Toaru Majutsu no Index III Episode 26 Discussion

Tan11 said:
I feel like a lot of people have over-exaggerated how bad this show is.

DeathfireD said:


I actually think people under-exaggerated how bad the show is. I've never read the source material and I can safely say that this show was garbage from an outsiders perspective. Literally all it had going for it was the art and some music.

DelusionalUzume said:
well, so much for that...
Please don't fuck up Railgun III and Accelerator...

Somecallme_kj said:
I feel like the only anime only who got what was going on this season. I'm not going to say its not fast and the animation could sink below average but is still got what was going on. Even during the battle royale arc. Because of the production values and the pacing it is the worst season of index. Id give it a low 8 out of 10 though. I think it had enough great ideas and characters i already like that i was able to enjoy the season overall. Hope its gets better and they get either more time or a new team at minimum i want the next season to be more like season 2 quality which had consistent animation and even some great cuts and shots near the end.
Also get of J.C Staff you losers they are not a bad studio just an sadly overworked one hopefully Danmachi can get them the money they need so the can chill. Like god damn look at a studios catalog before saying on sucks. If you want to get on anyone get on Kadokawa

DarkSynopsis said:

Let's hope, I only stuck with this season since I do like the whole universe behind the shows but I recall enjoying Index I/II way more, this season just felt like a mess that I could barely understand, was a chore to watch.

ssjokg said:


Characters have no depth.None. Even the old ones, that are supposed to be changing from the start arent explored.

Why is Accel sto fixated on being the worst now?Wasnt he supposed to make a turn in season 2?Well, the anime left out WHY he "suddenly" wants to be a first class villain.This makes him just throw out edgy quotes almost in all eps he is in.Only eps he doesnt are the last two of the series.

Hamazura?Remember him from Season 2?Well no he is a joke that just is protected by the series plot armor.Dont get me wrong he IS supposed to be a joke in the novels especially around the girls of ITEM but he also shows that he is capable to do his job.In the anime it feels so random.


Touma is the same except from his inner conflict about lying to Index, there isnt much they could change there.Actually here he feels more like the LN character than the previous seasons.He looks smarter.BUT that seems like out of nowhere since the last two downplayed it.

And those are the 3 MCs.


What was Fiamma's goal and why?
Why did the Pope change?

Carissa's reasons ere explained but the rest of her arc was bad and her loss was more of an asspull than the climax of the season.

What was Lola's reason for making Styil fight Index's Jonh Pen mode?


I could go on but whatever.

Elisile said:


Hey, so I'm not the only one who thought that Hamazura's only contribution to this season was wasting precious screentime which could have been used to actually explore the main plot more lol. Seriously, what the hell is he even doing in this series? People who have read the light novels have tried to explain to me that he actually is relevant, just that the anime did a piss poor job showing it. Ok, perhaps. But in the anime, the entire ITEM conflict seemed to have absolutely zero relevance to the plot of Russia vs. Academy City, yet it took up nearly half of the screentime while other vital parts of the story were being rushed to no end. And I agree with you about how no one remembers him from season 2. I sure as hell didn't, until a couple episodes back where I was trying to figure out what on earth he's even doing here, and I vaguely remembered Touma punching him or something at the end of last season, which was 8 years ago. So yeah. And the plot armor protecting him was infuriating.

Characters having no depth did seem to be an issue. This is especially prevalent for characters like Fiamma and Carissa (who's name I literally couldn't even remember), and Acqua + the other Knight Leaders. Their motivations for why they all were fighting AGAINST Touma were explained well enough. My problem is that they all did 180 degree turns and were suddenly fighting along WITH Touma, or at least accepting his help, with zero explanation as to why. Or if there was an explanation, it was like "oh hey we're actually fighting a common enemy now. lol whoops. I guess we have to work together". Which, look.... that's fine. Once or twice. But not when Every. Single. Angtagonist/ Villain has this exact same outcome. Can we even keep track of the amount of people who were supposedly set up as opposition to Touma and his friends, but were then suddenly working hand- in- glove with him as if he's always been their best friend? I understand that people change, but there's a difference between Accelerator taking a long, personal journey to turn himself around, and everyone else just blinking and suddenly deciding they're on Touma's side now, with zero consequences or mentions of all the bad shit they'd been doing just moments before.

Speaking of Accelerator, I agree that I was confused as to why he was suddenly so obsessed with 'villain'. I just assumed he still had that evil streak in him or something. But now that you've mentioned it, I guess it never really was explored as to WHY he's using that term 'villain' now more than he used to.

I actually didn't even know what it was that made Touma feel so guilty towards Index. Fiamma had taunted him with something about wanting to protect her? And suddenly Touma felt all guilty? If that was supposed to refer to his memory loss, then I didn't realize it (until maybe at the very end when he was talking to the apparition of Index on the Star of BT'Salem). And on a side note, was Touma's amnesia supposed to play more of a role in this season? Because honestly I completely forgot he even had amnesia unless it was specifically brought up by another character, like Mikoto.

