What is the message that Kazuma Kamachi wants to communicate?

[alexthegreatdude]

I've been thinking about what is the purpose for Kazuma Kamachi to write the Toaru series, and it can't just be to show that through hard work good guys can prevail. So I was wondering what you guys thought?

[Marcus H.]

Each volume has Kamachi telling something to its viewers.

For example, one of the topics explored by Kamachi post-NT10 is a more frightening reaction to "with great power comes great responsibility".

Touma had thought of picking up more weapons to help close the power gap with future enemies, but Othinus had warned him that it would only make it worse for him. Similarly, Mikoto is afraid of the repercussions of picking up the Anti-Art Attachment. On a larger scale, the students of Tokiwadai are afraid of their abilities now that they discovered that the same abilities they have acquired through studying hard can be used to hurt or kill others.

You can consider that as a callout to the powercreep that is common to shounen anime and manga.

There are a lot of stuff Kamachi wants to tell us, and each volume's afterword is a good read for that very reason.

[alexthegreatdude]

Thanks for replying, I see what you mean and that I should pay more attention to the afterwords.

[bakato]

Plenty of things. If Touma is any indication, he has a fetish for older woman with big busts.

There are also consistent themes throughout many of his works such as

challenging society's standards for what constitutes extraordinary
the nature of evil in NT 14
the innocence of children featured most prominently in child Shinobu of Zashiki Warashi

[zaikoi]

This was discussed long time ago. This is nothing new.

[dniv]

My perspective is that Toaru Series has a message that the world isn't simple. It's incredibly complicated, and because of that we need to live our lives and hold opinions that are as complex and responsible as necessary to realize the depth that everyone around us has. All of the villains that try to save the world or that have things happen to them are all warped because they're not considering other people. At the same time, they all have depth to them. There's a lot of other themes, but the one omnipresent theme of Index is the complexity of every situation and how things AREN'T simple lol. However, at the same time, it is the contrast between the simplicity and the complexity that give both of those things their worth. Another related theme is how there are so many factors affecting what the world is like and even if everything were nice and perfect and everyone were smart and overpowered, the world would still be a sh*tty place, so it's important to figure out exactly how to make it a better place and resolve conflicts of ideals without just wrecking everything into the ground.

TLDR: Index says that 1. Reality is complex. Don't overlook its complexity. 2. We can do better, but that is up to every individual and group to decide. We don't need to turn people away or eliminate them to make the world a better place. Some problems are almost impossible to overcome even in the ideal case, but that's what makes those ideal solutions worth it, and we can always change for the better.

[Natsurin]

I'll be honest, when I originally saw this topic upon creation, I was pretty confused at what the question was getting at. Unfortunately, three months later, I still don't really get it.

But firstly, I'll address dniv's post.

Spoiler for Answer to dniv's post:

Originally Posted by dniv

(I've read the post, but there's no need for a massive quote wall)

TLDR: Index says that 1. Reality is complex. Don't overlook its complexity. 2. We can do better, but that is up to every individual and group to decide. We don't need to turn people away or eliminate them to make the world a better place. Some problems are almost impossible to overcome even in the ideal case, but that's what makes those ideal solutions worth it, and we can always change for the better.

I don't agree with this viewpoint, namely because the first point you make is one that... is kind of terrifyingly obvious. Anyone who's ever stepped out of their comfort zone and dealt with responsibilities knows that life has more depths than what is taught by parental and scholar education. No matter how much one may love it, a light novel about a boy with a bizarre right hand will not teach such realities (especially by using fantasy, this isn't classical literature, but I'll get back to that later) to those who have yet to experience difficulties in life that will serve as a lesson that things aren't necessarily what they seem at first glance, and that diligence and patience is required in order to always be prepared for the downpour of mind-numbing fuckeries life will throw.

Theory doesn't always equal successful practice.

As for the second point, it's idealistic bait mixed with another hopelessly obvious statement. Though a group of people can make change for the better for as far as they can reach, the sake of working for “world peace” is an inherently impossible idea to bear for an individual's shoulders who, and this is a point made in the series, already struggle tackling the problems that are in front of them, let alone ones that affect humanity as a whole.

What a rightful and well-educated person should concern themselves with is their well-being and the well-being of those they care about, whether that stands as strangers they know are suffering or not, because that's only as far as they can go without despairing themselves over hopeless ideals of being a saviour to issues plaguing the world, beyond even humanity, as a whole. And if that results in making their (the individual's and the people they impact's) world a better place, then that will be of so much more value than a fool's errand to try and solve such a large scale of conflicts beyond your reach born by sheer arrogance and the lack of understanding of how much beyond us everything really is.

The idea that in your life, you should always strive to become a better influence to your surroundings and apply that when dealing with stressful situations, and that you should always try your best in face of adversity without running away or taking easy ways out, is also a glaringly obvious notion to anyone who's received a decent education.

It's not a message that Kamachi wants to transmit specifically, Index is written on the assumption that you know this and that would be why you would be cheering for the “good guys” more than the “mistaken bad guys”.

But assuming they didn't, again, that's an entire depth to life that a simple light novel cannot teach no matter how much the author is praised as a genius.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to tackle something that's been bothering me with this fanbase (though not AnimeSuki's specifically) for a while now, and that's the idea that people have to justify why Index is a good read like somehow Index and Kamachi specifically need to be defended and justified because "it's such a great novel and Kamachi's such a great author that it HAS to be on-par with actual high-level, deep writing!".

I'm going to piss off many saying this, but Index is not and will never be classic light novel literature. It's not a work of any profound depth. It's a hobby work written by someone who had the privilege of making their hobby into a money income and is still taking full advantage of it to this day. Kamachi is, also, just an average author whose main high point of praise is simply how persistent he is in pursuing his hobby in the ways he prefers doing it, and yes, I know those salty Mikoto haters who think Miki had something to do with her growing involvement in the story are probably foaming at the mouth reading this and saying "BUT KUROKO WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO BE RAILGUN'S PROTAGONIST SO IT HAS TO BE MIKI'S CONSPIRACY!", but hey, their problem, not mine.

