A Certain Magical Index II - Reviews

Welcome everyone to the sophomore season of To Aru Index..If u are here then u know the story already so let's not waste time explaining what,who,when,where.All i care about and what u should also care about is..Is this 2nd attempt worth your while.

The answer is yes and no.You see the 1st one,for me at least,was a very enjoyable anime.You had the casual MC meets girl-girl into trouble-MC finds out what the hell is going on-gives a massive speech about what is wrong and what is right-saves the girl punching his way out of the problem and in between you had the rather brilliant unravel of Science and Religion sides combined with some hillarious character interactions.

Now what they did to make this one better beggars belief..They threw all of the good stuff from season 1 to the basket..Creativity has fallen down the stairs,the MC now finds the hidden pleasures of punching women to the ground...And the worst?They got rid of the comical stuff that made the 1st one such a giggle and went...Well they went down the Ecchi avenue..This now has more panty-nude shots than a Paris Hilton family film.I wouldn't have a single problem if this was an ecchi anime to begin with.I would know what i was getting into,i would know what to expect.But now it's like going out for dinner in a fancy restaurant and ordering hot dogs and burgers..This also has an after effect.Cause in the 1st season every bad aspect was hidden beneath a layer of creative trickery.Now all is bare for all to see..The annoying long and out of place speeches of Srgnt Touma while for example his mate is on the floor bleeding,holding his intestines.Touma goes on forever ignoring the screams of agony of his fellow partner to make the bad girl(who he later punches repeatedly)change her ways and see the light..The interaction between the characters is now gone too.It has become very Touma centered..I can't even remember Index having any screen time.

But not all is lost.In the 2nd half it seems to pick pace and we get to see Accelerator again,giving us some quality time away from Touma's rather infuriating instances.

Animation...I noticed many times that movements in battles have become a lot jerky.It started at some point to become wearisome.Soundwise no probs there..

That's all i had to say..If there is ever a 3rd way better season i'll gladly come back to watch it and wash off the disapointment of this one.

SCRIPT
The Toaru franchise is more known for its complex terminology and elaborate world building than for its narrative depth.
- The premise is about magic and science being engaged in a global conflict, although the series spends its runtime in a city predominantly inhabited by teenagers with superpowers who get to have generic adventures.
- The story is conceptually enticing and benefits from the author’s meticulous exposition of diverse magical and scientific powers.
- The plot however adheres closely to the tropes typical of light novels. Despite the array of thematic explorations and unique abilities, each arc rehashes the protagonist punching bad guys and adding waifus to his harem before ending up in hospital.

CAST
The ensemble cast comprises a motley assortment of stereotypes that take their sweet time to develop, and when they do they are usually thrown in the background, never to be important ever again.

- The protagonist is the main focus, of course, who follows the generic backdrop of being a seemingly normal teenager who is evaluated as level zero (at the bottom). Is anyone surprised to hear he actually has a broken power nobody else possesses that cancels other powers, defeats everybody with a punch, and makes his harem bigger by the day? So much for all the amazing techno-babbling that makes sense. It’s all improbable physics canceled by a broken power and it comes down to a harem. Oh, and of course there is going to be a lot of talking during battles which comes down to childish morality, friendship, and macho one-liners.

- Index, whose name is even in the title of the anime, is supposed to be the key character in the war because of her hidden knowledge. Once she is offered some immersion and drama she becomes nothing more than a platonic lover for the lead character. Not only that, but as the girls who like the lead male keep increasing, her significance wanes further. Some say this is a boon because she is so annoying nobody likes her, and the less screen-time she gets, the better the show is. Nonetheless, this underscores the very bad choice of naming the show after her.

- The support characters have even less significance to the plot. Each arc usually concludes with Touma saving one girl and adding it to his personal harem, which of course increases in nudity as the episodes go on, because the scriptwriter had no idea of what to do with them once their introductory arc was over. The girls are objectified and treated as fapping material, doing nothing but coking or being naked. A result of the scriptwriter wasting all his time on writing techno-babbling bullshit, instead of character development.

