August 20th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy Hey gang. I’d gotten about half-way through A Certain Magical Index II and then got distracted. Since I REALLY need to finish it, I’m currently taking the time to marathon it so I can get another anime series off my plate. ^_^;
While I’ll save my thoughts for the final review, I do wonder why the Railgun stories are so much more interesting than the Index ones?
Anyway, here’s an image of the most unfortunate Touma, and some of the prime sources of his misfortune. ^_~
I’ll try to have the review up later this week. ^_^
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For me, one of the main reasons why I found Railgun to be more interesting over Index is the fact that it doesn’t get bogged down in theological technobabble that tends to mitigate any sense of crisis, which in turn flatlines the drama. It also doesn’t help that every Index storyarc climaxes with Touma giving an act long speech followed by the deus-ex-machina Imagine Breaker punch. On top of that, Index really doesn’t add much to show, plot or character wise, which is ironic considering she’s the titular character. Even with Touma, as the protagonist, his routine seems to mainly deal with moaning about his bad luck.
With Railgun on the other hand, you can hardly argue the fun that comes from a tsundere that’s a Level 5 with an over the top yuri roommate.
Though in all honesty, I find the stories that pair Railgun as the protagonist with Touma as the supporting character to be one of the better arcs overall in both series.
Touma is a good supporting character. Index could be as well, if properly done.
>I do wonder why the Railgun stories are so much more interesting than the Index ones
That’s probably because Railgun isn’t bogged down by truckloads of exposition, and is more dynamic in terms of plot.
It’s probably too late to say this now, but almost all of the arcs in A Certain Magical Index are just variations of the ‘damsel in distress->meet misguided antagonist->speech->I’ll break your illusion!->punch->hospital’ pattern. Expect the second half of the second season to be roughly the same. In fact, expect this same pattern to appear in Season 3 or Season 4, if Japan ever makes them.
Well, I had similar thoughts that both of you guys stated, said review will go up later today.
I do want to see more of the story.
. In fact, expect this same pattern to appear in Season 3 or Season 4, if Japan ever makes them.
Nope, because…
[spoiler] he doesn’t end up in the hospital and there is no damsel in distress and he gets beaten to death once and he sometimes fight with others there and yep, if there is a season 3, I do think he’ll be doing the illusion thingy once but not more than that and he won stragically in some of his fights and what is worth five light novels has Touma as not a main protagonist out of ten. Which is half, actually eleven if you add half of the side story that wasn’t translated so out of these five, I think around half he does that but with no damsel in distress, using his brain, or just plain loses with someone almost beating the antagonist while him, not.[/spoiler]
Just to be safe, your comments were wrapped in spoiler tags.
2. NT Light Novels
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1.Index Light Novel
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2. Railgun S
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3. Railgun Manga
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4. Accelerator Manga
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5. Index 2
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6. Index
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7. Railgun
(How I view the series)
Now that I think about it, it probably doesn’t help the fact that Index and Railgun are technically two sides of the same light novel series. Maybe in the novels, alternating between Touma/Index and Misaka makes Index overall more palatable. Sort of like with Full Metal Panic alternating between the humor of the high school arc and the drama of the Mithril arc.
Well, my understanding of the FMP novels is that the short stories are the comedy pieces and the regular light novels are the serious story.
That said, I know what you are trying to say. Two parallel stories are being told in the Index novels (Science side and Magic/Church side).