, the ending is
not bad enough to do any real damage to the volume itself, so I can
let Kazuma Kamachi and the other that do their best to bring us
something we can enjoy go knowing that they didn’t do anything too
bad.

Thankfully, I cannot
think of anything else that I didn’t like all that much, at least
that could apply only to this volume.

While there was only
one thing that bothered me, it ended up being something that would
likely hurt the series more than the volume itself, so I can just
label it as an annoyance.

Considering that
there was quite a bit to like and only one thing to be annoyed with,
depending on if one was aware of the end of the series being in
sight, this was definitely worth reading.

I mainly recommend
this to fans of A Certain Scientific Railgun, as they will be
able to like this the most, though those aware of the fact that
Railgun ends this month might not be satisfied with how this volume
ends.

As for everyone
else, ths might be worth giving a try, but considering that the next
volume could very well be the last, I recommend reading from the
beginning instead.

If you liked this
review and would like to see more, please consider supporting me on
either Patreon
or SubscribeStar,
so that I can hopefully find more worthwhile reads for you guys to
check out, or if you would like the chance to just chill with me,
subscribe to my YouTube
channel or follow me on Twitch,
where I mostly stream RPGs and visual novels that catch my interest.