To Aru Majutsu no Index II - Episode 4 Discussion / Poll

[Hooves]

I just had to say... The moment the nuns stuck the pens in their ears was just... Scary, just to avoid getting affected by Sheol Fear..

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by Hooves

I just had to say... The moment the nuns stuck the pens in their ears was just... Scary, just to avoid getting affected by Sheol Fear..

That was really disturbing.

Of all precautions required, they didn't bring earplugs instead... no wonder how we can say the Roman Catholics are asking to be put out of business by everyone in that universe.

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

That was really disturbing.

Of all precautions required, they didn't bring earplugs instead... no wonder how we can say the Roman Catholics are asking to be put out of business by everyone in that universe.

Even if they dint have earplugs... They could have used something else instead of the pens... Why did it have to be the pens!!

[Miraluka]

Originally Posted by Hooves

Even if they dint have earplugs... They could have used something else instead of the pens... Why did it have to be the pens!!

Because it is an extremist fanatic group.

[Asuras]

Because it was the most non-conformist way of doing things. They're battle nun's for God's sake.

[orion]

Originally Posted by Hooves

Even if they dint have earplugs... They could have used something else instead of the pens... Why did it have to be the pens!!

Because they wanted to gross us out.

[Mazryonh]

I was expecting to see more of Itsuwa in this episode, but I guess that will have to wait. Which volume of the light novel is this episode on? If someone can tell me, I can make an educated guess as to when we might see more of her.

[Bonta Kun]

Originally Posted by Hooves

Even if they dint have earplugs... They could have used something else instead of the pens... Why did it have to be the pens!!

Hows that saying go again, "The pen is mightier than the sword"

LIke orion says they just wanna gross us out and the the pen did that

[I_am_Kami]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

I honestly jumped in shock. The sound effect at the scene didn't help me much in easing the goosebumps down my back

Spoiler for Novel:

Thank God they didnt show the eardrums like they did in the novel.

[MrTerrorist]

Originally Posted by Hooves

I just had to say... The moment the nuns stuck the pens in their ears was just... Scary, just to avoid getting affected by Sheol Fear..

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

That was really disturbing.

Of all precautions required, they didn't bring earplugs instead... no wonder how we can say the Roman Catholics are asking to be put out of business by everyone in that universe.

Originally Posted by Hooves

Even if they dint have earplugs... They could have used something else instead of the pens... Why did it have to be the pens!!

Originally Posted by Wilfriback

Because it is an extremist fanatic group.

Originally Posted by Asuras

Because it was the most non-conformist way of doing things. They're battle nun's for God's sake.

Originally Posted by orion

Because they wanted to gross us out.

Originally Posted by Bonta Kun

Hows that saying go again, "The pen is mightier than the sword"

LIke orion says they just wanna gross us out and the the pen did that

It could have been worse, they could have call......Father Alexander Anderson!

[Neki Ecko]

Maybe at that time, they didnt have anything to block out Index's Sheol Fear. You have to remember most of those nuns may/may not know about Index and her abilities to gained information from the 103,000 girimores within her head to use it verses her enemies (think Season 1, that she almost took down a Golem by herself with the pins in her Walking Church and few spells).

Sheol Fear is super deadly against those who faith is in Christanity and some of those Nuns has been in RCC almost all their lives, so for them, it is like having million nails on a chalkboard, scraping them over and over again in your ears. So the only way for the RCC nuns to contiune fighting Index was to destory their eardrums or cause enough pain so not only to not hear the song but also block out any other attacks that uses sound.

I know alot of people is still wondering why and why have to be a pen, but I think that was the smart move by them, because it just turn Index from a wild card that can deal alot of damage with her knowledge of those 103,000 girimores to Index that became useless against those Nuns.

But back to the episode, I think that J.C. Staff is doing a good job with this adapted of the light novel, even know that there is some different here and there but they are doing a wonderful job with it. 10/10.

[Sinestra]

Originally Posted by Wilfriback

Because it is an extremist fanatic group.

Pretty much i think i said WTF out loud when i saw that they didnt even just insert the tip (no pun intended) but it was a pretty decent length of the pen.

