A Certain Scientific Railgun S: Another fripSide promotion

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > A Certain Scientific Railgun S: Another fripSide promotion

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Popehoist posted:

Just to clear up any confusion :V

I have to

the editor on that one. Just for coming up with all those names. That said, where does "Zappy Dan the Magnet Man" come from?

As for Index vs. Railgun, what turns me off to the former is how it handles an arc: Introduce 100 or so characters/set up the arc-->give two or three of the newly introduced people something important to do while ignoring the rest-->have Touma finish arc by punching something/someone/combination of the two-->ignore the 100 or so newly introduced characters for the rest of series to the point you question why they even were made in the first place. Railgun keeps the focus down to four people and a few side characters who drop in every now and again, so I can actually follow the plot and not be wondering who is who and why they are there in the first place.

# ¿ May 18, 2013 03:17

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:31

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Yasser Arafatwa posted:

I'd be okay with the filler junk this season if it wasn't entirely "Mikasa angsting and brooding while her friends awkwardly look on without actually prying enough to figure out what's up/help out." It's loving boring.

This Post Contains Mild Spoilers From The Index Novels. :siren:

I agree that it's dumb and silly. But that's EXACTLY what she does in the Index novels, at least. Railgun (I'm going to call her that to prevent mixups with Attack on Titan) does everything possible to keep Kuroko, Uiharu, and Saten from ever learning about the Sisters or her adventures outside of Academy City with Touma and Index.

JosephWongKS posted:

If they really did bring in Mikasa for anime filler, that'd make it the best anime filler across all of the Raildex seasons.

"We are the Gekota and they are the Espers". Or however that opening segment flows in German.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 01:08

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Sindai posted:

Seriously. That sound he was making when he started up the vortex.

I swear, it sounded like he was about to drop :cthulhu:

on the city or something, not a vortex of plasma. Seriously, that was some Lovecraftian chanting there. :gonk:

I almost want to bet it was an ad-libbed segment. The director probably said "Make some gibberish noise that sounds extremely creepy and disturbing as gently caress", and the VA just went with it.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2013 05:18

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

FrantzX posted:

I really want to watch A Certain Sarcastic Hive-Mind now. The Sisters are the best.

Seconding this.

This ending was a whole lot better than I expected. Yes, Touma is the one to do the heavy lifting like in Index, but Misaka has closure and accepts the Sisters instead of doing everything to ignore them. It feels like there is something learned by the lead, instead of the lead dealing with one issue and then moving on like nothing happened. Sure, Misaka goes Maximum Tsundere^TM over most of it, but she still learns that she can't do everything on her own and that she has limitations. Also, Misaka learns to accept a part of her past that she'd rather bury in the ground and become a real big sister as opposed to a figurative one. The ending just felt good, and at the end of the day, it wasn't a protagonist hijack like some feared would happen with Touma coming in. Misaka still learned from the whole arc, like a protagonist should.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2013 00:37

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

HellCopter posted:

Speaking of - out of the seven Level 5 espers in the world, how many of them are not terrifyingly crazy and/or power hungry? I know that power corrupts, but we have "kill everything while laughing" Accelerator, "kill Misaka for a promotion" Meltdowner, and "mass mind control just to be a dick" Mental Out. Did Misaka win the "sane human being" lottery?

Misaka has her crazy side as well. Her final decision in this past arc was "I'm going to get myself killed in order to bring peace and happiness to my clones. Even my closest friends will understand my choice of essentially committing assisted suicide!" Okay, that's a bit of an extreme interpretation of her actions. But yes, she is probably the closest to a sane Level-5 esper that we know of.

Then again, one of her closest friends is Kuroko Shirai. So, she must have a few screws loose, at the very least.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 01:50

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Poke posted:

Was there not an episode aired this week?

There was a special on the Index movie that aired instead. Episode 18 airs this week.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 23:49

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

AtomikKrab posted:

Screwing with a level 5 or someone with equivalent force alone is stupid, more than one is just mindbogglingly dumb.

You'd think that for all the smart and intelligent people in Academy City, they'd know not to mess with people who can utterly wreck your poo poo at the drop of a hat.

