A Certain Scientific Accelerator Review Episode 2

Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator (A Certain Scientific Accelerator) refers to the top-ranked esper (extra sensory perception user) residing in Academy City where the story is set.  As we already learned from last week’s episode review, he is a bit lazy but gets the job done when needed. This weeks show was called Necromancer. and it opens with a a scene on a day in September in School District 7, Bridge number 3. A girl attempts to commit suicide and is brought into hospital. She is called Hitokawa Hasami and she is 16 years old.

Strangely, although her heart and lungs have stopped, she seems to be still alive and conscious. She sadly complains to herself that she ‘can’t even die right.’ and that she is a failure at everything she does. Equally strangely, the doctors seem less concerned with her wellbeing. One of them tells the other that she is a Level 2 Pyrokinesist and that her ability is suited for combat. He is also able to conclude that she is, “an ‘evil’ criminal who is guilty of suicide.” One of the other doctors acknowledges this and suggests that they go ahead and get rid of her. This distressing scene gets even worse when one of the doctors uses river water to complete the suicide attempt and drown the hapless heroin as she lies on the hospital bed. Despite her abilities, she seems powerless to stop them. “Rest easy. We will use your body to serve the cause of justice.” he tells her coldly. For some reason, they chant, “By DA’s dogma.”  It was, of course, quite upsetting to watch but opens an strange question, how could someone murder the young girl if she was already dead.  She had seemingly died, her brain and respiratory functions were dead but she was conscious – and then killed. Very weird! Then the supercool opening credits play and we are treated to the awesome, ‘Shadow is the Light’ theme by The Sixth Lie and the opening graphics. To be honest, I still think the opening credits are the best part of this show – and I’m definitely a fan!  Three days later, we see a girl being pursued by a military force (they look like a the Antiskill officers we saw in last week’s episode) to a hospital. A person in the control room tells them that their target is a unique type of esper who can control corpses of dead creatures and that they should not underestimate her. She is only a slight girl but she manages to temporarily disable two guards. She eventually gets to The Accelerators hospital room. He is reading a manga when she enters and he continues reading when she tells him that this is an emergency and that he should listen to her.  She holds up a picture of a girls in green fluid.

  He is ignoring her as the guards barge into his room and subdue her.

  After they leave, The Accelerator gets up and seems to have been oblivious to what happened in his room. Even though he was reading manga and listening to music, that seems a little implausible. He does however, notice that there is a picture of a girl suspended in green fluid and a mask on the floor in his room. He examines them. Outside, the police team (called Team Alpha who look like they are a group from Antiskill) discuss their captured girl with the person in the control room. It seems that she is called Esther and she will be used as a weapon called a ‘Coffin’ following some research that they will do on her. It all seems very distasteful but everyone realises that Esther is very dangerous and that the team should be careful.

  They aren’t too concerned however and decide that they would give some payback for the altercation in the hospital, they torture her while she is restrained. Later, they are about to drive off when The Accelerator walks in front of their vehicle. He wants to speak with the girl.  One of the officers asks him to move and point their guns at him.  The Accelerator asks if they are Antiskill. It seems that they aren’t actually Antiskill but a secret more fanatical branch of the organisation. They call themselves DA and think of themselves as the real protectors of Academy City. 

  The Accelerator listens to their banter before they begin fighting. He destroys one of their vehicles before they get out a large Mecha fighting, tank thing. It seems that an esper is inside it and using pyrokinesis to attack the completely unskathed Accelerator. He laughs his usual maniacal laugh and destroys the machine.

  There is a half naked and dead esper occupant who falls out of the dismantled tank to The Accelerators distress (he is reminded of a scene where a number of young girls lay dead and bloodied). Esther is also relatively unscathed and watched the fight. Now that it has ended, she notices Antiskill trucks drive up to the scene, she decides to run off. The Antiskill officer arrives and interviews The Accelerator who was quietly waiting at the scene. He tells the officer (who is called Aiho Yomikawa (and played by the voice of Yuko Kaida)) that Antiskill have a counterfeit organisation.

  Another officer identifies the dead girl as Hasami Hitokawa who committed suicide a few days earlier.  

  They conclude that her body was stolen and that it was used inside the DA Tank with increased levels of pyrokinesis. It seems that the DA organisation are able to pull out extra ability from dead espers. (Gross!) Meanwhile, the stoopid dude in charge of the defective DA team that tried to capture Esther is reporting to a sort of DA teleconference which he and a number of faceless individuals are attending.

  One of these people is visible however, he seems to be a scientist sucking a lollipop. The group are upset with the DA officer who failed and they order him killed. The lollipop sucking dude chats to a girl behind him and asks her, “Qiong Qi alone should get it done, right?” I have no idea what that is but as we see the lollipop scientist dude snuggle up to his girlfriend, we hear the screams of the officer being ‘disposed of’ presumably by the Qiong Qi.

  Later we see a rather sleepy looking head-clone-girly, called Misaka Last Order. She asks where Accelerator has been. She is worried that he is leaving and he gradually calms her down and sends her back to bed. When he enters his room he sees Esther waiting for him. She announces herself as Esther Rosenthal and thanks him for saving her. Almost in the same sentence, she asks him to help her. He is not very impressed with her breaking into his room and restrains her with his powers. She isn’t as worried about him hurting her as she is about the people she opposes taking over the world. She believes that it’s partly her fault and tells Accelerator that if he must kill her, so be it, but at least put a stop to the people who are trying to use Last Order (the group of clones currently managed by the little girl clone Masaki) to ‘shift the world to a new level.’

  The Accelerator is still a bit upset with her (especially, it seems, about her thinking he’s a nice guy) and she quickly continues trying to persuade him to help her. He thinks that all he needs to do is to go to DA’s hideout and smash it up. Esther tells him that she knows of the warehouse where she was taken but thinks that there are other locations and that the organisation is large. The Accelerator asks again if she thinks he looks like a nice guy. She says yes and he puts his maniacal face of and responds with, “I’ll show you the style of a villain.”

  They head off into the night and there the episode ends. This was another great episode full of danger and intrigue. The production and direction were really good. I particularly liked the use of colour during the episode which added an extra dimension to the already thrilling story. The maniacal laugh of the lead character certainly takes some getting used to but if it’s used sparingly, it ends up being ok (a bit like Astra’s shouting in Black Clover). If I was to criticize this at all, it’s that there wasn’t quite enough gratuitousness in the episode. Sure it was hard and gritty but if it’s gonna be bloody why not make it that little bit more gory too – the producers didn’t take full advantage of the the ‘eeww’ factor and it could have been better done. Just a personal niggle though, I actually loved the show!

 

I’d rate this an awesome 8.5. What did you think?

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This review is copyright Tony Fawl, not for reproduction without the authors permission.

The characters, story, pictures and design for this show are the property of J.C.Staff, AT-X, Tokyo MX, MBS, and BS11 and of course Crunchyroll.  All rights reserved.