To Aru Majutsu No Index III

Uhm… Wow… You mean after almost 7 years since the second season aired, they finally make the third season?! Damn. That felt like an eternity in anime years. To Aru Majutsu No Index III was a surprise to me as I wasn’t a big fan of the series and probably the series I blamed for making me dislike very heavily themed sci-fi shows (although that doesn’t mean I don’t watch them from time to time). I didn’t think it would come out after that long but anything is possible. Having said all that, the only reason why I am watching this and allowing myself to be confused even more is because of the upcoming third season of To Aru Kagaku No Railgun. Uh huh. I think I need to see this if I want to understand what happens in that series. Wait. Did I say understand? Looks like when science and magic collide, I become a retarded NPC otaku who feels obligated to watch this because, reasons :’(. Such a misfortune…

Document Of Constantine Arc

Episode 1
Fukou da. Bad luck for Touma. Lost his wallet. Can’t buy food for Index. She bites him. At school he gets reprimanded along with Tsuchimikado and Pierce Aogami for entering some heated debate about Playboy bunny girls. Yeah… On the international scale, there are protests everywhere to puts tension between Academy City and Roman Catholic Church. Of course, more trouble for Touma when he sees Misaka doing her kick on the vending machine. He ignores her but she spots him. Then she blames him for never replying her mails and goes to search his handphone. WTF?! Are they dating?! I mean, is Misaka his girlfriend or something?! Then she gets mad seeing a selfie of him and her mom! She would have roasted him had his right hand not nullify it. He manages to escape when she tries to talk about that fight he got into. When Sphinx escapes, Index chases after it and bumps into a nice old lady, Monaka Oyafune. She treats her to some food and learns about Touma probably being a nice guy (because he feeds her). After that, Monaka goes to talk to Touma and needs his input to solve a simple problem. That’s because he has what everybody else doesn’t: Imagine Breaker. As a board member of Academy City, she leaves the rest to Tsuchimikado to explain but he shoots her! Touma is mad but Monaka explains this is her wish. What she is doing is against the board’s will as they want to aggravate the confrontation and eliminate the Roman Catholic Church. She was against it and knew would be taken out. If she ran away, they would target her family. Tsuchimikado takes Touma on a trip to France now. Their target is a Roman Catholic mystic artefact that is the key to resolving this mess: The Document of Constantine AKA C-Document.

Episode 2
Stiyl is interrogating a couple of detainees about God’s Right Seat. However Lidvia wants the release of Oriana so that she can continue to guide the weak. More mumbo jumbo about God’s Right Seat not only to eliminate the original sin of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit but to be just that: be God’s Right Seat and sit next to Him. Fukou da na, Touma. Parachute have difficulties opening. Crashed into a river of a small town in France, Avignon. Luckily saved by Amakusa Church member, Itsuwa. He tells her what Tsuchimikado told him about C-Document. Supposedly some document gives the Pope absolute powers to rule over the land. It also can make what the Pope says become the truth. Hence the Roman Catholics are trying to use that document to make Academy City as evil. Itsuwa explains about the history between the Pope and king of France. What I understand is that Avignon has lots of leylines that would allow the Pope to use the artefacts freely instead of going through all that protocol. Something like a remote. The only drawback is that it takes time to be activated. That is where they come in to stop it. They have to flee when protesters identify Touma as from Academy City. Their goal now is to make way to Palais des Papes. However Tsuchimikado calls and says they don’t necessarily have to go there. They just need to sever the leyline connecting to the Vatican. But he doesn’t want Touma using Imagine Breaker at is still unknown and they are not sure the effects and exceptions. Itsuwa can perform the severing based on her Amakusa skills. In some old building that is housing a leyline, Itsuwa prepares for the ritual (including putting white pantsu?!). But before she could finish, they are attacked by Terra from God’s Right Seat. Did the freak show came to town? If not for Touma’s Imagine Breaker, they would have been goners. Touma could feel the might of Terra’s magic but this guy can pass through solids and spring surprise attacks.

Episode 3
What? What? WHAT?! I don’t understand the explanation of Terra’s precedence magic skill that allows him to change the laws of whatever. Whatever. Forget it. Tsuchimikado drops in to help but with Aleister sending in those powered suits from Academy City to attack, Terra flees. Tsuchimikado fights the powered suits while Touma and Itsuwa find Terra. I don’t know what Tsuchimikado did but he immobilizes all the powered suits because of overflowing data? But Aleister unleashes his next phase. Now those stealth bomber planes fly in. One of them is carrying Accelerator. Touma calls Misaka (surprise!) and asks about the news on Avignon. She mentions about some terrorists creating illegal weapons so Academy City is assisting in some search and destroy operation. Conversation interrupted with Terra attacking. He has C-Document in hand. After knocking out Itsuwa, Terra realizes that Touma has no memories about Imagine Breaker. The prolonged fight allows Touma to deduce his abilities. The reason he cannot kill them is because he couldn’t. He is weak. His magic cannot affect multiple targets at the same time. That’s why when they took full force of his magic, they still live. Touma manages to land a punch in his face and then destroys C-Document. Before Terra could reveal what Imagine Breaker is, he is burnt to a crisp by Accelerator. Lidvia continues explaining that God’s Right Seat isn’t about its members wanting to become angels and stand beside God like Michael or Lucifer. It is to become something above God. Kamijou? Play of words? Terra still lives and returns to Acqua. As the Russian Orthodox Church has sided with them, he thinks of using this incident to invade Academy City. However Acqua asks him about using his skills on tourists and children. Wasn’t he supposed to save humans without discrimination? Terra claims it is to hone his skills so Acqua drops a slab on him to kill him. People like him will never be God’s chosen one. The Pope is here and he hears Acqua’s plan to fight in the upcoming battle himself. Meanwhile Misaka is confused. Yeah, she overheard the entire conversation between Touma and Terra and is not amused about Touma’s lost memories.

Battle Royale Arc

Episode 4
An illegal trader is willing to cooperate with Tsuchimikado but is shot in the gut instead. While being taken away in a police wagon, some weird computer head guy, Banka Yobou slices the van in half! Too bad the trader got killed by him too. Unabara checks the house as Tsuchimikado fills him in on that trader’s job to find people to fill positions of a small and newly formed organization. It is believed they will make their move soon. SWAT people known as BLOCK storm into the house. Later Tsuchimikado and his team check the place. Unabara used his ability to blend in and disguise with BLOCK and has left clues. A small unofficial unit under the name of SCHOOL has hired a sniper, Chimitsu Sunazara to snipe at Monaka who is about to give her speech. Accelerator has Awaki to teleport Monaka and have the sniper miss. A discontented Sunazara wants to snipe Accelerator but is told by his employer to fall back. Hamazura has the misfortune as a manservant for ITEM. Realizing that SCHOOL sent another sniper targeting Monaka after they disposed an earlier one, it is safe to say their warning went unheeded and they’re going to kill them. After the failed Monaka assassination, SCHOOL massacred the scientists at some lab. ITEM drops in as they meet their match in Yobou. Although they emerged victorious, it was a tough fight to defeat him. Mugino realizes the one behind this is Teitoku Kakine, the second ranked Level 5 in Academy City. She has Hamazura chase after some cargo they stole but SCHOOL’s Dress Girl (as she is only known) intercepts. They split up and Hamazura sure does have misfortune with women as Dress Girl goes after him. Lady luck smiling on him as he manages to escape from her hot trail. Tsuchimikado informs him team about a district being under cyber attack. As it houses a lot of viruses including experimental ones, you bet all infrastructure will go haywire and all hell break loose if it gets out. Their job is to intercept it although it pretty looks like a trap to bait them. Unobara calls Accelerator to inform some satellite control centre is the real target so Accelerator hijacks a car and heads there.

Episode 5
Accelerator is ambushed by a member from, uhm, MEMBER. Thanks to his predictable teleportation ability, Accelerator shows no mercy in killing him. At the same time, Kakine is also ambushed by a professor who is a member of, uhm, you guessed it, MEMBER. F*ck his bragging since Kakine easily kills the dude. The last member of, sighs, MEMBER gets trapped in a room that is filling up fast with water. Meanwhile BLOCK has prepared 5,000 mercenaries outside ready to ambush. But Unabara cuts short that plan by making a pre-emptive strike first. This causes Academy City’s deadly helicopter drones to attack and kill many of those mercenaries. Tsuchimikado and co interrogate one of them and from what I understand, they want to use Awaki as a bargaining chip to get into the windowless building where Aleister is. Arriving at a facility, they see lots of BLOCK members dead. They killed themselves? Thanks to the Aztec spell of Xochitl (a member of MEMBER) that made them do so. She has a grudge against Unobara and wants to kill him for his betrayal. To his horror, Xochitl has somewhat merged herself with the original grimoire and is now turning into some horror monster at the expense of her own life just to take him down. Not if Unobara can save her. Tsuchimikado and Awaki confront Tatsuhiko Saku and Megumi Teshio of BLOCK. Megumi isn’t pleased to learn Tatsuhiko plans to use hostage to get to Aleister so she kills him. She faces off with Awaki as she explains her goal to kill Aleister due to some tragedy she experienced and wants to know if Aleister was involved. Awaki defeats her. Meanwhile Kakine beats up Frenda to find out ITEM’s hideout.

Episode 6
Kakine enters ITEM’s hideout and attacks. Kinuhata calls Hamazura about their situation. Their target is Takitsubo. They need to protect her. By the time Hamazura arrives, Mugino has fled and Kakine is about to kill Takitsubo. Even at this point, Takitsubo wants Hamazura to run away and not die. She then uses Body Crystals that makes her abilities go wild. Knowing that she will die if she uses it another time, Kakine doesn’t even bother to kill her and leaves. Hamazura then gets a call from Mugino to counterattack SCHOOL. After Hamazura leaves Takitsubo in the hands of Yomikawa, Mugino confronts him (with Frenda’s corpse in her hand – she got killed by her for her failure). Hamazura has had it with Mugino and will not let her use Body Crystals anymore on Takitsubo. He gets pissed off knowing that she doesn’t care about Takitsubo at all and if she dies, she’ll just find a replacement. Hamazura runs to an unmanned facility to fight Mugino. All I can say is that because Mugino is arrogant, viewing herself as Level 5 as compared to Hamazura’s Level 0, he beat the sh*t out of her, knocking her out with one punch to her face. Accelerator gets a call that Last Order is in danger. She was lost and Uiharu found her. After Last Order went off, Kakine beats up Uiharu for not telling about Last Order’s whereabouts. If he knew she was with her, why didn’t he follow the loli? But thankfully here is Accelerator to settle the score. Yeah, they’re turning this place into a hellish battlefield. Kakine thinks his dark matter is superior to his vectors since it doesn’t exist in this world and hence not subjected to its laws. His plan is to defeat Accelerator to steal his top spot so he gets to see Aleister. However Accelerator shows him why they are different as Accelerator managed to protect the innocent people from their destructive battle. Kakine becomes mad and this allows Accelerator to defeat him. Before he could kill him, Yomikawa tries to reason with him not to be the bad guy but is stabbed by Kakine. This causes Accelerator to go berserk with Kakine adding fuel to the fire by blaming him he can’t protect others. Accelerator turns into his dark mode and beats Kakine to a pulp. Until Last Order shows up. That cute loli smile makes him want to kill her but can’t. When he calms down, Last Order hugs in. Nobody can beat the loli power! Tsuchimikado narrates about Alesiter’s secret plan of spreading millions of surveillance nano-devices called UNDER_LINE around that would give him direct info. SCHOOL, ITEM, MEMBER and BLOCK are names from the dark faction. And there’s one more: DRAGON.

Acqua Of The Back Arc

Episode 7
Itsuwa warns Touma that Acqua has sent a challenge to the Church of England and Academy City that he will hunt Touma down. Touma downplays that although Itsuwa and her Amakusa group are here to protect him. I guess Tatemiya is bored with the job so he executes some sick plan to make Itsuwa’s boobs grow bigger by kicking a football at Touma so his head falls into Itsuwa’s bosoms. Misaka not really liking that… Even Index isn’t fond of him bringing home an Amakusa girl. However with Itsuwa being useful helping around unlike useless Index, Touma even tells off Index to clean the bath! More weirdness with Maika busting in to learn of Itsuwa’s secret recipe. I think it’s time for time out so they take a break by heading to a public bath at an underground district. Misaka is there to blow off some steam too but I guess she’s going to need more than that with Index and Itsuwa there too. As Touma and Itsuwa leave, they realize the place suddenly is void of people. That is when Acqua attacks. He claims he has defeated Tatemiya’s groupie. Acqua wants Touma to give his right hand and since he won’t, he gets beaten up. Itsuwa tries to heal him but with no effect. Touma tries to be a hero and get up to beat this guy but gets beat down again. Acqua will wait and give him 1 more day to cut his right hand and give it to him.

Episode 8
Itsuwa falls into depression for her failure to save Touma. That guy is lying in hospital. Tatemiya had to scold her that by doing so, Touma’s sacrifices were in vain. Acqua will be back and she moping around will not extend the deadline. If she wants to apologize to him and prove she is not useless, then fight. Thanks to that, Itsuwa now turns into a scary yandere, sharpening her blades. Did Tatemiya say too much? Tatemiya gets a call from Orsola who has done some research on Acqua. William Orwell is his real name and was a British mercenary who fought in hellish battles. He was about to be knighted but went missing. When he reappeared, he became Britain’s enemy. I guess this is to show what they’re up against with. Someone who is both strong and smart. When the Amakusa guys surround Acqua, Itsuwa is in no mood for negotiation and attacks first. This time she is better prepared, though Acqua is still way better than her. There’s some rant about Acqua having some ability to use both humans and angelic powers but then the Amakusa guys got a trick up their sleeves as they pull off some move that breaks that balance, allowing them to defeat him. But too bad, that is just short-lived. That trick would have worked had Acqua been an ordinary saint. Yup, he isn’t an ordinary saint. Remember, he is one of God’s Right Seat. Acqua goes on the offensive and the Amakusa guys could have been done for had he not leave. So why are they lucky? Acqua instead goes to square off with Kanzaki.

Episode 9
Kanzaki is no match for Acqua. As expected. But it’s still too early to call, right? Misaki is complaining how she can’t get out when Touma pops up in front of him. Because he still feels the need to go, Misaki scolds him about never asking for help and shocks him that she knows about his memory loss. However Touma replies even if he had them, there are things he still must do. He is moved by the heart, not the head. Misaka just stood there in shock. She probably would have wanted to help him but realizes this is something he needs to fight to get back on his own 2 feet. We return to Kanzaki’s beat down. When she calls the Amakusa gang to assist her, this is because she has realized that her own arrogance and labelling others as weak has brought this upon herself. So there’s some more explanation about Acqua holding tremendous powers of a saint and because of that, he is the most susceptible to anti-saint spells compared to other saints. So when Acqua tries to attack, our hero Touma pops up to stop his tracks, the Amakusa gang hold him down while Itsuwa delivers the finishing blow of Saint Destroyer to purge his powers. Acqua’s flashback shows the moment he decided to leave Britain after turning own being knighted. Knight Leader gave him a few punches as dissatisfaction. Acqua’s plan was to protect Britain from the outside while Knight Leader from the inside so as to allow them to have the widest range of options. Touma is back in hospital and Itsuwa by his side. Because they look so close together, it made Index mad. I think leaving the hospital without her knowledge is just an excuse. And Itsuwa sides with Index… While the Pope is devastated over Acqua’s defeat, Fiamma wants to strike Britain. Forget about Academy City. There is something in Britain they must get. The Pope refuses to allow this madness and attacks him. But you know, Fiamma as the leader and most powerful of God’s Right Seat blows the Pope away. He didn’t die but he took the brunt of it, hence preventing further damage from affecting the Vatican. The news report some sort of infighting among the Roman Catholic Church but everything else is speculation.

