“The sample used for this purpose…is the Railgun, Misaka Mikoto.”
Summary
The rumours about a cloning project of a Level 5 esper spreads, with even classmates claiming to have seen “Misaka” around the city. When Misaka fails to get any more information from Shinobu, she decides to break into Shinobu’s high school herself, discovering the existence of a “Radio Noise Project” where her DNA map was used in an attempt to mass-produce Level 5’s. After learning that the project failed, her mind is put at ease and she leaves, however one of the Sisters arrives at the school intent on deleting all the project data.
Impression
Shinobu is a strange girl. As a child, she was enough of a biological expert to help a group of adult scientists conduct ethically dubious experiments, and seems to be working against the use of the Sisters (despite having helped create them) through the money cards. By dropping them, she forces people to search around in dark, unused alleyways – places where there aren’t any security cameras or lookouts. Now that these alleyways are populated, it’s harder for the current experiment to be carried out, as it’s technically all kinds of illegal. What I’m referring to is, of course, the “Level 6 Shift” project – since they failed in creating their Level 5 Misaka clones, they’re now aiming to make Accelerator a Level 6 through forcing him to engage in combat with the Sisters. That’s mass homicide, and would cause a massive shit storm if it wasn’t locked away with the utmost secrecy. It’s also probably what Misaka would have discovered had she decided to read on after realizing Tree Diagram’s calculations resulted in the project’s cancellation. But then again, she’d probably have run into a Sister, (says Vantage, with a contemplative tone). MISAKA 10032 was the best 😀
People are seeing Misaka around the city, and Misaka herself is starting to get edgy over it. As stupid an idea as it was, I can’t blame her for handing over her DNA map when she was young and innocent, thinking that all scientists are inherently good – instead, I blame the scientists for taking advantage of a little girl and trying to make her sympathize with their cause. With Shinobu being useless, the only way to get info is to do it herself – and all that high-tech security really was suspicious enough. It’s nice seeing Misaka wearing something other than her school uniform…but did she really need to buy more clothes and rent a double bed hotel room just to change in? I know Tokiwadai is definitely upper class and fancy, but…really? Using a hotel as a changing room?
It was a pretty quiet episode all round – the series as a whole has been fairly low-key, but I suspect that’ll change once contact is established between Misaka and a MISAKA clone, as well as whenever Accelerator decides to make an appearance. To the next stage!