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

Right the first half, somewhat incorrect the second. It's noted multiple times that what's critical for the Program but that adults lack (or rather makes impossible for them to take) is the neuroplasticity of children's brains for the drugs they are given rather than the education.

Nah, there are way more adult magicians than there are kids, and it has only increased as the series went on.

Not only what others have said about how Curtana only works within the borders, but also remember that the Original was lost, and has been since the English Civil War (it is in fact its loss that allowed the rebels to win). Curtana Second being a replica done in a haste seems way weaker and I don't believe has all of the abilities of the Original.

That's what I meant, I was just summarizing it as "children learn more quickly."

So Accelerator just met Aiwass, and everyone is heading to Russia. I actually liked the Hamazura story better than I expected. The first fight with Mugino, I was like "this is the big fight that derails Crowley's plans?" It seems like it was only a minor problem, but Hamazura surviving the counterattack (including his much more awesome second fight with Mugino) causes bigger problems.

Speaking of which, I do like how Aiwass is basically "Crowley's plans are already going off the rails, and I'm tempted to help you screw him over even more just for giggles, so we'll see what happens." I don't think Aiwass was quite alien enough, but it was a good attempt.

Back on Hamazura for a bit, I know they're setting up a harem for him, and that seems completely unnecessary. Touma's harem (mostly) works because his Chronic Hero Syndrome leads to a lot of Rescue Romances, and the whole thing is a joke about how even when he's got lots of cute girls after him he still manages to be unlucky. Accelerator's harem is a joke because half the girls aren't even serious and Accelerator is really uninterested in any of that.

Hamazura seems like he has a real connection with Takitsubo, which is about to be derailed by the other ITEM girls getting involved.

All right, WORST has arrived! Mikoto is on her way, and so is Mugino. I feel like they could have brought Mikoto in earlier; this is somewhat of a random time. "Oh, she saw a picture and realized Touma is in Russia." I don't remember how they said he even got to Russia in the first place, so maybe they could have had it where he had to ask her for help on that front. Well, okay, it was probably just England that helped him get there, so maybe that wouldn't have worked.

Shiage is defending a tiny town from tanks and shit. It felt kind of odd that the first explicit mention of World War III was one of the villagers just dropping it like we're supposed to know it. Speaking of which, Russia's justification for the war was such self-contradictory bullshit it wasn't even funny. They're declaring war on Academy City... for environmental reasons? And they demand they give up all their advanced technology to be studied by Russia? I know Fiamma was the one making all this happen, but did he do it by eating the Russian president's brain and making a zombie say random things? Because I can't believe anyone in the world would believe that crap. Especially since you can just use the whole child endangerment thing instead.

Did I miss a scene where they explained what was up with Last Order? When they were on the train, she seemed fine, and when Accelerator was carrying her through town I thought she was just taking a nap. Was she cursed or something? Touma apparently cured it with a touch.

I already know what Fiamma's power is, but are we supposed to know the specifics? Terra did the whole Explaining Your Powers to the Enemy thing, but Fiamma hasn't. Did they skip that, or is it coming later?

It was supposed to be a three-day special operation.

Also wasn't it called WWIII in the news reels following Russia's declaration?

It's because of Aiwass. Its existence and the way Aleister has involved Aiwass into his plan,is slowly killing her, and Aiwass mentions even Heaven Canceller can't fix this.

“—It depends on Aleister’s plan, but she will certainly break down eventually whether it is very soon or in the distant future. The process by which my existence had been put into the plan will kill her. Stop relying on that doctor. To be blunt, he is still human. His skills are not perfect and if there is a way of saving her with the technology of this city, Aleister will have his eye on it. Of course, destroying his plan by taking this body from me is just one of many possibilities. If you do not want to grieve later, then walk along a path different from the one that you are on now.”

I think it was explained back when Fiamma fought the Pope.

Edited by allfictions on Sep 28th 2023 at 11:32:53 AM

I mean, big powerful countries often make terrible justifications for their behavior and get away with it so long as they remain big powerful countries. Nothing strange there, really.

