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「劇場版 とある魔術の禁書目録 エンデュミオーンの奇蹟」 (Gekijouban To Aru Majutsu No Kinsho Mokuroku Endyumion Mo Kiseki)
“To Aru Majutsu no Index Movie – Endymion no Kiseki”
Touma is back (and so is his misfortune) as Toaru Majutsu no Index arrives on the big screen. Long story short? For better and for worse, it’s a lot of the same in terms of what we’ve come to expect from TV series-turned-movies (and from Index in general).
With that said, let’s first look at some of the conceptual similarities to Index:
First up? The Science Fiction elements. With its introductory segment, the Index Movie gives us two big examples of this right off the bat. The space plane is one such example, and it’s especially notable due to the fact that we’ve actually been exploring higher altitude flight as a potential option for faster trips around the globe. If you’ll remember, the now retired Concorde was originally one such plane (travelling at nearly twice the typical cruising altitude of commercial flights while cutting the average trip time by a half), and it’s interesting to note that there were some structural similarities between the plane designed used here and the Concorde itself. Moving on though, the next big example involves the space elevator Endymion. Needless to say, the concept of a space elevator is a huge Sci-Fi element that has seen its share of iterations (Gundam 00 comes to mind as a recent series that utilizes this), and it’s notable in particular in regards to how the name it receives end up being significantly tied to the Greek mythology surrounding the person with the same name.
Next, we have the slice of life elements—which stay true to the TV series for the most part. For instance, we got Touma forgetting to get Index dinner (and subsequently receiving the punishment he and his wallet deserves), Kuroko harassing Misaka even though she’s in a wheelchair (the question of the day is why she’s in one), and so on and so forth.
And last, but not least, we have the movie staying true to the series’ original tag line: “When magic and science cross paths, this epic will begin.” Indeed, the clash between Stiyl and the newly revealed “Civil Affairs Resolution Intervention Unit” highlights the beginning of the story’s main plot line, and everyone’s got something new up their sleeves. Stiyl’s got three apprentices working with him in Marie, Mallybath, and Jane, and the Science side… well, let’s just say Shutaura Sequenzia got some darn fancy new toys—even though they’re eerily reminiscent of the WTOC’s in Towa no Quon.
Moving onto the main plot line itself, the movie ends up revolving around rising star Meigo Arisa, who ends up having some very interesting parallels to our equal rights for all advocate, Kamijou Touma. Essentially, they’re both Level 0’s, both possess some kind of power that can’t be explained by Science or Magic, and both have no memories before a certain point in their lives. With that said, she also ends up contrasting nicely with Touma’s misfortune too—as she ends up the conjurer of miracles instead—and both of them end up playing quite well into the inability of our main antagonist’s inability to die. After all, Ladylee Tangleroad’s immortality is essentially on the extreme ends of both the fortune and misfortune spectrums respectively (a gift and a curse).
As it turns out though, Arisa is neither a saint (as the magic side believed she was) or an esper. Rather, she ends up being the split off self of Civil Affairs Unit Leader Shutaura Sequenzia, and we end up with the revelation that the “Miracle of 88” did in fact result in the death of the plane’s pilot (and Shutaura’s father), Daedalus Sequenzia. The irony of the name Daedalus aside (he was the father of Icarus), it’s admittedly here where things start becoming quite shaky in terms of the movie’s development.
See, on one hand, Meigo Arisa’s existence ends up being a very interesting medium from which to emphasize two important things: the notion that “if it’s something you want, and something you can do, then you have to do it” and the notion of miracles vs. coincidence. In the case of the former, it’s similar to the belief that if “you have the talent, you have a responsibility to use it,” and it was something I felt was important because it touches upon moral obligation and responsibility, and also relates to how we’re living in an age where more and more people are becoming increasing disillusioned about their future prospects, and people aren’t going into the fields they want to more than ever before. As for the latter, it’s importance lies in philosophical contemplation than anything, and at the very least, the movie brings up some interesting points regarding how many different things could fall under the definition of a “miracle” (and likewise for “coincidences”).
