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Summary:
Touma rushes down the tunnel after Hyouka, but he gets stopped by Cromwell who informs him that she let Ellis run ahead but also let Hyouka by. When Touma questions what she’s after, Cromwell explains that, twenty years ago, there was an attempt to create a user of both magic and esper powers. The original Ellis was Cromwell’s friend and an esper and had died protecting Cromwell when their facility was destroyed. This is what makes Cromwell feel that the science and magic sides should stay segregated, and Touma realizes that Cromwell would be satisfied with a situation where a war is merely about to happen. Cromwell then brings out all the magic seals that are on the tunnel around them with the intent to bring everything down, but Touma notices a seal in particular at Cromwell’s feet, and he realizes that this is the one she’s using to protect herself. He rushes at it and dispels it with his right hand, and that leads to the ceiling collapsing around Cromwell. Although this doesn’t crush her, it does leave her open to Touma’s follow-up punch. Touma is angry that Cromwell got Hyouka and Index involved, and he feels that true strife comes from pointing a weapon at someone. Cromwell admits that she’s been confused, so Touma points out that she merely did not want to lose someone important, and he doesn’t want her taking someone important – Index – from him either.
In a rage, Cromwell lunges at Touma, but he easily punches her and knocks her out. This leads to the golem going into automatic control mode up above ground, but fortunately, Hyouka arrives in time to save Index. Hyouka tries to get Index to escape while she keeps the golem at bay, and when Index objects, Hyouka reveals that she’s not human. Hyouka wants to protect Index because Index is her friend, however right as she’s about to get hit by the golem’s fist, Touma runs in and dispels the golem. In the aftermath, Mikoto arrives on the scene, sees the mess, and guesses that this is all Touma’s doing. She doesn’t get to stay very long though because Kuroko drags her away, and Touma subsequently decides to go talk with Hyouka. Hyouka felt that she had to save Index, but she thinks that this means that she’ll have to lose her friend because Index now knows that she’s a monster. Touma, however, feels that her pain and sadness mean that she’s human. As if on cue, Index appears, and although she’s initially angry, when she gets close, she jumps into Hyouka’s arms because she still sees Hyouka as a friend. Meanwhile, in Aleister Crowley’s lair, Tsuchimikado comments on how Crowley is getting closer to the completion of the key to control the Imaginary Number District – Five Elements Institution. Based on his deductions, Tsuchimikado thinks that Crowley is trying to artificially construct heaven, and he warns Crowley that if he plans to make use of the Imagine Breaker, then he should be ready for the right hand to consume his illusions. Crowley, however, claims that the illusions he believe in have long been broken.
Since he came out of all this relatively unscathed, Touma visits the doctor and is quite happy about how things turned out. Down in the hospital lobby, Index notices Hyouka starting to phase out, and Hyouka acknowledges that she has an unstable existence. She knows that she has to disappear, but she feels that it’s not death and that she’ll be at Index’s side even if Index can’t see her. As she vanishes, Hyouka promises Index that she’ll come play again sometime. With this, things return back to normal: Index is bored at home, Himegami is still in Touma’s class, Tsuchimikado has a job to attend to, Accelerator is recovering with Last Order by his side, Yoshikawa places the aforementioned two in the care of Yomikawa, and Kuroko is still making moves on Mikoto. Unbeknownst to Touma and Index, Archbishop Laura Stuart is off somewhere telling Stiyl that they need Index’s help. Stiyl wants to head to Japan with Kaori to get Index and Touma, but Laura reports that they can’t get in touch with Kaori. Back at school, Touma finds a hungry Index waiting for him. She’s angry at him because there wasn’t any food left in the refrigerator, and yet he’s currently eating something delicious without her.
Epilogue
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Well I can’t say I liked this finale. Cromwell’s reason for doing all this was muddled – some mixture of revenge for the past and wanting to keep the science and magic sides separated – and I really can’t stand Touma’s preaching. Hyouka meanwhile somehow got super ninja powers, and yet it ended up being Touma who had to save the day anyway. I actually laughed at that scene because of how time slowed down just so that Touma could preach some more while he was airborne – it was almost as ridiculous as the never-ending dash from back in episode six. Hyouka’s concern about losing Index was also quite contrived, though I will give them a little credit for the scene where she disappeared. Regardless, the most enjoyable part of the episode ended up being the ending song playing over the epilogue scenes for all the characters.