Even still the rest of the nunnery got their asses owned only by a few. Let see how this battles pans out it seems the next ones up are the elite and Index's mind splitting song wont work since that nasty little pen trick. However just how effective are they except for the blonde who has shown to have some skill and a bad personality.

I lol everytime Stiyl set one of those Nuns on fire i know it was kind of wrong to laugh because their nuns and all but it was just damn funny


Btw i must say its nice to see Index getting into the thick of things.

[Joe_fh]

I hope you do realise the whole point of my post was to show how redundant discussing this is (the bold part at the end ). It wasn't to annoy you by posting all that or anything of the sort since I kind of get the impression that's exactly what happened.

Regardless I'll reply seeing there are no discussion going on around here at the moment except this particular part of the episode.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

Try it. Try turning your entire body (nothing exempted) 180 degrees seamlessly (ie, no jerking movements, no sudden stop, must turn in only one direction all throughout, no loss of balance or trying to compensate for loss of balance, etc) with only one leg on the ground without resulting to hopping. Also, yes, you can run and/or make sudden movements with one leg. It won't be called running though, since you're technically hopping.

It's actually quite easy to do. You can turn 190 degrees in one go without much problem (provided you're somewhat good at keeping your balance) or in 2-3 smaller movements without compromising it at all.

And just to be clear I'm not saying Index was turning around on one foot - I was pointing out that one might be able to turn around but be unable to do sudden or fast movements.

If a couple of people start throwing things at you which you need to dodge after 2-3 hops you'll lose your balance and fall (we're still talking about the one legged example here). We're not talking about just hopping here -we're talking about dodging attacks here. It's physically not possible while turning around is.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

How so? Did you not remember all those nuns that got thrown away the moment Index started her chant? Those that got outside hearing range immediately recovered and fell back behind Tatemiya.

A couple of the actually landed behind him, they didn't retreat.
The ones that attacked him weren't the ones attacking Index. It's just full of nuns attacking them.
Just the fact that they flew quite the distance and landed on their back would have prevented them from getting right back up which was shown since they all but one were unconscious.The one that wasn't was still holding her head in pain thus she didn't recover right away (18:26) .

Originally Posted by Ice Block

Tell that to Stiyl. And nope. This will be discussed below. Do you not have any idea about elevation discrepancies and the resulting LoS advantage/disadvantage? This is the reason why Stiyl and Tatemiya took the roof later on. Right before Index started the chant, Stiyl was on the roof, while Tatemiya was on the ground. Then right before and during the ear-stabbing scene, both of them took the high ground once again. This implies that they had already cleared the lower ground. And again, you don't need to worry about ranged attacks when there is no one in range to make an attack. This is what holding a perimeter is about.

But they aren't holding a perimeter. See that's just it - you can't hold a perimeter especially if your forces are concentrated on one spot - that's holding a line. Since they were moving it would be more accurate to say they were sweeping the area though that's not holding a perimeter either especially as I said if both of them are together in a situation where attacks can come from any direction.

I mean the nuns were a few metres from Index, had enough time to listen to some crazy fanatic talk, take out their pens and puncture their eardrums. In the meantime Stiyl and Tatemiya were sitting on another roof watching. The nuns had plenty of time to launch a ranged attack that couldn't be stopped from those two just sitting there on the other side of the building. The only reason they didn't was because of the already mentioned point that was supposed to be reinforced by this scene.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

You misunderstand. I was talking about the Agnese Forces' nuns. They are free to zerg everyone else aside from Index. The point is that we don't care about the other nuns fighting with the Amakusa or chasing after Orsola in this argument.

But they are all over the place, outnumber their enemy by a large margin and can come as reinforcements at any time. You can't simply ignore them.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

It will, and it does. And, small distance? I don't think so. Refer to the image below for this.

Spoiler for MATH:

You put a lot of effort into that, I have to admit. Great job supporting your argument.
However it's incorrect. The perspective isn't that distorted in that scene to require you to take the average. Look at the tiles on the columns and compare their hight as they go up and you'll get a sense of how little role the perspective plays here.
For the other part you can look at the angle clearly seen in the pavement. All in all you can't go with an average hight here because it's incorrect.

Also Index is actually not as tall as the blue bar in that screen. (I believe that's just due to the animation) If you look at the nuns that have been knocked out, by those charts half of them will be more or around 2 metres tall. That's Highly doubtful if you ask me considering most of them seem to have a very similar hight.

