To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Vol. 17 Ch. 130 - Recovery

[ACentralIndex]

Yeah this happens, railgun arcs usually feel disappointing at the end, unless you are binging or reading the arc all at once then it’s just an average arc that comes and goes.

I can see general opinion turning around, but not the criticisms of this arc as time passes; But I don’t care, I dropped this manga way back and never looked back. Try not to overhype and set the bar so high; I hear all the time about how great railguns writing and characters are but here we can see very clearly how transparently average the writing can be recycling the same character drama and same escalation and same over reliance on flashbacks to ground and actually do character work.

Heard about what this chapter is setting up and I have no faith in what they intend to do; seems like it’s just going to be more melodrama and original characters dying to evil scientists in flashbacks. I’d usually say I should wait and see what they do but I’m not going to be here when they do get around to showing that flashback in whatever they do next.

 

[ilikepi31415]

@ACentralIndex
You say you dropped the manga ages ago and never looked back, and then criticize the latest arc's events. So which is it, are you reading it or not?

 

[ACentralIndex]

@ilikepi31415

I’m still part of the community so I hear what’s going on through osmosis. I hear the arc officially ended here and wanted to see people’s impressions. I’m not picking any low hanging fruit but instead criticising the attitude of the fans and giving my experience with the series as a fan who was around when the last two arcs ended.

Took a while but people really turned around on daihasei, which was actually 2 years of misdirection, red herrings and slowly waiting for characters to figure out plot points the readers already had. I haven’t said a word about the content of this arc, just the bad habits of this series that I know applied to this arc as far as I had read.

 

[OHandS]

@zaikoi
Alright zaikoi, just because you've been around for a long time, I'll you give a less flippant response.

Fast facts before the main argument:
[ul][*]The fundamental source of power for an esper is their Personal Reality.
[*]The AIM diffusion field (hence referred to as AIMDF) is the weak energy field that is unconsciously emitted by an esper. The type of energy emitted is directly related to the Personal Reality of the esper (mainly what ability they have). The AIMDF itself is NOT the esper ability; it’s an unconscious output rather than an input.
[*]An ability can be affected through the AIMDF by very specific AIM-manipulation espers (like Takitsubou Rikou and Kihara Nayuta) who do so by interfering with the flow of the AIM in order to directly affect the esper's Personal Reality.
[*]AIM Jammers do the following:
[ol][*]Emits a special e/M wave to diffusely reflect an esper’s AIMDF causing the esper to interfere with their own power
[*]Dissolves your concentration and intentionally leaves you with thoughts that make you more easily tracked by a Psychometrer.
[*]It’ll weaken, but not eliminate an esper power altogether.
[*]possibility to have your powers go out of control; powers that use complex calculations are especially prone to this.
[/ol][*]Uiharu Kazari has the following traits:
[ul][*]Level 1 Thermal Hand
[*]master hacker who could potentially construct a strong Personal Reality considering the complex calculations she makes; but alas, she is a Level 1.[/ul][/ul]
Problem to solve:
[ul][*]Need to figure out how to separate Angel Dragon from Kimi who is acting as a power source due to her being a holistic esper (which by itself is BS but I won't go into that here).
[*]There is no ability on hand that could do it.[/ul]
Uiharu's proposed solution from end of Ch. 126:
[ul][*]"If it doesn't exist... we just have to create it."
[*]i.e. Create a new ability from scratch that can separate the angel dragon from Kimi.[/ul]
How the manga says Uiharu achieves this:
[ol][*]Directs all the long range AIM Jammers to herself.
[*]Materializes her own AIMDF.
[*]Uses the AIM Jammers to alter her AIMDF to change her power into something else. i.e. Broke down and reconstructed her AIMDF into something else (BIG red flag right here).
[*]Constantly adjusting the AIMDF on a micro level; an inhuman feat none of Academy City's supercomputers can do.
[*]Redefine the real world into a digital one.[/ol]
The main problems with this:
[ol][*]AIM Jammers specifically interfere with an esper's concentration; anything requiring complex calculations are a no go.
Once all those AIM Jammers were directed towards Uiharu, how was she able to concentrate to pull off the feat?
[*]If Uiharu is using AIM Jammers to metaphorically chisel her AIMDF into something else, why should that end up creating a new ability in the first place when the fundamental source of power for an esper is the Personal Reality; NOT the AIMDF?
[*]How can Uiharu accurately craft a specific new ability using technology she's never used before given that she's not an expert on AIMDFs to begin with?
How can she possibly know if what she's doing is working?
[*]How can Uiharu even pull off all of this when it’s said to be an inhuman feat none of Academy City's supercomputers can do?
Is Uiharu, a Level 1, performing calculations better than a supercomputer?
[*]What ability did Uiharu even create that would solve the problem of stripping the Angel Dragon from Kimi?
There's some gibberish about redefining the real world into a digital one.
Is that implying that Uiharu rewrote reality?
What exactly did she rewrite/modify?
BTW These are rhetorical questions; the manga doesn't even bother to present any answers to these questions.
[*]Independent to all of these questions, how can Uiharu materialize her AIMDF to begin with?
[ul][*]This isn't something that just happens on a whim. Uiharu is not a special or unique esper.
Even assuming the above 5 points hold, there's no reason why an AIMDF should manifest like that.
This is different from the aggregations of multiple AIMDFs like Kazakiri Hyouka, the AIM Burst and Aiwass who all are focused around a core.
[*]More confounding is the mixed messaging from the manga.
Uiharu was showing signs of manifesting her AIMDF before the AIM Jammers came into play; possibly hinting that ingesting Kimi's blood had something to do with it.
But if it was Kimi's blood, there's no way Uiharu would know her AIMDF would manifest like that.
When Uiharu was pulling off the feat, she seemed to know exactly what she was doing; it couldn't have been Kimi's blood.
So, which is it: Kimi's blood or AIM Jammers or both?
Regardless, if Kimi's blood plays any part in this, it’s bad writing as a plot element which we know nothing about was used to resolve the arc.[/ul][/ol]
Now you can see the number of hoops that I have to collectively jump through in order to accept anything about the arc's resolution.

