First Impressions / To Aru Majutsu no Index

“Holy Mother Veneration”


「聖母崇拝」 (Seibo suuhai)

Amakusa Church vs William Orwell

When Acqua became serious, it turned out that Kanzaki stood no chance on her own. She gets smacked around the place, sent flying through buildings and can’t even land a single attack on Acqua. It was quite literally Angel Fall all over again. Something this one-sided is difficult to consider entertaining, and you would wonder how the weaker Amakusa Church managed to tango with him for so long. At first, you’d think that he didn’t take them seriously. But Kanzaki does manage to identify his greatest weakness – he contains so much divine quintessence that he is doubly weak to traditional saint weaknesses.

So why didn’t the Saint Destroyer work the first time round, if it’s meant to exploit said weakness by emulating the Longinus spear? If you notice, he touched the Saint Destroyer at the last second and modified its nature through the use of his own magic. Despite the fact he dispelled it, the Saint Destroyer wasn’t useless at all as it forced Acqua to go on the defensive. In conjunction with her epiphany of trusting her comrades to have her back, all this causes Kanzaki to call the Amakusa Church members to her side. Together, and with the timely appearance of Touma, they manage to take him down. With that done and dusted, there’s only one member of God’s Right Seat left to defeat.

Last Member Standing

The cogs in the wheel begin to turn as Acqua’s defeat sets a devious plan in motion. Fiamma of the Right is introduced as the leader of God’s Right Seat and he quickly shows us why he deserves the title even with a monster like Acqua in the mix. With no one left to stand up for the Pope, Fiamma takes matter into his own hands. Deeming the Pope to be an obstacle, Fiamma blows him aside, severely injuring the Pope while destroying parts of the Vatican in the process. Exhibiting a blatant disregard and contempt for the Roman Catholic Church with respect to his own ambitions, Fiamma ultimately defects in pursuit of his own agendas.

As far as I can tell, the Holy Right is a foil to the Imagine Breaker, with the ability to bring miracles being diametrically opposed to one which can destroy them. It’s hard to put a finger on such a power, but given how Fiamma claims that it’s mere peanuts in comparison to its fully realised potential, it isn’t hard to imagine that he could reach a point that far surpasses anything we saw from Acqua. Which is absolutely ridiculous to say the least, but I guess that’s what we’re dealing with here and I trust in Raildex to do a decent job of regulating power levels. It’s pretty ominous that he requires Index to complete his plans and I wonder why he’d travel to England when she’s clearly in Japan. Does he not know this? Well, we’ll see. I suspect that he’ll find a way of causing some ruckus that brings Index back home, which will allow him to finally complete his plans.

Somehow, Aleister Crowley is closely monitoring the situation with Fiamma. It’s hard to say what his objectives are, but given how he smiled, it’s safe to say that things are unfolding in ways that benefit his aims. With the Imagine Breaker having a 98% rate in determining the outcome, it’s inevitable that Touma will become caught up in this messy affair. Such misfortune.

Concluding Thoughts

Since the animation was significantly better towards the tail-end of last week when Kanzaki and Acqua were squaring off, this led me to believe that things could only get better. Apparently I’m a sweet summer child, because that relatively unfounded belief was both naive and wrong. God damn it. This week, everything took a nose-dive quality wise and I’m baffled as to how they managed to drop the ball so hard. Perhaps JC Staff didn’t have the resources to do the source material justice? It’s a shame really, because you can see the potential becoming slowly mired by implications of combat as opposed to actual combat. Kanzaki was also poorly drawn in a lot of the sequences and we didn’t even get to see her in the Fallen Angel outfit! Talk about disappointing. Not bad per se, but hardly living up to its expected potential.

At least Misaka finally got some time in the spotlight. Coming to terms with Touma’s amnesia and gaining her most notable character development, in which she transitions from tsun to full-on dere. It’s nice to see her finally acknowledging her own feelings and I hope she can put that realisation to good use by providing a more proactive role in supporting Touma. That was a pretty decent consolation to have even if it didn’t entirely compensate for the overall let-down.

Based on the preview, a couple of the characters might be headed towards England next. As a British citizen myself, I’m wondering how the royal family have been reimagined within Raildex’s universe. Here’s hoping it isn’t just about the royal family though because the UK’s history with religion and magic is so much more than that. Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading my post and see you next week!

Preview

31 Comments

  2. Last time i looked up source material (9 years ago or so) everyone speculated his right hand was embodiment of god and at full power Touma should be literal god, but now it’s in the wind once more, at one point this info was even considered a spoiler but now it’s just ravings of random fan. I wonder where the hell is this imagine breaker thing going and when will it stop.

    john
    Reply

    2. From my point of view Touma’s right hand didn’t make him cool or powerful it’s his ability to recognize the opposition’s limitations. Touma’s right hand is just an addition.

