...so in week two we're moving on from a harem ecchi series, which is normally a genre I tend to stay far away from, to an anime that seems to be more shounen action which just happens to be the
other genre I tend to stay away from (Digimon being one rare exception) but I guess I'll have to get used to that here...
at least with this kind of show I can indulge in a little hobby that I have with more action oriented shows in which I try to see at which points in the action the character's movements are animated in 24fps instead of 12 (for more than 5 frames) and then watch the moment frame per frame to see how exact I got it. (haganai had a couple of moments like that of course, like when Yozora was doing tickling motions with her hand while scaring maria for example, but stuff like that is relatively minor and of course with action you get more spectacular moments like that) I don't expect anyone to join me in that little game but it's fun for me
So anyway here are a few of my thoughts about the first few episodes...
Episode 1 did a decent enough job of introducing some characters. I'm not sure if I really like Kamijo but that right hand of his is certainly very interesting. The way the first few minutes of the show went it almost looked like ha was some kind of vigilante taking on out of control espers but the way the rest of the episode portrayed him he just seemed more like an unlucky normal guy and the showdown that kicked of the series was just something he more or less stumbled into.
I really kinda liked the ironic nature of his arms "usefulness" as he had to run away completely helplessly from that group of normal tough guys yet was completely unfazed when facing of with that apparently top tier esper girl.
And when he gets home he meets Index. I'm not sure how much I like the old
mysterious girl with magical powers trope here... we'll see how interesting she'll become in the long run, right now she's just a cute personality that doubles as a walking library of magic books she herself can't use for some reason (btw does the title “a certain magical index” imply that there are other magical indices around?)
anyway we get more information about Kamijo's arm, it seems it doesn't only neutralize esp but also magic as is demonstrated with Index's magic “walking church” dress, which was quite a funny scene especially since Kamijos ends up getting bitten by index for it. I'm pretty sure that there a re people out there who wouldn't especially dislike getting bitten by a naked girl. The little information we got about the nature of the arm's power were quite interesting, especially the part about it negating all luck and blessing simply by touching the air around Kamijo. This was a welcome first time in this anime that I got a “they thought this through” vibe, since it happens relatively often in fiction that powers that are described as something like “does X to anything it touches” simply ignore the fact that air is something that exists and that we're touching it constantly.
The two other thoughts that shot through my mind after hearing this explanation of his misfortune were first: “I guess that means that Kamijo would not be unlucky in the emptiness of space” and among the same lines “theoretically he could get rid of his misfortune effects by wearing something like a plastic tube around his arm (with the plastic not touching his hand) and pumping all the air out of the tube, so that only vacuum remains causing his right hand to touch literally nothing.” of course having to wear such a contraption would probably be just as impractical as his hand's normal “side effects”.
I think the most interesting character introduced so far has to be Komoe. She just seems so weird and I want to know more about her. Is she a child that just happens to be a teacher? Is she an adult that just happens to look (and sometimes cry) like a child? What the hell is up with her methods of discipline (what does she mean with “making a Columbus egg” anyway)?
that esp girl Misaka also looks like she could be someone to watch out for, being one of the five most powerful espers in the city (she still uses her powers really recklessly). I didn't imagine that those weird cleaning robots would have some sort of crime prevention mode but unfortunately we don't find out what exactly they can do (yet).
