To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Vol. 17 Ch. 128 - Penitence
- Thread starter MangaDex
- Start date
Double-page supporter
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2019
- Messages
- 463
I'm so fucking lost, can like someone give me a summary of what the fuck has happened in this arc. Now that it has HOPEFULLY wrapped up.
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2018
- Messages
- 11
@thedestroyership A summary from what I understand:
Following the Jailbreak arc, this group of girls used it as an opportunity to break one of them out of jail and identify a really skilled hacker (Uihara). Thus, they try to kidnap Uihara to reveal the Power Development Curriculum and spread it, hopefully allowing other places to create espers. Battles ensue, and ultimately Uihara is saved.
The real confusing point is the "main villain", Shundan Kimi, and her weird abilities. She herself has an esper ability that allows her to create black holes (Level 5 potential, but recorded at Level 0 because they didn't understand it at first). The black holes she makes have huge amounts of energy, which attracted the "angel dragon" (possibly from Touma's Imagine Breaker) which basically became a parasite and leeched off her ability's energy. She could somewhat control the dragon through her esper ability, giving a whole set of weird powers (salt manipulation, sand creation, power copying, mind control, etc). Eventually the dragon nearly took over her though.
How did she get freed from the dragon? They didn't explain it well, but this is what I interpreted it as. Uihara, in a combination of absolute desperation and determination, pushed her mind and AIM field to its limits to save both Saten and Shundan. By reimagining the way she interprets the world (and thus her Personal Reality), she was able to redesign the mechanisms of the long-range AIM jammers in the area, making it compatible with the dragon (which shouldn't have be affected by normal esper/AIM related abilites). Thus she was able to "jam" the dragon and force it out of Shundan, saving her and also everyone else that was affected by the dragon. The dragon is almost 100% not dead though, just got its power temporarily depleted, so who knows where it is now (back to Touma?).
Ultimate point of the arc is sort of crudely executed, but can be seen as:
Being strong and being a hero are separate things. Being saved doesn't make you weak, and being the one saved often takes strength that is hard to recognize.
Following the Jailbreak arc, this group of girls used it as an opportunity to break one of them out of jail and identify a really skilled hacker (Uihara). Thus, they try to kidnap Uihara to reveal the Power Development Curriculum and spread it, hopefully allowing other places to create espers. Battles ensue, and ultimately Uihara is saved.
The real confusing point is the "main villain", Shundan Kimi, and her weird abilities. She herself has an esper ability that allows her to create black holes (Level 5 potential, but recorded at Level 0 because they didn't understand it at first). The black holes she makes have huge amounts of energy, which attracted the "angel dragon" (possibly from Touma's Imagine Breaker) which basically became a parasite and leeched off her ability's energy. She could somewhat control the dragon through her esper ability, giving a whole set of weird powers (salt manipulation, sand creation, power copying, mind control, etc). Eventually the dragon nearly took over her though.
How did she get freed from the dragon? They didn't explain it well, but this is what I interpreted it as. Uihara, in a combination of absolute desperation and determination, pushed her mind and AIM field to its limits to save both Saten and Shundan. By reimagining the way she interprets the world (and thus her Personal Reality), she was able to redesign the mechanisms of the long-range AIM jammers in the area, making it compatible with the dragon (which shouldn't have be affected by normal esper/AIM related abilites). Thus she was able to "jam" the dragon and force it out of Shundan, saving her and also everyone else that was affected by the dragon. The dragon is almost 100% not dead though, just got its power temporarily depleted, so who knows where it is now (back to Touma?).
Ultimate point of the arc is sort of crudely executed, but can be seen as:
Being strong and being a hero are separate things. Being saved doesn't make you weak, and being the one saved often takes strength that is hard to recognize.
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2020
- Messages
- 262
First of all, thanks for translating this!!
So from my understanding, the group itself doesn't have a core goal cause individually, everyone had their own reason and followed Dragon/Black Hole girl "Kimi Cause it lined up; who wanted to bring down the status of Academy City by opening it up to the rest of the world; after the City revealed it's darker side from when the group was experimented on.
