The "HOLY SHIT" factor went through the roof here.
They did a really good job in redeeming Kiyama. Granted, it wasn't too hard since in the worst case people were left unconscious, and she has even developed a way for them to turn back to normal. I would believe she waited to for the completion of such a reversal program before she went out distributing Level Upper to the population given how she wanted nobody to be physically hurt. Those heavy eyes turned out to be something manifested from her guilty consciousness, and probably enhanced by tireless research since then.
With things progressing as they are, I highly doubt she'd get to perform her intended simulation of what went wrong, but if those last few seconds are any indication, Kiyama may well have reproduced this out-of-control-AIM field phenomenon.
If fact, if the data gathered during this incident revived those children but left Kiyama in a vegetative state, you really can't say she did any wrong anymore when they cry all over her unmoving body.
I would have said the chances of Touma getting involved in taking down an AIM monster is good, but if canon is to be maintained, then I do think his first encounter with one would be in Index S1.
edit: I teared up the second time I watched that. The soundtrack @19:23 was greatly effective.
Last edited by Buffalobiian; Fri, 12-11-2009 at 11:52 PM.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Kiyama's past was very well done. Even though the childre were 'new characters' it did tore at you to see them used and discarded like that.
Just how many corrupt scientists this academy city has anyways?
Truth is Kiyama is probably still toyed with, regarding her levelupper experiments and goal, as she stated, the antiskill was really too fast cornering her at that point.
She's been toyed with in the past, and the developments coming now also are in the same category.
It's not the first time we get an AIM field singular entity, as Buff said.
It's just that that one doesn't seem to be as friendly as the one we've seen in Index.
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
He wouldn't remember it later even if he got involved with this one as well. However, I still maintain my opinion/prediction we won't see Touma around when significant matters happen in this series. Although I do hope we will see him again soon otherwise. It has been too long since the last Mikoto tsundere moment. She even clearly missed him in this episode, mentioning him before electrocuting Kiyama.Originally Posted by Buffalobiian
Touma should be busy with the first events of Index (or at least close to it) by my estimations. There is a disconnect between the two series as it should be summer vacation now if that were the case.
Again, concerning the timescales, this would actually be the first AIM field singularity entity we see. The other doesn't break through the veil until Mikoto meets Index.
I'm still hoping to see Uiharu save the day with her mystery ability!
One thing that Kiyama brought up before Mikoto performed a Electrocuter Mind Meld. Is the ability development they go through everyday really any safer and humane than what Kiyama did to Saten and the others with Level Upper? How much does Mikoto (or any of the students) really know about what is happening to them?
We don't really get to see many Espers outside the city, nor do we really see that many adults with powers. We see elementary school kids up through college age, and then very few adults. The only one over 25 I can think of is the frog face doctor. The majority of other adults in the two series do not have powers. If you wanted to claim that is just because the recent explosion of getting students to recognize their potential, you might have a valid argument, if the doctor didn't exist as a counterexample. His ability is useful enough to at least try to replicate it. He's like the hero of a medical manga and then some.
We still don't really know the long term effects of ability use. One thing we did learn from Index is that any Esper becomes unable to use magic. That means there must be some fundamental disconnect from the natural forces of the world when one becomes an Esper. Compared to Espers, magic has existed for centuries or more and is well tested. It might be just as corrupt and abused by authority like with what they do to Index, but I do find it strange that only "normal" humans can use it.
I think Kiyama brought up a very good point, but by going into her specific personal tragedy, they might glance over the larger ramifications about how little the audience and the students truly know about side effects of esper abilities.
The reason AntiSkill acted so fast was because Kuroko and the others discovered that the underlying protocol brainwave matched Kiyama's, and deduced it was her. This was the "alternate" route Kiyama talked about. She was saying that Anti-Skill moved too fast to have deduced that she was the culprit from the kidnapping of Uiharu alone.
Ah, good point Kraco. I keep forgetting Touma had a memory loss since it seemed to matter so little in daily life due to his acting. Ryll's point about Mikoto having met Index was also well noted.
If I was to use my previous hypothesis that magic was the ability to create and manipulate AIM fields temporarily, then the reason Espers can't use magic may be because the AIM field created from magic interfers with the one being emitted from their esper ability. Science called it An Involuntary Movement, so by definition they can't control it (as far as espers are concerned).
As to why they can still perform it and suffer bodily damage rather than simply be unable to use it, I don't know. Perhaps somehow disturbing your AIM field in order to use another ability(magic) has disastrous effect on your body. After all, out-of-control AIM fields do.
As for magic having a much longer history, it may be that they've had a more prominent history. I dare say that espers preceded magic. Due to random chance or other factors, people were born with superhuman abilities. Magic was the route which normal people sought to replicate these powers despite not being born with them. It so happens that magic could be taught and passed down, while only recently could science allow esper abilites to be induced in normal people, at least relatively safely/successfully and on such a large scale.
When I rewatched I noticed the monitors with stats going haywire were in fact brainwaves, and hence the flat wave indicating a loss of consciousness. Those graphs would have been easily and commonly interpreted as electrocardiograms, making it all feel as if they are really dead.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Apologies for the incoming wall of text. I may also have an inconsistency here or there. No level of proofreading could catch them all, feel free to correct any you find.
While the monitors were EEGs instead of EKGs, there was an awful large quantity of blood on the one station of the girl Kiyama was the closest to. The techs also mentioned blood transfusions. Now that you bring it up, perhaps the effect induced on the orphans was very similar to the one when an Esper uses magic.