They seem to be hinting at a sequel with the scenes between Tsuchimikado and Crowley and between Stiyl and Laura – neither of which makes much sense at this point – but as most of you probably know by now, the To Aru Kagaku no Railgun side story manga is going to be animated first. I’ll probably watch that because I’ve been a much bigger fan of Mikoto’s than any other character on this show, but at this point, I have to say that I’m not too motivated to watch another Index series if they ever make one (and knowing J.C.Staff, they probably will).
Final Thoughts: In retrospect, this has been a show that I’ve generally criticized more than I’ve complimented, and that’s been due in large part to how there are a lot of long – sometimes boring, more often confusing – stretches of exposition. That really bogged down what would have otherwise been a pretty interesting action series that had good production quality. I probably enjoyed the show the most when Mikoto was around, but there really wasn’t enough of that, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the Railgun anime turns out.
Yay! First! Anyway, railgun girl! 🙂
Second… XD chalieee…
The railgun manga so far is great, it was a nice parallel series and often more interesting than the random arcs in the main series. I’m certainly looking forward too it (plus its got witty banter and actual fight scenes!)
The techobabble killed this show. Otherwise it would have been a decent anime series. The secret to the technobabble crap is to ignore it anyways. What was discussed a few episodes ago is forgotten as they throw more new info at you. I also dislike how they introduced this character and made you start to care about her and her new friendship with Index and then with a snap of your fingers she is gone (but I will always be with you).
Considering that this was the series finale it felt like I was watching any other episode and would have another new one next week. It just didn’t feel like a series finale. I still liked the series anyways. There are way too many memorable characters from Index, Mikoto, Last Order to Sensei (driving a car no less) not to come away with something good.
Boring episode, made me use fast forward a lot. Hope the next series is better with Mikoto.
Fail series is made of fail, fail, and even more fail. Typical for a J.C. Staff series. I’m surpirised that fail idol Rie Kagamiya didn’t voice anyone in this series.
I say don’t watch this sequel Omni.
Next stop: BIRI BIRI anim
BIRI BIRI FTW
I’m looking forward to the to are kagaku choudenjibou series. I find that manga much more entertaining than the actual series. It’s interesting to see touma from Mikoto’s point of view. No wonder she likes him because he seems so much more bad ass in the side manga.
It’s finally over! But bleh, the light novel itself was full of expository information and dare I say it, “picked its readers” compared to stuff like FMP! so what can I say? Not to mention it was produced by JC Staff whose success rate with converting light novel material to animation form isn’t exactly up there per se…
Hopefully To Aru Kagaku no Railgun will be a vast improvement over this.
Think to a certain extent this anime was let down by the light novel format. As in the material they had to make the anime from kind of worked against them. Then again the script-writers are purely to blame for which parts they pulled. Its interesting to note that they had a few different script-writers for the different arcs so maybe thats why some of them were better paced than others. Its a real pity because it had a lot of potential to be a great show. Ah well. Hopefully railgun will be better.
It would be good to tell how would you explain the whole thing without the tecnobabble, i mean… somehow, the novel turned to be good, i just don’t get why the anime wasn’t. Can someone place the facts of why it turned out that J.C.Staff made it lousy this time?
Lolis!!!!
This is not the end of Index, it’s the beginning. From here on, everything will begin to really develop.