British Royal Family Arc

Episode 10
Itsuwa looking up on long distance dating? And how to snatch a man’s heart? Well, good luck. Yeah, even Misaka is feeling really embarrassed over her recent close up with Touma. She didn’t abuse the vending machine this time but her sparks went out of control… More bad luck for Touma. Sleeping gas suddenly gets thrown into his room. Tsuchimikado calls him right in time to tell him he needs to head off to Britain with Index. Yeah, some bombing of the Eurotunnel has strained the relationship between Britain and France. During the flight, Touma goes to the toilet but sees blood stains. He is quickly apprehended by the stewardess who tells him that is the blood of her colleague. Apparently there is a French anti-Britain terrorist on board making some demands otherwise they’ll bring down the plane. Touma wants to help but is told to stay put. Meanwhile the terrorist tries to fix some connector that is near Touma’s seat. With Index returning and wondering what he is doing, he takes her hostage. Touma hears her cries and barges out to beat up that guy but he runs away. Touma is done doing nothing and will go stop the terrorist. He learns the connector is some stabilizer thingy. Without it, the plane will crash. Touma goes on the search and tries to lure out the terrorist by pressing the emergency button. But then the co-pilot sees his instruments of fuel leakage and hence they are going to force to land the plane on the highway. Apparently this is the doing of Laura. Even if this risks the lives of the passengers, as long as she can secure Index, that’s okay. The terrorist contacts the captain and threatens to kill the passengers if he doesn’t bring the plane back up to altitude. Thanks to the jamming interference, Laura’s plan fails so she sends Stiyl to do the job. Touma finds the terrorist and punches him out. He is then suspicious why he waited so long only to act. He then realizes he had a comrade hidden in the cargo during the transit from Paris. So only 1 comrade? Yeah, Touma takes him on and he is crazy enough to take the plane down if everything fails but luckily with the help of Stiyl to cause some air pressure vacuum to pin down that guy and Touma to take the grenade off his hand. The plane safely lands in Edinburgh.

Episode 11
Kanzaki brings the duo to Buckingham Palace as they meet up with Knight Leader who will bring them to meet Queen Elizard of Britain as well as her daughters-cum-princesses, Rimea, Carissa and Villian. Elizard shows a sword, Curtana Second which is only a replica of the first which supposedly gives you powers similar to Archangel Michael. They discuss about the Eurotunnel explosion and because Elizard believes its cause is magic, hence she called Index to determine if it is French type. People might see it as a quarrel with Britain and France when actually it is between Britain and Academy City, and Rome and Russia. Intelligence also showed interference during that plane hijack originating from Scotland. This means they have enemies within. They are identified as New Light, a small unit that has 4 people. Elizard assigns her subordinates each a mission. As Touma is a civilian, he cannot be forcefully participate. However this means he is going to get billed heftily for the services… Yeah, glad he volunteer himself. Touma and Oriana are driving around the streets of London when New Light already blunders because Lessar got confused of a few similar bags with the same design as hers. This allows Touma and Oriana to go after her. Meanwhile, Bayloupe is found by the Amakusa side and although she defeats Itsuwa, she is then caught in by some magic trap. Touma and Oriana continue their chase of Lessar. Touma is told that the bag they are carrying is Skithblathnir. It can teleport contents among each other. When they corner her, Lessar calls this a victory because there is a fifth member. Lessar is prepared to die and could have taken a direct snipe had not Touma saved her. Though, she is still injured. The perpetrator turns out to be Carissa. What New Light was transporting was Curtana Original and now in Carissa’s hands, she rallies all knights of Britain to begin their attack. Claiming herself as the new head of state, she vows to change Britain by destroying the current one.

Episode 12
Knights vs witches and nuns?! Weird. After Index confirms that France was behind the tunnel’s explosion, Carissa orders her side to make preparations for retaliation. Carissa mumbles about the need for Britain to stand up on its own separate power to avoid getting owned in this mix up between science and magic as well as those Christians and Catholics. Now she turns her attention to deal with her royal family. She will kill them all because the less people who can wield Curtana Original, the better. As they have already fled the palace, Carissa is now confronted with Kanzaki. She has no time to deal with her so she lets Knight Leader handle her. Well, that was a quick defeat. Carissa intercepts Villian’s carriage. As Knight Leader is about to behead her, here comes Acqua to the rescue. Man, if he was just a second late… He then lets her ride a horse directly to Necessarius’ hideout and will catch up later after he deals with Knight Leader. Acqua takes in a lot of damage but it’s time both side put an end to this epic power fight. Meanwhile Oriana will stay and handle things and lets Touma sneak away on a train to France. As he tries to hide from inspection, he stumbles into Floris of New Light. Since she is magically cuffed, his Imagine Breaker easily breaks the spell. He takes her to escape by jumping off the train. Don’t worry. There’s a river below, right? Yeah, just 1 metre deep! Oh sh*t! Elizard and Laura manage to break free from their captors. Blame Laura’s careless explosion for that. Laura’s plan to hitchhike using her sex appeal failed. Truck drivers must be very wary these days. I guess it’s riding the horse to London then.

Episode 13
It’s not science. It’s not magic. It’s crap that they survived that fall into the shallow river! Luckily Villian is here to pick them up but Touma leaves Floris in her care. Because Knight Leader is shocked and distracted at Acqua’s goal to fight for United Kingdom without siding with the church or royal family, this caused his defeat? Touma returns just at the end of the fight and sees Acqua trying to rescue Index. They both have to cooperate since Carissa is here to finish them. Some explanation about how Curtana Original can alter dimensions. Whatever. It blew Touma away. Acqua leaves Index in Touma’s care, mentioning that Carissa and the knights’ interest aligned only because of Curtana Original. If they destroy that, the coup will be over. Touma and Index are picked up by the Amakusa guys. With Carissa returning to Buckingham Palace to retune the sword due to its unstable power, they plan to use this chance to strike. With Knight Leader defeated, it is a good time to destroy Curtana. So they make plans to infiltrate via subway underneath the palace. Meanwhile Misaka is eating at a restaurant that she believes will enhance her boobs? WTF?! Then Touma calls. First time. You gonna answer it? As expected, he asks her suggestion how to open electronic locks on a subway’s shutter. You mean there are no electronic locksmiths around? Touma, Index and Villian walk through the subway. Touma accidentally activates a golem that attacks them. The trio combine their efforts to take it down. Thanks to that, they got the train running. But before the big strike, everyone has a big feast. Can’t fight without an empty stomach, eh? Do they even have time to talk about squandering excessively large boobs?! Elizard and Laura finally reach London and they picked up Rimea along the way. Elizard doesn’t think those guys can actually defeat Carissa with just their willpower and without any trump cards. Hence she is going to get some mystic artefact from the museum.

Episode 14
The big chaotic battle is here. Touma and Villian arrive first at Buckingham Palace to face Carissa. She is alone and disposed all the knights by her side. Slowly the rest come by to pitch in to fight Carissa. Everyone vs Carissa. Carissa has got the command of several destroyers to fire devastating bombs at the palace and even if they manage to destroy one, she can order another. Rimea has realized Carissa’s actions, the reason why she hasn’t killed anyone yet. She relays to everyone how Carissa is doing this for the sake of Britain. France and the Roman Catholic Church were using EU as their pawn with pressure from Russia. With their nation’s dignity violated, Carissa wielded Curtana Original to fight against all of them. At the same time, she resolved to seal this weapon for eternity along with herself in a cave she has chosen as her tomb once this is over. She hopes the knights will come to save her. Knight Leader leads his knights to face Carissa. Despite she can threaten to call more bombs, Acqua disables the telecommunication satellite. More of everyone vs Carissa. However she can still hold her ground because with the bloated heroic side, this means more of them to defend and she just have more targets to strike. Finally Elizard steps in. She uses the power of Union Jack to equally distribute power to all the people in the United Kingdom. This gives them the power to fight and be heroes for the day. How can 90 million citizens march to Buckingham Palace and fight against Carissa? Literally now a whole lot more of everybody vs Carissa. The people vs Carissa! United Kingdom vs Carissa! But they don’t have to lift a finger because it is eventually Touma’s Imagine Breaker that breaks Curtana Original and one good punch in Carissa’s face, sending her flying away! Team Rocket?! I don’t know why in the aftermath, nobody picks up Carissa as she lies weakened in some British alley. Because of that, Fiamma is here to thank her that this war he instigated paid off and he was able to get what he wanted. Before he could dispose her, Touma comes to her rescue. Fiamma won’t fight him as he doesn’t want him destroying the mystic artefact he worked so hard to get. That artefact is some safety device for Index. Man, she sounds like a broken computer? Fiamma needs to go to Russia to collect a material he needs to summon an angel. While he is away, he hopes Touma can fix Index and take care of his right hand until he returns. Index is left in the care of Stiyl and as you guessed it, Touma is going to Russia to punch the hell out of Fiamma.

DRAGON Arc

Episode 15
Tsuchimikado gathers his team with orders to eliminate a terrorist group called Spark Signal who has taken some hostages. We take a detour seeing Hamazura and Kinuhata visiting Takitsubo in hospital. She is doing well but has lost her fighting abilities. Kinuhata mentions that ITEM has been dissolved and she is waiting to be assigned to a new group. Then this WTF distraction with Kinuhata trying to tease Hamazura by almost flashing her panties since that guy is more into Takitsubo than her. WTF?! Spark Signal plans on destroying this huge particle accelerator to prevent the board from making any open moves. They are about to kill a hostage but a hero in the form of a villain (read: Accelerator) kills them all. This mission might be simply over except for that one fact bothering Accelerator: The terrorists were demanding the higher ups to release to public info on DRAGON immediately. Stephanie Gorgeouspalace is hired to replace Sunazara to take out Accelerator as well as other targets like Kinuhata. However she kills him because her enemy is everyone in Academy City. Tsuchimikado’s group is then contacted by Shiokishi of the board to dispose the remnants of Spark Signal. Of course they want to get this boring job over with but if they do as they’re told, they might lose their lead to see DRAGON. Perhaps side with the enemy this time? Kinuhata tells Hamazura that she along with the surviving remnants of ITEM, SCHOOL, BLOCK and MEMBER are now drafted into a single new team. Yeah, she’s already disobeying orders by being with him instead. That’s why she needs his help to wipe out all the terrorists before she gets dragged back into this new team. Before they can start doing that, they are being chased by a drone attack helicopter. Dress Girl contacts him and possibly the one who set up this attack. She tells him the terrorists he is after have occupied a salon in District 3.

Episode 16
Hamazura tries to hijack a helicopter to go save Takitsubo. Then he gets a call from her not to come because the terrorists are well armed. She is okay but is in hiding. With Hamazura getting really desperate, the pilot agrees to help. And he jumps onto the roof, the plastic tree breaks his fall? And he manages to shoot straight and kill several terrorists?! WTF???!!! I guess a guy in love can do the impossible. At the same time, Accelerator busts in to kill the terrorists but Sugitani ‘assists’ in killing them. Sugitani hopes they never meet again. Accelerator checks around and sees Takitsubo unconscious. Hamazura got the wrong idea that he did something to her. Accelerator shows no mercy in beating him up but spares him. From what he said, Hamazura realizes Accelerator was only helping her. While lying in his pathetic state, he gets a little reprieve with Takitsubo hugging him, commending he was the only one who came to save her. Aww… So sweet… As Tsuchimikado’s side contemplate about DRAGON (since all those who know about it are dead), Accelerator connects the dots and realizes it must be connected to Last Order. Accelerator knows and escapes an assassination attempt from Shiokishi. He is going to kill him but Tsuchimikado believes in getting Monaka on their side for political preparations. When Accelerator does so, an aide warns him not to because it will drag her back to the double underground life that she has escaped from. But when a kid whom he saved during the hostage incident wants to fight alongside him no matter how dangerous, Monaka agrees to join him to meet Shiokishi. Hamazura and Takitsubo see several simultaneous explosions in the city. They see Kinuhata trying to escape Stephanie’s assassination. Sugitani reports to Shiokishi about Monaka and Tsuchimikado’s group cooperating and will definitely come here. Shiokishi will make preparations to meet them. Inside the building, the gang is separated. Accelerator is confronted by Sugitani. He mentions once Monaka is done for, they will use Academy City’s collective power to get rid of him and then secure Last Order. Monaka talks to Shiokishi that she wants to revoke his powers. She also wants to know about DRAGON. Eventually, negotiations break down and Shiokishi wants to kill her. Too bad it is Unabara in disguise. Shiokishi plans to escape and have his guards keep Unabara at bay but is killed by them. Seems his guards are Unabara’s Aztec buddies in disguise, Tecpatl and Tochtli. They are here to kill him.

Episode 17
Tecpatl possesses the original grimoire and uses it to attack Unabara at the expense of Tochtli. But he didn’t read his grimoire well enough so Unabara is able to cast some spell that blows a hole in his guts. Sugitani thought he jammed Accelerator’s device to immobilize him but Accelerator reconfigured it and turned the tables on him. Kinuhata manages to defeat Stephanie since she is all just firepower compared to Sunazara. She then realizes the target is Hamazura and wants him to run away with Takitsubo. Kinuhata is apprehended by Dress Girl and is explained this is all part of Aleister’s plan. People like Touma and Accelerator are just outliers that could be incorporated easily to his cornerstone plan. However, Level 0 like Hamazura is hard to predict and poses a threat since he is able to take fate into his own hands when he should have died. Hence all of Academy City is now going to kill him. Accelerator interrogates Shiokishi about DRAGON. He mentions that it is all around them. Then this angel thingy pops up before him. This is DRAGON? Some mumbo jumbo explanation about his being but if he is to be specifically called, he is Aiwass. Some of his words are inaudible because our human ears can’t comprehend such beings. He offers to destroy Aleister’s plans since it is already starting to show cracks. When he mentions that Last Order will eventually break down if things continue this way, that’s the taboo word that gets Accelerator all revved up to kill him. Of course he can’t even touch this being and gets trumped. Hamazura is cornered and praying for some hero to save them. Good news: The guards are killed. Bad news: By Mugino. She wants to kill him herself! He runs but Mugino is trying to force Takitsubo to use Body Crystals to save Hamazura or he dies. Hamazura won’t let her do that. If blasting explosions at her won’t do, maybe this jet burning testing chamber will burn her to smithereens. I can’t believe she allowed him to get into the safety area to start the burning! Was she lamenting how the higher ups won’t let people like her die so they can reuse her again and again? Hamazura gets a call by Kinuhata to run some more since more guards are coming their way. So can he fly this jet?! Oh well, it’s on autopilot. Thank goodness to autopilot because Hamazura and Takitsubo can kiss and make out! Best reward for surviving this sh*t! Meanwhile Accelerator has taken Last Order and on a train to Russia as advised by Aiwass. Yeah, this guy looks traumatized. Aiwass calls Aleister about being obsessed with the kids of Academy City because they have what he lacks and will always stand up no matter how many times are defeated. Aleister’s reply is that he will use anything to achieve his goals. Including him.

