Back to reviewing anime and we have a good one in A Certain Scientific Railgun.
Academy City is a student run city packed to the brim with Espers, a group of gifted humans with psychic abilities but inevitably with a city packed full of this kind of power is constantly full of crime. Thankfully a crime busting group called Judgement is on hand to stop Academy City's crime problem with officer Kuroko Shirai on the case whose best friend and love interest is an especially powerful esper able to control electricity at high levels named Mikoto Misaka, better known by reputation as Railgun. Together with allies Kazari Uiharu and Ruiko Saten among others, the girls attempt to solve the ever growing mysteries that keep popping up in Academy City, especially when Dr Harumi Kiyama starts making an appearance.
This series is a spinoff of another series named "A Certain Magical Index" set in the same universe and some of their characters even turn up in Railgun. Where this series stands is before and during the events of Magical Index so you won't feel too confused if you watch this before Index as this probably sets things up better.
The show itself is very good, it showcases it's morals in the correct way, the action while a little limited is awesome to watch, the payoff in the last few episodes of season one is worth it and it's not always obvious what's going to happen which keeps things unpredictable, however there is a lot of filler to stomach in-between major plot moments which aren't all bad but can disrupt the flow of the story especially when all the characters are doing is messing about, so you can probably cut out 5-6 Episodes and still have a full story.
Also while I generally enjoy the majority of the cast such as anti hero Harumi Kiyama and main character Mikoto Misaka, I absolutely despise Kuroko Shirai for being a patronizing bitch, made even more so by her dub performance. Yeah Kuroko rubs me the wrong way, guess I'm not a fan of the "I work for the law so that gives me the right to be a preachy pretentious bitch" Type. I don't much like Uiharu either as she reminds me too much of Miracle Rookie Yoshika Miyafuji from Strike Witches.
The dub is reasonable but some performances can make the characters seem off in personality.
There's much more of the series to go so I'm open to watching season two and watching Magical Index; if Railgun entertained you then Index should be more of the same.
Final Verdict: The anime is good and knows how to keep you thinking and well entertained but a couple of characters will test your tolerance and the series could probably be 5-6 episodes shorter but what it keeps is very good.