But no, they keep poking the hornet's nest like a bunch of idiots and expecting nothing serious to happen. There's dumb....and then there's "actively wanting and doing everything to shorten your lifespan" dumb. We're seeing the latter.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2013 19:19

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

ArchangeI posted:

In Anime news, I am currently speculating that Febri was an attempt to weaponize moe.

Given the lunatics in Academy City....yeah, that's not outside the realm of possibility. What's worse: the idea came to them while they were probably sober.

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

By the way, are her lollipops made out of wasabi or what's up with them?

Either they're really really really sweet or laced with something that an esper would react to. The only people who've tried it are Saten, Mii and Uiharu and the latter two had some kind of mild adverse reaction (assuming that Misaka and Kuroko's body poses in that same scene weren't from trying the lollipop themselves), so any esper would react to it. Which probably means that Saten might play a similar role to how the Poltergeist arc concluded in the first Railgun season. How the lollipops tie into Febri being an artificially created human, we'll probably find out down the line. What does strike me as odd is that Heaven Canceller (yes, that's the name of the frog-face doctor; Railgun sadly hasn't referred to him by his real name yet) simply gives up trying to help Febri after presumably one examination. Maybe he knows something about artificial humans and isn't letting on? I mean, the Sisters are technically the same thing as Febri, and he's helping treat the problems with the Sisters. So why give Febri a different diagnosis/outlook (other than the writers wanting to be done with her after this arc)?

# ¿ Sep 1, 2013 20:36

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Dan7el posted:

We still don't know what nefarious scheme the people in the dark room with computers have cooked up for our heroine and her companions -- and also Mugino. I figured we'd at least have been given the overall reason for the attacks by now.

Given that their dialogue keeps referencing esper powers and their dislike for the heavy reliance on them, I think we may be in for a repeat of Capacity Down from the Poltergeist arc, but taken from a different angle. Instead of making a large generator that neutralizes esper powers, the Super Evil School Nerds Squad have created these crystal rectangle things that act as portable jammers that can be placed inconspicuously and out of sight. Also, I'm expecting the ringleader dude to be a Kihara relative, because :moreevil:

is just oozing from him, just like anyone with that last name.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2013 02:37

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Sindai posted:

Thank god they ditched "I'll do it all myself!" so fast. My eyes were in danger of rolling out of my head.

They haven't QUITE ditched it completely. Misaka still does most of the heavy lifting (learning about Febri in the first place from Heaven Canceler, arranging a meeting with Telestina "Crazy McBitchTits" Kihara, figuring out that Shinobu is involved with Febri's creation and beginning to track her down, speculating that Meltdowner and her posse might be involved) in the episode. Still, she gave some of the load to the others, so it's a small step nonetheless.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2013 22:29

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Redcrimson posted:

So, random thought I had this episode: do you think Misaka can defibrillate her own heart like that guy from One Piece?

More than likely it's possible. Granted, as she herself says in the episode, the whole "electro nerve override" (for a lack of better terms) was something Misaka had never done before. She did imply that the thought had crossed her mind in the past; but as we saw with Kuroko minutes later, it turns Misaka into a taser with legs. I have a feeling that if she tried Enel's defibrillation technique, Misaka would again turn into a human stun gun as a side effect.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 01:35

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Torix posted:

It's super dumb how they spend time introducing a character at the beginning of the season with the potential to be a GREAT antagonist and cause some serious drama (can mind control anybody, people she controls have no memory of what happens, clearly hates the protagonist Misaka) and then they forget the character exists for the whole show until one single shot at the end of the last episode that basically says "oh yeah they became friends offscreen".

Maybe more things happen in a manga/novel but I dunno.

That's because Mental Out isn't introduced yet in the manga/light novels. Hell, Kongo herself isn't supposed to appear until the next major Railgun arc. So, the fact that both Kongo and Misaki are here is pure fanservice, nothing more than that. Oh, and Mental Out and Misaka don't become friends offscreen. That's more of Misaka begrudgingly asking Mental Out for a favor because the latter has esper powers that are valuable to what Misaka is trying to do. There's a later arc where Misaki does kind of become antagonistic, but not. It's...complicated and would take a while to explain.

