Toaru Majutsu no Index is a weird one. It's one of those shows that I like, but, when asked to point out why I like it, I will pretty much blank. As per recently usual, I'll be reviewing both Toaru Majutsu no Index I and II as one show. This does not, however, include the Toaru Kagaru no Railgun spinoff series, nor the shittone of light novels or manga.
Toaru Majutsu no Index (English title A Certain Magical Index, and referred henceforth to as simply Index) follows Touma, a student in Academy City, built specifically as a center of academia and science. Touma is what is known as an Esper, someone who, through the power of techno-babble, is able to perform seemingly magical feats. His only power lies in his right hand, soon nick-named Imagine Breaker, which can cancel out other Esper's abilities by touching them (which we soon discover also affects magic). Despite how useful this proves during Touma's adventures, this isn't considered a proper, scientific Esper phenomenon, as it cannot be properly explained, and Touma is considered a Level 0 Esper: Practically no Esper ability.
Soon into the series, Touma finds a girl in what appears to be a religious habit on his balcony: This turns out to be the titular Index (Written with non-italic letters, so as to not be confused with the title of the show, Index. Got it? OK.). Index appears to be, indeed, a human index of 103,000 grimoires, which she has perfectly committed to memory. Soon thereafter, Touma finds himself enveloped in the world of magic, where various groups of magicians plan to overthrow the scientific world lead by Academy City, or just squabble amongst one another.
I could recount events after this point, but it's frankly sort of pointless. Index isn't really a show with a plot, or rather, not a show with an overaching plot. Every three or four episodes involve Touma and his ever expanding entourage of side characters getting involved in a different, mostly self-contained adventure. Despite their short length, they do a surprisingly good job of seeming impactful and important, though this actually grated me at points: The odds are constantly brought very high, which just ends up being exhausting. It seems not an arc goes by where thousands of lives aren't threatened. It'd be perfectly fine if there were a couple arcs where the only real thing at risk is the life of one of the characters we care about. This is made worse by the fact that the precious few arcs where this is the case are by far the strongest.
Still, the stories that the arcs tell are typically entertaining. Each one focuses on Touma and Index, along with a few members of the side cast, and usually introduces a couple new side-characters and a villain, helping keep things fresh. They do eventually fall into a bit of a predictable pattern, but there's just enough variation around to prevent them becoming stale: One story will find Touma joining forces with the magician Style to slowly climb up an alchemist's lair, whilst another will have Touma and a couple other characters tracking a courier with a dangerous artifact all around Academy City.
Since the series de-emphasizes story, it has a necessity to be carried by its characters, and here's where the show feels very strange. I've been meaning for a while to write a piece about character development vs character depth, and here's where I wish I had, because it would make explaining the following a hell of a lot easier. You see, Index is a show whose characters are, with two exceptions, really static - they barely get any development, but they have a satisfying amount of depth to them. That is to say, they don't change throughout the series, but we get a fairly decent idea of who they are.
This would typically result in me finding a show dull - there's no real story to follow the whole way through, and the characters don't provide meaningful engagement by the means of developing. It's partially for shows like these that I felt the enjoyment rating should be more important: There's nothing wrong on a technical level, but by all means I should've found this thing immensely dull.
And yet I don't. Index was more than fairly entertaining, it was genuinely addicting. Perhaps the reason for this is that there's just so damn many characters, and all of them feel varied and unique in their own ways. Early in season 2 the archetypal good, clean and polite religious person character was introduced. I scoffed at the idea, being sure that we'd already seen this character before, before realizing that in a showed centered greatly around religious bickering, we'd never had this particular flavor of character before, a whole season in. The fact that, despite being blatant stereotypes, characters more often than not manage to be genuinely endearing also really helps, despite being just as surprising to me.
It's hard to pick out a main cast among such a huge group of characters, seeing as how none of them really get that much screentime apart from the main duo, but I'd like to point out a few that I feel deserve this title.
