Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1430834-20150716032845/@comment-25431873-20150723194509

(recopied from AnimeSuki)

Whoa, man, the last segments of the volume were intense. As said by others, it really redeemed the volume for me. I foremost wanted to read it for Mikoto (And I was well served. She really was the spotlight this volume. Even if it didn't exactly ended well for her, it ended with her getting some new introspection and having some soul searching to do.), and up until now, the plot, while not boring, wasn't remarkable or that interesting. A chase scene is hard to make interesting in any medium other than films or TV, especially if the chase takes place most of the novel. But then, the last chapter took me by surprise by suddenly upping the quality, in terms of drama (the HP/Touma dialogue about Mikoto) and action (the launch into space, Touma's arm, and Noukan Interrupt).

The Epilogue was even better, though I am still on the fence whether Kamisato's introduction was a good thing for the plot or not (so far, I'm inclined to say no). At the very least, the last confrontation revealed, in one fell swoop, the powers of Niangniang, the origins of Nephthys (which I kinda suspected when the narration talked about the goddess' ambiguous origins at the beginning of NT12), the names of other Magic Gods, and Laura being a magnificient bastard (and no, nothing indicates in the text that she herself isn't human, guys). That's the exposition I need

High Priest as an antagonist didn't have an interesting power (I would have wanted more Buddhist magic, you know?), but he made up for that with interesting motivations, backstory, and his presence (so much ham when he was riding the meteorite).

Disappointed in the Noukan's intervention, and his Anti-Art Suit still not getting a clear explanation besides "connected to Aleister". The phallic compensation joke was really funny though. Also disappointed in Fiamma having been one shot for basically no reason, and Othinus and Index not having been involved, no matter what Touma may have said: when you have countermeasures, you go fucking use them.

Not sure what rating I will give this volume, but it at least went up from the 5/10 I mentally rated it before today. it is not like i dont like that kamachi centesr the story around the MC but how kamachi does it, it feels forced, the NT11 stuff and tha the rapid and sudden interest of the majins in toumas IB, no matter how kamachi tries to make it justified with "IB is some kind of tool to part the world equally between the majins"... it is as if he simply added them with no purpose at all, after the chars go back to status quo there will be another freeloader(or two... depends on how many female majins there are XD) and than this "IB's purpose" will be changed later with another villians use of it,

Well, IB has always be deemed important, so I didn't feel like the Gods' interest in Touma was surprising or unwarranted. And I think you misunderstood the novel, it isn't so much IB they were interested in but Kamijou Touma himself; the definition of IB as a reference point (which has been said since NT5) hasn't changed at all, it was how Touma wielded it that determined that he served as the best judge for the Gods' differents. Unless, of course, you mean the introduction of True Gremlin itself, which I agree was out of left field. Yes, there was nothing that forbid that many Magic Gods existed besides Othinus, but their sudden appearance as villains at the end of NT10 was...kinda jarring. Ollerus' story made it as if becoming a Magic God was a super rare chance that could happen to only one person (especially since Othinus stole the title from him, it somewhat implied the title wasn't available for anyone else anymore), but then not only we discover more, they were also not hindered by the 50/50 restrictions that plagued Othinus before she acquired Gungnir, and they were more powerful than her at full power. All the things we used to define "Majin" were apparently worthless from the beginning. Gremlin was a frustrating Diabolus Ex Machina.