Essarr LoreBook

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====== Toaru Project ======
{{ :lb:img:toaru.png }}
The とある(Toaru) Project is a fairly large franchise spanning [[lb:Light Novels]], [[lb:Manga]], [[lb:Anime]], [[lb:Games]] and more.\\
The main appeals are the fantastic worldbuilding and storyline; showing off the struggle between [[#Science]] and [[#Magic]].\\
This is one of my personal favorites.
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Related:\\
[[lb:toaru:what.if.academy.city.existed]]
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===== Reviews =====
This was initially a small note regarding the entire series, but I eventually added way more. I'll fix it up at some point. For now, it's okay like this.\\
It becomes clear fairly quickly that the science side of this universe is far //far// more interesting than the magic side (and consequently, science-side stories are more popular). While I can't put my finger on exactly //why//, I have a few ideas:
  * The 'magic system' of espers is fairly unique when considering magic systems across fiction. Specifically, the mechanics and how the powers are used, alongside the general æsthetic. This is in contrast to the 'magic magic system' which is fairly standard.
    * Extending this, the powers are used in unique and fascinating ways...but also in ways that make a lot of sense. This is one of the only franchises I know of that handles teleportation well, for example.
    * A counter to this point is the fact the anime continually fails to explain how magic works. It seems to assume people will be familiar with the LNs, which I'm still in the middle of reading.
      * Something I should note here is that I've been reading the LNs and magic is far more interesting than it appears in the anime. I do still believe the science-side is more interesting, but the magic side isn't as uninteresting as I first thought.
  * The magic side borrows //too much// from the real world regarding characters (Aleister Crowley), organizations (The Anglican/Catholic churches), and items (The Book of the Law). The science side, however, is (to my knowledge) free of such borrowings.
    * This is a guess and not one I'm very confident in. I find the way a lot of these real-life things are integrated into the world a bit off.
  * Characters relevant to the science side are far more interesting than those relevant to the magic side.
    * The characters have more grounded designs and more fleshed-out characterization. At least from what I can tell. The most popular characters (Misaka, Accelerator, Shokuhou) are all science-side.
  * Academy City is a really really well fleshed-out place, having a perfect blend of familiar and unfamiliar. Exploring the lore regarding the city is fun.
  * The Science side has clearer power levels - it helps they're literally called 'Levels.' You can (mostly) tell how powerful an Esper is based on their Level, and you can even guess an Esper's Level from what they do. In contrast, it's much harder to figure this out for the magic side.
    * This also makes comparing Espers easier.
    * At the same time, it acts as a signal to the audience. It acts as a shortcut for introducing characters, especially Level 5s like Accelerator, and adds to how intimidating they are.
A lot of this may be my own bias, since I personally prefer the science side and I'm trying to figure out why.
==== Anime ====
These will currently stand as just a few small notes. I'll write more about it later.
=== Toaru Majutsu no Index ===
It's not the best of the series, but it is fairly good. I consider it the best place to start if you're new to the franchise (outside of simply reading the LN).
=== Toaru Majutsu no Index II ===
It's better than the first season, at least that's what I remember.
=== Toaru Majutsu no Index III ===
It starts out strong and fizzles out near the middle. The last bit of it is terrible.
=== Toaru Kagaku no Railgun ===
It's okay, but is somewhat boring. Not the best place to start off.
=== Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S ===
First half is great, second half is trash. I'd say the second half is the worst of the series.
=== Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T ===
No doubt the best of the anime.
=== Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator ===
It's much better than the manga, which I learned after reading it. This one is about in the same range as the first two index series.\\
This is the only anime to ever get close to explaining how magic works in the series.
==== Manga ====
=== Astral Buddy ===
I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
=== Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator ===
It's...not great.