World War III Arc

Episode 18
Russia declares war on Academy City. They believe they are hogging all the world resources for their science and technology that will leave the world devastated. If they do not comply with the demands to be transparent and drop all their projects within the deadline, it’s all-out war. Hamazura is travelling through the Russian wilderness and Takitsubo is sick from the effects of Body Crystals. This guy is desperate to rob a store to get some goods to save her but thankfully the store is currently being robbed! He beats up the robbers and gets the stuffs for free as gratitude. Meanwhile Carissa leads the nuns and knights to protect from the onslaught of the invading French. I know Touma is on his way to Russia but is he walking the entire way there?! But he isn’t travelling alone but with Lessar. She claims she is here to protect him from death as it would be a pain to Britain if he dies. Also, he needs a translator, right? Not sure if the mission is unimportant or Lessar’s life is so boring that she tries to outright flirt with him. WTF?! Touma and Lessar find Fiamma’s secret base. Hearing that he is looking for Sasha who is hiding in the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations (EAIN), they plan to find Elizalina first to ambush Fiamma. They manage to do so and though Elizalina acknowledges Fiamma as an important figure in this war, she doesn’t want her EAIN citizens hurt. Knowing that Fiamma and Touma are looking for Sasha, Touma suggests to send Sasha out of her borders and execute an operation to fight Fiamma there. Before the plan could reach further deliberation, Fiamma attacks. Imagine Breaker saved their skin a few times but can Touma defeat Fiamma if he just defends? This fight has also do away with the need to find Sasha since she drops in to fight Fiamma. Oh, Vento is also here to fight against Fiamma as she can’t tolerate his actions messing with the Roman Catholic Church any longer. After Accelerator dispatches a few attackers, he found some operation plans that could be related to Aiwass. But upon reaching the Russian military unit, it is decimated and he believes Academy City could be behind this. A few sorcerers surround him. Time for some fun.

Episode 19
Though Accelerator disposes of them easily, he notices the different laws in their magic. Could this be what Aiwass was talking about? Then flies down Misaka Worst. Another one of those Sisters whose goal is only to kill Accelerator. Vento thought she could kill Fiamma with her new powers. Sadly, she’s mistaken. He is still a lot superior. He then collects Sasha and will be back for Touma later. He claims they are both the same. Just that he has confidence he is doing this for the greater good. Touma doesn’t share the same sentiments. He doesn’t care if it is right or wrong but making Index suffer is unforgiveable. Fiamma wonders if he can say that to her face since he might look like he is protecting her to satisfy his own consciousness but is this what Index really needs? Takitsubo is being treated but with the village’s insufficient facilities, she might not hold out. The village will soon be attacked by privateers, unofficial mobs under the army. They’re trying to take this village and make this as their foothold for the Russian army since this village is near the border of EAIN. Accelerator runs from Misaka Worst and cannot fight back due to his vow never to hurt them again. Hence she has a blast beating the crap out of him. She even mocks how the Sisters never sympathized with him not because they decided so but rather they were incapable of expressing such feelings. So once the next phase is launched, those hatred will accumulated and it will be revenge time. When she decides to target Last Order, that is when Accelerator screws it all and fights back. Now it’s his turn to beat the crap out of her. His trauma activated when she pleads for help. He goes berserk thinking Sisters’ are meant to be killed by him and then make his mind broken. All those higher ups must be watching and laughing at this spectacle. Well, he is going to show them that his power can also be used to protect. Hence he is going to save her too.

Episode 20
Misaka Worst wakes up. She is mad Accelerator saved her. I don’t think it’s the right time for her to be ungrateful. Because Accelerator is going berserk trying to destroy everything. Does she want to get destroyed? Hamazura is trying to defend against the bloodthirsty privateers. Land mine came in handy to immobilize the tank but how will he fight against the helicopter? Don’t worry. Acqua is here! Touma arrives where Accelerator is. The latter is mad he is here and starts blaming him he couldn’t save Last Order and that this little kid had to go through lots of sh*t. That’s why the only way he could protect is by playing the bad guy. Touma tells him off it doesn’t matter if it is good or bad. You don’t need reason or status. Just protect the person you want and stand proud of it. Man, Touma’s words must be so resonating that he allows to be beat down like that? Yeah, he lost to Touma again. I guess Accelerator has come to terms that the guy who doesn’t think about whether good or evil is the strongest. Carissa faces off with the Maiden of Versailles and tells her about the Kremlin Report. Something about the Russian military able to take measures during an invasion and capture nuclear installations. The nuclear arsenal takes priority over human lives. Versailles accuses her of using French territory as a stepping stone to attack Russia. Once France prospers under the Roman Catholic Church, they cannot disregard their orders then. Carissa speaks the truth that this war is not the will of the Roman Catholic Church but Fiamma. They still have a chance to end this or will they become pawns of Fiamma. When Misaka sees Touma in the background of some TV news, she packs her bags to head to the warzone. Sorry Shirai, a certain guy is more important. Accelerator wakes up with Last Order by his side. A note left by Touma that only states Index’s name. Touma is doing some serious reflection if his doing has benefited Index in any way. He realizes he has been deceiving Index and is the worst but he will not tolerate submitting to Fiamma.

Episode 21
The Pope realizes the cardinals are holding a meeting to elect a new Pope. This means he has lost his authority and whatever he says will not end the war. But he is going to do what he can. Hyouka is talking to Aiwass about the situation in Russia. Though Aiwass doesn’t intend to do anything unless it interests him, Hyouka intends to head to Russia but on a condition her friends will not be hurt. Otherwise she will also make him her enemy. Acqua just finished clearing out the privateers. Those powered suits from Academy City arrive. Hamazura doesn’t want Acqua to destroy them. Instead, let them use this village as their base. Although they will temporarily lose their territory, at least it will be guarded. Accelerator doesn’t understand whatever magic is related to this document who took from the train. He is told that perhaps Elizalina could read it. However she is injured and recuperating at the battlefield. Accelerator shoots all the spies since he is going to leave Last Order here and get Elizalina. Hamazura and Takitsubo are running away from a powered suit. Thankfully Accelerator saves them. Elizalina diagnoses Last Order and Takitsubo’s situation. They have toxins in their bodies. Although Takitsubo’s can be removed and she is safe for sure, the same can’t be said for Last Order as her toxins will ‘replenish’. Accelerator shows the document to Elizalina and wonders if she can read it. Maybe. But he wants her to concentrate on healing the girls.

He goes to see Misaka Worst and wants her to work for him to collect data from the spies. Why would she work for him? Dark May Project. Misaka Worst needs to find an ability that makes her irreplaceable and not easily disposed of while Accelerator is going to find a way to save Last Order. As Academy City has crafted them to be evil, they are going to fight against them. They interrogate the spies but find lots of inconsistencies in their stories. Realizing this document is to be brought to the Russian’s frontlines, Accelerator is going to storm it. Touma is puzzled that the Russians and Academy City are fighting each other but Fiamma hasn’t come out of his base. Is he in some magic ritual? Ponder no more because Fiamma tells him himself that this is all to lure Touma out and make sure his right hand is safe. Stiyl accuses Laura of trying to mess with Index’s body to prevent Fiamma from getting all her grimoire as she has the other remote artefact that controls her. When Stiyl intends to do something about it, Laura uses her remote to activate Index. The time has come for Fiamma to finally materialize his floating island, Star of Bethlehem (SoB… ;p). This is his intention rather than preparing for a large scale mystic artefact. Misaka has hijacked a plane to Russia. Oh my, how could she see Touma right on that floating island?! Is her Touma vision really that strong? An angel cuts down the jet. Misaka lands but stumbles into one of her Sisters.

Episode 22
Fiamma has materialized the archangel Gabriel and uses her to remove all those who aren’t related to this. Takitsubo has recovered. Together with Hamazura, they decide to go back and protect that little Russian village since the Russian military might be planning to use a biological weapon on it. EAIN can’t act because the Russians will think they might be after the nuclear silo info. When Elizalina tells Accelerator about SoB and Gabriel being somewhat incomplete is because of the document in Accelerator’s hands, he believes this might be all connected in saving Last Order. Touma bumps into Sasha. She was used by Fiamma in a ritual to materialize Gabriel, hence the archangel manifested on its own rather than possessing her. Touma thinks she is connected and tries to touch all over her. Did he have a good time feeling her up? Too bad no nullification effect. Just Sasha beating him up. Touma thinks he might be using a remote to control Sasha like he did for Index. The next Pope hopeful thinks he will become the next Pope. But with the ex-Pope rallying the people, they are marching towards the Vatican and the guards can’t stop or harm them. Hence this Pope potential curses his fate what should have been him as the next Pope. But ex-Pope somewhat praises him for his actions pf uniting his followers and will vote for him in the next Papal Conclave and will aid him in his path. All he needs is to head to the library to do some research on how to bring down Fiamma. Fiamma cuts ties with his Russian conspirator seeing he already has what he wants and this dude no longer has any role to play. Carissa and Elizalina take on Gabriel. Can they really take on God’s archangel? Don’t really think they can win but what’s with Carissa’s plan to call in her surface to air missiles to fire at SoB? Gabriel returns to protect it. She turns her attention to Touma and Sasha but Hyouka kicks down Gabriel?! Hyouka > Gabriel?

Episode 23
Stiyl tries to attack Index but she eliminates him. What are the chances of she killing him for good? Hyouka and Gabriel continue to battle but the latter soon departs as she detects the document nearby. She tries to steal it from Accelerator so he too joins in the fight with Hyouka to pound this archangel. Fiamma is confronted by Acqua. I don’t understand this part but since Gabriel is under Acqua’s control, he is going to do some suicide move by absorbing telesma to remove it from the field. Fiamma dares him and believes his actions are futile but when he tries to order Misha to finish him off, she isn’t responding. Touma is randomly trying to use Imagine Breaker to break Fiamma’s power source. He deduces that Misha only appeared after SoB was in place. If Fiamma could control an archangel, he wouldn’t need to start World War III to achieve his goals. Hence SoB is needed to summon and maintain the archangel. With Gabriel weakened, Accelerator manages to beat down Gabriel. All for Last Order! Hamazura sees Acqua dying. The latter is more than happy to sacrifice his life and take Gabriel with him. However Hamazura yells at him about the people waiting and relying on him. Don’t you dare be the tragic hero now! With that, Acqua screams back to life. Wow. The power of words. While Fiamma faces off with Touma, Accelerator is dismayed after finding the jeep driven by Misaka Worst and Last Order has crashed. Is Hamazura really going to take on the entire Russian military? Don’t worry. Academy City bomber plane is here to bomb it all away.

Episode 24
Hyouka tells Accelerator that a song that Index once sung to Last Order is the key to save her. She can also do the same but he needs to find out some parameters for her to adjust to it. Takitsubo is missing from the bombing. As Hamazura searches for her, misfortune finds him in the form of Mugino. Damn, this b*tch is really hard to die. She eats some Body Crystals to power up. Her powers enough to go berserk. Thankfully it didn’t last long as she goes back down to powerless. Even in this pitiful state, Hamazura can’t kill her. Instead he hugs her and wants to save her (is this considered cheating?). I don’t know how he is going to do it but he vows to protect her (despite choosing Takitsubo) and find a way to bring ITEM back. You mean he is confident of reviving Frenda? Lessar finds Misha and strikes a deal with her to put a dent on Fiamma’s plans in exchange she helps England out in their time of need. Fiamma prepares to take Touma’s right hand. If Academy City’s super satellite laser can’t even touch him, is Touma f*cked? We hear Fiamma explaining about his goal to bring salvation to the world. He isn’t going to brainwash everybody but open their eyes with this power of his. Oh yeah. Like that will definitely work. Will it?! Fiamma cuts off Touma’s right arm and absorbs it. The power is his. However something still feels odd. Touma still has power? And then Touma’s right arm just grew back out! Damn, is this science or magic?! Fiamma is looking pretty scared as the most powerful being closest to God. From what I understand, Touma threw away all his power to get Imagine Breaker back. Touma now knows why Fiamma is doing all this. If he was all that powerful, why does he need to create this large SoB? Why does he need to gather all the churches and temples? This means that his power depends on how strong the enemy is. But still why does he need that much power? It’s because he is scared. He is scared that he cannot save the world. After all, he never saved the world before so there is no way to know if he has the power to do it. Touma can say he saved the world. Technically he saved many people so I guess that counts. He saved the world of those people. The final lecture to nail the coffin: A person who tries to be the saviour of the world cannot protect it. The world isn’t so weak to need one lousy bastard to be saved.

Episode 25
Hamazura still desperately trying to find Takitsubo. Happy to find her, however the hugging has to wait since she detects a couple of coneheads sent by Academy City to retrieve the failure that is Mugino. Does he think he can take them on with his machine gun? The power of deception as he deceives them about accidentally breaking some bottle with some virus. Enough for him to fire at point blank to a couple of them. The last one Mugino has the honour of taking out with Takitsubo’s help. Meanwhile from all that explanation that I don’t understand, Accelerator seems to have found the parameters to save Last Order and he need not be the villain anymore. Accelerator singing? Weird. He is bleeding all over, papers falling everywhere, feathers falling everywhere… Is he witnessing God right now? Touma and Fiamma’s fight continues. The former still shocked he can still block and do more than just nullify. Although Fiamma blames human for all the war, poverty, destruction of nature, etc, Touma argues that humans although may contain malice, but that is not what they only have (something that Fiamma only sees in them). Also, people don’t need a reason to fight for those they love. Touma believes he can save the world because unlike Fiamma, he believes people are strong. Strange, huge right arms appear all over the world and explode. Humans put aside their differences to take it down. The Russian side dispose of their greedy pope and rescue the real patriarch pope (a kid). Because Fiamma’s power may not originate from the Russian or Roman Catholic so their only choice is to seek the power from England’s Archbishop. Oh, Stiyl still trying to fend off against Index? He just needs to hold out long enough till Touma fixes everything… Anytime now… SoB is starting to lose its powers. Fiamma acknowledges he might be at a disadvantage now but he isn’t going to sit by and do nothing. The original plan was to gradually transform Earth. But thanks to Touma’s goodness some unnatural distortion has arisen between Heaven and Earth. Accumulated telesma will rain down on Earth, wiping everyone out. So much about doing good. Too late to do good?