Classic French literature, for example, was written with the idea of declaring injustices and faults within the royalty/society and was done so by seeking out means of disguising their works to escape censoring, whilst still remaining obvious as to what their work was calling out to and why. Those classical works can be analysed with such a question because of the simple assumption that the work is judging/criticising something that needs to be "fixed" by exploiting a public-reaching position that the masses could not as individuals. The usage of fantasy in such periods was to merely point towards the idea that such change could, in fact, work out by exploiting another setting and world to illustrate an alternate reality that, yet, could still very well be attached to this one.

Index was never written in such a manner. It was written as the one-off idea of an author who likes throwing tentative ideas at walls and who was given the opportunity by his editing company to make much more out of it than he originally expected. There's no message to be read in Index, there's simply the fact that someone wanted to write a story about a boy with a power that could serve as the means to stop a secretly ongoing world-wide conflict if used correctly while sometimes using some thematics to drive specific arcs/volumes forward, could, and did, yet so many people try to confront each other with the idea that if they're reading Index, it's because there's something truly deep about this work that hardly any other does.

This entirely mistaken basis that something needs to have justification to be appreciated and that, if you don't like it, you just don't get how much of a revolution its writing truly is, seems to be plaguing this series' fandom specifically.

Spoiler alert: It doesn't.

Further spoiler alert: You, as an individual, just simply like the work more than other ones and feel more attachment/can relate to it more for a reason only you can answer.

And this is a point that most Index fans don't seem to grasp very well, but that's fine. This kind of media is meant to be consumed as entertainment, not as a battle of wits between who truly reads/watches the best and most thought-provoking light novel/anime that the past, present and future will ever create, and feels the need to always justify it.

For all I highly disagree with people who favour New Testament over Old Testament, most of those disagreements come from my fundamental lack of understanding of why people are so dishonest with themselves and painting it as a superior work by rabid fanboyism rather than either properly justify why it's a better work, or simply acknowledge that it has a lot more flaws and less direction than its predecessor, but that they still enjoy it a lot more regardless, instead of mindlessly justifying everything as "OMG THE MADMAN HE ALWAYS WRITES THE MOST AMAZING AND LESS PREDICTABLE PLOT TWISTS EVER THIS IS SUCH A WELL THOUGHT-OUT AND PROVOKING SERIES!!" when we all know that's really not the case.

I know people who read and loved Fifty Shades and judge them as I might, I ultimately don't really care about what they enjoy reading in their free time, yet where FSOG readers just say they like it and won't push the matter further (unless they're somewhat deranged enough to want to go into explicit detail as to why...), Index fans seem specifically hellbent over dictating what excellence in terms of light novel writing is and it begins with a K and ends with an I, even though they should just accept that some people love this series, some people moderately enjoy it, and some people simply don't and just get on with their lives depending on how much they want to let the series impact it.

TL;DR: Why does this fandom have such a large superiority complex? It's not classic literature. Index doesn't have a deep and profound message that Kamachi truly wanted to transmit to this viewers. He's writing whatever the fuck he wants and is well fucking proud of it no matter what people think. You should likewise, just enjoy the work instead of engaging in (already lost) elitist battles of why Index is truly a great chef-d'oeuvre of the light novel scene by painting it as more than what it really is.

[salamander750]

Originally Posted by Natsurin

I'll be honest, when I originally saw this topic upon creation, I was pretty confused at what the question was getting at. Unfortunately, three months later, I still don't really get it.

But firstly, I'll address dniv's post.

Spoiler for Answer to dniv's post:

I don't agree with this viewpoint, namely because the first point you make is one that... is kind of terrifyingly obvious. Anyone who's ever stepped out of their comfort zone and dealt with responsibilities knows that life has more depths than what is taught by parental and scholar education. No matter how much one may love it, a light novel about a boy with a bizarre right hand will not teach such realities (especially by using fantasy, this isn't classical literature, but I'll get back to that later) to those who have yet to experience difficulties in life that will serve as a lesson that things aren't necessarily what they seem at first glance, and that diligence and patience is required in order to always be prepared for the downpour of mind-numbing fuckeries life will throw.

Theory doesn't always equal successful practice.

As for the second point, it's idealistic bait mixed with another hopelessly obvious statement. Though a group of people can make change for the better for as far as they can reach, the sake of working for “world peace” is an inherently impossible idea to bear for an individual's shoulders who, and this is a point made in the series, already struggle tackling the problems that are in front of them, let alone ones that affect humanity as a whole.

What a rightful and well-educated person should concern themselves with is their well-being and the well-being of those they care about, whether that stands as strangers they know are suffering or not, because that's only as far as they can go without despairing themselves over hopeless ideals of being a saviour to issues plaguing the world, beyond even humanity, as a whole. And if that results in making their (the individual's and the people they impact's) world a better place, then that will be of so much more value than a fool's errand to try and solve such a large scale of conflicts beyond your reach born by sheer arrogance and the lack of understanding of how much beyond us everything really is.

The idea that in your life, you should always strive to become a better influence to your surroundings and apply that when dealing with stressful situations, and that you should always try your best in face of adversity without running away or taking easy ways out, is also a glaringly obvious notion to anyone who's received a decent education.

It's not a message that Kamachi wants to transmit specifically, Index is written on the assumption that you know this and that would be why you would be cheering for the “good guys” more than the “mistaken bad guys”.

But assuming they didn't, again, that's an entire depth to life that a simple light novel cannot teach no matter how much the author is praised as a genius.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to tackle something that's been bothering me with this fanbase (though not AnimeSuki's specifically) for a while now, and that's the idea that people have to justify why Index is a good read like somehow Index and Kamachi specifically need to be defended and justified because "it's such a great novel and Kamachi's such a great author that it HAS to be on-par with actual high-level, deep writing!".