I was greatly dissapointed with the last villain. Out of all the villains, Accelerator was the best, followed by Izzard (he may have reality-bending powers, but if Touma can beat him with an evil laugh, just think of what the untouchable psycho can do to him. And on top of that, Accelerator is the only one to get close to killing Touma more than once consecutively.)
i thought cromwell was going to be part of the harem.
ooh el final
As Touma said, the story begins where science and magic come across. Since this last arc was actually the 1st time we see the real crossfire of those 2 sides thanks to Crawley’s conspiracy, you have to know this is not an ending at all but the “real” story has just begun. Touma also said you should not be dissapointed even if the prologue is a little bit longer than expected, and here we had a 24-episode long prologue I guess lol
As for Mikoto anime, I don’t see much problem, like you know, talking back and forth about half of an episode and such, none of these nonsence in the Railgun manga so I’m very looking forward to the anime version but we will see.
Nice biri biri series next! So is just a news for the series getting animated, so no target date or release date mentioned?
i regret nothing by not watching
“Can someone place the facts of why it turned out that J.C.Staff made it lousy this time?”
– Xanathos
Suffice it to say, they didn’t make it “lousy”. They made it differently than what the average commenter here (and Omni) wanted from the show. It’s not an action show, it’s a slow-paced preachy sci-fi that *also contains* action. The problem is people like the action sequences enough (and the opening arc contained enough of it) that they thought it’d be an action show, but then when it revealed itself as a preachy sci-fi people were basically like “less talking, more fighting” and they judge that show for that reason. It isn’t by any means bad for what it is, but it *isn’t* an action show; so if you watch it just for the fight scenes and special effects, you won’t like it. I personally happen to like preachy sci-fis, but I’ve liked them long before I started watching anime, so for me this show worked very well. I can see why it didn’t work for everyone, though.
tl;dr: Misplaced expectations.
To Aru Kagaku no Choudenjibou FTW BIRI BIRI! I agree, I like BIRI BIRI MORE THAN INDEX
@relentlessflame
Good point, this series is more like “Moe meets Sci-Fi” than an action/battle packed anime.
Anyway it should be written as choudenjihou, if you write it in Roma-ji format.
mikoto ftw
I didnt find the anime mediocre, but it wasin’t particularly good either.. the absense of a main storyline and just a bunch of little arcs divided does sometimes work, but it didnt with this show because of the constant explanations of minor characters (I honestly could care less about)
i would say the first 8 or so episodes were very fun to watch, they focused on index and etc. Mikoto made this show (biri-biri) alot of fun as well, and i prefered her to index most of the time.
that being said, my verdict is there are ALOT of characters easily forgotten, too much explanation and not enough focus on the main plot. but its not really criticism, i have not read the novels and as far as i know there is actually a main plot covered by all these little arcs..
8 / 10 for me.
Given the material, I thought the expository bits were handled quite decently (in that they carefully chose what to leave in and what to excise. Believe me, the novels were much more extreme). The “coolness” factor was actually what made the novels popular, so there was no way of avoiding an exposition-heavy series without stripping away its original essence.
The talking stuff helped made the show, I regret nothing about it and hope for season two otherwise I’d better brush up on japanese and read light novels
But touma gets annoying only half the time, when he gets his ass kicked AFTER/BEFORE/During his preaching
Still thanks for blogging!!
You guys rule!
So how the hell did Touma get down the black pit of magical doom anyways?
I’ve decided I’m gonna stick to the light novel’s and manga. Perhaps I’ll watch the second season after all of those, things went really downhill after the accelerator arc.
@calde
it can be read either way
man that Touma sure has a way with the ladies…that is ,when he’s not hitting them with knock-out punches. gonna miss this show, but time out!! railgun anime?? its gonna be all about her??
@Yoshikee
Nope. In Japanese, there’s no way to pronounce the kanji 砲 “bou”, it’s “hou” most of the time and in some special situation “pou” but no “bou”. Never.
“Bou” could be Chinese way of pronounciation or something but I’m not sure.
Could’ve been better…didn’t feel like much of an ending to me.The pointless talking just ended up confusing me more.Except for the soundtrack and animation(both of which were slightly above average) the rest of it was pretty mediocre at best.I’d recommend this if anyone wants to kill some time.I won’t rate this a “buy the dvds” if it ever gets licensed though.
It’s not an ending, it’s basically a break until part 2
there’s 15 light novels out, they’ve covered what. 6 of them?