      RenaSayers
      Reply

  3. tbh, the fact that they are doing 3 episodes a book with each book ending with some major battle, I’m surprised it didn’t become a production mess. Railgun’s sister’s arc had only 2 major fights in 12 episodes so let’s be glad we are getting what we are. for 3.

    memi
    Reply

    1. and Touma’s right hand and if he achieve full Body effect of his right hand, then he is not an God… He will become the “Will of the Universe”… (It is something similar, but with a touch of an “Mega Dragon” power)

      Worldwidedepp
      Reply

      2. It is said that it is not Imagine Breaker that is the true threat. Show Spoiler ▼

        Theoria
        Reply

  6. https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2009.jpg
    If Touma kisses Misaka, I can imagine she will turn into a Level 6 and sprout angelic wings.
    Anyway, This is where I prefer Misaka x Touma more as compared to Index x Touma. I mean, at least Misaka is willing to learn how to cook and clean, unlike Index who has a “brain” that can memorize anything but fails to do any housework and just bites Touma.
    https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2029.jpg
    Sigh, honestly, Itsuwa is the only girl I REALLY want Touma to marry. She gives the vibe of an “ideal” wife, which is sadly only limited to “childhood friends” that gets dumped later in anime. As opposed to Index’s biting, which brings “violent comedy,” Itsuwa’s presence gives that “lovely romance that makes my heart aflutter” type of feeling, which is partially the reason I try to find anime with main heroines that resemble Itsuwa to some degree T_T
    I at least hope Kanzaki can kiss Touma, she fits my type of the “onee-san” girl that rarely gets the heroine spot.

    Greed
    Reply

      1. My reaction – “Oh, the author the author has good taste. Aiho Yomikawa is a lovely Onee-san beauty and have some lovely muscles to add to her figure. However, I will be worried if this lead to Touma being Accelerator’s “brother in law” but hey, there are times where I feel a “gym teacher” would be a great Onee-san heroine.”

        Greed
        Reply

  7. This episode started with Kanzaki in all her QUALITY glory. Those eyes were damn distracting.
    Mikoto not following Touma to help out didn’t make any sense to me. I really want her to kick some magician/saint ass.
    Always enjoy seeing Laura Stuart.

    boingman
    Reply

  9. Well, Touma’s right hand is an Magic EMP Tool, cancel all sort of Magic and stuff. Force the Magic or Mutations or whatever back into Human strength. an Magic EMP Tool that negate or force the DNA back to normal

    Worldwidedepp
    Reply

    1. Well, my speculation guts are telling me something to do with Church…

      But i do not now enough about the “english” History of church, beside they miss use it for War

      or put “Johana the Arc” on the stake.. You do not mean that they are looking for her Bones or something.. impossible, no one had until know this idea to search for her Bones.. because of the stake it only ash survived

      Worldwidedepp
      Reply

  11. https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2008.jpg
    Aw, man… And I expected Mikoto to join the battle against Acqua! That aside, I wonder if there will be more scenes in the future where Mikoto and Itsuwa (figuratively) bump into each other?

    https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2029.jpg
    Noice. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (If only Index wasn’t there to be a moment killer…)

    Also, they didn’t include a full panning shot of Kaori Kanzaki wearing the “Fallen Angel Ero Maid” outfit?! (And the ensuing reaction faces from Touma, Itsuwa and Index?!) Man, if J.C. Staff skipped those details, then I’m starting to get a bit nervous about them animating season 3 of Date A Live this coming January… (Though I do hope the previous animation staff from both seasons 1 and 2 will still be there to pitch in and ensure the anime stays faithful to the light novels and the art style of the previous seasons, as well as have it paced properly. No way do I want to see a repeat of the Infinite Stratos 2 scenario.)

    Incognito
    Reply

    1. The novel didn’t go into any details either. It even said that the details would be omitted to preserve Kanzaki’s honor. In the novel that part had one small paragraph. Kanzaki’s punched Tsuchimikado lights out, walked into the room and terrified everyone in there.

      RPG_Fanatic
      Reply

      1. Well, not the details I wanted, but (hilarious) details that were still left out nonetheless… (*nervous laughter*) Oh well… Guess I’ll have to turn to fanart.

        And IIRC, isn’t Tsuchimikado also gonna rope Itsuwa into wearing a similar outfit in the next arc?

        Incognito
        Reply

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