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View Poll Results: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S - Episode 18 Rating
Perfect 10 9 15.00%
9 out of 10 : Excellent 5 8.33%
8 out of 10 : Very Good 22 36.67%
7 out of 10 : Good 13 21.67%
6 out of 10 : Average 5 8.33%
5 out of 10 : Below Average 6 10.00%
4 out of 10 : Poor 0 0%
3 out of 10 : Bad 0 0%
2 out of 10 : Very Bad 0 0%
1 out of 10 : Painful 0 0%
Voters: 60. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2013-08-19, 20:23   Link #61
Marina2
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Originally Posted by Ilidsor View Post
Well the higher ups are generally in on the crimes like in the sisters arc. The dark side in AC has a lot of resources.
I know about higher-up. I meant a normal person/student that try to rob a bank, attack a girl, snatch a bag etc. I don't understand why would they even what to risk themselves.


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Originally Posted by Ilidsor View Post
That's not really an option. For one thing in AC to leave even for a vacation you have to go through a ton of paperwork and testing. For another the Skillout members are generally poor and can't afford to leave even if it was an option.
It's not that they don't have a parent outside the city. The money shouldn't be a problem if they have an option to move out.
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Old 2013-08-19, 20:33   Link #62
Ilidsor
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I know about higher-up. I meant a normal person/student that try to rob a bank, attack a girl, snatch a bag etc. I don't understand why would they even what to risk themselves.
About 60% of Academy City are espers, and most are level 1s and 2s. There are plenty of criminals who would be willing to risk those laws.

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It's not that they don't have a parent outside the city. The money shouldn't be a problem if they have an option to move out.
Most are child-errors from what we have seen.
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Old 2013-08-20, 13:13   Link #63
Haak
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Originally Posted by Triple_R View Post
I never heard that. But I think that Mikoto's actions and words in this episode and the two before it kind of imply it.
We're just assuming that because it seems like the most reasonable explanation. But for all we know the story probably hadn't even thought about it. The narrative goes back to everyone being glad everything is back to normal, even though it really isn't. The mood that the story generates isn't one I'd consider compatible with the idea that the bad guys got away with everything.

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Originally Posted by Qilin View Post
You might have the means and the end switched around here. The objective is question here is stopping the Sisters Project, and going after the perpetrators was just a means for achieving that goal. Once she achieved that, there was no longer any good reason for her to sustain her resistance.
I think seeking justice for her Sisters and ensuring their continual safety is still related to her initial goal. It's still a heavily personal matter for her that I would've expected her to follow up on. I think it's wholly out of character for her to consider it something not related to her at all.

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Even if she does manage to pinpoint the individuals responsible, which is hard to imagine even for her, there would be nobody to arrest them. If the arc was any indication, Anti-Skill is pretty much powerless when it comes to stopping the higher-ups when experiments are involved. More so than justice, Anti-Skill's purpose is more geared towards maintaining order throughout the city.
Again, we don't really know to what extent this is really true. For all we know there could be ways around it or ways to solve it. It would've been nice if they were at least contemplated.
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Old 2013-08-20, 14:17   Link #64
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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
I think seeking justice for her Sisters and ensuring their continual safety is still related to her initial goal. It's still a heavily personal matter for her that I would've expected her to follow up on. I think it's wholly out of character for her to consider it something not related to her at all.

Again, we don't really know to what extent this is really true. For all we know there could be ways around it or ways to solve it. It would've been nice if they were at least contemplated.
But she did show interest in their continued safety. She talked to the frog doctor about them. There just isn't currently any complication so there is nothing she can help with.

No, we know Anti-Skill can't do anything. Remember the Thelestina arc? Just another instance of higher ups blocking AS from interfering with an experiment (the rogue AS group bending the crap out of their orders aside). They were able to arrest her... after she failed her experiment and had no value, but AS was ordered to drop that case and Thelestina isn't even one of AC's higher ups.

AS is just a bunch of pawns to keep day to day order. When it comes to the 'important' experiments, they get forced aside one way or another. I don't think its much of a stretch to say Mikoto has begun to realize this either. She saw the Thelestina incident where they were ordered off, she saw them not investigating any of those facilities, and rather than AS doing anything, she saw Item get sent in to stop her. I'm going to argue the other way, what has AS done that she should have any faith that they can do anything about the dark experiments in the city? She has seen 2 and they were forced out of both.

