Glad the title is giving Accelerator the credit he deserves. This was a quintessential first episode for me. Despite the setbacks this series has faced, namely pacing issues, I still love it. I’ve been waiting so long for the Accelerator spinoff! It’s a shame the character development from Index s3 is lost though because I really loved him starting to shake off the notion of maintaining his villain status in favor of just doing what will make him happy. This episode had a little bit of every genre thrown in, had a brief very general recap of what’s happened so far just in case you had forgotten, and was all around a great episode. I’m so hyped for this because Accelerator to me was always the greatest balance of what I like in a protagonist. A little edgy, kinda OP (ok, really OP), actually fucks up the enemies, but all said and done still has that heart of gold.

Starting off with a heist from a company that sells canned air but is secretly harboring a special weapon made with Accelerator in mind. First off, how the hell does a nitrogen based gun counter anything he does?? Granted, props to them for even trying because he’s basically a god. Well, currently on a god on a battery limit, but that’s besides the point. I want to see the ratio of companies in Academy City that aren’t hiding a giant secret underground laboratory. I feel like it’d be easier to count than the ones that are. It seems like most stores have one. Who’s paying for this? Do you know how ridiculously expensive it must be to maintain and develop a weapon like that? My god.

This series makes me question the boldness of highschoolers these days. These kids are just straight up killing cops to find another kid and collect his blood to sell on the black market. I watched spongebob.

Since this is a first impression and we’ll have plenty of time to talk over things in the coming weeks, here’s some random thoughts I had during the episode:

Last Order is adorable and I always forget how much I miss her and the Misaka’s speech pattern until I hear it again.

I’m loving the art, it finally feels… new. It’s so weird to explain, but even the newer seasons of Index and Railgun are like this hybrid mix of old and new art? Like the framework and base designs are old school, but the art itself is dipping into the new styles in terms of effects, animation, smoothness, etc. It’s a very odd juxtaposition, but I do find it kind of endearing.

I’ve noticed a massive influx of shows just throwing in fan service scenes that make no sense other than as fan service. Obviously that’s not a new thing, but I feel like I’m seeing it more than I used to in shows that are like 99% not fan service. Really glad to see they’re not falling into the hype of pandering though.

Last Order’s lack of awareness to the situation they’re in is astonishing. The building is being cut in half and she just runs in to have a casual conversation with Accelerator, like nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Well, maybe that is the case when it comes to him.

Who decides that she’s saying ‘radical’. I’m watching on Crunchyroll and every time Yoko says ‘yabai’ they translate it as radical. I know it means dangerous in a literal sense, but I couldn’t find it ever being translated as ‘radical’. I think it’s kinda dumb-sounding, but if it’s accurate then I’m fine with it. I can’t even speak elementary school Japanese so it’s not like I’m in a position to judge anyone…

Since this was the first episode, it looks like they just wanted to give the viewers a quickie. Something simple that gets wrapped up so we can take a bigger breath before diving deeper in. When they were trying to collect his genetic material, I was immediately like, ‘ahh shit, here we go again.’ but it turns out they just wanted to sell it on the black market. Laaaaame.

“If she’s so important to you that you’d risk your life, you should have stopped her before she did all of this.” This is why I love him.

I know this isn’t for some people, but boy do I love the exposition in this show. I always forget how just generally smart Accelerator is! When he was explaining how the weapon works (and why it was ridiculous that they thought it would counter him) and deducing what powers that density manipulation girl had judging by how they weren’t being affected by the nitrogen levels, it just made me happy. If this was Touma, that exposition monologue would have become a speech about righteousness or some speech about not treating your friends that way after they ditched him at the hospital. If you couldn’t tell already, I’m more of a Railgun guy than an Index one. That being said, First reference of the season! Let’s go!

Next episode preview: Necromancer

As we kinda expected, looks like it’s about Last Order.