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A Certain Scientific Railgun Manga to End After 19 Years
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The April issue of Kadokawa's Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh magazine announced on Thursday that Motoi Fuyukawa's A Certain Scientific Railgun (To Aru Kagaku no Railgun) manga will end in its next chapter on March 27.
Seven Seas Entertainment is releasing the manga in English, and it describes the manga:
Welcome to a world where mysticism and science collide, and supernatural powers are derived from either science or religion. At the heart of this world is Academy City, an advanced metropolis whose population is comprised mostly of students. The majority of students are enrolled in the city's "Power Curriculum Program," where they must learn to master their latent psychic powers. Out of several million students, only seven are deemed powerful enough to have Level 5 status.
Meet Mikoto Misaka, the third most powerful Level 5 esper in Academy City. Together with her best friend Kuroko Shirai and the other members of Judgment, a student-run law enforcement agency, Mikoto delves deep into the dark heart of the scientific sprawl she calls home, and uncovers secrets she wishes she hadn't!
The manga is a spinoff of Kazuma Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura's A Certain Magical Index light novel series, focusing on the character Mikoto Misaka, and the "scientific" part of the world (as opposed to the "magical" side of the world seen in Index). The manga's story tends to stay within the high-tech Academy City. Misaka, a powerful "Electromaster" psychic, is herself a key character in the main Index story.
Misaka is an influential character in her own right. From 2010 to 2019, she was voted #1 in Takarajimashima's Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! (This Light Novel Is Amazing!) female character ranking poll for nine out of 10 years, only put in second place once in 2015 by Yukino Yukinoshita from My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected. Her nickname "Biribiri," given to her by Index protagonist Toma Kamijo, is the origin of the name of the Chinese streaming site bilibili, which still has features named after story elements in the manga, and celebrates Misaka's birthday every May 2.
Fuyukawa launched the manga in Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh in February 2007. Kadokawa published the manga's 20th compiled book volume in June 2025. Seven Seas Entertainment published the 19th volume in English in February 2025, and will release the 20th volume on March 17.
The manga inspired its first television anime season in 2009. The second season, A Certain Scientific Railgun S, aired in 2013. The third season, A Certain Scientific Railgun T, aired in January 2020. A fourth season has been green-lit. Funimation has streamed all three anime seasons (Crunchyroll also streamed the third season), and has also released them on home video with English dubs, with the notable exception of the 2010 OVA for the first season. The anime enjoys its own level of popularity, with fripSide's first season opening song "only my railgun" becoming a Japanese karaoke standard, and consistently ranks high on karaoke song popularity lists.
Kamachi's A Certain Magical Index light novel series has inspired three television anime series, a 2013 anime film, and multiple manga adaptations. The sprawling franchise also has numerous light novel and manga spinoffs, with Fuyukawa's A Certain Scientific Railgun perhaps the most notable of these.
Yen Press is releasing the original Index light novel series in English, and Funimation has released all of Index's anime adaptations. Seven Seas Entertainment is also releasing A Certain Scientific Accelerator manga and A Certain Scientific Railgun: Astral Buddy manga in English, and Yen Press is releasing A Certain Magical Index manga in English.
Source: Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh April issue
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
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