The story of how Kuroko and Kazari became partners.Damn, I don't think I can do push-ups that effortlessly.Summary:Kuroko and Kazari are surveying a school for surveillance camera placement when they hear an alarm from the parking lot. The two discover a man breaking into a car in broad daylight. Kuroko goes to confront the man despite Kazari's warnings for waiting for backup and ends up being knocked down by another man who is in the car. Kazari tries to stop the two men from running away and gets hit by a stun gun. After the thieves have gotten away, Kazari and Kuroko start arguing with each other, with Kuroko accusing Kazari for being too weak for front-line work while Kazari accuses Kuroko of being reckless. Kazari wonders if Kuroko remembers the promise they made, but Kuroko doesn't remember which makes Kazari even more mad.What happens if Kazari asks Ruiko to pull her finger?Later, Ruiko visits Kazari's Judgment office and finds her friend to be unresponsive to the usual skirt-flipping. The senior member Kunori explains that Kazari and Kuroko had an argument and they need some time alone. In the meantime, Kunori decides to tell Ruiko about the story of how Kuroko and Kazari became partners, and at the same time Kuroko is telling the same story to Mikoto at their dorm.Awwww... such a cutie. Much better than the insane lesbian we saw in episode 2.The event happened when Kuroko was in the last year of elementary school. After finishing a patrol route with Kunori, Kuroko wonders why she's still stuck with support work despite being a member for a year, and Kunori states that Kuroko is a little too young and needs to learn to rely on others sometimes. To cheer Kuroko up, Kunori goes into the nearby bank to get money so she can treat Kuroko. While in the bank waiting for Kunori, Kuroko runs into fellow trainee member Kazari and the two start chatting about their graduation and middle school.As expected, younger Kizari is lolier than her older self as well.The robber should be ashamed of himself. You just got taken out by an elementary school girl (without using special powers).Suddenly, Kunori spots a suspicious man entering the bank and discovers that the man has a gun (using her see-through vision). Kunori tells Kuroko get ready to evacuate the customers while she notifies the bank, but the robber acts first draws his pistol. Kuroko springs into action and takes down the robber, but unfortunately the robber has an accomplice who grabs Kazari as a hostage. A bank worker presses the alarm which encloses the bank in steel shutters and activates the security robot, but the remaining robber somehow destroys the robot and the explosion injures Kunori. Kuroko gets kicked around by the robber, but in the process she manages to grab and teleport Kazari out of the bank. Unfortunately, at that point Kuroko is not able to teleport herself and is left to face the robber. The robber shows off his ability which allows him to break down the steel shutters by throwing pinballs (the objects travel slowly but will maintain their velocity for a certain distance no matter what). The robber wants Kuroko to join up with him to rob the bank, but Kuroko refuses. The robber then throws a handful of pinballs at Kuroko, but those pinballs are disintegrated by a blast from Mikoto, who happens to be passing by outside the bank. Not knowing how the pinballs disappears, Kuroko charges and manages to subdue the robber.These robots are quite explosive.The show wouldn't be called Railgun is Miss Railgun didn't get any action.In the aftermath of the incident, Kazari is impressed by Kuroko's bravery and wants to be just like Kuroko, while Kuroko realizes that she shouldn't be so reckless and the two make a promise to each other to work together. Back to present, Kuroko realizes that this was the promise Kazari was talking about but she's still too embarrassed to apologize. At this moment, Kuroko gets a phone call from Kunori informing her that Kazari has located the car thieves from before. Kazari has gone after the thieves by herself and Kunori asks what Kuroko will do. Kuroko eventually joins Kazari in the chase and the two friends have gotten their little argument.Running off into the sunset... how typical.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode wasn't quite as good as last week's episode guest-starring Touma, but it was still decent. We are still not on to the first story arc yet despite all the hints the series is dropping left and right, and this is one of those standard friends-arguing scenarios, but at least this episode presented some interesting background info on Kuroko and Kazari and also had a better narrative than some of the other episodes. From the flashback, Kizari has always been weak, while Kuroko has always been reckless, and so the two of them make an unlikely but effective pair where Kuroko does the heavy lifting while Kazari keeps Kuroko informed and in check. It's nothing really out of the ordinary, but at least the presentation was nice if you can turn a blind eye to some of the details during the bank robbery. I don't remember Kuroko having super strength, so I'm not sure how she (as an elementary school girl) was able to knock out the first robber (an adult male) with just a stomp to the stomach. And there was the other robber who had a knife but kind of forgot about it and then for some reason started talking to Kuroko about helping him rob the bank. So basically the robbery didn't make much sense, but we get the point about Kuroko learning her lessons the hard way (and getting her behind saved by Mikoto for the first time).Judging by the previews, looks like we have another non-serious, possibly-filler episode. We've waited this long of the Level Upper Arc to start, so I guess it doesn't hurt to wait for another week?
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