Now we can finally get to your counterargument:
zaikoi:

One own's Personality Reality affects the AIM Diffusion Field. It's not that hard to understand.

OH&S:

But it doesn't work in reverse unless its Takitsubo Rikou (or Kihara Nayuta). What Uiharu did makes zero sense. The lack of proper explanation is what derailed the arc at the last hurdle.

zaikoi:

She was in a stressful situation. Logically, stress having both enhancing and impairing effects on memory. That is why she mentioned that she doesn't think that she can replicate the method manipulating AIM Diffusion Field. That also explained why she slept for more than a day. Stress affects cognitive function. It helps to improve brain performance to tackle problems. It also backfired since stress can cause a person to unable to store and recall information

You haven't actually explained anything regarding the technicalities of my core argument. What you have stated essentially boils downs to: "Uiharu surpassed her limits to do the impossible!! Then needed to rest as a result."
Sorry, zaikoi, you're going to have to try much better than that. Its not headcanon; I'll give you that. But its a wholly unsatisfactory and shallow counterargument.

Also:

You are just being denial as usual. This is why most people don't like you.

Since when did Raildex fans deteriorate so badly that they cry and go on ad-hominem attacks when they can't present a proper counterargument.
Its actually very easy to shut me up; just present a good counterargument that addresses my points. No one on reddit, 4chan, AnimeSuki or here has done so. That's more than enough validation for me.

 

[ACentralIndex]

Good job OHandS

Sounds about right, I’ve felt railgun always skimmed the details to quickly get its moments over and done with; with daihaseis final battle; literally every element at play was in that nebulous realm of unexplainable power and it’s seemingly at its worst with jailbreaker where every element is underbaked. I could look past it if the story and events were servicing something like similar moments in index do but it’s just mindless shonen nonsense compounded upon by vapid characters and conflict. That’s kind of the standard fair where the characters end up in the same place they began in after each arc.


It’s a deus ex machina moment that the series isn’t too alien to, Fremeas moment and accelerators later power ups come to mind as pushing the realm of believability in a series that already expects us to believe a lot of ridiculous things. But this is different because there is denial from fans that this is even a problem. We could unanimously just accept that this arc was one of the many bad batches we’ve seen but instead there’s pushback against individuals criticising events, being called elitist or toxic for rightly calling bullshit on a bleach level undercutting of stakes and tension of an arc that had nothing else going for it but that build up.

