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「魔滅の声(シェオールフィア)」 (Mametsu no Koe (Sheōru Fia))
“Voice of the Demon Killer (Sheol Fear)”
And so Agnese finally shows her true colors; a deranged loli with a superiority complex who loves beating up helpless blondes. After the revelation last episode that the RCC were the ones who were actually conspiring to kill Orsola, I’m sure many people were interested in seeing how Agnese, who seemed to be a harmless little piece of fanservice, actually operated, and here we have it. Admittedly, there was something odd about watching a Kugimiya Rie voiced loli act as a villain, physically abusing her victim in a nun gang rape, but I thought Rie played the role surprisingly well and hit all the right notes while taunting Orsola, or that’s how it sounded to my ears at least. As for the actual beating, I didn’t find myself too enraged at seeing Orsola get gangraped, although it did make my thirst to see Agnese get falcon punched grow. We just haven’t gotten a lot of focus on Orsola to really care about her well being, and the only bit of real interaction we got out of her was last episode, and only for about three minutes. Of course, this is the norm for Index, as character development and relations aren’t the real draw or focus of this series. Having said that, I still would appreciate to see the characters Touma saves get more focus, as it would help with the emotional value of watching them being saved.
That aside, the episode overall was solid, if a bit fast-paced. Watching the battle royal unfold between the nuns, the Amakusas, and Touma’s group was pretty thrilling, and having it culminate in a group of nuns mutilating themselves was a nice touch. In particular, I like how we’re shown more of the setting outside of Academy City, which appears to be your average Japanese neighborhoods and cities, of course with the addition of a gigantic church being constructed in dedication to Orsola. It was also nice seeing Touma be the badass he is again, charging headfirst into the army of nuns to save Orsola. One has to wonder where whether he’s brave or just stupid, but it can’t be contested that at the very least he has balls. The most interesting part of the episode, for me at least, was Index’s Sheol Fear, which points out the contradictions in the use of magic through religion in the form of a chorus, using the 103,000 grimores as a basis of knowledge to point out those contradictions. At least, that’s what I think Stiyl was saying. It’s definitely an interesting use of the 103,000 books, and just serves to highlight Index is more than a little pet. In hindsight, this arc has really served to show how useful she can be, when put in the right situations. It also appears the producers took extra care in drawing her, as she’s the only one who didn’t come off looking a bit odd in this episode.
Speaking of that, there was a fairly noticeable drop in quality this episode, not to suggest that last episode was all that hot either. In my write up for the first episode, I commented that it appeared the series got an increase in budget judging from the production quality, but this episode would suggest otherwise. While the backgrounds were solid for the most part, the character designs were suspect at best, and some of the action scenes were just plain painful. In particular, the below average production quality (by Index standards anyway) took away the impact of the nun ear stabbing scene for me, which, while still gruesome and cringe worthy, came off feeling a bit lukewarm as a result of poor choreographing and odd art work. Even so, there were some pretty good parts, like when the nuns were bombing the church or when Index activated Sheol Fear, and overall the production quality was still very good in comparison to other less popular anime. Looking at it from a broader perspective, this might be a result of J.C.Staff producing 4 shows this season, with Otome Youkai Zakuro in particular having some very nice production values. So, hopefully after Zakuro and Milky Homes end this season we won’t see such a severe drop in quality anymore. That said, next episode appears to have some very nice art and animation, judging from the preview, and considering it’s the finale for this arc I’m hoping the production is at the very least decent.
Preview
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*Note: This episode covers volume 7 Chapter 3 Part 2 to Chapter 4 Part 3 of the light novels (pages 216-285).
thanks for the post… just 1 ep behind… keep up the good work….
thnx a lot for the blog cus i first watch the 1st season cus or rc(randomcuriosity) bloggin the first season plz continue to blog this series more loli more fun?!
ha Lucia didn’t stab her ears herself, what a flakin’ b*tch
hard to see Agnese converting to Touma side now her sadistic side is out. we still got the whole papa thing she whispered (last?) episode, so i dunno. mebbe i should read up…
Nice episode…..
I hope they reach the Fiamma’s arc…
Just wishing….
Don’t get your hopes up.
“they will reach fianma’s arc…
world war 3 arc is a movie”
– so said by a friend working @ j.c. staffs
That’s only speculation and not confirmed (heck, we don’t even have season 3 confirmed yet much less a movie), but the WWIII arc animated as a movie would truly be interesting indeed.
@Suzushina Yuriko – according to him, the plans and fundings for WWIII arc are already made and announcement can be made no earlier than episode 15. i myself also not buying whatever he says but this is better than nothing isnt it?
Oye!
I’m a bit sad to see Agnese turn out slightly deranged. Hopefully she will be redeemed in later arcs. The pens were just painful to watch, I still shiver when I remember that scene. Lastly, hurray for Index not being useless.
The pens were the surprise for me.
Terrifying yet effective.
https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20II%20-%2004%20-%2039.jpg
I like how some of the Amakusa Catholics that won’t show up until a later arc gets cameos here, way to go J.C. Staff, especially with expanding Itsuwa’s role and all.
This entire episode was awesome and hilarious at the same time. It’s just funny to see nuns get beaten and abused (not of Orsola of course) when they deserve it. It’s gold when they try to sneak up to either Stiyl or Tatemiya and get their shit handed to them.
Also, J.C. Staff needs to check their animators, Touma’s injury moved to his right arm!
JCStaff official excuse: It’s called magic. It does that from time to time.
