First Impressions / To Aru Majutsu no Index

“Curtana Original”


「カテーテル オリジナル」 (Kateeteru orijinaru)

United We Stand

Acqua and Knight Leader already share some history together. It’s pretty evident that they feel very respectful towards one another to the point of being friends. But circumstance has put them on two opposing sides of the battle field, and they must fight to uphold their ideals and beliefs. From the looks of things, Knight Leader believes that the country is in need of a tough leader who can stand up against mainland Europe for the infractions being carried out. On the other hand, Acqua believes that such militaristic actions risk destablising the Union and he asserts that internal harmony is paramount to anything else. The ensuing fight pitted Knight Leader’s near impenetrable Thorom’s Defence against Acqua’s sharp wits. By quickly switching up weapons, after realising it could only cancel out one type of attack at a time, Acqua ultimately prevails in the duel. Whether either of them are right or wrong on the matter, is difficult to say.

Although I’ve previously criticised Knight Leader for failing to see through the thick of things, perhaps the same could be said of William Orwell too. It’s become apparent that not wanting England to bear the brunt of Fiamma’s machinations was the reason why he randomly set off to Academy City in order to forcefully procure the Imagine Breaker. Since he failed, Fiamma is now pulling the strings to try and find another solution and England is getting caught up in the mess. While I admire this foresight, he is only interested in maintaining the ‘union’ to the detriment of all other things – union in this case being defined by a harmonious royal family each presiding over one of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. After all, even if the rebellion gets quashed, it would be a stretch to have the rest of the family simply forgive and forget that Carissa tried to murder them all. But I don’t think they’ll really have a say in the matter. Assuming that Fiamma has orchestrated much of this ordeal, everyone will have to unite when the time comes to make sure that he doesn’t fulfil his nefarious objectives.

The Buckingham Palace Conspiracy

There is evidence to suggest that there are indeed secret tunnels beneath Buckingham Palace, so I applaud Index for observing some degree of realism. It’s clear the author did his research. Yet to clarify, to say these tunnels are actually a full-blown train network would be extremely ludicrous. As ludicrous as last night’s display (*cries in Arsenal*). From what I understand, there is a mechanism on the tracks which is used to regulate the powers of Curtana Original. So a make-shift task force comprising of the necessary tools, Imagine Breaker, The Prohibited Books and Royal Blood, are sent to carry out the mission of hijacking this device. The group encounter a guardian construct in the tunnels, and they seem to dispatch it with relative ease. I can’t remember the last time Index cast magic or was involved in combat, so that was quite neat. And it was… encouraging to see Villian’s resolve in spite of her weakness?

To be frank, although she behaves the most like a real life royal, I’ve found Villian thoroughly boring outside of some interactions with Acqua. I suppose that’s going to be the struggle with any virtuous and subdued character. There’s a tendency for these types to be plain background characters. But if the story is to be conducted through her being the main royal in Touma’s entourage, I’m hoping that we’ll see more interesting things being done with her character. Her mother and sisters have all made pragmatic comments on the current state of things. So above all else, I’d like to hear her chiming in with constructive thoughts that add a unique and equally compelling perspective to the political ongoings.

Concluding Thoughts

Having hijacked such an important mechanism, a confrontation between Villian and Carissa appears inevitable. What’s more, Carissa’s taken quite the blow too, so it’s possible she’s weaker than before. Now is the time to strike, and I’m curious to witness how the rest of the royal family play into this, given that their return to London was explained as needing to pick up an important magical artefact. True to life, we will have to wait until next year before we learn anything new about these Brexit plans.

Completely unrelated to the series itself, but as agreed from the very first week of the Fall Season, Pancakes will be taking over coverage for To Aru Majutsu no Index III starting from next week. At least I think so? I will probably continue to help out by capping the screenshots. But for now, I think I’ll be saying a temporary adieu by taking a 1-2 cour hiatus from blogging to focus on the final few months of my undergraduate studies. Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading my posts up till now and see you in the near future for some musings on more anime-related goodness!

Preview

21 Comments

  10. Thanks for the hard work up until now. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on the season so far. I am a bit sad that I am going to miss you thoughts to the conclusion to this arc.

    All the prep work has been completed, and now it is time for the big battle.

    RPG_Fanatic
    Reply

  11. I know it’s a fruitless endeavor to lament about adaptation butchery at this stage but it is unfortunate that they didn’t show Villian personally driving them to the tunnels. This shows how that the royal family members, even Villian, aren’t out of touch with modern life.

    @Zaiden Also technically speaking, Index didn’t cast magic. It’s more like she’s disrupting it’s command. Yes I know it’s an annoying semantics but one the Author keeps insisting.

    Chaos2Frozen
    Reply

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