Really, my issue is that of all the horrible things Academy City does, environmental damage is, by all accounts, not on the list. I think there have been a few offhand mentions that the city is pretty green, even if by accident because their energy production is so advanced, rather than for any moral reasons. A simple "we're pretty sure literally everything Academy City does to kids is horrible, starting with the Power Development Program, going through the Child Errors, and including the murder-happy Level 5s." I'm not sure any of this is even a secret.

Anyway, Fiamma has the fortress floating, angels are fighting, so on. I still think they might be jumping around a bit, as characters seem to sometimes just appear where they need to be, so I think they're cutting out the explanation for how they got there for time. I mean, did Touma have a chance to talk to Worst, or talk to Accelerator at all after their fight? All we see here is that he touches Last Order, there's the Imagine Breaker sound, and then next thing we know he's on a train with Lessar again.

They did explain that most of Britain's magic only works in the UK, and they introduced that fortress to explain how they "claim" an area as British soil. Was it just out of sight when Carissa was fighting the Archangel? Because I feel like it would have been pretty important if there were two giant floating islands next to each other.

Also, I organized the A Certain Magical Index moment pages a little, if anyone cares.

Russia needs to come up with a reason that their citizens can get behind. No one would be enthused about starting a war over some other countries' kids, but blaming AC for whatever climate disasters and gas shortages Russia is going through works better propaganda wise.

To be fair the horrible shit AC does is not public knowledge, they are pretty good at keeping a lid on their shit. So there needs to be another reason, like how the anti-AC riots caused by the C-Document were about unrelated stuff.

He left him a note telling him to head to Elizalina where he might find a solution to LO's condition. Touma was kind of on a timer to get to Fiamma as fast as possible, so he figured Accelerator would be fine once he woke up.

Edited by allfictions on Oct 1st 2023 at 2:07:17 PM

Finished season 3! The end was definitely better than the beginning, even if there were still some gaps.

Problems: Touma just standing on a pillar for like four episodes. It looked like he was jumping off it to attack and then jumping back onto it from midair. Very strange. Accelerator saving Last Order and manifesting true angel wings was awesome, and then... nothing happened? He flew off to the Star and then showed up in Academy City custody. I expected him to fight Gabriel or rescue Touma or something. Also, the little kid who was apparently the patriarch of the Russian Orthodoxy came out of nowhere.

It remains unclear to me whether the world now knows magic is real. I mean, I know they don't, because I've caught enough spoilers for the future, but the way the anime ended I have no idea how world governments would explain away a giant flying island, angels battling in the sky, or nuns and witches and magic knights helping the armies fight the giant exploding hands.

Oh, and speaking of which, what was up with those hands bursting out of the ground and trying to explode at the armies? Was it supposed to be representative of Fiamma manipulating the war, or literal? No one explicitly said "holy shit, look at the giant hands," but still.

Takitsubo turning out to have the potential to be a support-type level 5 is interesting. And I guess this was caused by the Ability Crystals permanently boosting her power or something, since Parameter List didn't know about it before. So I guess that means there are technically ten potential Level 5s: The seven known, Musujime (who is unlikely to progress now), the black hole girl, and now Takitsubo.

Is there any possibility of a season 4 for New Testament?

Well, for now I'm going to catch up on the Mental Out manga (I think I stopped at chapter 3), then maybe the Index manga. What chapter in the Index manga coincides with this season? Has it even gotten that far yet?

It's been awhile but I think what Accelerator did was redirect a massive concentration and blast of Telesma that Fiamma shot towards the planet that would've fucked everything up if it wasn't dealt with. The arms were manifestations of Telesma as part of his plans, they'd have transformed and purified the earth if things went as planned IIRC.

^^ "It's CG!"

God, the fucking pillars.

It's an anime creation, yeah. IIRC, the hypothesis people came up with was so they didn't have to animate as much movement.

Accelerator flew to stop/redirect the amount of Telesma that was falling to the earth, which was noted as having the power to obliterate all of Eurasia. So he did what he did best and vector shielded that shit. The novel also cut away, he fell unconscious and AC found him.

