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This is the page for the primary four characters of the A Certain Magical Index spinoff A Certain Scientific Railgun.

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    As a whole 

    Mikoto Misaka 
See her page here

    Kuroko Shirai 

Kuroko Shirai

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kurokoshirai_if.png
Voiced by: Satomi Arai (Japanese) and Alison Viktorin (English)

Mikoto's underclassman and roommate in Tokiwadai Middle School, a Level 4 Esper, and a member of Judgment. She has an obsessive crush on Mikoto, who she calls "Onee-sama" ("Sissy" in the dub), and is on the constant lookout for a chance to... get close to her (which Mikoto rarely allows, let alone appreciates).


  • Abhorrent Admirer: Mikoto gets pissed when Kuroko sexually harasses her, which is nearly every single moment they're together. If she's lucky, she gets electrocuted. If she's unlucky, she gets ignored in favor of Touma.
  • Amusing Injuries: It seems Ryo Saeba's problem also applies to female perverts.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Does not believe things that contradict Academy City's Power Curriculum, like Gemstone espers, Imagine Breaker, or Level Upper; she eventually learns Level Upper is real.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: To teleport, she has to make calculations on factors like mass, volume, vector, etc. Also her fight against the thug that could create illusions.
  • Badass Adorable: Besides her power, she also knows martial arts like aikido and can easily take down grownup thugs. This extends to when she was in elementary school.
  • Barely-There Swimwear: Her outfit in Railgun Episode 13 shocked everyone by how ridiculously small it was.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: In the Railgun S season finale, she and Mikoto were launched to the edge of the atmosphere without suits. While seemingly unaffected by the vacuum, they were visibly choking before they made it back to Earth.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted in that Kuroko's job involves going up against thugs with no qualms about hitting her full on, and whenever they do manage to land a punch the damage stays. During the climax of the Level Upper arc she's too injured to participate in the fight and is shown to be in pain when she moves. She also winds up in a wheelchair for a while after a particularly brutal fight with Awaki.
  • Bitch Slap: She slaps Touma when he walks in on her changing clothes in the hospital.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: During the last episode of Railgun S, every single member of Judgment uses her Catchphrase.
    Konori: We're gonna do this Shirai's way.
    Everyone: WE'RE FROM JUDGMENT (DESU NO)!
    Kuroko: Hey!
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She is completely obsessed with Mikoto, but she's also an experienced fighter who is skilled in the detective/law enforcement required for her job.
  • Catchphrase
    "I'm/We're from Judgment(DESU NO)!"
    "Onee-sama!"note 
  • The Cavalry Arrives Late: Whenever she scolds Mikoto for interfering with Judgment business, Mikoto will retort that if she and her Judgment colleagues would show up to a crime scene on time for a change, she wouldn't have to. How ironic that she's almost always late even though she can teleport.
  • Character Exaggeration: In the Railgun manga, Kuroko annoys Mikoto sometimes, acts somewhat perverted and quite clingy, but is often shown to be hard working, professional and rather concerned for her. In the anime, she tries to rape her on occasion and almost every conversation includes attempts at groping her or other forms of sexual harassment.
  • Chewing the Scenery: Satomi Arai is having a whale of a time playing this lovable psycho.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: She absolutely hates it when Mikoto is spending time with Touma. She doesn't take it too well either when she learns that Mikoto does in fact like him. She also freaks out when she mistakenly thinks that Mikoto and Mikasa are getting intimate with each other.
  • Cute, but Cacophonic: Her voice runs the whole gamut between cutesy and shrieking.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The Remnant arc in the Index series (Volume 8 in the novels / Season 2 Episodes 6-7 in the anime).
  • Deliberate Injury Gambit: In her fight with Mitori, she intentionally lets herself get stabbed in the hand by the latter's thrown knife rather than teleport like expected, as Mitori gambled on using the restrictions of the sewer space to kill Kuroko with her hidden second knife the instant she reappeared with no way to dodge. Instead, her shock at Kuroko going against expectations leaves her too slow on the draw and lets Kuroko pummel her up close.
  • Demoted to Extra: In the Index series. While she was never that prominent in the first place, Kuroko's role has been reduced to occasional cameos, and once went an entire 15 volumes between appearances.