I'm going to piss off many saying this, but Index is not and will never be classic light novel literature. It's not a work of any profound depth. It's a hobby work written by someone who had the privilege of making their hobby into a money income and is still taking full advantage of it to this day. Kamachi is, also, just an average author whose main high point of praise is simply how persistent he is in pursuing his hobby in the ways he prefers doing it, and yes, I know those salty Mikoto haters who think Miki had something to do with her growing involvement in the story are probably foaming at the mouth reading this and saying "BUT KUROKO WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO BE RAILGUN'S PROTAGONIST SO IT HAS TO BE MIKI'S CONSPIRACY!", but hey, their problem, not mine.

Classic French literature, for example, was written with the idea of declaring injustices and faults within the royalty/society and was done so by seeking out means of disguising their works to escape censoring, whilst still remaining obvious as to what their work was calling out to and why. Those classical works can be analysed with such a question because of the simple assumption that the work is judging/criticising something that needs to be "fixed" by exploiting a public-reaching position that the masses could not as individuals. The usage of fantasy in such periods was to merely point towards the idea that such change could, in fact, work out by exploiting another setting and world to illustrate an alternate reality that, yet, could still very well be attached to this one.

Index was never written in such a manner. It was written as the one-off idea of an author who likes throwing tentative ideas at walls and who was given the opportunity by his editing company to make much more out of it than he originally expected. There's no message to be read in Index, there's simply the fact that someone wanted to write a story about a boy with a power that could serve as the means to stop a secretly ongoing world-wide conflict if used correctly while sometimes using some thematics to drive specific arcs/volumes forward, could, and did, yet so many people try to confront each other with the idea that if they're reading Index, it's because there's something truly deep about this work that hardly any other does.

This entirely mistaken basis that something needs to have justification to be appreciated and that, if you don't like it, you just don't get how much of a revolution its writing truly is, seems to be plaguing this series' fandom specifically.

Spoiler alert: It doesn't.

Further spoiler alert: You, as an individual, just simply like the work more than other ones and feel more attachment/can relate to it more for a reason only you can answer.

And this is a point that most Index fans don't seem to grasp very well, but that's fine. This kind of media is meant to be consumed as entertainment, not as a battle of wits between who truly reads/watches the best and most thought-provoking light novel/anime that the past, present and future will ever create, and feels the need to always justify it.

For all I highly disagree with people who favour New Testament over Old Testament, most of those disagreements come from my fundamental lack of understanding of why people are so dishonest with themselves and painting it as a superior work by rabid fanboyism rather than either properly justify why it's a better work, or simply acknowledge that it has a lot more flaws and less direction than its predecessor, but that they still enjoy it a lot more regardless, instead of mindlessly justifying everything as "OMG THE MADMAN HE ALWAYS WRITES THE MOST AMAZING AND LESS PREDICTABLE PLOT TWISTS EVER THIS IS SUCH A WELL THOUGHT-OUT AND PROVOKING SERIES!!" when we all know that's really not the case.

I know people who read and loved Fifty Shades and judge them as I might, I ultimately don't really care about what they enjoy reading in their free time, yet where FSOG readers just say they like it and won't push the matter further (unless they're somewhat deranged enough to want to go into explicit detail as to why...), Index fans seem specifically hellbent over dictating what excellence in terms of light novel writing is and it begins with a K and ends with an I, even though they should just accept that some people love this series, some people moderately enjoy it, and some people simply don't and just get on with their lives depending on how much they want to let the series impact it.

TL;DR: Why does this fandom have such a large superiority complex? It's not classic literature. Index doesn't have a deep and profound message that Kamachi truly wanted to transmit to this viewers. He's writing whatever the fuck he wants and is well fucking proud of it no matter what people think. You should likewise, just enjoy the work instead of engaging in (already lost) elitist battles of why Index is truly a great chef-d'oeuvre of the light novel scene by painting it as more than what it really is.

well I am pretty sure that I don't have such complex, and Index is not a classic literature or some thing, but I still enjoy it. But where are the elitist battles post anywway? Can you show me. I wanna see waht those guy think

[Natsurin]

Like I said, this targets the fandom beyond AnimeSuki and some of it goes back a few years already since I've been involved with this series for a pretty long time at this point. So I'm not referring to anyone specifically, just the attitude of the fandom as a whole when certain topics are brought up, and doing so would be rather rude in the first place anyway.

[LazyHunter]

Spoiler for Answer to Natsurin:

Originally Posted by Natsurin

Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to tackle something that's been bothering me with this fanbase (though not AnimeSuki's specifically) for a while now, and that's the idea that people have to justify why Index is a good read like somehow Index and Kamachi specifically need to be defended and justified because "it's such a great novel and Kamachi's such a great author that it HAS to be on-par with actual high-level, deep writing!".

I haven't see a lot of people claiming this, though tbh I don't follow many Index forums besides this one. I see fans saying it's a great/enjoyable light novel and some saying they like this or that theme it explores or features. I see fans saying they don't like it because X plot point or Y character. I see some that think it's the best thing ever. I see some that think it's a pile of garbage.

Basically I see the same type of fans any light novel has. You're exaggerating an awful lot, and given the rest of your post, you're basically attacking a strawman for whatever reasons you might have.

I'm going to piss off many saying this, but Index is not and will never be classic light novel literature. It's not a work of any profound depth. It's a hobby work written by someone who had the privilege of making their hobby into a money income and is still taking full advantage of it to this day. Kamachi is, also, just an average author whose main high point of praise is simply how persistent he is in pursuing his hobby in the ways he prefers doing it, and yes, I know those salty Mikoto haters who think Miki had something to do with her growing involvement in the story are probably foaming at the mouth reading this and saying "BUT KUROKO WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO BE RAILGUN'S PROTAGONIST SO IT HAS TO BE MIKI'S CONSPIRACY!", but hey, their problem, not mine.

