OP Sequence

OP: 「masterpiece」 by 川田まみ (Kawada Mami)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

I’ve listened to this song a few times now, but it just doesn’t appeal to me all that much. I think I may have said this before, but Kawada Mami’s songs have started to sound all the same to me, and nothing about this song makes unique. At least the animation that goes with this OP is interesting with the inclusion of several new characters and what looks like a new villain.

Summary:

Upon finding his father on the beach, Touma questions why he got involved in occult stuff. Although initially hesitant to say anything, his father eventually explains that it has to do with how Touma used to be known as a jinx because of all his misfortune. He sent Touma to Academy City because it wasn’t a superstitious place, but even science couldn’t get rid of the misfortune, and that’s why he relied on the occult. This frustrates Touma because despite the misfortune, he never said that he regretted it, and he wants to walk his own path. Realizing that Touma had actually been happy, Touma’s father promises to give up on collecting the souvenirs, but this alarms Touma because it means that his father hadn’t been talking about Angel Fall. In fact, Touma’s father doesn’t even know what Angel Fall is, and Touma confirms that his father can’t tell apart the people who had been switched, meaning that he is indeed being affected by Angel Fall. When Misha finally appears, Touma tries to protect his father, but Misha pulls out a weapon.

Fortunately, Kaori shows up at that moment to stop her, and she reveals that this girl isn’t actually Misha. Kaori had found out from the Russian church that there was only someone named Sasha Kreuzhev, and she suspects that the person in front of them now had borrowed that appearance. What’s more, Kaori thinks that this person is an angel, and when the angel turns day into night and reveals its wings, she realizes that it’s the power of God, Gabriel. With Gabriel looking ready to destroy the world, Touma points out that the angel had tried not to touch his right hand, meaning that the Imagine Breaker works on angels as well. Kaori, however, doesn’t want Touma fighting and tells him to go stop Angel Fall instead so that Gabriel won’t go after Touma’s father and purge the world. Kaori claims that she doesn’t intend to waste her life here, and she wants Touma to save her like he did with Index before. Given that, Touma takes his father and returns to the inn, leaving Kaori to fight Gabriel.

Kaori knows that theoretically she can’t defeat an angel of the same Christian faith as her, but fortunately for her, her Amakusa-shiki church is a fusion of religions, in this case Shinto and Buddhism with Christianity. Even with this though, she has a hard time going up against Gabriel, so she’s relying on Touma to stop Angel Fall. By now, Touma and his father are back inside and have found everyone knocked out. Touma still thinks that his father knows something about Angel Fall and tries to get him to reveal the ritual location, but Tsuchimikado appears and stops him. Tsuchimikado explains that the person responsible for Angel Fall is indeed Touma’s father, but he himself isn’t aware of it. This confuses Touma because Angel Fall requires a large-scale location for the ritual, so Tsuchimikado explains that the location is Touma’s parent’s home. All of those souvenirs that his father collected are placed in the right spots in accordance with feng shui, and that made for a synergistic effect that led to one big power.

This all thus happened by chance, and to stop it, they have to destroy the magic square in one shot. Otherwise, they have to defeat the person responsible. Since Tsuchimikado can’t use magic, he prepares his fists for the latter option, so Touma protects his father. Tsuchimikado, however, easily knocks Touma down and then does the same to Touma’s father when he tries to protect his son. With both of them out of the way, Tsuchimikado then pulls out some canisters with paper bits and origami creatures. Putting everything in the right spots, Tsuchimikado proceeds to cast a spell, and because he shouldn’t be able to use magic, he starts bleeding and violently coughing up blood. His goal all along was not to kill the person responsible but to destroy the magic square at the cost of his own life, and since he knew that Touma would try to stop him, he beat him up. Right as the spell finishes casting, Tsuchimikado admits to being a liar. A large blast then goes from the inn to Touma’s parent’s house, destroying it and stopping Angel Fall.

As a result of this, Gabriel stops fighting Kaori and disappears. When Touma regains consciousness a little while later, he finds Tsuchimikado lying dead in a pool of blood. In the aftermath, Touma is again admitted into the hospital. Much to his surprise, he’s paid a visit by Tsuchimikado who turns out to be still alive and well thanks to his esper power called Auto Rebirth. Tsuchimikado has also brought along Touma’s parents, and Touma finally gets to see his real mother in person. Since their home was destroyed, Touma’s parents reveal that they’ve moved temporarily back into their old home. Touma is visited by Index who still remembers how badly she was treated during Angel Fall despite the fact that it wasn’t her appearance. In her anger, she bites Touma again.

Preview

Well that was a rather convenient, deus ex machina way to keep Tsuchimikado alive. Obviously though Tsuchimikado isn’t a major character (at least I don’t think he is), so it’s not that big a deal – I’m just a little irked that there wasn’t some more creative way to let him use magic and live through it. The fact that Angel Fall was all thanks to just a coincidence was also a little disappointing, but at least Touma’s father turned out to be a good guy. I think the moral here is that we should all study feng shui and gather tons of charms and souvenirs if we want to change the world.