@Twi: There are technically 19 novels out counting the two SS compilations but not counting the Railgun light novel that’s currently being serialized.
The manga adaptation of Index is amusing as not only did it skip vol 2, but appears set to skip vol 4 as well.
If they hurried up the translation of the light novels, it would be really appreciated.
Anyways, it seems like people expected too much action.
I give this anime 10/10. I love the extra facts, though the producers need to find a better time to input them. The extra long pauses/jumps/etc. do get a bit annoying, but I’m a tolerant person.
I wonder when season two is going to be made, but biri biri anime should be awesome! 😀
Railgun is better in the sense that Touma isn’t always the one negating all the crap that is thrown at the protagonists. Most arcs for To Aru Majutsu no Index end with Touma negating and punching the antagonist(s) senseless. Not forgetting the long prep talk for the villain that occupies half of the episode.
Lots of Esper abilities in Railgun, something that was seriously lacking in Index. Hopefully, the characters from Judgement don’t preach as half as much as Touma, if not it’ll just kill the show.
relentlessflame: To be fair, some of those expectations came from how similar this series looked to Shana in terms of style and use of colors (which is attributed probably to how they had the same art director).
It’s a nice show. I just thought it was strange that they didn’t really put much emphasis about touma’s memory loss. Except for the “father” part. But still i thought index would find out and it would worry him more.
JC Staff can never win, they actually adapted the novels pretty well this time, the problem is the novels suffer from the same exposition problem in the beginning.
If they would of adapted it to be all action all the time there would be people bitching too.
Also, in the novels, no one has found out about Touma’s memory loss but the frog doctor, although Railgun girl gets pretty close.
Thanks for bloggind teh show Omni, especialy since thats what made me pick the show.
Now, I liked the show more then most others did since I do not mind exposition and am not so much entertained by action that I want to see it too often.
However, I do think that the expositions could be handled much better and even shortened to some degree. Or at least they could have added more action scenes to make up for it.
Anyway, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun has a more action (first arc has, what, three times more action then first arc of Index?) and less exposition which is also handled better.
Also, I hope you won’t completely give up on the 2nd season of Index because the plot after volume 6 (the last arc of Index anime) has more connections with the main plot, characters introduced in one arc are critical for future arcs as well and because a war betewen Academy City and one of the churches starts and there is more combat involved.
I for one, actually look forward to the second season of this show. Aside from all the technobabble, i liked this show A LOT.
I don’t really care what anyone thinks, though i did enjoy the blogging of this series and i do plan to watch the railgun series when it comes out soon. But of course, according to the later novels, things get a bit more epic. You knw… Show Spoiler ▼
@Man0warr: That’s incorrect. Show Spoiler ▼
pretty mediocre finale, but the series was a pleasant surprise. On to Biri-biri and 2nd season we go!!
I’m glad that it’s over now and OMG how funny wasn’t the scenes where everyone was being all dramatic, I laughed my ass off today
Omni: Oh absolutely. I’m not saying it’s necessarily “wrong” to have those expectations, and this show did what most “preachy sci-fi” shows do and lead with a lot of action to draw people in. So I can see why people thought it’d be an action show. It does look like Shana, and was definitely being marketed to the Shana crowd (even now, I think there’s still a lot of overlap). In any case, there’s certainly no obligation to like a show; my only point is sort of “it is what it is”. The reams of exposition may bog down an action show, but they’re par for the course in this sort of sci-fi.
As I said elsewhere, I guess the main thing is that, now that everyone knows what sort of show this is, will they meter their expectations when the next season comes around (i.e. will they learn from this), or will they watch the next season and complain about the same “flaws” all over again (even though I’d think people should know better by now)? Time will tell on that one. This is really one of those “a tiger can’t change its stripes” things, but that doesn’t seem to stop people from wishing (in vain)…
It was a good anime, but the plot was tottaly confusing.
Index = Win
OMNI = Blashphemer!
