Raildex (Index/Railgun series) is one of the franchises that keep surprising me with how special it is. The author came up with interesting world in which Science & Magic fight against each other. He gave both its own power system in a way that makes sense for both systems to be in the same world. (The creator of the Science-side power system is a Magician.)
For me, the Dream Ranker arc is not the best in the series. While I love many of its ideas I'm not sure if they were executed in the best possible way. I love the way Dream Ranker integrates in the franchise as a whole, and I thought my reasons could make a good article:
SPOILERS For Anime Seasons Released Up to 2020
Crowd-sourcing Information
If you're new to the concept of Crowd-sourcing, it's giving the task to a large group of people that anyone could join in order to obtain results from it.
Spreading Indian Poker to all of Academy City residents in order to make them gain skills through dreams was actually a smart case of crowd-sourcing information. While the main feature of the cards is to share dreams, they can be also used to teach skills & information.
Kuriba Ryouko needed information to destroy her doppelganger soul. She, calculated that someone will be able to find a way to destroy a soul, and that the information will find its way back to her in two months. (Don't ask how, she's smart + it's anime logic.)
So, the idea of Dream Ranker's Arc was built around a girl who badly needed information, made the whole city work on gaining it without knowing they're doing so, in a way that doesn't reveal who she is or what she wants. That's a good idea for a story!
Dream Sequences
We dove into the minds of some of the support characters in Dream Sequences. My favorites were the Ninja girl and Junko's. The latter's dream shows how much she's similar to Mikoto in her love for Gekota.
I usually want the anime to follow the manga as accurately as possible, but only this once, I'm glad that they showed different characters. (But No. I still want my Hanzo in the anime!) Too bad the topic of these dream sequences was the girls, stuff. Those sequences showed up the struggles of characters unrelated to the story. Also, just by having their dreams on an Indian Poker card, we know that those characters are the type to follow Academy City trends, and I love that!
One of my favorite volume covers in the whole franchise is Railgun's Vol.11 with its Fairy Tale feel. I wished they showed us a dream like that in the story itself~
Frenda's Ha-det-bra
This means "Goodbye" by the way... It's Frenda's last spoken word in Railgun anime!
Frenda is a prominent figure in Raildex universe even after hear death in Index III, so when I realized that Saten is meeting her. I was happy. Despite her section of the story being full of great ideas. (The antagonist's ability, and how it's all linked to the Tweezers.) I found it the section I'm least interested in for some reason...
It's sad that Saten is clueless about the city's Dark Side... Speaking about Saten, did anyone notice the effort the animators put in all her scenes? Someone must love her in the production team~
Scavengers Being Losers
So Scavengers first appeared when they fought got destroyed by Accelerator in his own series. When they appeared in Railgun, they were afraid of Level 5s. They serve more of comic-relief than actual threat in the story, despite being so fearsome against anyone that's not Level 4 level.
Love how the Scavengers were used in this arc, so much that I don't think the Doppelganger's story could work using another set of characters.
By the way, this section of the story is happening after Index's Battle Royal Arc. Despite being set on having an actual group name, the Scavengers were saved because they weren't recognized as one of the Dark Side's top teams.
Duplicating a Human's "Soul"
Cyborgs are one thing. They're not new to Index/Railgun universe, and they've been there since Kihara Nayuta's non-canon introduction. The way Ryouko's Doppelganger introduced is the most amazing thing in the arc in my opinion.
Not only she's a cyborg that was made for medial purposes... She was made as an experiment to find out if human souls could be duplicated!
I don't know how Souls work in Index/Railgun universe, I'm not caught up with the Light Novels to know if something like that was introduced. What I do know, is that figuring out how Souls work would be the next step after the perfect-AI in the science check-list! The ones who believe in its existence anyway.
Turning this basic idea into a story, and making each character reach their own conclusion about it is amazing!
I also loved that the scientists who approved the idea were not Kihara. I don't know why, but it'll feel wrong to me if it was Kihara who suggested something like this. They'll either dismiss the whole idea OR work on it in a more efficient way. So brilliant!
What do you think?
- First image is taken from Vol.11 Cover. Second and third images are from chapter 88 & 71 respectively. Fourth image is Vol.12 Cover. Fifth & Final images are from chapters 89 & 85 respectively.
- This article is cross-posted here on Hive & on Read.cash.