One more thing is that regardless of all the things I said, to be correct you'd also have to remove one Index bar since her mouth isn't exactly on the ground. Add that to the things I listed above and you'll end up with something quite different.

Anyway good job with all those details.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

Anyway, ever tried to talk to someone in an open space approximately 2 floors below you using your regular talking voice?

Just for the record, I've lived on the 2nd and on the 5th floor( at times you have to talk louder unlike on the second) and I have no problem talking to people using my regular voice (provided there's no wind or other loud noises like cars, construction equipment or something you'd have trouble hearing over even if you were standing a few metres from the person you're talking to).

And this isn't exactly an open space. Cathedrals in general provide good conditions for an echo. Index is a bit too close to the wall when she turned around but before that it wouldn't be far fetched to say there was a clear one.

[QUOTE=Ice Block;3326909]
A futile, short-term tactic with no strategic value. [.QUOTE]
I don't know if you ever held a roof tile but it's quite heavy. Add that to the fact you're throwing it from above and it could knock you out cold without a problem.
So it's far from futile since one hit will throw Index off balance and if someone manages to hit her head, judging by her small body she might even suffer serious head trauma that would do way more than just knock her unconscious.

Leave aside the Fact that Luccia can use a strong ranged attack that would knock back Index without a problem.

However this again would compromise the whole idea of the scene which makes this discussion completely redundant..

Originally Posted by Ice Block

Sorry, but I refrained from using that particular scene to measure the size of the pen due to it belonging to an unknown nun. As you might have noticed, the fountain pens the nuns use do not look exactly alike. They have minor differences, like the location of the golden ring, the size of the nib, the presence of a black band in between two golden rings right before the nib, etc. The particular pen that nun is holding in that particular hand in the second shot does not have the golden ring you described at all, else it would be visible in that shot since her fingers are never obscuring the entire circumference of the cylinder at any one location. This means that my approximation of 2.5-3 cm is more accurate.

Well to be honest these scenes are way better reference since we have a lot more detail. In the other scenes where the details are not that important since we already know what the object is and something with a similar shape and unique features due to which we recognise the object. That's something extremely common in anime. It's part of the animation quality of a series. If you look at some of the pen nibs you'll notice they are wider than the pen itself making it impossible to put the "cap" (not sure how that's called in English) back on. The important part of the pen however was the nib and for it to clearly be seen it was made larger (and who in general cares about those pens to make them completely accurate even between two scenes where the pen is the same.

From what I saw (minus the animation part which I just mentioned) they were exactly the same. Saying they are different is really far fetched considering everyone had one thus it's implied it's a standard fountain pen they all have (probably as some suggested to communicate via notes). It's part of their equipment along with the nun outfits and so on. It quite unlikely that every nun carries two unique fountain pens with her.

And the thumb actually obscures it completely. I do agree the rest of the fingers don't but I was talking about the thumb to begin with and it clearly does.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

See the images below. The encircled part in the first image is where the inner ear is located. It is labeled as the vestibule in the second image, since the cochlea is located to the front and the semicircular canals to the back. As we can see, the inner ear is located a fair distance and angle away from the angle of insertion. And remember, we're fighting against bone and cartilage here. Also, vertigo is only a symptom of eardrum rupture when there is an accompanying infection or inflammation within the inner ear that caused the rupture, specifically around or within the vestibular system (labyrinthitis, vestibular neuritis, etc; source: 1, 2). Pain is almost a non-issue for these nuns at this stage (remember Lucia's order?), and this should be apparent by the next episode.

Spoiler for Human Ear:

But if you add one more centimetre on top of that it would apply pressure on it. Sure it's bone but the distance is so small it will have some sort of effect.
You can't attribute the lack of pain to an order(in general, though this is an anime). It's there even if you try to ignore it. And the pain from a punctured eardrum is quite strong. It does go away rather quickly but it's still very intense.

As for the vertigo part - you actually do experience it most cases. How severe it is differers of course.
And from 1) it clearly states that : Other common symptoms of perforated eardrum include: Vertigo (spinning sensation).

