Episode 15 marks the beginning of an anime-original arc (nonetheless written by the author himself) about a group of esper hunters known as Skill-Outs. Also, new OP and ED yay.
In some back alley, Mitsuko Kongou (the haughty ojou-sama) gets surrounded by a bunch of thugs, but before she can use her ability (…what is her ability anyway?) a high-pitched noise disrupts her and causes her to faint. Some time later, the Anti-Skill and Judgement arrives to find the thugs, apparently part of an esper-hunting group called Skill-Out, all beaten up. Mitsuko reports that she was not the one who fought them, but was rather saved by a man with a large tattoo of a spider on his back.
Konori Mii explains that this attack is probably the work of Big Spider, an infamous organization within the ranks of Skill-Out. Although the members of Skill-Outs are all level zeros, they hunt espers by outnumbering them, in addition to using illegal weapons from black markets.
Meanwhile in the Big Spider hideout, their leader receives a shocking piece of information about the person who’d pwned their group, causing him to nearly wet his pants.
Back in the Judgement HQ, Kuroko remarks that Big Spider has began assaulting espers more and more frequently. Uiharu adds that the group only started growing in strength two years ago when they’ve begun importing weapons, which leads to Mikoto suspecting that Big Spider is being backed by someone. Uiharu has also found out their leader is named Kurozuma Wataru, and their stronghold is in the 10th district “Strange”. At this, Mikoto decides to go with Kuroko to investigate.
Walking around in the broken and rusty 10th district filled with thugs, the two girls gets inevitably confronted. A red-haired dude appears from behind and tries to pacify the situation, but instead got his milk carton slapped away.
The thugs learned the hard way why they shouldn’t go around messing with people’s milk.
In the aftermath of the fight, the dude leaves while Mikoto follows him to the roof. He explains that this is sort of like his secret place, although he hasn’t been here in two years. When questioned why all the Skill-Out members are concentrated in this district, he remarks they’re people tossed away by an Academy City who only cares about levels, and that they have no choice but to abandon everything (curiosly, on the other side of the city Saten also tells Uiharu that she emphasizes with the Skill-Outs for the same reason). Refusing to tell the girls anything about Big Spider or Kurozuma Wataru, he bids farewell to them.
Big Spider activities continues to flare up, and now a boy is getting ganked. Luckily, Mikoto and Kuroko arrives just in time to crush them.
The girls then uses the thugs to lead them to Big Spider’s hideout, and there they declare arrest on Kurozuma. Unfazed, Kurozuma activities a sound device called Capacity Down that produces a noise capable of disrupting espers’ control of their abilities. As they close in on the defenseless girls, the milkman comes back to save the day, breaking Capacity Down and proceeding to singlehandedly take out the whole gang. They’re forced to retreat.
The milkman then clarifies that he’s the real Kurozuma, and that the current one used to be named Hebitani. Konori Mii arrives soon, and through an exchange with Kurozuma, reveals that she’s actually familiar with him.
This was a pretty interesting episode, but IMO it wasn’t anything too exciting. In fact, it felt a bit like an extension to the Level Upper case, in that we’re once again dealing with people unable to accept their lack of ability. If the previous episodes developed this aspect through the eyes of Saten and a bunch of teenagers, then this one is through a presentation of the heavier social implications spawned by the issue. Which is still pretty interesting in its own right of course, just that I’ll miss the usual insane scientific BS and the pew pew of flashy abilities (albeit milkman’s moves were still quite awesome).
As for the new OP, J.C. Staff has never failed me in the visual/animation department for openings, and this is no exception. The Margery Daw lookalike I surmise would be the final boss, though what surprised me was that Kiyama seems to have quite a few scenes too; whether or not that’s a red herring remains to be seen. The song itself doesn’t sound as catchy as Only My Railgun, but I’ll give it time to grow on me. In regards to the ED, the new visuals are still more potent than my sleeping pills, and while the song isn’t horrible, it feels strange to have it sound so upbeat as to easily pass as an OP.
By the way, it seems the next episode is titled Academy City; I can already smell the lovely conspiracies out of that one. The blatant Chekhov’s gun that is Big Spider receiving backing from somewhere no doubt has something to do with this too.
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