As such, there are some aspects that were developed fairly well. The problem is, what the movie ends up doing is falling into the trap that other anime movies have set, which is the belief that a movie needs to get everyone and their family involved in the action. As much as I liked seeing all of our cast return in some shape or form, the fact of the matter is that when you try to squish in a dozen different characters into the resolution of the main plot line, it’s inevitably going to take away from the quality of development—especially if you only got 1.5 hours to work with and you have to pull a rushed ending as a result. And basically, what ends up happening is that in the haste to get Stiyl, Misaka, Accelerator, Kuroko, Saten, Uiharu, Anti-Skill, the Misaka Sisters, Touma, Index, Shutaura, and Kanzaki (the list goes on) in on the action, the whole reasoning behind Ladylee doing what she’s doing with the Endymion ends up getting lost in the ether. By the time get that revelation (which ends up being extremely late), the movie’s devolved entirely into action-oriented fan service, and well, at that point I didn’t even really care about Ladylee’s whole immortality and wanting to die bit anymore. Nor did I really feel much in regards to Shutaura and Arisa’s resolution either. Furthermore, in a story that’s supposed to be mostly focused on Touma and Index, he only gets to punch one person in the face. ONE! And it’s at the very, very end!
And ultimately, that’s the movie in a nutshell. There’s enough elements from Index to make it worth a watch for fans of the series, enough audiovisual eye/ear candy to get some enjoyment from it all, and it does some things well… but it’s not exactly something you’re going to be watching for the plot or quality development. I don’t know if it’s due to the time constraints or if they were just too busy trying to borrow elements from other series, but yeah, they just didn’t fulfill the potential the movie had this time around. And while I did enjoy the movie myself—I’m a sucker for over-the-top action scenes and was looking for an Index fix following the Sisters’ Arc in Railgun S—it’s probably safe to say that a fair amount of people probably didn’t feel the same way.
Full-length images: 011, 069, 089, 106, 118, 133, 166.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「FIXED STAR」by 川田まみ (Kawada Mami)
well at first i hope it will be 2hours movie , truth to be told i find this movie so good for my fanservice as we got to see every one but really this is 2short 30 min too short we could have got touma punching ladylee and make her disappear into a shattered illusion and we should have got more sister artificial railgun, well at least the action are good , so good
I forgot to say that after wathcing all index + railgun serie , each one twice , I didn’t notice space elevator at all, so at first when index asked touma about that! I just lol
that’s because it wasn’t there. it’s a recon that’s added in the new Path of Edymon novel.
LIES! It just so happened to be outside the panels! :3
http://imgur.com/IPYELJb
(They also added it in in the first episode of Railgun S)
They did a similar retcon in the beginning of one of railgun’s manga chapters with Uiharu and Saten as promotion for the movie; it was funny as hell
Speaking of Touma punching Ladylee. What would happen if he touched her?
Speaking of Touma punching Ladylee. What would happen if he touched her?
Now that is a good question and something I thought about as well. Imagine breaker should be able to break the curse.
Kind of have to LOL when you think about it. She goes through this huge, evil plot which could result in many casualties when there’s quite possibly a very simple, easy solution to her problem. I’m sure Touma would be willing to help her if she approached him politely.
Helped her die? Touma? No he wouldn’t.
Too bad nobody told her there was a much less insane way to get the job done. Just have Touma touching her while she gets shot/stabbed/whatever and boom problem solved.
I almost cried at the end for my lost time watching it.
* Random figthing in a space shuttle where she jumps and then does the sword stuff and then still falls on top of the shuttle and then… oh god, I don’t wanna think about it.
* So everybody was going to die trapped on top of the elevator, but suddenly everybody survives nobody really knows how or why -.-‘.
* The problem of the elevator was that it was gonna crash to the ground and kill many people… Solution? Let’s destroy the base of the elevator, that will make everything better… Seriously?
There were some good parts in the begining while the rest of the cast was making their appearences, but god, that final part escalated quickly (no pun intended).
And if you want to have the feeling of the Index series back to your life, at least that they managed to do, all the characters and their interactions were nice to see.
See at you own risk.