- The only villain most of the fans care about is this psychotic guy named Accelerator, and even he is just a deranged, formidable adversary who wants to level up by killing lots of people. So much depth.

- Mikasa is the favorite girl for most fans, to the point she got her own side story. She is otherwise an average tsundere with superpowers, mass-cloned so everybody can have his own personal waifu.

PRODUCTION VALUES
The animation holds well for the time it was made. Action scenes are very good if all you want is fancy lights and big explosions. However, they follow a very standard and repetitive formula, ultimately diminishing their allure over time. You know the drill, they macho talk, the lead gets trashed, they macho talk, the lead gets up full of resolve to protect his friends, they macho talk, the lead wins. Thank you very much; I am watching this ever since Hokuto no Ken came out.

LEGACY
There are definitely far better shonen than this one, with far better handling of their stories and characters. It’s a good time waster if you are still a newbie, a shonen fan, you somehow find panty shots of minors to be sexy, or you like to think for hours about all the techno-babbling they are talking about. It is otherwise nothing great in the longrun. If you expect a lemon twist to your average soda, Toaru is just tab water in a fancy glass.

MINOR DETAILS ABOUT THE SEASONS
- Toaru 1 had little to no overall plot amongst its story arcs. Some excuse it as the introduction to the setting and the cast but story-wise it is still a pretty much disjoined series of almost stand-alone missions.
- Railgun 1 was just a storyless spin-off made to please the Misaka fans / Index haters. It is considered far more enjoyable that Toaru 1 but still has zero story to tell.
- Toaru 2 does a much better job at having a better overall plot, but the transition from one plotline to another happens in a rushed and poor way that confuses anyone not aware of the novels. Plus, it leaves most of the older characters as background decoration. The fan service goes up 300%, degrading the females into mostly eye candy than respectful characters. It was apparently the only way to maintain the interest of the audience around people the author doesn’t plan to develop.
- Railgun 2 is also improved in terms of plot and characterization, and it’s considered to be the best season. It still spends a lot of time in cute girls doing cute things and nothing more.
- Toaru 3 was supposed to be a super exciting continuation of the previous season, but it took so long to come out nobody cared by the time it was finally here. The storytelling continues to be confusing, and the plot is still the same generic crap. It was forgotten very fast and the franchise is now dead.

It is OK. There are less characters to keep track of and the story arcs flow a bit better but the amount of groups and factions is getting crowded with side quests that lend little to the story. The story arcs in 2 are a bit more interesting. Some of the characters have improved &/or fleshed out. Some of the minor characters I found annoying, like the aggressive sexually harassing chick with pig tails. Honestly, if a guy was 1/8 as aggressive as her, he would be in jail & I do hate when anime puts such over the top predatory female lesbian characters in to excite underage boys.

OK, off my soap box. It is watch able, not one of my fav's but watchable. The action scenes are very well done.

Ah, the long awaited sequel to Toaru Majutsu no Index finally came, and it was well received. For fans of the first season- you are in for a great ride... ending with the promise of a sequel (well, if they don't have one, I may have to commit seppuku, because they set it up for one soooooo well). Some of the main complaints about the first season- "Oh, they just go from one girl to the next, never really progressing the story line," "they just ignore so many awesome characters," etc. - are fairly well adressed. Anyways, on to the actual review....

Story : 9/10

Near the beginning of the season, I began to fear for this season because of an increased amount of ecchiness, which was not needed by any means. However, as the season progressed, they kept on track with the story and this problem began to resolve. As things develop, you begin to see where this season is going, and that there will be another season. This, however, is ok, because the way they set it up, what is going to happening the next season follows quite well... it even follows quite well from the end of the first season. As the lines are drawn, you can see where individual characters are going, and it seems... right that they go where they do.

Animation: 9/10

Being a JCStaff series that basically drained all resources that they had, you would expect good animation. Well, that is what you get. Great character designs, cool attacks, and smooth motion in an action heavy series. You get the picture.

