Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1430834-20150716032845/@comment-25431873-20150716122613

The problem with chapter 1 was as you said, the comedy in the protagonist-antagonist interactions. We already knew from reading the illustration of High Priest (that doesn't really count as a spoiler, does it?) that he wanted Touma to "join" them (sort of), so Parts 7-6-8 could be likened to Touma's talk with Thor in NT5, meaning, as it is not really a confrontation, there can be some comedy inserted into it.

But I still didn't like it, precisely because we know High Priest is not a nice guy: that scene where Touma truly confronts another Magic God after Othinus should have been filled with tension, instead of that, my immersion got broken by HP (shortening High Priest from now on) joking around and talking about Observer (whether it was truly a joke or an actual foreshadowing, it had no place whatsoever there, and only served as an unecessary distration). Comedy is hit-or-miss, especially Japanese humour centered around the "straight and funny men" routine, and for me, it was miss.

Fortunately, Part 8 truly redeemed the chapter for me. That's what I wanted: good exposition, tension as we get to know the antagonists' motivation, and the clash against Touma's ideals, plus callbacks to his development up until now. HP destroying half the school was also a great scene.

I'm waiting for the volume to be completed before making my opinion on the whole Magic Gods Arc, because for now, the spoilers don't seem all too good, but if it is written in a justifiable way, I may allow it.

People are entitled to their opinions, but some things I want to comment on:

kamachi went to full-fantasy in NT9 which i didnt really like, but it was ok...to some extend, i simply ignore the fact that touma comes out unscratched from billions of years of torture, a work of fiction afterall ^_^

I'm still baffled that some people still can't accept the premise of NT9 when there are already multiple works of fiction (and good ones at that) which use the same premise. For me, it is not so much a fault of Kamachi rather than the people disliking such things as loops to begin with, so I don't think of ("full fantasy")/it as actual criticism of the volume.

NT11 had the flashback-centered together with the new (never seen before/showing up from nowhere) enemy, some interesting powers (while i still cant think how "brain-fluid-control" allows someone to read minds) which made it enjoyable, but it felt forced that the enemy was centered around touma again, normally they have a problem with a char and touma forced himself into thir business without being really involved into this, i know NT went a different route but sinnce NT9 all adventures had been strangely centered around the MC :(

I don't understand this either. We knew Misaki's past was tied to her encounter with Touma, of course he would have a large presence in her arc. You can complain about him showing up at the very end and not Misaki resolving her problems, but the narrative was self consistent with previous build-up.

Also, New Testament has always been centered around the character development of Touma, ever since NT3, which focused on his heroism and consequences of it. I cannot fanthom why you have no interest in it, in Old Testament, major character development was tied to characters Touma clashed with and encountered like Mikoto, Shiage, and Accelerator (which was the biggest and most in-depth character development of the first series). By contrast, he was static, almost never deviating from his character or changing (at least until the WWIII Arc, though Volume 14 was also good in this regard), to the point detractors called him blank. Here, his actions are questionned, his methods dissected and deconstructed, his own character was laid bare in NT9. Now begin the reconstruction.

I have no problem with people not liking how it is handled, like Herald does. You can disagree with how it's done, but not liking that the series is centered around its protagonist? That I just find supremely idiotic.

If you don't like that Touma is the main character of the series, well too bad for you.

'''the new char who can one-shot majins is also feels like a fanfiction char written by fans... maybe kamachi tried to hard to center everything in the story around the MC ^_^'''

Without the volume being completed, making an opinion on a character revealed by early spoilers without reading the thing themselves and see if the actual narrative make sense is an ill-advised jump to conclusions. It's like knowing of the twist ending of Sixth Sense, and deciding it doesn't make sense without watching the movie.

Signing off for now.