To Aru Majutsu no Index LN - New Testament Volume 12 Discussion / Poll

[Kenju of the Right]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

Frenda plotline could have been done just by having any one of the characters stumble into her apartment for any sort of reason (like the suspicion of the gravity bomb being made by her), just seeing the presents and figuring out why she had them was more than enough to give us an insight into Frenda.

The Fake #6 plotline was pretty obvious since NT.7 with the fake #6 of that volume being pointed out, heck it wasn't even that important to the overall volume apart from being his fake id to get into the Dianoid.

Heck, St. Germaine's so call "plan" using Kanou was barely a plan all along. St. Germaine served no purpose other than to have Touma and ITEM finally fight side by side (even though they barely spoke, hope to see something in the epilogue).

As for the true plot of the volume it's pretty obvious it's supposed to be the Magic god/Noukan plotline in the between the lines.

So much for the plot going out the window.

Taking out and rewritting are two different things, the fact that you had to change something means something to Kanou's importance, by that logic, I can just take out Kazekiri in her arc, and have the target be only Index, which Index holding Ellis just long enough for the save, or maybe we could swap Sherry out. Since a Vampire didn't actually come into play, you can take out Himegami and Stiyl could have just told Touma 'There's an evil Magician in Academy City, we have to get rid of him". In Vol 14, you could have replaced Itsuwa with Agnese or Kanzak or Touma could have just done with Tsuchimikado in some wayi. You could take out the Third Princess in the England arc and Acqua still would have been there to fight. You could switch Lessar with Floris in the Russia arc

The series is full with stories that may seem like they have nothing to do with the main situation, but most often than not they have relevance later. Hell, some random thug was the main villain in volume SS, you could have switched him with anyone, but he turned out to be the Hamazura we see now

[LazyHunter]

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

Frenda plotline could have been done just by having any one of the characters stumble into her apartment for any sort of reason (like the suspicion of the gravity bomb being made by her), just seeing the presents and figuring out why she had them was more than enough to give us an insight into Frenda.

Except that's not true. Frenda's plotline specifically needs Kanou's since he's the one searching for Frenda and someone whose character could be developed both by the reveal of her death and by the gift since it tied to his relation with her and his reason for investigating the Dianoid. ITEM already knew she was dead and Touma, Othinus, Index and Stephanie didn't know her at all so the impact would be null. The only other person who would be greatly affected by the apartment gifts would be Mugino as Shiage said, who would probably get a bit depressed but ultimately wouldn't add anything to the novel.

The Fake #6 plotline was pretty obvious since NT.7 with the fake #6 of that volume being pointed out, heck it wasn't even that important to the overall volume apart from being his fake id to get into the Dianoid.

Heck, St. Germaine's so call "plan" using Kanou was barely a plan all along. St. Germaine served no purpose other than to have Touma and ITEM finally fight side by side (even though they barely spoke, hope to see something in the epilogue).

If you think that the fake #6 plot in this volume wasn't important or its point was showing that there are fakes running around and thus useless because we already saw one in NT7 you didn't paid any attention to the novel. St.Germain's confusing plans and actions are also a plot point and not a flaw in the writing, read chapter 4 again. And I think than the main antagonist of the volume do serves an obvious purpose, which obviously isn't making Touma fight side by side with ITEM.

The relation between St.Germain and Kanou is obvious if you try to think about it a bit. Both are people using fake identities to appear more special than they are and further their goals. St. Germain is a con man and a compulsive liar who doesn't care for anyone else, changing his/her purpose to fit the situation. Kanou is a honest and naive person who's driven by a clear goal: find out what happened to his dear friend Frenda. In the end St. Germain is a deluded person who's trying to convince himself he's the real St. Germain because he wants to be a special existence (showed by all his talks of being an unique existence separate from magicians and magic gods) while Kanou sheds the identity of Aihana Etsu and accepts who he really is, an ordinary boy called Kanou Shinka.

If you can't see the connection and the main theme of the volume in the above paragraph I'm afraid it's your problem and not the novel's since it's quite obvious.

As for the true plot of the volume it's pretty obvious it's supposed to be the Magic god/Noukan plotline in the between the lines.

So much for the plot going out the window.

That's stupid, it would be like saying that the true plot of NT11 was Noukan defeating Shundou in the epilogue. Magic Gods appear in the prologue, epilogue and 1 Behind the Lines and Noukan in another Behind the Lines and epilogue. You can't call that the main plot. That's just a teaser for future plotlines.