The sole reason I never stopped watching this series was Mikoto. I practically fell in love with the character when I saw her PVC figurine (now resting on my desk) months before the series began. When I saw the introductory scene of episode 1 I was very hopeful. Oh how dissapointing the series began to roll as episodes passed. Upon seeing the manga I was hopeful, for Mikoto’s arc. When Himegami’s began I was about to drop, but staid. Mikoto’s arc… the SISTERS… and even Last Order. Those are the reasons I never gave up on the series. Sadly this last arc was plainly bad. Hopefully Index 2, when Railgun ends, will be better (for there are very interesting novels with Mikoto in the future).
For now… we need the date of Railgun’s airing. I hope it premieres this year.
slow motion airborne. I was thinking the same thing myself. How much can a guy preach in a episode while airborne dammit. I give this series a 8/10 and I think thats even a little to high. Hopefully Toaru Railgun Biri Biri will be more fun.
I’m a Mikoto fan all the way. I’ve rewatched “her” episodes countless times and i’ve gathered as much of the scanlated material as possible.
I just took a look at the Kotobukia 1/8 Scale Misaka Mikoto scale that was mentioned earlier and I’m thinking it over… although I may hold off until they release another figure. I’m still undecided.
I dont understand how a character can be so appealing… yet she is. I just want to read/see more of her material and background.
This was really good. I found it weird that they didn’t really feature Index as that major of a character, despite having her name in the title. There were a few things “off” in this series, but over all I found that this was one of the best shows of the season besides Toradora!, which conquers all.
wow…. touma can jump and be irritating at the same time.
biri biri anime first….. i love the manga…..
All in all…. nice series…..
hope ss2 is better…
since the light novels are really long….
BIRI BIRI!!!
oh yea….. touma’s still has amnesia…. maybe in the next series he’ll get back his amnesia
Man, can’t wait for railgun, though it would probably be a 1-12ish episode.
@pics above
The hell!? is that accelerator? and I hope there would be season 2, wanna know more about the archbishop.
I watched this for Index and Biribiri. I will watch Railgun for Biribiri. Awesome.
Uh, this episode was just down right bad. I remember looking at the timer and going “What, it’s half-over and all they’ve done is have him RUN to the fight?!”
As others have said, doesn’t feel like a finale. Only reason I finished this series is because I hate to stop watching one, even if it gets high on itself.
I agree, Index seemed almost non-important for much of the series…and considering the series name…very disappointing. Animation quality went downhill after the first 5 or 6 episodes, too.
Overall, as others have said, it’s something to kill time with, but ugh, don’t be expecting anything you’d recommend to friends or say was worth watching.
I’ll definitely look forward for a 2nd season, now that Crowley’s intentions are revealed.
I do agree about the Shelley Cromwell arc’s pacing too iffy, but just like one of the commenters here said, the “real story” has just begun.
https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20-%2024%20-%20Large%2033.jpg
simply the best… Y arent the spin off about himegami instead :'(
Railgun anime is coming this October.
http://2d.moe.hm/index/img/index0355.jpg
Meh, i enjoyed this series. Wasnt as good as some of the others from the season but not bad at all. I was hoping to get more from accelerator but oh well. I wil however watch season 2 which i am hoping will get produced.
ah.. end,,, just like that..
This anime seems to show that even though the villains have an awesome power, once in a while, they need to visit the gym or else they’ll get whipped by Touma’s fists.
Really, I cannot see why people get all flustered and in an uproar about the exposition in this series and yet stay till the end to basically rant about this and that. “I want more exposition,” then “I want less,” and oh did I forget the “I wasn’t even paying attention to the universe’s terminology or background info, so I’m just gonna complain that I don’t know what’s going on.” Sheesh. For people who rag on shounen titles, some of you are sure brawl-thirsty. But you shouldn’t be disappointed in the fights later then, I suppose.
Since we’ve only gotten to about vol. 6 in the novels, I’m looking forward to what comes next, and the Railgun sidestory anime will be enough to quell my appetite for a bit.
Hey does anybody know if theres gonna be a to-aru-majutsu-no-index 2nd season????/
YES!!! Second season announced: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-06-07/toaru-majutsu-no-index-2nd-season-green-lit