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(A) Certain Magical Index (TV) (all seasons).


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Aromatic Grass



Joined: 31 Dec 2003
Posts: 2424
Location: Raleigh, NC
PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 5:04 pm Reply with quote


Season 1 - (A) Certain Magical Index (TV)
Season 2 - (A) Certain Magical Index II (TV) (discussion starts here)
Season 3 - (A) Certain Magical Index III (TV) (discussion starts here)

Genres: action, comedy, drama, magic, science fiction
Themes: amnesia, clones, espers, harem, human experimentation, mages, superpowers, wizards/witches

Plot Summary: (Season 1) Kamijou Touma is a student living in Academy City, a highly advanced place in terms of technology. Despite being gauged as a level zero esper (no powers), he possesses on his right hand the Imagine Breaker, an ability that negates any power whatsoever. Touma finds a young girl named Index who is trying to run away from Necessarius, a powerful magic organization that she is member of. Blessed with the skill of memorizing any sort of information, she holds 103,000 forbidden magical books within her head. As science and magic cross paths, Touma must face several dangers amid espers and magicians who appear at the exciting scientific town.

(Season 2) Index is still a fugitive and many powerful magical organizations and individuals want to take her to use the books in her memory, eliminating her in the process. War between those organizations is also starting to emerge. Index can only rely on her friend Tōma, who has always protected her, along with Misaka and other friends from the Academy.
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NOTE: See here for the beginning of the second series discussion.

Based on a series of light novels published by Dengeki Bunko, To Aru Majutsu no Index is an anime I've been looking forward to for a while now and it's my most anticipated series of the fall season. The trailer can be found here, with a sample of the music which I will be raving about for a while (I've Sound <3). It has also been adapted into two manga series: To Aru Majutsu no Index and To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, the latter being a spin-off. I've read a little of both so far and am prepared for an exciting story. Although it won't be premiering on TV in Japan until the 4th of this month, I thought it'd be good to see how many people are looking forward to the anime and hopefully get some others interested along the way.

The theme songs are being sung by Mami Kawada, who's been putting out some great stuff lately, and IKU. Check out the preview of the OP "PSI-missing" on YouTube if you're interested.

As for plot summaries, I prefer the one on Wikipedia:
Quote:
Set in a city of scientifically advanced superhuman students, but in a world where magic is also real. Toma Kamijo's right hand, the Imagine Breaker, will negate all magic, psychic, or divine powers, but not his own bad luck. One day he finds a young girl hanging on his balcony railing. She turns out to be a nun from the Church of England, and her mind has been implanted with the Index-Librorum-Prohibitorum - all the magical texts the Church has removed from circulation.


Thoughts? Smile
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5510
PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 5:11 pm Reply with quote
I've been curious about this one. It seemed like J.C. Staff gave it the Shana treatment in terms of budget especially since the look and the atmosphere really reminds me of Shana.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 6251
PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:28 pm Reply with quote
I've heard good things about the novels (purely from Andrew Cunningham, but that's good enough for me) and the trailer looked great. Of the non-sequels this season, this is probably the one I'm looking forward to the most.
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HellKorn



Joined: 03 Oct 2006
Posts: 1669
Location: Columbus, OH
PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:41 pm Reply with quote
Here is Andrew Cunningham's review of the novels.

Doubtful that I'll check it out, though I might be curious enough to give in for an episode or two to see if I'd buy it.

HitokiriShadow wrote:
Of the non-sequels this season, this is probably the one I'm looking forward to the most.


Still gotta showMichiko and Hatchin some love.
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Clodus



Joined: 25 Dec 2005
Posts: 497
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 12:17 am Reply with quote
darkchibi07 wrote:
I've been curious about this one. It seemed like J.C. Staff gave it the Shana treatment in terms of budget especially since the look and the atmosphere really reminds me of Shana.

I had the same impression. The fast pace rave music and the background detail also reminded me of Shana.

The trailer looks impressive. I'm glad you decided to create a thread and introduce the series because it looks promising. The main character from this series reminds me of protagonist from the manga series Mx0 because of their similar abilities in having no real power but having the ability to negate all abnormalities.
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Westlo



Joined: 03 Oct 2002
Posts: 1684
PostPosted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:03 am Reply with quote
darkchibi07 wrote:
I've been curious about this one. It seemed like J.C. Staff gave it the Shana treatment in terms of budget especially since the look and the atmosphere really reminds me of Shana.


Actually it looks much better than Shana.. and rumor has it that J.C Staff actually like the novels so maybe they won't butcher them.. I'm hoping that this gets the Nodame Cantabile and Honey and Clover treatment while Toradora suffers the Shana and Znt treatment.

And also I expect this to be the sleeper hit of the season period, this and Kannagi.
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Kimiko_0



Joined: 31 Aug 2008
Posts: 1796
Location: Leiden, NL, EU
PostPosted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 8:07 am Reply with quote
What is this 'Shana treatment' you speak of? Is Shana a good anime?

The music is nice indeed. Some of the voices seemed a little off, like you wouldn't expect them from a character looking like that.