Look, if you don't like the novel because the magic gods and Noukan weren't big players on it that's fine but stop making up things like they are the true plot of the novel or saying that the characters who were main players in it like Kanou and St. Germain were unnecessary.

It's obvious that if you rewrite the main plot and key characters of the novel you won't have to follow the original plot, but that's cheating and completely missing the point.

I vote for all of us agreeing to disagree and moving on past this discussion.

[Miraluka]

Isn't that the plot and Kanou are bad but weak and this little fact of (ab)using the title of #6 inflated the expectations on his character.

That he didn't live up to meet the expectations it's a writing problem, like I said before it didn't work for me because I felt no empathy towards his characters, even less when the person he was looking for was Frenda, so their sob story didn't work for me.
That's the typical Kamachi's "everyone can be a hero" theme that doesn't works with every reader.

In the other hand even though Saint Germain is a mixed bag of truths and lies yet "he" had much of the users here in this forum talking about him followed by the expected clash between Shiage and Touma, showing he learned how to shut Touma's mouth from Acqua .

[Kenju of the Right]

Well it's not going to be able to be empathetic to everyone, but the fact that there are others that did feel empathetic is probably more of a personal thing than a writing thing

[Miraluka]

A writer should have feedback at least from his editor so he can now what works with his public or not, that's how the writer can improve each time polishing his writing skills.

[OH&S]

I think its fine if people weren't particularly wowed by Kanou Shinka's story. I mean I can't say I was particularly moved by his story but I can at least understand what Kamachi was trying to do and how he ties into the overall theme and topic of the entire volume. I guess my final opinion about him is net positive.

I can understand people's indifference to him but I just don't get all these calls about him being useless and unneccesary.

I'll repeat LazyHunter's words on this: Agree to disagree.

[Chosen_Hero]

Originally Posted by LazyHunter

Except that's not true. Frenda's plotline specifically needs Kanou's since he's the one searching for Frenda and someone whose character could be developed both by the reveal of her death and by the gift since it tied to his relation with her and his reason for investigating the Dianoid. ITEM already knew she was dead and Touma, Othinus, Index and Stephanie didn't know her at all so the impact would be null. The only other person who would be greatly affected by the apartment gifts would be Mugino as Shiage said, who would probably get a bit depressed but ultimately wouldn't add anything to the novel.
If you think that the fake #6 plot in this volume wasn't important or its point was showing that there are fakes running around and thus useless because we already saw one in NT7 you didn't paid any attention to the novel. St.Germain's confusing plans and actions are also a plot point and not a flaw in the writing, read chapter 4 again. And I think than the main antagonist of the volume do serves an obvious purpose, which obviously isn't making Touma fight side by side with ITEM.

The relation between St.Germain and Kanou is obvious if you try to think about it a bit. Both are people using fake identities to appear more special than they are and further their goals. St. Germain is a con man and a compulsive liar who doesn't care for anyone else, changing his/her purpose to fit the situation. Kanou is a honest and naive person who's driven by a clear goal: find out what happened to his dear friend Frenda. In the end St. Germain is a deluded person who's trying to convince himself he's the real St. Germain because he wants to be a special existence (showed by all his talks of being an unique existence separate from magicians and magic gods) while Kanou sheds the identity of Aihana Etsu and accepts who he really is, an ordinary boy called Kanou Shinka.

If you can't see the connection and the main theme of the volume in the above paragraph I'm afraid it's your problem and not the novel's since it's quite obvious.
That's stupid, it would be like saying that the true plot of NT11 was Noukan defeating Shundou in the epilogue. Magic Gods appear in the prologue, epilogue and 1 Behind the Lines and Noukan in another Behind the Lines and epilogue. You can't call that the main plot. That's just a teaser for future plotlines.

Look, if you don't like the novel because the magic gods and Noukan weren't big players on it that's fine but stop making up things like they are the true plot of the novel or saying that the characters who were main players in it like Kanou and St. Germain were unnecessary.

It's obvious that if you rewrite the main plot and key characters of the novel you won't have to follow the original plot, but that's cheating and completely missing the point.

I vote for all of us agreeing to disagree and moving on past this discussion.

It could have focused on anyone from ITEM in Kanous part it would have been the same damn thing, except *gasp* more emotional and would have come across as a stronger plotline.

I didn't say it wasn't overall important just that it wasn't important to the plot of the volume, only thing I took away from it was that they were parallels that did something similar yet different, it's not like some big revelation was uncovered we still know about as much about the #6 now as before we began to read this volume, there was actually no surprising reveal about the #6 that you couldn't figure out by reading past volumes where he/she/it is mentioned.