Originally Posted by Ice Block

As an aside, this episode had lots of QUALITY moments and a few deviations from the novel (the portrayal of Index's Sheol Fear, the number of nuns that surrounded Index, and the Amakusa's fighting style and battle strength being the major ones). It's unknown whether both these aspects will carry over to the next episode, so it's best to hold up until then.

Guess will have to wait and see. Though since I haven't read the novels I can't spot those differences. Hope they only improve the parts that are lacking something and leave the good ones the way they are.

Again the point of the scene was to reinforce the image of how devoted those nuns are. Imo it could have been done a lot better just by showing the nuns wearing a painful expressions on their faces as they punctured their eardrums. Anyway it's still quite redundant to go in all that detail to discuss this since realism was the last thing on their mind when they animated it.

And thanks for taking the time to reply to all that

Maybe I should put all that in a spoiler

[zeniselv]

why ppl keep arguing about dicrepancies, look the anime from another point of view,
maybe in the anime amakusas are stronger , and only got defeated by number, in the church nun would have their numbers reduced and wouldn ba able to figth freely for beign in a small space surrounded with allies(friendly fire), or just the way its shown in most anime,games,movies,and other media, they just won because the protagonist are now on their side, just like in lord of the rings the ggod guy would only win if aragorn and co, were en the figth.

[DragoZERO]

The end there had my jaw dropped.

So much ex machina though out, lol

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

The end there had my jaw dropped.

So much ex machina though out, lol

With the nuns and the pens? well it does provide quite an opponent to Index, since she cannot use Sheol Fear on them, but thats where the other 2 come in to save her

[orion]

Originally Posted by Hooves

With the nuns and the pens? well it does provide quite an opponent to Index, since she cannot use Sheol Fear on them, but thats where the other 2 come in to save her

With 103,000 books, you'd think that she would have another way out.

The nuns can't cast spells because they can't hear now.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by orion

With 103,000 books, you'd think that she would have another way out.

While not impossible, she does seem to rely on inferring the enemy caster via affecting them through sound.

Originally Posted by orion

The nuns can't cast spells because they can't hear now.

I don't think you need to hear to cast spells, though no evidence to suggest either way.

[Hell_ping]

Any of you guys wondering whether Ikebukuro sold those pens to the nuns?

Well, here's the novel text, so you guys go ahead and discuss this.

Originally Posted by Part 1

Tatemiya looks up, and in an instant, the second-level window of the "Baptism Chapel" explodes, as a firestorm erupts from inside. Next, a Roman Catholic nun is shot out like a cannonball. When she lands, she barely tries to let the joints in her legs withstand the impact, but it seems that she can’t withstand it anymore, as she collapses again and loses consciousness.

Stiyl Magnus, who’s wielding a flame sword, is standing at the window…

He says,

“In some situations, that child is much stronger when she fights on her own. We’ll weaken her fighting capabilities if we go near her. You probably don’t want to become like those people, huh?”

“What?”

Tatemiya is intrigued. At this moment…

BOOM! There’s an explosion around Index.

Index reappears, having been surrounded by tens, maybe more than a hundred nuns all around; in other words, a section of the perimeter is blown away. In that thick perimeter, a corner has been blown off by some unknown force, causing the perimeter to form a "C" shape. About ten nuns experienced the impact directly, and one of them even lands at Tatemiya’s feet, several meters away. Seeing their comrade flying over their heads, the nuns fighting against Tatemiya turn to look at Index.

BOOM! Another huge invisible explosion, and several nuns are sent into the air.

“…What’s going on?”

Tatemiya looks at the nun at his feet. Her face is full of despair, and her body curls up like a baby, her arms holding her head. Although she lost consciousness, she seems to be having a nightmare, as she’s still trembling. Not only that, the muscles on the nun’s legs are torn. That phenomenon wasn’t actually an explosion, but the nun jumped back. As if her survival and defensive instincts had gone haywire, she even did the extreme by doing something that far exceeds her physical capabilities in order to get away from Index.

Stiyl jumps down from the second level, and lands beside Tatemiya.

“You’re also a Christian, and you should know that there are weaknesses or conflicting concepts in several Christian teachings. Many different Christian sects exist in order to patch up these weaknesses and conflicting concepts, but they create their own in the process; this is a so-called religious characteristic.”

