First Impressions / To Aru Majutsu no Index

「刻限のロザリオ」 (Kokugen no Rozario)
“Rosary of Appointed Time”

For an episode that went the distance by cutting out both the opening and ending sequences, the conclusion to this arc came off like a season finale of sorts, except when it came to the actual content. Much like this series is known for, the big threat was explained yet never got remotely off the ground, as Touma settled everything with his right hand like he always does. After Biagio dropped enough clues about removing the targeting restriction of the Queen of the Adriatic Sea for Orsola to figure out his true motive of wiping Academy City and science off the face of the Earth, I was anticipating the Rosary of Appointed Time “plan” to be set into motion. Unfortunately for me, the preparation weren’t even complete and Biagio resorted to blowing up the entire fleet and going out with a bang to rid the Roman Catholic Church of their enemies instead. There may have been a big global threat, but in reality this was just a rescue operation to save Agnese. Any sense of danger was all an illusion in my mind, which was quickly shattered when it became clear it none of it would come close to fruition.

Ultimately, that’s my biggest gripe with these series — we’re told what to be afraid of and never see any of it. While this mirrors religion in a lot of ways and is rather befitting of this fictional story, it makes the problems that the characters encounter feel somewhat unsubstantial. It’s as if they’re constantly preparing for an apocalypse and beating down anyone and everyone who attempts to bring it about. A lot the excitement is lost when all I’m watching are preventative countermeasures, even when we have a huge fleet of magical ships out to shift the balance of power in the world. For once, I’d like to see an apocalypse begin and the characters’ dumbfounded on what they’re supposed to do, before finding a way to overcome the problem. If all the excess exposition was removed from this arc, we’d be left with a psychotic power-hungry bishop kidnapping Agnese, and Touma and co. rushing to rescue her. Gigantic crosses were thrown left and right and Touma had a field day with his right hand, but in the end our hero was set on punching out Biagio regardless of what his intentions were. The Queen’s Fleet? That was just a change of scenary.

There were some positives to take away from this arc though, such as how it was much more straightforward than the previous one. The last thing I wanted to find out is that Biagio’s plan to destroy Academy City was just a fake-out like the Stab Sword. There was only a little bit of that this time, in the sense that the self-destruct made made all the explanations behind the Rosary of Appointed Time moot, but nothing I had to take the time to wrapping my understanding around that would have never happened. Instead, I spent two episodes understanding something that was going to happen but never got the chance to. It probably sounds crazy when the end result is the same, except I feel a lot better when I didn’t have to take in twice as much. I’m fine with the exposition to drive the story. I just feel cheated when I’m given it in double doses using sneaky storytelling methods.

Anyway, I still enjoy this series despite these little qualms I have with it, which is why the foreshadowing of the next arc from the Pope (Kimura Masafumi) and a member of “God’s Right Seat” (Kami no Useki) Vento (Hiramatsu Akiko) already has my interest piqued. With Touma being placed under investigation and eliminated if deemed a threat, I don’t see any way the actual problem won’t be front and center when the series revolves around him. What’s more, the next arc features new characters to change things up too. That’s a big plus for me since the character interactions are a lot more appealing to me than the subplots themselves. This includes Kaori considering Tsuchimiya’s fallen angel maid outfit to thank Touma for helping Amakusa, Agnese joining the good guys, and more Accelerator, Uiharu, and the happy couple next time. Touma’s Italian vacation may have been cut short, but a certain Level 5 is eagerly awaiting his return and I want to see what sort of punishment she has in store for him.

Random thought: Do they have satellite cellphones in their world? That’s some crazy reception range that Touma and Index had on their phones.

 

Preview

87 Comments

  3. for some reason, I feel a little unsatisfied. I really wished they extended the fight scene a bit more. Unlike Touma’s fight with Accelerater, which included a barrage of punches on the face; this fight scene had only two sucessful punches, and the wimp, Biago, is already down for the count. But, at the very least, is was somewhat compensated with the simple humor and all, Touma’s only lucky trip to Italy turned out to be wasted due to his injuries. Ironic that Touma tried so hard to save someone, and what does he get in return, a one way trip back to Academy City.

    I had really wish Touma had done this to that Biago jerk, then that would have been one sweet episode. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2EE773H-3w

    This was the best part about this episode for some reason,
    https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20II%20-%2016%20-%20Large%2039.jpg

    I couldn’t imagine that Kanzaki had a thing for boys younger that her. Hahahaha, Touma’s situation seems a lot like Ichigo Kurosaki’s. More and more girls jsut come to his harem.