As before, never seen someone here claim it's on the level of classic literature, you just seem pissed that people think it's a great light novel or that Kamachi is a good author for his genre. Which is a perfectly valid subjective opinion, no matter how much you disagree with it.

Index was never written in such a manner. It was written as the one-off idea of an author who likes throwing tentative ideas at walls and who was given the opportunity by his editing company to make much more out of it than he originally expected. There's no message to be read in Index, there's simply the fact that someone wanted to write a story about a boy with a power that could serve as the means to stop a secretly ongoing world-wide conflict if used correctly while sometimes using some thematics to drive specific arcs/volumes forward, could, and did, yet so many people try to confront each other with the idea that if they're reading Index, it's because there's something truly deep about this work that hardly any other does.

What does the fact if the first novel being a one-off matter to the development the series got afterwards? It's a fantasy light novel, like you said, people read it because they like the plot, characters, etc; I don't see anyone claiming they read it because "it's deep". You really like this strawman.

This entirely mistaken basis that something needs to have justification to be appreciated and that, if you don't like it, you just don't get how much of a revolution its writing truly is, seems to be plaguing this series' fandom specifically.

Spoiler alert: It doesn't.

Further spoiler alert: You, as an individual, just simply like the work more than other ones and feel more attachment/can relate to it more for a reason only you can answer.

And this is a point that most Index fans don't seem to grasp very well, but that's fine. This kind of media is meant to be consumed as entertainment, not as a battle of wits between who truly reads/watches the best and most thought-provoking light novel/anime that the past, present and future will ever create, and feels the need to always justify it.

I find hilarious that you say this (which is true), but then seemingly go again to thinking that your taste is objective in the next paragraph.

For all I highly disagree with people who favour New Testament over Old Testament, most of those disagreements come from my fundamental lack of understanding of why people are so dishonest with themselves and painting it as a superior work by rabid fanboyism rather than either properly justify why it's a better work, or simply acknowledge that it has a lot more flaws and less direction than its predecessor, but that they still enjoy it a lot more regardless, instead of mindlessly justifying everything as "OMG THE MADMAN HE ALWAYS WRITES THE MOST AMAZING AND LESS PREDICTABLE PLOT TWISTS EVER THIS IS SUCH A WELL THOUGHT-OUT AND PROVOKING SERIES!!" when we all know that's really not the case.

SPOILER ALERT: That's just your opinion, not a fact. It's not more valid than mine or than any other opinion about it. Just as some people don't like some of Kamachi's choices in the series, others like them.

I know people who read and loved Fifty Shades and judge them as I might, I ultimately don't really care about what they enjoy reading in their free time, yet where FSOG readers just say they like it and won't push the matter further (unless they're somewhat deranged enough to want to go into explicit detail as to why...), Index fans seem specifically hellbent over dictating what excellence in terms of light novel writing is and it begins with a K and ends with an I, even though they should just accept that some people love this series, some people moderately enjoy it, and some people simply don't and just get on with their lives depending on how much they want to let the series impact it.

TL;DR: Why does this fandom have such a large superiority complex? It's not classic literature. Index doesn't have a deep and profound message that Kamachi truly wanted to transmit to this viewers. He's writing whatever the fuck he wants and is well fucking proud of it no matter what people think. You should likewise, just enjoy the work instead of engaging in (already lost) elitist battles of why Index is truly a great chef-d'oeuvre of the light novel scene by painting it as more than what it really is.[/QUOTE]It doesn't, your strawman version of its fans does. It's not really that different from the fandom of any other manga/anime/LN.

Summary: I disagree with your opinion on the fandom of the series, at least the strawman version of it you attack in your post. There isn't much difference between Index fans and the fans of other LNs/manga/anime/books/etc. Are there elitist fans who think the work is beyond anything else on its medium? Of course there's some people like that, those are everywhere and you can find someone like that in all fandoms thanks to the internet. Pretending this is somehow a problem in the Index fandom and not a common annoyance in fiction fandoms is, simply, ridiculous.

[Loremaster]

Originally Posted by LazyHunter

Summary: I disagree with your opinion on the fandom of the series, at least the strawman version of it you attack in your post. There isn't much difference between Index fans and the fans of other LNs/manga/anime/books/etc. Are there elitist fans who think the work is beyond anything else on its medium? Of course there's some people like that, those are everywhere and you can find someone like that in all fandoms thanks to the internet. Pretending this is somehow a problem in the Index fandom and not a common annoyance in fiction fandoms is, simply, ridiculous.

And not acknowledging that it is a problem is equally ridiculous.

But you're correct, this index's community, in general, is not the origin or be the end of such behaviour. It's ingrained in peoples desire to feel important in their constrained idea of community which is often created in a particular fandom. Those who hold the most stronger or stubborn views would often be known more than an average fan. So basically the Elitist behaviour displayed by the extreme fans are just trying to inflate their ego and attempt to seem more important.

That grumpy stick known as Natsurin is reflecting a general behaviour that is displayed in the index community that goes beyond even this forum. Who knows very well that isn't inherent to just those who enjoy index. It's basically the fault of those very loud fans, who want to seem the most correct in their constrained idea of community and a feel a glimpse of importance.

But reading your post makes me feel you're trying to defend the community, though my only experience with the Index fans, in general, is this place and some roleplaying forum I can only use this as it's a place we share.

This place isn't any ideal place to have a chin wag about our favourite esper or magician. To be fair it's not as bad as it has been, but joining this community is rather daunting and if you look beyond the corners of this site lot of people view the members in that negative light. A reputation that has been well earned many years before has lingered as a bad stain and sadly continues to be so as its really hard to crack the circle of fans on here.

I mean let's not forget in the past those who enjoyed Misaka as a character was attacked as a 'fag' and those who didn't enjoy Othinus are often labelled as 'clueless' even if that god is just Index 2.0.

But I'm not here to bring up old wounds of the past, more so to help get others acknowledge the point that is being made. This community isn't immune to such behaviour and so I urge you to read Nats post once more and try to acknowledgewhat it's implying.

