A Certain Magical Index is the first season anime adaptation of the light novel series. The season is comprised of 24 episodes. It is set in a world where a certain part of the population has supernatural abilities, these are known as Espers. Confusingly, there are also people who can use magic, known as Magicians. They are different from Espers as Espers cannot use magic and if they try to, they will die.
The story takes place in Academy City and follows Kamijo Toma, who is a high school student. He has a unique ability involving his right hand, which is able to mitigate any magic and Esper ability. However, he views this as a curse since it gives him terrible luck. In this world Espers and Magicians align themselves to different beliefs, with Academy City primarily aligned with science. There are others with more religious and magical leanings.
On what was a normal day, Toma goes out on his balcony only to find a young girl in nun clothing on his balcony railing. Going by the name Index, Toma learns that she is part of the Church of England, one of many organizations with Magicians. She is unique in that she holds the memory of 103,000 grimoires in her head and as a result, is being hunted by others. This is probably the only interesting aspect of the story. Toma and Index forms a natural pair but the story is so so for the whole season. What doesn’t help is how Toma doesn’t have a flashy ability. It takes a while before his slightly cleverness starts to shine and his ability becomes more useful than you would have initially imagined.
What severely holds the anime back are the huge amounts of exposition dumps. While it doesn’t have the most terrible of execution, it’s not very elegant either. There is a lot of world-building in these scenes and it’s one way to get the viewers up to speed since there is a lot going on. The status quo is completely different to real life, even though this is like an alternate world. When certain events start to affect Toma, his refusal to let anyone else know and attempts to keep things going on as if there was nothing wrong is perplexing. Not only is the fact that he is able to pull it off quite hard to believe, but his reasoning is flimsy and doesn’t serve his situation well at all. It feels so much like normal that Toma has to often reiterate his condition just to remind the viewer what has happened.
With Index having such valuable information, she inadvertently pulls Toma into her world. There are those who come for Index will also be gunning for Toma as well. He will find himself with new allies and allies. The direction meanders a bit though since it’s hard to tell what the goal is. All we know is that Toma seems to attract trouble, both of the life-threatening and the girl kind. The lead up to Toma using his own ability to try and bring down others is exciting, but the execution of all of the fights is not satisfying.
Despite all the exposition, the events of the anime can still be confusing, especially with characters’ allegiances and their motivations. The pacing stops and starts, with a new plot arc starting right after the previous ends with no attempt to smooth the transition, so it feels completely unrelated and jarring. The tone swings from being seriousness in one scene to typical anime humor in another, on topics such as the maturity of Index’s body despite her being a young girl. The story elements often wrap real scientific theories and concepts into its own world, which is an excellent aspect. What drags the anime down though is how it approaches those concepts and when combined with the uneven pacing, it feels that this isn’t a bad story, but just not told in the best way.
Overall, A Certain Magical Index is an average anime. The slow beginning can easily be forgiven if it gets better but it unfortunately doesn’t. The season finale doesn’t close anything off but just reminds you how Toma had saved a lot of girls who are developing feelings for him (i.e. a wish fulfillment character). Coupled with the bland combat scenes, swathes of exposition and out of place fan service from time to time, and you wonder if it is worth staying to see if it eventually becomes better.
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