The theme is the same as always, only that it feels half-ass because of the weak Kanou plotline.

I meant that what ever happenes with the Magic gods is fundamentally more important to the overall plot than the throwaway Kanou plotline that tries to remind us fans of what we already know because we've seen Touma go through it in more interesting ways.

I actually liked the novel at least when Kanou wasn't mentioned or anywhere near (as I have mentioned before he is to me the weakest part of the volume), sadly the focus on his non-action throughout the volume lowered my overall enjoyment and (imo) the flow the volume could have had.

Yes I can call it the main plotline, there are times in different stories where the main plotline/plotpoints is hidden behind a filler plotline to mask their importance, I'm pretty sure that in this series there has been examples of it.

Hey, if you enjoyed then fine it doesn't bother me, it's your opinion just like this is mine, I felt that the volume was lacking and had unnecessary events but that it also had it's cool parts, the character development behind Kanou to me was way too rushed and jumped the gun to calling him a man and a hero when he barely did anything throughout the volume And that it would have done better with someone from ITEM in the lead.

Now had he done anything noteworthy trust me I would have been praising him but in my opinion he just felt flat, rushed and unnecessary and that his only reason in the novel is to be able to cross out another fetish from Aogami's list.

@OH&S

I too understand what he was trying to do, only that I felt that he has already done so before with Touma in a much better way.

Agree to disagree is right.

[Kenju of the Right]

Originally Posted by Miraluka

A writer should have feedback at least from his editor so he can now what works with his public or not, that's how the writer can improve each time polishing his writing skills.

Well yeah I'm not disagreeing with that, but there are people that it did work with. I just don't like that saying things like "he wasnt interesting,""his character didn't work" or whatever was said as a general consensus. Had someone just, "I'm my opinion, X's character didn't work me,", I'm cool with that.

[Miraluka]

You can use the poll for reference for example.


Disregarding those who voted ahead of time because they came from future .

[Kenju of the Right]

Originally Posted by Miraluka

You can use the poll for reference for example.


Disregarding those who voted ahead of time because they came from future .

I don't bother with polls, especially since I'm sure not every reader in the world is on this site

[ACertainStark]

“hama-…?”
“no, wait. That wasn’t me. I didn’t do that! What’s even happening here? Oh, wait. Don’t tell me it was aneri!”
“who’s aneri?”
“wait, takitsubo. Don’t you think you’re taking it a bit too far to be jealous of an assistance program!? Wait, wait. I’ll explain. I’ll explain it all from the beginning! And aneri, stop trying to trip takitsubo!!”

aneriiiiiiiiiiiii

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Why....oh Why....in the name of all that is holy.....do people keep insisting on conflating/ comparing the Mushroom's works with every single damned supernatural power battle story?!


His work isn't even good in the first place yet it's always being used as a goddamned benchmark

Finally, finally someone understand my sentiments, seriously, while i admit Nasu's work is good in it's own way but let's just be serious, his mythological references is pure crap.

[Kenju of the Right]

Holy crap info on the #6, i didnt expect that. What the hell was that girl going through? Aliester is frightening but yes Laura is back again, i'm glad!

It’s about time for Mikoto to have her turn in the spotlight, isn’t it?

You killed my mood right there Kamachi

[ACertainStark]

I don't buy Aleisters advantage, but damn it was definitely awesome. Revenge for NT10.

Nice to see bathtub waifu again. I missed her.

Looks like there's going to be a 4 way war this time.

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by Kenju of the Right

Holy crap info on the #6, i didnt expect that. What the hell was that girl going through? Aliester is frightening but yes Laura is back again, i'm glad!



You killed my mood right there Kamachi

Trust me, you are not the only one who have your mood killed by this

[Requiem-x]

“I would prefer not to use such inelegant language,” said Aleister.
He was supposed to be cold and unfeeling both above and below the surface, but a note of contempt seeped into his voice.
“But by any chance, were you taking me for a fool?”

There's only one final boss in town, and it sure as hell ain't any of you, bunch of corpses

That was a million times better than I expected, must say.

And while I did expect some info on the #6, I did not expect that. Not saving people from darkness, but giving them a chance to live in it. I can see a lot of potential from this character.

And of course, I can't forget to mention Laura's return. If you ever wanted a sign of things heating up, it doesn't get better than that.

“So he isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. I think he’s mocking me.”

Is she talking about Crowley being THE Crowley?

