Review of A Certain Magical Index

TLDR: Toaru Majutsu no Index is a confused mess of a show that suffers from an exceptionally jumbled story and too many uninteresting and undeveloped characters. I don't usually write reviews, and I don't usually give bad scores, but Toaru Majutsu no Index was such a truly bizarre experience that I felt I had to write about it. General I had originally watched all 3 seasons of Railgun and loved it. The first season started off very slow, but eventually it ramped up to something very interesting, with great pacing and well fleshed-out characters that for the most part felt like they contributed to the show. Then I decidedto watch Index in order to get some more context on Touma's power, and after the first 2 episodes I was hooked. It felt strange that apparently this massive plot was taking place at the same time as Railgun's plot, but it was very interesting nonetheless, with some very promising storyline hooks. Which led absolutely nowhere.

Story - 3/10

This show's weakest point is by far its story structure and cohesiveness. It follows a pretty strict format of 3-4 episode self-contained arcs where a new villain or threat is introduced. But the villains' motivations are comically stupid and their methods are nonsensical.

So the villain shows up, does bad stuff, bunch of random stuff happens and Touma punches the villain in the face with his magical hand after giving a childish speech. That's the the general format of each arc, and it's very unsatisfying.

It's all made worse by the fact that Touma's speeches make 0 sense, and I'm usually a fan of preachy characters. The delivery of his speech is incredibly stupid and their content is usually just "don't do the bad thing!!"

Moreover, the show has a habit of throwing out a bunch of random stuff at you, like the names of places, organizations, characters, abilities etc, but these largely don't even matter within their self-contained arc. They are never explained, and as soon as the arc is over, it's as if nothing had ever happened.

For instance, after the first arc's ending, Touma suffers from COMPLETE AMNESIA. No memories of his previous life whatsoever. But that essentially doesn't matter at all for the next arc, is very slightly relevant 2 arcs later, and then goes back to not being important at all for the rest of the show. Why would that plotline then even exist at all then? Nobody knows.

It's important to note that this mostly concerns the magical side of the show. The science side, mostly relating to Academy City, Misaka, etc, all suffer from the similarly weak arc structure, but largely avoid the problems of pointless, inconsequential jargon, there's some sort of continuity there.

Characters - 3/10

The characters of Index are its second weakest point. Not in their backgrounds and premises, but in the way the show handles them and their development.

For instance, Touma, the main character. I'm honestly a fan of the "I'll save everyone no matter what!" type of main character, in anime that execute them well at least. But this show really doesn't.

It reveals too little about his background and the origin of his power, it never fleshes out his overarching motivations or gives any context as to why he's this much of a goody two-shoes. He's also inexplicably good at hand-to-hand combat, being able to defeat enemies significantly stronger than him.

Then you have Index. Her character is incredibly frustrating. She's not a very deep character, but her property as a collection of forbidden grimoires containing immense knowledge and power, is very interesting. I was looking forward to her bond with Touma developing as they avoid being captured by the various organizations that are apparently after her.

Except after the first arc, nothing happens with that plotline, or indeed, Index altogether. She's relegated to being a comic relief tsundere that's on screen for a couple of minutes per arc, and even not at all during a certain arc. She's the titular character and she gets less screen time than the side characters.

Speaking of whom, the side characters in this show are probably its greatest crime. There's simply far too many of them for the show to spend any time meaningfully fleshing them out, so what's left of them is a cardboard cutout representing something that could have been.

As I mention in the story section, the show throws so much random jargon about these characters at you, such as the name of the organization they belong in, the name of their abilities, etc.

But it never builds up on it, it's jargon for jargon's sake. The characters' motivations are bafflingly stupid and as soon as their arc is over, it's as if their arc had never happened at all. It's impossible to describe just how frustrating Index's treatment of its side characters is.

The one exception in all of this mess - and you've probably heard this one before - is the character of Accelerator. While he's also only in the show for a small fraction of its total run-time, he manages to breathe some fresh air into what's an otherwise extremely frustrating line-up of unexplored characters, as he gets some great character development. It's incredibly ironic that the one character that kind of keeps it interesting is on the science side, not the magical side at all.

Art & Sound - 8/10 & 6/10

Honestly this is Index's redeeming quality. While the sound is by no means outstanding, it's at least decent enough, while its art and animation does all of the work. It's fact difficult to believe how a show with such glaring storyline problems managed to get such a high budget for its art, but it really is very good.

The fight scenes are all very well choreographed and animated, which is impressive given that Touma's power makes most of them close quarters. They're well paced, and there's a decent balance between flashy effects and just normal stuff happening.

The backgrounds and environments all have a very good amount of detail, and while the character designs range from decent to bland, they are animated well enough that you don't really mind the simplicity of their designs. Less is more works there.

Enjoyment - 6/10

Honestly, despite its many, many drawbacks, I still enjoyed Index. If you can just switch your brain off and not hyper-focus on how what's currently happening on the screen makes no sense at all, you can still enjoy some light-hearted humour and some decent action scenes. It's like a bad Hollywood popcorn flick in that sense.

Overall

However, even though I enjoyed it, there's no getting around the fact that this show is just bad.

The amount of wasted potential, mostly with the character of Index and some of the prominent side characters, just feels sad.

Moreover, the disconnect between each arc feels incredibly jarring. I had to go back to the previous episode just to check that I hadn't skipped an episode by accident multiple times, the show was just too happy to completely throw away the previous arc's events in preparation of a new villain that would 100% get the same treatment.

There's a parallel universe out there, where the writer decided to focus on Index and the magical world rather than Touma and his increasingly more peculiar harem. They go on dangerous adventures together, and explore this side-story to Railgun's incredible story that kind of explains why Touma has his magical hand. Alas we do not live in that universe, and that is perhaps the most frustrating part about Toaru Majutsu no Index.