Toaru Majutsu no Index II

I finished Season 2 of a Certain Magical Index. Minor Spoiler. Nothing major.
Uh... Ok. SO! Improvements and pros!

1: The characters outside of One Punch-ish Man are used this time!
The mages have more of a chance to shine here. Even the titular Index does things. SHOCKING!
Character development? In my Anime? It's more likely than you think...

2: The fight choreography has improved!
Fights feel faster and more fluent. The spells and attacks are flashy and characters work together to combine tactics to overcome battles.

... 3: The openings!
Bangers. All of them. The endings are nice too! The OST is still ok.

4: The story actually starts to have a plot! Other character stories lead into the spin offs!
I can see why a Certain Scientific Rail-gun and Accelerator exist. I have not seen them yet, but I am getting to em. The Plot is now gearing up to showcase the start of a war between the Mages and Scientists. COOL! Only took a season and a half but ok. I see you.

NOW THE CONS!

1: Kamijou the Lucky Harem Protagonist!
Ok. I am all up for women wanted the MC's D but uh... can we make it make sense first? We got a young nun, a Rail-Gun, a Clone, A Priestess, a Ninja Saint, A Class Rep, and a Ghost girl thing. I get why Index and Misaka might like him, but why the clone, saint, etc.? Like he just showed up in their life and helps once and boom! They want babies. He does not even spend time with them or develop the relationship... So... Maybe calm down on that?

2: The tragic Back Story 2: Sadness Boohoogaloo
When you villain decides to tell their backstory right before the climax of the fight in motion and it is about... an amusement park ride failure... I... I can't take that seriously anymore. That was bad. Really Really bad.

3. This Fist is the Fist to crush the Heavens! (Literally)
SO! When is Kamijou just straight up not gonna be enough? Touch this and that and Boom! End it with One Punch Man! Imagine breaker is cool, but we are about 48 episodes in and now and something new like a development would be great. He can't seriously still be classified as a Level 0 Esper after beating Level 5s, Angels, High ranked sorcerers and a freaking Commander of enemy forces by this point. Let my mans grow!

4: Talk no-jutsu during "Critical Moments"
"We only have 2 minutes before we die! let me tell you why I am doing this and my back story which will take 10 minutes and then we can fight and you will still make it in time. No need to worry" Says the villain as that exact thing happens. Seriously! A dood was getting the shit kicked in while Index was on the phone! LITERALLY RIGHT NEXT TO SAID DOOD GETTING KICKED!
...10/10

Story: Uh/10 - It is better but still a bit confusing. It is developing into an overall plot so I am game for season 3.
Art: 9 - Much better and really fantastic!
Sound: 8 - Pretty cool effects with some stock explosions you can't unhear and the soundtrack is ok.
Character: 7 - Better than Season 1 but something feels very Gary Sue here.
Enjoymen: Binged Season 2 in 2 days like I did Season 1. Doing something right.
Overall: 7. Won't break barriers like Kamijou can but hey. It is pretty damn good. I swear he better end up with either Index or Misaka at the end or this will be lame.

TLDR: Toaru Majutsu no Index II is a less confused mess of a show than the first season, that has improved on its story but still handles its characters spectacularly bad.

General

After finishing Index, I was not too eager to see what happens in Index II, I'll be honest. I was expecting more of the first season as the writer seemed really incompetent and only interested in fan service and furthering his power-fansty through his obvious self-insert in Touma, the main character.

But I decided to give it a go, see if it perhaps gets better, and I was pleasantly surprised that it did. There were still ... massive issues with the story and the characters, but in certain regards it was better than the previous season.

Story - 5/10

To put it simply, the story is still a jumbled mess. It's still cut into 4-5 episode arcs while each arc's plot feels like it'd take at least twice that many episodes to meaningfully be flshed out. There's still a barrage of random stuff and jargon that is usually completely inconsequential.

In certain ways, the show is even more formulaic than before, as it sticks even more strictly to the "new villain appears, some random stuff happens, Touma punches the villain in the face" formula. This time he's mostly punching girls rather than guys, but their motivations are just as laughable as in season 1, so not a whole lot has changed there.