You bring up the specific workings of the city, but details on that which would be required to actually discuss it wouldn't be allowed here due to the spoiler policy.
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Old 2013-08-20, 14:25   Link #65
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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
I think seeking justice for her Sisters and ensuring their continual safety is still related to her initial goal. It's still a heavily personal matter for her that I would've expected her to follow up on. I think it's wholly out of character for her to consider it something not related to her at all.
That (which I bolded) is exactly the thing. Her focus, as it can be seen both in Index and other Railgun arcs, is to keep them safe. Under the current circumstances, they are fine. At least for the moment they backed off. There is also the fact that only AC has the know how to restore their health and life expectancy to "normal" levels. Going all out against AC could result not only in this help being denied, but even in other forms of retaliation through the Sisters, or her friends. It would be too naive of her to think she can win without risking others, as even sacrifices might be unavoidable.

All for a "they might try to use them again"?
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Old 2013-08-20, 14:30   Link #66
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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
And that would be fine, if she actually made that decision. But there's nothing to suggest that she did. Whereas Psychopass spent the entire season leading up to that moment as a climax, there's nothing at all like that here. For all we know, Mikoto probably hasn't even thought about it.
Railgun is a side-story/spinoff form Index. Index goes into great details on the inner workings of the city's dark side and politics (politicians and scientists). It is assume that anyone watching railgun tv or reading the manga would have already familiar themselves with the info form Index. no matter how much you rant and rave the railgun series will never touch more then superficially the details of the city's darkside and politics. Since that has already been cover in the Index anime/novels.

If you want In-depth details on the world building of the Index/Railgun world go read the Index novels.

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I think seeking justice for her Sisters and ensuring their continual safety is still related to her initial goal. It's still a heavily personal matter for her that I would've expected her to follow up on. I think it's wholly out of character for her to consider it something not related to her at all.
more details available in the Index novels and Short Stories.
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Old 2013-08-20, 14:45   Link #67
Chaos2Frozen
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Originally Posted by Marina2 View Post
The similar goes for Skill-out as well, if they feel [Unfair] for being level 0 in the city full of esper, why don't they just leave the city/transfer to study somewhere else and stay in an outside world where normal people like them live.
You wouldn't move from a first world country to a third world despite however bad it get right? Same deal here.

There's thirty years of technological difference between the city and the outside, that's something even a common thug can appreciate.
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Old 2013-08-20, 14:48   Link #68
Haak
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Originally Posted by SilverTalon View Post
But she did show interest in their continued safety. She talked to the frog doctor about them. There just isn't currently any complication so there is nothing she can help with.
That's only in regards to their own health, not the threat that they still face. Those are two completely different things.

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No, we know Anti-Skill can't do anything. Remember the Thelestina arc? Just another instance of higher ups blocking AS from interfering with an experiment (the rogue AS group bending the crap out of their orders aside). They were able to arrest her... after she failed her experiment and had no value, but AS was ordered to drop that case and Thelestina isn't even one of AC's higher ups.

AS is just a bunch of pawns to keep day to day order. When it comes to the 'important' experiments, they get forced aside one way or another. I don't think its much of a stretch to say Mikoto has begun to realize this either. She saw the Thelestina incident where they were ordered off, she saw them not investigating any of those facilities, and rather than AS doing anything, she saw Item get sent in to stop her. I'm going to argue the other way, what has AS done that she should have any faith that they can do anything about the dark experiments in the city? She has seen 2 and they were forced out of both.
I think it would be a stretch since there's no evidence to say she does realise this. That's exactly the problem. We need more information on what she actually thinks about these things. Having faith in authority is a given, and considering her interactions with anti-skill members so far, there's nothing to suggest she mistrusts them.

Quote:
You bring up the specific workings of the city, but details on that which would be required to actually discuss it wouldn't be allowed here due to the spoiler policy.
If there are actually details that I need to know in order for this to make sense then that just goes to show even more that it should have been mentioned already. Besides, we're talking about the anime. Just because it may be explained in the novels or later on, doesn't change the fact that it's still a plot hole in the anime.

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Originally Posted by leukrota View Post
That (which I bolded) is exactly the thing. Her focus, as it can be seen both in Index and other Railgun arcs, is to keep them safe. Under the current circumstances, they are fine. At least for the moment they backed off. There is also the fact that only AC has the know how to restore their health and life expectancy to "normal" levels. Going all out against AC could result not only in this help being denied, but even in other forms of retaliation through the Sisters, or her friends. It would be too naive of her to think she can win without risking others, as even sacrifices might be unavoidable.
For the moment, could, might. But it's not set in stone is it? Which is why it's still at least worthy of consideration and not at all clear cut enough to be completely cut out of the equation altogether.

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All for a "they might try to use them again"?
It turns out that the Sister's safety ends up being be pretty relevant later on, but that's an Index spoiler too.