Episode 26
Last Order wakes up. Look at the relieved look on Accelerator’s face. Because those lights are still going to rain down on Earth, Accelerator is not happy with this sh*t and is going to stop it. Damn! He becomes an angel complete with halo?! He was drenched in blood a second ago and now he is so clean and pure! Fiamma tries to use Index but his remote isn’t working since the English did something. Hence perfect timing for Souma to land one knuckle sandwich in his face. With SoB crumbling, Lessar leaves a note for Touma to escape. He still wants to save Fiamma? Okay. But only 1 pod left. Touma lets him use it since he has something to do. So Misaka’s trip all the way here was to be shoehorned to rescue him off via a jet she hijacked? Too bad that is wasted since Touma can’t go yet. Touma finds Index’s remote and conveniently talks to her consciousness. He admits about deceiving and doing something horrible to her. And then something inaudible about his memories. Damn those crashing loud sounds. But Index doesn’t mind. As long as the Touma she knows returns. He touches and nullifies the remote. Stiyl talks to Touma about destroying certain numbered artefacts so that SoB could crash into the sea. However Misha (Gabriel) is heading towards SoB. As she is trying to replenish, the power will grow but too forcefully that it will explode and release a massive amount of telesma. I don’t how Touma did it but he made SoB slam right into Misha! You mean she actually stood there and took the hit?! With everything sinking deep, Touma manages to get close and use Imagine Breaker on her.

Hamazura is trying to find something as a bargaining chip against Academy City. They are surrounded by Academy City people. This helmet woman spouting some crap about retrieving Takitsubo as she is top priority. Something about her rare ability to exert her influence as seen when she cooperated with Mugino to take down a conehead. Something about she can be able to provide the functions of Academy City all by herself. However all her men are shot by the villagers. That easy? It’s Hamazura’s turn to interrogate her all about this Parameter List she was talking about. Accelerator is retrieved and restrained. He tells those blokes to never use Last Order or Sisters again and never let him do their dirty work. So what if they don’t want to? Yeah, he just easily breaks out. That’s one lesson they’ll never forget. Fiamma crash lands safely but upon exiting the pod, his right hand is cut off by Alesiter. He claims he has grown too obsessed with it and almost went beyond that and discover some truths. Too late for Fiamma to be motivated by Touma words. He wants to fight back but Aleister promptly kills him. Aiwass is glad his form was transferred to a different domain than eliminated. Hyouka advises him to learn more about humans because betray them and they’ll get you back when you least expect it. Aiwass doesn’t believe it because they would have done so had they had that kind of power. Misaka is looking through the icy waters. Gasp! Not Touma she found. His handphone strap. Oh no! But don’t worry. Touma is seen floating on some board and is picked up by Leivinia Birdway and Mark Space. Russia’s Pope suspends all military action and agrees to talk with Academy City. Fiamma is apparently alive. Picked up by Ollerus and Silvia. WTF Ollerus was supposed to be a Magic God but is now just a normal sorcerer?

Screw Science! Screw Magic! Screw Religion! Screw Humanity! It’s Revelation!
So this is how it ends? Well, if you think this is the end of the Index series, then you’re both right and wrong. True, the Index series ends here. But the story somewhat continues into a new story, Shinyaku To Aru Majutsu No Index. We’ll have to see if that will get adapted in the future. Of course with so many developments and even throwing in a few new faces in the final episode, it is safe to say that something bigger than a world war is going to happen but that would be for the next spinoff. After all, the Index series itself has many spinoff novels where these other characters popped up. So those who have been reading up wouldn’t find them entirely alien.

So yeah, you might be bored and annoyed and predicting that I am going to be a broken tape recorder. Repeating myself and telling the whole wide world how I still don’t understand everything. What to do? I wasn’t born a rocket scientist nor became one along the way. I don’t know if I could say that I wasted 26 x 24 minutes of my life watching this third season because ultimately I still don’t comprehend the finer things of what this series had to offer. All I know is that some people in here wants to play God, wants to become God and in in the name of bringing salvation to humans because you know, we are such malicious creatures with no redeeming points. Oh no. That’s not at least what our heroes in this series believes. So it’s always that conflicting cliché that bad guys are the ones who want to change the world while the good guys want status quo. The reason we don’t often resonate with the baddies is because of their methods and how they go about to reach their goals. Hence it’s that dilemma of rather than wiping out humans or brainwashing them into mindless but good NPCs, it is better to accept the good, the bad, the ugly, everything that defines us and continue this sh*tty life. Because life isn’t fair. Because that’s life. Yeah. Heroes often love to argue this when saving the world from villains.

With the final arc being the longest arc ever in the entire To Aru Majutsu No Index series, however my pet peeve is that this World War III arc doesn’t really feel like a World War III arc. Personally it feels like Fiamma Versus The World arc. Because the scenes are mostly concentrated around SoB and we don’t really see the world fighting each other. Therefore it doesn’t give me the feel that the entire world was actually against each other. Sure, they may be fighting in the background and the series doesn’t want to distract us with ‘meaningless war’ elsewhere that doesn’t contribute to the plot. Therefore World War III might just be mislabelled like World War I because the latter only involved Europe and yet they named it World War. How grand. Furthermore, from what I see and remember, wasn’t it just England vs France, Vatican vs Russia and Academy City vs everybody else? I don’t know. It just feels like that to me. And in the end, World War III somewhat became World Liberation because humans finally found the strength to put aside their differences to save their world. Damn, it’s really wishful thinking that a bunch of mortals on Earth can actually defend themselves from the onslaught of God and Heaven.

I didn’t study the bible so I know nuts about all the biblical terms here. Yeah, a very Christian anime, right? Sometimes it feels all the plot and whatever shenanigans they pull off here, it’s like as though they pull it out from thin air. God have mercy on my soul. I’m sure very fanatic and dedicated Index fans can enlighten me a lot or I do my own extensive research on the internet but you know me, I’m just lazy and not interested ;p. The way they show how Christians are being at odds at each other feels like a big thing because how come no other major religions like Muslim, Buddhism or Hinduism are caught in this conflict? Oh yeah. I’m an atheist so I’m somewhat safe, right? So we have England being Anglican Christians, Roman Catholic Christians representing the Vatican, Orthodox Christianity widely practised in Russia and in Academy City, uhm, scientific Christians?! Haha, don’t worry I made that one up.

Character wise, surprisingly Touma isn’t the only star here. Heck, triple stars here. Touma along with Accelerator and surprise package Hamazura are the main heroes. I believe for the first time that there are a couple of arcs that Touma was completely absent thanks to being him having his overseas mission so often here. Hence this gives Accelerator and Hamazura to shine and time to build up their plot and character. Among the trio, I think I prefer to vouch for Hamazura because he seems so normal and yet he defies all the odds. It might look like he gets into unfortunate incidents but I feel it is the ‘opposite’ of Touma’s misfortune and that he is such a blessed guy anyway. Accelerator is as weird as he is filled with angst and it’s strange just to think that his life’s mission is to save Last Order and the only way he could do that is to play the villain. Not that I understand. Is he being an anti-hero? Does he know how to actually play the villain? Because he sounds crazy doesn’t mean he knows how to be one. But whatever. Even weirder he sprouts hurricane vortex wings when unleashing his ultimate power. Sure, he is still crazy but I find he isn’t as crazy as before in the previous seasons. Did the loli tame him? And then he became an angel. I think that was really pushing it and I lost my WTF mind. Everyone is screwed if there was this type of angel.

Lastly this Touma dude, there might be some secret about his real identity that I might not have understood. Especially about his surname which is more than just coincidence than a play on words. Oh wait. I don’t think it is revealed yet. Just teased. Otherwise, typical cliché main character. Don’t care what is right or wrong. Just do what your heart tells you! And you don’t need a reason for it! You know that won’t really fly in a lot of other situations. After all, nobody could best his right hand. At least, nobody yet. So yeah. He’s got that kind of main character vibe.

Oddly, I started thinking how similar these 3 characters are because they have got a girl they love or some b*tch girl who is after them. For example, Touma probably loves Index and he’s got this tsundere biri-biri Misaka ever so ‘concerned’ over him. Then we have Accelerator who is protecting Last Order while Misaka Worst despite working with him in the end, is ultimately still a b*tch. No prizes to guess that it is Takitsubo for Hamazura while psycho b*tch Mugino always returns from the dead to haunt him. So yeah. Do you see a particular pattern here in this sense? I forgot to add Itsuwa to the mix and even Lessar to a certain extent. I guess Touma being the top main character means he has these extra babes, huh?

With a host of other characters, it is just hard to keep track of them so I’m skipping them because when some made their recurring appearance, I had to dig back deep into my previous blog just to remember this character’s name. Heck, I was lazy so I Google for faster search results. With too many of them to remember, I believe many of their fates are still left hanging as the season ends. But remember, the series itself is technically ongoing and not over. However what I want to say that Index being the titular character here feels so side-lined that sometimes it feels that she doesn’t really matter. Like as though she has been reduced to some plot device and convenience. Because in the early arcs while Touma or the other guys were at the forefront, Index was like at home bumming around and doing nothing really significant. I’m sure Touma is keeping her safe and hidden from those who are after her grimoires but really, Index feels more like an annoying brat who complains about not having her regular feeding time when Touma fails to do that thanks to his ‘busy’ schedule. And then in the later arcs, Index becomes immobilized as she goes into some sort of coma because Fiamma has some weird remote control over her. Whatever. She didn’t get to even reunite with Touma in the end. That spiritual vision in the final episode feels forced. Got to give us some peace of mind before the season ends.

Other trivial things to note, the British royalty seems to have really weird and unusual English names. Like Elizard and Rimea are names of the old English (I guess it beats having the usual Elizabeth, Victoria or Catherine – or Jane or Sarah) but Villian? Did they misspell Vivian or something? Because I keep misspelling her name as Villain. Or at least each time I see her name it looks like that synonymous word for antagonist. Carissa might sound so English but that name is actually of Greek origin. Yeah, the irony. I think I want to get this off my chest because Aiwass calling himself so, I can’t help want to tease it as Ai-what-ass?! Ai (I) was an ass… Haha! I never thought Aleister would leave his windowless building but I guess he got bored hanging out upside down in his tube. Sometimes you need to take a walk outside and throw the trash. Sort of. The creepiest character goes to Gabriel because whenever she ‘speaks’ there is this very eerie frequency that comes with it. Our puny human ears cannot hear words of an angel. But yeah, still creepy.

If there was something that was less confusing for me to understand, perhaps some of the action sequences brought in a little reprieve of my prolonged headache. Sure, they are packed with divine power and punch but ultimately it feels a lot like sci-fi fantasy when they get to do such weird overpowered moves. Becoming angels, summoning the powers of angels because of some certain characteristics and traits, I wonder how science can explain all that. Heck, even some of the technology of Academy City feels so bizarre that it is more fantasy than sci-fi. And don’t get me started of how WTF certain action scenes look. They defy the law of physics just for the sake of action. I don’t know if science or magic is behind this but it’s just mind blowing (like Touma’s jump from the train and Hamazura’s jump from the helicopter). Physics give a pass for those who are trying to save what is important to them!

This season it isn’t Mami Kawada who sings the opening themes. They are replaced by Maon Kurosaki (who sang the ending themes for the previous seasons, by the way). The first opener is Gravitation, a dramatic rock piece with a hint of synthesizer effects. Although the second opener, Roar has the same feel to it, but it sounds a lot darker and heavier on its metal side and in comparison, I’d prefer Gravitation. Because Index was insignificant in this series, I figure that is why Yuka Iguchi sings both the ending themes. However Kakumei Zenya (first ending theme) and Owaranai Uta (second ending theme) are slow ballads and these sound unfitting for this sci-fi action series. Though, it isn’t the first time the series had slow ballads as the first season had them too. Honestly, just weird.

Overall, I couldn’t fully enjoy this season because of all the complicated sci-fi terms and plots. Too many characters to remember and many feel irrelevant as the season crosses into its final stretch. And like I’ve said, I’m only watching this first since To Aru Kagaku No Railgun is getting another season subsequently. Not that I’m pinning my hopes that spinoff will get me to understand things better but it’s the only way Misaka, Shirai, Uiharu and Saten are going to have more screen time of their own compared to this paltry cameos here. Oh wait. You mean there’s more? You mean Accelerator is getting his own f*cking spinoff?! Damn, is this science or magic behind this trickery?! Is it because that guy got elevated into an angel that he now must have his own spinoff?! In that case, why didn’t they make a spinoff for the erotic fallen angel maid Kanzaki?! That would have been the most epic storyline ever! WTF, you guys?! Did you miss this one out?! I definitely would see that one! It’s not science. It’s not magic. It’s not religion or faith. It’s just love. You don’t need a reason to love maids. Ah, the misfortune of not having that godly spinoff…

To Aru Majtusu No Index

When science and magic clash, an epic story begins. As so it is said in To Aru Majutsu No Index (Index series). After my stint with To Aru Kagaku No Railgun (Railgun series) back in 2010, a little thinking here and pondering there had me decided that I should just check the original series out and see if I can fit in some of the puzzle pieces to make me understand both series better. Well, they’re both related in the sense that they have characters appearing in both series (well, duh) and you can expect the kind of scientific-cum-magic sci-fi action adventure.

However I have one very big problem and issue while watching the Index series. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND A BIG PORTION OF WHAT IS HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sure, I admit I am not intelligent enough to grasp all the scientific, magical and religious terms and jargons. Even as I replay the same scene all over and over again, I just couldn’t comprehend the big picture what is going on. Not even with subs (please note, my Japanese may still be mada-mada but I wouldn’t say that for my English). So it’s as good as watching a show in foreign language without knowing what is happening and what you see is just what you, well, see. Thus my most humble apologizes that this won’t be the best or my typical standard blog in most recent years. It will be one general take on the arcs of the series. How can you expect me to blog down something which I don’t understand and in turn don’t remember? On the other hand, look on the bright side. With the shortened length of this blog, you can spend much more productive time doing something else, say, read a manga, watch more animes or play eroges instead of reading this boring words-only blog from yours truly. You have already been warned. But if you insist and want to stick around, be my guest.

Having said that, the plot isn’t that all complex. It’s just the terms. I mean to put in a nutshell, the Index series is set in the fictitious Academy City (whereby 80% of its residence are students, hence the name) and is about a not-so-normal spiky-haired high school boy, Touma Kamijou, who isn’t really an esper or magician but has a mysterious right hand. Note, this is not an ero genre. You see, his right hand has this mysterious power to nullify just about any magic or supernatural powers. So it is bloody convenient and handy if he is up against the most powerful mages and if you have magic powers that runs up to 10 digits long, you’re still going to lose sh*t to this kid. So the plot generally is something like this. Touma meets other people, usually antagonists from the Church or some magic group, some enemies become his ally later on, they fight and stop the greater evil that will spell doom to Academy City and possibly the entire world. There, simple. So as said, the bloody confusing I-don’t-get-it part all comes down to the terminologies used to express and explain the incident, how it is connected, what it does and its consequences. Each time that happens, I’ll go “What? Repeat that again, please” the first time and replay that scene. Then the second time round if I still don’t understand (which happens a lot), I’ll repeat step one till I could no longer bear it and just watch.

