To Aru Majutsu no Index

Last fall (2008) aired the unusual series To Aru Majutsu no Index based on a series of light novels. This 24 episode super natural shonen series featured both tried and tired genre stereotypes and an intriguing story and storytelling.

    Set in a near future world where science has culminated to a level of enhancing human abilities, To Aru Majutsu no Index takes place in the fictitious Academy City, situated somewhere in Japan (naturally). The vast majority of the cities residents are students from grade school to postgraduate levels who are all hyper focusing on science, technology and technologically enhanced paranormal abilities. All of the residents exhibit some level of paranormal ability, all the way from Level 1 (barely anything) to level 5 (top of their game in a specific field). Our story finds one of the few Level 0 students in the city, Kamijo Toma, doing what he thinks is his civic duty by intervening in a conflict between a middle school girl and a group of hoodlums. Little do we know  he is trying to protect the hoodlums from the middle school girl, who happens to be one of six Level 5’s in the city named Mikoto Misaka. Misaka’s ability is to generate electricity. Misaka, upset that Toma tried to ruin her fun by warning the hoodlums about her, decides to take out some more aggression on him instead. She fires a coin at him as if she were a railgun only for Toma to stop the attack with his right hand. While he has no supernatural abilities, per say, his right hand negates and nullifies any type of supernatural ability upon contact.

    The next day Toma discovers a nun passed out dangling from the railing of his apartments’ balcony…about 13 floors up. The young non-Japanese girl wakes up and begins asking for food. Shocked at first that this young non-Japanese nun cosplayer is speaking fluent Japanese he doesn’t register what she is asking for. Once he overcomes the shock of the situation he feeds her and she begins to explain that she is a member of the Church of England’s magic user wing. She tells him that her name is Index (which he questions its validity) and that she is not magical herself but has been used to store 103,000 magical texts (grimore) for the church in her brain. She explains to him that two magicians from the church are hunting her for the knowledge she retains. Toma doesn’t believe any of it but offers to help the best he can due to his protective nature. She decides to continue on her own since he has to go to school but when Toma returns that night he finds her unconscious and gravely wounded at his front door. As he rushes to her a true to life magic user shows up to stop him from saving her. He now must fight against things he doesn’t believe in and outwit them using his ability negating hand. He manages to fend off the attacker and takes the dying Index to his teachers’ house to try and gather his thought and have someone help her while he fights off her attackers.

    During the battle with the magicians he finds out that they are her friends and have tracked her down in order to protect her while her memory is being reset. They explain that every year, due to the strain on her brain from all the grimore stored in her, her memory has to be erased for fear that she will reach her mental capacity and die. Every year they have to go through the same process as her memory is wiped and have to teach her over again who they are and who she is and what they are doing. This time she believes they are trying to kill her. Toma, skeptical, decides to try to help save Index’s memories so she can live a normal life, even though everyone fears she will die. He must find out why the Church of England has done to her what they have and whether or not the two mysterious mages are friend or foe.

    This is only the plot synopsis for the first story arc of the show. If I were to talk about more it would give away too much that shouldn’t be known right away. This series was both good and bad. The ideas presented in it are interesting and some of the plot lines are interesting as well. What I didn’t like about the show was when it pandered to the Akitaku. The most glaring of course is with Toma, who is the typical sad sack but persistent male lead. He isn’t very ambitious but doesn’t give up and has this super natural urge to protect those he feels need his protection…all the female characters. Because all girls, no matter how tough they are on the outside, are weak and incapable of taking care of them selves with out a strong male character. The other thing that bothers me is the standard Akitaku type character designs. You have characters in nonfunctional, primed for cosplay outfits, outrageous hair styles and bodies usually hard to come by without plastic surgery. Honestly, why does the large breasted Japanese chick walk around wearing tight jeans with only one leg cut off to make the pants half a pair of Daisy Dukes? So I chose to look the other way with these persistent annoyances because the story was entertaining. Some of developments in the series are interesting and little used, which was a bonus. Now while I’m never really a fan of the power character combat type shows (Shonen Onmyoji or Kekkaishi) I was incredibly relieved that they show didn’t devolve into this epic adventure where Toma is trying to save Index by fleeing her assailant and only he has to become stronger to defeat the ever increasingly powerful attackers. No, it actually didn’t turn out like that…in fact there really wasn’t any kind of central plot or goal of the show. It is made up of a few story arcs which show a progression of time and introduce some new characters and explain more about the city and a little about the other mage factions…but that’s about it. In fact the last story arc was kind of weak and a disappointment. There were some things that they had detailed that just never got explained or developed further. It seemed as if the series got cut short, or they might have planned to make another season sometime in the future. Either way it ended…semi abruptly and nothing really got accomplished, but the stories were entertaining and usually interesting to watch. There were two short OAV's that came out as well but I have not watched them yet, but I know it does not expand upon the story...they are moe like omake.

    So while it wasn’t a great series it was worth my time.  I recommend it to fans of shonen series’ who want something a little more creative then that usual fair. Fans of Darker than Black would be right at home watching this series, even though it’s a bit more otaku flavored.

    This series was licensed in North America by FUNimation and is available streaming on Hulu and FUNimation.  The follow up series, To Aru Majutsu no Index is not yet available in North America, but the spin-off, To Aru Kagako no Railgun, is available as well.