The second Episode was mostly the fight against that fire mage called "Style" umm quite a weird name. Anyway that guy seems quite evil with all his evil grinning and ominous talking about "recovering" the Grimoires in the Memory of Index (No Idea how exactly he would want to do it, cutting her brain out or magically extracting the information). At this point we also find out how Index came into possession of all these books, I expected something fancy like an magic imprint but it seems she has just relatively mundane photographic memory and was aparrently forced to look at the books (at least that's my impression of it) what seems to be imprinted magically on her however seems to be some kind of stoic "security mode" personality that ends up helping Kamijo in his fight. After trying out some fairly unspectacular flame bursts on Kamijo's arm he went all out and summoned a pope of all things. If this portrayal is accurate then you really gotta hand it to those medieval people for having the guts to actually elect some kind of mad flame demon as their religious leader. Just imagine: Bishop: "and the holiness the pope will now hold a sermon!" Pope Innocentius: Raahrg *fizzle* grrrrrr, hiss splorch *burns down church*
And as it turns out Kamijo's right hand is kinda ineffective against the pope's flames so instead he defeats him by... turning on the sprinklers to destroy the runes Style had placed all over the building. I have to admit that just felt a little bit cheap mostly because there was no trace of those runes anywhere before Index mentions them, so a bit more foreshadowing would have been nice. When destroying the runes first came up as an option to defeat Innocentius I first thought Kamijo would just make the pope chase him through the entire building so Innocentius would burn down the runes with his own flames but I guess the sprinkler option was more efficient.Altough if Style had used plastic instead of paper and waterproof markers he could have won that fight easily. But he didn't so he got punched in the face instead.
I kinda hope that somewhere in the rest of this series Kamijo gets some upgrades like some kind of esp or something to make his arm more destructive because him just running up to his opponents and punching them in the face after blocking all their attacks could get old soon. And while it seemed to be pretty effective against Style and he could probably also take down Misaka with one punch, it's gotta be pretty hard to win any fights against opponents that are either armored in some way or skilled in hand to hand combat.
After defeating Style he still has to actually save index though and that seems to be harder than expected as we find out that for some reason as an esper he can't use magic (even though he's a level 0 with no power?). So he brings her to Komoe and It was nice to see her again in a bigger role so soon. Despite her looks she smokes and drinks so I guess it's really a kind of adult in a seemingly young body thing. It still seems just a bit unnatural and since the third episode focused a lot on her I expected maybe some kind of explanation but it didn't happen. what did happen in he third third episode was lots of rituals and magic. I'm not sure how exactly linking the events inside the room to the miniatures on the table ended up healing Index's wounds but it was probably that angel that had to be summoned twice. After that suspenseful scene the rest of the episode didn't really feature a lot happening. There was some exposition about some of the grimoires inside Index being able to "poison the world" the explanation was really kinda vague so I don't know how we're really supposed to understand it. All I got from it is that it might just be magic that makes things real that shouldn't
be real. I'm also not sure what kind of role the "English purist church" will play in the series the whole "necessary evil" thing could be setting them up to be villains but if Index was willingly working for them that might be another story.
In general I felt like this series was hitting me over the head in some way in its first three episodes. We're not introduced to only one but two systems of supernatural powers but so far neither has been explained particularly well. I think it's interesting when the characters use some fictional terms in their dialogues without explaining them on the spot, that can really help with world building but Index just seems to go a little bit too far and throw its entire dictionary at the viewer without really explaining anything. We don't really know how magic works except it sometimes has to do with the stars, and we don't even know anything about esp, yet the series already tries to set up a rivalry, a contrast between those two sides which seems to be a bit premature as at this point we as viewers don't have any real idea about either side, which makes the distinction feel a bit arbitrary. I mean what exactly is the difference between the power of the guy who can throw flames with his hand and the power of the girl that can summon lightning from the sky? The only difference we know of right now is that Style has to scream weird incantations and use runes for stronger stuff and ESP has supposedly to do with "science" but unless the fundamental differences of the methods or sources of these kinds of power are explained in more detail it still strikes me as a bit too vague; simply saying "science!" is not enough, especially when it comes to things like ESP which in many series is (rightly) treated as a form of magic. One series that had a particularly interesting magic portrayal or rather a magic-like framework built around ESP was "Shinsekai Yori" and it worked really well in that case, however with "index" trying to go in the opposite direction and declaring it all science it still has quite a way to go until the contrast to "real magic" actually works.
Maybe I'm expecting too much from those first episodes, maybe the next episodes will give more explanations and clarifications and give a better overview of what kind of world we're dealing with, but as of now Index is not drawing me in as effectively as Haganai did.