=== Toaru Idol no Accelerator-sama ===
This is honestly one of the best pieces of Toaru fiction created.
=== Toaru Kagaku no Dark Matter ===
It's fine.
===== Characters =====
==== Protagonists ====
The main protagonists of the franchise, as far as I can tell.
=== Kamijou Touma ===
The first and primary protagonist. He appears in basically all the works at some point or another. Academy city considers him a Level 0. He attends a Certain Highschool (name unknown).\\
He has the ability ｢{{ruby|幻想殺し|イマジンブレイカー}}｣ - ｢Imagine Breaker｣ which resides in his right hand. It lets him cancel out //all// supernatural phenomena, whether it originates in science or magic. One less than ideal side-effect of this is his misfortune. Because he cancels out all supernatural phenomena, he also cancels out divine blessings and luck. This leads to his de-facto catchphrase: ‘Such misfortune!’\\
He's a person with a kind heart. When someone asks him for help, he will help them no-questions-asked... sometimes he helps even when they don't ask.\\
Touma has a sort-of internal sense of right and wrong, not governed by societal norms.\\
In day-to-day life, he worries about not having enough cash to buy himself food. He's a bit book-dumb, exemplified by his need to attend make-up classes for his make-up classes for his make-up classes for having a failing grade in school.\\
<wrap spoiler> At the end of the first Volume (first arc in the anime) he loses his memory and starts pretending he hasn't. This lasts until the last Volume of the first Index series. This is actually one of my favorite aspects of his character, only because he pretends he knows what's going on 90% of the time... to not reveal he lost his memory.</wrap>\\
He lives with Index and her cat Sphynx (or, more accurately, they live with him). People say it doesn't make sense because of how annoying she is. They seem to miss that Touma actually likes Index.
=== Misaka Mikoto ===
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=== Accelerator ===
One of the first antagonists, promoted to protagonist. He ended up getting his own spin-off as well, ｢とある科学の一方通行｣ - ｢A Certain Scientific Accelerator｣. His real name is currently unknown, so he's known by his nickname, based on his ability. He's the first ranked Level 5.\\
He has the ability ｢{{ruby|一方通行|アクセラレータ}}｣ - ｢Accelerator｣, which allows him to control vectors. With a slap he can turn you into a puddle of blood, theoretically.\\
He honestly just wants to be left alone so he can relax in peace. He's spent most of his life getting attacked by all kinds of people, ranging from your standard street thug to the //military of Academy City//. He comes off as a psychopath and a bit insane, at first. <wrap spoiler>The Level 6 Shift Experiment kinda gave him trauma.</wrap> He saves the life of Last Order and then pledges to protect her.\\
So far, I can't really think of anything else to say about him.
=== Hamazura Shiage ===
A minor antagonist, promoted to protagonist after getting punched. He was originally the second-in-command of one of the largest Skill-Out groups, before becoming the leader. After getting punched, he became an ITEM lackey, declared independence and is now a full member of ITEM.<wrap spoiler> He also gets on the bad side of Academy City... for being lucky. Apparently, he was so lucky he interfered (unintentionally) with the plans of the Chairman of the Board, Aleister.</wrap>\\
He has no special ability, being a Level 0. Although he is unusually lucky...\\
He's similar to Touma, but more hesitant and less concerned with ideals. He's willing to do a lot of things for the person he loves. Had something of an inferiority complex for being a Level 0, pretty sure he doesn't have that anymore.\\
A little perverted as he admits to being interested in bunny girl costumes.
==== Minor Protagonists ====
=== Shokuhou Misaki ===
Protagonist of her own spin-off ｢とあるかがくの心理掌握｣ - ｢A Certain Scientific Mental Out｣, which started very recently. She's the fifth ranked Level 5.\\
She has the ability ｢{{ruby|心理掌握|メンタルアウト}}｣ - ｢Mental Out｣, which lets her control minds.\\
Centre of her own clique at Tokiwadai. Has a somewhat playful personality as she likes teasing Misaka (who she can't mind-control because of electricity). She has a soft spot for <wrap spoiler>Misaka's clones, due to being friends with one in the past. So she does a lot of stuff to help them and prevent another "Level 6 Shift".</wrap> It came as a bit of a surprise to me, honestly.\\
She seems to genuinely want to do good, in her own strange way.\\
She's also very lazy and uses her mind control to get out of doing PE and the like. Very out of shape.
=== Hokaze Junko ===
Protagonist of her own spin-off Astral Buddy. She's a Level 4.\\