As it's not just a personal opinion, it's a view that is often shared beyond this forum and I personally like to see it gone. So there will be a time when new members can join here and not feel intimidated by expressing their view.

And also to point out, that saying the author is a genius and writes amazingly isn't a basis for an argument. We can have great discussions and only if we also listen to each other.

[dniv]

@LoreMaster & @ LazyHunter I agree with both of you. I think those are all great points.
@Natsurin

I will admit that I'm somewhat guilty as charged at least in the sense that I think that Index has certain merits to it that make it as compelling as some classic literature, well not classic literature per se, but rather, non-genre fiction.

And let me explain why since I think my opinion is rather justified. I was giving a short answer before, but since you gave such a long analysis, I feel more entitled to give a long one as well, though I've learned to be a bit more concise than in the old days.

Spoiler:

Index certainly is a harem/shounen/sci-fi/fantasy series, but I'd say that because of how it has an overarching plot in addition to lots of innovative nuances and well-developed characters and themes that change from book to book, it's not really a conventional type of genre-fiction. It's more like an overarching meta-series in the sense that the nature of the series changes heavily from volume to volume aside from the certain chunni way it's written.

I like Index so much because it feels special. Kamachi is able to be so much more deliberate in his work than so many other authors are able to. I will admit that his writing style isn't exactly something you'd find in classic literature, not does he use supremely colorful or well-written descriptions. Instead, he relies on metaphors, and other types of well-crafted cognitive comparisons to introduce interesting ideas and concepts.

What I really like about Index is how much authority Kamachi has amassed over the years by proving that he can basically write about anything that he wants to, regardless of how controversial it might be, and still come off in a very clear and compelling way.

His main forte isn't writing. It's his ideas. He structures his story very deliberately where he'll introduce concepts early on and set them up in such a way that he can come back to them 40 volumes later. It doesn't mean that he planned things that way, but he wrote them and talked about them later on in such a way that gave him the flexibility to set up such a precise scenario. That's why we all love him. You don't need to have the plan when you set up the scenario, you just need to be able to pull off the crazy master plan structurally for whatever reason even if he figures it out step by step as he goes along. Why do shounen heroes become heroes? Because they get results. Not because they understood anything ahead of time. It's sort of similar IMO. Kamachi manages to write extremely intricate plots with lots of underlying themes and threads. He has interesting points to say about talent and humanity and ideology and how people get along. That's why we all like him. He isn't lazy about anything he writes. Aside from some of the comedy or fanservice which may fall flat depending on what you like or not, his content is super-well crafted, at least in my opinion.

He's a master of deliberately concealing tons of layers of details in his writing to the extent that he can write new sentences that make the meaning of his old sentences change in meaning. I'm not sure why other people like his writing or his awesome characters or insane plots and crazy plot twists and imaginative scenarios that tend to be very original and innovative and not just mere copies of other things, but what I like about Kamachi is that he always tries to grow as a writer and doesn't use recycled scenarios. He paints every character in a very mature light. And I argue that even though he often illustrates the series from Touma's perspective, from a meta-perspective Kamachi is much less clear about painting who is a villain and who is a protagonist. It's like how he had Aiwass comment on how Touma is just a selfish-bastard trying to make himself happy by saving people and how Aleister was also analyzing him a while back. I think I like Kamachi so much because instead of talking about objective truth or what not, he's more interested in exploring all of his character's subjective perspectives and exploring their extremely complex interplay.

It suffices to say that what I like about the series is its complexity. You tried to refute the two points I made early on, but I think what I originally tried to convey to you all wasn't properly understood by y'all nor expressed by me. I still stand by my initial analysis though I will concede that there are many more core points than the ones I initially brought up. This series stays true to the idea that real life is very complex and that we should be careful in how we try to apply our ideologies to others while still caring about the situations that others are in. I wish I could bring up Persona 5 to use as a counterpoint for discussing the ideology stuff, but ... is probably too spoilery for most of you so I won't, but I will say that as far as I'm concerned, what I like about Index is that it's complicated.

If you look at how people live in practice, they might say that the world is complicated. They might claim that it's important to protect the people around you.

Spoiler:

But they never do that in practice because that's hard. It takes a genius author to write a super complex story that is believable and that convincingly illustrates what people with very high intelligence and complex motives and wide access to different types of information and etc. would do if they all existed at the same time in the same space. I like Index because it explores interesting ideals not bound by the shackles of the boring reality in front of us. It isn't like reality has to be so low-level or unsophisticated. There's nothing stopping it from being like Index. It's just that most people aren't satisfied thinking about something 100 steps removed from reality. I'm grateful for that since thinking about those sorts of things are personally the most gratifying for me since they're exactly those sorts of things we'd never think about otherwise unless someone went out of their way to think about them for us, precisely since they aren't practical. It's something you can really only find in Index and probably in a few other series that I've never heard of in other languages I don't speak or that I may never read. I'm just glad I found this one, here.

The thing that stands out the most for me about Index is that Kamachi doesn't say one thing and do another. What he writes is consistent with his ideology because he has the talent as an author/skill as a writer to pull through. You previously said that instead of having a savior complex we should just help the people around us. I disagree. I don't think that's the point of the series. And I don't think that type of common sense is agreed upon at all. That's true of Chinese web novels maybe. And even they differ. Fiamma wasn't bad because he wanted to save everyone. He was bad because he was doing it for himself while not giving a sh*t about anyone else that he was trying to save. It was all single-handed and selfish. He wasn't looking at the world around him. He was trying to fix something that wasn't necessarily broken. That was his problem. All of the villains in the series all have interesting, complex motives, but what I like most about what Kamachi has done with it all is that he has vividly expressed how these combative, "evil" villains are just normal people who have suffered tragedies and have thus then been pushed to extremes. That's why I say it examines an extreme clash of ideals. You say that theory doesn't equal practice. I disagree. That's bullsh*t. Perfect theory = practice. It's more like people f*ck up theory all the time which is why it doesn't equal practice. It's like how I as a mathematician look at how mathematicians do math and I shake my head. Well, what do you expect to happen when all of you fools do math all day forgetting that the thinker exists and that the theoretical object of interest is just the math? The problem with theories is that they don't account for everything going on or even for many things. Index considers super complicated scenarios so I disagree with you almost entirely on that point. You can talk about experiences very clearly as long as you handle them well enough, with enough delicate care. It's just that most writers are incapable of doing so, and you need other writers of a similar caliber to write responses to Kamachi based on their own experiences and to fill in the holes in his story with their own perspectives and experiences that turned out differently, and then have some other writer come out of the woodwork later who can integrate both sets of experiences and perspectives.