  • Determinator: Overlooked a lot, but her actions in the Tree Diagram Remnant arc more or less confirm her as one.
  • Deuteragonist: Kuroko is the second most important character after Mikoto in the Railgun spin-off.
  • Does Not Like Men: At first, she refrains from stepping between Touma and Mikoto because she thinks contact with Touma will turn Mikoto off men forever after she realizes how "worthless" they are. When she realizes that's not happening, that's when she starts taking steps herself.
  • Double Knockout: In her fight with Tsurigane, she manages to get her hands on the ninja's paralyzing knife and slice her with it to take her down, but because she was sliced by it earlier she could only stay conscious for a little bit longer thanks to the measures she took to slow its spread through her body.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: When she is first introduced in Index, Kuroko seems to ship Misaka and Touma while still obsessing over the former. Eventually, she stops shipping them and becomes jealous whenever she sees Touma with Misaka. This is best displayed in both versions of the Sister Arc; in Index, she is calm and playful but in Railgun, she is burning with jealousy but hides her anger with a smile on her face.
  • Electric Torture: Whenever she attempts to make out with Mikoto, she usually gets rewarded with an electric shock, and always Played for Laughs.
  • Erotic Dream: Often has sexual fantasies about her crush, Mikoto.
  • Everyone Has Standards: She might be obsessive towards Mikoto, but when she's feeling down Kuroko just wants to help her cheer up and knocks off the creepy behavior.
  • Expressive Hair: Her pigtails tend to move as if they had a life of their own in order to reflect her mood, such as standing up if she's excited or falling down if she's depressed.
  • Fiery Redhead: Though less violent-tempered than most girls of this trope, the tawny-haired Kuroko still has the melodramatic and passionate personality that's typical of it.
  • Fille Fatale: A bit too sexually aggressive for a thirteen-year-old girl for comfort.
  • Forgot About Her Powers: Despite her often ingenious uses of her power, she sure gets punched in the face a lot for someone who can teleport instantly. Teleportation does require some very complex mental calculations, though, so it may be difficult to use reflexively.
  • Formal Characters Use Keigo: She uses a highly refined and ladylike speech-pattern. This highlights her haughty attitude, but on the other hand, she's also a perverted lesbian.
  • Friend to All Children: Kuroko shows a surprisingly kind and soft-hearted side towards small children; she is a strict yet attentive and loving big-sister to any child under her charge.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Always has her hair in curly pigtails, denoting her immaturity.
  • Handicapped Badass: She was confined to a wheelchair for a while. Then she teleports with the wheelchair and uses it as a weapon.
  • Hard Head: She would already be a vegetable were it not for this trope, considering how she normally deals with stress and/or frustration.
  • Hate at First Sight: She immediately views Touma as her rival for Mikoto's affections.
  • Hidden Depths: Just as Kuroko is lustful, possessive, immature and selfish, she is measure for measure soft-hearted, kind, considerate and selfless. Never judge a book by its present cover.
  • Hopeless Suitor: Mikoto views Kuroko as a friend and just a friend while having a clear romantic attraction to Touma, with this being the reason why Kuroko hates him so much.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • After Kiyama started undressing in a cafe, Kuroko tries to stop her. When Kiyama explains that there are no men in the cafe, Kuroko retorts that there may be women with "twisted tastes" watching. Guess who she's talking about...
    • She claims she wants to protect Mikoto from Touma because she believes Touma is a perverted stalker. Guess what she normally does to Mikoto; frankly it’s borderline appalling that she doesn’t see the irony.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: Oddly enough, Kuroko doesn't view herself as a lesbian. When working together with Mikoto to take down an attacker holding hostages, she denies being into girls with complete seriousness. Though she'd had her memories of Mikoto erased at the time, so its also possible Mikoto was her Closet Key.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Needles that she teleports into her opponent's clothes to pin them down or into them to cripple them. Also her wheelchair. When the situation is really serious, she'll use metal rods instead of needles.
  • Incompatible Orientation: She doesn't seem to get that Mikoto is straight and won't ever reciprocate her attraction.