Disconnecting the anchor points from the Earth sort of does make some sense for a space elevator. If it’s no longer pulled down at its bottom end, its inertia should take it away from the Earth, because the point of one is that it’s built tall enough, with enough of its mass beyond geostationary orbit, that the force of gravity is actually not enough to keep it following the circle it’s travelling, so the whole thing is under tension and that’s what keeps it upright (if it were on the equator…).
WHO NEEDS Real Scinece when “To aru” series has SCI-FI(Science-fiction) on its side!!
If theoretically correct, the space elevator has 3 foundations. If theoretically destroy simultaneously it will balance sink down to the earrth, theoretically.
Something like Code Geass S1 episode 08(14:00 min animation)
But even if we think scientifically, they(author or who ever is behind this series) will just make a scientifically excuse like “The materials are just light, recyclable but sturdy therefor it will not damage the city due to scientifically reasons”.
In short, in terms of story, Sci-fi rules over science by just creating a science on their side of the universe(story). A.k.a “Creating science by just mere imagination”.
My Conclusion:
I guess its just fun to relate RL science and Fiction science. Continue.. 😀
No, that’s not how a space elevator works. It’s a weight on a string that’s being spun around. The “foundations” are actually anchors that hold the one end to the earth. The “string” is held taught by a weight at the far end that is being spun by the rotation of the earth Cut the anchors and the weight flies off. Think of a yo yo doing “round the world”. Now if the weight at the top is cut loose, then the thousands of miles of “string” wraps around the earth at hypersonic speed. That would not be pleasant.
It’s like you were expecting a Kubrick movie or something and don’t like fun. Better deal with it because she does that two more times in the novels.
It’s like you weren’t even paying attention. There is a girl in the movie who can cause miracles. I don’t know what else could’ve transpired
Yeah its dumb, and the movie does a poor job of explaining them.
I’m watching it mainly for Meigo Arisa (Sachiwa), as I just want to hear her voice.
I thought it was amusing how they did the recon at the beginning and use Index as a joke and add the towers to the old scenes to recon it. I thought it was the most humorous recon in an anime yet.
As for the multitude of casts, I simply treat it as an action fan service since I know Kanzaki and Accelerator/Last Order and Misaka imouto didn’t have a part to play in the story, I was able to easily ignore their appearance since it wasn’t much. It was still good enough for the fans to enjoy nevertheless, the only thing that bothered me was simply stating how dangerous the spell was and never actually letting us have a small taste of the danger. Felt like Index 2’s festival too, where we chased Oriana Thompson hearing how dangerous the whole thing was, but never actually seeing it since Touma just punch-resolve it before the sense of danger comes in.
This movie was….well uhm…sigh….I gotta stop thinking that franchise-based movies are going to break new ground when it comes to story-telling and direction. This movie was a fanservicey-action oriented movie and while i did enjoy it for that….i wanted more out of it. I went into this movie with the idea that perhaps the railgun staff werent the only ones capable of good story-telling; i figured, perhaps that rubbed off on the index staff as well and it would show in this movie, thus boding well for the future Index III; I guess i was wrong. This movie suffered from the same problems the index series usually suffers from and while i enjoyed myself watching the movie, I didnt really feel anything for it. If one thing is certain, I definitely didnt get my fix after the railgun S sister’s arc
Ok I have a few things to say, first…I didn’t like the movie, and that’s probably because I was expecting more from the beginning and there are a lot of points at which I was exasperated with the plot and all that. Anyway just to be safe, I’ll put it in a spoiler tag since I’ve read up till NT 3.
Show Spoiler ▼
I have plenty of reasons why I just did not like this movie, but if you did I’m happy for you and I’m not being sarcastic DX
Yeah the tech we have seen from AC so far in the anime is just the tip of the iceberg.
what foes AC means? Assassin Creed? i don’t get it please explain
@PeTdo
Academy City.
Kuroko was in a wheelchair because this happened within the Index II timeframe, after her fight with that one other LV4 Teleporter. But yeah….not saying I hated the singing…but they really focused too much on it. I swear Japan really does think J-pop should be included in everything. Because I would have actually liked the movie better if there wasn’t singing (and I’m a fan of Symphogear so that’s saying something). I did enjoy the movie though…also agree that there were too many characters shoved in there that some didn’t even get big parts (I was hoping for bigger parts for the 3 Element Witches).
