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

Alrighty. I still don't have a clue what's going on, and the Wiki's still not helping. I wish the anime would hurry up so I can visualize all of this.

First, there was just Touma helping Index escape from her magic church terrorist group. Then there was a project involving Misaka and a bunch of clones. And then more magic terrorists attacked. And then Fiamma attacked, setting off a world war. And then Accelerator got involved because of Last Order. And then there were more terrorist attacks. And then Othinus, the Magic God showed up with her GREMLIN group. And then it turned out Othinus wasn't a real Magic God. And then there's a "true" Magic God, only for him or her to be killed by a "Mgic God Hunter" with the same ability as Touma's.

...

This series isn't going to end anytime soon.

edited 18th Jul '15 12:46:13 PM by Soble

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

Seems like you're understanding everything perfectly.

We have to be nearing the endgame, though, especially with :Aleister finally doing things.

Seems like you understand just fine to me. Only that Index wasn't saved from mere "magic terrorists" which is kinda the main twist of the arc, and there are multiple magic gods, the rest is more or less accurate summarization.

We already knew that, no? Pretty sure it was already mentioned.

edited 18th Jul '15 8:14:09 PM by allfictions

But now it's saying explicitly how.

So, while I can't exactly say I'm a fan with so much emphasis being on Mikoto simply not being able to keep up with the ridiculous characters and how that's making her all depressed, that's kind of just how the power levels work out so it's hard to complain about it. And at least she's involved, at least she's doing things. Definitely far more satisfying in that regard than the last time we were told she was going to be participating.

Also, (very mildly) annoyed for my own selfish reasons, because there's a thing I've been meaning to write for a very long time, and now at least one of the ideas I had isn't going to seem quite so original anymore.

I just find it hilarious that Misaka is apparently the world's worst navigator. And that Touma's so pissy about it.

Obviously the map's fault.

I meant that we knew he was the Magic God of Buddhism. Also, his method that made him who he is was all but spelled out in the previous volume: Add to that the various scattered notes here and there about how he failed to reach enlightenment, and it was kind of an easy guess. The only things new we learned this volume are (a) his reasons, and (b) why he failed.

Moving on, I do find it ironic that, with the girl with liquid diamond believing the High Priest saved her, there is the point that he could still save people like he wants to if he wasn't so rotten.

edited 20th Jul '15 11:52:35 AM by allfictions

I really don't give much of a shit about liquid diamond girl; at best, it's her running into the other mob characters.

Yeah, Misaka seems to be getting shafted again.

I'm not sure that "shafted" is the right word. There's a lot going on to consider.

On the one hand, she's definitely a central character here in terms of involvement.

She can't win with her powers, but she's using them in creative ways to at least be capable of contributing. Having her actually win, though, would seem like an absurd ass-pull.

On the other hand, the fact that the first time she got involved to this level in the story is now, long past the point where she's entirely out of her league, is definitely something to consider.

Chapter 4 Part 1-2: So...Mikoto saved the day after all?

edited 20th Jul '15 8:36:24 PM by allfictions

Personally, I felt she saved the day when she stopped Touma from making a deal with the other two Magic Gods - really, Touma's biggest weakness is how easily manipulable his need to save everyone makes him.

Possibly. Personnally, in the scene, as I read it, Touma was going to refuse anyway. What that gesture showed was Mikoto's selfish (in a good way) request, a request to not only prevent the person she loves from fundamentally changing, and to prevent herself from losing him if he moves to far out her reach. It also incidentally made Nephthys notice her as it was a human "movement of the heart" she is so jealous of.

Also, the HD images are out, yay!

So that was fun, I did find it odd that Touma hadn't used IB yet. By the way, did anyone else kind of feel like this was more Kamachi telling off the readers than anything else? Since the High Priest's arguments are the kind of things the Japanese and English fandom have been saying for a long time (though I doubt Kamachi knows anything about the English fandom).

I can't speak for an entire fandom here, but personally I have no problem with any of this. Like I said earlier, expecting Mikoto to actually be able to stand up to Magic Gods on an even footing as she is now is absolutely absurd. Like, that's the kind of thing you'd expect in a badly-done fanfiction type of absurd. Not even Accelerator would stand a chance. Granted, I don't feel that there's any hard rule that she (or any other Esper) couldn't become stronger. But by that same token, any argument that they can is wild speculation because I don't think we've actually been given anything much of substance to go on.

Even disregarding all that, depending on the direction this is taken there's room here for more than enough good character development coming out of this to make up for Mikoto's ineffectiveness. What happens next might go in a different direction than I might personally wish, but I think there's at least a decent chance of whatever direction it goes in being a good one. Whatever happens, she has been an important character in this novel despite the fact that she couldn't hope to actually fight a Magic God.

Second, if it is a telling-off, it's not that much of one. Touma is incredibly explicit about how he feels about that line of reasoning. He was pissed. He swore. I don't think I've ever seen that. Whether or not the High Priest is right I think doesn't mean as much as how Touma reacts to it.

And then there's the fact that it's stated that Touma wouldn't have been able to do any better no matter what tactics he used or who was helping him. Imagine Breaker wasn't actually any help with Othinus, and it sure wouldn't be any help for the much stronger High Priest. Imagine Breaker and all that are just tools, but what really carried him through everything was just having a reason to fight and refusing to give up.

Also, new Railgun chapter is out. I'm... just going to ignore a lot of the dumb stuff there and go right back to worrying that things are going to go horribly wrong. Something about this whole dream stuff is just really stressing me out.

Well, if that's a problem for Frenda, I have good news for her! Her bust won't be growing any larger, so no need to get new bras.

So, dream from that ninja girl that follows Shiage's friend around?

Most likely one of her dreams, yes.

I don't even remember if she appeared in the main story.

Okay I am going to try again to get through NT. Starting at volume two since it was the last one I read.

I... could not start that early. Good luck.

So the early NT volumes are terrible compared to later ones then? Okay, then I can look forward to an improvement in quality. Honestly all I remember is Kanzaki fighting a giant floating box and having a sadly tough time with it.

edited 22nd Jul '15 1:05:03 AM by Arha

Well, I wouldn't exactly say that - it's not like there's uniform improvement (although the most recent ones I have consistently enjoyed quite a bit, and as has been mentioned by others here certain things such as Touma's characterization feel so much better than they used to).

It's mainly 3 and 4 that would stop me from re-reading from that early. 3 doesn't have any overt problems writing-wise (no more than usual for this series) but it infuriates me for reasons. 4, though, is one of the few novels where I actually had no fun whatsoever reading it. Which is kind of a problem when one of the big draws of this series for me is dumb fun. I just find NT 4 to be plain bad.

Volume four is, what, Kakine?

Baggage City.

5/6 was when Kakine showed up again. 5 would probably actually be where I'd be willing to start re-reading if I ever felt inclined to do so. I probably would have given up on this series if I hadn't found 5 so enjoyable.

Is that the one that sounds like complete filler with random Kiharas and stuff?

Wow, it's always a little surprising just how bad the prose in Index is.

Yes, that is the one. And yeah, I can't ever pay too much attention to the prose in Index without risking brain damage or something.

Oh, right, little girls stripping and wearing bondage gear. I'd mostly forgotten how much of that stuff was in this series.