Toaru Kagaku no Railgun Episode 9 Discussion

toragon said:
Lever upper is a song? lol
But who needs that. Touma is level 0 and still strong xD

Crimsonwill said:
what would happen if Misaka used it though? Hmm ...

Oosran said:

Why am I kinda agreeing with you? I find it rather strange that I'd have liked it more if Saten was the protagonist : /

francismeunier said:
Obviously she lied there tsubasalover.....

Alexstratz said:
I like Kuroko's tactics. If you can't kill an annoying fly with a swatter, drop a damn nuclear bomb on it! I would've just teleported th building into the skies, let it drop and see if I still miss that other dude. :]

Monad said:

The fight was awesome but i will like to see Biribiri in a good fight like that and not those 1 minute fights she had until now.

HawthorneKitty said:
So do level 0 people have the tiniest bit of psychic power at least/ individuals are already set with a power but level 0 nullifies all traces of it, or is the Level Upper just some miracle worker that can make something out of nothing...

Spoilers for Touma I believe

Xerain said:
OK some points after reading all the discussion....

Trick Art vs Dummy Check
Dummy check does not affect light or the world aroudn it at all. A person using dummy check would still be caught on security cameras. Dummy Check instead is more of a psychic power that causes people to just not know they are seeing you, even though technically they are.

Trick art is straight out of DnD where it is called displacement, eg. cloak of displacement or the ability of Displacer Beasts (are those still as common as they were in 2nd edition?) Basically he warps light so that it appears he is standing a couple feet to the left or right of where he really is. (It could also be forwards or backwards, etc.) if you were to film it on camera... the camera would not show his real location, the camera would still see what another person would see, since he s actually changing light.

Shirai vs Trick Art Battle
It was OK, but there were some important details bout Shirai's character that the manga emphasized, therefore she did not receive the level of character development she could have. Shirai is level 4, and quite powerful, but she does have a weakness. She loses her cool and is unable to use her ability because of it. This seems to happen to her more easily than it would some other people. The fight could have been more intense if they'd showed the part where her teleportation fails to work. However, realizing she is stressed and unable to use her ability is exactly what gives her the idea to scare the crap out of the Trick Art guy so that he won't be able to use his ability either. (And thus she regains her composure.)

Touma the Level 0
Touma being level 0 was mention a couple times in discussion. It seems to be suggested that Touma is not really level 0, so much as the very nature of his ability makes it unmeasurable. Therefore tests read his ability as being level 0, when in reality it is not. His level probably better described as indeterminable. Of course he doesn't know this. (It's also possible his power is fundamentally different from both abilities and magic, as it seems able to affect both equally well. If that's the case he technically would still be Level 0.)

Saten's desire for power
I particularly liked the scene where Misaka tells Saten powers are unimportant. You can see Saten visibly getting angry hearing that. It's important because it shows Misaka doesn't actually understand Saten, and that her desire to have an ability is not simply one of wanting to be socially accepted. While she might be good enough for her friends as is, she is not good enough for herself. She wants more than anything to be able to save people, to be a hero. You could say she is stuck having an ambition that is impossible for her to attain, whereas nearly everyone else (level 0s are rare) is born with some level of ability and use and misuse it freely. Yet someone like her who wants an ability to help other people with is powerless.
If anything Saten is a prime candidate for joining Anti-Skill. I'm surprised no one has mentioned this to her, but then again, it seems they don't quite understand her.

Level 0 Saten and Her Mother's Charm
There's a lot of subtlety here that I think a lot of viewers might have missed. The stress is on Saten saying how unscientific the charm is. That is to say, the charm might actually be magical. We know form the main To Aru anime that Level 0's are not common, and according to the prevailing theories, level 0s should not exist. We also know Level 0s have the potential to use magic. Therefore it suggests that Saten's mother has some magical ability, and that Saten inherited it, which is why she is level 0. Of course, Saten probably knows nothing about magic, being raised on the science side. However, she probably does have the potential to become a good mage, provided magic wasn't such a taboo.

Speculation on my part is that her mother secretly practices magic and wanted to pass it onto her. Since trying to practice both magic and special abilities has the potential to kill you, if Saten were to actually gain an ability she would lose the potential to learn magic.

Potential for Good Irony
So all in all, Saten could possibly be a better-than-average mage, assuming her family has some innate affinity for it as I've speculated. Therefore it is Ironic that she wants to use the level upper to gain at most a weak ability, and in the process would forever close the door to an ability she already has, but doesn't know about (and is taboo.)

Nyanta said:
They took out the Touma part! Touuuuuma!!!!!!!

Xerain said:

Touma the Level 0
Touma being level 0 was mention a couple times in discussion. It seems to be suggested that Touma is not really level 0, so much as the very nature of his ability makes it unmeasurable. Therefore tests read his ability as being level 0, when in reality it is not. His level probably better described as indeterminable. Of course he doesn't know this. (It's also possible his power is fundamentally different from both abilities and magic, as it seems able to affect both equally well. If that's the case he technically would still be Level 0.)

maxime1007 said:

Touma is a level 0 and I would like to also state that the level someone has is not necessary linked with their fighting power but rather with the control they have over they ability. Let's say someone has the ability to scan people, even if he has a level 4 control of it it would be pretty much useless in battle wouldn't it? A level 2 who has offensive ability could win over it. Given this exemple I don't know why you say that Touma is over level 0 when he is a level 0. The level scale work with psychic power, that means power activated with the brain, unlike magic who is a power activated through a ceremony. There is no ranking for mages and we don't know yet if Imagine breaker is actually a magic (since any no-esper can learn magic) or if it is something else. It's technically impossible for a human to use esper power and magic but maybe Imagine breaker is actually a perfect balance of the two.

Oosran said:

Actually I shouldn't question what maxime says.. He's our guru after all..

Oosran said:

Or imagine this: Magic is a positive power, and esper powers are negative (or the other way around if you want), and the Imagine Breaker, assuming it's some kind of combination, combines +1 and -1, making it 0, giving him no special powers of either kind, but instead his hand can nullify both of them.

maxime1007 said:

Well let's not take number into account but if we assume that one power is the total opposite of the other I guess that it make sense that one can negate the other giving the same force is sent.
Trough this line of thinking we can suppose that Imagine breaker is the ability to counter a force with it's perfect opposite tough it's only one assumption against many other who also are possible.

Oosran said:
Well I found it easier to explain by using +1 and -1, that's pretty much the only reason : p

Proselyt said:
Those people who think they can solve anything with mathematics...
Why don't start talking about spin quantum numbers and use +1/2 and -1/2... A combination would be net zero without being really 0. Doesn't help?
Ok then let's continue with +1 and -1 and as it has been indicated that a reverse ability to Imagine Breaker may exist we put Touma on a second axis we label i and now we can start to calculate with complex numbers.
You're right numbers make it really easier to explain.

gloryfy said:
how did she get lvl-upper?
Did i missed something in the previous episode?

Oosran said:

Well I found it easier to explain by using +1 and -1, that's pretty much the only reason : p
Also, your improvement on this theory makes it even easier to understand, and it sounds even more feasible : p

But considering that we don't really have any more information on this (or do we?) I'd say we can't really continue the discussion regarding what the Imagine Breaker really is : P

ukonkivi said:
What an idiot for him not to have realized she was going to collapse the building in the first place.

Moonfrost said:
Okay so Kuroko was awesome in this episode. I have no idea how the glass cut the pillars into half though. Must be because the building is old or something.