Uiharu was kidnapped because of her hacking skills of the system. Kimi girl also didn't understand people in a sense and only literally getting it beaten into her didn't she really realize her entire circumstances. And apparently the dragon is from Touma when Lv. 6 Misaka cut off Touma's arm and one of the dragons escaped and found Kimi as a next host because of the god-tier power she is capable of possessing (which is drawing power from black holes?) I think Kimi was/is suffering from Survivor's guilt cause Honoka died instead of her but it seems like her mind (mostly memory) and perception was affected from the experimentation? Since it seems she thinks she had the dragon all those times and was the cause of Honoka's demise and their situation?
The Girl at the end of the chapter, "Raifu" trying to find the ideal hero is probably impacted when she was bullied by a boy, both influenced from the same superhero show? The boy, which we see has all grown up and is the one interrogating Raifu? They were both also impacted by Honoka as the true 'hero' and I guess Raifu (subconsciously) realizing either that the interrogator is the same boy from all those years ago or that her ideal hero was Honoka. The latter makes sense since Honoka attacking the Bully revealed who was the true hero and this kind of stuck in Raifu's mind where she attacks people to reveal their true nature?
And apparently, Uihara is able to hack her own AIM to be able to cancel the connection between the dragon and Kimi's power?
My head hurts after trying to get all of this down and I have no idea why I did this.
So from my understanding, the group itself doesn't have a core goal cause individually, everyone had their own reason and followed Dragon/Black Hole girl "Kimi Cause it lined up; who wanted to bring down the status of Academy City by opening it up to the rest of the world; after the City revealed it's darker side from when the group was experimented on.
Uiharu was kidnapped because of her hacking skills of the system. Kimi girl also didn't understand people in a sense and only literally getting it beaten into her didn't she really realize her entire circumstances. And apparently the dragon is from Touma when Lv. 6 Misaka cut off Touma's arm and one of the dragons escaped and found Kimi as a next host because of the god-tier power she is capable of possessing (which is drawing power from black holes?) I think Kimi was/is suffering from Survivor's guilt cause Honoka died instead of her but it seems like her mind (mostly memory) and perception was affected from the experimentation? Since it seems she thinks she had the dragon all those times and was the cause of Honoka's demise and their situation?
The Girl at the end of the chapter, "Raifu" trying to find the ideal hero is probably impacted when she was bullied by a boy, both influenced from the same superhero show? The boy, which we see has all grown up and is the one interrogating Raifu? They were both also impacted by Honoka as the true 'hero' and I guess Raifu (subconsciously) realizing either that the interrogator is the same boy from all those years ago or that her ideal hero was Honoka. The latter makes sense since Honoka attacking the Bully revealed who was the true hero and this kind of stuck in Raifu's mind where she attacks people to reveal their true nature?
And apparently, Uihara is able to hack her own AIM to be able to cancel the connection between the dragon and Kimi's power?
My head hurts after trying to get all of this down and I have no idea why I did this.
Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2018
- Messages
- 290
Touma has had so many asspulls that you could drive a bus up it by now, only right for Uiharu and Railgun to get one.
@mark1246 She (Raifu) was probably subconsciously reminded of Honoka (black haired girl that died) from parts of his words or from the tale. The guy reminiscing (Shoubu) is from their mutual past, where he bullied raifu but then got wiped by honoka (ch. 118).
@adidell Yup, most likely it's the guy. Reading ch. 106, he got his left leg annihilated by raifu (last page of this ch. shows his right is fine but his left is in the cast). The mascot mask seems to be the same character as from the shirt he wore in his childhood.
@adidell Yup, most likely it's the guy. Reading ch. 106, he got his left leg annihilated by raifu (last page of this ch. shows his right is fine but his left is in the cast). The mascot mask seems to be the same character as from the shirt he wore in his childhood.
Double-page supporter
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2019
- Messages
- 463
@davidbobby888 Thx for the summary, that’s a fucking mouthful.
So in short Uiharu became a Madoka magical girl temporarily to temporarily re-write reality. Cool.
So in short Uiharu became a Madoka magical girl temporarily to temporarily re-write reality. Cool.