    Code fanboy
    Reply

  4. Can’t wait till new arc >.< + new op, hurray, is it likely this is some of the last few, cus they still had Show Spoiler ▼

    Huntsman
    Reply

  6. AWESOME!!!, i always knew that the day where the bad guys would realize that touma its a huge threat would come!! and i really want mikoto to be involved in all this, see as how awesome touma is, with touma saying, well the short thing its this… i saved a quite a few person and saved some cities around the world and the academy too quite a few times from big evil organizations and now the rest of them see me as a threat and want me dead LOL

    Trejon
    Reply

      2. yeeees, shocking isn’t it. What, you thought it was a guy with a female voice, or was it the piercings? Well trust me, there is a reason why she doesn’t look as feminine as most female characters would look like.

        Code fanboy
        Reply

  12. Index imo should focus more on the fan-service type of things now, the battles are all starting to reek of cheese for me. Starting to feel kinda bland recently, though… I wouldn’t mind seeing more Kanzaki and Itsuwa, or Orsola and Fukiyose screen times. Falcon puncher might be interesting but the way they portray the fights are just uninteresting now.

    Kyzel
    Reply

  14. @Divine

    You know Divine, it’s not a little ‘qualms’ when you spent half your article expressing yourself about it ^^ Personally I don’t see what the issue is, whether or not they activate their doomsday device, you know that the heroes would save the day, so does it really matter?

    Anyway, you’re right that rather than a mission to save half the world, it’s better to view this as a personal mission to rescue Agnese. Saving the world is quite a daunting task as nobody can really feel how ‘big’ the world is let alone take responsibility for millions of lives, but to save one girl? It’s simple enough to understand.

    Another way to see it is that for Orsola, this is her chance to show Agnese what she meant in the book of law arc by not needing a reason or having secret agendas to save someone.

    Chaos2Frozen
    Reply

    1. I can see what you’re saying but there’s something in film school they call The Doomsday Demonstration. Basically the audience can’t feel like there’s anything on the line unless the movie gives us visual confirmation of it’s threat. Titular example is how a typical bond villan will blow something up to demonstrate how dangerous his doomsday device is. This recycled trope is used so the plot doesn’t feel like an empty threat to the audience.

      Byakusei
      Reply

    2. @Byakusei

      But at the same time, one can argue that it’s not much of a doomsday device if you can allow it to happen, even for a little bit, right?

      Look to me it’s not really a problem, all these doomsday device have a ‘point-of-no-return’ right? No matter what the situation cannot be allow to cross that point, the only difference is that for this show, that point is much closer hence there’s no room for error.

      Chaos2Frozen
      Reply

      1. It really can’t be helped. Touma and crew didn’t know that Biagio’s plan was to lift the locking limiter to take out Academy City and the science side with it. They only knew what the fleet was originally for and that Agnese is somewhat connected to that. Unlike Croce di Pietro of the last arc; Touma and crew had plenty of Intel involving that. This was more like, “you don’t have time to be shocked about it” or “you don’t have time to really have this info sink through you yet.” I think we just need to view this as a group who didn’t have all the facts in front of them and playing it by ear. Plus they were also preventing the destruction of Venice since the fleet was actually moving in that general direction they assume that was another reason to stop the fleet.

        Silentcid
        Reply

    3. The problem is that Index seems to rely heavily on the approach that nothing can ever start or it will already be over. Like Byakusei mentioned, it’s better to give the audience a visual confirmation of the threat so that it isn’t “all talk”.

      Divine
      Reply

      1. it can go either way really. I mean its not something you just let them use or else everything will be fucked up. If they used any of the past 2 artifacts AC would be fucked up the hole. Though i think i understand what u mean. You wan to see the damage that could be done. Maybe instead of describing what its done in the past the anime should’ve shown it? Would that have solved everything?

        do_ob
        Reply

      2. It doesn’t necessarily have to be damage. It could just be the spell starting up before it’s thwarted. All too often, we hear about what could happen in fairly lengthy detail only to find out that it Touma punched the person out and put a stop to it.

        Imagine if I were to spend 30 minutes explaining how someone is going to bring about the end of the world if he does something. Then at the very end, I say he was stopped. Would you not feel a little snubbed sitting through 30 minutes of my explanation? I could’ve made most of it up as I went along because I had no intentional of revisiting what you just took the time to understand.

        This series isn’t that bad, but that’s the point I’m trying to get across. It probably works better as a light novel since everything’s left up to the imagination anyway. As an anime, it feels somewhat lacking.

        Divine
        Reply

      3. i guess it was the authors fault since he messed up a bit. Anyway im pretty sure people will like the series from here on, though i dont want to be to hyped about it cuz they might mess it up. Like one thing they will need to explain.
        DON’T READ UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW AHEAD!!
        Show Spoiler ▼

        do_ob
        Reply

  16. Was I the only one who felt this episode was a bit rushed. I swear, this arc was three episodes. The first was more or less just fanservice, the second was rushed exposition, and the final episode was in my opinion the entire arc in twenty minutes. I swear i didn’t know what was going on half the time here. And don’t get me started on how touma looked like he was wearing mascera in the fight scene.

