To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Vol. 20 Ch. 162 - Choice

[MangaDex]

 

[ciera]

Thanks for the chapter. Kuroko fights are always 🔥

 

[Kaarme]

Kuroko fights are always 🔥

Not this one, really. She didn't want to fight in the first place, which shows. She wanted to make a terrorist see the light. A pretty risky goal, but the payoff might be good if it's successful. She paid a heavy price for it, nonetheless.

 

[Meijin]

Was an entire image change really necessary for the final phase of the plan? She must have spent hours getting ready.

 

[chatnoirchatgris]

Was an entire image change really necessary for the final phase of the plan? She must have spent hours getting ready.

From the flashback in Ch 160 its likely her new look is her original look and her black hair glasses look is the image change/disguise.

 

[Kampfarsch]

"Im not gonna fight you but if you wanna fight ill fight you again"
Well thats dumb

 

[Shortstos]

Was an entire image change really necessary for the final phase of the plan? She must have spent hours getting ready.

Absolutely, we all know that when doing bad things the most important aspect is in the presentations, cant go in looking boring.

 

[swimminginsand]

The most chuuni ass school shooter I have ever seen

 

[TanyaTheEvil]

Thanks for the chapter and translation

 

[YamiryuuZero]

Kuroko wins, not by drop kicking her opponent but by the power of therapy!

 

[sakurabonx3]

I don't know guys... it feels Misaka.. developed too early here? Especially considering how she acted in the beginning of Railgun where she purely relied on her powers and knew she was able to handle things on her own, (and it was pretty much detrimental to her almost downfall in Sisters) it's kind of weird to see her in her first year asking for help.. Maybe it's because it's regarding her friend and not herself but I find it a little odd...
Also I lowkey still want Kiyoshi back.. Especially when Misaka's interactions feel one of the most natural and equal with her (as well as amicable). Literally the only other person I see Misaka close to having this type of relationship is Saten but like there's still the fact that Saten admires her and is her junior... I don't know I just think Misaka really deserves these types of friendships more (not saying her current friend group is bad but really, almost all of them are first years who admire her in some form..) Like look at Kiyoshi's memories of Misaka. We deserve this cute Misaka and honestly there's not really many who can make her have that honest expression on her face. Kiyoshi, please I hope your sentence wasn't too long if you were in it and you come back to Tokiwadai somehow and become friends with Misaka again. Even if you can't be roommates anymore, I hope you can rekindle your friendship

 

[megamanw]

This chapter almost completely negate her development in Index and current time of Railgun. The problem she had in the Sister and Daihasensei arc is she took all the burden by herself, did not want anyone else to get involve and did not ask any of her friends for help. But here she is shown to care enough for her roommate to ask other to help, even bowing down to them, meaning that she was not prideful and had learned humility to ask for help from other, which contrast to her personality at the start of Index and Railgun

 

[ToddSama]

Doing prequel stories always causes a risk of retconning and discontinuity. If Kamachi-sensei plays his cards right, what will happen is something bad will happen to Mikoto's friends as a result of this story arc. Thus Mikoto acts the way she does at the start of the Railgun/Index series. That would solve the discontinuity, but the small retcon issue would remain, seeing as how these events are never referenced.

 

[dghirsh]

I don't know guys... it feels Misaka.. developed too early here? Especially considering how she acted in the beginning of Railgun where she purely relied on her powers and knew she was able to handle things on her own, (and it was pretty much detrimental to her almost downfall in Sisters) it's kind of weird to see her in her first year asking for help.. Maybe it's because it's regarding her friend and not herself but I find it a little odd...
Also I lowkey still want Kiyoshi back.. Especially when Misaka's interactions feel one of the most natural and equal with her (as well as amicable). Literally the only other person I see Misaka close to having this type of relationship is Saten but like there's still the fact that Saten admires her and is her junior... I don't know I just think Misaka really deserves these types of friendships more (not saying her current friend group is bad but really, almost all of them are first years who admire her in some form..) Like look at Kiyoshi's memories of Misaka. We deserve this cute Misaka and honestly there's not really many who can make her have that honest expression on her face. Kiyoshi, please I hope your sentence wasn't too long if you were in it and you come back to Tokiwadai somehow and become friends with Misaka again. Even if you can't be roommates anymore, I hope you can rekindle your friendship

The difference between early-series Misaka and this one, is that right now she doesn’t realize quite how dangerous the situation is. In the beginning of Railgun she relied only on herself for exceedingly dangerous situations. She’s still completely in the dark about the situation currently.