Originally introduced as a member of Misaki's clique, her spin-off made her a slightly more interesting character.\\
Her ability is ｢{{ruby|転移装着|ランペイジドレス}}｣ - ｢Rampage Dress｣. An electric power that lets her strengthen her cells.\\
She is basically the embodiment of the good Tokiwadai stereotype. She's also notably naïve, not really understanding <wrap spoiler>what Aogami Pierce (the Great Blau) was talking about when describing his sexy dreams (it makes just as much sense in context so I won't bother) or when she doesn't understand that girls can be lesbians</wrap>. It's a little cute though.\\
Like Misaka, she is a great fan of Gekota. <wrap spoiler> She even wears Gekota-themed underwear, which is too small for her (yes, there's Gekota-themed underwear)</wrap>.\\
She wants Misaki and Misaka to get along and doesn't really understand why they aren't getting along.
=== Kakine Teitoku ===
Had a one-shot where he was the protagonist ｢とある科学の未元物質｣ - ｢A Certain Scientific Dark Matter｣. He's the second ranked Level 5.\\
His ability is ｢{{ruby|未元物質|ダークマター}}｣ - ｢Dark Matter｣, which is kinda confusing and I don't yet fully understand it myself. In essence though, it lets him do all kinds of weird stuff, because it doesn't exist.\\
Has a pretty big inferiority complex... for being ranked number 2 and not number 1. Yes, really. Despite this, he treats almost everyone below him as dirt.\\
According to himself and others, he is the "spare plan" in the event something happened to Accelerator. Which only pisses him off more.\\
He gets very angry easily and seems to have something of a tragic past.<wrap spoiler> In his spin-off, he finds and kinda befriends a young girl called Yuzuriha Ringo. At the end of the one-shot, she ends up dying. This has a pretty bad effect on him.</wrap>\\
For some reason, he doesn't like getting innocent civilians involved... but will do so if he needs to.\\
<wrap spoiler>He is currently dead... I think?</wrap>
===== Worldbuilding =====
This is to keep track of all the worldbuilding elements of the [[lb:toaru]]. I will almost certainly make some of these sections their own articles as I find more information.\\
Reshuffle note: I'm considering merging the worldbuilding and speculah sections into one section. It's hard for me to explain why, but I feel it would be better that way.
==== Academy City ====
Academy city is the central location of the とある franchise. Almost every arc takes place in or around the city. So...\\
The city is located west of Tokyo and is as large as a third of it.((:ref:index.1.p))\\
It is an independent city state with its own bizarre government. The city is ruled by the Board of Directors, which is controlled by the Chairman of the Board... making him the de-facto Dictator.\\
It's known that basically the entire city is under constant surveillance, there are cameras everywhere. The city is also completely green, relying on renewable energies.\\
Its name comes from the fact there are //quite a lot of schools here//. It's said that  of the 2.3 million people living in Academy City, 80% are students.((:ref:index.1.4)) However, a little less than 60% are ranked Level 0.((:ref:index.1.p))\\
Another thing to note is their insane military power. How a city state in the middle of Japan managed to develop a military stronger than Russia, Italy and France combined I don't know.\\
Also, is no-one internationally concerned about a part of Japan having this much power?
=== Esper Development Program ===
The Esper Development Program is one of Academy City's most important 'things'. The aim of the program is to turn regular people into ‘Espers’, people with superpowers. Details regarding //how// this is done is not revealed.\\
Espers are ranked by ‘Level’. This basically explains how powerful they are.((:ref:>https://toarumajutsunoindex.fandom.com/wiki/Power_Curriculum_Program#Levels))\\
  * **Level 6**
    * Person with Absolute Power.
    * A largely theoretical level. Basically a legend.
    * Immeasurable power.
  * **Level 5**
    * Person with Super Powers.
    * You are strong enough to fight a military force on equal terms.
  * **Level 4**
    * Person with Great Powers.
    * Someone with this level has abilities powerful enough to be tactically equivalent to a military force.
      * In other words: you are like a group of soldiers.
  * **Level 3**
    * Person with Strong Powers.
    * Powers can now make life more convenient. At this point you start being treated as special by everyone.
  * **Level 2**
    * Person with Unusual Powers.
    * Similar to Level 1.
      * In fact, I don't really understand what the difference is.
  * **Level 1**
    * Person with Low Powers.
    * You have powers, but they're not all that powerful. The wikia says ‘enough to bend a spoon’
  * **Level 0**