Be better fans, undercutting discussions by making discussions into personal attacks isn’t servicing your case, you can instead talk about other strong elements of the arc instead of discrediting criticism you don’t want to acknowledge.

That’s my take on this.

 

[rgao5645]

Are we finally getting a misaka family arc?

 

[OHandS]

@ACentralIndex
Just one thing I want to comment on. Until now, when it came to it's supernatural power system (and outside of its core long term mysteries), Raildex didn't have any unexplainable asspulls or deus ex machinas. Everything had an explanation which could be reasoned through and the hints/clues as to what was going to happen were telegraphed well in advance.

You gave Fremea and Accelerator as examples. Fremea's scenario is almost identical to what's happening here. It could just as well have been as much of an asspull as Uiharu here. However, Kamachi explained everything about the main phenomena in the novel and basically gave away what was going to happen early enough such that nothing was surprising when Fremea actually did her thing.

Accelerator's wings also didn't come out of nowhere. The first hints of a link between espers and angels were in the Sisters Arc. And the stuff that he does in NT is explained fairly well in my opinion. Even if you disagree here, I can afford a certain amount of BS to the strongest esper in Academy City who is the closest to becoming a Level 6.

However, I can't let Uiharu get away this. Not only is she not a special or unique esper; there is no consistent plausible explanation for what she did that doesn't break pre-established rules. Uiharu simply being a good hacker is not enough to explain everything. This is the most literal definition of an asspull.

 

[ACentralIndex]

I should have been more clear on my examples, 5.1s strange powers and abilities fall into the category of unexplainable powers narratively. Because they are just that far beyond the reasonable narrative scope characters would be able to understand, as were Gunhas abilities and Toumas dragons, Gunha to a lesser extent as people in-universe already know what his powers are.

The accelerator example actually referred to his later nt sephirot thing that I still don’t fully understand. Getting all meta physical all of a sudden threw me off and I never managed to get back on board personally.

Fremeas power was explained adequately enough, it was very precise utility of very very very limited power; but still had a heavy deus ex machina connotation that if it had presented any sort of significant power would have been a uiharu problem. It’s not like fremea was undercutting anything anyway so no narrative harm even if it did.

The thing with uiharu is that it doesn’t leave the reasonable scope of the narrative and what characters within the story could reasonably understand and explain because the event is of uiharus human design. Not an angels or a mythical entity’s a single characters. Which is why I don’t give it a pass even when railgun always had a habit of skimming the details; expect a later index volume to go more into this. Aim beings have been coming back recently, the points you’ve made show that explaining the technicalities wouldn’t actually fix everything because of how broken its Implementation actually is to the story.

 

[OHandS]

@ACentralIndex
I'm in general agreement. Daihaseisai's climax was a special case for the entire franchise where the phenomena involved was so extreme it was intentionally left unexplained as it related to the long term mysteries of franchise. Outside of that, everything in the climax was logical (with Shirai and Shokuhou).

Accelerator's feat in NT actually calls upon the Accelerator manga's Necromancer Arc of all things. It made sense enough to me (though only after the fact).

Even though one could argue that the franchise has done a bunch of questionable and borderline stupid shit; purely in terms of the consistent explanation of its supernatural system, the Jailbreaker Arc is the first true black mark for the series. And it happened in Railgun of all places. Tell me that 2-3 years ago and I would never have believed you.

 

[Cralkx]

Whoa, more of Misaka's past? It's cool seeing Misaka as an actual patient, she's always visiting when Kuroko or other friends are recovering, she rarely gets hurt in her battles.

 

[thedestroyership]

@OHandS eyyyy thx for the super detailed explanation! I can finally wrap my head around this cluster fuck of an arc. Holy shit though, 3 years in and none of the editors bothered asking, "Should we still be doing this?"

 

[viliml]

Guys, guys, chill.
Index was never a "hard" sci-fi/fantasy series.
You putting way more thought into this than the author does.
There's always been total bullshit explanations all over the place.
If you haven't learned to just roll with it in the past 13 years of Kamachi hackery, how are you even still here?