I think you might be right about the the formula of magic. Skimming the first three episodes of Index, Stiyl needed runes all over the place to summon his flame monster. Similarly, Loli-sensei was nearly swallowed a few times when she was invoking the ritual to save Index. In the latter case, every time she started to lose focus, the world distorted in a way that Index's programs called "dangerous" for Loli-sensei. So perhaps a magician invokes a random, out of control AIM field and then warps it to their will in a form that is familiar to them. An Esper on the other hand starts from the reverse. They start with a controlled form of reality manipulation, and slight imperfections in their control generate AIM fields. If those coalesce, we get AIM field singularities.
In Kiyama's case, she was unfamiliar with the unique distortions of all the abilities she absorbed. This caused a great deal of stress on her mind (which was bolstered by the fact that she was the node for the Level Upper). This appeared physically when all the capillaries in her one eye burst. Later when Mikoto did enough damage to her, she lost control over the disparate abilities, and the number of imperfections created expanded rapidly, already centrally located. They then immediately formed a AIM field singularity entity.
During the experiment, perhaps they forced through science an out of control AIM field on the children in the same way that a magician invokes their out of control field through belief, reproducing the same effect of an Esper trying to use magic. However, a magician has a number of safeguards in place, which may even include their "magic name."
Suppose that a magician creates the field, and if it fails to be controlled properly, they are killed in the backlash. Strict training allows them to avoid this, but in an event like Touma destroying runes, the field was controlled already and merely dissipates when the laws binding the field are destroyed.
This would fit with Index's own ability of Spell Intercept. She can't interfere with a self-contained, bound AIM field, like a summoned magical construct in automaton mode, but she is able to inject her own variations of the remotely bound AIM field, like signal noise in a broadcast. This may be due to the runic binding not being completely self-contained, as the magician is altering the invoked AIM field from a distance, so the ritual would not be considered "completed."
An Esper wouldn't be able to bind this kind of field properly because even if they have the proper training, the AIM flows toward the nearest source, an Esper's body. They generate AIMs on their own, so an invoked one might be bound, but it may still go toward the path of least resistance instead of dissipating completely. Magicians in essence pull an AIM out of the ether, so it goes back to it when it is done, their physical bodies are not receptive to the reality altering quantum physics that Espers are.
In a way, an Esper may be like a permanently invoked and bound incantation. The AIM fields they generate are gaps in the binding. As such, when they attempt to use magic, it creates a level of interference and produces a backlash similar to the one when a magician fails to bind an AIM field. In most cases, they don't get swallowed into it because their own distortion of reality manages to eventually wrest control, at the cost of the extra energy ravaging their body. If the spell was large enough, it destroys their body when they fail to control it. An Esper's ability is largely unconscious calculations being done a million times a second, so characters like Acclerator can do truly amazing things. Perhaps someone like him could wrest control over magically invoked fields with less damage to his own body.
If this theory is correct, then it would also fit in with Touma's ability. He can cancel both magic and esper abilities because he simply negates AIM fields entirely. Espers generate them as a byproduct of their internal, self-contained reality modification, and magicians attempt to gather them and warp them to their will.
I hope Touma doesn't show up. This is a multi skill monster, not only does it probably have the same regenerative properties displayed by the AIM girl from Index it also has the abilities of hundreds of espers which should make for on hell of a fight; but the thing is that one touch from Touma and all that badassery goes down the drain and that would be highly anticlimactic in my opinion
It took more than one attempt, but it sunk in. I 100% agree with your theory Ryll. Looks like you and I are on the same page.
The only things I can think of now is whether Touma absorbs these AIM fields, or if he creates some random AIM find of his own that scrambles others, or automatically turns into an anti-AIM field or sorts.
There's also the issue of him self-negating his luck, which doesn't look to be something AIM specific.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Wow... she really looked like a mage by using all these different esper powers
that was some awesome action right there
Badass comes to mind when describing this episode
Well, next we have the mandatory swimsuit fanservice episode, so Touma better show up this time !!
The animation was superb this episode. Easily the best one so far.
I'm not sure if it emotionally topped the previous episode, but I certainly enjoyed this to approximately the same degree.
I really didn't think it was all that great until the song kicked in though, but that was the same for last episode (but replace song with the flashback).
This episode included the same style of dramatic railgun firing (amongst other overpowered, but totally cool moves) in the OP that we've been so eager to see a real fight scene about.
If it wasn't for the preview and the introduction of the nuclear antagonist, I would have sattled for this being a nice finale, slow ED insert and all.
I find it a little bit hard to believe myself (or maybe not), but Kuroko's actions were no less, if not even more entertaining for me.
Running teleport hug, taking advantage of Misaka's fatigue...she's the gem of this show really. Her scenes would be the ones I'd miss when the focus shifts to other characters in Index S2.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
<3 Kuroko, it's too bad she couldn't have a bigger role in the final battle since this is supposed to be all about Misaka and what not. While I blame pretty much all the collateral damage on Misaka I have to give her props for handling the mess she helped to grow out of control. I kind of wish she'd get in trouble for being a vigilante at least since she tends to cause a lot of property damage for a civilian.
Anyway, swimsuit episode ho!!!!
I doubt they really care about property damage since it's a city dedicated for the creation of high level espers. If it means a little property damage, then so be it. Worth the price.
The next ep better have Touma! It has been forever since he was last time seen. But then again, now that they don't need to save the city anymore (for now), Touma can very well appear again as there's no heroic moments to steal from the actual main character.
By the way, the stripper lady never did tell us what the higher ups are planning on using their esper army for
She certainly does not know.
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
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