 

[Kirbenheimer]

Literally everything about Kuroko except her creepy obsession with Misaka is so cool and I will die mad that they made that an integral part of her personality

 

[ilikepi31415]

I don't know guys... it feels Misaka.. developed too early here? Especially considering how she acted in the beginning of Railgun where she purely relied on her powers and knew she was able to handle things on her own, (and it was pretty much detrimental to her almost downfall in Sisters) it's kind of weird to see her in her first year asking for help.. Maybe it's because it's regarding her friend and not herself but I find it a little odd...
Also I lowkey still want Kiyoshi back.. Especially when Misaka's interactions feel one of the most natural and equal with her (as well as amicable). Literally the only other person I see Misaka close to having this type of relationship is Saten but like there's still the fact that Saten admires her and is her junior... I don't know I just think Misaka really deserves these types of friendships more (not saying her current friend group is bad but really, almost all of them are first years who admire her in some form..) Like look at Kiyoshi's memories of Misaka. We deserve this cute Misaka and honestly there's not really many who can make her have that honest expression on her face. Kiyoshi, please I hope your sentence wasn't too long if you were in it and you come back to Tokiwadai somehow and become friends with Misaka again. Even if you can't be roommates anymore, I hope you can rekindle your friendship

Nobody is perfect
You can have a change in thinking (or in this case character development) and not have it apply 100% to everything in the future

I personally really liked this chapter
Both the Mikoto section and the Kuroko "you have to make a choice" section (it really just hits me how starkly different it is from Index and "you aren't living your life correctly!" Touma)
Not to mention the series is actually engaging with suicide (or Mikoto's worry about her friend committing it) in a non sensationalized and fairly realistic way

 

[Quieo]

Kuroko wins, not by drop kicking her opponent but by the power of therapy!

But we certainly loose for we miss a good fight and have another 2 month wait but that’s the life of a rail gun fan.

 

[henryph-am]

Absolutely, we all know that when doing bad things the most important aspect is in the presentations, cant go in looking boring.

Yes if evil, why be ugly

 

[YamiryuuZero]

I don't know guys... it feels Misaka.. developed too early here? Especially considering how she acted in the beginning of Railgun where she purely relied on her powers and knew she was able to handle things on her own, (and it was pretty much detrimental to her almost downfall in Sisters) it's kind of weird to see her in her first year asking for help.. Maybe it's because it's regarding her friend and not herself but I find it a little odd...
Also I lowkey still want Kiyoshi back.. Especially when Misaka's interactions feel one of the most natural and equal with her (as well as amicable). Literally the only other person I see Misaka close to having this type of relationship is Saten but like there's still the fact that Saten admires her and is her junior... I don't know I just think Misaka really deserves these types of friendships more (not saying her current friend group is bad but really, almost all of them are first years who admire her in some form..) Like look at Kiyoshi's memories of Misaka. We deserve this cute Misaka and honestly there's not really many who can make her have that honest expression on her face. Kiyoshi, please I hope your sentence wasn't too long if you were in it and you come back to Tokiwadai somehow and become friends with Misaka again. Even if you can't be roommates anymore, I hope you can rekindle your friendship

See, we already know that Kuroko got Mikoto's old roommate to leave and she got in her place, and we know Mikoto is a sort of lone wolf when it comes to solving the incidents she gets involve with, but in this flashback she's acting differently, relying on others and working as part of a team.

Considering how close she is to Kiyoshi and the betrayal, all we need now is someone getting hurt precisely because Mikoto asked for their help to set her onto the loner path. And of course, the resolution to this arc should be Mikoto's immense power (perhaps Sha tries to copy Mikoto's power but she can't compete with the real deal?).

This could all be a set up for her character derailment so she becomes the Mikoto from ep1!

 

[Dirtbug]

Kuroko doing solo judgment work has always been the best part of her character. She's intuitive, persuasive and really smart about using her powers. But add Misaka and she became a degenerate creep that completely denied all her good points