    * Person with No Powers.
    * If you have no ability at all, you're a Level 0.
      * This is not completely accurate. Sometimes some abilities //can't// be measured, meaning some are classified as Level 0. (Examples include Kamijou Touma and Tsuchimikado Motoharu.)
=== Anti-Skill ===
Anti-Skill is the police/counter-terror/military of Academy City. It is made up of volunteers sourced from the teachers of the city. They don't get paid, but do get compensation for work done.\\
They are usually called when Judgement can't handle something.
== Disciplinary Action ==
A splinter group made up of Anti-Skill members who receive ‘Disciplinary Action’ for doing something illegal or being too violent.\\
They are fanatically obsessed with Justice, considering all actions justified if done in the name of Justice. Somehow, they got their hands on better equipment than Anti-Skill (Who are meant to have state-of-the-art equipment).<wrap spoiler> They largely ceased to exist thanks to the actions of Accelerator, Anti-Skill, The Board of Directors and Kakine Teitoku.</wrap>
=== Judgement ===
A police force made up of volunteer students. Yeah, they're a police force composed of kids aged 12-19?. This would likely be insane in any other universe, but we need to remember these kids are Espers.
=== Hound Dog ===
A secret unit(?) that reports only to the Board of Directors. Legally, they can do anything they want.
=== Dark Side ===
The Dark Side of Academy City is the part that most people aren't aware of. All the shady things the city is involved in are considered ‘Dark Side’.\\
If you secretly work for the Board of Directors you are a part of the Dark Side.
==== Anglican Church ====
The Anglican Church (known as the ‘English Church/English Puritan Church’ //sometimes//) is one of the most important Christian denominations, in the world of とある (and real life, jeez I wasn't even aware they were **//the 3rd largest//**). Modelled //vaguely// after the real life Church of England.\\
They started out as antagonists, but were promoted to... sort of allies of the protagonists?\\
They're lead by the Archbishop Laura Stuart, who appears as a 16+ year old girl.\\
Following the involvement of Kamijou Touma, they seem to be rapidly gaining more and more power. So much that they're, as far as I know, considered the second most powerful Christian denomination... or //the// most powerful. (Rome's 1.3 billion followers kind of make this difficult.)
=== Necessarius ===
The 0th parish of the Church of England, created to deal with all the magicians running around England. They are the ‘Church of Necessary Evil’... they commit a sin to deal with sinners.\\
They were the first antagonists in the franchise, before gaining the same status as the Anglican Church.\\
Their beliefs beyond ‘loyal to the Anglican Church’ are unknown to me.
==== Roman Catholic Church ====
The largest and one of the oldest denominations of Christianity, in both real life and とある. They are lead by the pope, whose name I can't remember.\\
Members of this denomination come off as paranoid and condescending, at least from what I've seen. Orsola Aquinas claims they act on ‘fears’ rather than ‘beliefs’.\\
Following the Anglican Church's promotion, they become the primary antagonistic magical faction.\\
Something to also note is that they can also come off as hypocritical. Now, they obviously consider non-Christians as heretics... but this also applies to magic. They seem to view non-Christian magic as heretical... so of course they use non-Christian magic themselves, when convenient.\\
One minor note... they seem to secretly control Italy. Definitely not the case in real life though, right?((:fn:>To be clear, I don't believe the Vatican secretly controls Italy. This was a joke. I just //know// that //someone// will take this out of context in the future.))
=== God's Right Seat ===
They are a group //associated// with the Roman Catholic Church. But they don't really listen to the Pope... so huh?\\
Their goal is to become angels. In pursuit of this goal, they try to minimize the ‘original sin’ present in all humans as much as possible. This has an unintended (or completely intended; it's not made clear) side-effect; they can no longer use human magic, and must use their own magic or magic reserved for angels.\\
I guess that explains why they don't really treat the Pope with respect? He still has the regular chunk of original sin, while they lack it almost completely?\\
It's members include:
  * Vento of the Front
  * Terra of the Left
  * Acqua of the Rear
  * Fiamma of the Right
<wrap spoiler> Terra is later killed by Acqua for being a dick. A shame, since he seemed to actually know what the ｢{{ruby|幻想殺し|イマジンブレイカー}}｣ - ｢Imagine Breaker｣ was.</wrap>

