Why You Should Watch A Certain Magical Index
With 40-some light novels, a manga adaptation, an anime adaptation consisting of two 24 episode seasons, a 26 episode third season, a film, a spin off manga, an anime adaptation of said spin off manga consisting of two 24 episode seasons with a third season on the way, a spin off manga to that spin off, and another spin off manga with its own anime adaptation green lit, the monster franchise that is A Certain Magical Index or the Raildex series or Toaru series as it is sometimes called, can seem intimidating on the surface, and perhaps it is, but it’s important to explain why this anime which first aired in 2008, still has new episodes coming out today, and why I love it so much despite being more skeptical about it a few years back before I truly dived in to the franchise and became a super fan.
This post was, in large part, inspired by Gigguk, who made a great video on the franchise and sells it pretty well. I agree with it mostly except for the watch order (which we’ll talk about at the end). I recommend giving that a watch as well.
I’m going to take you on a journey, and tell you why, if you haven’t given this franchise a shot, why you should, and why it’s become one of my all time favorites (without major spoilers).
Let’s start with the premise of the titular series. A Certain Magical Index is a light novel series about science and magic. Touma Kamijou, the protagonist, lives in Academy City, a hub of schools, colleges, universities, labs, research facilities, and more, in Japan that is estimated to be 1/3 the size of Tokyo with technology 20–30 years ahead of the rest of the outside world, and 80 percent of the population is students.
Touma has the unique ability to cancel out other abilities (I know this sounds boring, and I could write a section on why fans love Touma, but while I was writing this article, Kim Morrissy from Anime News Network wrote a feature piece on this very thing!- so you can read it for yourself if you’re looking for something else to sell you), and he lives an ordinary life when one day a silver haired nun named Index appears on his balcony claiming to be a library of 103,000 magical grimoires and on the run from a group of evil magicians hoping to use that power for their own benefit.
What follows is a sequence of events pitting magicians and magic (heavily influenced by religion) against scientists and espers, humans who have awakened psychic abilities. These events ultimately culminate into a grand narrative involving countless characters from Academy City and religious groups conflicting against each other and sometimes their own sides for influence.
If this sounds like I’m only just beginning to drone on about all the details, you’re right. The franchise is complete with intricate and detailed world building as it explains the exposition of both the science and magic worlds. While the light novels are pretty heavy on this (based on what I’ve read so far), the anime is also fairly capable of pretty high mountains of dialogue, sometimes to the point of dragging down the plot to a sluggish, torturous pace (more on this later).
But this is also one of its biggest strengths. It makes you want to just dive into the lore and background and read everything about the series, which is very rewarding. With very few exceptions, (almost) never before has there been a series that has made me want to be an expert on every aspect of the series. Be it science or magic, you want to be intimately familiar with all the intricacies of the Church of the Cross and its many sects and Academy City and its many organizations, and intense fans are rewarded for this because they’re able to pick up all the hints and cues in later arcs.
Another interesting thing about the story is that the sheer scope of its narrative of science vs magic allows for a lot of genre diversity. There is an arc for pretty much everything. As Gigguk pointed out in his video, there’s high school romcom hijinks, fantasy action, dark sci-fi, and so on. All of this means that you could go from episodes like this…
…to episodes like this…
Or, to be more fair, since that swimsuit episode above is technically filler fluff, you can have episodes like this…
…to this just a little later…
You get the idea.
Now to help drive it home, I want to mention some of my favorite arcs from the franchise. Tell you what they’re about and hopefully get you on board.
The Sisters arc
We’ll start with my favorite. The Sisters arc begins as the third story arc in Index. It’s about a Level 5 esper (I’ll explain this in a bit), Mikoto Misaka, who discovers that scientists in Academy City have made clones of her for military purposes, and her attempts to stop the experiment. Touma eventually catches wind of this and has to get involved. For sake of spoilers, I’ll leave it at that.
Actually, it happens twice in the franchise. Once in the beginning of the story and then again in A Certain Scientific Railgun S as a retelling of the events from Misaka’s point of view. This version is much more in depth, and is 15 episodes long if you exclude the pilot episode of the season, which makes it the longest in the franchise to date. It’s mysterious, emotional, philosophical, and heavy. It’s a dark sci-fi tale that asks questions of cloning, individuality, guilt, scientific and government corruption, and isolation. This is also the arc that sold Gigguk on the franchise. To be honest, you could start here if you wanted. You wouldn’t miss much context, though it is an arc better saved for later.
The Level Upper arc
Another arc that is exclusive to the science side of the franchise, this arc addressed the inherent unfairness of the esper system in Academy City. As I mentioned earlier, espers are ranked 1–5, with level 1 espers just barely knowing what their abilities are, while level 4 espers are essentially the strongest, with a firm grasp on their abilities and how to use them, but above them is level 5s. There are only seven level 5 espers in Academy City and are really in a league of their own. However, much of the population is level 0s, people with no discernible ability or psychic talent.