“…So what?”

Tatemiya gently swings his longsword, restricting the nuns’ movements.

“That child has the knowledge of the entire world. With the knowledge of 103,000 magic books, she can make sharp criticism in the ‘conflicts’ that Christianity has- the ‘Sheol Fear’. To Christians, Christianity is like a function, and the paradoxes in its teachings are like holes in a cover, so the ‘Sheol Fear’ is their enemy. Upon hearing this, their personalities will completely dissolve within a short time.”

Of course, this spell is useless against enemies other than Christians. As for magical authors like Aureolus, they had set up a special magical barrier to prevent their minds from being destroyed by their own original magic texts, so this spell is useless to them as well. However, there are very few people in the world who can "write an original magical text and not get their minds broken" like Aureolus.

“The magical books aren’t just to only use spells. Although she has no magical power, she can use the knowledge of the magic books to attack with ‘Spell Intercept’ and ‘Sheol Fear’. There’s likely no one better to be the magical library than her.”

While the nuns are still panicking, Stiyl and Tatemiya unleash a flurry of attacks. Stiyl lets the flame blade explode, blowing the nuns away with a flame storm, followed up by Tatemiya knocking them out swiftly and cleanly. At this moment, Index continues to send the numerous nuns around her flying with her "muttering".

Tatemiya is impressed and stunned. He says,

“Come to think of it, since she’s capable of such an impressive spell, why didn’t she use it in the beginning? Even if it was me, I’ll be devastated if I was hit by that technique.”

“That spell is rather unstable and troublesome. I believe you know that it’s easier to do a religious brainwashing to a group than to an individual. From the Science side point of view, the ‘Sheol Fear’ uses group psychology to break through their own psychological defense.”

Stiyl again lets the flame sword explode, suppressing the nuns. The nuns were trying to find a chance to charge forward, but their faces had been burned by the flames, so they hurry back.

“The ‘purity’ of the group’s psychology affects the effectiveness of the ‘Sheol Fear’. It’s easier to use when ‘the group’s thinking of the same thing’, and much more difficult when it’s ‘a complicated group with many different thoughts’ since that causes the ‘purity’ to drop, which makes it completely useless… In other words, when I was fighting with you, because both Kamijou Touma and I had been present, the group’s ‘purity’ dropped, so she couldn’t use the ‘Sheol Fear’. I was assigned to be her guard because of this possible scenario.”

Stiyl plainly states,

“In other words, if you rush in now, the ‘Sheol Fear’ will be ineffective.”

Originally Posted by Part 2

From the 103,000 magical texts, she found the parts that are detrimental to a Christian’s mind which creates the "Sheol Fear", and is attacking the Roman Catholic nuns with it. During this situation, an accident happens. One of the nuns, Sister Lucia, the one who attacked Kamijou in the theme park, suddenly shouts,

“Heavy attack! Light defense! Sacrifice yourselves! Destroy the enemy of God!”

In an instant, the nuns completely freeze.

Their faces silently and gradually become expressionless, and like a military salute, they neatly pull out two things from their clothes. Each of their hands is holding a rather high-class fountain pen.

…?

At this moment, Index is thinking that they're planning to use some magic to fire an attack at her.

But she is wrong.

The next instant…

Almost a hundred nuns surrounding Index insert the pens into their ears without hesitation.

The squishy sound resembles a person squeezing grapes.

Bright red blood spurts out from their ears.

At the same time, they pull the pens that were inserted deeply into their ears out, and then proceed to raise their weapons.

Although their expressions are distorted due to pain, they’re smiling bitterly like they just destroyed their desires. There’s something white on the blood-covered pens: their eardrums.

Index strongly feels that she’s going to vomit any moment.

“Don’t tell me… it’s to block out the ‘Sheol Fear’…?”

If they’re unable to hear anything, the "Sheol Fear" cannot work.

Index realizes this chilling fact as the nuns advance together.

[Joe_fh]

Just a though, but isn't posting this against the rules? Not that I mind at all (actually I'm interested since I haven't read it thus I can't compare) but just to be on the safe side. You might be better off putting it into a spoiler tag for "Light Novel" or something

And after reading that, if the scene was presented in the anime in that way I would have loved it a lot more.