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To Aru Kagaku no Railgun | A Certain Scientific Railgun [Series]
erious:
I finally started rewatching the series with the intention to finish it this time - just got past where I left off the first time around, that is finished episode 14.
When I was rewatching the series I knew what to expect, so I probably liked it even more then first time around. But after watching episode 14 it hit me with a renewed strength:
HOLY SHIT IS THIS ANIME STUPID. JUST. RIDICULOUSLY. FUCKING. DUMB.
First, using Level Upper being in any way whatsoever "bad" or "cheating", especially for the people who didn't have abilities prior to using it. Say what? First we're told that for some no matter how hard you try your abilities won't grow past your limit(Saten and the glasses guy being examples). Then there shows up a solution to that, and instead of portraying it as bad because, you know, using untested shit that messes up your body/brain is kinda silly, they portray it as bad because it's cheating? It was never shown as omnipotent, so it's not like it removes the need to put in effort anyway, but is actually a miraculous thing for those that hit their limit(and a shortcut for the rest). If it didn't have negative effects, every single person in the city could use it thus rendering the "cheating" part inapplicable. But the only actual bad thing is never addressed, instead we have government using it to basically guilt trip a bunch of teenagers with self-worth problems into even deeper inadequacy. Now they're told that not only are they worse then higher-level folks, but also that the weakness it's their fault, because they didn't try hard enough, and should feel bad for trying a different way to overcome it. Adherence to the norm is everything, eh, Japan?
But wait! Despite what we've been told before, suddenly it turns out that you can overcome your limits if you try hard enough! Weren't they supposed to be, you know, actual, not self imposed limits? Well, seems like writers decided to ignore that.
And what's the best way to overcome your limits? Why pushing yourself too hard of course! How delightfully Japanese again. Because running until you can't anymore is going to make everyone realize their hidden potential, and not just puke their guts out, or have a stroke. Guess what? The chubby kid isn't going to suddenly be able to run much more then his more fit peers just because he has more willpower. I'd know, I was the chubby kid back in middle school. Most of the teenagers I knew wouldn't take those lessons as anything else that punishment, and turn away from authority figures even further. And some of pupils there already had issues with authorities/society in general that get conveniently ignored.
But it gets even better - so what's used by the teacher to show the pupils that overcoming limits is possible? Why, the memories of their abilities on Level upper of course! Because those were their abilities, not stolen from someone else, or anything like that... Oh wait.
I could keep going, this is a long enough rant already. I know that this post is completely useless(especially before I finished the series), but I had to get it off my chest. Just ignore my ramblings.
Disclaimer: I still think Railgun is a really, really good anime.
Havoc10K:
youre forgetting why there are just a few lvl 5 espers, and how they attained that level, misaka said it herself, she worked her ass off so hard she didn't even belive it, everyone is stumped at lvl 4 because it already is a great effort, lets say you need some eperience points to reach each level:
0>1 -5000xp
1>2 -20000xp
2>3 -80000xp
3>4 -200000xp
4>5 -1Mil xp
this is just an example of how hard it is to achieve, it's not just that you train to gain experience, generally you need much harder training to get the higher level, and not everyone can put up with that, some ppl don't reach lvl 1 because they don't have enough resolve to do that, and using the level upper is indeed cheating because you are getting a hard earned rewards for doing nothing.
it's like you get payed for work you are not doing at all, while other work hard to earn money.
thats why it's reffered to as cheating.
IKillKittens:
The level 5's didn't work for it, they just paid someone in china to log into their account to gold farm and grind lvls for them, its those kids at those sweatshops who're the true level 5's, maybe some of them are even level 6's
Havoc10K:
--- Quote from: IKillKittens on April 19, 2010, 06:32:16 AM ---The level 5's didn't work for it, they just paid someone in china to log into their account to gold farm and grind lvls for them, its those kids at those sweatshops who're the true level 5's, maybe some of them are even level 6's
--- End quote ---
should have known someone will do that, well l don't like gold spammers so lets get back on topic,
reaching lvl 4 is kinda very hard it seems so getting a lvl 5 is like WTF hard.
erious:
--- Quote from: Havoc10K on April 19, 2010, 06:10:09 AM ---youre forgetting why there are just a few lvl 5 espers, and how they attained that level, misaka said it herself, she worked her ass off so hard she didn't even belive it, everyone is stumped at lvl 4 because it already is a great effort, lets say you need some eperience points to reach each level:
0>1 -5000xp
1>2 -20000xp
2>3 -80000xp
3>4 -200000xp
4>5 -1Mil xp
this is just an example of how hard it is to achieve, it's not just that you train to gain experience, generally you need much harder training to get the higher level, and not everyone can put up with that, some ppl don't reach lvl 1 because they don't have enough resolve to do that, and using the level upper is indeed cheating because you are getting a hard earned rewards for doing nothing.
it's like you get payed for work you are not doing at all, while other work hard to earn money.
thats why it's reffered to as cheating.
--- End quote ---
You're wrong. It's stated few times, no matter how hard you try a level zero can't gain abilities(or at least it's really REALLY fucking hard to the point that it's useless to even try), and no matter how hard you try you can't overcome the barrier that is talent.
If you were to use your xp analogy, it would mean some people need 1 000 000 to get to level 5, while others would need as much to just get past level 0, and it would be increasingly more difficult to get better.
The show suddenly presents ridiculously broken message that seems to suggest if everyone just tries their hardest they can reach the same results, and only reason the suck is because they don't try hard enough. Which is blatantly false not only in real life context, but also in the context of the Railgun's universe presented so far. Some people are disadvantaged from the start, and everybody isn't naturally equal.
You could compare using level upper for those who can't get past certain point no matter how hard they try to modern swimming. Some people are using full-body swimsuits to gain advantage trough better body shape, while some people(say, Phelps) are born with it.
And as I said, only message that should be presented(it's retarded to use something for your advantage that can be potentially dangerous) is completely ignored in the show.
Anyway, I doubt I'm going to convince you, and frankly, I don't really care - if you think that the only way that you can be at disavantage is because you don't try hard enough, then good for you. I'm certainly jealous of this optimistic outlook on life.
---
Anyway, just finished episode 17, and it made me "what." again. So Tessou is working a job that she doesn't enjoy, that she's not suited to(don't mind getting kidnapped, when she fired a gun loaded with live ammunition with her eyes closed in 12 it became pretty obvious that she shouldn't be an Anti-Skill for her and others safety), that's physically too hard for her, and that she doesn't even have to do(unless teachers get salaries bad enough to be unable to support themselves) but it's okay because she can help people. Sort of. From time to time. When she's not endangering or inconveniencing them or herself in a myriad of ways.
Umm, ok.
Not to mention Academy City becoming more and more horrible place to live in with every passing episode. Ubiquitous surveillance(that doesn't seem to work at all against a myriad of street thugs who keep harassing people in every other episode, pretty realistic if you think about it), human experiments, corrupted government, using child labor, walled districts for the chosen people coexisting with slums that get raided by Anti-Skills as an effort to look like they're not completely incapable(Because that's what it was. They didn't raid Skill-Outs or Big Spider, they raided whole fucking district, rounding up people on the streets - and Misaka and Kuroko couldn't find any skill outs on the streets earlier anyway), a city wide curfew for teenagers... Damn.
I thought it was supposed to be located in Japan, not the UK.
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