 

[ACentralIndex]

It’s actually the other way around @viliml , insistence that we shouldn’t think about the content and can’t criticise the arc and story is what is causing discourse and undercutting what should be discussion about the logic and implementation of ideas outlined and content of the chapter in the chapter discussion page. The discussion is open to any and all criticism and opinions; you’re not submitting invalid criticism by questioning the implementation or execution of ideas. Don’t tell people they shouldn’t be discussing the content of the chapter in the chapter discussion page man,

There’s also a bit of irony at people always criticising index for making no sense while having quite a few people here saying you shouldn’t try to understand railgun?

Of course it’s not hard science the primary elements at play are original systems and concepts limited to this series, the problem is this arc goes against its own world systems and mechanics.

 

[zaikoi]

@OHandS I just read this. I just explained to you in my own way.

The main problems with this:
AIM Jammers specifically interfere with an esper's concentration; anything requiring complex calculations is a no go.
Once all those AIM Jammers were directed towards Uiharu, how was she able to concentrate to pull off the feat?

Firstly, Uiharu's computer hacking doesn't have to do with the esper's concentration. It doesn't relate to her Thermal hand ability as lv 1 esper.

If Uiharu is using AIM Jammers to metaphorically chisel her AIMDF into something else, why should that end up creating a new ability in the first place when the fundamental source of power for an esper is the Personal Reality; NOT the AIMDF?

How can Uiharu accurately craft a specific new ability using technology she's never used before given that she's not an expert on AIMDFs, to begin with?

How can she possibly know if what she's doing is working?

How can Uiharu even pull off all of this when it’s said to be an inhuman feat none of Academy City's supercomputers can do?
Is Uiharu, a Level 1, performing calculations better than a supercomputer?

What ability did Uiharu even create that would solve the problem of stripping the Angel Dragon from Kimi?
There's some gibberish about redefining the real world into a digital one.

Is that implying that Uiharu rewrote reality?

What exactly did she rewrite/modify?

BTW These are rhetorical questions; the manga doesn't even bother to present any answers to these questions.
Independent to all of these questions, how can Uiharu materialize her AIMDF, to begin with?

This was referencing from Index SS's foreshadowing. It wasn't an asspull out of nowhere from the spot.

Uiharu frowned and used her eyes to follow the pattern with which the data was moving.
That little bit of interaction with the data brought the “flower” that the system was to her
mind.

Currently, she was looking at the end of a root. She imagined the stalk and the leaves
from there and then the flow of water and nutrients. It all created a large image of the
whole flower in her head. This way of calculating within a kind of organization by
imaging it from various angles was what Uiharu did when she hacked.

If Uiharu Kazari actually had a special ability, she might have been able to construct a
tremendous Personal Reality and display enormous power.

As the reference to Railgun Manga 105, every Engineer has their habits & preferences. It's the human that teach the AI. That's why she can just simply work on technology she's never used before given. That proves that can she beat one of the Academy City Highest Level Engineers & AI. AIM Jammer was created by human in the first place.

She doesn't create a new ability. She probably just simply raise her power related to her Thermal Hand Ability. In the scientific way of explanation, heat travels through solid materials by means of phonons — ripples of vibration passing through a series of atoms. Those ripples can be used to send and store data in digital form: one temperature is read as 0 or 'off' while a second, a higher temperature is interpreted as 1 or 'on.

In a way, she interferes with reality. 1 & 0 is related to her ability as Thermal Hand.

We aren't sure if she raises to level 5 or level 6. If she was raised to Level 6, she attains to term "Person with Absolute Powers" in Japanese term.

More confounding is the mixed messaging from the manga.
Uiharu was showing signs of manifesting her AIMDF before the AIM Jammers came into play; possibly hinting that ingesting Kimi's
blood had something to do with it.

But if it was Kimi's blood, there's no way Uiharu would know her AIMDF would manifest like that.

Kimi's blood just controls the salt level in the human body system to prevent from going berserk. In 2013, the Turkish study showed that lower levels of salt were linked to better brain ability in adults with high blood pressure. This is one of the reasons either her computer hacking thinking ability works better than before. This is why Uiharu can safely say that she cannot perform this feat ever again if she tries to manipulate the AIM Jammer. I already explained in my previous comment. She was in a stressful situation. It already backfired & forget everything about it. This is pretty much Kamachi's lazy way to write off as if nothing happens to Uiharu.

When Uiharu was pulling off the feat, she seemed to know exactly what she was doing; it couldn't have been Kimi's blood.
So, which is it: Kimi's blood or AIM Jammers or both?