    Byakusei
    Reply

    2. Wut? There is enough material for three more seasons and if Index II sales well then there is no reason to not believe it won’t get a third season. The only thing I see them doing an OVA for are the SS novels. An this comment was very random. :/

      Kioku
      Reply

    3. Doubt that, the Japanese loves the novels and Touma especially, and I think discussion regarding Index (again I’m basing this off of casual information and charts gotten off of the internet regarding Japanese discussion) was second only to no-actual incest anime “Ore no Imouto -very long title”.

      But you’ll never know, the world runs through money after all.

      Gaze of Providence
      Reply

  21. Biri biri next episode. Fanboy squeals. Oh yea oh yeah oh yea. The last screenshot levels up my excitedness. I also hear a lot of the LN fans say that the series finally starts next episode.

    ahelo
    Reply

    1. The next arc is pretty much the turning point for Kamachi’s writing and the entire series itself.

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Gaze of Providence
      Reply

  25. Every time I see these potential threats to Academy City from the magic world, I can’t help but think there wasn’t any real danger to begin with.

    It’s hard to imagine that Aleister Crowley would create the city without a heavy amount of contingency plans to deal with magic threats.

    Ryo Ze
    Reply

  26. @DIVINE: Yes their cellphones do have one CRAZY RECEPTION, I read something from the novels translated by Bakatsuki that each of the cellphones bought from Academy City also acts as its own wireless cell site tower. Basically their phones aren’t just receivers, but also acts as transmitters creating some sort of cellular network. So basically the phones dont really rely on the cellular sites, but to other nearby cellphones for signals or reception.

    I enjoyed this episode and Im glad to see Kaori to appear even for just a bit, I mean man, she hasnt really had her own main appearance at all (since Index arc, and it wasnt even about her and the Amakusa arc she was hardly ever shown at all). Oh well, biribiri punishment game next episode will be a great episode to look forward to.

    X
    Reply

      1. u mean what novels it covering at the moment? it just finished V.11. Its onto V.12 and V.13. You might wanna wait….perhaps. It is alot of spoilers but then again it explains everything better.

        do_ob
        Reply

  30. «Random thought: Do they have satellite cellphones in their world? That’s some crazy reception range that Touma and Index had on their phones.»

    From what I’ve heard, japanese mobile phones work fine on European countries when it comes to wavelenght reception, so they could probabily use their mobile phones in Italy with no problem by using Italy’s local reception antennas (even though I’m pretty sure their phone bill went up the roof LOL). The same cannot be said about using japanese mobile phones in the USA, for an example.

    Murasaki Ayame
    Reply

  32. Kanzaki has been reduced from a calm and smart and powerful goddess to a little girl with a crush on a boy (much?) younger than herself. It is painful to watch how the series keeps pushing forward new characters but, in the process, destroys the old ones. The grand message on the conflict between “science” and “magic” has become just a common motif on the womanizing adventure of the right-hand boy, and has become less and less relevant to the reason why people are watching the show.

    Matroid
    Reply

  35. getting bored of his falcon punch. can’t they think of anything else? maybe even a uppercut will do. The most boring fights are those that involved touma. He is only interesting beacause he makes mikoto blushes so much and i am loving it!

    MountainGoat
    Reply

    1. Well the fanservice was present since the begin of the first season of Index. And Railgun anime made it even more explicit, coughepisode13cough. The answer is obvious isn’t?

      Wilfriback
      Reply

  41. Touma is definitely a case of if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail…
    Punching every enemy he comes across is basically his only tactic.
    I hope nobody down to earth and sensible will send after hima sniper or 2.
    Pope, recall your mages, send in the Swiss mercenaries!

    ewok40k
    Reply

  42. This arc was definitely the worst so far, in both seasons. I had serious thoughts about dropping it during the episode, but since the preview promises some accelerator next episode, I guess I’ll hung on for now.

    Nadavu
    Reply

  43. Well, it will be best or worst for some depending on whether your favourite character is around. There’re so many that hate the magic side because that’s ‘NO BIRI-BIRI!!!’ ‘NO ACCELERATOR!!! THE STORY SUCKS!!!’. Unfortunately for you people, 2/3 of the story involves magic.

    Teh_ping
    Reply

  44. Was this the first time that Touma used Imagine Breaker from a distance? As he managed to negate the magic from the cross that Biagio was using to keep Agnese on the floor while he was on the other side of the room. If it was the first time, I think that this is a very interesting development. It could lead to Touma use Imagine Breaker more effectively in battle so he can stop getting his ass handed to him before he falcon punches the enemy 🙂

    Zangetsu
    Reply

      1. While I have to agree with that, I’ll say that Touma’s right hand power is really wierd. At first, I thought that once he touched the walls of the ship, the whole ship will be gone totally.

        kabayongtao
        Reply

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