A Certain Magical Index
A Certain Magical Index is the kind of anime that deals with both the themes of Science and Magic. The combination of the two is definitely a unique one and doubles the anime’s potential in which it’s incorporated. However, did this anime successfully merge the two concepts together to create something phenomenal, or did it just let the two concepts exist with each other without actually making any interaction between them?
The answer lies in our review for this anime that we will start now!
Read on to learn what we liked and did not like about “A Certain Magical Index One.”
The story revolves around Touma Kamijou, a high school student with the lowest rank in psychic powers. He lived in Academy City, Japan, which was 30 years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technology. The city students, including Touma, aspire to polish their psychic abilities as espers in different schools. Though Touma's psychic powers are not on par with other students, he still has this mysterious ability called ”Imagine Breaker” that allows him to nullify different supernatural abilities.
Touma’s life is pretty every day until he meets Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a young girl who has been hunted down by an evil organization and who has memorized all of the secrets of the forbidden grimoires. Now, Touma must save the young girl from evil magicians and organizations and be aware of his supernatural abilities.
Our answer to the question asked above is that there was no interaction between the two main themes of the story. The two exist in their own bubble, making little to no sense. Therefore, a lot of potential was wasted right there.
The introduction to the anime was pretty solid and exciting. The characters introduced also seemed to be very interesting. However, after a few episodes, all the hype died down and what we were left with were a generic storyline and generic characters. The visible elements of “Harem” started to take over the plot, and the story soon developed into a generic high school comedy.
The story’s centerpiece, Index herself, seems to be so out of place all the time. She does not seem to be the center of the story as her character keeps dangling here and there, focusing on other unnecessary things. She shows no sense of purpose and always gets little screen time when she should have been in the limelight more. We only get to know essential details about her only in the first episode. After that, the details are nowhere to be seen and are never discussed. That’s where it bothers us.
The story is divided into several arcs. Some arcs have successfully captured our attention and are pretty good as well. However, a few arcs are just awful and will make you question their existence. They failed to handle the events that were actually happening inside the story, and everything ended up being a jumbled mess.
Overall, this anime could be one of the best magic/science-based anime if it continued in the same vein as the first few episodes.
As far as the characters are concerned, they were introduced explosively, making us like them instantly. They had little to no importance in the arcs; they were not supposed to be the highlight. Different arcs focused on different characters, but the problem is that they faded away when the focus shifted to another character.
When it comes to character development, our MC did not show any. The same goes for Index, who was supposed to be the centerpiece of the series. We do not see a lot of character development with her. It feels like the creators forgot about her entirely after introducing her in the first episode.
One thing that we liked about the characters was the unique personalities that distinguished them from each other. Character development aside, all the characters are pretty likable and memorable. You actually find yourself caring about them and what they've gone through. So, the characters in this anime are not that bad, and we’ve seen some degree of effort in this department.
The animation is probably the most substantial aspect of this anime. Everything looks so smooth and straightforward. It has a charm of its own. The movements of the characters are very soft. Surprisingly, the CG effects are amazingly done. We notice many bright and vibrant colors all over, making the anime all the more attractive to watch for us. It gives us a very fresh feeling. The character designs are also done wonderfully well. Overall, we love how the creators have put great care into the animation. It makes up for the most part for this anime.
There’s a constant burst of rock music in the opening theme song that warms up the viewers throughout the anime. However, the ending soundtrack is a bit disappointing. For the most part, the voice acting is done wonderfully well. The voice actors were able to express genuine emotions while representing each character. We loved how cute Index sounded throughout the anime. It can be a little annoying for some people, though.
Overall, the music department also takes the cake for this anime as everything from the soundtracks to the background music was good!
Overall, the anime was pretty enjoyable if we only considered the arcs separately and forgot about the main plot and themes. The sound, art, and animation department did well and knew very well what they were doing!
1 thought on “A Certain Magical Index I Anime Review”
Bolo_de_Mulango
Toaru Majutsu no Index is divided into 3 parts: Old Testament, New Testament and Genesis Testament. Together they total more than 50 volumes. Only the Old Testament (22 volumes) were adapted into anime. It is worth mentioning that in the timeline, these 22 volumes occur in a period of 3 months. Therefore, in this part there is no way to have a comprehensive character development because the plot more introduced new characters than developed them. You mention that the concept Science and Magic don’t cross paths very often, that they both live in their bubble BUT if you think about it, magic is a secret, so it makes total sense for the science side not to know of its existence. It would be very forced for the main cast on the science side to find out about magic in just 3 months. So I would say the author about expanding the plot very well by step by step events. The author put together a whole story (almost 22 volumes) involving just the main protagonist so that only later, at the climax of the story, would the other protagonists on the side of science find out about magic and in the end be part of it, giving continuity to the plot (new testament ) . If we had an Index IV we would see more conflicts between Espers vs Mages.
The harem and fanservice are really boring, especially in season 2. But luckily the fanservice decreases a lot with the passing of the arcs. And just like Classroom of the Elite, Index doesn’t have a main heroine, so most of the harem barely appears in the story. The girls vary from arc to arc in addition to having their own lives to deal with, that is, unlike a generic harem like Date a Iive, the girls in Index do not live for the protagonist and would not abandon their duties to be by his side.
And finally, let’s talk about the anime itself. Really the animation and soundtrack are something to praise but the adaptation is not. The reason you find the characters and events very shallow is the fact that the anime cuts and rushes a lot of things. They cut some dialogues, thoughts, fights etc from the characters which would serve as characterization (they even cut the protagonist’s past lol). Index III was the culmination of this, as they tried to adapt almost 10 volumes into 26 ep, the result was: rushy, confusing and with meh animation. I said almost 10 volumes, that’s because they skipped an extra volume that at first is not part of the main plot BUT it explores the political system of history and shows how the side of science and the side of magic really go hand in hand under the cloths .