----

==== Magic ====
When I learn how magic works I'll write something here. Right now I have no idea, because the anime never bothered to explain it.
==== Science ====
Now, this is how I understood the system to work in the series. This may not be completely accurate.\\
Most of this is from the anime, so it may not be completely accurate.\\
\\
The esper abilities essentially work using Schrödinger's cat... so quantum mechanics.\\
I think most people are familiar with it, so I'll just repeat what Komoe said instead (paraphrased of course).\\

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Say you had a box and that box may contain either a chocolate ball or a candy ball. Now, you have no way of knowing which it is until you open the box. If someone asked you what the chance is that it would be either, you'd probably say 50%.\\
So then you open the box and you see that it is a chocolate ball, then you close the box again. This time if someone asked you the chance it would be a chocolate ball, you're likely to say 100% and the chance it's a candy ball is 0%.\\
Now, the way esper abilities essentially work is that someone comes along and says that the box actually contains a candy ball. Despite the fact you know with 100% certainty there's a chocolate ball in there. They are persistent though, claiming that there is definitely a candy ball in there. So you decide to open the box to see... and it's a candy ball.\\

----

Here we'll get into some Toaru-Jargon.\\
Most espers (ability users) have what's called a ‘personal reality’ which I won't get into describing because it honestly doesn't matter that much. What essentially happens is that espers distort reality, they substitute "normal" reality with their own reality. That's how they get abilities.
===== Speculah & Analysis =====
==== Watch Order for the Anime ====
I recommend watching the anime in the following order:
  * Toaru Majutsu no Index
  * Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
  * Toaru Kagaku no Railgun OVA
  * Toaru Majutsu no Index II
  * Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S
  * Toaru Kagaku no RAilgun OVA
  * Toaru Majutsu no Index: Endymion no Kiseki
  * Toaru Majutsu no Index III
  * Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator
  * Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T
This is (roughly) the order they all came out in, which I consider to be the most reasonable. The other suggested watch orders mix and match the series in an unusual way, and it gets worse if you try to view it chronologically. A [[https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Index_Calendar|chart]] on Baka-Tsuki((:fn:>Fan-translators who translated a big chunk of the series.)) recommend just starting somewhere and to avoid reading chronologically.
==== Stiyl's Age ====
Before I write anything else about him I need to get this written first.\\
So he's supposedly 14, which I don't believe. I had to read it twice in the LN when I first got to his age. Exactly what happened I don't know for sure, but I assume the character designer did a bit of a fuckup.\\
Anyway, to maintain my own state of mind at ease, I decided to just ignore the official age and make up my own.\\
So what would that age be? **19**<del>-20</del>.\\
I picked it for a variety of reasons (I originally assumed 24, but it would mess with all kinds of stuff).\\
The first is that this makes him older than Kanzaki, a reason that may seem strange to most. My reasoning here is that he acts more mature than her most of the time, so it would be a little strange for him to be younger.\\
The second is more reasonable. He's supposed to be younger than the legal age to smoke in Japan, which is 20. Why? Because at one point, according to the wiki, he complains about how difficult it is to buy cigarettes when you're under-age. What I do remember though is when Komoe tries to stop him from smoking.\\
To me, 19 is the most reasonable age. Anything younger would start messing with me (although I think 17-18 //could// still work) and anything older would just not work with the story we have.\\
14... just no.
==== Esper Secrecy ====
While reading through the first volume, I noticed something odd. It is implied by [[#Kamijou Touma|Kamijou]] that Academy City hides the fact esper powers are developed((:ref:index.1.1.4)). That on its own makes the situation confusing, but then I remembered some other things:
  * In Railgun S, [[#Misaka Mikoto|Misaka]] doesn't actually recognize Accelerator when she meets him. However, I cannot remember if it simply took her some time to recognize it was him, or if she didn't know it was him until he introduces himself. Until I re-watch the show, I'll be assuming it's the former.
  * In Index, [[#Misaka Mikoto|Misaka]] explains who [[#Accelerator]] is to [[#Kamijou Touma|Kamijou]], who doesn't know who [[#Accelerator]] is. While it's understandable for [[#Kamijou Touma|Kamijou]] to not know, considering he's an amnesiac at this point, but it's strange that [[#Misaka Mikoto|Misaka]] doesn't think it's weird he doesn't know about [[#Accelerator]].
While the first point may be self-defeating, I still find it strange that [[#Misaka Mikoto|Misaka]] doesn't immediately recognize the highest-ranking Esper in Academy City, especially since she's //also// one of the highest ranking Espers. The second is simply bizarre.\\
After a little bit of reading, I also found that the development //process// is kept secret. So my assumption is that the initial implication was some kind of error. Alternatively, everyone is aware that Academy City produces Espers, but they aren't aware of the details (such as how many there are).\\
I can't really make sense of all this for now, so I'll leave it be.
==== "Realism" ====
When I was browsing reddit (do not fear, I do not do so often) I read some thread about scientific realism. I don't remember anything, but it got me thinking.\\
I think realism is, when you consider how the supernatural systems work, a bit irrelevant.\\
From my understanding, what really matters is belief. The reason they can use abilities is because they believe they can (IIRC, some characters even claim this is the case?). Their belief allows them to distort reality as they wish.\\
This would explain how quite a few characters may have very unscientific abilities... and Sogiita Gunha, the weirdest esper.\\
This is only here as a way to justify the railgun causing explosions. To myself of course.
==== Number of Espers (Vexing Numerals) ====
From the //first volume// it's never made clear how many Espers there are. This is probably because 'Esper' and 'Student' are used interchangeably for no apparent reason. The numbers '80%' and '2.3 million' are advertised but they don't tell us anything. 80% either refers to the number of students or Espers. The only thing that //is// clear is that 60% of //Espers// are Level 0. But how many Espers there are I have no idea. One other possibility is that 80% of Espers are students and students make up 80% of the population. It's never made clear and these numbers will haunt me for years to come.