In particular, Saten Ruiko is the focus of this arc. She’s a level 0, like Touma, who only makes a cameo appearance in the Index light novels and has a minor role in the Index movie A Certain Magical Index: Miracle of Endymion, but is one of the main characters in the Railgun spin-off. She discovers a device known as the “Level Upper,” a strange song of unknown origin that increases the levels of people who listen to it.
This arc is lighter in tone and in the anime has a lot more buildup to the climax, containing a lot more fluff and filler. There’s a decent amount of humor but once it gets going, it really gets going, and it drives at the issues level 0s, who aren’t as fortunate as other espers, and how to deal with them. It also has a nice resolution for the characters. There’s some feels, action, heart and good humor. It’s solid even if it drags.
Okay, I’ll do just one more since this is already getting pretty long…
Invasion of Academy City arc
Last arc I’ll talk about comes at the end of season two of Index. Going into the actual plot of this arc will involve some heavy spoilers so I’ll keep this brief and talk mention what there is to look forward to.
It is, really, the beginning of the grand conflict. Most of the arcs in the main series involve skirmishes within the Church of the Cross and between their various factions, and Touma Kamijo, the protagonist. But things change, drastically, when someone from the magic side invades the city looking to eliminate Touma, and all the factions that had been separate, start to intertwine and come together, creating an epic story in which the entire sides of magic and science collide. This arc (and the one right after, Skillout Uprising, which is adapted from a side story novel) sets the groundwork for that narrative.
The biggest appeal here, is the action and excitement. Characters from different plot threads and previous arcs begin to meet in earnest and take serious roles that pave the way to the third season which is airing now. It also includes one of my favorite fights, which is pictured above involving the corrupt researcher.
All of this hopefully sounds super interesting, and this is all without touching upon the various underground organizations and prominent figures or other characters who create much of this intrigue. But this has dragged on long enough, much like the early arcs of this series. So now we’ll talk about my main criticism and the watch order I recommend.
Watch order and letdowns
Short version: Production order, with the exception of the film, which should be saved for after Railgun S. However, this will mean some trekking through some slow story movements.
Longer version: It’s actually not as complicated as all the charts and other fans would have you believe. The timeline is pretty easy to grasp if you just watch the seasons in the order they were made. That is A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, A Certain Magical Index II, A Certain Scientific Railgun S, then the film, A Certain Magical Index: Miracle of Endymion. Then begin the current series A Certain MAgical Index III. Watching the series this way will, 1) get all the boring stuff out of the way first, 2) allow you change up the genre and flavor of the series as opposed to going through all of Index or all of Railgun, 3) let you end off the pre-season 3 binge with a film that includes characters and references from all sides of the franchise and, 4) see the quality of animation and storytelling gradually improve as you go, instead of switching between back and forth for a whiplash effect.
Unfortunately, this means you’ll need to deal with Index’ biggest flaw right out of the gate: its pacing and generic surface. The Index light novels began in 2004 and the anime in 2008, a few years before the magic high school action genre of anime had peaked and was still in its infancy. So while for its time, it wasn’t that bad, it really has not aged well. Our protagonist is a level 0 whose only power is to cancel out other powers in a world where magic and science fight against each other, and he has to be the one to save the day.
Not only that, but the anime’s pacing can be grueling. The first arc, the Index arc, which adapts just the first light novel, is six episodes long and it drags with pointless standing around, stalling, long conversations, repetition in the dialogue, etc. So to watch the first few arcs in the franchise is to ingest a pint of anime molasses of cliches. And this isn’t a weakness you can just shrug off. It slowly dissipates over the course of the franchise. The arcs start off slow, and they stay that way throughout basically all of season 1 of Index. And for me, that was a demotivating factor. It took a while before I could get fully invested in it, but you, like me, will hopefully see the reward that comes with keeping up and persevering along. When I went back a few years later and just binged the hell out of it, I ended up really loving it and the pacing didn’t bother me as much anymore by the time Railgun was in full swing.
But if you can make it past there, you are in for a great ride, filled with a grand narrative, a myriad of themes, cool battles, and a large cast of cool characters. It’s a journey, but a journey nonetheless, you should take. If it it’s really bad for you, then you can watch up to episode 9 of Index and then watch episodes 2–16 of Railgun S, which provides the context you need for the best arc in the franchise, and if it grabs you, that might give you the push you need to make it through, and if not, then maybe this franchise won’t be your thing.
So dive in. Watch this series. You may find yourself treating it like JoJo fans or Evangelion fans treat those series. Because there are no casual fans of Index. The Church of the Cross or Academy City. Which side will you choose?
A Certain Magical Index seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on FunimationNow subtitled and dubbed and on Blu-ray and DVD at retailers. Season 3 is available to stream subtitled on Crunchyroll and dubbed on FunimationNow. A Certain Scientific Railgun and A Certain Scientific Railgun S are both available to stream on FunimationNow subtitled and dubbed and on DVD and Blu-ray at retailers. The original A Certain Magical Index light novels and manga are available by Yen Press while the A Certain scientific Railgun, A Certain Scientific Railgun: Astral Buddy, and A Certain Scientific Accelerator manga are available by Seven Seas.
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