User blog:OH&S/Why the Best Episodes of Railgun have Kamijou Touma as the Leading Role

Its been a while since I've made blog post but I did want to record an interesting post which I made in the ANN Railgun T Review discussion thread.

OH&amp;S wrote: ''...the objective best episodes of the entire Railgun anime are the ones where the titular hyper-competent female MC is the damsel-in-distress and the "boring" MC that everyone loves to hate on steals the leading role. Truth hurts sometimes :P''

Why are the Best Episodes of Railgun the Ones Where Kamijou Touma Steals the Leading Role from Misaka Mikoto?
The answer requires a somewhat nuanced understanding of how Kamijou’s role and perception in the story differs between Index and Railgun.

Kamijou Touma in Index
In Index, Kamijou Touma is the stereotypical sci-fi protagonist: a relatable everyman who is down on his luck before encountering a supernatural phenomenon which breaks the routine of his everyday life. Naturally, there’s plenty of twists to this premise within the opening act itself as well as the setting; but in spirit, it still holds true. Spending enough time with Kamijou, its clear he’s winging it through his adventures and struggling to maintain a fine balance between the chaotic and calm moments so that he can at least try to continue on with his everyday life (usually at the cost of his own studies and health due to being frequently sent to the hospital). More importantly, the series has repeatedly characterized him as someone who is neither inherently good or evil despite his actions’ outward portrayal appearing to be good. This, of course, will be debated by Kamijou haters; but that’s what the series is saying in no uncertain terms.

Kamijou Touma in Railgun
Now come to Railgun, where Kamijou Touma is the ultimate personification of all that is good this side of the franchise; even above Misaka Mikoto herself. By being that ultimate personification, his primary role is to directly relieve the stress and tension that is built up in the series where the MCs are unable to do so. The catharsis that comes from relieving the stress and tension at the emotional and narrative climax of the story arc, with an irregular power, and doing it with good presentation, easily surpasses every other moment of the series; it just has all of the right ingredients to propel it above even the competently animated action scenes with Misaka. This is also helped on a numerical score basis because novel readers and Kamijou lovers will be upvoting those specific episodes which have a good showing for him as a character but are otherwise ambivalent about the Railgun anime.

As proof of his role, here is a list of everything Kamijou does in Railgun:
 * Spends his entire night with Misaka chasing after him for a battle. In the morning when she gets back to her dorm and asks Shirai to cover for her, Shirai comments on how satisfied Misaka looks afterwards.
 * Kamijou only takes meaningful action to save everyone after a moment of admittedly plot-induced stupidity of Misaka dropping her arcade coin. The key here is that he did it after the MC made an error and essentially covered for her.
 * Brief mention here that Kamijou appears to give Misaka her first relief of stress and tension in 5 days (6 episodes); even if only temporary.
 * It’s the bridge scene. It’s very in your face about how Kamijou is relieving all the pent-up stress that Misaka has built up throughout the Sisters Arc. Extra points for the stellar voice acting by Rina Satou and Kamijou pacifying Misaka by refusing to fight and/or preach.
 * If Ep. 14 was the relief of emotional stress and tension, Ep. 15 was the relief of stress and tension from the core narrative by having the first meaningful development towards bringing the incident to a close: Kamijou landing a solid blow to Accelerator; someone who up to this point had been an untouchable monster. The delivery of said blow could only have been done by someone with such an understated power like Kamijou. It was then followed by Misaka and the Sisters dealing with Accelerator's plasma but everything was set in motion by Kamijou's initial blow. Anime Kamijou was definitely at his coolest here.
 * And finally, the complete relief of all the stress with Kamijou's final blow to Accelerator. Also worth mentioning is the cookie scene which allows Kamijou to leave on a positive note with Misaka and allowing her to finally go back to her everyday life.
 * Even Shokuhou’s stress is somewhat relieved to the point where she gives off an uncharacteristically giddy smile upon his arrival (in the manga she’s absolutely beaming). As there are more characters at play in this climax than in the Sisters Arc (10,000 clones not withstanding), this time there’s a shared role in relieving the stress and tension; but Kamijou and Sogiita get to make the flashiest and most intense contribution to that role.
 * Nothing much to say until the big moment airs/streams.

Any thoughts on this take?