The fact is, the Sisters won't ever be safe until the bad guys are dealt with. That's not something that's easy to live with and you'd very naturally consider other options.
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Old 2013-08-20, 15:14   Link #69
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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
The fact is, the Sisters won't ever be safe until the bad guys are dealt with. That's not something that's easy to live with and you'd very naturally consider other options.
Misaka can and does.
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Old 2013-08-20, 18:42   Link #70
Qilin
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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
I think seeking justice for her Sisters and ensuring their continual safety is still related to her initial goal. It's still a heavily personal matter for her that I would've expected her to follow up on. I think it's wholly out of character for her to consider it something not related to her at all.
It's related perhaps, didn't she already try doing something like that? Remember earlier in the arc where she tried taking down every facility connected to the experiment, only to realize that it was for nothing?

That was where she realized the futility of trying to take down the system. For every, institution or potential researcher she gets to, even more show up to take their place, especially if we consider knowledge to be shared within Academy City's academe. That was when she switched tactics to ones that work around the system instead of ones that go against it directly. There goes her plans of forging Tree Diagram's predictions and sacrificing herself to mess us the experiment's assumptions. That's where Touma comes in.

Once again, I should say that I think it would be difficult and impractical to find those responsible when you have the entire scientific community of Academy City as the enemy.
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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
I think it would be a stretch since there's no evidence to say she does realise this. That's exactly the problem. We need more information on what she actually thinks about these things. Having faith in authority is a given, and considering her interactions with anti-skill members so far, there's nothing to suggest she mistrusts them.
I don't think it's so much an absence of faith in Anti-Skill than it is being aware of its limitations. Throughout the arc, there is no sign of Mikoto even considering approaching Anti-Skill to deal with the problem. I mean, she has all the evidence she could even need, particularly all the classified research documents she had to obtain to learn about the project. Even so, she spend her efforts with the goal of stopping the experiments rather than incriminating the responsible parties. From this, it can be guessed that while she trusts Judgment and Anti-Skill for mundane peacekeeping matters, she knows that they are powerless when it comes to the territory of city's dark side.

One of her exchanges with Kuroko is telling in this regard. In the exchange, she makes it clear that becoming an enemy of Academy City, as she resolved to do while heading out to tamper with Tree Diagram, entails becoming an enemy of Judgment as well, which would apply for Anti-Skill as well by extension. As Kuroko puts it, she would protect the peace and order of the city even if it meant going against Mikoto. At this point, it's clear that she views them to be on opposite sides of the fence.
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Old 2013-08-20, 18:45   Link #71
SilverTalon
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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
That's only in regards to their own health, not the threat that they still face. Those are two completely different things.
Their own health is the only threat they currently face. The only other thing ever threatening their health was the level 6 shift which she knows to be stopped.

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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
I think it would be a stretch since there's no evidence to say she does realise this. That's exactly the problem. We need more information on what she actually thinks about these things. Having faith in authority is a given, and considering her interactions with anti-skill members so far, there's nothing to suggest she mistrusts them.
Um, why do you think she has faith in authority? That was my point... abolutely nothing has happened to give her faith in authority and multiple things which should cause some one to question the ability of those with authority to enforce it did happen. She doesn't trust judgement to protect people or she wouldn't be interfering all the time despite Kuroko telling her not to. She witnessed AS being completely powerless against Kiyama, ordered to drop the Poltergeist investigation against Thelestina, completely ignore the rather numerous facilities she destroyed. She may not distrust individual people, but that doesn't mean she has faith that the institution of Anti Skill can do its job outside of minor day to day matters. She has never really seen AS do anything to stop any of the problems in the anime... AS was useless and those got solved because she did it on her own (with her friends for one of them i guess).


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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
If there are actually details that I need to know in order for this to make sense then that just goes to show even more that it should have been mentioned already. Besides, we're talking about the anime. Just because it may be explained in the novels or later on, doesn't change the fact that it's still a plot hole in the anime.
Thats your opinion which is fine, but I disagree. Railgun is a spinoff. I do not think a spinoff needs to have an incredibly large info dump to explain what is overall something with an extremely minor detail. If you don't want to include the novels, how the city works is fairly well implied in Index II.

