Raildex verse (A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, A Certain Scientific Accelerator)

a telepath.

has it been said why only the students undergo Esper development btw?younger minds easier to mold?higher personal reality limits?

Sure, but Academy City definitely doesn't have a vested interest in keeping the kids sane. If anything, it's the opposite. If any setting is ripe for the Psycho Psychologist trope, it's this one.

Possibly. A big part of it is also probably how kids simply don't have good decision-making skills and don't fully realize the consequences of their actions. Consider how Mikoto was tricked into giving away her rights to her own genome, or how every kid is totally OK with having their brain screwed around with on the off chance that they'll get cool superpowers.

I mean, the only time I can remember an adult even discussing the possibility of going through the esper development program was Kihara Amata, and he said something along the lines of "Hell no, I'm not going to be a guinea pig."

edited 17th Nov '14 9:36:01 AM by clockworkBabbage

I definitely got the impression that it was a moldable mind thing. Like how kids learn language easier. The power development program is struggling enough with kids; it would be having an order of magnitude more difficulty if it was trying it on adults.

Misaka's mom said that she can't enter the program because of her age. Though whether that's because it's impossible or just because AC doesn't accept applicants as old as her wasn't said.

youngest Espers so far are those kiddies Misaka hangs out occasionally with in the Railgun manga,i think?

and the Misaka clones i guess

they're pretty fun interaction wise.hope nothing too horrible happens to them in the long run.

Here is a reader's comparison of the terms found in Yen Press' volume 1 translation: http://pastebin.com/MU4MdM7Z

It's...not great in places. The names of 3 Churches...ugh. And changing Eli Eli Lema Sabachthani to Eri Eri Rema Sabaktani doesn't make any sense.

Well, that translation has been done before with regards to that phrase from a Japanese source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_God,_My_God,_Why_Hast_Thou_Forsaken_Me%3F

edited 20th Nov '14 4:41:51 PM by clockworkBabbage

Lol Japan.

Anyway, looks like the spoilers for Railgun chapter 73 are out. Looks like they (the author or the editor, I forgot) lied about Touma not appearing for this arc, however brief his appearance looks like it will be. But I can forgive them, because, if the spoilers are to be trusted, the next chapter will resolve a question I am sure most of us here wondered about esper powers: why foresight (and, incidentally, time control) esper abilities don't arise...

edited 24th Nov '14 8:58:41 PM by allfictions

All I care about Touma showing up is that we actually stick with what Mikoto said at the end of the last arc and it isn't her getting rescued this time. I don't recall it ever being promised that he wouldn't show up at all, though?.

More information about esper powers is always welcome, though.

Page 306 of this very thread, in one of my own posts (#7644) with the translation of the editor's comments following the previous arc, though there were a lot of mistranslations I never corrected so it might just be my own fault.

In other news, the Kamachi-verse Crossover novel will be 400 pages long , will get its own manga , and its release is set to February, pushing back the release of New Testament 12 .

Less importantly, the Misaki figurine with its 52-page side story will come out in July (oh joy).

edited 24th Nov '14 9:40:27 PM by allfictions

FYI, the timestamp for every post is also a URL for a permanent link to it. Makes it easier to direct people to posts.

oh,so time control eespers are impossible?interesting.i guess even the age of Horus has limits.

still waiting for a "biological" ability Esper.since the closest thing to one is a lvl 0 magician.

Othi-chan and Bee-chan are both so cute!

Here's hoping that Touma will eventually no longer forget about Bee-chan.

New Railgun chapter.

I'm obviously thinking about this too much, because I'm finding so many things in this arc to just be nerve-wracking. Is it just me?

We haven't really gotten into the meat of the arc yet. The kid is creepy enough at least. We've been waiting for a Precog Esper to show up for ages as well, so it's nice to see one.

Also it was nice of Fuyukawa to tell us straight out that the Judgement recruitment poster didn't foreshadow anything.

In other news, apparently js06 won't be translating anymore Blood Sign beyond the preview. I can't really blame him, it doesn't look all that good. Kamachi went psychotic with the rules, there was like 10 straight pages of explanation and I still have no idea at all how the magic system works. You make a summoning field or something, I don't fucking know.

I just keep expecting things to go horribly wrong. Like when Mikoto used that dream, she wouldn't be able to wake up. Or when Kuroko and Uiharu were investigating that accident, that it'd be some self-fulfilling prophecy and they would be the ones to get hurt.

I'm just really predisposed to getting freaked out about the stuff that's happening in this arc right now and I have no idea why.

x2

That new light novel? As unlikely as it is I hope we get an official translation of that since it's a newer series and there won't be much to catch up on.

edited 1st Dec '14 7:44:48 PM by Chariot

I mean, the whole story of Raildex basically is everything getting progressively worse. The protagonist's victories are mostly temporary (hell, Accelerator and Hamazura's dozen-long struggle to get free of the Dark Side is almost completely reversed in NT 1, the volume after they finish it).

So your suspicious are warranted.