  • Jerkass to One: Despite her harassing streak towards Mikoto she is otherwise a decent person with a strong sense of justice, but that is all thrown out the window whenever Touma - whom she considers her arch-nemesis over Mikoto's affection - is concerned.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She does not seem to understand that "no means no" when it comes to her molesting behavior towards the decidedly-straight Mikoto, but when Mikoto is down she's worried enough that she'll even support Mikoto hanging out with Touma despite her usual jealousy. Nothing else seems to cheer her up, so if she has to hand her Onee-sama over to "that troglodyte" so be it.
  • Kawaiiko: She plays a cutesy image up for her benefit, but she can be aggressive and very sexually forward at the drop of a hat.
  • The Lancer: To Misaka Mikoto. She's her right-hand woman and Foil.
  • Large Ham: One gets the feeling that Kuroko is a graduate of the Kenneth Branagh school of acting, replete with flowery speeches and constantly Milking the Giant Cow.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: In Chapter 49 of the manga (Railgun T, Episode 4), her memory is wiped by the Queen.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: As a Judgment trainee, she had a habit of charging at the bad guy without thinking. Konori scolded her for it and it nearly got everybody killed when she faced the bank robber who had the ability "Equal Speed". She occasionally reverts to this behavior.
  • Leg Focus: The camera loves to remind the audience of that whenever Kuroko is in flight or arming the darts strapped to her thighs.
  • Leitmotif: Onee-sama....
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Has no idea about the Sisters, the Magic Side, or Mikoto and Touma's adventures.
  • Logical Weakness: She might be able to teleport nigh-instantaneously, but she still has to rely on making the necessary mental calculations to perform it. As a result, she can't just teleport away on reflex easily if she's caught off-guard by a surprise attack that messes said calculations up.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: There's something very funny about her attempts to get frisky with Mikoto. In fact, upon seeing Mikoto's mother (who looks just like an older, bustier version of Mikoto), she already got fixated on the latter's assets, complete with glaring red eyes, and probably would have taken a grab real fast were she not bound to a wheelchair after a particularly brutal fight with Awaki.
  • Mad Love: Mikoto makes abundantly clear that she isn't into her and frequently gives her electric shocks when her sexual harassment gets too annoying. None of this hinders Kuroko from continue pursuing Mikoto.
  • Malicious Misnaming: She hates Touma, so she almost always refers to him as "The Ape" or "The Troglodyte".
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Her full name literally means "Black Girl White Well", highlighting the contrast between her cutesy facade and perverted personality. Mikoto even points this out in Railgun Episode 2 before beating her senseless.
    Mikoto: I'm gonna fry you as black as your name!
    • Besides the feminine suffix on "black", a kuroko can refer to a type of stagehand in traditional Japanese theatre who dresses in all black to signify they're not part of the scene. This seems like an allusion to her power, that is the ability to move between places without traversing the intermediary distance in the same way kuroko stagehands can move across a stage affecting the scene.
  • Moment Killer: Amazingly, besides the usual examples, Kuroko is this to herself. Many is the occasion where she has a heartwarming moment with Mikoto... only to have her feelings get the better of her and abruptly launch herself at Mikoto, setting herself up for a beatdown.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Out of the Railgun quartet, Kuroko is the one whose body gets exposed the most.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: It's Played for Laughs, but she repeatedly threatens to kill Touma whenever he gets too close to Mikoto.
  • Never Be a Hero: She constantly scolds Mikoto for stepping in and helping, saying civilians should stay back and leave the heroics to Judgment and Anti-Skill.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: Will take any opportunity to try to kiss or grope Mikoto.
  • Not Quite Flight: Can use her teleportation to move above ground level which becomes useful in the first episode of Railgun S when the bad guys try to flee in a helicopter. She can even do it from the upper atmosphere, allowing Mikoto and herself a safe trip back in Railgun S's finale.
  • The Nudifier: She can teleport someone's clothes off them. See Power Perversion Potential.
  • Ojou: Her family runs a major chain of convenience stores, implying that she comes from an upper-class background.
  • One-Woman Army: Due to her very intelligent use of her already flexible power.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Mikoto gets worried when Kuroko stops acting perverted towards her.
  • Out with a Bang: When asked by Tsurigane how she would most like to die, Kuroko states (while getting a nosebleed) it would be her on her deathbed from an illness with Mikoto finally accepting her love and crawling into the bed with her naked.
  • Panty Thief: Her collection of really kinky panties contains only one normal pair, stolen from her "onee-sama".