Wasn’t really that great, in my opinion. It’s just some excuse to gather all the popular characters together like a Bleach or Naruto movie. Plus, that whole “save the world with the power of song” shit was lame as hell.
You can’t have an Index movie without Touma punching somebody in the face.
There were somethings wrong with the movie plot wise, like destroying the bottom of the space elevator…why? Wouldn’t that just make elevator fall even faster?! Character wise, the movie was almost perfect, but Schroedinger the black cat and Konori was not in it!!! There was no Musashino Milk drinking, no kawaii Tenshis, no real life Gekota Heaven Canceller AND WHERE WAS TSUCHIMIKADO’S SISTER?!?!?!
At least one of my fav Index characters made it in, Hime4life <3 and more Kanzaki is always good
It doesn’t fall, see my comment above.
If I can summarize my thoughts of the film (which I will type out sometime later) it’s that I really enjoyed the film, however that isn’t to say it was good critically.
Yet another girl jumps into the stranger (aka the main guy) ‘s open arms blindly and they fall together in some manufactured saccharine-dramatic fashion, à la Japanese anime writers’ & serial watchers’ collective wet-dream-first-encounter for a boy and a girl.
Yeah, fuck that shit, As soon as I saw that, game over. I ain’t wasting my time on this. It’s a shame since I did enjoy the TV series a little. It seems more often than that, standalone films for established TV series are almost always pure-graded garbage and gigantic waste of time… well I suppose the studios had to pay the bill and feed the staff.
And I do wonder just how long serial anime watchers will tolerate this nonsensical garbage trope and how long the writers will keep it going and feeding them. I’d say it’s been at least 15-20 some odd years for the said trope, with no sign of fading out for good.
In a way you can think of the movie as being a sampler of the Toaru franchise, it had a little bit of everything.
I do think the writing fell apart towards the end of the movie, particularly with 30 second roles just so xyz character could make an appearance and some unresolved plot points like Ladylee.
I honestly wonder whether Index is a series which is suited for movie adaptation – at least the standard 90 minute length. It’s just not enough time. Sure there were plenty of cameos, but that was one fast paced movie. Towards the end, at times I felt like I was watching a series of highlight clips.
Frankly I think adapting the LN Road to Endymion would have been a better choice. While you wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of cameos (a small negative for me since it’s always fun to see the different Index characters), I think the LN story would have fit better within the 90 time frame. Furthermore, I much prefer the Road to Endymion’s plot over the movie’s “miracle of song” plot.
All in all, it was decent enough to the point I don’t feel the need to seek compensation for the time I spent watching it. I must admit that I didn’t mind the abundant Shutaura Sequenzia fan-service at all XD, and there were some funny/entertaining moments. Still, I’d rather they took the money and time spent on the film and used them towards Index Season 3 (or 4 or 5 :D). There is a LOT of great LN material left for animation.
That rushed, fast-paced feeling most-likely was also attributed to the fact that they finished the movie a week before it had to air in theaters (I read something like that during the weeks before the movie had to air; someone correct me if im wrong)…The point is that it definitely showed: the rushed ending, the completely black credits..yeaaaaaa
The 90 minute running time was fixed from the start (black credits are a theatrical norm, BTW), so pacing issues have nothing to do with rushed work. Production schedules are often aligned for a team to finish shortly before release, plus the high level of digital polish suggests that they had ample time to complete the film.
The director’s explanation is that Kamachi gave him two cours worth of material, so he had a hard time trying to craft a 90 minute story. Nevertheless, the project goal was to create a “festival” like atmosphere (and that’s the basis for the movie’s immense popularity in Japan), in which excitement and character appearances could offset the disjointed pace.
…where is Touma’s right hand in this picture?
Clearly Touma is so badass that he can ignore the laws of physics and hold a person up horizontally by just their legs with one hand.
