A Certain Magical Index II
The second season for A Certain Magical Index starts from where the first season left off. The second season looked promising and felt like a step-up from the previous season. We noticed that the first episode of the second season was better than every moment we witnessed in the first one. So, we had our hopes for this one very high. However, did it successfully provide better quality than its predecessor? Let’s delve deep into our review for this one and find out!
The rising tension in the world of Magic continuously forces Touma to use his ability against both magicians and espers to protect humanity. He’s not alone in this endeavor. There are his allies right beside him who will help him restore peace.
In the second season, the Book of the Law gets stolen, and there is destruction everywhere. Touma and his allies must protect the nun who can decipher the book’s text from Evil’s clutches. While they’re battling with the Holy sects, they realize that it will not be an easy task to find their actual enemies. Science and Magic must cross paths again to restore peace all around the world.
It feels like a script. The story would be amazing to read. But on the screen, it doesn’t look as promising as it looks on the script. Despite dealing with a variety of themes, the creator only provided the basics, nothing special. We get that the creator put a lot of effort into explaining some aspects of Magic and Science. Some people loved that.
However, this is not enough to make the overall story more credible. In many shounen anime, we’ve noticed this before n many shounen anime where the characters are just giving massive speeches, and those speeches do not provide anything to the story.
We thought Index might get more importance in the second season, but that did not happen. She’s stuck in the same place she was in the previous season. Instead, she seems to be more critical in the first season than the second one. She acts as a suitable plot device here and there, but that’s about it. We still don't know what Index’s name is doing in the title when she gets such little importance.
On the bright side, we’ve seen some improvements in the second season. There’s a visible connection between the arcs, and we’re finally able to figure out what’s happening between the arcs. The arcs separately are even better. Even if we ignore the connection between the arcs, they’re great as standalone. We definitely notice some improvement with the comedy. It makes us laugh now.
The last two arcs of the second season are pretty enjoyable. They indicate the calm before the storm that is to come in the next season, keeping us on the edge of our seats.
Another improvement in the second season is that they had stopped using an overwhelming amount of terminologies that are hard to understand.
Instead, they have used the terminologies they can get through us, which is also relevant to the plot itself. You don’t feel like you’re getting spoon-fed, so it’s not so bad at all.
The story in the second season is much clearer and is not stagnant at all, which was the case with the first season’s story. The last two arcs of the second season are actually pretty enjoyable. They indicate the calm before the storm that is to come in the next season, keeping us on the edge of our seats.
It feels like the story is going somewhere instead of just staying at a place and being a jumbled mess. So definitely, there were some improvements within the story this time.
We see some changes within the characters, probably not in a positive way. Our MC has grown to be more self-righteous than ever. Now, he loves punching girls. And this happens in almost every arc where the main antagonist is a female.
Index does not happen to get any sort of character development. She has grown to be even more annoying and useless than before.
We get to see a swarm of tsunderes that was not there in the first season. They are literally everywhere. Only one tsundere is more than enough in a single series. That was a bit odd for us.
The only character we liked was Accelerator. Even though he’s a villain, we still can’t help but fall for him because of his crazy personality. He provided some quality in the character department.
The opening and ending theme songs were pretty decent. However, the opening theme song of the first season was better than the second one. Also, many noticeable soundtracks are pretty good. Voice actors did an excellent job in voicing the characters. They’re very suitable for each character and deliver the emotions perfectly. We didn’t find anything weird or lousy quality with the sound of the second season.
The animation provides the same quality as it did for the last season. It is very fluid and smooth. The color palettes used are very fresh and bright, adding to the charm of the characters. The action scenes are even better than the ones that we saw in the first season. Overall, the animation department put good use to its budget and provided even better animation than before
The second season for A Magical Index gave us something to love and something to hate as well. Overall, the series was not as bad as we anticipated it to be and not as good either. There were some strong points and some weak points in the story, as well as the characters. We’re hoping to see some more improvement with the third season of this anime!