  • Petite Pride: She shows no angst whatsoever about being the least endowed amongst her friends, though that doesn't stop her from being stunned with admiration at the sight of Mii in a swimsuit.
  • Playful Cat Smile: She often has this expression, usually just before planning something perverted. This usually involves her Onee-sama Mikoto.
  • Power Perversion Potential: She uses her teleportation to spy on Mikoto, steal her stuff, and even steal her clothes while she is wearing them.
  • Prone to Tears: A Running Gag has her crying every time Mikoto gives her either the cold shoulder or the jolt.
  • Psychic Teleportation: Her Esper power, "Teleport". She can teleport herself and things she is touching. She has a weight limit of 130.7 kilograms and a distance limit of 81.5 meters. When she was younger, she could not teleport herself, but learned how to do it after training.
  • Psycho Lesbian: When on duty or doing anything not involving Mikoto, she's hard-working and likes to help people. When Mikoto enters the picture, she sexually harasses her constantly.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: One of the most active members of Judgment and one of the most effective.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Were it not for her perverted streak, Kuroko is the picture of a responsible, by-the-book cop in Judgment.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers a beautiful one to Awaki, prompting a breakdown.
  • Rejection Affection: Her sexual advances towards Mikoto always get her either the cold shoulder or electric attacks in return, but she won't ever stop no matter what.
  • Single-Target Sexuality: She only expressed interest in both Mikoto and later her mother (who is almost the spitting image of her daughter, minus being more well-endowed). When her memory is wiped by the Queen she rejects the idea that she's a lesbian, which makes the situation she's in baffling for her since she can't help fixating over Mikoto. It may be less of a case of being a lesbian and more a case of being a Misakasexual.
  • Stalker with a Crush: She's completely obsessed with Mikoto and to the latter's misfortune, Kuroko has teleportation powers that has a habit of using to stalk Mikoto and ruin her moments with her crush Touma.
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: Does the bye part then the hi part in the first Index opening.
  • Teen Genius: Can do 11th-dimensional vector calculations.
  • Tele-Frag: By teleporting one object over another, she can displace matter occupying the old space. She once tore down a building by teleporting sheets of glass into the support pillars using this feature of her esper power. She also threatens to teleport her needles into people's bodies as a way to make them stand down.
  • Thinks Like a Romance Novel: She's prone to endearingly romantic fantasy-segues, such as her and Mikoto taking the roles of Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart respectively in the "We'll always have Paris" misty-runway farewell of Casablanca.
  • Third-Person Person: She occasionally refers to herself in the third person, usually when talking to Mikoto.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: With Mikoto; she's the girly girl given her ladylike speech-patterns and romantic fantasies.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: When it occurred she had just (accidentally) taken an aphrodisiac, which was probably responsible for her reaction. It's still not really too out of character for her though.
    Kuroko: Oh, the whip of Onee-sama's love!
  • Ungrateful Bitch: Despite Touma saving her, she never thanks him and still hates him for being close to Mikoto.
  • Unknown Rival: Touma is oblivious to how much she wants to get him out of the way so she can have Mikoto all to herself.
  • Unwitting Pawn: During the First Year arc which was prior to her enrollment, Sha Dansan somehow acquired one of her hair ties which she used to create a phantasm of Kuroko in order to Tele-Frag open a door in order to erase all trace of Sha's involvement with Antikythera.
  • Verbal Tic: In the original Japanese, Kuroko has the habit of ending the determinative sentences with the auxiliary word "desu no".
  • Vocal Dissonance: There's a good reason Kuroko landed Satomi Arai her best supporting actress trophy, as it showcases her astoundingly flexible vocal range. Kuroko's voice is able to jump from sweet and girly, womanly and sultry to coarse and masculine at the drop of a hat.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: In Chapter 77 of Railgun manga, she uses Camel Clutch to punish Uiharu for calling her a pervert behind her back.
  • Yandere: Played for Laughs Kuroko obsessively lusts after Mikoto and detests Touma because Mikoto has feelings for him. Her jealous outbursts often come with Death Glares and death threats towards Touma, but it's still more light-hearted than most examples since she never presents an actual danger to Touma and Mikoto mainly sees her as a nuisance for her sexual harassment.