In short, Mental Out/Misaki is basically this season's version of Kongo, a preview of things to come. Except we're probably going to have to wait longer for Mental Out to be relevant.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2013 16:57

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Dan7el posted:

The only news, which I think has already been mentioned in this thread, is that Accelerator is getting his own manga. Otherwise, the latest light novel was released earlier this month. I imagine there will be another Index and also more Railgun animes in the future. Looks like a cash cow.

Glad to hear that Kuroko's VA will have plenty of work in the future.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2013 19:09

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

You know, I just realized something. The Ekaterina II S and the STUDY mechs just gave Railgun an excuse to star in Super Robot Wars. Before you laugh me off, I'd like to point out that the recently released Operation Extend features Sgt. Frog with their own God Keron and Powered Natsumi (okay, she's a special attack and not a unit, but still).

Granted, Sgt. Frog has a lot of Gunpla in-jokes that let it squeak in. Hell, one of the units Keroro can use is literally a giant sized version of the Perfect Grade RX-78-2 model kit (sadly Amuro cannot use it). So, while Railgun appearing is a pipe dream....Banpresto now has ammunition.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2013 22:56

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

JosephWongKS posted:

So that makes at least three potential spin-offs from the Railgun series (itself a spin-off of the Index series):

1. A Certain Sarcastic Hivemind (Sisters)

2. A Certain Haughty Ojou-sama (Kongou)

3. A Certain AMAZING Punch (Gunha)

Any others I've missed?

A Certain Humble Physician (Heaven's Canceler)*

*=Technically counts as an Index spinoff given his role in that series as well.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2013 04:38

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

veekie posted:

I love how they just stared at each other after punching.

And thus began the series' newest spin-off, "A Certain AMAZING Bromance".

# ¿ Oct 2, 2013 23:39

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Wili posted:

Also, more MIKASA/Last Order hijinks.

Could they even get Mikasa Ackerman as a guest star?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 21:23

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

HellCopter posted:

Maybe Railgun is better because there's just less of it, then.

Railgun works better because it trims the cast size down considerably and keeps a (somewhat) steady focus on a core cast. Compare:

--An Index arc has about 50 or so characters, wherein 4-5 characters have importance until Touma (who is almost always one of those aforementioned important characters) needs to punch something and the rest barely manage to get a one-liner in before the arc shoves them aside so the leads can do their work and/or the story can move on to the next arc and straight up abandon them.

--Railgun, by contrast, limits the focus down to 4 primary characters (Misaka, Kuroko, Uiharu and Saten), and has better control (both in management and focus) on the supporting cast. Misaka is the lead and does the most work obviously, but the other 3 primary characters as well as the supporting cast members actually get to do things as opposed sitting back and watching one person do everything.

The best (and most recent) side-by-side comparison of cast management is Index's Endymion movie and the second half of Railgun S. The former throws in cameos for the hell of it and basically goes "Hey hey hey, look! It's [insert Index character's name]! They're in the movie! Happy times! Now let's get back to Touma farting around!". The latter gets the supporting cast/cameos involved in the arc and lets them be active in the story, making for a much better handling of the cast and the arc's ending has a more satisfying payoff.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2014 23:16

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Accelerator ch.5 is up.

In this chapter: We learn why you really shouldn't go all out after recovering from a serious gunshot wound, how strong a naked resurrected corpse is, and the return of...one of the Sisters. Contains graphic violence against walls.

# ¿ May 2, 2014 03:56

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Stall_19 posted:

Where on the Index timeline is the Accelerator manga suppose to take from anyways?

It seems to take place right after Accelerator is shot by Amai, but Accelerator is not quite fully recovered from the injury yet (Accelerator nearly loses consciousness due to blood loss resulting from aggravating his injury in the latest chapter).

# ¿ May 2, 2014 04:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:31

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

http://www.batoto.net/read/_/247165/to-aru-kagaku-no-accelerator_ch6_by_anonymous
Accelerator chapter 6.

In which we meet Rizou Nakamoto, one of the people who govern Academy City. In particular, he oversees/finances food supplies and defense forces like Anti Skill. Also, has a thing for food, which may border on disturbing. Still waiting on the Misaka Network to confirm that he is indeed on loan from the Toriko universe.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 01:45

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > A Certain Scientific Railgun S: Another fripSide promotion