Back to Fiamma, I know that he technically didn't 'help' Touma at the end, but he sure seemed pretty chummy with him after he just stood there and let Touma punch the living daylights out of him (Because I guess that stepping sideways is not doable in this universe). Fiamma and Touma are trying to help each other escape the Star, acting as if absolutely nothing had just transpired 30 seconds ago where they were trying to kill each other. I hate that kind of crap. It absolutely ruins the immersion. Is consistency dead or something?

And no, I had no idea why Styil had to fight Index like that. Unless, was she being controlled remotely by Fiamma? Who knows.

RayReynolds said:
@Elisile if it is so strange that the issue of amnesia was totally irrelevant during all the history is not as if it had affected much Touma or his relationship with Index since he only knew her for a day before the accident, that is something that comes out in the same novel so there are no excuses, it is a topic that never developed and therefore many people forgot, the fact that this issue has been postponed until now, makes me think that he cared more invent this whole world full of factions and groups, but not develop their own characters.

RayReynolds said:
@Elisile if it is so strange that the issue of amnesia was totally irrelevant during all the history is not as if it had affected much Touma or his relationship with Index since he only knew her for a day before the accident, that is something that comes out in the same novel so there are no excuses, it is a topic that never developed and therefore many people forgot, the fact that this issue has been postponed until now, makes me think that he cared more invent this whole world full of factions and groups, but not develop their own characters.

shroyashagintoki said:
can anybody just explain to me the whole entire plot of the last arc? Im confused as hell right now as to what has happened in the last 8 episodes or so. i couldnt understand a thing.

Tiau said:

It honestly is really straight forward, I don't really get the confusion for WW3, the episode before this started set this up pretty nicely.

Touma is trying to prevent Fiamma's plans in enacting a world war, Fiamma's plan would save the world but in very drastic measures.

Accelerator is trying to save Last Order(again), and he learns new things about himself and develops while doing so.

Hamazura is simply trying to live and made some friends along the way and helped them survive too.

I ain't actually gonna summarize everything, but that's generally the gist of things here.

shroyashagintoki said:
can anybody just explain to me the whole entire plot of the last arc? Im confused as hell right now as to what has happened in the last 8 episodes or so. i couldnt understand a thing.

ap1001 said:


Fiamma believed the world to be doomed to collapse, spoiler alert, he was right.

But his method of saving the world is wrong, he hoped to become the second coming of christ to save the world, believing that the dark side of man's heart being responsible for the state of the world.

So he tried to get all the materials necessary to become a being above god of christianity, and tried to cause WW3 to drag out all the negative emotions of man.

Once he became god, he would be able to solve the metaphysical issues of the world (resource wars, ideological wars) and govern mankind so they don't destroy themselves.

The plan failed, due to the collective effort of everyone involved, people were able to put aside their differences and stand against a common enemy. So there is still some hope for humanity.

Realizing his salvation isn't what humanity wants and can't solve the issues of the world, Fiamma decided to just gave up on life since the world don''t need him. But Touma dragged him to the escape pod and told him to see the world in a different light this time.

So Fiamma escaped the Star of Bethelam while Touma went down with it, uncertain about what to do, Fiamma decided to follow Touma's advice and walk the earth in self exile to see what the world truly needs.

And then he got ganked by Aleister, because he knows too much about the truth of the world. He saw what was inside Touma, and his plan was too close to the truth of the world, so Aleister came to silence him. Seeing Aleister, Fiamma began to understand what he got wrong, what Aleister's is planning, and how the Toaru world ended up so fucked.

Outraged, Fiamma tried to fight Aleister, knowing full well he can't beat Aleister, predictably he got insta-killed.

With Fiamma gone, WW3 ended with Academy City's victory, and their influence further growing, while the magic side weakened. The world is tossed into further turmoil, and OT ends.

Elisile said:
@Tiau My problem is that the anime failed to show us how any of the underground groups are at all related to the broader storyline. The entire Battle Royale arc just felt like one big "Why the F are they even doing this" montage, which by the end just leaves you thinking "So, these last few episodes relate to the story.... *how*, exactly?". So any second that anyone from any of the groups, including ITEM, including Miguno and Hamazura and Takitsubo and Kinuhata (Frenda got offed almost immediately), are on screen, is a waste in my book. Why? Because the overarching storyline was so ungodly rushed that the vast majority of people on this forum barely understood what the hell was going on. Ancillary characters and sideplots and all that are fine, but not at the expense of the main story. That's why I say that Hamazura is 110% a waste as a character, as were the rest of ITEM and the other groups (with the exception of Accelerator's GROUP).