To be more direct, I disagree with what you said about the savior complex thing. Accelerator and Hamazura are the only protagonists who believe in the whole protect people you know and already care about and that's it. Touma is already not that, and he's my favorite character. He feels obligated to protect everyone and everything, like we all saw in NT 9 even when it was ridiculousness itself for him to feel bad for not being able to save Agnese's parents even though they might have died long before he had the opportunity to intervene in her affairs.

The thing I like about the series is that it shows how different individuals have vastly different realms of experience and this makes them live with different ideals and preferences and tastes. And yet, Kamachi shows that everyone can find their own perfect way of living with their own ideals and preferences and tastes and still resolve all of their differences. Even in these super complicated scenarios, as long as everyone has the courage and the confidence to believe that their own perspectives can work out as long as they continue to develop them and try their best to be happy, then everyone can win ... or most people anyway (thinking of Yuuitsu lol).

IDK I think it's hard to pinpoint any one message that Index is trying to send. It constantly asks very meaningful questions and explores crazy scenarios. Of course, Kamachi has the skill and dexterity to have fun with all of it and so he inserts his crazy quirky characters and plot twists and waifus (lol), but that doesn't take away from the depth he introduces into his work. He's just veeeeeeeeery unconventional to the extent where he has trash and beautiful depth sentences apart at times. I mean, trash is obviously an opinion, and even then, it often makes me laugh really hard, so it's hard to say it really is trash, but I say trash because maybe the average person would call it trash.

Spoiler:

Anyway, I like Index because I think the message it wants to communicate is that reality is complex. He often introduces us to a premise or an idea that we take for granted and then he makes us fall in love with a scenario or with characters and then he makes something happen to it that makes it change in such a way that puts our normal assumptions at odds with what we have come to know and love through reading the novels and falling in love with the characters. He uses this to educate us that the world is much more complex than we might imagine because all of those ideas we believed were absolute or certain become much less so when introduced into these crazy situations. I especially like the series since it challenges itself so often. Maybe his execution isn't the best, but it's hard to have excellent execution sometimes. Like I really liked what he was trying to do with the whole Kamisato thing that a lot of people hated. He was fundamentally trying to grow the series' premise by arguing how even the anti-touma could be justified within the confines of the same series. That takes unbelievable maturity and growth as an author. Yeah, maybe he could have done it better, but the fact that he tried to do it is already worth a lot in my book.

If we look at how he showed how Touma was so much happier than Kamisato even though Touma was so much poorer and aggravated than Kamisato was, we notice and realize a lot of interesting facets of what life may really be like. I dunno those are just my two cents.

I like Kamachi because he introduces complex structures and motifs and themes and plots and characters that you can't hope to see anywhere else and he sticks with it and goes all in. Sometimes he can't handle all of it, but he often does a frighteningly good job of working it all together. That's why I love his stories so much. It's the sheer complexity. It's something that real life lacks to a depressing degree. Everything everyone does is so simple because they're stuck with this notion that simple is best and that we can't do better. But like I said before, Kamachi thinks we can, and I agree. It's just up to every individual to decide how much better they want to do because it isn't our business to force others to change. That's what's wrong with Aleister as far as I understand anyway. Even if he thinks others are flawed or etc. he wants to change them by force. Though, he honestly seems to be much more well motivated as a villain compared to the majority of the rest of the cast lol.

Anyway, for what it's worth. Those are just my opinions, and that's a very short version of what I actually think, but I spent more than an hour and a half writing this up and don't want to post another big message like this again, so I'll respond to any replies to this, but will say right now that even if I do, they'll be short replies. I lack the energy or time right now to post long things anymore. I mean ... I'll be able to post long messages again in a few months or maybe even sooner than that, but for now I can't so this'll have to suffice y'all. I will say that the reasons why I like this series go much further than what I said above, but it's unfortunate, but I'm not skilled enough to exhaustively list them and clearly organize them without wasting 10 pages worth of writing, so for now I'll defer to future me to handle that challenge.

[Natsurin]

EDIT: Oh boy. Posts were made while I was writing. Sorry, Loremaster and dniv, I'll have to address your posts in a later one (since this is already pretty long and double-posting won't do) after I've read them.

@Lazy_Hunter

I haven't see a lot of people claiming this, though tbh I don't follow many Index forums besides this one. I see fans saying it's a great/enjoyable light novel and some saying they like this or that theme it explores or features. I see fans saying they don't like it because X plot point or Y character. I see some that think it's the best thing ever. I see some that think it's a pile of garbage.

Basically I see the same type of fans any light novel has. You're exaggerating an awful lot, and given the rest of your post, you're basically attacking a strawman for whatever reasons you might have.

I've said Index specifically, yes, but I never actually said anything about other light novels simply because firstly, I don't follow any other novel that has a large enough fanbase for it to be a problem, and secondly that that's not the same standard other people hold it to most of the time. It's a general rule that the more popularity a work has, the more rabid and aggressive fanboys or haters it'll attract and that showed during the SAO grand war, but I can't actually say anything about novels I'm not reading or people would then be trying to discredit my posts on my mindlessly hating things I don't even know much about in the first place.