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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
It turns out that the Sister's safety ends up being be pretty relevant later on, but that's an Index spoiler too.
Spoiler for Relating to what he just said from Index II:


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Originally Posted by Haak View Post
The fact is, the Sisters won't ever be safe until the bad guys are dealt with. That's not something that's easy to live with and you'd very naturally consider other options.
But the sisters are currently safe. They would be in far more danger if Mikoto actually did get all of the AC higher ups held accountable. AC is watching after them now. You remove all those people running it and get rid of AC and who else is going to protect 10,000 illegal clones?
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Old 2013-08-20, 20:35   Link #72
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Highers ups on Academy City are expendable, there should be no problem with taking down the ones behind all that.
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Old 2013-08-20, 21:20   Link #73
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Highers ups on Academy City are expendable, there should be no problem with taking down the ones behind all that.
another problem, most higher ups AC are behind all of that
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Old 2013-08-20, 21:22   Link #74
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another problem, most higher ups AC are behind all of that
Doesn't change that they are still replaceable.

I'll be more concern if some of the good ones were taken out along as well, or someone worse replaced them.
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Old 2013-08-20, 21:55   Link #75
Qilin
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Highers ups on Academy City are expendable, there should be no problem with taking down the ones behind all that.
It's exactly because they're expendable that apprehending a handful of individuals isn't a real solution by any means.
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Old 2013-08-20, 22:13   Link #76
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It's exactly because they're expendable that apprehending a handful of individuals isn't a real solution by any means.
Mikoto should ask her parents' help. After all, she is a school girl, not the member of Justice League or Avengers. If she wants to take on entire city, her parents can find some way. Mikoto's mother may not be helpful. She looks like a kind person. Mikoto's personality is the mix of her mother's personality and another personality. Mikoto most likley inheirts her bad temper from her father. He probably doesn't give a damn about any syndicate. It would be nice if he gives Superintendent a bad time. So, the city officers will behave.
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Old 2013-08-21, 00:42   Link #77
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Highers ups on Academy City are expendable, there should be no problem with taking down the ones behind all that.
The board is expendable maybe, though I doubt AS would be able to touch them regardless. However, given their huge importance, there is no way Aliester isn't on the list of people involved with the sisters project somewhere (he probably covered his tracks really well, but if you were to hold ALL of those involved accountable, hes in there). That is unless you guys really believe something that important just magically presented itself in front of Al and he coincidentally decided to make use of it...

Last edited by SilverTalon; 2013-08-21 at 00:53.
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Old 2013-08-21, 01:19   Link #78
dniv
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Lol it just hit me how little Railgun-only watchers must know about Academy City's leadership . I can't tell you in the thread but I'll be happy to PM you the answer if you want me to.
I agree.

AC's leadership is great huh ?

Anyway, this whole debate is a little funny. First of all, Mikoto is extremely naive. I don't think that it isn't that she's ignoring what is happening in the rest of the darkness of the city. She's just so pure that now that she helped her sisters, she went back to being the 14 year old cheerful girl that she always has been (in a way). Touma made her feel better about herself by not blaming her and this made her realize that being with her friends and doing things WITH her friends is being than doing things solo. This is probably the main reason why she stopped doing anything concerning the "darkness" of the city. Furthermore, Mikoto seeing ITEM just hanging out at a Cafe reinforces the idea that the dark side of AC probably isn't that "bad" in her mind because it must not suck that much to be able to go to restaurants in your spare time. She doesn't know anything about Accelerator or Mugino or anyone else except her sisters basically. She's naive and clueless...

This is why it isn't out of character for her to be this way. She does justice when she notices there is a problem. She is a 14 year old so you should give it a break. Should every young girl with super powers be responsible for saving the world? Think particularly of a certain magical "girl" (pun clearly intended )... no... when you are young it isn't that weird if you ignore bad things that are happening and just live a normal middle school life with your friends.

Anyway, Xellos... you are slightly wrong. Railgun has already gotten into some of the inner-workings of Academy city and might eventually go further. It mentioned the board of directors in season 1. It mentioned Terestina and Gensei... It mentioned the Level 6 Shift project. It's not like we haven't seen part of the darkness of AC. Heck, we saw ITEM. Saying this only scratches the surface might be right as of what has been animated now, but that doesn't mean it won't eventually delve deeper into AC later... (it's already been implied that AC sucks with its darkness in Railgun S and at the end of season 1...)

Anyway, IMO I like having an arc that has ITEM, Team Railgun. It's nice to see. Febli seems very interesting as well.

The evil guys actually look interesting... but I somehow doubt they are all that powerful if they are the antagonists of a Railgun Anime filler arc (sorry to say this...)
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Old 2013-08-21, 02:16   Link #79
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I wouldn't say she's naive. Rather, the other side is very hardcore.
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Old 2013-08-21, 03:11   Link #80
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Personally I see this as the team's attempt to bring this ship back to calmer waters to appease the other half of the fanbase. Rather than any plot/character based reason.

Most people probably aren't that interested in the talks of darker doings, thats not what they watch Railgun for. I myself wasn't really expecting them to do so either.
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