“Only My Railgun” (stylized as “only my railgun“) is a Japanese single by the pop and trance duo fripSide, which was released by Geneon Universal Entertainment in November 2009. It is used as the first opening theme music for J.C. Staff’s anime television series A Certain Scientific Railgun.
“Only My Railgun” is the first single by fripSide to feature Yoshino Nanjo as its new lead vocalist since her joining in August 2009. Nanjō described it as having the “electric elements” of science and “fantastic elements” of magic, while Satoshi Yaginuma felt that it was a “difficult song” with a “fast pitch and high keys”. He cited his fondness of Western hard rock music when composing the song to achieve a native singing speed and rhythm with two or three syllables in every note. The tempo was revealed to have 130 beats per minute (BPM). As for the coupling song “Late in Autumn”, Nanjō felt that it was “bright” enough to make its lyrics “sadder”, while Yaginuma described it as the “standard song for the new fripSide”.
The single’s limited edition is bundled with a DVD and was also released in November 2009. “Only My Railgun” sold 26,000 copies in its first weekend since its release. The song has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan for both physical and streaming departments. In October 2010, “Only My Railgun” won the Radio Kansai Award at Animation Kobe Awards.
Machico did a cover version of “Only My Railgun” song, which became available on the iTunes Store in December 2014, as part of her second album COLOURS II – RML that was released in April 2015. “Only My Railgun” song received a new arrangement from fripSide, which is titled “Only My Railgun Version 2020” (stylized as “only my railgun -version2020-“). It was released by NBC Universal Entertainment Japan in April 2020. The new song is included in fripSide’s visual album “fripSide infinite video clips 2009–2020” that was released on Blu-ray on the same date.
Magician Shinji Maggy made an appearance in the “Only My Railgun” promotional video (PV). The song was included in the 2020 smartphone game D4DJ Groovy Mix in April 2022.