----

Extending from that, I'm starting to suspect the words used are not as clearly defined as they possibly could be. For example: What is an Esper? In universe, they aren't very clear about what that word refers to. In general, an Esper can be anyone who has gone through the Esper Development Program...however, Level 0s will sometimes refer to people Level 1 or above as 'Espers.' Maybe I'm digging too deep into it.\\
To be a bit clearer here: in general, the magic side refers to anyone who went through the Esper Development Program as an ‘Esper’ (consequently, Kamijou is an Esper despite being Level 0). However, Level 0s tend to refer to anyone Level 1 or above as an Esper. So this could just be a failure on the part of the series to communicate the subtle difference (it could also be a failure on the part of the audience (me) to catch the difference).

Alternative idea I have just come up with: The statistics are intentionally blurred by Academy City. Although I am still leaning towards it being some kind of oversight on the part of the writer, this is the most reasonable in-universe explanation.
==== Level 0s ====
Level 0s and their existence is a bit of a mystery. According to Komoe-sensei, the curriculum should theoretically allow anyone to develop abilities, she then speculates there's something else that is responsible for abilities that they don't know about yet.\\
Here are my ideas.
=== Imagination ===
Probably sounds pretty dumb, but I'm being serious. What if the reason most can't develop abilities is because they're unimaginative/not creative?\\
The series shows us how many of the top espers find really creative ways to use their abilities. The best example is Misaka Mikoto, who used her, fairly standard, electrical abilities to create a railgun. She can also magnetize herself to anything metallic and uses iron sand to create all kinds of weird things.\\
On the opposite side we find that lower levelled espers don't use their abilities as creatively. Similarly, they are constantly surprised by the creativity of higher levelled ones.\\
\\
Despite this, I don't actually buy this all that much. The two counter-examples would be Mugino and Saten-san. Saten-san's interest in urban legends, and problem-solving skills (I may be wildly misremembering here though) imply she isn't an unimaginative person... she's a Level 0. Mugino has, at least from what I've seen, never really shown to use her powers creatively... opting instead for brute force.\\
Another counter example would be Uiharu, who is likely the best hacker in the world.
=== Belief ===
This is the one I'm actually leaning towards. Most espers just don't believe they could have abilities.\\
Some will disagree using Saten-san as an example. I will point out that //wanting// something and //believing// you will one day have it are two different things.\\
So, in my opinion, the majority of Level 0s may simply think they will never have abilities. This results in a fairly weak personal reality and with barely noticeable abilities.\\
Although this doesn't quite answer how you get more powerful as an esper.
=== M a t h ===
Another possibility is the mathematical abilities of Espers. Essentially, if you're better at math, you'll be a stronger Esper.\\
This is also basically definitely not true though, because then you'd have scientists as the strongest Espers.\\
(My own speculah on ‘calculation ability’ is that as you progress through the program, you get a ‘natural feel’ for it.)\\
There is also the counter-counter example of the trio of bakas: Kamijou, Tsuchimikado and Aogami.\\
Basically, belief is the one I'm betting on.

