To Aru Majutsu no Index

To Aru Majutsu no Index.

While waiting for another figure photo session, I’m gonna fill you with updates of anime reviews. You should’ve known that I’ve finished 12++ series in 1 month. So (maybe) the number of anime reviews will also be 12++. I’ll start with To Aru Majutsu no Index, and I’ll be random at choosing which one to do next.

Obviously, beyond this section is full of SPOILERS, so… if you haven’t watched this anime i suggest you stop here. If you already knew the risks, please do proceed.

No basic knowledge.

The story of To Aru Majutsu no Index circles around Kamijyo Touma a very unfortunate boy who lives in Academy City. In this city, science rules and supernatural phenomenon is pretty much normal occurrences. At the first scene, you’ll see is a girl blasting a damn huge electricity wave to a boy who can block that blast totally only with his right hand.

I was pretty much confused and kinda waiting for a clearer information or explanation, but no… i didn’t get any explanation about this city and the people of the city in the early episodes. So i continued on watching this anime without knowing any basic knowledge about the city, the girl, and Touma.

Apparently, i continued on with my own assumption. Here’s my assumption:

- There are 2 kind of supernatural power in this world: magic and esper.

- Academy city is full of esper, and they learned how to use esper abilities in their school.

- Misaka is the highest level of all esper, while Touma is the lowest level a.k.a. level 0, but he has that anti supernatural power right hand.

- Touma’s right hand can block both magic power and esper power.

I knew beforehand that this anime is similar with Shana, but as i remembered, Shana’s early episodes were filled with some basic explanations. It seems each anime has its own way to entertain their viewers by letting them make their own assumptions.

Anyway, this anime is pretty similar with Shana, including on how they split the stories between arcs. So I’ll be reviewing this anime arc by arc.

1st arc: Index is a loli noodle bread eating sister.

The first arc, which is the opening arc is about Index’s arrival on Touma’s apartment. As you can guess, Index’s arrival was pretty much funny: she came with empty stomach, begging for food while hanging on Touma’s veranda. Touma didn’t know at that time, that this was just the beginning.

Index came with some hard explanations about her church, her mission, about that grimoires, and about someone pursued her because of that grimoires. Doesn’t take too much long, someone suspicious calling himself magician: Styil Magnus came and attacked Touma. Not only that, Styil’s friend came and also attacked Touma: she’s Kanzaki Kaori.

Actually they both were Index’s friends and they planned on erasing Index’s memory which is actually a ritual that needs to be done every year in order to keep Index alive. As predicted, Touma found a way to prevent that at the cost of his own memories.

As expected, this arc is just an opening arc. You knew Index, you knew Styil, Kanzaki, Touma, academy city, and some basic knowledges. There’s not much going on here.

2nd arc: Touma’s first job, rescuing Himegami Aisa.

The next arc is pretty short. It’s about Touma’s first job as Index’s friends helper. Styil asked him to get Himegami Aisa from someone (forgot his name) who can do crazy magic (Ars Magna) which can turn his thought into reality. This arc doesn’t really important for story advancement. The only things significant here are: that man was Index’s previous partner even before Styil and Himegami Aisa joined Index’s group in Touma’s place.

Starting from this arc, i realized that Index’s role wasn’t that much even though the title of this anime is Index.

3rd arc: Misaka Mikoto and MISAKA sisters.

The 3rd arc is unexpectedly long. It’s about my favorite character: Misaka Mikoto. She was involved in a cruel experiment: making a level 6 esper. The level-6-to-be esper is called Accelerator, and his job was to kill 20000 clones of Misaka a.k.a. sisters. One of the sisters met Touma and learned that life is important even though they were clones. FYI, Accelerator’s ability is manipulating vector and air by calculating it and deflecting or doing whatever he wants with it.

As expected of our hero, Touma suggested that he himself, a level 0 esper, has to beat Accelerator in order to stop the experiment. And he totally defeated Accelerator with his right hand and some helps from the sisters (changing the wind so Accelarator would have a hard time counting and manipulating the air).

For a Misaka fan, this arc is definitely my favorite arc, since Misaka herself and also the sisters were involved in some action-packed scenes.

4th arc: Angel Fall.

Fourth arc returns Index and her friends back to the spotlight. The first thing you’ll get to see is fanservices: Index in swimsuit and bikini, pretty entertaining. The fun ends in just 15 minutes, suddenly everything went wrong. Everyone swapped body: Index became Touma’s mom, Styil became the hotel staff, and Touma’s blue haired friend (forgot the name) became Index!

Apparently Kanzaki came, and she told Touma about a big magic is activated: Angel Fall. I forgot the effect, but it sure is something big. Touma and friends investigated and found out that the one who activated the magic is his own dad.

This arc is unexpectedly short even though the magic seems pretty big. You’ll get to see Tsuchimikado and Kanzaki Kaori in action in this arc. Pretty cool, especially Kanzaki’s nanasen.

5th arc: Unabara, Touma, Misaka, a love triangle here.

The 5th arc, which only has 1 episode in total, is about a demon who tried to kill Misaka by disguising as Unabara, a boy who loved Misaka. This episode is pretty weird for me. Touma was able to beat that demon but he said about “more will come”. Up until now, I’m still curious about his “more will come” line. Because the enemies from the next 2 arcs didn’t have any connection with him.

Anyway, for a Misaka fans, this arc is also the best arc since you can see Misaka in her tsundere scenes. Misaka pretended to be Touma’s girlfriend because she needed to avoid Unabara at all cost. XD

6th arc: Accelerator is a lolicon.

The 6th arc could be called a side story. There’s no Touma involved here, no Kaori, no Styil, no Misaka (real). The main heroine here is surprisingly Accelerator himself. He involved in the continuation of MISAKA network experiment. He met with the brain of MISAKA network: MISAKA number 20001. Apparently, one of the researcher in that experiment tried to infect MISAKA 20001 with virus, so all the other MISAKA sisters will go berserk and destroying everything they see.

Accelerator is a bad person, but he tried to help MISAKA 20001 even almost with the cost of his life. This arc is short, not really funny, but it’s somewhat touching in its own way.

7th arc: Hyouka the megane oppai girl who isn’t a human.

The 7th arc which is also the last arc returns the spotlight to Index. She met someone new and special: Kazakiri Hyouka. Easy to predict, Hyouka wasn’t a normal human. At that time also, a magician from other church who can control golem, came and attacked academy city.

The main point of this arc is: Hyouka wanted to make friends even though she’s not human and of course Touma and Index gladly accepted her as new friend. As for me, Hyouka is very sexy: she got megane and oppai. XD . I thought she’s just an unusual human who can’t die but in the end, she managed to kick a golem butt and safed Index from pinch.

Overall, Index is a good anime. There’s a little significant story connection between each arc, just like Shana. Most of the arcs stand on its own and give their own great story. Action and magic fans should watch this. But as i said before, even though this anime has Index in its title, Index herself doesn’t really get much screen time compared to Misaka, unlike Shana which story always revolves on Shana herself.

That’s it for my (sorta lame) anime review. I’ll try to post it once per day / 2 days. So yeah… see you at the next post!