But at the very least, the arcs are no longer self-contained. There's some degree of cohesion between them and they affect the larger plot. For instance, the events of the end of the first arc are the basis of the events of the last arc. A fairly small event in the first arc actually has some impact in another subsequent arc.

And for once, the worlds of magic and science actually interact with one another in a meaningful way. It's not much - the beef that so and so villain affilitiated with the church has with Academy City is usually incredibly dumb and convoluted - but it's something.

The pacing of the story remains its biggest obstacle, as things happen way too quickly generally for them to have any impact on you. After a while it becomes boring because you just don't pay attention to the story. However that's generally massively improved in the last 2 arcs - featuring Accelerator once again, what a surprise - which manage to be the highlights of this season with their solid pacing.

Characters - 3/10

The side characters of this show were its biggest crime is what I said in my season 1 review, and this is still true here. There's still too many of them, and the show keeps introducing even more, all with really silly motivations and not enough screen time to be fleshed out at all.

But at least there's some cohesiveness to them. Generally, after Touma punches the villain, they now join his team instead of being completely forgotten, giving them a small albeit real sense of importance within the plot, as they're usually back with a minor role in subsequent arcs.

Index once again has a very minor roles in every arc, but at least she's featured in all of them for more than a couple of minutes. Her character is relegated even further into being #1 in Touma's harem, however, which is unfortunate.

But that's a problem with mostly every female character in season 2 as they REALLY lean on Touma's harem there. Even characters that previously had some decent plot significance, like Kanzaki Kaori, have now been sidelined to simping for Touma. The villains all fall in love with Touma after being punched in the face. It's honestly pretty annoying.

Art & Sound - 8/10 & 7/10

The art was season 1's strongest point and it remains true here. Fights scenes, wide panoramic shots of the city, solid animation, all very defining of this show.

The scale of the battles is now even larger than before, but the fight scenes still manage to convey a sense of action and urgency that's just right, despite the comical motivations of the villain usually making them fairly silly.

The sound quality has been improved for the largest part, too. It's not particularly noteworthy, but it mostly helps build up hype when the fight scene is coming, suspense when things are getting difficult, etc. It's subtle, but it's very much there.

Enjoyment - 6/10

I'd honestly rate my enjoyment of the first 20 or so episodes as 3/10 or 4/10. It was more of season 1, with annoying jargon that mostly went nowhere, confusing explanations for things that don't matter, villains with hilariously bad motivations and annoying personality quirks that just end up being tsundere for Touma's attention, etc.

In many ways it got worse than in season 1 because the pacing was so off that I just lost interest in what was happening. The various plotlines are so convoluted that even if you miss a large part of them, you haven't missed all that much in the end, anyway.

But the final 4-5 episodes delivered on the promise of the first 2 episodes of season 1. They were very well paced, with exciting action scenes, interaction between the worlds of magic and science, and actual character development for multiple characters, most notably Accelerator once again. I'd honestly rate these last 2 arcs as 8/10 to 9/10.

It's a shame that it took so long for it finally get on course, but at least it did. I am hoping season 3 and the Accelerator spin-off keep up at this pace and don't revert back to the same formulaic nonsense that was season 1 and the first half of season 2.

Overall - 5/10

Let me start out by stating that this season is incredibly boring. The plot is incredibly simple, but the characters have basically no motivation whatsoever. The main character, Touma, is unlikable and still has no motivation for doing what he does. The side characters are even less interesting. The only mildly interesting character in this show is Accelerator, who is the only character to get an actual character arc.

The season is broken up into several small arcs. All these arcs do not flow into each other and feel very separated. It feels like the characters are constantly just forced into new situations and just react ... to what happens. Each of these stories is incredibility simple but feel very drawn out. This season could really be about half the length if they just cut out all the exposition and recurring gags. The fight scenes, as usual for this show, are boring and uninteresting, mostly consisting of Touma yelling at the villains until they actually fight.

The art and sound quality are the only decent elements of this season. I would not recommend watching this, as it is overall pathetically boring. The only reason I can think of to watch this season is if you are interested in the Railgun or Accelerator shows, or the Accelerator arc. Even then, I would just skip around all of the parts involving Touma.