As before, never seen someone here claim it's on the level of classic literature, you just seem pissed that people think it's a great light novel or that Kamachi is a good author for his genre. Which is a perfectly valid subjective opinion, no matter how much you disagree with it.

That's where you're starting to head into assumptions and dodging parts of my message to invalidate my points. There was actually a time there I thought Index was a pretty high-tier novel as well and for those specific volumes I still think that way (because apparently this subforum struggles with the notion of "grey areas" rather than full on black or white, I guess it's easier to flag people when you don't have to ponder the implications of what they're saying when they're saying they don't like something in this series). And while no one's openly saying it, some people are definitely acting the part and almost act offended on the handful of times their opinion of Kamachi's beautiful prose was contested and argued against by pointing out a flaw or anything that might compromise the idea that it's not a perfect work unless it's widely agreed by the entirety of the fanbase that it was a really shitty flaw (but it's so uncommon that I don't even have an example that would immediately pop to mind besides the useless baiting for marketing purposes of early NT volumes), and that's certainly not a behaviour I was the only one subjected to.

Since you're also conveniently foregoing this and the numerous times I mentioned not hating this series (but that's fine, that's basically to be expected at this point), as I mention later in my post, I don't care about whether or not they love it, what bothers me is how they express that love and you can't say this fandom hasn't been prone to the most absolutely nonsensical circlejerking and other absolutely retarded behaviour born of a suprematist mindset of "agree with our superior opinions, or fuck off from our precious subforum" that the mods had to repeatedly intervene and separate just to quell. Weird how Index isn't the only light novel series with such an admittedly difficult series structure and rabid fandom issues, but was the only one that was forced to be separated so much just to keep tidy and peaceful if the fanbase is, as you seem to think, not that bad compared to others...

If you love something, that's good for you and not my place to say anything about it as long as it floats your boat. But if you're constantly going to circlejerk (and, again, don't you dare tell me this very subforum has never been very heavily oriented towards circlejerking people who had unfavourable opinions when there was a time where barely mentioning some characters would get you flagged as a fag who had no credibility) because you like it and don't accept others don't like it, or are just generally shit at expressing your love for the series in a mature way where everyone can agree to disagree, then that's an entirely different problem.

Like I said far too many times now, I don't like where the series is going, but I've never encouraged anyone to do anything or attack anyone on the opposite stance. The most I've done is just defend my point because you guys seem to translate every non-"this is a great novel" to "I hate this and I'm just here to mention that" when, if any attention was paid, it would've gone noticed that I've mentioned repeatedly liking this series prior to where it went wrong in my opinion. Again, must be more difficult to process when trying to categorise people as "worthy or filthy infidels incapable of understanding the great truth" or some other bollocks.

What does the fact if the first novel being a one-off matter to the development the series got afterwards? It's a fantasy light novel, like you said, people read it because they like the plot, characters, etc; I don't see anyone claiming they read it because "it's deep". You really like this strawman.

Once again, not paying attention to my point to say it's personal grudge and forego entirely what I'm saying. What I said was that Index was not written with a message in mind to begin with, and its sole messages are the thematic ones that may be included in a volume, simply because it was never planned to even grow at the size where it could deliver a message.

Or go ahead, find an actual message that the series as a whole in Kamachi's mind wants to deliver to its audience, because chances are there aren't on the sole basis that there doesn't need to be for it to be able to entertain people.

I find hilarious that you say this (which is true), but then seemingly go again to thinking that your taste is objective in the next paragraph.

SPOILER ALERT: That's just your opinion, not a fact. It's not more valid than mine or than any other opinion about it. Just as some people don't like some of Kamachi's choices in the series, others like them.

I'll concede my next paragraph was rather poorly written and expressed, but once again it's not that exact mindset that bothers me (if a plot point truly surprises you, good for you, I'm not going to sell myself as someone who sees everything coming just to make others feel like idiots since even this series surprised me a few times whether in a good or bad way) but the expression that's as if Index is unique in that regard is what's annoyingly short-sighted. Most of the time, it's not, and the fanbase needs to seriously take a step back when it comes to literally praising everything Kamachi writes because... well, it's Kamachi, and clearly anyone else who doesn't agree is mistaken to his greatness as opposed to other works (that could very well be worthy of similar praise in different ways).

It doesn't, your strawman version of its fans does. It's not really that different from the fandom of any other manga/anime/LN.

I find it rather interesting you seem quite attached to this "strawman" term to discredit what I'm saying, not only rather poorly at that since you're not tackling the other half of my message which said there was no message to be read in Index which was a rather considerable part of my entire post, despite affirming yourself you had no experience with Index communities beyond this one and my repeatedly affirming I've had involvement with other Index communities as a whole, and not just restricted to English ones and mentioning two times at that that what I was saying didn't restrict itself to AnimeSuki alone.

[DragonXX]

Originally Posted by Natsurin

EDIT: Oh boy. Posts were made while I was writing. Sorry, Loremaster and dniv, I'll have to address your posts in a later one (since this is already pretty long and double-posting won't do) after I've read them.

@Lazy_Hunter



I've said Index specifically, yes, but I never actually said anything about other light novels simply because firstly, I don't follow any other novel that has a large enough fanbase for it to be a problem, and secondly that that's not the same standard other people hold it to most of the time. It's a general rule that the more popularity a work has, the more rabid and aggressive fanboys or haters it'll attract and that showed during the SAO grand war, but I can't actually say anything about novels I'm not reading or people would then be trying to discredit my posts on my mindlessly hating things I don't even know much about in the first place.



That's where you're starting to head into assumptions and dodging parts of my message to invalidate my points. There was actually a time there I thought Index was a pretty high-tier novel as well and for those specific volumes I still think that way (because apparently this subforum struggles with the notion of "grey areas" rather than full on black or white, I guess it's easier to flag people when you don't have to ponder the implications of what they're saying when they're saying they don't like something in this series). And while no one's openly saying it, some people are definitely acting the part and almost act offended on the handful of times their opinion of Kamachi's beautiful prose was contested and argued against by pointing out a flaw or anything that might compromise the idea that it's not a perfect work unless it's widely agreed by the entirety of the fanbase that it was a really shitty flaw (but it's so uncommon that I don't even have an example that would immediately pop to mind besides the useless baiting for marketing purposes of early NT volumes), and that's certainly not a behaviour I was the only one subjected to.