    Kazari Uiharu 

Kazari Uiharu

Goalkeeper

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kazariuiharu_if.png
Voiced by: Aki Toyosaki (Japanese) and Cherami Leigh (English)

Kazari Uiharu is Ruiko's schoolmate at Sakugawa Middle School, and Kuroko's friend and colleague in Judgment as a Level 1 esper, famous for wearing a headband made of flowers on her head (and sometimes a surgical mask in the manga). Usually shy and humble, her personality can quickly change to overly excited, especially if it concerns the life of the upper-class (particularly anything involving Tokiwadai).


  • A-Cup Angst: When Kuroko comments that her body is "underdeveloped", she gets upset.
  • Adaptation Deviation: Prior to the release of Railgun, Uiharu is not acquainted with Misaka and their first meeting takes place in the twelth volume of the Index light novel. The anime adaption of this episode, which aired after the first season of Railgun, changes their dialogue to make them familiar with each other.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • In Index, Uiharu is simply a Judgment co-worker of Kuroko with little relevance to the plot. In Railgun, she is one of the main characters.
    • Much like Saten in Railgun, she's not really all that important outside the first story arc in the original manga. In the anime, her importance is significantly boosted.
  • Badass Bookworm:
    • She’s not a warrior in the least, but her computer expertise makes her just as formidable, if not more so than, a dozen warriors in the right situations. She is in fact so good she can defeat even electrokinetic espers when it comes to hacking, including Mikoto.
    • In the SP volume, she jumped onto a moving truck from an overhead bridge, then deployed a parachute she was wearing as a drag brake in order to slow it down! The deceleration was so extreme that the metal handrails she was holding on to were yanked clean off the truck. Kuroko and Misaka, watching, state that she's in Judgment for a reason.
  • Beyond the Impossible: A little bit of situational usage of AIM Jammers and access to a supercomputer not only lets her change her power, which is something thought to be impossible in the series up to this point, but also dips headfirst into Reality Warper territory when she manages to weaken Kimi's power enough for Mikoto to finally beat her, presumably by shutting off whatever black hole her Dragon was feeding from. That bears repeating: the innocent little Uiharu managed to affect and cripple a Dragon!
  • Cloudcuckoolander: She seems to edge into a state like this whenever she's in front of a computer.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Around Misuko's pet boa constrictor Ekaterina. Amusingly, the snake scared everybody else.
  • Cutting the Knot: When faced with trying to outhack Mikoto, Uiharu doesn't try to do any drawn-out battle of the brains or some superhacking - she merely accesses and then deletes all the data before Mikoto can acquire any of it, defeating her in one fell swoop.
  • The Cutie: A small, cuddly and friendly breath of fresh air amongst her zanier friends.
  • Death Glare: When Saten takes a lethal attack for her, Uiharu is overwhelmed with a desire for revenge to the point that she's drawn as nothing but a black blob in the shape of a person. Her boiling rage only subsides when Saten wearily asks her if this is really the path she wants to go down.
  • Delicate and Sickly: In the manga, where she suffers from constant bouts of the flu.
  • The Determinator: In Railgun manga Chapter 121, she falls down when trying to climb the emergency ladder to escape captivity, and her head hits the ground in a pretty nasty manner. She refuses to pass out from pain and makes herself stay conscious with sheer willpower, then proceeds to climb the ladder to the rooftop. All because she has made a promise with Saten to "not suddenly disappear".
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: In Volume 15 of Index, she taunts the Level 5 Kakine Teitoku, even as he is torturing her, presumably in order to buy time to let Last Order escape. It would have ended very badly for Uiharu if not for Accelerator's subsequent Big Damn Heroes.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In both openings of the first season of Index.
  • Flowers of Femininity: She wears a headband of artificial flowers on her head, fitting with her girly and soft-spoken personality.
  • Fluffy Tamer: Everyone else took one giant step back upon meeting Mitsuko's snake, Ekaterina. Uiharu stayed behind to coo over it.
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: In Railgun Episode 23, she suffers a Heroic BSoD when Telestina's true identity is revealed and she takes the children that were experimented on, causing her to break down crying until Kuroko slaps her across the face and asks her...