I guess this series was popular enough to warrant several fansites but even so, I didn’t bother go reading up because what are the chances that I will understand in somebody else’s words if I don’t understand my own? Just skimming through was already a headache so I thought it would be the case of ignorance is bliss. There is trusty ol’ Wikipedia for some episode summaries and character descriptions. I have visited other blog sites like Hanners’ Anime, A Product Of Wasted Time, Random Curiosity, Byakuya White Night, Orphic Anime, Kitaze Inbou and other little sites who have blogged partially or fully on the series. Still can’t comprehend. Can I use the excuse that I’m not a rocket scientist to understand what’s going on then?

Rescue Index Arc
As we know Touma’s right hand can nullify just about any powers, somehow it cancels out his good luck too. But if you think about it, it should cancel out his bad luck also, right? Not in his case. Thus he is somewhat a misfortune attraction magnet and his favourite line and possible the quote of the series is “Fukou da!” (Such misfortune!). It all began when he thinks of saving that tsundere biri-biri, Mikoto Misaka from a bunch of gangsters trying to hit on her. Turns out she doesn’t need his help because she busts their asses. I don’t remember how but Misaka didn’t like him too and was going to fry him. He could’ve been a goner if not for his right hand. Next morning, he finds a nun hanging out from his balcony like as though drying a futon. She is Index Librorum Prohibitorum (excuse me? Say that name again?) and she is being sought after by the Anglican Church of England and other magicians. Why? She has 103,000 grimoires (magic books) stored in her head!!! Yeah, if you get a hold of those books from this walking library, you’re literally either going to rule the world or destroy it. Touma’s right hand accidentally nullifies Index’s Walking Church (her clothes) and leaving her embarrassing stark naked. So it’s the start of a ‘beautiful friendship’, if I must say. I wonder how her clothes can be hold up with just a few safety pins. Anyway, the amusing part is to see how Touma and Index interact. Usually the latter being the brat (not to mention a very big glutton. How the heck does she stay pint size?) and biting Touma’s head if she doesn’t like it. Oh, did I say that she’s living with him? I guess he has to take responsibility after seeing her naked body, eh?

Big trouble comes when Index is slash to a bloodied point outside his apartment and so the first opponent Touma faces is Stiyl Magnus, a magician from the magical Necessarius branch of the Church of England and a fire user via invoking runes with his cards. Touma beats Stiyl and his fire creature, Innocentius via activating sprinklers around his apartment area. See, you fight fire with… Water. So to heal Index, he has to bring her to loli teacher, Komoe Tsukuyomi to take part in a healing ritual simply because his right hand will just nullify everything. After the successful healing, Touma and Index got into an argument (God knows what it was, because I can’t remember). This has Touma come face to face with his next opponent, Stiyl’s comrade and the nodachi wielding Kaori Kanzaki. In an empty street (thanks to some barrier spell thingy), Kanzaki beats Touma to a pulp to force him to hand over Index, citing she is her friend. She was the one who attacked Index but it was unintentional since she was confident her Walking Church would deflect all attacks. Well, some smart alec nullified it, right? So Touma has this dilemma to rescue Index because since a big portion of her brain is storing the 103,000 grimoires and the remaining parts storing unnecessary memories. So every year at this time, they have to painfully erase them. Probably that’s why Index is a little airhead. Ever thought of getting more RAM and memory for her. Oh right. She’s not a computer. Time is ticking and they have 3 days. But do you think Touma will just hand her over like that? No way! He lectures them back they never consider her feelings, bla bla bla, yada yada yada, among the many other dressing down speeches. He may have not thought about it but Touma promises to find another way to save Index. Better think fast. But learning from Komoe, people don’t die with information overload in their brain so this prompts Touma to think that Necessarius may have misled Stiyl and Kanzaki with false information about Index’s condition for some ulterior motive.

Touma’s desperate action to save Index has him touch a rune in her throat but this activates a security system called St George’s Sanctuary. What I understand is that she is in a mode that will find the most efficient way to kill Touma. Oh great. Stiyl and Kanzaki realize they’ve been duped by Necessarius when they see Index using some magic she has never know. Touma with Stiyl and Kanzaki’s help, defeats Index’s security system but a feather from it touches Touma’s head, frying his brain cells. As a result, Touma lost his memories and will never return. Yes, this is not a simple case of amnesia. His brain cells are destroyed so he has no prior memories of himself or anything before this. Such misfortune. It’s amazing he still knows how to talk and walk. It’s going to be hard for him to pretend he still has his memories intact. Heck, I can’t even do it for this series… And for now, Necessarius will leave Index alone. This means she gets to stay with Touma, right? Oh God. More trouble. Just make sure not to starve her to death.

Deep Blood Arc
Stiyl meets the ruler of Academy City, Aleister Crowley, some guy upside down in a tube. There has been word that there is someone out to kill vampires in Academy City. Oh yeah. Even in modern science and magic, vampires do exist. Stiyl teams up with Touma for this mission to rescue a girl named Aisa Himegami, the miko priestess Touma and Index met earlier on at the fast food joint. While Index busy takes care of a stray cat she found, Sphinx, Stiyl and Touma infiltrate Misawa Cram School to confront some alchemist guy, Aureleous Izzard and save Himegami. So something about Himegami’s power able to attract vampires naturally that’s why she is here voluntarily to lure them in exchange to protect somebody important to Izzard. Guess who that important somebody is? See, many years ago, Index was Izzard’s partner and was devastated when her memories needed erasing. So he went into hiding and learnt to use some power that will turn Index into a vampire to solve this problem. But you know what? That problem was already solved in the last arc, buddy. Unable to accept that fact, he uses his reality distorting powers on them but can it really work on Touma? But his powers aren’t really distorting reality as it seems. Something about making true of something he imagines. I mean think about it. If he really could turn his wishes into reality, why the heck does he need to go through all this sh*t and not just simply imagine for Index to be healed? That’s right. He can’t really t see how Index will turn out. So Touma uses this to his advantage and ‘turns’ into a monster (Izzard must really have one frightening imagination on Touma) to beat the crap out of him. I thought Touma’s arm got ripped was just an illusion but it was for real! I don’t know if medical science here is so damn advanced that they manage to reattach it back like as though it was never torn in the first place. And yes, Himegami will be living with them since she is now under the protection of the Church. That spells double trouble for Touma. Is he getting some kind of harem here? Oh, now he’s got the best of both religious worlds. A sister nun from the west and a miko priestess from the east.

Accelerator and Sisters Arc
You’re not seeing double, or triple, or quadruple or… How many sisters does Misaka have anyway? Well, this Misaka sister is odd. Always spotting a pair of goggles on her head and her eyes are like ‘dead’. Plus, they have this annoying tendency to narrate their lines as though reading from a book and in third person perspective. And at the same time, Academy City’s most powerful Level 5 esper, Accelerator (looks like a crazy sadistic guy who will snap your brains without mercy) is using his powers of changing vectors of just about anything with a mere touch against his opponents to dispose one of the many Misaka sisters in some heated battle. So we learn something that via some Tree Diagram, some highly confidential experiment which involves cloning of Misaka’s cells to create about 20,000 Misaka clones called Sisters. Based on some calculations, if Accelerator defeats 20 grand of Misaka clones at specific ‘battlefields’, he’ll be able to evolve into the unheard of Level 6. Going to nowhere man has ever gone before, eh? So how many Sisters has he killed? From that last one, 10,032. Oh, he’s halfway there. After learning from Misaka’s big-sister-obsessed-and-overprotective lesbian junior, Kuroko Shirai, Touma goes to confront Misaka. She does want to put an end to all this but feels helpless each time she destroys a research centre, another one crops up. Plus, Misaka thinks of sacrificing herself for her sisters since Tree Diagram was destroyed by Index and the scientists have nothing to base their calculations on. You think Touma will allow this tsundere to die? Okay, so he dies. How can anyone survive her fiery electricity shock? That’s why only Touma can. But I think he needs a little more time to get back on his feet after that tremendous shock. So is she done letting loose her pent up frustrations? Meanwhile Accelerator prepares to confront Sister number 10,032. She is easily overwhelmed by Accelerator’s power. Thankfully Touma shows up to save her. His success plan is to for him, a weak Level 0, the defeat the strongest Level 5 who is Accelerator to prove to the scientist that their theory is wrong and thus a stop to the experiments of killing the Sisters. Of course with Touma’s right hand, Accelerator is stumped that his magic is cancelled out. Then in a dust explosion, Accelerator is impressed Touma got this close in killing him. At points like this, I guess there is no rule to restrict you from using your right hand to punch your rival repetitively, right? Now it’s time for Touma’s turn to get his ass saved when the real Misaka shows up after Accelerator launches some air manipulating projectiles. Then our heroes get this idea to manipulate the wind turbines of Academy City to disrupt the wind patterns and prevent Accelerator from using his attack. Success? You bet. Now for the final knockout punch! In the aftermath, the experiment is ceased while the remaining Sisters are sent away for rehabilitation. And the real tsundere? She’s grateful for what Touma has done. That doesn’t mean they’re going steady, okay?

Angel Fall Arc
Due to that interference with the Level 6 experiment, Komoe sends Touma and Index to the beach, away from Academy City for a while. However, Touma learns his parents will join him. This is going to be hard since he doesn’t have recollections of them. But the funny thing is, while his dad Touya looks normal, his mom Shiina resembles Index and his cousin Otohime looks like Misaka! Holy sh*t! Is this fate? Well, no. As Touma soon finds out, there is this spell called Angel Fall which is distorting how others look in the eyes of one. Touma is shock to learn that his classmate friend, Motoharu Tsuchimikado is also a magician and a spy for Necessarius. He is here with Kanzaki to quell this Angel Fall thingy. Also part of the group is a girl from the Russian Orthodox Church, Misha Kruezhev of Annihilatus. So something about Touma being the centre of the Angel Fall spell and the only way to get rid of it is to defeat the caster or destroy the ritual site. They search for the source as Touma learns more about Tsuchimikado (he was an Onmoyuji priest before becoming an esper) and Kanzaki (she was once the head of the Japanese Catholics group called Amakusa but dropped out because she didn’t like her fate of being their leader). Then Touma and Tsuchimikado go back to investigate the former’s house and find lots of weird artefact souvenirs from Touya’s globetrotting expedition. Then Touma realize that in the family photo, his dad is the only one who looks the same as in the Angel Fall effect. He rushes back to confront him but looks like he isn’t aware of what is happening. The real culprit turns out to be Misha who is impersonating as the real Annihilatus member, Sasha. Misha turns out to be some fallen archangel when the Angel Fall was activated. She wants to destroy the world so she can go back to Heaven. The ritual site turns out to be Touma’s house because oddly, Touya unknowingly arranged all the artefacts in a way to activate this effect. Misha is about to destroy the world but can Kanzaki stall her in time for Touma, Touya and Tsuchimikado to destroy the ritual site? Well, she’s up against the powers of God! Keep your fingers crossed. Touma thought Tsuchimikado was going to kill Touya but instead he sacrificed himself to destroy the ritual site and at the same time, returning Misha to Heaven. In the end when Touma returns to Academy City, he is surprised to see Tsuchimikado still alive. Apparently he has healing abilities too. Then seeing his family’s real face for the first time, he realizes their home has been destroyed during the ritual. Bummer. That’s not the worst part. It’s Index biting for the mistreatment she got during Angel Fall’s effect. Such misfortune…

Replica Arc
Misaka is being stalked by somebody. It’s not Touma for your information. Seriously, somebody else has hots for Misaka? Turns out to be Mitsuki Unabara, the grandson of Tokiwadai’s principal. I think Misaka was desperate to lose him so she pretends to be going out with Touma. Oh, Shirai. The pain, the jealousy… During the ‘date’, Unabara talks to Touma when they see a look-a-like of Unabara, injured and trying to warn Misaka about being attacked. Then Touma realizes the one he is with is a fake because he suddenly tries to kill him. As Touma flees from his attacks, he calls Index to learn that the imposter is putting on some Aztec spell to camouflage as another person. We also learn this imposter was sent to be close friends with Touma’s friends to prevent something called Kamijou Faction of forming. A group of magicians and espers led by Touma that both sides of the magic and science faction will fear the uneasy truce between them will be destroyed. Wait a minute. Touma is leading that kind of group? I didn’t know. Touma certainly doesn’t know. But Unabara really fell in love with Misaka and the only way he could protect her is to kill Touma. You think he’d allow that? Touma emerges the victor in the end and promises to protect Misaka but is warned that there will be many others in the future who will target him and his pals. Nearby, Misaka blushes upon eavesdropping Touma’s answer. I really wanted to know what he said. Let’s assume, “I love Misaka!”. Nah. Never in a million years.

Last Order Arc
Could you believe it? An arc without Touma and Index in the lead? So who leads this arc then? Ever since that humiliating defeat, Accelerator is no longer feared. There are punks trying to take him down but they forgot. Even if he has lost his status as the strongest, he still packs a punch. Accelerator must be the second most misfortune kid because he meets a younger looking Misaka and shows more emotions than her Sisters. Named Last Order, because she is the last of the Misaka clones to be produced. Some name they gave her. I guess if you’re not into tsundere, a loli would do. She follows and sticks to him like a leech, much to his dismay. Though he may be cold-hearted and look crazy, I guess you can’t just abandon a loli in need. Then Accelerator meets Kikyou Yoshikawa who once headed the Level 6 project. She tells him Last Order wasn’t created as part of the Sisters’ experiment but to administer the Misaka Sisters’ network. Also, another scientist, Ao Amai has injected some virus into her and this will cause her to infect all Sisters and make them go berserk and attack people. So he has 2 choices to stop this phenomenon. Either find Amai to explain how to stop the virus (I doubt he will) or return Last Order to her incubator. Oh by the way, Last Order has been kidnapped by Amai. But don’t panic, Accelerator finds him and beats him up. Unfortunately the virus is activated earlier than expected. Yoshikawa is not going to make it in time with the incubator so Accelerator uses his powers to remove the virus from Last Order’s programme. During the midst, Amai awakens and puts a bullet into his head. Accelerator did not defend himself as he is determined to save Last Order. Man, he is one strong and tough dude. Luckily for him, Yoshikawa arrives in time to put that mad scientist out and restore Last Order in her incubator. In the aftermath, Accelerator may still be breathing but with the brain damage he has taken, he somewhat lost his powers. Don’t fret pal, at least you didn’t lose your humanity.

