Bryce's Blog

I was going to continue on the Detective Conan (Case Closed) anime, but since I recently got another book that came out, I decided to cover that instead. Today, I will be reviewing A Certain Scientific Railgun Volume 8 by Kazuma Kamachi.

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

The Daihasei Festival has begun and everyone seems to be enjoying him or herself.

However, that peace is ruined when Misaka finds out that something has happened to one of the Misaka clones, which had taken her place in an event.

Misaka suspects a fellow Tokiwadai student, who is also a level 5 esper, but there seem to be others who know about the existence of the Misaka clones and they are looking for Misaka and her clones.

I enjoyed this book. Things certainly got interesting enough here that I did not want to put this down. Although I had read these chapters before, I certainly got the feeling that Misaki was up to something. Not only did she do something to the memories of civilians but her band of followers were keeping an eye on Misaka for much the volume. The thing that has me curious though is how Misaki and some other people know about the Misaka clones. Yes, there were many people involved in the Level 6 Shift project, but for others to show up and think that people that were not involved with the Level 6 Shift project, such as Saten, knew about the clones was crazy. Then again, I guess that they did not know that Misaka has pretty much kept them in the dark about the existence of their clones. I also liked was that Kongo’s friends from volume 7 were pretty good fighters. I am not so sure that they are as good either Misaka or Kuroko, since I have not read the manga version of the Level Upper arc and Seven Seas seems to have caught up to the Japanese, seeing as volume 9 has not been released in Japan, as far as I can tell, but it does seem like they have a talent for fighting, especially they are fighting against somebody who is quite familiar with various esper abilities. I also liked the words they said to their opponent that refusing to show friends that they are willing to do their part will result in nobody wanting to help that person. In our society these days, we are greedy want something for nothing, such as those complaining about the rich. However, since they are not willing to do anything, their situation will never change, nor will they gain the salvation they seek. As for Kongo, she seems to be very observant. As far as I know, she has not met any of the Misaka clones, yet she was able to tell that the Misaka that participated in the Balloon Hunter event was not the one everyone calls Railgun. Pretty everyone that has encountered one of Misaka’s clones, at least while the real Misaka was not around, thought that each clone is Misaka herself. Unfortunately, she could not really tell that that Misaka clone. Still, it does seem impressive that she was able to tell the difference. Another thing that is nice is that things are not really confusing. Now, Railgun is not that hard to follow, but if one tries to catch up to the latest chapters of the manga, which have not been compiled into volumes, starting from the Sisters arc, things just do not seem that well organized, at least where I found them. This is because there are scenes that seem to repeat themselves, which makes it easy to get lost. However, in these releases from Seven Seas, that does not happen, so one knows that they are not repeating the same chapters as those featured in the previous volume. I also liked that there were some scenes that were quite funny. However, the funniest was when Saten and Uiharu met Misaka’s mother. After the three-legged race, the three friends are conversing and Misaka’s mother joins in, and starts asking about Touma, who Misaka made a bet with, thinking that Misaka has a boy that she is interested. What makes it even funnier the more the other two girl mention, the more interested Misaka’s becomes, thus making Misaka feel that the three of them on ganging up on her. It is funny what misunderstandings can in our world, is it not? Another funny thing I found what something that happened during the Balloon Hunter event. When the event begins, the Misaka clone tries to get everyone together to create a strategy that she thought up, but everyone just runs right past her. I guess nobody really cares what Misaka thinks, being that the Misaka they all know is supposedly Tokiwadai’s ace. Of course, I should probably feel sorry for her, since this is the first festival that the clones get to experience. Outside of that, I cannot really think anything else that caught my eye.

Although I liked the book, there are certainly some issues. However, aside from my annoyance of no Table of Contents being present, which I still do not think that I can complain about, unless this is the only title Seven Seas does not feature a TOC, nothing comes to my mind. Because of this fact, I will have to say that there is nothing worth mentioning.

Considering that things got pretty interesting, especially due to the fact that we finally see that Kongo’s friends are capable and that there are others that know about the Misaka clones, this was definitely worth reading. I recommend this to fans of A Certain Scientific Railgun. As for everyone else, I think that this would be a good place to get introduced to the series, since I cannot see any need to know what happened in previous arcs right now.

What are your thoughts on A Certain Scientific Railgun Volume 8? Do you agree or disagree with my views? Do you have anything to add? Feel free to comment.