Kimi's blood? Yes, I already explained above in the scientific logic. AIM Jammer? Uiharu just works on the machine with her ability as a Goalkeeper in her best performance in that stressful situation just to raise her lv for her Thermal Hand Ability. She didn't make any new ability.

Regardless, if Kimi's blood plays any part in this, it’s bad writing as a plot element which we know nothing about was used to resolve the arc.

Kimi's blood plays any part in this, it’s bad writing as a plot element? Yes, it is most likely. It's nothing new from Kazuma Kamachi throughout his writing for Index light novel as well. But, I still love the progress for it since it is fun to read without thinking too much about it.

 

[zaikoi]

This is similar to Izzard's situation of losing his memory from the Dragon's ability. It wasn't fully properly explained until Gouranga brought it in his Tweet.

 

[OHandS]

@zaikoi

First off, I really appreciate that you’re the first person that at least tried to properly answer my questions. I just want some meaningful dialogue rather than for readers to turn off their brains. Even if you don’t like me, you still gained some major respect compared to the users here and on 4chan.

I also want it known that I didn’t want to hate this arc. The good stuff in the arc was really good but it was balanced by some really indefensible stuff. If the manga just gave a decent explanation for what Uiharu did and what ultimately happened to the angel dragon, there would be more positives than negatives in this arc.

Now my response.

Firstly, Uiharu's computer hacking doesn't have to do with the esper's concentration. It doesn't relate to her Thermal hand ability as lv 1 esper.

I’m willing to suspend my disbelief on this point. This isn’t the hill I want to die on. Your previous attempt at an explanation at least covers this.

This was referencing from Index SS's foreshadowing. It wasn't an asspull out of nowhere from the spot.

I already listed this in the fast facts so I’m fully aware of Uiharu in SS2. But it in no way fully covers what’s going on here. The asspull out of nowhere comment still stands.

As the reference to Railgun Manga 105, every Engineer has their habits & preferences. It's the human that teach the AI. That's why she can just simply work on technology she's never used before given. That proves that can she beat one of the Academy City Highest Level Engineers & AI. AIM Jammer was created by human in the first place.

What are you talking about? That comment was specifically in reference to hacking through the security system. I never questioned Uiharu’s ability as a hacker and her taking control over the AIM Jammers. What I questioned was everything that happened after she took control. Its one thing to take control of a tool; it’s another to expertly use it on the fly without the relevant knowledge. Being a good hacker doesn’t cover her crafting/adjusting/breaking down her AIMDF and doing it correctly to have the desired effect. And again, the AIMDF itself isn’t the esper power. You haven’t explained anything.

She doesn't create a new ability. She probably just simply raise her power related to her Thermal Hand Ability. In the scientific way of explanation, heat travels through solid materials by means of phonons — ripples of vibration passing through a series of atoms. Those ripples can be used to send and store data in digital form: one temperature is read as 0 or 'off' while a second, a higher temperature is interpreted as 1 or 'on.

In a way, she interferes with reality. 1 & 0 is related to her ability as Thermal Hand.

We aren't sure if she raises to level 5 or level 6. If she was raised to Level 6, she attains to term "Person with Absolute Powers" in Japanese term.

We’re now entering into pure speculation and guesswork but its still an idea worth exploring.

You are claiming that Uiharu didn’t create a new ability but rather raised the power of her Thermal Hand such that it could affect reality.

I want to reiterate that the only thing the manga claims Uiharu did was to use the AIM Jammers to break down and reconstruct her AIMDF.

This leads me to the following additional questions:
[ul][*]Why would fiddling around with her AIMDF raise her ability’s Level (even if only temporarily)?
I’ve repeated this multiple times: the AIMDF is NOT the esper ability (just an unconscious and uncontrollable output) and doesn’t have any bearing on the Personal Reality (the actual thing that needs to be affected if we’re talking about raising levels).
[*]Assuming her level did increase temporarily and that her ability works in the manner that you have conjectured, what exactly did she do to separate the Angel Dragon from Kimi?
I hope you realize how much of a copout answer saying Uiharu rewrote reality is.[/ul]

Kimi's blood just controls the salt level in the human body system to prevent from going berserk. In 2013, the Turkish study showed that lower levels of salt were linked to better brain ability in adults with high blood pressure. This is one of the reasons either her computer hacking thinking ability works better than before. This is why Uiharu can safely say that she cannot perform this feat ever again if she tries to manipulate the AIM Jammer. I already explained in my previous comment. She was in a stressful situation. It already backfired & forget everything about it. This is pretty much Kamachi's lazy way to write off as if nothing happens to Uiharu.

