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| Because the full picture would have made you cry! |
Yep, reaction. Not spotlight.
See, if it were a Spotlight I’d have to ease you into it, by
giving you background and all that useless stuff. Reaction is, as the name
implies, just my reaction.
You can say this post is not friendly to people not already
familiar with the material.
Now, as we all know ever since Index entered New Testament,
things haven’t been going all that well for Touma. Guy has been accumulating a
bit too many loses and the bad guys have been achieving their goals… ah, screw
it! This volume was awesome.
The entire volume is Touma vs Othinus.
Not a full on brawl, but rather a battle of wills (of course
there is a brawl too). This was not the standard Index volume. This was Man vs
God, and Kamachi came up with one hell of a way to portray it!
Othinus putting Touma through an endless number of alternate
worlds to make him suffer showed just how beyond him she was. Touma going
through all that without breaking showed his immense strength of will.
As far as ways of portraying fights where the protagonist is
vastly weaker than his foe yet perseveres go this was kind of perfect.
Othinus could have killed Touma at any time, but she needs
him. She needs the Image Breaker. She wants Touma to break. The only thing left
for Touma to do is not give up. The only thing he can do is not defeat her but
convince her to change his mind.
A human praying to a god. Figures that Touma’s way of
praying would involve punching.
Now all this is not to say the fight wasn’t epic, because it
was. Seriously, Touma’s devotion to speech making is something else. Deliver
few words. Go through endless hell. Continue speech where he left it.
That’s kind of amazing.
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| Create vs Break |
More than that, Touma’s character really developed here.
Touma’s a reactive guy most of the time. He runs into trouble and he fixes it.
He likes to help people. Here the person who needed help was himself. Othinus
cruelly uses his own character against him by showing him a world where
everyone is happy.
That’s a kick in the balls. Just think about it. Usually
when the guy goes “I wish I had never been born” he gets shown a crap world,
because he’s not there. Here we have “Yep, I fixed everything better than you
did. Have fun being irrelevant and die.”
I mean damn.
This is why Touma’s decision to finally fight for his own
happiness is so important. He’s not a perfect guy, you know? Being
self-sacrificing for everyone’s happiness is fine and all, but in the words of
Yamada Raizo “what’s the use of Everyone if you are not part of that everyone”?
Thunder should have been a poet but I digress.
Touma has taken a step. I’m not sure if it is forward or
sideways, but it’s a step all the same. He raised his fist for his own sake and
his own happiness.
Should be interesting to see how that trait shows in later
volumes, especially given his decision at the end of the volume.
I am immensely hopeful for the sequel. It was not something
I expected, but I am not complaining.
For the smile of a girl you should hate, fight against the
World!
Touma/Othinus FTW!!!
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