  • Good with Numbers: In a fit of desperation, she manages to tune AIM Jammers to forcibly mold her Personal Reality into something else, essentially giving her an entirely different ability, something no scientist or supercomputer in Academy City has managed. Given that the Level 5s are all walking supercomputers, this means that her computational skills are at least on par with them.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: She has a level 1 Esper ability called Thermal Hand that lets her maintain the temperature of an object she is holding. She doesn't get any special resistance to temperature though, so it can't be too hot or too cold. This power doesn't seem very useful outside of Mundane Utility but she is able to make great use of it when trapped in a room with brainwashed guards. Since the guards were only ordered to act if she makes an obvious escape attempt, she intentionally overheats the computer she's being forced to work on in order to raise the temperature of the small room. The guards pass out from heatstroke while she protects herself by holding an icecube against her jugular
  • Kawaiiko: Small, cuddly, vulnerable and prone to being the brunt of Saten's off-colored sense of humor and Kuroko's short temper.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: In Chapter 49 of the Manga (Railgun T, Episode 4) thanks to Misaki's Mental Out.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Has no idea about the Sisters, the Magic Side, or Mikoto and Touma's adventures.
  • Meaningful Name: Her given name Kazari literally means "ornament" or "decoration", while her family name Uiharu means "early spring", referring to the prominent flower headband she wears.
  • Mission Control: Often plays this role due to her mastery of computer work, usually with Kuroko on the other end.
  • Nice Girl: A warm hearted, caring and responsible young lady, with an occasionally cheeky sense of good-natured humor. You still don't want to test her limit, though. Check O.O.C. Is Serious Business trope below.
  • Non-Action Guy: As a trained member of Judgment, she should be an Action Girl with dangerous martial arts training. She... is not. Every time she goes out into the field, she gets hurt, so she stays at the office and plays support. She also can't run very fast or very far.
  • Odd Friendship: With Kuroko. They're close friends and coworkers, but Kuroko goes to an elite school while Uiharu goes to a relatively normal one. Kuroko is also a confident (sometimes to the point of overconfidence) field agent while Uiharu is a Shrinking Violet who usually relies on her extensive hacking skills to act as Mission Control.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Playful Hacker: She makes hacking into high-security government databases without superpowers look like child's-play, and with a relaxed smile at that!!
  • Red Baron: Known as the "Goalkeeper" among hackers.
  • Sailor Fuku: Her school uniform.
  • Salt the Earth: When she unknowingly caught Mikoto trying to hack into Academy City's main data centre and was unable to stop her, she decided to unleash Omega Secret on the database (or at least made it look like she did), which is an encryption program so complex it would take even Academy City's supercomputer 200 years to decrypt. In addition, each file is encrypted randomly, meaning each individual file will take another 200 years to decrypt. However, the encryption process is truly completely random, meaning not even Omega Secret itself knows how to decrypt it. So in one fell swoop, Uiharu made the database completely useless not only for Mikoto, but Academy City as well.
  • Selective Obliviousness: When she ran into Last Order, she did not notice her resemblance to Mikoto at all, even though she referred to herself as MISAKA.
  • Shipper on Deck: For Mikoto and Touma. When the two danced, she tried to stop Kuroko from interfering.
  • The Smart Girl: On a technological and technical level, Uiharu is the first and last line of defense our heroes turn to, such is her expertise in the realm of computers.
  • Sweet Tooth: Even more than the others, but circumstances often conspire to prevent her from actually eating them.
  • Utility Magic: Her power is useless in combat, but it's pretty handy for everyday life, such as keeping food warm, as well as advanced scientific purposes.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: As a Level 1, it's no surprise her ability seems unimpressive especially compared to Mikoto and Kuroko. Her power is stabilizing the temperature of any object she touches...as long as the object's no bigger than a basketball and the temperature itself is safe for her to touch. Still great for keeping food warm though!