Hyouka Kazakiri Arc
Urm… What that heck is AIM (An Involuntary Movement)? Something to do with espers, right?  F*ck those explanations! All I remember from this arc is Himegami becomes a transfer student in Touma’s class, Index not happy that she can’t be a transfer student in his class meets and befriends a bespectacled girl named Hyouka Kazakiri and the peculiarity about Hyouka is that though she is a top student of some school, she is never seen. There is also a magician from Necessarius, Sherry Cromwell arriving in Academy City to wreak havoc with her golem, Ellis by just writing her chalk onto the surface. Something about she wants to disrupt the balance between the magic and science factions and start a war-cum-conflict between both sides. She begins her attack when Touma, Index and Hyouka are at an underground shopping area. Everyone is evacuated but Touma wants to play hero so Shirai teleports Misaka and Index out. Both girls are suspicious over the other’s relation with Touma. Let the cat fight begin! Maybe it was a mistake to leave Hyouka alone and go and try and fight Sherry and Ellis alone. Isn’t that what the Anti-skill is for? As expected, Hyouka runs into the battlefield and gets her head cracked. Shockingly, a prism is seen floating inside. Must resist… Making jokes… About no brains… Even Hyouka is shocked to find herself in this shape. From what I understand (okay, perhaps not), Hyouka is an artificial being created from the congregation of all the espers’ AIM dispersion fields. Plus, she originally exists in some dimension called Imaginary Number District, some sort of hidden dimension from Academy City. It’s like you’re moving around and everyone is oblivious to your presence. Anyway her head regenerates as Touma saves her from being crushed. Each time Touma nullifies a golem, Sherry summons another one. It’s amazing she can write spells that fast. I wonder what happens if she misspells.

Sherry makes a tactical retreat (just as Hyouka did) as Touma realizes that Hyouka isn’t Sherry’s target but anybody who could turn the factions against each other. She just needs that little spark to start a fire. And that spark-cum-target now is Index. She is attacked by Ellis but Index shows and reminds us that she isn’t an annoying damsel in distress because she activates her spells to counter Ellis’ attacks. But this is only effective to a point whereby Ellis takes on an automated mode. This was what happened to turn Ellis into that mode. Earlier on Touma came into Sherry and fights her, learns about her past whereby she had a friend named Ellis who was in some experiment to make some magician-cum-esper hybrid. But the experiment failed and she was killed. Thus to prevent this from happening again, Sherry intends to start a war and divide both factions forever. Well, seeing how they tried to combine both sides failed, I guess this is her logic of taking out her frustrations and revenge for dear Ellis. With more lectures from Touma and resulting in her face getting punched and knocked out, this means Sherry loses control of her golem and thus is put into auto-pilot. Index is about to be a squished bug when Hyouka appears to bring down the giant before Touma’s arrival to keep it down for good. Index and Hyouka made up and say their farewell before Hyouka disappears. But she’ll still be around. Just in the other dimension. Meanwhile Tsuchimikado warns Aleister for using Touma to test the Imaginary Number District and warns if he continues to play with fire, be prepared to get burnt. And Stiyl meets the Archbishop of Necessarius, Laura Stuart (she looks like a teenager?) about the disappearance of Kanzaki.

Index-tan Specials
Well, these are short nonsensical and random fun humour specials you get when you but the DVD and only lasts less than 10 minutes. However I only saw 2 out of the 4 specials. First thing that came to mind when I saw the specials was how similar it resembles the specials of Shana-tan from Shakugan No Shana. I mean, Index is her tiny cute chibi form and she’s acting like Shana from the specials. Doesn’t palm-size Index eating yakisoba over Touma’s head spilling the crumbs remind you of what Shana and her melon bread on Yuuji? What about Shana’s trademark line of “Urusai! Urusai! Urusai!”? Yup. Used by Index too. Then we have that cameo appearance of Toradora’s Taiga’s little tiger mascot, Kanzaki answering questions with the same loud rambunctious answer (did her seiyuu she really get drunk in real life?), Himegami deprived of meat during a nabe meal with Komoe, a Misaka eye-catch similar like the one in Railgun series specials and that nasi goreng reference at the public bath house. Yum, fried rice… Surprised they make a reference from this part of the world too. Then death comes twice to Index and this series would never have started if she was swooped away by a bird and then Sphinx, Sherry’s children doodle on the ground and some joke trying to break the fourth wall using some agency’s name that made famous a few of the seiyuus in this series. Then there are teasers that announced the second season (even though it was written onscreen as made up at this point) for the Index series and also that Misaka and Sisters’ ranting antic in announcing the production of the Railgun series.

Well, true enough, a second season of the Index did come about a year and a half later after the first season ended. After that cliff-hanger ending with the revelation of several plots, To Aru Majutsu No Index II should start off where it left off. But as we know, the first season’s final arc’s problems were solved and it was more of the introduction of things to come. So has life gotten better for Touma? Nope. More misery. More suffering. More misfortune. For me too. Because of all the damn confusing terms that I am having a hard time to remember. But the first episode to greet the start of the second season begins right after the fake date with Misaka as some magician, Ouma Yomisaka who kidnaps Index in hopes of learning one of the grimoires so that he can lift a curse for the woman he loves. The ritual has him excruciating in pain in both mind and body but even so, he finds that even reading 1 book is too much for a human’s brain to take. His plan backfires. Touma is able to find Index (thanks to her handphone) and nullifies the process. Any guy who has pathetically failed his mission would surely be down and close to suicide, right? Not on Touma’s watch. So how can he help this guy cure his love? Use his right hand lah. Simple. And then it hit Touma. He hadn’t any time to complete his homework and it’s already the end of the summer holidays! Well, what are a few pages of scribbled answers compared to saving the world? Okay, maybe it’ll be sh*t if he repeats the same grade next year. Such misfortune!

Liber Al Vel Legis and Roman Catholic Church Arc
The Book of Law AKA Liber Al Vel Legis, a grimoire containing very dangerous magic has been stolen by the Amakusa group so Laura sends Stiyl along with a group of battle nuns (am I hearing this right?) led by the petite Agnese Sanctis (she is so short she needs platform shoes?) to retrieve it and also the nun Orsola Aquinas, supposedly the only person who can decipher it. How does Stiyl get Touma to cooperate? Abduct Index of course! Always work. Touma coincidentally bumps into Orsola but is soon kidnapped by Amakusa. Then regrouping in a makeshift tent (Touma certainly getting into lots of ambiguous positions with Agnese), Stiyl says they may have to fight Kanzaki since she was once their head. But the Amakusa group, led by Saiji Tatemiya (I thought it was Samurai Champloo’s Mugen making his cameo!) attacks so the battle nuns fight them as a distraction for Touma, Stiyl and Index to sneak away. Touma chances upon Orsola and gives her a cross Stiyl had given him earlier. Then they meet up with Stiyl and Index taking Tatemiya. Tactical teamwork is the best key to take down your opponent. With the Amakusa group rounded up, Tatemiya reveals his group has never stole the Book of Law and that the Roman Catholics made this up and a reason to hunt and kill Orsola to prevent her from unlocking the grimoire’s secret. Something about the Roman Catholics are the largest Christian group and currently at the top. If Orsola obtains its power to knock them off from their perch and end their rule, that’s going be a big no, right? Originally Orsola came to Amakusa for help but ran away because she didn’t trust them. Touma is in a dilemma but realizes Tatemiya is speaking the truth when battle nuns Lucia and Angelene try to kill him. They retreat when Index uses her magic spell to counter attack and a call for the battle nuns to draw back.

After freeing the rest of the Amakusa members, Stiyl doesn’t want Touma and Index to have any more to do with this. You think Touma is going to leave it like this? Yeah, playing hero again by barging into the church whereby Agnese and her battle nuns are torturing Orsola. Agnese has also deceived Necessarius into helping them with their goals. Guess what? Stiyl, Index and the rest of Amakusa also come barging in. So it’s going to be one big hell of a messy battle. The cross that Stiyl gave which is now on Orsola is a symbol and proof of one’s protection under the Anglican Church. A reason to fight back, eh? As Touma rushes in to save Orsola, Index uses her Sheol Fear to instil fear and paralyze the battle nuns. However to counter her magic, they did a desperate and sickening move: They stab their ears with a pen to deafen themselves! Oh sh*t! The gang comes up with a plan to use the Book of Law via Orsola’s deciphering and Index’s library. However Index notes her translation is fake and she was never capable of deciphering it (though her intention of deciphering it was to destroy the book). In fact, there are many ways to decipher it, leading to many misleading interpretations. So all this was just a wild goose chase? Can’t back out now. Everyone has seen the dark side of the Roman Catholics. Touma faces off Agnese with her Lotus Wand that is able to send damage to her opponents if she damages the wand. But Touma learns her attack patterns and with a little help from his friends, they knock Agnese out. With their leader down, the battle nuns lose morale and surrender. In the aftermath, Kanzaki reappears after a long time and thanks Touma for his deed. Orsola and Amakusa are now under the protection of the Anglican Church and Stiyl realizes that Laura intentionally got involved with this to have the Amakusa under her control and use them to ensure Kanzaki’s loyalty to them. So Catholic or Anglican, everyone has their hidden agenda.

Remnant Arc
Well, what do you know? An arc that trusts that horny lesbian Shirai as the lead character. So much so, you thought you might be watching an extended episode from Railgun :). Shirai goes to investigate some suspicious MIBs stealing a certain suitcase containing stolen aerospace craft parts. Though she easily dispatches the guys, she meets her match in Awaki Musujime, another esper with teleporting abilities and can do so without touching objects. Not only that, Shirai got injured during the fight. Now how can she take out her horny desires on her onee-sama? Oops… I guess Misaka can sense something wrong so she goes to settle it herself. You see, the contents of the suitcase contain parts that will enable the reconstruction of Tree Diagram. If that is successful, that Level 6 experiment may highly resume, something Misaka has tried very hard to snuff out. Don’t want history to repeat itself, eh? As Shirai tails Misaka, the latter confronts Awaki at a construction site. She’s about to release her awesome electrifying powers but Awaki teleports many innocent bystanders between them to buy herself time to escape. But Shirai finds and confronts Awaki taking refuge in a nearby building. Shirai takes advantage of Awaki’s trauma of teleporting accident (I think she got stuck between a rock and hard place – thus she rarely uses teleport herself). Awaki manages to turn the tables (and other furniture) on Shirai and piles it up on her. She can’t teleport away because of her worsening injuries. Awaki tells her about the organization she works in wanting to recreate Tree Diagram to give birth to new breed of espers and offers Shirai to join them. Will she take it? Of course not. All she got was Shirai’s verbal abuse. Crazy Awaki shoots her, loses control of her powers and tries to shoot her again. Meanwhile, Misaka, one of the clone Sisters and Touma meet up to plan and save Shirai. This part just got crazier because Awai is going to kill Shirai by dropping the entire building on her!!! As Awai teleports away, Misaka’s railgun zaps a hole through the building, enough for her to fall through and Touma to run up the debris and save her! Just wow. Awai is confronted by Accelerator. She attacks but due to her trauma of teleporting, she can’t escape from that crazy bastard who can still use his abilities via some Misaka Network. The suitcase is destroyed and Awai ends up with one bloody sore face. Don’t mess with this dude.

Daihaiseisai Arc
Seems the entire Academy City is undergoing one big sports festival with various schools competing (thus the city is open to visitors from outside). What I poignantly remember from this arc is Misuzu, Misaka’s hot mom who looks young enough to be her sister (don’t laugh, everyone was even surprised by it!), Shirai sensing and seeing both the Misaka mother-daughter aura decides to get horny with both of them (and I thought she wanted to act all goody so she can be in mummy’s good books but noooo. She had to be a perverted monster), Touma’s parents making his visit, Touma’s class rep the busty and pushy Seiri Fukiyose (I think she has a crush on Touma), Misaka and Touma making a bet among themselves that the loser must abide to everything the winner wishes, Touma accidentally sees Index changing in the bushes to her sportswear (blame it on his bad luck). Okay, those side distractions were more memorable than the main story for this arc. For that, all I remember was that Touma, Stiyl and Tsuchimikado are running around Academy City to find this lady Oriana Thomson (another busty babe – look at how she dresses. Too sexy for my…) to stop her in trading a Stab Sword which is rumoured to be able to kill Saints. And Kanzaki isn’t in this mission because she has just been given Sainthood so it’ll be too dangerous for her. They have to do it discreetly so as not to cause panic to the public. Oriana and Touma ‘recognize’ each other because of his neutralizing ability when their hands met. He follows her, she gives him the slip, the chase begins. She sets lots of magical traps and counter traps to give the guys a hard time in tracking her. Tsuchimikado does some tracing spell to locate a spell located in one of the poles for the ball throwing competition. And the competition is about to start. How can a bunch of normal students go up against a handful of espers? They don’t even need to lift a finger? Touma thought one of the poles Misaka was going to touch is it (she thought he was sending mixed signals) but it turns out to be a decoy and the real one sends Fukiyose into coma.

So it’s back to another round of chase with Oriana inflicting some painful curse on Tsuchimikado in their face-off though she receives a painful punch from Touma. Then when she leaves her painting package that she has been carrying all the while, it is revealed that the Stab Sword is non-existent and the actual trade item is St Peter’s Cross, which will supposedly to put Academy City under the rule of the Roman Catholics. While Touma temporarily meets up with Index and they have lunch with Touma’s parents along with the Misaka duo, Tsuchimikado and Oriana are in another face off. Though Oriana destroys his tracking spell and has seriously wounded him (don’t worry, he’s got that healing powers, remember?), Tsuchimikado has already managed to destroy her barrier and made contact to call for Kanzaki’s help. Oriana backs off after thinking she has no chance of winning if she fights a Saint. However that call was just a lie and to throw her off her pace. Oriana bumps into Himegami and sees her cross. Thinking she is one of the reinforcements and from Necessarius, she attacks her with a spell that leaves behind a very bloodied Himegami. Komoe and Stiyl stay back to help heal her (Komoe did help heal Index before, right?) so a very upset Touma is going to make this personal to track down Oriana after 2 innocent girls got severely injured. Tsuchimikado and Touma continue to hunt Oriana. They learn from Orsola (who is researching back at the Church of England. She seems to be on good terms with Sherry) that the reason Oriana is running around Academy City is to find a suitable wide open space location at sunset in order to activate the cross via constellations. So the only place that fits this description is the city’s airport. Why didn’t she head here in the first place? Maybe as an outsider she didn’t know this city well? But surely if you need an open space, she could’ve have thought of that, right? Instead of running around the city with the skyscrapers so close to each other and that you can hardly see a clear view of the sky without seeing a tall block in your vision.

Time is ticking fast so it’s a rush to beat her before the cross is activated. It’s not easy to bring this tough chick down seeing that she is defending her stand very well and has brought down Stiyl and Tsuchimikado. Our hero and Oriana trade punches. Stiyl recovers enough to join the fray with Innocentius. Because the guys start arguing among each other, perhaps it was a perfect distraction to throw her off her pace and she got a double punch. Then Stiyl blunders with his fire move so it’s back to Touma vs Oriana. Spare us the talk of what is wrong or right because in the end, the one standing must be the one whose justice is right, right? Well, if you live by that logic I suppose then Touma has to win. Oriana is knocked out of her daylights (it’s getting dark by the way). However the Roman Catholic nun that Oriana has been secretly contacting on and off, Lidvia Lorenzetti, reveals the real St Peter’s Cross (and herself) is way outside Academy City so they definitely have no time to stop the ritual. Oh, it’s time. So the end of the world as we know it? You can’t say it’s Touma’s bad luck because based on the sports festival schedule, the programme now is the Night Parade. Which means loads of fireworks lighting up the night sky. So bright, that you can’t see a damn star in the sky. Ah, there you have it. The spanner thrown in the works. So even if the trio didn’t run around or do anything, I guess this ‘natural’ event will put a damper on Lidvia’s plan. Lidvia tries to escape via private jet but was tracked down by Laura via Stiyl’s rune cards. She is sent falling out of the plane and though Laura offers her a final salvation, Lidvia refuses and prefers to die with the cross. I’m not sure why the pilot of the jet too has to die falling with her. Did he? Anyway all’s well ends well as Himegami and Fukiyose are on the recovery path and are happy when Touma visits. Just his bad timing Fukiyose had to come in to see him changing. Yes, that is a bad thing because the girl will blame you for being indecent.