FYI regarding LN Road to Endymion and Movie Endymion no Kiseki timeline. The LN Road to Endymion took place September 10th-12th while the movie took place just a few days later from September 16th-18th. In anime terms, both take place in the middle of Index Season 2 – right before Daihaseisai. Touma is one busy guy!
Below in the spoiler tag is a link to an Index/Railgun calendar. WARNING: The calendar has a LOT of spoilers in terms of event/incident names. It’s updated through LN New Testament vol 06 or 07 (i.e pretty much everything out there so far).
Show Spoiler ▼
LOL he sure is! Not one day goes by without encountering stripping lolis and murderous people trying to get in his way. And he just has to fight ’em all.
It has to be said: Corner clones are watching you masturbate
Touma, now that you attracted an idol, even I feel you would either attract the Lady of the Lake to a super hot space alien into your harem.
Damn Index was annoying in this. I mean she already was, but since this was a movie they had to make her 10 times worse.
Excellent Animation and atmosphere setting, the sharpness of lighting and colours are like Railgun S on overdrive. The real Miracle is if this could carry over even two-thirds into the next season.
I really like the balance on both side of Magic and Science in this Movie. Some of the stories are either too much into one or the other, but I thought there was a nice balance. Which brings me to the next point… The fights were freaking cool; Half of it was thanks to the overdrive Animation but the choreography was good as well. Definitely help recharged my system after the last three uneventful episodes of… Well, you know. Again, if they could bring a decent portion of it into the third season, it would be a miracle.
Even though Arisa was being promo as the heroine of this movie, I felt that Shutaura played that role better and was the more fleshed out of the two… Okay technically they’re both the same– Well, you understand. Lol Tsuchimikado! The man with a plan for everything! Didn’t get his hands dirty at all but is still the hero who sets everything in place. Still, how did he manage to stow away a Kanzaki in the back. Our three main protagonists did their jobs well, nothing truly outstanding except for a few ‘nice tricks’ from Kamijou.
Going into this completely absent of the usual LN details, I can see the abrupt transition between scenes still plagues the series, but at the same time it’s certainly not something that the audience couldn’t fill in the blanks. I wish the epilogue would be a bit longer though… Kamachi seems to be writing these abrupt endings quite a lot.
The songs were decent-to-good; they weren’t particular catchy though, except for maybe the theme song and Kawada Mami’s Ending.
Well, at least it was better than nothing.
Well, imho Raildex universe has grown too big to fit all the characters into one movie…
But, some of the scenes were gold – from Kuroko-on-wheels to Styil recovering his health with his own mini-harem (that is his leg, right? right???)
This movie was underwhelming to say the least. Felt very mediocre, which is what Index has always been for the most part :/
The animation is sleek , hopefully the WW3 arc’s animation will be just as awesome as this. On a side note, I remembered reading somewhere how the author had actually created 2-cour worth of materials for this storyline ….. if it was true this should’ve turned into a proper Raildex season instead , with more punching involved . Seriously though , isn’t Touma punching way too many girls lately? Even in the NT arc it’s been a long time
since he punched any guys.
It’s the opposite; Kamachi was asked to write a story for a 90minutes movie, but ended up with enough material to fill a season. So part of that was instead use to make the PSP game which acts as a prequel.
Pic related. The number of people he’s punched as of NT7.
He’s all for gender equality, though the month of September did have him punching a total of 6 girls. He did get back to punching guys in October. So yeah.
Regardless of it’s short comings, I liked this movie and oh Shutaura…. I wish you stayed a lot longer =(
Biggest plothole here is that if the Loli-CEO was so “prepared” and “connected”, why wasn’t she informed of the Imagine Breaker and how it could have “made her die” so much more easier. I mean the British Puritans, the Roman Catholic and the Russian Orthodox churches all know about the Imagine Breaker… why in the world would an “immortal” not know…
More like it’s so easy, what she could have done was just “fall into Touma’s arms” as almost all the females in this show have done… Made me kind of sad 🙁
What I wanted to see more was Accelerator 🙁 Too bad there weren’t enough of him… although, Kanzaki was awesome… gave me the chills…
Wrong assumption- Ladylee is not an existence like an Angel, she has a physical body.