    Ruiko Saten 

Ruiko Saten

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ruikosaten_if.png
Voiced by: Kanae Itō (Japanese) and Brina Palencia (English)

Uiharu's friend and classmate, a Level 0 from Sakugawa Middle School, and another member of Mikoto's quartet.


  • Adaptational Curves: In the anime, her cup size tends to go up a couple grades when her shirt comes off.
  • Ascended Extra: While she has a major role in the Level Upper arc of the original manga, she's eventually shifted out of focus once that arc ends. In the anime, she's one of the lead characters, and is even inserted into scenes like Railgun Episode 1, where she was absent in the manga (she didn't even made her debut until the graviton bombings in Chapter 4). She comes back in the Daihaseisai arc in the manga, managing to wander into an area she really shouldn't and meeting Xochitl.
  • Audience Surrogate: The only unambiguously "normal" human in the entire franchise.
  • Batter Up!: Occasionally carries an aluminum baseball bat. Even to the Final Battle in S2.
  • Blow You Away: Normally she's a level 0, but when under the effects of Level Upper, she gains a level 1 version of Aero Hand.
  • Born Lucky: She has a lot of lucky moments, for example being able to track down the bank cards with ease. Then she gives Touma her good luck charm during the Daihaseisai and it gives him luck.
  • Breakout Character: Popular enough by fans to be turned into one of the Railgun anime's main cast members.
  • Canon Immigrant: Finally appeared in the main Index story in The Movie, and is introduced to the light novels in New Testament Volume 9.
  • Chekhov's Gunman:
    • It's because she's a Level 0 that she’s immune to the paralyzing "Capacity Down" sound wave, allowing her to save her friends from Telestina's clutches in Railgun Episode 24.
    • Spends most of Daihaseisai as this, including, perhaps most importantly, lending Touma her charm. If she had never done that, he would never have been close enough to help out when Gensei attempted a Level 6 Shift on Mikoto.
  • Despair Event Horizon: After she uses Level Upper and realizes she'll fall into a coma soon afterwards.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Appears in both openings of the first season of Index, despite having never appeared in the novels.
  • The Everyman: As above, Saten is a mere mortal amongst gods and angels. Unlike most of the other characters in the series, she possesses no special abilities, and for that reason she is the easiest character in the To Aru-verse to relate to, hence her surprising popularity.
  • Fangirl: Of Teen Idol Hajime Hitotsui.
  • The Gadfly: She likes to have fun by flipping Uiharu's skirt, which she often fails to notice until Saten brings it up later. She also enjoys messing with people like Kuroko or Mikoto herself about the possibility of Mikoto liking Touma.
  • Genki Girl: Young, cheerful, and always seems full of spirit. Except for the time when she fell into depression after Frenda's disappearance.
  • Heroic Bystander:
    • In Railgun Episode 1, she saves a little boy from being kidnapped by a bank robber who has powers. Then, in the finale she smashes the Power Nullifier Telestina is using to incapacitate Mikoto, saving the day.
    • As of the premiere of Railgun S she may be heading for Chronic Hero Syndrome. As of the finale, she clearly is afflicted with it.