Since you're also conveniently foregoing this and the numerous times I mentioned not hating this series (but that's fine, that's basically to be expected at this point), as I mention later in my post, I don't care about whether or not they love it, what bothers me is how they express that love and you can't say this fandom hasn't been prone to the most absolutely nonsensical circlejerking and other absolutely retarded behaviour born of a suprematist mindset of "agree with our superior opinions, or fuck off from our precious subforum" that the mods had to repeatedly intervene and separate just to quell. Weird how Index isn't the only light novel series with such an admittedly difficult series structure and rabid fandom issues, but was the only one that was forced to be separated so much just to keep tidy and peaceful if the fanbase is, as you seem to think, not that bad compared to others...

If you love something, that's good for you and not my place to say anything about it as long as it floats your boat. But if you're constantly going to circlejerk (and, again, don't you dare tell me this very subforum has never been very heavily oriented towards circlejerking people who had unfavourable opinions when there was a time where barely mentioning some characters would get you flagged as a fag who had no credibility) because you like it and don't accept others don't like it, or are just generally shit at expressing your love for the series in a mature way where everyone can agree to disagree, then that's an entirely different problem.

Like I said far too many times now, I don't like where the series is going, but I've never encouraged anyone to do anything or attack anyone on the opposite stance. The most I've done is just defend my point because you guys seem to translate every non-"this is a great novel" to "I hate this and I'm just here to mention that" when, if any attention was paid, it would've gone noticed that I've mentioned repeatedly liking this series prior to where it went wrong in my opinion. Again, must be more difficult to process when trying to categorise people as "worthy or filthy infidels incapable of understanding the great truth" or some other bollocks.



Once again, not paying attention to my point to say it's personal grudge and forego entirely what I'm saying. What I said was that Index was not written with a message in mind to begin with, and its sole messages are the thematic ones that may be included in a volume, simply because it was never planned to even grow at the size where it could deliver a message.

Or go ahead, find an actual message that the series as a whole in Kamachi's mind wants to deliver to its audience, because chances are there aren't on the sole basis that there doesn't need to be for it to be able to entertain people.



I'll concede my next paragraph was rather poorly written and expressed, but once again it's not that exact mindset that bothers me (if a plot point truly surprises you, good for you, I'm not going to sell myself as someone who sees everything coming just to make others feel like idiots since even this series surprised me a few times whether in a good or bad way) but the expression that's as if Index is unique in that regard is what's annoyingly short-sighted. Most of the time, it's not, and the fanbase needs to seriously take a step back when it comes to literally praising everything Kamachi writes because... well, it's Kamachi, and clearly anyone else who doesn't agree is mistaken to his greatness as opposed to other works (that could very well be worthy of similar praise in different ways).



I find it rather interesting you seem quite attached to this "strawman" term to discredit what I'm saying, not only rather poorly at that since you're not tackling the other half of my message which said there was no message to be read in Index which was a rather considerable part of my entire post, despite affirming yourself you had no experience with Index communities beyond this one and my repeatedly affirming I've had involvement with other Index communities as a whole, and not just restricted to English ones and mentioning two times at that that what I was saying didn't restrict itself to AnimeSuki alone.

So you bet to 4chan Hell but here just a question what have you like in the series and what do you hate because reading about people different tastes is something I like because it make me see a bigger picture.

[BladeMancer]

A message? I guess there are some, but I like the fact that it doesn't have some sort of titular message. Messages are appreciated but do you need them to make a story entertaining and good? No
A story doesn't always have to convey a message, and this is one of those cases

[Kuroageha]

There is none imho, even if there was Kamachi has wrote so much that it's buried below those attempts of creativity of him.

[Seafoam]

I doubt there's a central one for the series. The messages are tied to specific characters and/or volumes across his various series as Marcus said. Not every volume has to or tries to convey a message, but some like NT4 do have one. It's just a neat thing to dig into his writing sometimes and see those things.

[linkjames24]

Originally Posted by Natsurin

This entirely mistaken basis that something needs to have justification to be appreciated and that, if you don't like it, you just don't get how much of a revolution its writing truly is, seems to be plaguing this series' fandom specifically.

Spoiler alert: It doesn't.

Jesus, Mr. Killjoy. Do you enjoy ruining it for everyone? Let people have their fun without looking like a jerk about it. Did people claim it was the hallmark of literature or shit like that? I didn't see any so forgive my weakened sense of sight. But hey, we're just interpreting a story here. No need to be an asshole.

[OH&S]

EDIT: In order to prevent my post from being deleted I guess I'll just say this: There's no reason why you can't accept the faults of this series and still enjoy it nonetheless. I've made piece with the fact that Index isn't a critically praised masterpiece and just another sandbox for Kamachi to go crazy quite a while ago. Sometimes along the way he stumbles (NT14 and NT17 come to mind) sometimes he has resounding successes (NT6, NT8-11,NT18). It won't stop it from being my favourite LN series.

It isn't quite right to look a for a deep answer as to what Kamachi wants to communicate as it changes with each volume, story arc, saga and series. There's definitely some recurring themes that he uses but I'm pretty sure they aren't especially complex or its something that other series do a lot better. Not that its something to get hungover about.

[itine]

What is the message that Kazuma Kamachi wants to communicate?
^
Come on guys "IF" Kamachi want to communicate He already make (verified) Twitter account
but I so (+) sure, He lurking his fandom probably Anonymous 2ch or 4chan
(some of his mangaka told me this stories).

Spoiler for Drill-chan mangaka:

He very busy in writing He never had time for some social media things and leave public-relationship to his Editor.