First Impressions / To Aru Majutsu no Index

“Sky Bus 365”


「スカイバス365」 (Sukai basu 365)

Touma’s Angels

Every female characters solidly increased in likability. Whether Itsuwa panicked at how she could outdo her Priestess, or whether Misaka enters some kind of circuitry overload, they all had their endearing moments. And for all the misfortune that right hand brings to him, it’s pretty evident that Touma’s ability to charm the opposite gender is as potent as ever. You win some, you lose some. What a lucky guy! Not to mention he’s captivated the heart of Kanzaki Kaori, who is a very difficult lady in many respects. And it looks like he would have stiff competition if he chose to pursue her. She seems to have the Knight Leader vying for her affections. I can’t say that man isn’t a strapping fellow. He looks mighty fine! But unfortunately, there’s little Knight Leader can do to contend with Touma’s natural charms. But thanks to the Knight Leader’s vivid imagination, we were at least able to receive a juicy morsel I thought we’d missed out on. Fallen Angel Kanzaki was a feast for the eyes. Other than my quibble about questionable female anatomy, I take back my complaints from last week, JC Staff. You really outdid yourselves this time!

But if these three girls were the angels, well… there has to be a devil who’d fall within the same category. That devil… we do not speak of their name around these parts. But they weren’t so bad this episode and I was pleasantly surprised at the character development they received. Ditching that nun’s habit certainly helps. But even with Index becoming more tolerable, Touma just can’t catch a break. His dinner shopping gets reduced to cinders, he drops all the instant noodles into the sink (that one hurt my soul), and then he gets gassed by one of his best friends before finding himself on a plane to Great Britannia. All that within the space of 2-3 hours? That’s pretty rough. And like always, his penchant for attracting misfortune knows no bounds, following him into airspace as incident after incident unfolded on the aircraft.

Murder on the Express Flight

So after opting out of the supersonic plane, Touma and Index book seats on a commercial flight to the UK. Little did they know that this very plane was to be the target of a terrorist plan. If I had to guess, Fiamma’s plan is being set into motion where he’s manipulating events behind the scenes to cut off the UK from the rest of Europe. The English Church was even accounted for, with magic interference from Scotland preventing them from readily shaping the outcome in their favour. However, I don’t think he could have counted on Touma to interfere. And wading into messes is exactly what Touma does best.

I really enjoyed this attempted plane hijacking, because it demonstrated that Touma is more than capable of fending for himself without using the Imagine Breaker as a crutch. We usually see him go up against supernatural entities relying on nullification as a trump card. This time, these terrorists were armed with violence, guns and a grenade. There’s nothing for Touma to nullify, so he went in there fists swinging, putting himself in some real danger of being stabbed or shot. After some back and forth altercations, he took out one of the terrorists in a single punch, before reaching a stalemate with the last one in the cargo hold. However, with some help from Stiyl, our final terrorist is incapacitated and the crisis is averted.

Concluding Thoughts

A shady person trying to separate the UK and the EU? Sounds familiar to me. I doubt that the author could have possessed… such foresight. Yet I can’t help but feel impressed that the Index novels kind of predicted the future all those years ago. Even if you think my opinions are quite a stretch, these depicted events aren’t too far from our reality. There always seems to be a powerful interest attempting to pull the strings from the background. Given the shared history, this could easily be a parallel universe where magic and science advanced side by side.

The plan to isolate the UK from the EU is in motion. With that in mind, let’s look at our world’s existing timeline and try to predict the upcoming events in Raildex’s world. There will be internal struggles and an attempt to break allegiances with Europe. With the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement likely to lose out when political figures voice their disdain, the solution has suddenly become apparent to me. The UK should be trying to negotiate an alliance alongside trade settlements with Japan! Well, that’s my prediction for Index at least. Once things go by the wayside, I fully expect England to form an alliance with Japan through connections between Necessarius, Amakusa Church and key players in Academy City. Other than Knight Leader, we have yet to see anyone from the UK side of things so it will be interesting to see who will be involved. But if the previews are anything to go by, the reimagined royal family are looking rather dapper, and I expect them to be more than just some token figurehead. At least compared with the UK in our universe.