Venice Arc
No Touma. You are NOT lucky when you win a trip for 2 to Venice, Italy at a lottery draw during the sports festival. It is just the start of his nightmare. Didn’t that streak of bad luck with the girls tell you something? So this is not a relief and an end to your bad luck. Touma gets lost because he can’t speak Italian. Thankfully he is found by Orsola who is still doing her packing to move to the London. Should be finishing up soon, eh? How much stuff does she have anyway? So much so, the Amakusa group is also here to help her out. I remember Touma’s blunder about wanting to go to the toilet. He is in a dilemma to choose from 2 unmarked doors. He hears the voice of Index in one and Orsola in another. He keeps thinking that there couldn’t be possibly 2 toilets so after lots of hard thinking and analyzing, he barges in on one to find Orsola bathing. Then Index comes out from the other to check things out. So there are 2 toilets dimwit. And why didn’t he knock first? Do you think he deserves to get divine retribution? That night, Orsola comes under attack by assassins though they are thwarted by Index and Touma. They escape by summoning a large ice ship hidden beneath the canal. WTF?! How the hell can a big ship hide underneath the narrow water way?! Touma and Orsola accidentally got stow away on this ship and they realize it is part of a larger fleet of similar ships heading out to the Adriatic Sea. The ship crew tries to find the intruders so they hide in a room. When someone comes in, they are surprised to see it’s Agnese. Oh, Touma’s right hand just neutralizes a spell cast on Agnese. That means her clothes are ripped, right? Deja vu…

Agnese explains that this fleet is called Queen’s Fleet and serves as a punishment for the battle nuns for their previous failure. She agrees to let the duo escape but in exchange they must rescue Lucia and Angelene (something about they will be brainwashed to prevent them from using further magic). Later Agnese sees the fleet’s commander, Bishop Biagio Busoni while Touma and Orsola after fighting several ice knights, the duo rescue Agnese’s followers but they can’t just selfishly escape on their own after finding out that Agnese intends to use a spell that will cause severe damage to her brain. They didn’t think why she’d allow them to go rescue so easily, eh? Surely there must be some sort of sacrifice if you want your friends to escape, right? Don’t tell that to Touma. He’s going to save everybody. But the ship is being attacked and is sunk. If not for Index and those Amakusa guys, they would’ve been sleeping with the fish. Now everybody is going to save Agnese. They do several decoys and even a submarine to bluff their enemies and managed to get on board one of the ships. They are confronted with battle nuns so the Amakusas stay behind for round 2 so that Touma and co can reach the main ship. The ice knights give them problems but it should be no problem with Touma’s right hand. They just keep sliding in… Touma has a brief encounter with Biagio and gets a taste of what it’s like to be pinned and crushed under his enlarging crosses.

Index distracts the ice knights so Orsola enters the room where Agnese is held. She tries to save her but Agnese doesn’t look interested in living. If Touma was here, she would’ve got an earful. Biagio returns and explains that he needs Agnese’s power to revive some Queen of the Adriatic Sea spell that is devastating enough to wipe out a city. Guess which city he targets? Spot on. It’s that ‘A’ city again. Why is it does everybody either loves or hates this place? He attacks the ladies but they hold him long enough for Touma to come back and give him a good face punch. Thought he was dead? Next time, make bloody sure he is dead. Duh! I guess with his plans foiled, Biagio sets off a self destruction that puts Agnese in lots of pain. Since he has failed, might as well go down in history with a bang. A bang so big that it could destroy the coastlines of Venice! It’s time for a man to man fight so you ladies should take your leave and escape from the ship while you still can. Well, when you’re fighting with Touma, always remember you can never beat him in his talk, his right hand, his determination. And his bad luck. So after another round of neutralizing all his crosses, big, small and fast, Touma lands the final blow on Biagio with his left hand instead and destroys the self destruction thingy but causes the main ship to sink. Though he is rescued and taken to a local hospital, he is immediately flown back to Academy City’s hospital because it would be bad if somebody else experiments on his body. Since when is Touma monopolized by this frog doctor? Oh yeah. He is being reminded that due the fact he lost out to Misaka during the sports festival, he’s going to face a penalty game. Don’t want to go back now, do you? Lastly back in the Vatican, we see a creepy lady with lots of hideous piercings (right down to her tongue!) dubbed God’s Right Seat forcing the Pope to sign a document to investigate Touma and eliminate him if he is dangerous. I think the word ‘dangerous’ is put in very loosely here. The way she does it seems like she has no respect for the Pope or cares who he is.

Testament Arc
Yeah, the much awaited penalty game is here. At least for Misaka. She is looking so much forward to it that it’s causing Shirai sleepless nights. Yeah, it looks like she’s so hard-up for it. I guess it can’t be help if you’re a tsundere. Also, some of the Sisters are undergoing rehabilitation in this city, Accelerator and Last Order move in to live with Yoshikawa. Touma is forced to do everything Misaka said and it’s hard trying to make it not look like a date. Touma is just playing cool while Misaka is just like a typical tsundere. One of the things she has him to do is to have him sign up as a couple for a phone service so she can get that much-wanted Gekota phone strap. Sheesh. And one of the requirements is that they need to pose themselves in a picture like a couple. That’s going to be hard. Just when they are about to get it right, Shirai comes sending a drop kick on that poor guy and forces Misaka to do it with her. But I think she would prefer that guy. Last Order is wandering around after getting locked out of Yoshikawa’s apartment due to an uncalled comment. She meets a Misaka Sister, gets infatuated with her goggles and steals them. Sister responds by taking out her machine gun and going on a hunt. Oh sh*t! Sister bumps into Touma. Apart from her speech, I think he can’t tell them apart. So he buys her a necklace for differentiation. Then they start fighting over Touma and it’s ironic that the clone is more honest than the real one. Yes. She gets very clingy to Touma, something that Misaka herself will never bring herself to do. Perhaps in a million years. This attracts Last Order as she starts clinging to Touma too. WTF?! All types of Misakas are here? Real Misaka, clone Misaka, mini Misaka… And this little one, a little sister of the sister? Starting to get confuse, eh? Yeah, see how Misaka take out her frustration via punching game (with Touma’s face on its goal) and setting and all-time new record. Even if Accelerator doesn’t show the slightest bit, he goes out to look and bring Last Order back. He meets Index and treats her to hamburgers seeing that her stomach is growling. Index by the way is looking for Touma too. Index offers to help look for Last Order as thanks for the meal. So Index and Last Order spot the person they’re looking for, part ways and return to the other side. Yeah, Touma and Accelerator not even knowing about the ‘other person’. If they’ve seen each other, I’m sure sparks would’ve flown. A lot.

This arc must be something big because we are shown snippets of many of the characters. Like those Anglican nuns and their folly in using a washing machine that results in Kanzaki’s kimono totally soak (fanservice I guess), a very mad Stiyl confronting Laura about some document (she can get away no matter how much she distracts. And yeah, she got her clothes wet was probably a fanservice distraction too), Hyouka reappearing and being apprehended by Antiskill, Sasha doing some research on the side effects of Archangel possessing her body. We also have that God’s Right Seat, Vento communicating with Aleister and threatening about destroying anything in her way (she has already killed several board members of Academy City) but Aleister isn’t fazed and because he has it all well prepared. Though it just came a little earlier.

As Accelerator walks Last Order home, she trips and bruises her knee. He pretends he doesn’t care but eventually goes to buy some aids. Along the way, he is confronted by a group of armed men called Hound Dogs, manned by his former mentor, Amata Kihara, the scary scientist who is responsible for developing his powers. Well, they both don’t like each other. So fight lah. Accelerator is confident of his powers but it seems Kihara knows how to neutralize them and render them ineffective. This catches Accelerator off guard as he receives some painful blows. At first he thought it was Kihara’s gloves which are giving him the powers and destroys it. However it isn’t the case and it’s just something simpler. All Kihara need is to think in reverse, thus in perfect timing, Accelerator’s vector will have no effect. The Hound Dogs have Last Order in their custody (their primary objective) and as Kihara is about to kill Accelerator, he uses his final strength to blow her away. Hound Dogs go in search for her as Kihara prepares to finish unconscious Accelerator. Index happened to be there. With that slight distraction, Accelerator hijacks one of the Hound Dog guys to drive him and Index away. Oh, now Vento arrives on scene. Kihara fires a bazooka. No damage. Do you think a bazooka can hurt God’s follower? Kihara not interested. Goes away. Leaves his Hound Dogs to clean up the mess but they get slaughtered. Touma is looking for Index but bumps into a very emotional distressed Last Order pleading for his help.

While Accelerator tells Index to find that frog doctor to find some battery, Touma and mini Misaka (who are running away from the Hound Dogs) cross paths with Vento. Somehow, Vento’s arrival has been causing many people in Academy City to fall unconscious. So the inevitable fight begins as Touma gives Last Order time to escape. I hope Touma’s right hand can withstand all those projectiles Vento throws at him. Wouldn’t it be painful each time she strikes her chain on her tongue with her staff? The battle could’ve gone on forever if not for Vento suddenly coughing up blood. Accelerator goes hunting for Hound Dogs and turns the table on them at some plant. Yeah, he mercilessly massacres every one of them! Bloody! Tsuchimikado is also having his hands full investigating Vento’s actions as he fights a spectre creature in a place filled with sharp stakes. Touma makes a desperate call from the list of people in Last Order’s handphone. Guess who is the only person who picked up? Yeah, that loli lover Accelerator. Just kidding on the loli lover part. Both guys don’t even know the other because if they do, I’m sure they’d fight among each other than cooperate to save the city. Touma was made to head over to a bridge, a place where Accelerator and Last Order were supposed to meet. Just like fate, Vento is there too. But they have to put their grudge on hold since something unbelievable is starting to happen. Yup. They see gigantic angel wings sprouting in the middle of the city. As far as I understand, this is part of Aleister’s plan of using Testament. Summoning Hyouka whom he calls FUSE-Kazakiri, and with the authorization of Last Order (who by the way is captured by Kihara), the AIM Diffusion field that was activated will cause magicians’ to lose control of their powers. So the more you use your magic, the more you risk your life. Something that is happening to Vento. So Hyouka is the angel herself and this is a weird fusion of science and religion that Aleister has created. Hmm… I find Hyouka looking rather funny. I mean, she looks pitiful paralyzed under a spell but also the way she sticks her tongue out makes the scene rather comical and creepy. Touma rushes to save Hyouka and meets Index and Misaka along the way. Since Hyouka is now an angel, Touma’s right hand nullification powers will kill her rather than save her. So how? Don’t worry, he’ll find a way. He won’t kill his friends.

Meanwhile Accelerator gatecrashes into some office of the board members of Academy City to hack a computer to find out that Last Order has been installed some virus. He also locates her whereabouts. Once he does, he swings into the building where Kihara is and again mercilessly kills all his Hound Dogs. Last Order is safe but unconscious. It’s time for another slugfest. Accelerator’s battery runs out and he gets beaten up. But even without it, his will is strong enough to make him stand up and return a few punches. He is more dangerous than ever because he is like a wild irrational animal! Maybe even a zombie! Each time Kihara beats him up, Accelerator stands up and gives a creepy look off his face. You can tell Accelerator has gone berserk when he even pulls out Kihara’s sideburns! Touma reaches the crater where Hyouka is. Oh look. Vento is there too. Round 2. Fight! So as usual, we learn about Vento’s past, why she hates science so much. Something about some amusement park accident that caused deep injuries to Vento and her brother. There was only enough blood transfusion to save one of them and her little brother opted to save her sister instead. So all that science and technology couldn’t save him? No wonder she hates science. But do you think Touma is going to accept that? Lecture time. She’s alive, bla bla bla, you’re wasting it like this, bla bla bla, your brother wouldn’t want you to avenge him like this, yada yada yada. In short, she’s wrong. Oh screw this! To cut things shorter, Touma as the hero has always got to be the right one, right? So another ‘victim’ added to his statistic of being hit in the face. POW! Good night, lady. Index arrives and assesses the situation with Misaka explaining to her some scientific stuff. I wonder how she can concentrate over the phone with the Hound Dogs firing hot on her heels. Anyway Index deduces that she can break the spell via a song, a prayer. Why? Because prayers are always heard. So people, this is why it is important to pray to God. As Index sings to destroy the link that is binding Last Order, Kihara throws a bomb at Accelerator’s face but nothing happened! What the hell is this guy made of?! Soon Accelerator sprouts black wings and punches Kihara flying into the sky! Wow! I think nobody could survive that.

Vento’s comrade, Acqua is here to pick her unconscious body to retreat. He assures Touma that he has saved Academy City and that the Roman Catholics are withdrawing. For now. Touma did want to take him on but did the mention of Acqua being a Saint put him off? Better keep your head intact. In the aftermath of the battle, a huge portion of the city is damaged. It’s really like a warzone. Hyouka returns to her normal self and feels guilty she is the root of it all. But Touma just smiles because he knows she too tried to protect the city when she was hypnotized. Because of this, there have been talks of an impending war between Academy City and the Roman Catholics. Why does everyone want to pick on this city? How many enemies has it made? It’s really going to be an epic showdown between science and magic. Because of that, Touma’s classmates hold a sukiyaki dinner before prices of just about anything shoots up. Better have your last fun and supper before all hell breaks loose. Index, eat your heart out. And I’m not sure what this is about either. Tsuchimikado talks to Touma about protecting the city but that latter seems resolved to learn English in order not to depend on others and communicate better with others to save the world. Huh? Is English the world-saving tool?

Skillout Arc
Accelerator has been captured and as punishment, he has to join a group called, erm, GROUP. Under some guy who disguises himself as Unabara, his first job is to take out a group of Level 0 rebels called Skillout (those who have watched the Railgun series should be familiar with this). Because of Academy City’s outside defence preparation from the possible attacks of the Roman Catholics, the inner defences are stretched thin. At this point, Skillout is planning to capitalize on this so this is where Accelerator comes into the picture. All he has to do is to stop the ringleader, Ritoku Komaba and everything else will fall into its place. I see Tsuchimikado is also part of this team as he calls Accelerator to give him some advice in taking down the group. Like he would appreciate that. Anyway Awaki is also on the team as she counters all the attacks that Skillout has thrown at her. Looks like Accelerator has some competition. That’s right, a rival. I don’t think he’ll ever consider anybody his teammates anyway. However Awaki is the first one who encounters Ritoku. However Ritoku has some stolen military item called Hard Taping which enhances his strength and speed thus anything that Awaki tosses at him, he evades with ease and finishes her off with a garbage bin. Next he finds Accelerator and they fight. Though the Chaff Seed is interfering with Accelerator’s powers, Accelerator manages to create ventilation with a gun subtly left behind by Awaki (she’s not dead, by the way) and turn the tables on Ritoku. Now weakened, Ritoku tells him a what-if situation whereby ugly and evil people are using their power to do whatever they want and playing a game to see who could kill the most Level 0’s who didn’t belong to some organization. Ritoku leaves Accelerator a nice present by killing himself.