Granted it was only mentioned in an Interview later so you wouldn’t know, but her body was made immortal after consuming an Ambrosia, and not by a spell.
Regardless, the Imagine Breaker should have an effect on the Ambrosia’s effect on the body… not unless anyone would claim “immortality” isn’t supernatural. That’d be an even bigger plothole.
Although, I do concede that maybe the action of Touma touching her wouldn’t exactly kill her outright, but it should definitely remove her “undying-ness” much like how it acted on the Walking Church.
Well, that’s my opinion anyways.
@Ddadain
Actually it’s different, because you have to think of it as like a mutation of the body. It’s not a spell or anything. It’s her physical body that has changed.
Imagine breaker doesn’t destroy everything super natural, else Kanzaki, Acqua, and all those other saints would instantly loose their saint abilities.
Very interesting discussion on Imagine Breaker. AFAIK, its powers have never fully been clarified (certainly, there’s more to it than we’ve seen so far).
I have no clue whether any of this is a “spoiler”, but I’ll use spoiler tags to be safe.
Show Spoiler ▼
In terms of Ladylee and her immortality, from what I can tell, it’s not a “mutation” but a spell type effect (i.e. ambrosia = “magic potion”). She describes it as a “curse” which is for me is akin to a “spell”. Thus IMO, it could be dispelled by Imagine Breaker.
Shame that the movie’s time limit didn’t allow for a better understanding of her circumstances. I really hope that the “two-cour” of total material (if true = 480 – 520 minutes vs. 90 min allotted!) is put into LN form so we can at least read about all the stuff that was left out.
As the story progresses you’ll understand a bit more about imagine breaker and what it can and cant dispel
Animation wise, the action scenes were impressive and the background scenery is breathtaking. Though the use of CG for some of Arisa’s dancing looks jagged.
As a “glorified filler”, it was entertaining to watch, but I thought JC Staff ought to be more bold and go beyond the regular 1.5 hour format for anime movies.
Kyo-Ani after all had broken precedent by making 2.5 hours for the Haruhi movie and 2 hours for the K-ON one.
15-30 minutes more would be just enough to ease that sense of rushing of the plot resolution. An epilogue scene with Shutaura moving on would have more than sufficed. Oh and pity that Touma didn’t use much of his Imagine Breaker, though credit to him, he’s not the sort of hero to rely on that for his badassery.
I’m not too bothered with the token cameos of pretty much everyone from Index and Railgun as this is the first movie of the Index franchise.
Timeline wise, this would probably be between the Remnant Arc and the Daihaseisai Arc, since Kuroko is still confined to her wheelchair from her injuries in the former arc. And IIRC, the PSP game and light novel deals with how Arisa came to know Mikoto prior to the movie.
PS Arisa is so cute. <3
The difference is that Haruhi and K-On are much bigger franchises with huge fanbases and far more support that the Raildex series. KyoAni can afford to put more eggs into their basket for those two movies.
I suppose you could say that they were playing it safe with this movie, hence why they try to include as many fan favorite characters in cameo because they assume this is their first and last movie. I don’t think they expected it to be that successful.
Hmm, I see your point.
Why didn’t I think of that? Now that you mention it, when K-ON was shown in Japan, pretty much every major cinema in Tokyo was showing it, ditto for the Evangelion movies and the Madoka Magica movie. OTOH, the Index movie was only shown in select cinemas.
@echykr
The Index movie started out with only 30 theaters showing it, they slowly increased the number over the course of the month to about 82 throughout the country.
By comparison both Madoka and K-On had about 50+ and 100+ theaters respectively when they first released.
Well that was nice, and seeing the Blu-ray release of the movie the week Railgun S turned into a pile of shit calmed me down a bit.
I would’ve preferred Index III though.
Reminder that JC STAFF cut two-cours worth of material Kamachi wrote for them for the movie to fit it into 90 minutes.
Finally, something I’m not disgustingly backlogged on that I can comment on.
Well, it was pretty much the standard anime movie as it seemed to borrow the general formula that Bleach and Naruto movies use. Not like that’s a bad thing though. I rather like some of those movies.
