A Certain Magical Index (Light Novel)

TheIceQueen May 25, 2016

9.5

Honestly, this is my favorite light novel. I really the anime and I saw some of the novels in a bookstore near where I live so I thought what the heck? and I bought 'em. My expectations were around 6.5 or 7,I'd place the anime around 7 or 7.5, but I thought a book wouldn't really capture the action and character interaction as well. boy was I wrong. Story: The story takes place in a technologically advanced city full of different kinds of schools, appropriately named academy city. In this city students are taught to use psychic abilities. They are ranked levels 0 to 5, five being the strongest and zero being unable to use any ability. The main character, Toma Kamijou, is a level zero although he has a strange ability in his right hand (if ya know what I mean( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) jk) to cancel out any supernatural ability, and apparently his luck too. He meats a nun hanging over his balcony one day who claims to possess 'a very large number I forgot' grimoires. Throughout the story the characters face many different arcs featuring magic, science and religion all mixed perfectly. the story moves very well, and  is relatively fast paced The story works better in the light novel than the anime because it goes into far more detail and you have much more time spent developing the arc.          score: 9/10 very well written, may seem a bit boring sometimes, but it picks it's self back up pretty easy. Art: Now this is a light novel so the art isnt very prevalent, but it is still quite good. It looks nice and fits the mood pretty well. though there's nothing really special about it.         score: 7/10 above average, but not ground breaking. Character: In a story of any kind, the most important thing to me is the characters. And these books never failed to deliver. Each character gets a fair amount of development and we get to see them go through their own individual barriers and struggles. The heroes are all likable and the villains all very unlikable, but still interesting. Even the main character Kamijou, who seems to be average shounen protagonist #186 has depth. Accelerator and Misaka are probably the most well rounded and interesting characters in the anime but in the light novels, they are a million times better. Honestly i love all the characters. Though, they all fit into light novel cliches. accelerator is freaking amaizing, and mikoto is great, best tsundere i've seen in a while.      score: 9.7/10 Almost perfect.