Quote:
Originally Posted by allfictions
Depends on why and how it is said. Aside from that, it is possible for a novel to have objectively bad faults.
That wouldn't mean anything as a statistic, beyond "2/3 of the usual readership liked this volume". It doesn't say if people liked it overall, liked it but thought it had some or serious problems, or liked it but didn't like the ending. Same with the reverse of people disliking it.
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I meant that because sales were 100,000+ this time around... at least 2/3 of the usual readership bought it.
Also, I'm a relativist by nature so I completely disagree with your first statement. However, since I'm a relativist and since you believe in objective things, having an argument about this would be fruitless.
But anyway, that's why I posit that criticizing something as just terrible seems wrong to me if other people like it and think that it has its merits specifically because it was done that way.
I do also think that it's pretty hard to say whether people generally liked or disliked the volume. We normally have a vocal minority. We don't know whether people like volumes or not other than sales in later weeks after spoilers are out. My mistake in the how many people bought the book calculation is that half of the people don't know what's in the book before buying it, so I'm also unsure about general reception to this novel.
I DO agree with you that Kamachi may have exterminated all of the Magic Gods early on because it would be hard to write in so many omnipotent characters with their own desires and so on... but... I think that it isn't absolutely certain that he changed his plan (if he has one) for taking the Magic Gods out... and that it may be likely that he didn't change his plan especially considering the fact that Kamachi is still 3/4 volumes ahead in Index when we're waiting for the current one... which meant that he had already finished this volume when NT 9 came out... and for sure by the time NT 10 came out... and this certainly means that he had already decided on this plot twist a long while ago...
I think people are giving Kamachi a bit too much criticism about the state of his writing. I'm not faulting you guys for complaining, but I'm certainly confused as to the sometimes venomous dislike of the earlier chapters. Yeah, they bothered me to, but that's because I thought Misaka was going to revert again like usual, which would put the final nail in the coffin for any chances of her being relevant in the main story line again.
Though, after I think about things carefully, maybe the reason so many people don't like this volume is that for Misaka fans... the main part of this volume is Misaka... and for other people... the main part of this volume is everything else... which there wasn't exactly much of... but in that case, I feel like you guys are missing the point. In Marcus's case I know that you're disappointed with the fact that Misaka wasn't developed enough, but I actually think it makes more sense that it's happening this slowly. It would have been a clean break from Misaka's earlier personality and character if she had just suddenly learned about the magic side and transitioned to understanding magic. It makes much more sense that it is a slow process and that she first has to accept the fact that she yearns to be closer to Touma.
The ending of this volume with that scene sealed the deal for me that this volume was amazing... more than any other scene... (including Noukan's scene and Touma's final creaking right hand scene lol). I was waiting for this character development for forever and this was more important for me to see than basically anything else... since that was the reason Misaka dropped down from being tied for my first or second favorite character and went only to my fourth with Hamazura and Accelerator both ahead of her... now she isn't back up to where she was before (obviously) because of both Noukan and because she hasn't been developed much... but the point is... now we know that Kamachi's intention is to develop her.
Kamachi stated in the epilogue that it is Misaka's personality to want to catch up with Touma... and the whole time I was reading this volume... I was thinking about the dialogues in terms of them saying that Misaka should or shouldn't belong with Touma on his current adventures. In NT 8 she joined in, but was ultimately sort of useless.... in NT 9 she didn't appear except in a cameo. In NT 10, she appeared and was fantastic, but others didn't like her appearance much and the two of them didn't get much interaction time because of Othi-fever. In NT 11, Misaka was just in one short section. In NT 12, Misaka was not the point even though we got that funny scene with Misaki. In NT 13, she was the point, and she not only revealed her true feelings, but she actually did some badass stuff that resembled heroics on a rather large scale... and helped Touma out... and got him to acknowledge her... and interacted with him as more of a friend than ever before. She also mentioned how she wanted to punch him near the end because he was just thinking of her as someone to be saved. She completely redeemed herself for me, and it made me happy. The goal of this volume was to tell a story about Misaka. The people complaining that she was in this volume or that she made Touma fight differently are completely missing the point of this volume. It's like the people saying that the Sisters arc or Touma shouldn't have been in Railgun. They were necessary parts of the relevant stories. In this case, Misaka was the person who was getting trampled upon time and time again metaphorically because she was so damn useless. Even her all (the mass driver rocket launch) which would have normally worked, just completely failed. She did manage to protect people, and she managed to make a difference not only by throwing away her pride... something Touma wouldn't have allowed otherwise, but also by telling Touma to say no. Like OH&S and I said, she's the reason Touma said no to the high priest at the beginning of this volume. The Will did NOT give him any sort of reasoning not to place his own values above others. That was ALL entirely Misaka. The Will just told Touma that he was free to follow what he thought was good for him. In this case, that would equate to obviously saying yes to being a pseudo God. It's quite different from him saying no because of the fact that he respects other people and doesn't want to be an absolute tyrant over them.
This volume for the entire first half felt like Kamachi was proving to Mikoto just how goddamn useless she was and how out of her league she was when she was surprised that her Railgun didn't work at all against the High Priest and that Touma could accept it so easily.
I ultimately feel like Misaka was the cause of Touma's actions. She entered this incident and made it to the school symbolically right before Touma was being chased by the High Priest now, as a follow up to the recent events of NT 8, 9 and 10, because she wanted to understand what had happened before and was finally interested in just what the heck was going on and therefore symbolically because of that she was therefore able to become a part of this incident which involved fighting against one of the Magic Gods.
