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

I still haven't watched the Accelerator anime. How is it? Compared to the manga, I mean.

It's generally considered way better than the manga it adapts, and I tend to agree. Some good changes are simply the result of being translate to anime (better art, better pacing, etc.), but it generally improved upon the source material.

In the manga, the siblings Hishigata and Hirumi as well as Esther got nearly no backstory, Huotou and Anti-Skill ceased to be relevant past the midway point and never did anything again, Esther had no character development, Huotou didn't have a satisfying end either, and Hishigata's characterisation was flimsy at best. The anime changes all of that for the better, so characters are more than just props and the story is more than Accelerator showing up to fuck shit up (the anime giving him PTSD over the dead clones was also great).

So yeah, my judgement is that Accelerator anime is the best anime adaptation of To Aru works by virtue of the source material just being that bad.

Okay, good. I'm mostly reading the manga out of... not Bile Fascination, but kind of? Like, I'm enjoying it, but not a lot, and nearly every chapter I'm like "if you had planned ahead by more than a chapter you would have done this entirely differently." And an action manga that releases monthly has a lot of problems just from the start.

I knew if nothing else the action scenes would be better animated, but it's good to hear that they expand it in places.

Accelerator already had PTSD when it came to the clones. It's why Worst was any threat to him at all: She was built to exploit it.

I meant in relation to the manga, sorry that I wasn't clear.

And yeah, @Discar, same. The pacing is pretty bad, but if you read it as it releases, it's just that one manga you read to see how over the top the action will get.

My relationship with the Raildex mangas is basically like this:

• Index: before didn't really care about it and thought it was lame for skipping two plot relevant arcs, but now reading it to see a better adaptation of the material that Index III was supposed to do.

• Railgun: excellent, follow for good plot and good action. Was less interested in the previous disjointed arc not being as strong as previous ones, but the current one is a return to form.

• Accelerator: already made my opinion known.

• Astral Buddy: thought it was just going to be yuri bait, but somehow became as good as its progenitor Railgun. Good art, good plot, good action, and memorable/likeable characters

• Dark Matter: short and sweet, was basically everything Accelerator should have been. Dark without being edgy and somehow made me care about a villainous character.

• Idol Accelerator: the superior Accelerator manga that was also a pretty funny parody while still being faithful to the material. Died too young.

Edited by VeryMelon on Apr 19th 2020 at 8:42:50 AM

Wait the Index manga skipped 2 important arcs?

The Deep Blood and Angel Fall arcs.

Don't later arcs just act like they showed those two anyway?

Accelerator chapter 61 updated. Accelerator punches people, Anti-Skill (the real ones, though they're technically rogue at the moment) show up to rescue everyone, and all the children are alive and will be taken to Heaven Canceler.

It's weird that Accelerator saw New Testament hoodie Touma. I guess the mangaka just likes the look, because otehrwise it's confusing.

Astral Buddy has updated. We seem to be nearing the end of the story.

The interview for the third Haimura artbook has been summarized.

Some highlights:

I caught up with T's episode 14. Saten and Uiharu ambush Kuroko and Misaka. LOL!

Edited by Ominae on May 26th 2020 at 3:25:39 AM

Railgun chapter 124 up. It's going in unexpected directions. Saten sacrifices herself for Uiharu, which angel-girl mocks. This pisses Uiharu off so much that angel-girl decides to completely abandon her current plans because Uiharu is more interesting. And it kinda looked like Uiharu's power was evolving out of sheer anger? I mean, she didn't actually do anything, but the visuals made it look like she was about to get a power-up.

Oh, and Mikoto deduces angel-girl's motivation.

Yeah that didn’t really seem like merely a metaphorical representation of Uiharu’s mental state. Weird stuff.

Edited by clockworkBabbage on May 27th 2020 at 2:49:54 AM

Railgun chapter 125 up. Kimi's power is unknown even to her closest friends, but the whole "turning into a humanoid angel" thing might be unrelated.

GT 2 has finished translating! As Kamachi notes, it is strange that, for all that Touma always end up there (and now Mikoto for the first time), the hospital has never been used as the setting of a story until now.

But this is the volume where Anna Sprengel takes central stage after having only manipulated from the background for a few volumes, firmly establishing her as the antagonist of GT for now.

Overall I liked it, especially the various teamups. Mikoto/Misaki (which at this point is not surprising) and Touma/St. Germain. And Index/Othinus I guess, though they were out of focus. Strong heroine energy from Shokuhou btw.

Definitely wasn't expecting the #6 to finally show up.

Accelerator's about to end soon in Japan.

What does 6 look like. Wiki shows they're a blob.

I believe they're just projecting their AIM field or smth, we don't get to see them in person.

We don't know. Aihana was depicted as indistinct as possible, especially from Touma's point of view. js06's translation uses gender-neutral pronouns, so I imagine there was similar ambiguity in the original Japanese language. With that having been said, Aihana's voice was described as becoming deep when talks with Touma were breaking down, so I'm personally assuming male unless otherwise noted.

Railgun chapter 126 updated. Kimi is apparently strong enough to be the ninth level 5—though Uiharu glosses over that pretty quickly, since she can't actually control it. The more immediately important part is that the dragon is feeding on her power to get stronger, and needs to be disconnected from her.

And then Uiharu decides to custom-build an esper to fight it? And kinda looks like she's ascending to angel form? What the hell is going on with her?

Railgun chapter 127. Uiharu is somehow using the AIM diffusion devices to edit her own AIM field and upgrade her power, jumping straight from level 1 to angel. And then she erases the dragon fighting Mikoto. Though angel-girl immediately respawns it, so maybe it's not such an incredible upgrade as it seems.

What does the higher level version of 'human thermos' look like?