Like the golden sky, the arms are pure telesma, to purify and change the foundation of the world so as to fix what Fiamma sees as wrong, but in reality are more like a natural disaster like the Flood because of the damage they do as a side-effect. He also wanted the Golden Arms, after they purified the world with natural disasters, to explode into natural resources to solve the resource crisis plaguing the earth:

(The fact that Telesma is naturally elementally charged can be seen in the fact that some of the Golden Arms (like those at sea) exploded in water or wind, while others exploded in lightning instead.)

But as pointed out later, angel shit is not something humans can actually mine, so that was dumb: “Also, a material equal to the weapons and shields of the angels cannot be dealt with using human techniques. They cannot be scratched even when using lasers or diamonds and I doubt human magic can do anything to an angel’s body. This is not what I would call resources. It is nothing but a pile of giant trash.”

Nah she always had it. It's noted that they didn't expect her going cold turkey would actually be more beneficial to her power than that drug. Being pushed to the brink in WWIII to protect her loved one, Hamazura, seems to have unlocked part of her potential (a bit like how Takitsubo interfering with Kakine's Personal Reality happened due to Hamazura being in danger): “From the beginning, Takitsubo had a rare potential, but getting her to bloom has been difficult. We dug into the research of the taboo-committing Kihara family and pulled out the Body Crystal despite knowing the risks, but the stimulus was not enough to produce the results we wished for. …But now the path to the Eighth has been opened. It is all thanks to your lovely relationship and this cruel war.”

Nope, the manga is currently in the British Coup d'État arc.

Well the world hasn't acknowledged magic existing because those in the know haven't told them, but throughout the series we do see the consequences of this sorta trickling down to the present.

IIRC the Union Jack spell during the British civil war made people who don't know about magic rationalize it in a way that seemed reasonable to them

Song of the Sirens

The anime definitely skipped that. They said the Telesma was going to be a problem, then just didn't mention it again, except to say that Gabriel needed more power from the ocean. Yeah, Accelerator looked up at the Star and says "someone needs to do something about that," but it wasn't clear that he was talking about the big glowy bomb specifically instead of the island in general.

That was touched on, but the queen was also like "eh, maybe some people will figure it out, it's not the end of the world if magic becomes public knowledge."

Even among governments, I'm not entirely clear who is in the know on magic. Obviously Britain is an intensely magical nation, but I know the American president shows up later. Do they know about magic at all?

---

Caught up on Mental Out (why don't we have a page for it yet?), and it's good. Also gives hints for how the power development program has changed over the years. Apparently the modern version was only invented during the previous generation, when a Level 5 Gemstone joined Academy City and allowed their power to be researched. I get the impression that the program was a lot less reliable before these advancements, which is probably why we never see any adult espers. Though the fact that the gemstone is described as the "previous #1 Level 5" implies that there were more than one even back then.

Also, new Railgun chapter is out. Support-type power that you can't use on yourself can still be dangerous.

Yeah, he does. He's not a magician though.

Edited by asterism on Oct 2nd 2023 at 4:56:27 PM

Song of the Sirens

And still no word on a season 4? I know it took forever to get season 3, but I don't know how popular Index really is in either Japan or America.

I'm not sure I want them to do a season 4 after the third one rushed through things the way it did.

IIRC the first "big" arc in NT is the invasion of Hawaii

Song of the Sirens

NT 6 would be a good stopping place, plus they could mostly skip NT 2 so it wouldn't be an issue.

Edited by Chaosjunction on Oct 4th 2023 at 1:40:06 PM

I think Index is probably past its glory days.

If stuff like Orphen can get a new anime after all this time, Index which still makes decent money isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

Maybe the animators are scared of the weirder stuff down the line.

Secret Signature

What are the chances of their being a fourth season of the Railgun anime without a new season of Index? I would really like to see the Koroko vs. ninja girl fight and god-mode Uiharu animated.

Unlikely, they said (I think it was Ogino, Railgun's editor) something to the effect that they consider Railgun's season as always following an Index one back when Index III and Railgun T were announced.