Sound: 8/10

The series already started out with a large set of strong voice actors, but they managed to add a few more big names, Kugimiya Rie in particular, to the cast. Along with some catchy OPs and EDs, a good sound track and a lot of fitting music, the sound could only get slightly better.

Characters: 8/10

This series has a large number of really great characters. A lot of the characters are well developed and fairly likable as well. Unfortunately, certain awesome characters (biribiri and Accelarator) don't really get the screen time they deserve. The last arc or two begins to correct this at the very least. Also, a lot of the characters that got their own arcs in the first season, for better or worse, are more or less ignored with little to no screen-time.

Anyways: Overall: 8.5/10

If you enjoyed the first series- rejoice! There will be even more to come. If you thought the first season was good but fell short somewhere along the line (probably somewhere in the teens, episode wise), I would say give this series a try as well. Either way, I look forward, happily, to S3.

I don't get all the people saying this season was worse than the first. That season started off moderately good with Index's arc (3.5/5) only to get somewhat worse in Himegami's actually pointless arc (3/5), later followed by the body-swapping arc which was nothing special (3+/5) and a nearly terrible four-episode arc to wrap it up about an overly trashy character I don't give half a fuck about, Kazakiri Hyouka (2.5--/5). Basically the only great things about that season were the Misaka/MISAKA's/Accelerator arc in the middle (4-/5) and the little two-ep installment introducing Last Order and developing Accelerator (4/5). Namely, seven episodes.

What about Season Two? I guess I'll make my point more easily by rating each of the arcs first:

Orsola Arc (1-5) -> 3.5-/5
Kuroko/Misaka Arc (6-7) -> 4/5
Daihasesai Arc (8-13) -> 3.5/5
Italy Arc (14-16) -> 3/5
Accelerator Arc (17-22) -> 4++/5
More Accelerator/Setting Up Arc (23-24) -> 3.5+/5

All around this was much more decent for me and the high points of the show lasted longer. Now, let's start by saying Index II shares many of the flaws Index already had, story-wise.

Big flaw #1: the sides of magic and science are barely in contact with each other except for Touma acting as a bridge. What I mean by this is that the show seems to deliberately avoid that the characters get involved in a world that's not properly theirs whereas this would start making everything much more interesting. Since almost all arcs about magicians have them sneaking into Academy City there's really no excuse to keep the resident espers and defense forces from kicking some ass. During many of these arcs I've seen so many wasted chances to get characters like Misaka or Kuroko into the fights with magicians that my head hurts.

Index seems stubbornly determined to divide its story in disconnected arcs concerning either of these sides. Season 3 hints at solving this problem somewhat, but given the path the series has chosen up until now I'm not getting extremely hopeful.

Big flaw #2: the way the anime presents the ''serious'' side of the story, particularly from the magicians' side. This is actually very related to my first point, but there's more to it. I guess it won't come off as a surprise for me to say this, but the exposition of the plot from which the arcs develop is deeply flawed.

The reason is that instead of getting the groups to act and fight in a more compelling way - that is, with major objectives, like a full-scale attack or the execution of a well-known character - we're being constantly introduced to some new magicians and a key person or people who are looking for some kind of strong, magically imbued artifact/spell to make their ulterior plans come to fruition. Be it a library of 103,000 forbidden grimoires, a vampire killer (wtf), a digital noise lump, the Book of the Law, the Stab Sword, the Cross of Saint Peter, the Queen of the Adriatic Sea or the goddamn makeup of Ronald McDonald. You name it. The thing is that the arcs mostly follow this basic structure, thus making them eventually dull and repetitive. It doesn't help to find Touma's constant preaching in every single one of them, as well as pointless enemy melodrama and so on so forth.

Now then, what has Index II done better? Well, for starters, a remarkable cohesion among the arcs can now be observed, albeit the show keeps lacking an unique, overarching storyline to unify all its elements. But it is an improvement nonetheless because I can finally see some proper connection for the stories. Secondly, the separate arcs, as standalones, are generally better. Characterisation is stronger (as well as interaction), comedy is better integrated, the intentions and members of the factions are more clearly stated and the fights are more plentiful and pleasant to watch. Characters like Index who were extremely passive and useless in the first season (funny fact for a titular character) get some chances to actively participate in the plot and even when their role is more passive their importance is considerably better noted.