  • Irony: She wanted to know who Mikoto was baking cookies for. In chapter 58 of the Railgun manga (Railgun T, Episode 9), she finally meets Touma while her memories of Mikoto had been erased.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: The poor girl just wants an ability, even if it's only Level 1.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Chapter 49 of the Manga (Railgun T, Episode 4).
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Has no idea about the Sisters, the Magic Side, or Mikoto and Touma's adventures.
  • Long Hair Is Feminine: She has long black hair, and in accordance with that, she has a girly personality.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: She loves to flip Uiharu's skirt just to see her panties, especially if they're in public.
  • Morality Chain: Suprisingly (or maybe not), Saten is this to Uiharu in the Jailbreak arc. Saten prevents her best friend from making the wrong decision with a pinch on her cheek and a soft scolding despite having her own injury to worry about.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After she and her friends use Level Upper, one of her friends falls into a coma and she feels awful. Worse, she knows that she's going to follow soon as well.
  • Ms. Fanservice: The Shower Scene of the PSP game and the Beach Episode of Season 1 loves to remind us that anime Saten has the best proportions of the Railgun quartet.
  • Muggle Best Friend: Mostly to Uiharu, but also to Kuruko and Mikoto, since she has no esper abilities herself, something she initially hates.
  • Nice Girl: She is very friendly and outgoing. Her greatest joy in life is sharing happiness with her beloved friends.
  • Odd Friendship: She seemed to have developed this with Xochitl and later Frenda.
  • Plucky Girl: Brave, optimistic and kind, nothing keeps this girl's spirits down for long!
  • Sailor Fuku: Her school uniform.
  • Seiza Squirm: Does this during the festival episode during a tea ceremony.
  • Shipper on Deck: She decides during the Sisters arc that Mikoto is probably staying out at night because she's gotten a boyfriend. She's wrong, but is apparently never corrected. When she sees Mikoto being tsuntsun around Touma, she faked an injury so that she could get the two to dance together.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: Stops Telestina's gloating of humanity's supposed worthlessness by smashing the Capacity Down device paralyzing her esper friends with one mighty swing of her aluminum baseball bat.
  • Signature Headgear: A distinctive white-flower hairclip that is her signature accessory.
  • Stepford Smiler: In Academy City, life is hard for anyone who doesn't "measure up".
  • Too Dumb to Live: She was borderline during Railgun SS. She followed Mikoto into what was clearly an off-limits area thinking it was a casino, where she nearly gets killed by Olive, and then there was the issue with Xochitl blackmailing her. She didn't piece together that those attacks were real until later and decided to investigate on her own, gets caught, and was about to be "killed" when Xochitl saved her at the last minute.
  • Urban Legend: She's a particular fan of these, and whenever there's a rumor going around, she's usually the one who introduces them to the gang, and even seek to investigate them.
  • You Leave Him Alone!: Shouts this to Therestina while smashing the Capacity Down device.

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