Pretty unlikely. Only really popular L Ns get official translations. Something straight out of the gate won't get one for awhile, even if it takes off.

edited 1st Dec '14 7:43:43 PM by redacer

I've been trying to watch Magical Index II, and there's a couple of things that bug me.

The series is supposedly about Magic Versus Science. Magic is largely represented by churches, heretics of those churches, grimoires, ancient texts, and groups that act as parallels to real-life religions. I know next to nothing about religious belief systems, their conduct, etc. But it seems like these religions are being antagonized and otherwise mocked.

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The "good guy churches" are Necessarius and the Amakusa, or at least Stiyl, Index, and Kanzaki. In Magical Index II's anime, the "bad guy church", the Roman-Catholics, refer to Stiyl's organization as the "English Puritans".

Now, Orosola leaves the Roman Catholics by intentionally/unintentionally accepting the cross from Touma, instantly making her an English Puritan? Does this actually happen in real life (granted, priests don't create flaming golems either, but work with me here)

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And also, there's a "good church" and a "bad church".

Isn't that a little offensive?

Index actually has an ability that "pronounces the contradictions of a church's beliefs", which causes a group of nuns to start convulsing on the ground. Does that mean Puritan beliefs are more genuine than Catholic ones? Or does that mean a Catholic battle-nun could do the same to Index and her allies, by "pronouncing the contradictions in their beliefs". What about Kanzaki? Shouldn't any magic user affiliated with a church fall prey to this? Why didn't Index use this before?

And shortly after having their beliefs dispelled, the nuns counter by "stabbing their ears" to tune out Index's counter-spell. So one religion defends it's beliefs by maiming themselves?

I'm not partial to any particular religion, and I know little about Catholicism or Puritanism, but I find it funny and a bit inflammatory that this series creates these religious equivalents, then has one side be inherently evil and fallacious, has them go religious extremes and get pounded by the agnostic/atheist main character.

If the author were trying to say one religion could beat up another religion, then why have a main character who flat-out neutralizes both? If the main character cancels them both out by ignoring them, what is the author trying to say? Or does this not matter at all.

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On that note, nobody on the magic side that regularly associates with Touma seems concerned that he can utterly deconstruct their belief system. Shouldn't he himself be a massive "heretic" and thus targeted by the church of Necessarius?

Sure, maybe they can't go after him because of his power, but you mean to tell me that these magic/religious organizations are willing to launch terrorist attacks, blow up buildings, torture their own members, summon demons, and cause all sorts of collateral damage - but none of them are willing to buy a glock?

edited 4th Dec '14 10:07:49 AM by FOFD

If you don't know anything about religion, you'll probably enjoy the series that little bit more.

The actual religions themselves seem largely interchangeable because they show no difference in expressed beliefs and switch sides at their convenience with no barriers in the way of theological differences.

And don't worry about anything like consistency. Necessarius as an organization of necessary evil stops making sense pretty much immediately after it's introduced.

edited 4th Dec '14 9:59:41 AM by Arha

I assume so. I feel like the concept of nuns wielding swords and lances and hunting down underage children over rooftops would be highly offensive to any religion I was a part of.

I mean I'm fine with bastardizations/exaggerations on religious concepts (Black Lagoon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hell Sing) provided its for Rule of Cool, it's just Index's Sheol Fear that really made me double-take. I'm surprised I've never heard any religious controversy about this anime, since the plot focuses on Touma fighting these evil churches.

If Pokemon is subject to controversy, I'm surprised that Magical Index isn't banned in certain countries.

edited 4th Dec '14 10:15:38 AM by FOFD

Well, if you read the novels you can hear about how Catholics think that sex outside their religion is akin to bestiality. I think that was the gist of it, anyway.

There's a couple things to keep in mind:

1. Religion is literally just a framing device to justify specific magic spells or to justify conflict.
2. Kamachi knows very little about Christianity.

The actual beliefs of different religions aren't touched on at all and are pretty unimportant to the story. That kind of makes it less offensive to me, because it's so obviously wrong (and not even wrong in a strawman sort of way) that the author can't be having some kind of agenda. It's all just plot devices.

Now, if Touma were an atheist along the lines of Dawkins or Hitchens, then we could have more of a problem with this being offensive and with it seeming that Kamachi has an agenda. But he's not - Touma just seems entirely indifferent to the concept of religion. It's not important in his life.

I'm pretty sure Index is the only one who can do the "pronounce the contradictions" thing due to her library of grimoires—but at the same time, she could probably do it to any religion.

It's a little bit unclear on how magic and religion really interact. Necessarius implies that all magic was originally thought of as heretical witchcraft, but that plot point got tossed out pretty quickly. I guess it could still be true, like maybe all the magic users we see are seen by their leadership as Necessarily Evil weapons, but there hasn't been much emphasis on that. I guess it would explain why all these religious types are happy to sin left and right.

And Touma is definitely repeatedly treated as the heretic to end all heretics. Lots of people try to kill him simply because of his power.

The pope is a heretic too. And also all his most important followers. The head of the Russian Orthodox church is a heretic but he's a terrible one that can't match all the immortal witches and whatnot under his command. Everyone is a heretic. Including the Saints.