With a quiet clack, she placed a new piece on the edge of the board. All of the other pieces were arranged according to some sort of system. They were dangerous, but she could predict what they would do. This new piece, however, was placed far from all the others and no one could ignore it.
This piece did not belong to Academy City, the Magic Gods, or the Anglican Church.
A certain boy’s name came to mind as Laura toyed with the piece’s head using her finger.
“What ‘this’ does may just determine what happens.”

Ohhhhhhh Hope you enjoyed the break, Touma, because December is about to get really hard for you.

That meant it was time for war. A true conflict between science and magic was unavoidable.

Does this mean AC won't just wreck everything this time? Oh boy.

The afterword is interesting once again as well.

It may seem like nothing but bad news for him, but I think his “What are you talking about? The hero here was you” line in the epilogue shows how much he has grown from always insisting that he do it. What did you think?

It's about time you worked on developing Touma, Kamachi, and I am liking it so far.

I wasn’t exactly hiding it, but when I created Frenda Seivelun in Old Testament 15, I asked Haimura-san to make her extremely cute so no one would immediately peg her as the character who would die. …But that made her one of the most popular characters even among the massive number of characters in this series, so I could not help but realize this was the work of a true professional illustrator.

Was Frenda that popular? Since this comes from the writer himself, I can't just dismiss it as mere opinion.

Then again, I learned after the fact just how powerful a trait “a beautiful but dead girl” is. There really is a lot to learn about constructing characters.

This is very true.

Speaking of characters, I dug deeper into the character of Kihara Noukan this time. He seems to be a step above the other Kiharas, but his driving force of “focus on nothing but being a Kihara” is also Kihara Enshuu’s primary ideology and his feelings for the originals are irrational and fantastical things that go beyond scientific formulas. Despite being at the core of the Kiharas, he also has one paw outside the realm of pure science. He walks through the darkness alongside Aleister who has mastered and yet hates magic. I hope you were able to think about the character of Kihara Noukan based on the various glimpses you had of him.

I still can't believe one the most interesting characters in the series right now is a talking dog. I know it's Index and all, but still That said, I'm liking Noukan a lot and hope he gets more focus later on.

The setup is complete, so a full-scale clash with the Magic Gods will finally begin next time. I hope you will keep reading.

You can bet on it

It’s about time for Mikoto to have her turn in the spotlight, isn’t it?

AUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I'll keep reading regardless, but damn it, I don't want to read her calling the MAGIC GODS an "armed group". I know it's a meaningless detail at this point, but it irks so bad!

[Miraluka]

↑↑↑
I know that feel too guys....

Just like Mikoto "fighting" a saint perhaps next time we'll see her fighting a magic god cuz why the hell not? .

Originally Posted by dragon1412

Finally, finally someone understand my sentiments, seriously, while i admit Nasu's work is good in it's own way but let's just be serious, his mythological references is pure crap.

And his romance sucks as well .

[Ihaxlikenoob]

So in the context of Magic Gods and their ridiculous power, what does breaking the 'world' with the movement of their limbs mean? Does the planet itself break or is it in-fact the universe?
I still haven't got what it means for this story, Moonspeak™ can get confusing at times.

[ACertainStark]

10/10 from me. There was so many good moments throughout and that Epilogue was really interesting. NT12 was one of my favorite in a lot of ways. 5 month wait was worth it.
- Hamazura vs Touma
- Kanou's scent & flat chest
- Othinus & Touma
- Touma & Hamazura's bromance
- St Germain ideology
- Kanou transforming into a hero
- Everyone vs St Germain
- Frenda's legacy
- Display of Touma's changes
- Epilogue

With the various Magic Gods, including Othinus, have you started to realize how Gremlin works yet? The setup is complete, so a full-scale clash with the Magic Gods will finally begin next time. I hope you will keep reading.

I can't wait!

[Requiem-x]

Originally Posted by Ihaxlikenoob

So in the context of Magic Gods and their ridiculous power, what does breaking the 'world' with the movement of their limbs mean? Does the planet itself break or is it in-fact the universe?
I still haven't got what it means for this story, Moonspeak™ can get confusing at times.

It means that they have to power to do such things with only that small of an effort, just how Othinus turned everything into a pitch black void in a mere instant.

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

10/10 from me. There was so many good moments throughout and that Epilogue was really interesting. NT12 was one of my favorite in a lot of ways. 5 month wait was worth it.
- Hamazura vs Touma
- Kanou's scent & flat chest
- Othinus & Touma
- Touma & Hamazura's bromance
- St Germain ideology
- Kanou transforming into a hero
- Everyone vs St Germain
- Frenda's legacy
- Display of Touma's changes
- Epilogue

The volume that turned Stark to the trap side.