We’re starting to stretch credulity here. You are correct that the only confirmable effect of Kimi’s blood is to control the concentration of salt in the target when they are hit by the feathers of the Angel Dragon. This is a very specific effect and we have no reason to assume it does anything else outside of the Angel Dragon’s feather’s effect; let alone have any effect on her hacking ability.

I only brought up Kimi’s blood in relation to Uiharu hinting at a transformation which we now know as her manifesting her AIMDF. I only did this because you and I both know that there is no other plot element in the franchise that could even begin to explain why she’d suddenly do that. You’ve neglected to address the contradiction in the manga.

Kimi's blood? Yes, I already explained above in the scientific logic. AIM Jammer? Uiharu just works on the machine with her ability as a Goalkeeper in her best performance in that stressful situation just to raise her lv for her Thermal Hand Ability. She didn't make any new ability.

Again, you didn’t really address my point (quite a few of them actually).

Kimi's blood plays any part in this, it’s bad writing as a plot element? Yes, it is most likely. It's nothing new from Kazuma Kamachi throughout his writing for Index light novel as well. But, I still love the progress for it since it is fun to read without thinking too much about it.

Glad we at least agree on Kimi’s blood. But I take issue with everything else you’ve said. I’ve seen your sentiment echoed both here and in other forums, so I want to elaborate on what I about this.

Strictly in terms of the supernatural power system (outside of the series long term mysteries) Kamachi has never done any asspulls, deus ex machinas or used unexplainable logic to resolve the major plot conflict of an arc; until now. Everything before this arc, and I mean everything, had an internal logic you could follow from A to B to C.

When I see people claiming that this is nothing new from Kamachi, that he has been using total BS explanations all over the place or that he hasn’t put thought into this; I can only think: WTF have you people been reading? Kamachi’s supernatural power systems are hard rule-based systems. It’s the one thing he’s guaranteed to have put the most thought into and is one of the main strengths of the franchise.

This is similar to Izzard's situation of losing his memory from the Dragon's ability. It wasn't fully properly explained until Gouranga brought it in his Tweet.

Kamachi was very careful with the Dragon Strike’s use in the Deep Blood Arc. It only appeared when there was a reality altering spell in effect, Ars Magna, to deliberately obfuscate what was real and what was an illusion born from Aureolus’ mind. Its primary purpose was to act as a Chekhov’s Gun regarding something hidden behind Imagine Breaker that would only pay off at the climax of the World War III Arc. The only thing that the Dragon Strike actually did to resolve the major conflict of the Deep Blood Arc was to fool Aureolus and by extension the reader that it was an effect of his Ars Magna spell; thereby increasing his anxiety to the point where he accidentally undoes the spell’s effects. At that point, Aureolus was already defeated.

The dragon munching on Aureolus and erasing his memory was an extra thing whose effect was nice to know after 15+ years but didn’t derail the entire arc if it was left unexplained. If the dragon’s effect actually had part in resolving the arc’s conflict then I’d criticize it just as I’m criticizing the Jailbreaker Arc.

Even if you don’t buy my argument here, surely you can appreciate the difference between a mystery plot element being used to set up possibilities in the 1st year of the franchise compared to a moment which breaks previously established power system rules in the 17th year.

Kamachi has never screwed up this badly regarding this particular aspect. I’m starting to think that maybe there is some valid explanation for what’s going on but Fuyukawa and the Railgun editor were the ones that failed in providing justification. Sort of like the Endymion movie where they didn’t explain the details regarding a very vague plot element in form of miracles.

 

[PedroContinuous]

tf guy wrote the bible respect

 

[xqk13]

On page 12/288, who are the two girls that's with Misaka in the memory like scene?

 

[SandyBoi]

@xqk13
Can only assume they were Mikoto's friends before meeting Kuroko etc.
They haven't been mentioned at all in any other To Aru media yet.

 

[xqk13]

@SandyBoi
Thanks!