----

Note: I mysteriously and suddenly remembered that the 'Level-Upper' is a thing. The Level-Upper works by synchronizing the brain waves of the Espers, allowing them to leverage their calculations in a network of others. They explicitly state that it's calculation ability. The issue here is that this still doesn't make sense for the simple fact that it's too obvious an answer.\\
I also suddenly remembered Accelerator's computer.
==== Hamazura ====
He is incredibly lucky and this is even noted in the story. He is so lucky that he ends up disrupting the plans of a certain individual.\\
My speculah here is fairly simple... I think his ability is luck. The reason he's classified as a Level 0 is simply because you can't measure luck.
==== Esper abilities are overpowered ====
This is part of the reshuffle, so I'll be fixing it up later. After thinking about Esper abilities a little, I realized that quite a few of them are insanely over-powered. While I was mostly thinking about teleportation, I quickly remembered that quite a few of the other abilities were very powerful.
==== Disposability of the Board of Directors ====
The wikia seems to not quite understand why the Board of Directors are treated as both very important and not at all important at the same time. Here's what I think.

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Say you have a hospital that has an opening for 10 doctors. 100 doctors just graduated from the local university. However, the hospital can only hire 10 doctors so 90 remain unemployed. However however, whenever a doctor retires, gets fired or dies, there's an opening. Since there are 90 potential doctors doing whatever, every empty spot gets filled in immediately.

----

So basically, I think the number of people capable of being on the Board is very high. The number of people who //think// they want to be on the Board is also very high. Think about it, if someone offered you the position of Senator or President, would you refuse?\\
Although there's a limited number of positions, there are a lot of candidates for each position. So every time a Board member dies, they can be replaced almost instantly.\\
This actually makes the paranoia of the Board members more understandable (more than in the base series), as there are plenty of people capable and //willing// to take their place.\\
A side-effect that isn't really shown in the series, but //should// exist is hyper-competence. If a Board member can be replaced no problem, they'd do their best to be good members. After all, when you can be killed and replaced anytime, you'd try to focus on doing a good job.
==== Academy City's relationship with English ====
Academy City has a weird relationship with the English language. I believe that it might be because Aleister Crowley is English, and he used English words when initially naming things, which rubbed off on everyone else.\\
What's especially strange about it is how they assign Kanji to the words like :
    * 超電磁砲 -> レールガン -> rērugan -> railgun), normally it would be read: ちょおでんじほう -> chōdenjihō -> (lit) 'Super Electromagnetic Cannon.'
I don't know why they do this, but it's apparently standard within the city, because everything that has an English name also has Kanji like this.\\
For more examples:
  * Organizations:
    * Anti-Skill -> 警備員 -> アンチスキル -> anchi-sukiru; けいびいん -> keibi-in -> 'Guard/Security'
    * Judgment -> 風紀委員 -> ジャッジメント -> jajimento; ふうきいいん -> fūki i'in -> 'Public Morals Committee Member' (Alternatively: 'Discipline Committee Member')
    * Skill-Out -> 武装無能力集団 -> スキルアウト -> sukiru-auto; ぶそうむのうりょくしゅうだん -> busou munouryoku shuudan -> 'Armed incapable group'
    * Hound Dog -> 猟犬部隊 -> ハウンドドッグ -> haundo doggu; りょうけんぶたい -> ryōken butai -> 'Hound force'
  * Powers:
    * Imagine Breaker -> 幻想殺し -> イマジンブレイカー -> imajin bureikā; げんそうごろし -> gensō goroshi -> 'Fantasy Killer'
    * Accelerator -> 一方通行 -> アクセラレータ -> akuserarēta; いっぽうつうこう -> ippō tsūkō -> 'One way Street'
    * Teleport -> 空間移動 - テレポート -> terepōto; くうかんいどお -> kūkan idō -> 'Spatial Movement'
    * Mental Out -> 心理掌握 -> メンタルアウト -> mentaru auto; しんりしょおあく -> shinri shōaku -> 'Psychological Control'
    * Radio Noise -> 欠陥電気 -> レディオノイズ -> redio noizu; けっかんでんき -> kekkan denki -> 'Flawed Electricity'
===== Trivilinks =====
  * [[https://toaru-project.com/|Official Website]] - Kinda?
  * [[http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index_Wiki|The Wikia]] - Surprisingly decent
  * I decided to start working on this article exclusively to test the ruby plugin. I wish I was joking.
{{tag>anime light_novels manga otaku}}