First off, we have Touma. He is pretty much as anime protagonist as anime protagonists get. However, he still manages to be bizarrely likable: his constant comedic misfortune (to the point where his catchphrase is the rather clumsily translated "How Misfortunate!") manages to be funny, despite it being a gag that's been done a million times, perhaps due to his comic self-awareness about the whole thing. One thing that I appreciated is that Touma is never given a reason to be as heroic as he becomes in moments of danger, he just is, and no one really questions it because that's just what Touma does. He does have a bad habit of repeating variations of the same speech to every villain he meets, but these are usually brief enough that they're not all that annoying.
Then there's the titular Index. She's perhaps the weakest character of the four I'd consider "the main cast", being little more than the traditional energetic young girl with a mysterious power. She fits the role OK, has a running comedic gag that is very hit-and-miss, and the occasional good emotional moment. After the arc centered around her in Season 1, she honestly doesn't seem to have much to do, and is definitely not enough of a powerful force in the plot to justify having the series named after her, though she's unquestionably around the most after Touma. Before writing this review, the word that kept popping to mind to describe Index's quality as a character was "inoffensive".
Then we have Misaka, also known as Railgun, a powerful Level 5 Esper (One of only seven in Academy City, as we are incessantly reminded) around whom the spinoff Toaru Kagaru no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun, for those who, like me, don't know Japanese) revolves. She's your run-of-the-mill snarky and grumpy girl character. Despite this, I actually found myself really liking her, to the point where she's quite possibly my favorite character in the show. Something about the way she behaves just seems a lot more human than her archetype usually is, perhaps because she's also shown to be genuinely shy and silly at points. Later in the show she develops a crush on Touma, and the way she tip-toes around this and begins acting feels very natural, especially considering she is in middle school.
Finally, we have Accelerator, who is initially introduced as an antagonist, but grows into more of an anti-hero role. I found him immensely annoying during his stint as an antagonist, but once he becomes a more well-rounded character he becomes a fairly good addition to the roster. He's perhaps the character who develops the most, though it's through a rather cliche arc. It's still not boring to experience, but I can't say I ever felt any joy when the focus of the show shifted away from Touma and Index to Accelerator for episodes at a time.
However, the shows greatest strength doesn't lie in any of these factors: It's really the world and the ensuing battles that are interesting. The idea of the magical world and the technological world fighting isn't precisely novel, but is one that I feel is very much underused. As such, I greatly appreciated seeing it put in action fairly effectively here. There's also a decent deal of political intrigue going on behind the scenes: The different churches are constantly fighting against each other or against Academy City, which, though explained minimally, lends a decent deal of weight to the stuff going on in the foreground. The show also does a particularly good job of making up magical artifacts with sometimes genuinely terrifying powers, which often serve as McGuffins for an arc or two.
Of course, the whole Magic vs Technology aesthetic most importantly affects the fights. It's here where the show shines, with a host of interestingly powered enemies coming up against Touma, at least early on. By Season 2, the creativity wanes a little bit, and most attacks only really differ in what color the projectiles being thrown at Touma are. Fortunately, Season 2 manages to differentiate its bad guys by how they conjure said projectiles rather than what the projectiles do: One character casts spells using small strips of paper, for instance, whilst another uses a staff as a multi-purpose voodoo doll.
Whilst Touma's power (being exclusively a defensive one) seems like it'd be a clever way for the writers to force themselves to write him out of corners in more interesting ways, it ultimately only serves to make all the fights he's in very samey. Aside from enemies who fight in extremely creative ways, Touma's power means that he'll ultimately win most fights by blocking attacks with his right hand, and then uppercutting the enemy. This is really cool for the first few times, having a really kinetic and visceral feel to it that magic simply lacks, but eventually gets tired and predictable.
The other big issue with combat is the how extremely underused the science side is. We only get to see a few Espers fight, and most of them honestly feel like they're using magic in all but in name. Railgun, especially, whose power is channeling electricity feels like she fits in perfectly with the magician Style, who harnesses the power of fire. There just isn't enough of a technological feel to them: aside from a few instances, it doesn't feel like they're limited or empowered in any way by the fact that this isn't magic. What's most frustrating is that, when it goes right, there's a few really cool ideas there. I really like Accelerator's power, that being the ability to change any vector quantity that comes in contact with him. It's a nice, science-feeling power, and the show just doesn't do that kind of thing enough.