Now, can we find an example of where ITEM actually *was* relevant? Yes. In Railgun, ITEM is specifically recruited to keep Mikoto and Nunatoba (or however you spell it) from interfering with the Sisters experiments. So it is obvious how they tie into the plot, unlike in Index III, where they just seem to show up randomly and do nothing of importance (what was the purpose of having that whole thing with Kinuhata being chased, for example? just to provide an impetus for Hamazura to need to escape with Takitsubo?).

But as many have said, the groups, ITEM, Hamazura, and all of them actually DO have significance in the light novels. I have been assured, several times, that their storylines are actually very relevant and very important in the novels. So I am more than willing to admit that and simply chalk this up to a poor anime adaptation. But the reason that you see me continuing to harp on about this so much is that we cannot allow the anime to lean on the novels. The anime has to be able to stand on its own. And with that being said, I do not think the anime, by itself, did justice to explaining why any of the Battle Royale arc even needed to happen, or why ITEM is even in Index III at all. I am more than willing to admit that there's stuff in the novels which clears all of this up. But this is the anime, not the novels.

As far as all the characters converting to Touma, I'm just going to try and list them off the top of my head (I'll probably forget a few). Styil, Kanzaki, Sasha, Poggle, Acqua, Accelerator (sort of), Fiamma (by way of allowing Touma to help him escape at the end), Carissa, the other Knight Leaders, the French, apparently? Vento, the entire Amakusa Church, whatever sect was led by those nuns, one of which wears the very short dress and had to be rescued by Touma on that magical ship, Hamazura (who got knocked out by Touma and decided to make some life changes afterwards), that lady who could summon the Golem, etc.

How many characters has Touma actually been allowed to defeat without either being converted or killed later by someone else? Well, there was that Izzard guy who was the Alchemist, who could make whatever he thought into reality and cut off Touma's arm the first time, then there was that high priest who controlled the magic ship which kept those nuns as prisoners, and he sorta defeated that guy in the beginning of Index III who used the white powder to aid in his magic, but technically he was actually killed off later when he reported back to the Church.

That's it, that's literally all I can think of, unless you count Accelerator, but he's gotten an entire (and I think well- deserved) redemption arc. Anyways, I'm hardly basing my opinion(s) on just 'one or two characters'.

Elisile said:
@Tiau But what are they trying to get us to feel with these characters? I'll give an example.

During WW2, it was no secret that the Western Allies (US and UK) absolutely despised the Soviet Union. But they eventually had no choice but to work together to defeat a common enemy in Hitler. But it was never a secret that this was only a fragile alliance to defeat the more dangerious foe. Almost as soon as the war ended, a Cold War ensued which lasted for nearly the entire second half of the decade. So it was clear. The Soviet Union were still the bad guys. They weren't 'good guys' to be rooted for. They were still the enemy, but only temporarily did we have to work with them to take down the Third Reich.

So what is it with our plethora of characters in Index? Which ones are truly our allies now, and which ones are still enemies but we had to work with them to defeat Fiamma? That's kinda what I'm trying to get at.

Like, with Kanzaki and Styil, we know why they were trying to defeat Touma at first, and we know why they flipped and are now more or less on his side. We know why the Amakuza are with Touma, etc.

But with someone like Carissa, the anime set us up for several episodes to root against her. Then, at the drop of a dime, she's suddenly on our side and we're supposed to be rooting for her? What gives? Where did this come from? Same with characters like Acqua. If you're gonna set us up to root against certain characters, don't keep flipping them to our side faster than we can blink. It makes it hard to keep up with who we're supposed to be for or against.

That said, I do still appreciate your explanations.

Elisile said:
@Tiau I know I'm doing a crap job at explaining this. But I think that Carissa and Acqua are two good examples. With Carissa, she had motivations for trying to consolidate power under her in England, even at the expense of having her own family members captured or killed. So.... did these motivations change? What happens now that Fiamma is defeated? Are we just supposed to pretend like she never had those evil motivations in the first place? Did they just disappear? Does she go back to them, thus requiring Touma to have to try and stop her again? It's kinda hard to keep this stuff straight when she's punched as a bad guy in one episode, and then showing back up as a good guy in the next with zero explanation as to why she's suddenly no longer adhering to her previous motivation(s).

Similar thing with Acqua. He wanted Touma's right arm in order to prevent war. Has that motivation changed at all? He was beaten by the combined efforts of Touma and the Amakuza, and the next time we see him, he's trying to help Touma. But when did he have this change of heart? Once this whole WW3 is over, does he go back to being an antagonist who wants Touma's arm? Or has that all been forgotten about now?

Does Fiamma need to suffer any consequences for literally almost killing everyone? No? He just gets to go back, roam the earth, and 'rediscover' himself? O.... Okay....

Sherri Cromwell, the lady with the Golem. What was her motivation for trying to hurt Touma again? And when did that motivation change?

This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about.

Nurguburu said:
6.93. That's why MAL scores are a joke.

Elisile said:


Are you saying it should be higher or lower?