Not sure about the 'church of England' thing. Western religions usually become ridiculous when seen through anime glasses.

Speaking of glasses, were those cyberglasses I saw? Dennou Coil's rocked Cool
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LydiaDianne



Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 5634
Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 9:43 am Reply with quote
That trailer looks interesting. This may have possiblilites for me. We'll see if it comes over here.

Is it just me or didn't one guy look a lot like Dilandau from Escaflowne?
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Westlo



Joined: 03 Oct 2002
Posts: 1684
PostPosted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 8:37 pm Reply with quote
I just finished watching the raw for this and enjoyed it quite a bit, J.C Staff are a bit hit and miss when it comes to animation quality but they are doing a great job with Index so far. The music in the show is really synthy, could use a bit more melody to it, opening sequence is nice and it could easily have been a Shana OP.

Touma seems like a decent lead, Mikoto is pretty awesome and Index is fairly cute and likable, at least so far. Voice acting was nice for all 3 characters. Ends on a cliffhanger and I'm interested to see what happens next.
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BrothersElric



Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Posts: 1996
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:04 pm Reply with quote
My desire to participate in series discussion threads has been kinda low lately for some strange reason so I don't know how much I'm actually going to post in here, but we'll see. Index is one of the 3 series I'm going to pick up this season and I hear a lot of great things about it. Also sounds very much so like a series I'd like a whole lot.
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frentymon
Forums Superstar


Joined: 27 Nov 2005
Posts: 2362
Location: San Francisco
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:14 pm Reply with quote
Kimiko_0 wrote:
What is this 'Shana treatment' you speak of? Is Shana a good anime?


Shana is very averagely good. Good, but not great story. Good, but not great character development. Same goes for animation, music, etc.

Westlo wrote:
I'm hoping that this gets the Nodame Cantabile and Honey and Clover treatment while Toradora suffers the Shana and Znt treatment.


Why? I'd just want both to be really good series. Why would they have to sacrifice the quality of one of their productions this season to up the quality of the other?

Quote:
And also I expect this to be the sleeper hit of the season period, this and Kannagi.


Completely agree. I was placing my bets on this one, and it delivered. I'm very impressed.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:37 am Reply with quote
This was the new series I was looking forward to the most this season (thanks to Andrew's praise for the source material and the excellent trailer) and it didn't disappoint.

Not much really happened until the very end, just basic character and world introduction and guy meets girl, but it was done very well. The cast looks to be very colorful and entertaining. Index is very cute but clearly not and idiot and has some nice bite to her personality. Mikoto is quite the sparkplug and equally entertaining to watch. Then there's Touma, our male lead who looks like he will do a good job in the role.

Going into this, I didn't know anything about the plot except for why Index had her name. I was expecting another case of Normal Boy pulled into a Supernatural Underworld (underworld in the sense that its not public knowledge). But that's clearly not the case. If a date was given, I missed it, but the series sets itself apart from shows like Shana. This is clearly not our world; its in the future, but not terribly far into it. In addition, supernatural powers are already commonplace and the lead is well aware of them. While Touma may not be aware of "magic", he is quite used to Esper powers.

But the most important part of what made this episode so great was the dialogue. It was just tremendously entertaining to listen to... er, read. It wasn't (mostly) Laugh Out Loud stuff, but its the kind of dialogue that just leaves a smile on your face (or mine, at least, and that's what matters) as you hear/read it.

Oh, right, the OP. Didn't blow me away, but it was pretty nice. One of the better ones I've seen this season, both in terms of music and animation.
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Westlo



Joined: 03 Oct 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 2:34 am Reply with quote
frentymon wrote:
Why? I'd just want both to be really good series. Why would they have to sacrifice the quality of one of their productions this season to up the quality of the other?


It's J.C Staff, their track record on light novel adaptions being kept true to their source is terrible to say the least... and than otoh we have their manga adaptions of H&C and NC which are just fantastic. I also think the nature of the two shows will lead to one getting butchered rather easily ala Znt while the other (Index) will be treating right.
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Aromatic Grass



Joined: 31 Dec 2003
Posts: 2424
Location: Raleigh, NC
PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:04 pm Reply with quote
Westlo wrote:
And also I expect this to be the sleeper hit of the season period, this and Kannagi.

I certainly hope it is. Haven't got around to watching any of the first episodes for the fall season stuff, but I'm glad to hear the mostly positive reviews from everyone. And the ANN reviewers seem to like it a lot, which is good for getting people interested (and posting in this thread). Will watch it myself asap.

Watched the OP, though. Another Mami Kawada x Tomoyuki Nakazawa hit for me, and I can't wait for the single release. :3
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Raven Shinobi





PostPosted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:17 am Reply with quote
At first, I was turned off by the character design and by the summary that sounded like the other supernatural-themed shows of this season, but since anime based off light novels are usually good, I decided to give this one a try.

The premise isn't original by any mean, but the supernatural elements introduced are so far interesting. This definitely was able to get rid of the bad after taste that Toradora left in me.
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