All in all, I enjoyed it. I’m rather annoyed though that it lacked an epilogue for Shutaura/Arisa. That and the fact that a movie (this) actually manages to look worse than a TV series (Railgun S).
Now with that the Index movie down, it’s time to hype myself up for the Steins;Gate movie in December.
I can’t agree with that, the Animation and art quality in the movie match and even exceeds anything we saw in Railgun S.
While I agree that there were parts that were better animated, one would assume that a movie would be overall solidly animated and I saw a lot of hiccups in the animation. Parts of the movie didn’t even look all that much better than Index II (and I’m not talking about those terribly animated parts during Daihaseisai).
The fights obviously got a lot of the budget and yes, they were better animated than majority of Railgun S. However I feel that, as a whole, the Sisters Arc looks better overall.
@Kuntzy
I have to respectfully disgree; the character designs for this movie were a lot sharper than they were for the earlier Anime seasons and just as vibrant in their colours to match Railgun S. And while admittedly Index II had problematic qualities, their design of the city and various other background images were consistantly gorgeous- And this movie brought it up several notches with it’s night time. I might even go so far as to say that it’s better than Railgun in that department but that’s subjective.
For me, the movie definitely struck one of my pet peeves. That being the use of cg on a character. I don’t mind cg being used for backgrounds and attacks and such, but the idol scenes were completely ruined for me because of it. I just think it looks horrible and makes the character seem fake and lifeless.
Otherwise there was the hiccups I mentioned, such as screencap 10, 13, 105 and 143. There were more, but those are the ones that I can use as an example due to ease of access.
That’s not to say it didn’t have stellar animation as well. Shutaura’s mech in action, Innocentius and Kanzaki in space I thought were really good. Also, like you said, the night background of Academy City was stellar. I suspect that they used cg for it in the movie, which would easily explain the jump in quality. Really well done cg can look downright amazing, such as the Gilgamesh/Iskander fight in Fate/Zero.
For a movie though, I thought it was pretty substandard as a whole. I didn’t really notice many hiccups at all in the Sisters Arc, though that could simply be because I’m not really looking for it as much as I am in a movie. Now the current arc in Railgun S though, that’s a whole different story. I actually just got around to watching 20 two hours ago and it doesn’t look close to as good as the Sisters Arc.
Looking at animation alone, the movie is generally better than Railgun S. Characters simply move more convincingly even in distant shots. That’s a matter of talent as opposed to mere budget. Nevertheless, there are some points to consider:
Budget distribution is more even in Railgun S. The Index movie throws an abundance of frames at specific scenes, leaving some of the less important cuts relatively frame starved. That’s a directorial choice – I guess Nishikiori felt that uber animation in the action scenes would easily outweigh some deficiencies in a few places (bear in mind that Index Season 1 had similar contrasts. Barely anything moved in certain episodes while others were lavishly produced). On the other hand, Nagai exercised more restraint on the set pieces, so we don’t see as much of a difference between scenes. Whether one strategy is better depends on viewer preference – kinda like the classic compromise between the number of key and in-between frames per shot.
The Index movie is leagues ahead in terms of digitization: VFX, composite, lighting, 3DCG. J.C. Staff’s digital department outdid themselves here. Railgun S has good VFX, but the coloring/shading and lighting work is frequently rushed (and very inconsistent from episode to episode).
On the other hand, character art is more consistent in Railgun S. On the Index movie, illustration differences between scenes are quite obvious. If I had to guess, I’d say that the Railgun directive was to spend more time reconciling differences before moving on to compositing, whereas the Index movie placed more priority on high quality post-production (in interviews and on Twitter, it’s apparent that Nishikiori loves pushing for better VFX and detailed backgrounds. He even suggests that Railgun might have looked completely different had Nagai made the show first instead of having to follow the Index style).
i love teh OSTs… the song of arisa meigo keeps on playing in my mind specially that OVER song
Touma is a person that I like – he is also a person I dearly wish to kill. A person should not have the misfortune of seeing too many naked women for god’s sake! So unfair….
TQ
I wonder if anyone noticed…the game that Index was playing while Arisa was in Touma’s dorm room was a reference to Metal Slug 3.