Individually, the first arc works well as a reintroduction to the franchise: it includes the different churches, the usual conflicts for dominance, the already known characters from the magicians' side and a generous amount of slick action. The following mini-arc is different from the norm in its presentation and development and provides wonderful fights while reminding the most interesting plotline of the espers' side and keeping the cheesiness to a minimum. The third arc is pretty long and combines well the cute comedy with the serious business, but feels a bit drawn out at places and yet again fails to mix the characters from the two worlds in the same battlefield. The fourth is the least memorable arc and it could've easily been removed with not much being lost. The fifth is absolutely amazing and it gathers pretty much everything I love about the show, its shortcomings being - as always - the lame melodrama and preaching from the MC, but since the arc is all around so much more enjoyable these things are also easier to forgive. Finally the last two eps leave the path open to a promising third season that should easily outdo the former ones if only they play it out cleverly enough.

As in the original Index, the animation is simply gorgeous. With stylish character designs, detailed backgrounds, a careful use of shading and lights, fluid movements and flashy special effects, the show is just a treat to behold. The budget is clearly huge and it's been put to good use. No complaints at all here, really.

As for the soundtrack, I don't really walk away with much of an impression of it. Just like before, it has been used nicely to fit the respective scenes but beyond that it is easily forgettable. The opening themes are good enough but fall short compared to those of the first season. Voice acting is generally great, my personal favorite having to be the agressive, rash, troubled, severely twisted tone of Accelerator.

Characters are as always a mixed bag of sorts. There are great ones, okay ones, bearable ones and finally those who are pointless, useless or downright annoying. The good things about the second season regarding these are:

-Pointless characters like Himegami or Kazakiri get MUCH LESS screentime. Instead of dedicating whole arcs for their lackluster personas, their presence is almost anecdotal and I can't thank them enough for that as they now substract way less enjoyment from the experience.

-Characters I didn't really care about (or nearly disliked) in the first season, like Tsuchimikado or Kuroko, got more (and better used) airtime in this season, enabling them to augment their uh, ''likability'' and even develop. Tsuchimikado was little else than a pimp wannabe in my mind before but the arcs where he acted proved him totally different, and Kuroko mostly left aside her annoying ''Onee-sama'' antics to make good use of his teleport powers in fights and deliver some of the only non-cheesy lines/preaching in this series. Others like Styil didn't change my mind this much but also got significantly more watchable.

-Index is slightly less useless. Slightly.

-Touma, our archetypal male lead, keeps his hardly healthy mix of kickass fighter and dense preacher. While I deeply detest the second part, the guy has enough good points to make me unable to dislike him.

-Last but definitely not least, those who are for me the best characters by far got much more screentime and, again, more development. The sweet contrasts between Misaka's natural badassery and her extreme shyness/childish behavior are charming enough to make me melt, and I only regret she didn't get enough chances to fight during Index II. Accelerator is the show's major kickass without a shade of doubt and it's again the antithesis of his old sadistic vein and his present attachment/fatherly love towards Last Order that works so well in him (it's worth mentioning that any scene he's in seems 100x less cheesy than those of Touma). And then there's Last Order who is the embodiment of adorableness and one of the only (arguably) moe characters I can digest with pleasure.

Only shortcomings about characters in comparison with Season 1 are the outrageous passivity of Kanzaki in the plot and the fact there are still plenty of new uninteresting characters (like the Roman Church sisters) popping up everywhere.

Overall I just don't see how this season is inferior in any way to the first since it marks for me a big step from being merely ''good'' towards great, without quite getting there yet. The plot is somewhat more consistent, the individual arcs have also improved, there are more and better fights, the comedy/school slapstick aspect was much more enjoyable and the characters more likeable as a whole. Seriously, from where I stand I can safely say ''screw Index I for Index II is here to take the cake''.