The whole thing with people disliking the whole running away--I just particularly don't get that one. It resembles the formula from EVERY SINGLE VOLUME just in a different form. Touma also wins after barely surviving every attack and then bringing everything together at the last possible moment. This was exactly what happened in the Accelerator battle which was supposed to parallel this one, and it is what happens on a regular basis and this definitely matched what and how NT 10 felt like. When he was on the run from the entire world, he had to run away from, and beat everyone. That volume was a clusterf'ck while this one wasn't which was the difference, but the general feeling of the volume was similar to this one in some important ways. NT 9 was the same. Touma tried surviving even though he had no chance of winning. Running away continuously while trying to come up with a strategy or to find time to think is what makes the most sense. Touma already knew he couldn't beat the high Priest with his Imagine breaker. If he was already more powerful than Othinus, and Othinus easily crushed what they both thought was the IT, then what the heck was Touma supposed to do with his IB against the High Priest? I don't get it, and probably neither do you. There was nothing that could have been done, and they ran away to save people's lives, which exactly represents their own two personalities. We should note that it took Touma a while to believe that the High Priest was a full fledged magic god anyway. The whole running away thing... was Touma capitalizing on the fact that the High Priest was treating all of this like a game because he was so arrogant. This was exactly what Touma was trying to take advantage of... and this was why running away made the most sense by far compared to anything else that he could have tried.
Either way, I feel like Touma actually may have passed school because he was never caught by police... other than Misaka... but... you know... I don't know if that counts or not.
I actually just think that people on this site generally think this volume was so underwhelming is because that it was starring Misaka and because most people on this site are just indifferent to her or hate her... and therefore are looking at everything else inconsequential in this volume and considering the volume to be solely consisting of that.
One final thing about the whole running away:
Neither Othinus nor Index would have been of any use against him. Othinus didn't even know about the existence of other Magic Gods... Index... would have been taken out immediately by the High Priest so that she couldn't have been a threat... at which point Touma who would have been way too defensive of her to be able to do anything else... would have then accepted the Magic God's offer... after all, he can't fight very well when Index is on the line... and if the High Priest were aware of his attachment to her... he would have IMMEDIATELY sought her out... probably... well eventually... because he probably wants to play as much as he can before doing that... I think Misaka was a good choice of person to help Touma. She was the one both with instantaneous connections to other powerful people in the city... and the one with enough science knowledge to take advantage of all of the science side tech in the city in order to use it against the High Priest... She was also the only one who could save the people in the buildings that were being thrown... all in all... she was not only necessary, but probably the best partner Touma could have even had in this volume... or maybe even the only partner that wouldn't have led him to fall directly into despair once again. Neither Accelerator nor Kakine could have prevented the destruction of those buildings... and the deaths of those people... they're not all about saving... only Misaka is... and even then... neither of them could have told Touma to say no... they'd have probably said yes themselves... or may have... anyway. These are really important things to keep in mind.
So in fact, Misaka was the only choice of accompanying character in this story. She literally saved his world from collapsing. This wasn't like NT 9. He couldn't bring things back anymore. This was all on her. And it's a great feeling to read about it.
Edit: Make sure to pay attention to the fact that I added this to my earlier post if you end up responding to it allfictions!
The one other thing in this volume which I liked... second most... which other people didn't really seem to talk about at all... was the whole thing where it was sort of described once again... and mentioned... that only Touma isn't bound by the gears of fate of the world. In fact, it was finally explained sort of clearly, why he has all of this misfortune... or at least why he doesn't have any luck. This was done pretty damn well... what I'm curious about now... is how LUCK will be affected for ALL NON-espers now that the Magic Gods are gone. That should be the foremost question of everyone on these forums right now. This is because of what the High Priest directly told Touma. People were gifted with different forms of luck. This was because of the Magic Gods. Their influence was supplying this luck all around. For the espers, in contrast, Aleister, the Kiharas, and a few other forces are probably responsible for keeping their powers and luck in line. This means that a lot of weird shit should happen after this volume considering that these factors are now mostly removed from the world... or maybe even entirely removed if it is the case that Nepthys's power has been mostly neutralized... This new understanding of how Touma's world isn't affected by fate... and the understanding that now the world has fallen even more closely under the Archetype controller... illustrates how... things may be even more chaotic and confusing than the picture we got directly from Laura. It isn't like everything went wrong in Aleister's plan. It's just that he didn't account for this one major thing... but that's different from saying that he directly failed... furthermore, Aiwass wasn't destroyed yet either... that's important to keep in mind.
I think that there was so much valuable insight in the earlier and later chapters of this volume that this volume was pretty great all around. The afterword was solid. Chapters 5 and 4 were definitely solid. Chapter 2 had Misaka saving people, the Fiamma scene (which I think will be relevant later...), and the meat of the first part of the chase... chapter 3 had good chase scenes, interesting tactics, the better part of the side-story development, and the whole funny scene where they recharged the acro bike a bit. Finally, chapter 1 had a lot of talking and information... The prologue... was also really interesting and great and tied into the ending... I think that suspense-wise and coming-all-together-at-the-end-of-the-volume-wise this volume was worse than usual... but this was completely made up for... specifically because this volume was partially of the character development type and partially of the whole bringing lots of important plot elements to the surface and facing/dealing with them type. So yes, some good parts of Kamachi's normal volumes suffered here, but the inclusion of the best work we've seen relating to these other aspects that I've mentioned made me like this book more than the other ones so far... (except NT 9... and that scene from NT 10...)
But anyway--I hope this explains a few of my reasons for actually liking this volume.
) Gankutsuou; Railgun S; Little Witch Academia (one of the most philosophically interesting/deep shows that I've seen, while also being the single most feel good of feel good shows that I have ever seen; literally the weirdest combination ever); Kill la Kill (because it saved anime 
)
