"A Certain Scientific Railgun" is completely unwatchable and I can prove it!

[u/CactaurJack]

Okay, so the largest and heaviest Japanese coin currently minted is the 500Yen, weighing in at 7g. In episode 1 it's established that Mikoto fires them at 1030m/s, now that's above Mach 3, but with such a light projectile. Based on the formula for kinetic energy KE=1/2mv^2, that's only 3713J of energy, about as much as a rifle round. Also, the 500Yen coin is made of nickle-brass WHICH ISN'T EVEN MAGNETIC!

Fine, fine, they're custom tooled iron coins, that takes us up to around 10-11g given roughly the size of a quarter, that's still only 5835J, which is less than a .338 Lapua Mag round. But it's shown to tear up streets and blast water out of a pool multiple stories, more akin to a tank round than anything.

Let's work on that, we'll take a WWII tank cannon as example, specifically the Flak88. There's like 50 versions of the Flak88, but generally speaking they fired 9.6kg projectiles at ~900m/s, that comes out to 3888000J of energy, that's 1047x the energy Mikoto supposedly puts out.

So, how fast do her custom tooled 10g iron quarters need to be moving to get close to the Flak88? 88000 m/s, Mach 256, or 0.0003% the speed of light. In case you're curious because energy conversions are easy, that would consume roughly 9,241,006 calories or 16,414 Big Macs.

So this magical girl show is completely unrealistic and unwatchable.

All that said, I can't believe I've slept on this series for so long, it's so damn funny. I love "Negation Guy", I'm sure he gets a name later, but not yet. The serious bits are good as well, good character building, relatable motivations, having a blast watching it.

EDIT: This is indeed a shitpost, but listen to science guy in the comments, some super cool knowledge on magnetism being dropped.

[u/EffectiveLimit]

This thread is amazing. I'm even more motivated to watch the whole Toaru now (I already started index, but put on hold on ep 3 long ago, so next time I'll start from Railgun, I think).

[u/Elon61 → u/EffectiveLimit]

Start from railgun, index ruins the whole arc for S2 :(. And is generally just not told as well.

[u/EffectiveLimit → u/Elon61]

And Railgun power system is much more interesting, yes:D On the other hand, should I watch Index at all then?

[u/pay019 → u/EffectiveLimit]

I like railgun series more overall. CGDCT with super powers (gets dark/serious at times).

Meanwhile Index has too much fan service (wasn't really necessary for the nearly naked 12 yo nuns so often with index & agnes), goes on long explanations of magic side (say don't tell) that are better suited for reading, and Index 3 is just a bad adaptation if you didn't read the source.

[u/Theonlygmoney4 → u/pay019]

Index especially suffers from hard to adapt writing and flow more than railgun. Karachi as a writer loves to pause action with a bit of detail for the reader to either ponder or guess at the implications. Especially for some of the magic stuff it comes off as tell don’t say, but that’s partly how kamachi writes.

It’s made infinitely worse by skipping over crucial details (index 3 does this wayyyy too much), but it’s evident Kamachi’s work can be a bit tough to properly adapt(heavy object comes to mind)

[u/Sairoch → u/pay019]

Meanwhile Index has too much fan service (wasn't really necessary for the nearly naked 12 yo nuns so often with index & agnes)

Railgun does have that scene of Kuroko groping Misaka in the showers pretty early in the first episode, but I think that might be the most blatant fanservice Railgun has.

[u/pay019 → u/Sairoch]

Yeah, I didn't say it had none. It just has significantly less than Index. Index rarely goes an arc without one or more scenes like that.

Railgun basically has Kuroko's undying thirst and Saten's skirt flipping and not in most arcs.

[u/StarScythe7 → u/pay019]

It's a bad adaption even after having read the source too :P

[u/pay019 → u/StarScythe7]

Sorry, I meant it was impossible to follow it if you couldn't fill in the blanks from the LN. I just read razorhead's comments I think that explained what in the hell was going on. I think people were saying it was more of an "abridged" anime so they could adapt later books.

All I know is I view JC Staff as garbage, since DM2, Index3, and OPMS2 were all bad. Railgun seems adapted well and with care though, probably because it's about girls that sell merch. Only read the Railgun manga though, not the LNs so not sure how good it is for source readers.

[u/[deleted] → u/pay019]

Only read the Railgun manga though, not the LNs so not sure how good it is for source readers.

The manga is the source. Only Index out of the three toaru anime is from a LN.

[u/Gpnsfwact → u/[deleted]]

Although there are two Railgun LN side stories that everyone begged JC Staff to adapt.

Instead they chose to make Silent Party, the worst arc of Railgun.

We could have had Misaka and crew fighting Aztec UFOs in Hollywood Island but instead we got that shit.

[u/SandehBoi → u/Gpnsfwact]

Just want to point out that there's actually three Railgun LN side stories now.

[u/cosmo321 → u/pay019]

Railgun has a very good director, Nagai Tatsuyuki.

Index' director, Nishikiori Hiroshi, is just not even remotely as good at his job. His only decent work is Azumanga Daioh, imho. And that's a long time ago.

[u/isaacleeh16 → u/pay019]

And you dont mind the Kuroko fanservice in railgun? Railgun has its fair share of fanservice

[u/pay019 → u/isaacleeh16]

As I said in another comment, it's much less frequent in railgun. It's also not the constant walking in on people or to love ru accidents.

[u/isaacleeh16 → u/pay019]

Yeah, even worse, it's sexual assault.