Character and World Building: 8.5/10
A large cast of unchanging but endearing characters inhabit a world that's got some really cool flavor to it, and enables them to do battle in really cool ways. A few of the things that the various Churches get up to are really insane in a very good way.
Story: 6/10
It's usually inoffensive, but has a decent amount of moments where it shines quite brightly. The events that go on in Index won't leave anyone stunned, but you'd be hard-pressed to be too bored, either.
Presentation: 4/5
Some really cool powers elevate this show beyond the rest. The art style is very much just there, but perhaps the unsung hero is the soundtrack, which has a really interesting, almost dissonant feel. It goes very well with the action, providing appropriate backing for everything from tension to comedy.
Enjoyment: 12/15
I really don't know why I liked Index as much as I did. It's not a bad show by any means, but it doesn't scratch any of my personal itches. Still, I found myself often grinning at the antics the characters got up to, and, despite never really feeling too deeply invested, I got a great amount of enjoyment from the fighting and drama.
Overall: (8.5+6+4+12/40)
30.5/40
Roughly 7.5/10
Despite the fact that I've left the show feeling pretty happy with having watched it, I can't help but shake the feeling that I shouldn't have. Index is a show that does a lot of things I don't like, and very few things I do like, yet I still came out with a good impression. Still, I review the experience I had, and not the experience I feel like I should've had by my idea of what my standards are, and I had a pretty good one with Index.
Look forward to my review of the spinoff based around Railgun, coming soon.
This would typically result in me finding a show dull - there's no real story to follow the whole way through, and the characters don't provide meaningful engagement by the means of developing. It's partially for shows like these that I felt the enjoyment rating should be more important: There's nothing wrong on a technical level, but by all means I should've found this thing immensely dull.
And yet I don't. Index was more than fairly entertaining, it was genuinely addicting. Perhaps the reason for this is that there's just so damn many characters, and all of them feel varied and unique in their own ways. Early in season 2 the archetypal good, clean and polite religious person character was introduced. I scoffed at the idea, being sure that we'd already seen this character before, before realizing that in a showed centered greatly around religious bickering, we'd never had this particular flavor of character before, a whole season in. The fact that, despite being blatant stereotypes, characters more often than not manage to be genuinely endearing also really helps, despite being just as surprising to me.
It's hard to pick out a main cast among such a huge group of characters, seeing as how none of them really get that much screentime apart from the main duo, but I'd like to point out a few that I feel deserve this title.
First off, we have Touma. He is pretty much as anime protagonist as anime protagonists get. However, he still manages to be bizarrely likable: his constant comedic misfortune (to the point where his catchphrase is the rather clumsily translated "How Misfortunate!") manages to be funny, despite it being a gag that's been done a million times, perhaps due to his comic self-awareness about the whole thing. One thing that I appreciated is that Touma is never given a reason to be as heroic as he becomes in moments of danger, he just is, and no one really questions it because that's just what Touma does. He does have a bad habit of repeating variations of the same speech to every villain he meets, but these are usually brief enough that they're not all that annoying.
Then there's the titular Index. She's perhaps the weakest character of the four I'd consider "the main cast", being little more than the traditional energetic young girl with a mysterious power. She fits the role OK, has a running comedic gag that is very hit-and-miss, and the occasional good emotional moment. After the arc centered around her in Season 1, she honestly doesn't seem to have much to do, and is definitely not enough of a powerful force in the plot to justify having the series named after her, though she's unquestionably around the most after Touma. Before writing this review, the word that kept popping to mind to describe Index's quality as a character was "inoffensive".
Then we have Misaka, also known as Railgun, a powerful Level 5 Esper (One of only seven in Academy City, as we are incessantly reminded) around whom the spinoff Toaru Kagaru no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun, for those who, like me, don't know Japanese) revolves. She's your run-of-the-mill snarky and grumpy girl character. Despite this, I actually found myself really liking her, to the point where she's quite possibly my favorite character in the show. Something about the way she behaves just seems a lot more human than her archetype usually is, perhaps because she's also shown to be genuinely shy and silly at points. Later in the show she develops a crush on Touma, and the way she tip-toes around this and begins acting feels very natural, especially considering she is in middle school.