Accelerator walks off and on his way finds drunk Misuzu clinging on to a post box. Just walk away… Unfortunately his curiosity of her resemblance to a certain loli that lives with him made him take a closer look. She gets all clingy and revealing certain embarrassing information (her bust size is 91cm and likes kissing anybody younger than her. Boy or girl). He gets a taxi for her and at the end of the journey comes into Touma and Index. Still drunk, she jumps over the boy (Index so jealous…) and seems she is looking for Dangai University. Accelerator makes a call but is intercepted by Unabara. Seems he has launched an attack on Dangai University against Misuzu. Due to the impending war, concerned parents are of course pulling their children out of Academy City and this is something bad for the city. Misuzu is the representative for the parents of the students so Skillout was initially hired to handle the situation to kill Misuzu. Well, they’re bad at it. Unabara wants him to help out but he refuses and jams his powers. Then popping out right in front of his eyes is Touma (he’s on his way to save trapped Misuzu). Yeah, the grudge is coming back. He finds it interesting and decides to screw things up by saving Misuzu. The Skillout members led by Shiage Hamazura are a panic lot seeing that their leader Ritoku has died and left them in a lurch. Though they have Misuzu in their grasp, Touma barges in to help save her. Of course with a little assistance from Accelerator.

Outside, Hamazura confronts Touma and the former thinks all this has been a setup. Something about they are forced to cooperate with some higher-ups to kill Misuzu or else Skillout will be wiped out. You think Touma is going to believe that crap about him being a pawn of some grader scheme when he’s taking out innocent lives? Lecture him, buddy! Besides, it’s a normal brawl between two Level 0 guys. Touma tells him off that they should’ve been useful to help others instead of fighting espers, the reason why they’ve always been looked down. He points our Ritoku was one who fought till the end. Not because he was protecting the weak, but his comrades. Because Hamazura can’t accept his lecture, when both guys land the final punch, the victory of course goes to the one who is most righteous: Touma. Okay, I made that reason up but hey, Touma has to win, right? As Touma is sent to the hospital, Misuzu reveals her intention to take Misaka away from Academy City but can heave a sigh of relief with people like Touma protecting her and the city. Accelerator meets his other GROUP members and learns that since Misuzu has abandoned plans of taking her daughter away, orders to kill her have been suspended. They decide to cooperate together so that they can one day topple those bastards at the top.

To Aru Baka No Ahotaku (A Certain Stupid Idiotaku)
Uhm… Ahh… Erm… Oh, it ended already?! Two seasons gone just like that?! Wohoo!!! Wow. What a relief. I don’t know how I made it past 2 seasons without understanding the big picture but hey, I made it. You may not need to be a rocket scientist or genius to watch this show but I guess stupid people like me have a hard time grasping the terminologies and jargon that I dread so much. This blog may look like it was filled with lots of those terms but believe me, I was just putting down in my little note so that I could have easier reference while doing this blog. Or else, this wouldn’t even last 10 paragraphs! Is it that bad? At least for me. No wonder I hate science. Now I dislike it even more… Okay, so it’s bad to blame it on the anime because even way before I got addicted to anime, I wasn’t a science person anyway. Nor was I into magic either. The way the second season ends indicates that there is likely to be another sequel. I mean, the big war between Academy City and Roman Catholics hasn’t happened yet, right?  We hope it won’t happen but if it doesn’t, it would be a big waste, right?

Now on to the characters. Basically there is one thing that I would like to say about Touma. STFU on the heroic talks of justice!!! Actually there is nothing wrong with him spouting and lecturing his righteousness to others. But the way he says it (and too often each time he confronts the enemy) makes it feel like he is always right and the other side is wrong. In the real world we live in, you can’t blame me for being a cynic because no matter how much we love his sense of justice to prevail and come true, it just won’t happen in reality. Plus, there are some events whereby it’s an obvious choice it’s going to be either this or that (say, for the sake of this, you must sacrifice that). Touma makes a third choice. He’s going to have both. Doesn’t it feel like an insult? It’s like having all the cakes and eating it! Man, this guy should be in charge of Academy City instead since his determination to protect the city and loved ones is so extraordinary. Other than this, I guess I have no complaints about him. His right hand’s nullification is still a mystery and his bad luck is like a running gag throughout the series. If I ever keep a count on the number of bad lucks he encountered, I guess most of them should come from Index and her biting (followed by his bad luck with girls – no wonder he has no girlfriend). I suppose since he saved her, now he has a responsibility to take care of her so putting up with her bites is part and parcel of it all. Unlike many heroes and main lead characters, Touma doesn’t really possess any other special skills other than his right hand. So it’s amazing he gets to fight big bad guys and still wins in the end. Yes, it’s that trademark punch in the face and you’ll see the odd facial contortion of the ‘victim’. It’s sometimes awkward to see him punch girls right in the face too. Well, at least he doesn’t discriminate. As long as you’re bad, you’re going to get a knuckle sandwich. Though at times Touma too gets a taste of his own medicine but this is during comical scenes so whether it’s his bad luck of being at the wrong place and at the wrong time, he too gets landed in the face. Ooohh… See the contortion. Touma must be a frequent patient of the hospital too. After every major arc, he ends up in hospital under the care of that Gekota doctor. It’s like his second home. Really. And the doctor must be one hell of a doctor to be nicknamed Heaven Canceller because he can fix anything just as long as you stay alive. During that Deep Blood Arc, Touma’s arm was ripped off and I was boggled how he got it fixed back like new so much so it was never ripped in the first place. I just wonder why he can’t fix his lost memories prior to saving Index. Well, he’s not God.

As for Index, I find her annoying. Biting Touma was meant to be comic relief but she does it so often that it’s getting stale and irritating. In most arcs whereby Touma goes off to save the day, Index is left alone bumming around like as though she’s a side character. This is evident especially in the first season. With 103,000 grimoires in her head, I should be expecting her brain to swell bigger than Albert Einstein’s. Plus, it’s not that she has a solution to every spell during certain circumstances she faced. So really, what are those grimoires stored in her head are anyway? Well, perhaps something normal humans (and hence stupid idiots like me) won’t comprehend. But when she recites a counter spell, it is damn effective. Don’t mess with her when she’s in this mode. Amazingly, perhaps her head is filled with all the grimoires so this means her stomach is always left empty. Get what I’m saying? How can a glutton girl like her eat so much and not gain weight? Did she put on some spell? It’s amazing Touma isn’t broke the way she stuffs everything into her mouth. Misaka plays only a secondary role here as compared to her Railgun series. And even with her obvious tsundere-ness as annoying as ever, I’d still prefer her over Index anytime :). Yes, I’d prefer a tsundere biri-biri with a kid’s fashion fetish esper to an annoying glutton kami-korosu sister. Index fans can hate me, but I’m a Misaka fan anyway :p. If you’re hoping for a love triangle here, don’t expect too much. It can be considered as close to zero. We all know that Index and Misaka harbours a secret crush for Touma but their pride won’t admit it. I feel Misaka went so far as to ‘torture’ Touma on their penalty game date and use it as an excuse to hide her feelings for him. You won’t ever see her admitting it ever in her life. Not even if she lives to be a million years old. Unless… Nah…

Probably the best (in terms of coolness) character is Accelerator. He’s got this crazy face that could snap any time and turn you into a pile of garbage or send you on a one-day trip to Heaven. But underneath his crazy exterior, he is also a compassionate good guy. Take mini Misaka for example. If he didn’t care for that loli, he could’ve let her to die and wouldn’t have gone to great lengths to rescue her or even bring her back. I guess that’s how he shows his love. How can the best esper in Academy City show he is a caring person? Imagine, the number one Level 5 is a lovey-dovey all-smiling nice guy. Doesn’t fit the image, right? Better to be a crazy psycho that everyone should respect in fear. There are too many other supporting characters so I can’t possibly remember them all. Stiyl at least plays an active role on and off during some arcs and I thought Kanzaki would be too but after the Angel Fall arc, she’s just making cameo appearances and due to circumstances, she can’t get involved. Same case with Himegami. After her rescue, she bums around like a total minor unimportant side character. I also thought she would have an important role to play later in the series (aside from that unfortunate bloody incident when she got zapped by Oriana – okay maybe that isn’t an important role to her but it is as a turning point to Touma), but nooooo… It’s like the series can do without her. For Komoe, she does many of the scientific explanations in the first season. Whenever she goes into this rant, all I ever notice is her cute squeaky voice and perhaps fawning how moe and adorable she is blabbing. All words pertaining to the explanation never got through my head. It wouldn’t make sense even if it did. But the explanations are done in the first season and she doesn’t do anymore in the second. Heck, beats me. Tsuchimikado is well knowledgeable in his area and is like a veteran when encountered with the many situations. So what does it feel like having your best friend as a magician too? There are other characters exuding with mystery like Aleister and Laura. You’d love to find out more about them and their true intentions but you’d be distracted with what’s going on in the current arc to bother about their ulterior motive. Railgun’s Uiharu do make cameo appearances in the second season but this is only if it involves work from Judgment. Too bad no Saten. And yeah, Shirai is as horny as ever when it comes to her onee-sama. Just keep a close watch on Misaka. You don’t know when that guy will take her away. Oh, there is this side maid character, Maika. I find her really amusing because she loves to sit on top of a cleaning robot that goes spinning round and round and round. Doesn’t she get dizzy? I believe I have never seen her separated from the machine so it’s like as though it’s part of her body.

The action sequences are quite engaging though some may be exaggerative. Hey, it’s science versus magic so expect some kind of ‘sparks’ to fly. But it’s cool to see some of the effects not in only the fights but the surroundings too like the shattering of the nearby glasses or the shockwaves. But of course for me the damper comes when they start reciting the spell and explain its effects and consequences and as usual I don’t really understand so I just accept it as it is. I thought there would be a Touma-Accelerator rematch since there are a few pointers that suggest it would lead to this but I guess it didn’t materialize. It’s like yet-so-close-yet-so-far. Even if Accelerator do caught a glimpse of him in the end, I suppose there are more important things to do first than personal grudge. As some of the scenes are quite violent, it can get all bloody and gory (like the one whereby Accelerator slaughtered the entire Hound Dogs squad). So if you’re not use to blood spilling and feel queasy at the mere sight of it, be warned. Even our heroes spit out some blood when they take some hit. Hey, you can’t always give, right? Sometimes you need to receive too because it’s all part of the ying-yang balance. And what about the fanservice? A handful. Like when Touma’s right hand rips the girl’s clothes. And he even didn’t apply any force. Don’t let this guy touch you if you have magic applied.

As for the voice acting, nothing spectacular except for Accelerator who is voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto (Usui in Kaichou Wa Maid-sama). He definitely makes the character sound like an insane cold blooded kid. And here are the rest of the extensive casts. Atsushi Abe as Touma (Kosuda in B Gata H Kei), Yuka Iguchi as Index (Enri in Fractale), Kishou Taniyama as Stiyl (Tsukimori in La Cordo D’Oro), Shizuka Itou as Kanzaki (Hinagiku in Hayate No Gotoku), Rina Satou as Misaka (Haruka in Minami-ke), Mamiko Noto as Himegami (Enma Ai in Jigoku Shoujo), Kimiko Koyama as Komoe (Yukari in Rosario To Vampire), Anri Katsu as Tsuchimikado (Kaoru in Princess Princess), Ayako Kawasumi as Laura (Nodame in Nodame Cantabile), Toshihiko Seki as Aleister (Iruka in Naruto), Kana Asumi as Hyouka (Yuno in Hidamari Sketch), Akeno Watanabe as Sherry (Rito in To Love-Ru), Aya Endo as Orsola (Matsu in Sekirei), Rie Kugimiya as Agnese (Aria in Hidan No Aria), Kousuke Toriumi as Tatemiya (Kiba in Naruto), Rina Hidaka as Last Order (Kaede in Penguin Girl – I  initially thought she would be voiced by Rina Satou but their voices totally differ. Yeah, they even both shared the same first name), Harumi Sakurai as Awaki (Yuri in Angel Beats), Ryoka Yuzuki as Oriana (Tokiko in Busou Renkin), Norio Wakamoto as Biagio (Onsokumaru in 2×2=Shinobuden), Keiji Fujiwara as Kihara (Sven in Black Cat), Akiko Hiramatsu as Vento (Haruko in Slam Dunk) and Daisuke Kishio as Unabara (Kaname in Vampire Knight). Phew. That’s a long list and it would’ve been even longer if I had the will and determination to continue. Since I did not, I just left it as it is. All the opening themes of both seasons are sung by Mami Kawada who is part of the I’ve Sound group. Since all of them had that techno feel in it, the songs don’t very much appeal to me as I find it odd. The themes are PSI Missing (1st season, 1st opening), Masterpiece (1st season, 2nd opening), No buts! (2nd season, 1st opening) and See Visions (2nd season, second opening). As for the ending themes, the first season songs are done by IKU and sound like slow ballads. But Maon Kurosaki takes over the songs for the second season and they lean more towards pop rock with a hint of techno in it. These songs too didn’t appeal much to me. They are Rimless (1st season, 1st ending), Chikaigoto ~Sukoshi Dake Mou Ichido~ (1st season, 2nd ending), Magic World (2nd season, 1st ending) and Memories Last (2nd season, 2nd ending).

Well, I certainly do not want to be caught up in a war between science and magic. It can get really messy because you know people, they’re really crazy and obsessed if they really have absolute faith in their beliefs. On one hand, we have fanatics who entrust their destiny in the hands of God while on the other side, we have those who seek things that can be explained. Either way, it doesn’t matter which side you belong because if you’re a corrupted manipulative crook at the top, you’ll use such cover as an excuse for your own nefarious gains. So who says being a holy priest means you’re faithfully devoted to God? Who says being a rocket scientist means you’re dedicating yourself to the betterment of mankind? As long as you have evil intentions, anything is possible. Maybe this Touma guy can be the moderator between both feuding sides because he is on neither side as long as you don’t harm a hair of the people he cares. Maybe that’s why many see him as an interesting being. But still, will they listen? Can we all just sit down and discuss our problems and differences instead of going to great lengths to create the most powerful, the strongest, the most invincible weapon, attack, assault or offense? In turn, you can do away with all the hard-to-remember terms, convoluted processes, complicated effects and desperate counter measures. There is only so much a dumb guy like me can take. I don’t want to even think if a third season is in the works. But in the event if that happens, I’ll just say a silent prayer because when science and magic collide, an epic headache begins! That’ll be such a misfortune!