Sequel to A Certain Magical Index II
Genre(s): Magic, Sci-Fi, Shonen, Action
Age-Appropriateness: 16+ (Violence, profanity, suggestive themes)
Platforms: Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation
Episodes: 26
TheAwersome Rating: 6.7 / 10 (Not as bad)
Premise: Touma Kamijou can’t catch a break. After the invasion of Academy City, political tensions continue to rise as both the science and magic factions collide head on. It appears that Academy City intends to declare war against the Roman Orthodox Church, consequently plunging the whole world into global warfare. Touma soon finds himself on the front lines once again, striving to protect his friends and allies.
TheAwersome’s Thoughts: While I can’t say that this was “good” I can say that it wasn’t painful. It was interesting, even. The constant “whoopsie, girl is naked” scenes were practically nil this time around and it was a welcome change. Instead, we’re finally getting the big ol’ war and the secret schemers are coming forward (for the most part, anyway). Something I haven’t really talked about that’s interesting with the whole Index world is their spin on “The Church of the Cross” and how they’re the primary magic users. It’s always fun for me to see the way Christian mythos gets interpreted and integrated in anime and this was neat to see the differing aesthetic and ideologies of English Puritanism, Russian Orthodox, and Japanese Amakusa. It’s also always fun to see the Japanese-flavored interpretations of Saints and Angels as somewhat demigods.
Another thing I liked about this installment was that we got to follow two protagonists other than Touma. We get to follow Accelerator and his Suicide Squad-flavored group, as well as Hamazura, the ex-Skill Out gangster now working with the specialized underground esper group ITEM.
TLDR: Much better than previous Index installments, not nearly as much eye-rolling ecchi, but a lot of the same sins. Villains are all good guys by the next arc, and there are a lot of arcs.
You do need to watch Railgun S before watching this, otherwise you won’t know a lot of the characters.
You did it! You finished this horrible series that is “A Certain Magical Index”! There’s still more to the “A Certain” series, with the next installment in your list being “A Certain Scientific Accelerator,” starring who else, Accelerator.
Unfortunately, the overarching plot still doesn’t really make sense and is overly complicated. Especially when they need to figure out how to write themselves out of the corners that they dig themselves into. It’s like the old “Harry was AcTuAllY the master of the Elder Wand” nonsense but with anime’s “kill god” level of stakes, which end up making the meticulous constant exposition worthless because the solutions are deus-ex machina anyway, so why bother. That doesn’t mean, however, that it isn’t fun to watch a lot of the fight scenes and what not. In this case I really did say “I don’t care about that, get to the fighting!”
Fun Fact: While there is not a currently existing (to my knowledge or Wikipedia’s knowledge) branch of Christianity that takes the name Amakusa in Japan, the name Amakusa is definitely tied to Japanese Christianity. In the early 1600s, a there was a young boy names Amakusa Shiro who was the child of two Catholic converts. By the age of 15 he had such charisma that he was well renowned, often referred to as “Heaven’s messenger,” and had miraculous powers attributed to him. By age 17 he led a revolt against the Shogunate (military ruling class) and seized a castle in the process. The rebellion didn’t last too long, as later that same year he, and 40,000 of the Catholic rebels with him, were taken captive and slain.
You’ll likely enjoy this if you enjoyed:
- Previous installments of A Certain Magical Index
- A Certain Scientific Railgun S
- Superpowered fights, such as in Toriko, One Punch Man, and most shonen anime.
At a Glance Anime 