A Certain Magical Index: The Movie – The Miracle of Endymion

Sequel to A Certain Magical Index II

Genre(s): Magic, Sci-Fi, Shonen, Action

Age-Appropriateness: 15+ (Violence, Suggestive themes/partial nudity, language)

Platforms: Crunchyroll, Funimation

Episodes: One 1hr. 30 min. movie

TheAwersome Rating: 6.7 / 10 (Better as far as Index goes)

Premise: In the scientifically advanced Academy City, a miracle is about to occur: the completion of the world’s first space elevator, “Endymion.” Meanwhile, a certain high school student, Touma Kamijou, and his companion Index are going about their daily lives when they encounter and befriend Arisa Meigo, a cheerful and ambitious singer. When strange occurrences begin taking place throughout the city, they lead to the discovery of an intricate plot surrounding Arisa and Endymion. Things only get more complicated when Stiyl Magnus appears, signifying that the magical world is somehow involved too…

TheAwersome’s Thoughts: This was the first Index entry that didn’t leave me thinking “that was a complete waste of time.” That’s not to say that there weren’t at least 30 minutes of the movie that were pure shoe leather, mind you. The early scenes of the movie work extra hard to assure you that this sure is an entry in the Index franchise, complete with everybody’s ridiculous, overused tropes distilled into their purest, most annoying, insubstantial form! Index is an ever-hungry head-biting goblin, Touma’s sure gonna walk in on some naked girls, and Kuroko is a yandere for Mikoto. Then we get to the plot, which pulls the leapfrog game of “no wait, THIS person’s the bad guy!” about four times until we settle at the end who’s really pulling the strings.

Animation for the action sequences is greatly improved, though it’s still “Touma punch!” at the end of the day. Honestly, my favorite part was the opening scene, and everything that had nothing to do with Touma. Gosh I hate this protagonist.

TLDR: The best entry in the Index series, which isn’t saying much.

The follow-up to this is A Certain Magical Index III.

I’ve got to say, I was reminded of the SAO movie and the MLP movie here because they all follow the formula of “We snagged a pop idol to write some songs, so they’re a character in the movie too!” Every time I’ve seen this, it’s felt forced and focused on too much; like they’re milking all the money they spent to acquire said singer to compensate for not having much else going on. Kind of like Mixer’s acquisition of Ninja for its brief spat of existence.

There was a lot in this movie that didn’t make any sense chronologically, since it comes after Index II. In Index II, the “Big Science Vs. Magic” war starts, and yet in the movie, that’s AGAIN the big threat of why the plot is important. Like, the war has already started and yet we need to be careful about a character’s plans because it could start that war. That, and apparently only a very few people in Academy City know that magic even exists? Like, Touma’s trying to hide the fact that anybody can use magic? This was never a concern in the series?

Also, for whoever did the subtitles, “Mary-beth” is a common English name, “Mallybath” is not a name. It’s almost as bad as the Fate translators that refuse to spell it “Saber” but instead go with “Seiba,” or the even worse bizarre sin of using “Altria” instead of “Arturia,” or even “Artoria.” 

You’ll likely enjoy this if you enjoyed:

– Any previous entries of Magical Index

– Any previous entries of Scientific Railgun