Anyway, that’s about everything I had on my mind. As always, thanks for reading my post and see you next week as we land in England to meet the royal family!

Full-length images: 4.

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24 Comments

  1. The Brexit comment made me laugh, well done 😉

    Could someone please run Index over with a truck? Or drop her out of the plane to be never seen again? For years I’ve been trying to tolerate her antics with gritted teeth, but my patience is finally running out. A violent, loudmouthed, hyper-spoiled and useless brat. Gawd!

    Mentar
    Reply

      1. Well it was akin to an identity crisis, she needs to choose between beef or fish, she cannot have both …

        Let’s not forget, Index didn’t bite him this episode even after droping the noodles in the drain and she even offered him food afterwards. A miracle indeed!

        1993espada
        Reply

    4. Glad to have made you chuckle, Mentar! It seems like there’s a wide disdain for Index and it’s definitely warranted. However, she isn’t irredeemable and it’s possible for her to turn over a new leaf. Either that, or the writer has given up on her.

      Zaiden
      Reply

  3. https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2002.jpg
    https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2004.jpg
    Please author-san, if Touma doesn’t get a harem then please have him marry with either one of these two girls, one is the ideal wife and one is the pretty Onee-san; two “waifu” type characters that I have yet to see get a heroine position. I mean, seriously. I mentioned this in the past, but I am really sick of how authors just throw in a girl that has “better quality” compared to the heroine but the author just keeps paring the main character with the heroine out of “tradition.”

    Greed
    Reply

  4. I thought for sure the plane terrorism part of the novel would have been cut in order to rush the plot to England faster. I am glad to be proven wrong since it gives us a rare look at Touma handling an extreme situation where his hand can’t help him.

    RPG_Fanatic
    Reply

  7. God is in his Heaven, everything is right with the world!

    Brexit was in the works ever since Margaret T. wanted her money back.
    Fringe elements of UK right always despised being part of the EU, blaming everything wrong in he country on outside factors (standard nationalist trick, working equally well for Germans blaming Greeks and vice versa…)

    ewok40k
    Reply

  8. A shady person trying to separate the UK and the EU? Sounds familiar to me. I doubt that the author could have possessed… such foresight

    well there’s a saying or a proverb perhaps, that states: “science fiction writers are modern day prophets” — i think that applies perfectly here. index LN readers knows that this arc of index is already done and published years ago before the “brexit”. and we also all know how many episodes from different anime titles are postponed or cancelled due to “resemblance” to events that happen IRL before the said episode airs. wont be surprised if academy city and stuffs related to it will happen in the future.

    Jeffers
    Reply

    1. Jules Verne: sends fictional expedition to the Moon from Florida, few dozen miles away from Cape Canaveral, writes about magnificent submarine named Nautilus – first nuclear sub gets named so (though this was probably case of intentionally invoking the trope)
      HG Wells: Martians invent blitzkrieg and gas warfarfe in War of the Worlds
      not-exactly-SF writer Tom Clancy writes about use of commercial jet for kamikaze attack on US Congress few years before 9/11

      ewok40k
      Reply

  10. https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2002.jpg
    Blushing Itsuwa (who most likely saw a certain outfit that’s similar to the “Fallen Angel Ero Maid” )…

    https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2004.jpg
    …an actual shot of Kaori Kanzaki wearing the “Fallen Angel Ero Maid” outfit (though I still would have loved to see Touma, Itsuwa and Index’s reaction faces last episode)…

    https://randomc.net/image/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index/To%20Aru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20III%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2008.jpg
    …and Mikoto getting flustered and sparky… At least some things have finally gone right in this world.

    Also, Index had a better choice of in-flight meal than I did flying to and from Hong Kong when I was a wee lad of 12 back in 1997–aboard the now-defunct Canadian Airlines, where the choice of meal at the time was “Chicken or Fish.” Nowadays, it’s rare for today’s low-cost carriers to have in-flight meals, so I kind of miss those days where the plane fare also included an in-flight meal.

    OK, enough reminiscing… I’m excited to see Lessar and her group, which includes one Edasaki Banri (last seen in Railgun S).

    Incognito
    Reply

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