Finally, we have Accelerator, who is initially introduced as an antagonist, but grows into more of an anti-hero role. I found him immensely annoying during his stint as an antagonist, but once he becomes a more well-rounded character he becomes a fairly good addition to the roster. He's perhaps the character who develops the most, though it's through a rather cliche arc. It's still not boring to experience, but I can't say I ever felt any joy when the focus of the show shifted away from Touma and Index to Accelerator for episodes at a time.
However, the shows greatest strength doesn't lie in any of these factors: It's really the world and the ensuing battles that are interesting. The idea of the magical world and the technological world fighting isn't precisely novel, but is one that I feel is very much underused. As such, I greatly appreciated seeing it put in action fairly effectively here. There's also a decent deal of political intrigue going on behind the scenes: The different churches are constantly fighting against each other or against Academy City, which, though explained minimally, lends a decent deal of weight to the stuff going on in the foreground. The show also does a particularly good job of making up magical artifacts with sometimes genuinely terrifying powers, which often serve as McGuffins for an arc or two.
Of course, the whole Magic vs Technology aesthetic most importantly affects the fights. It's here where the show shines, with a host of interestingly powered enemies coming up against Touma, at least early on. By Season 2, the creativity wanes a little bit, and most attacks only really differ in what color the projectiles being thrown at Touma are. Fortunately, Season 2 manages to differentiate its bad guys by how they conjure said projectiles rather than what the projectiles do: One character casts spells using small strips of paper, for instance, whilst another uses a staff as a multi-purpose voodoo doll.
Whilst Touma's power (being exclusively a defensive one) seems like it'd be a clever way for the writers to force themselves to write him out of corners in more interesting ways, it ultimately only serves to make all the fights he's in very samey. Aside from enemies who fight in extremely creative ways, Touma's power means that he'll ultimately win most fights by blocking attacks with his right hand, and then uppercutting the enemy. This is really cool for the first few times, having a really kinetic and visceral feel to it that magic simply lacks, but eventually gets tired and predictable.
The other big issue with combat is the how extremely underused the science side is. We only get to see a few Espers fight, and most of them honestly feel like they're using magic in all but in name. Railgun, especially, whose power is channeling electricity feels like she fits in perfectly with the magician Style, who harnesses the power of fire. There just isn't enough of a technological feel to them: aside from a few instances, it doesn't feel like they're limited or empowered in any way by the fact that this isn't magic. What's most frustrating is that, when it goes right, there's a few really cool ideas there. I really like Accelerator's power, that being the ability to change any vector quantity that comes in contact with him. It's a nice, science-feeling power, and the show just doesn't do that kind of thing enough.
Character and World Building: 8.5/10
A large cast of unchanging but endearing characters inhabit a world that's got some really cool flavor to it, and enables them to do battle in really cool ways. A few of the things that the various Churches get up to are really insane in a very good way.
Story: 6/10
It's usually inoffensive, but has a decent amount of moments where it shines quite brightly. The events that go on in Index won't leave anyone stunned, but you'd be hard-pressed to be too bored, either.
Presentation: 4/5
Some really cool powers elevate this show beyond the rest. The art style is very much just there, but perhaps the unsung hero is the soundtrack, which has a really interesting, almost dissonant feel. It goes very well with the action, providing appropriate backing for everything from tension to comedy.
Enjoyment: 12/15
I really don't know why I liked Index as much as I did. It's not a bad show by any means, but it doesn't scratch any of my personal itches. Still, I found myself often grinning at the antics the characters got up to, and, despite never really feeling too deeply invested, I got a great amount of enjoyment from the fighting and drama.
Overall: (8.5+6+4+12/40)
30.5/40
Roughly 7.5/10
Despite the fact that I've left the show feeling pretty happy with having watched it, I can't help but shake the feeling that I shouldn't have. Index is a show that does a lot of things I don't like, and very few things I do like, yet I still came out with a good impression. Still, I review the experience I had, and not the experience I feel like I should've had by my idea of what my standards are, and I had a pretty good one with Index.
Look forward to my review of the spinoff based around Railgun, coming soon.
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