So it’s like “It’s Idol Theory I don’t have to explain shit?.” kind of thing?
drop in animation to prepare for the next…
THE CURRENT EPISODE 5 is kick ass… not to mention the falcon punched agnese sanctis and the mega innocentius!!! not a spolier by the way… episode 5 is already aired days ago…
yep, ep 05 got us some real badassery coutesy of Touma (and as usual he would preach to Agnese before deliering final punch), Styil conjuring his overpowered flame elemental, and revelation about real mastermind behind the scenes…
Show Spoiler ▼
oh, and Kaori in deredere mode = Epic Win
falcon punched a nun… good thing j.c. staffs dont get any bash form the REAL roman catholic community… puching a nun? and the nun got a 360 degrees flip in the air… EPIC… *drools*
actually it is not a falcon punch it is a CORK SCREW FALCON PUNCH!!!
magnificent bitch hahahaha!!! like that bro! in the last arcs that bitch will Show Spoiler ▼
Doesn’t matter if it already aired. There will be ppl who didn’t watch it yet and think that they’re safe reading the comments for episode 4.
In after “epic, “falcon punch” and “lulz”.
Am I the only one who thought that stabbing themselves in the ears was a ridiculous idea? Unless they’ve previously trained to fight without hearing, they just gave themselves a huge disadvantage, even if it does mean they can’t hear Index’s Sheol Fear. Not to mention the ear is where the organ that controls your sense of balance is…
If you want to see a huge and extremely detailed debate on how that’s possible, then go to the Index subforums on AnimeSuki forums and click on the episode 4 thread at the top.
Duh. This is mediocre.
Them stabbing their ears maybe a little disadvantageous, but if you see were Lucia is coming from, you’ll understand why at least disabling some of her units hearing is a tactical advantage.
Sheol Fear uses the 103,000 books inside of Index, to point out the contradictions of the Roman Catholic doctrine, according to Stiyl the targets need to have the same beliefs so it can work, the target here are obviously the Catholic nuns.
The stabbing of the ears that rendered them deaf basically splits the target in half: the nuns who are still able to hear, and the nuns that are unable to hear. Even if Index can take out the half that are still able to hear, the other half would then able to attack her. The nuns also, still have a large number of units with them; as such the number of deaf nuns in the ranks is dismissible, and the deaf nuns can be used as cannon fodder.
Also, the stabbing tactic induces fear on the targets, a psychological advantage against Index and her ilk, that these nuns are batshit insane.
And why do they have pens? Silly goose, that’s because they need to write something. Why two? Why not? XD
Also, they’re crazy zealots that wield medieval weaponry, so yeah. Rule of cool, etc.
“Admittedly, there was something odd about watching a Kugimiya Rie voiced loli act as a villain, physically abusing her victim in a nun gang rape, but I thought Rie played the role surprisingly well and hit all the right notes”
Well she did play Nena Trinity in Gundam 00, so she has had some practice =D
yet another episode where index is useful
Another?
The first paragraph was somewhat misleading (there wasn’t much ”gangrape” shown) though Agnese did manage to make an appointment with Touma’s fist. Also, while the episode animation was less than stellar, at the very least it had some sort of action /looking at the glass half full.
P.S. I’m glad to see that you’re back, sorry about that comment in the shoutbox. It was really rude of me, I hope you get better soon.
Sure took you some time to come up with the blog for episode 4, Suzuku. Better late than never though, I guess. All that’s left if for you to churn out episode 5 and you can go back to your procrastination. 🙂
The highlight has got to be Index revealing she can actually put up a good fight, we already know she can be useful with her 103,000 grimoire knowledge in her head, but here she shows she is not just a mere walking library and moe blob, as she puts that knowledge to effective use by dealing considerable damage to her opponents with her Sheol Fear.
The sight of the battle nuns stabbing their ears just to circumvent Sheol Fear was unexpected, but it won’t come as a surprise when you realize they are religious fanatics after all.
lol @ nun gang rape
My one and only question is
Is Orsola part of his harem? cause I thought I read it somewhere that his harem also has a nun some sort forgot the name thou.
I also find that Kanzaki apologize to touma a bit weird since she wasn’t even part of this arc, her screen time was like 1-3 min at most, she didn’t help with the fight when her ppl were fighting, she was totally staying on the side line this whole arc, so for her to be the one apologizing is just a bit weird, if it were Orsola then yea i could understand but kanzaki ?_?, how is she even part of this arc beside being the former head of the group but didn’t even lift a finger to help them.
You need to spoiler that. Anyway, to answer your question:
Show Spoiler ▼
gotta hand it to toma, THAT dude is OBVIOUSLY a firm practitioner of equal opportunity “knock’u’da fu#k out” punches. i love when people don’t discriminate
ohh wait…this is ep 4….??what happened SUZUKU?
Wow, lots of church politics and crazy nun fights. XD For some reason it’s harder to get into this second season — it’s like… the show is actually taking itself seriously and showing hordes of near-zombie nuns in a church smashing things and trying to kill people.
Having magic is one thing (there’s historical precedent for the grimoires and such), and having scientifically developed “abilities” is another, but legions of murdering NUNS? Who’ve just been subjected to the most sacrilegious “fan-service”? Particularly the evil Shana-like ringleader.
well at least they are not flamethrower-armed, power-armored battle nunz of the warhammer40k universe… these would have flattened entire church with orbital strike if needed, and then burned the ruins with blessed napalm to cleanse any suriving impure heretics…
LOL!! Though I imagine such a “universe” doesn’t take itself seriously. 😉
too much fan service.
That was two episodes ago.
And the award for the most disturbing way to use a pen goes to…..
Stabbing your ears with a pen. That was truly nasty