The bomb/ammunition status, vehicle HP bar, continue screen, game over screen, and title font are all paying homage to it.
Heck, even NNK Corporation is a reference to the original game developer SNK Corporation.
https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20Movie%20-%20Large%20066.jpg
Its my favourite game, hence I immediately recognised the reference…its about 13 years old now :3
Game title comparison for those interested
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/SNK_Neo_Geo_MVS/Title/big/Metal_Slug_3_-_2001_-_SNK_Corporation.jpg
So what happened to Shutaura in the end? Did she die or something? I hope I did not miss anything…
@endlessme
She merged back together with Arisa to form one entity.
Right, I remember that scene now. So I suppose she is still alive then? Too bad she doesn’t have any screen time near the end. I want to know what become of her.
Assuming Index S3 will also be another 25+ episodes, and the fact that there’s 9 more volumes to cover (with WW3 being the last 3), do you guys think it’s possible the Edymion movie was a test bed to see if they can squeeze in the WW3 arc in a 2hr movie and use the 25+ episodes to flesh out the arcs before WW3?
Though I wouldnt necessarily say that, I do think that it would be a good idea to release the world war III arc as a movie right after Index III, or even better (time-wise) an OVA release so that they dont end up rushing through the whole damn thing. This movie itself felt rushed as hell in some places so if this was a test, i dont think the results were the best. But again, animating the last 3 LN’s of the first to aru LN series in movie or ova format would be a much better idea than trying to cram it into a two-cour season.
Well two major elements were missing by the end of the movie that reduced the impact severely, since Ladylee was introduced as an original character antagonist for the movie itself she should have had more development and story about why she became immortal and why at the same time she desires to die. Second being the undisclosed fate of Shataura/Arisa becoming one again. And one of their mistakes as you pointed out was cramming almost every character in the series into a movie that otherwise could have done without them though personally I’m not complaining about seeing Index and Last Order and their silly antics after all this time. One last personal note; I feel Touma’s finale falcon punch didn’t have the ‘oomf’ that it should have, in the series whenever he delivered his ‘punchline’ it was always had more impact than this. The plot of the movie was a bit also like a heavily modified version of Kazakiri’s storyline, except Arisa wouldn’t dissolve if Touma touched her with his right hand.
@gawrshness
I think it’s quite different from Kazakiri’s story because of one element- Shataura.
She’s an interesting character because she plays the role of a main character that is both the tragic heroine on the side of the protagonists, as well as an Anti-Hero on the side of the Antagonists. In fact while Ladylee is the true mastermind behind everything, Shataura was the one who played the role of the Antagonist that this story needs to overcome… Far more than Ladylee.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that I don’t agree that they still should have fleshed out Ladylee. Playing to the Greek mythology reference throughout the movie, Ladylee ate an Ambrosia given to her by a Crusader (Yes, those Crusaders) and became an immortal because of it.
This movies was a lot like a Macross movies. 20 minutes worth of song, space and space drama.
The MOvie was so bad in my opinion in terms of story and the ending
and if you watched the movie i want to know what sound did index and touma hear at the end and what is the meaning of that ? i didn’t hear anything ….
Hoping for 2 hours plus movie. @_@
Nice movie, but I wanna a see a true Index series. That Railgun spin-off BS é boring as hell.
“the question of the day
is why she’s in on wheelchair”
Are you serious, Zephyr?
Nice original movie, but I really don’t understand why should they create more original anime material, completely creating more retcons, when there’s plenty of delicious Light Novel material that would have matched, and beat, Seed and Destiny combined in terms of number of episodes.
They could have just used one of the arcs immediately after season 2 for the movie.
Arisa’s concerts remind me of the Vocaloid Megurine Luka. Complete with concert backdrop and awesome dance moves.
In a re-watch I’ve managed to count at least 28 named characters… in a movie of 90 minutes this gives 3 minutes per one… even with some gracing the screen for mere seconds, it is a cast WAY TOO BIG…
i dont get this movieee…. did arisa and that other girl died in the end? were they each other? were they one? cause when she made that wish in the airplace arisa was born, so i’m guessing they’re twins or the other side of each other?