February 18th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy I’m down to the final four episodes of A Certain Magical Index (first series), so I’m going to try to watch these during my weekend break and get a series review up.
In the meantime, I couldn’t help be struck by some things.
- Had I not watched A Certain Scientific Railgun, I’d have no clue about what the group “Judgement” is (bearing in mind that I’ve still to watch the final four episodes).
- KANZAKI Kaori wearing one-legged jeans is just weird.
- At least the Index series actually explains Touma’s ability a bit. In the Railgun anime, it was more of a mystery. (I do know that Railgun‘s timeline starts before Index‘s, but Touma still knew he had a power.)
- The school system of Academy City really isn’t as clear as the Railgun series makes it (IMO). I guess that was part of the motivation behind making the Railgun spinoff series.
- I can certainly understand why the Mikoto character scored her own series (Railgun). She really does come close to stealing the Index series when she’s around.
- I’ve been kind of disappointed that the Index character hasn’t been more involved in the whole story. The series is called, “A Certain Magical Index,” but stories like the “Sisters” arc and another character’s redemption (while interesting and enjoyable), push Index out of the picture. That just seems odd to me.
- The frog-faced doctor’s importance is at least made clear by Index (and he’s a bit funnier than he was in Railgun).
Well, those were just some things that struck me as I go into the final four episodes. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the series and moving on to the second series.
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Off-topic: ANB, since you’re in Skyrim (if not – sorry, my mistake), here’s some “Fus Do Rah!!!” trolls from YouTube:
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK_ikMBI5Jg
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWYvPMgQGtk
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip7QZPw04Ks
For those of you who are wondering from where is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjqsYzBrP-M
And as a bonus (a little bit of Star Wars merged with Benny Hinn’s hypnosis):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YapNo2Y6_go. It’s just too funny.
>ANB, since you’re in Skyrim (if not – sorry, my mistake), here’s some “Fus Do Rah!!!” trolls from YouTube:
OH yeah. I’m doing my archer-assassin character. I’ll pick up my level 68 arch mage character again later and maybe do the companion storyline. However, at the moment, I’m having more fun with my level 52 archer-assassin. ^_^
Warning, the first series ends abruptly, and for no reason at all, as if they decided they reached some arbitrary episode limit as they were putting the last touches on the last episode, and just stopped.
The second series is a little better about that, but it still ends without answering a lot of questions.
This is because the anime is faithful to the novels’ storyline, which hasn’t really had much in the way of good ending spots, as the overall plot has been progressing quite slowly. (If they ever make a season three it will be even worse in this regard as there is slightly too much material to only fit in 24 episodes before the natural stopping point after vol 22)
-And to ANB, you are very correct about Judgement, which I was a bit unclear about I read railgun (I started with the novels) It does show up a couple of times (most prominently in vol 8 (Ep 6,7 in Index II) which stars Kuroko) but since Judgement doesn’t know about magic, and isn’t involved in the dark side of Academy city, we don’t see them much, and especially not in the anime which cut out much of what had been explained. Overall I’m quite glad I read railgun, as it fills out the normal Academy City which was a bit lacking in the Index series (the biggest remaining unanswered question concerning this is what do espers do when they graduate?)
-Its true the author erred in naming the series, but I don’t really see it as that big a deal (my guess is that Index’s role was reduced in part because she’s significantly less popular than say Mikoto or Kanzaki)
-You aren’t the only person who feels this way about Kanzaki’s jeans. (Hilariously, in one short story a retailer refuses to sell her jeans after seeing what she’s wearing)
-Its worth noting that Touma’s ability is still not known very well even to himself; imagine breaker is fairly bizzare
>Warning, the first series ends abruptly, and for no reason at all, as if they decided they reached some arbitrary episode limit as they were putting the last touches on the last episode, and just stopped.
Yeah, I noticed that. ^_^;
>The second series is a little better about that, but it still ends without answering a lot of questions.
I’ll watch that after I put together a review of the first series.
>This is because the anime is faithful to the novels’ storyline, which hasn’t really had much in the way of good ending spots, as the overall plot has been progressing quite slowly.
From the first series, I couldn’t even say that there was an over-arcing plotline. I would have said that it had to do with Index and the books in her noggin, but that was pretty much dropped after the first story arc completed.
Regarding Judgement, it is actually amazing that they are in there at all. I get the strong feeling that Kamachi-sensei had a strong sense of what Academy City was, and the elements it took to run the city (Judgement being a part of that, along with Anti-Skill), but then didn’t get to lay it out in a way that would give the audience an idea of just what things like Judgement were (at least in the anime).
Read the novels. That’s what I say to everyone who mentions Index.
Anyway, to address some of your points:
2. Kanzaki’s jeans are part of her bodily reinforcement magic. The Amakusa church she formerly belonged to uses mundane items as constituents of their spells and are prone to heavy improvisation (like making totems and magic items from the remnants of a happy meal). Asymmetry is one of the basics of the spell Kaori uses, as such she made her jeans asymmetrical for that reason. Of course, it’s never explained in the anime since fanservice is by far more important. *sighs*
3. Railgun presents events from Mikoto’s perspective. Mikoto hasn’t figured out what Touma’s power is, exactly. So said power is never explained in Railgun because Mikoto doesn’t know what it is. However, it is mentioned as an urban legend at least twice (the ability to cancel abilities).
5. Too bad the author doesn’t know what to do with her in Index itself and thus she just disappears for the majority of several consecutive volumes later on (I think it was to make room for more potential spin-off stories taking place during the times she is not present in Index).
6. It’s A Certain Magical Index. ;P And yes, Index won’t play much of a role in most volumes. Despite the novels’ title, the story is about Touma, after all. (And later on about Accelerator and even later on about Shiage as well but that’s a different story altogether). Expect to see even less of her in season 2, as the story shifts to introduce the second protagonist as, well, a protagonist.
I do have it on my list to attempt to read the novels, assuming there’s a translation. ^_^;
As to Index, based on what you folks are saying, I’d guess that on paper (meaning in the idea phase), the character seemed more interesting than she actually turned out to be.
She only has her jeans like that because she gains magical powers from unsymmetrical things and she likes touma she’s only 18
>She only has her jeans like that because she gains magical powers from unsymmetrical things
I wish that could have been explained in the anime.