In any case, this episode was fairly good overall, but the arc didn’t end as well as I had hoped given how it started. A lot of religion stuff in the middle of this episode also seemed way out of place. The whole angel Gabriel thing was surreal, and the fact that Kaori claimed to be able to fight an angel because her own religion was a fusion of Christianity, Buddhism, and Shintoism bordered on ridiculous. It seems like the story is just using religion where convenient to the plot, and it doesn’t have much of a grounding in actual religion or religious thought. I’m not saying that that’s what I want out of a series like this, but as it is right now, that aspect of the story feels a bit shallow. Oh well, I guess it’s still entertaining. Anyway, next week things look to improve with a return to the science side and Mikoto.

46 Comments

  1. Typical J.C. Staff plot-butchering massacre. They use things from the novels (original source) when convenient, and butcher everything else, leaving some viewers lost and confused. It happened to many of their recent crap (Shakugan no Shana, Zero no Tsukaima, etc.), and J.C. Staff is doing the same exact thing here with Toaru Majutsu no Index.

    jblah
  2. Touma in the hospital is gettin f’in old as hell. I can stand Index’s munch fest but the repetitive nature of this crap is really messing things up…not to mention that J.C. is murdering the novel just as jblah said. They just can’t keep an interesting anime interesting past the 5th episode, period.

    Megas
  3. Interestingly, the OP confirms that they’ll be doing novel 6 after all. I suppose they’ll split it 3 eps for novel 5 and 4 for novel 6, maybe.

    At any rate, Touma and Mikoto’s “first date” next ep. Show Spoiler ▼

    orange23
  4. Umm… still the arc of the Angel Fall, went according to the novels, i don’t know if the fights did as well. If Kaori said that thing about that the style of fighting of the Amakusa Catholics was diferent, and maybe that would allowed her to win… referred that, that style is a complete transfiguration of what Catholic magic-style is, so, the power of the angel isn’t necessary invincible (the same would apply for Psychic abilities)

    But, i have to admit, J.C.Staff could do it better.

    Xanathos
  5. It seems like the story is just using religion where convenient to the plot, and it doesn’t have much of a grounding in actual religion or religious thought. I’m not saying that that’s what I want out of a series like this, but as it is right now, that aspect of the story feels a bit shallow.
    ^
    ^
    ^
    The story keep going deep and deeper in the religious and occult aspect of each organizations in the latter volume of a novel,which will be animated in the second season.(and not to mention that there are many details in the previous arc that got butched by J.C. Staff too)

    Just wait and see those intense story.(Yay it’s got the feeling like a Japanese’s style Angel and Demon)

    Plant42
  6. That’s the thing that’s wrong with this anime. Its following the novel and all but there’s no clarity about what is fueling the so-called magic that is behind the religious/occult organizations. The novel also have this problem early on, it just keeps on introducing new characters that fool around for ages until they tell us where they came from. Not only that, its so many of them that I end up not caring too much about it. If I did, it would have gotten way too confusing because most of them had the same damn boring objective.

    Megas
  7. Why did a lot of people here hate the OP? Personally, I love it. Mami Kawada does an awesome job.

    Can’t wait to see the next episode! *jumps into time-travelling DeLorean*

    magnumslinger
  8. Another disappointing ending… and Tsuchimikado ends up saving the day instead of Touma… why couldn’t he just performed the magic in secret instead of having to beat up the Kamijos? Doesn’t make sense, but I shouldn’t have expected anything of the sort after the last two story arcs.

    TJ
  9. I like the song, truth be told. It goes ridiculously well with the accompanying animation. And it really really picks up when Misha shows up, and the weird voice filter fades. Man, I love the way it pans up starting with Misha’s legs first. It’s so smexy 😀 So again, imo, it’s a good song, but the voice filter probably will turn off a lot of people. I also disagree with Mami songs all sounding the same.

    Rawr
  10. i 3rd and 4th that moondoggie. these lv 0 sure are fricken powerful. well, actually, they are pretty normal, but it just so happens that their powers are extremely useful no matter what situation they get themselves in. overall, this arc felt slightly pointless. if Tsuchimikado was going to do that from the beginning, what was with all the fighting. i mean, all he had to say was, “stay right here, and let me handle this, you go take a nap or something. Oh, and dont worry, i cant die, i happen to have a super convenient Superman/Wolverine-like regeneration ability, so it’s all cool.”

    GGear0323
  11. and i have to totally agree with you there tylon, i mean, look at Mikoto, Lv 5 but she cant even touch Touma, and she would never be able to kill Tsuchimikado, and dont forget that other Lv 5, whatever his name is, that white haired kid, i mean, dude got bitch slapped and he lost. besides, Lv 0 just sounds cool.

    GGear0323
  12. tylon,GGear0323 you’re wrong.
    It seems many people still misunderstand about his power.

    According to the novel Though his “Auto Rebirth” can recover the physical injury , it’s recovering speed and effect is not great as its sound.
    It’s just like an auto-first aid. Even it safe him from a severe wounds caused by using magic,it still take many hours for him in a near-death state before complete recovery.

    It’s just a life-saver power not an instant recovery like wolverines’s,so it’s useless in battle. Not to mentioned that the power ranking is judge by how powerful and effective used that power is.
    “Auto Rebirth” is a passive power. The user can’t control it , and it’s not that powerful. That’s why it was ranked as Level 0.

    Plant42
  13. About his power. I think it’s called Auto Regeneration. Saisei wouldn’t really be a rebirth. Just a regeneration.

    Any who. This was certainly a fun episode. There’s one thing that bugs me. Why couldn’t they have left Touma’s dad as being someone who IS a magician or something? Instead of making everything just one big coincidence. Anyways now with the introduction of “God’s power” I’m really leaning towards Touma’s Imagine Breaker being one of those God’s power (maybe even one of the Devil’s/Evil perhaps?).

    ROFLWAFFLELAWL
  14. To add to what Plant42 said as well, Mikoto’s “losses” and Accelerator’s loss to Touma are mostly a matter of not knowing how imagine breaker works, and honestly, fighting stupidly.

    In Accelerator’s case, it could simply be his sadism at work preventing him from realizing that if he just fought at range Touma would have no chance of victory at all.

    Honestly though, putting aside the fact that she doesn’t really want to hurt him, Mikoto could beat Touma fairly easily if she knew how his power worked.

    spacecase
  15. oh and to answer Omni about what Kaori was blabbing about, basically, Catholicism has no spells to battle divine beings as that would be blasphemous.

    The Amakusa Catholics have a few spells to combat diving beings that are hold overs from the other religions.

    That’s all she was talking about.

    spacecase
  16. Yeah, i don’t care much for the religion aspect but the animation was top notch. I think equal to or even better than ep.2’s. I also liked how they weren’t so loud as compared to the background music and whatnot, like Kanzaki when she was babbling while fighting the unresponsive “Russian” bitch.

    bobzor
  17. tylon, I wouldn’t say that Imagine Breaker is Level 6. It may be able to stop any power, but it still can’t stop flying debris, as Accelerator proved. And it can still get cut off, even by magic, as shown by Izzard. I’d say that it’s just barely around level 5.

    However, if Touma trains and/or learns more about his power, he could raise its level to 6.

    magnumslinger
  18. And to spacecase, Mikoto already tried creative tactics, but still lost. Just read To Aru Kagakku no Railgun. And if she tried beating him in an ordinary melee brawl, it wouldn’t count since her power wasn’t used.

    magnumslinger
  19. magnumslinger, I already mentioned she “lost” because she fought stupidly and because she doesn’t know how his power works. I’ve read railgun; look at their fight after they meet at the atm machine. If she had known it was his right hand, she would have grabbed another part of him and she would have won. Furthermore, if she didn’t fight stupidly, once she realized her electricity wasn’t going out through his hand, she would have gripped tightly and electrocuted him using her other hand or her hair. Since she would be gripping imagine breaker, he couldn’t raise it defend himself and he would be screwed.

    Touma’s ability has serious limitations.

    spacecase
  20. You know magnum and space…..I’m REALLY starting to think Touma’s right hand isn’t JUST canceling out magic and such. I mean…..it could be something else. Like I said….maybe its like an extreme bad luck? Though I’m just talking out of my ass here.

    As for his power level it’s level 0. Aleister explained that they couldn’t measure the “power level” as it was infinite. Thus why they gave him the level of 0. Which I think is 0 as in limit less.

    ROFLWAFFLELAWL
  21. I don’t believe in luck, whether good or bad. It’s all in the mind. I mean, look at Touma. He keeps saying “such misfortune!”, but just look at his Show Spoiler ▼

    magnumslinger
  22. Speculation after reading the novel: All these business with level 0.
    LEVEL 0 a.k.a. LEVEL S
    Description:
    -passive
    -absolute support only
    -concealed from all mag and psy detection
    If it were to be compared to anything in MMORPG’s today I’d say it will be some trash-looking skill that becomes useful against boss monsters only. Tsuchimikado might as well be called a bloodmage (all magic drains HP instead of SP or MP).

    moondoggiebuiscuit
  23. To those who are wondering why Tsuchimikado beat up Touma instead of just telling him his plan, it’s because that’s his style. He likes to leave people confused. And it makes him completely unprdictable. Very useful if you’re a Show Spoiler ▼

    magnumslinger

Leave a Reply to magnumslinger Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *