Dec 19, 2018
First thing I have to tell you is to go watch A Certain Scientific Railgun season 1 first. It's a lot better written, animated, and it has one of the most iconic openings. You'll understand more of the RailDex series enough that you won't turn away in utter confusion when you watch Index.
That being said, Index season 2 is also much better, so if you can hold through 24 episodes of generic shounen plot holes, then you're good to go.
Quick edit: The author of the LN did a lot of personal research into psychology and various magic systems around the world. This series
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is based upon what's knowns as Chaos Magick, the idea that your perceptions of reality mixed with your subconscious can reshape reality itself around you. It's a fascinating topic and It's really cool to see how it's used as a hard magic system.
Having watched this anime 3 times through, and read some of the Light Novels it's based off, I can confidently say that Index season one is nothing more than extended exposition and character introduction. It sets up the world, and hints at the true plot that has yet to appear, but it drags you through the mud to do it. It's tough to get through, and isn't immediately rewarding, but it sets you up for the next season, and pairs with the Railgun seasons as well.
Given that the story is based off of a mediocre beginning of a Light Novel series, I'm giving the studio a little slack, they didn't have a lot to work off of for this season. As far as sticking closely to the source material, that might be a weakness here. The arcs are too short and jump too much, and often you're left wondering what just happened. On top of this, one of the most important aspects I think of this story is it's timeline. Getting a sense of the timeframe in which all these events happen is a key atmosphere to this plot, and it's almost completely left out of the anime, save a few date mentions if you're really paying attention.
The main characters are also really bland in this season; you get virtually no character development, and the most interesting and intriguing characters are on screen for 5 minutes at most, or they're villains who you never see again. That's another hold-over from the LN, but I feel like the studio could have improved on them here. Another reason to watch Railgun first, you get the characters and interest, so you're excited to see them in Index and that keeps you going.
The art is mostly well-done, though some powers' visuals don't make intuitive sense. The sound banks on repeated iconic/trademark sounds, rather than for stunning impressive sounds. I would call them both generic.
If this were a standalone anime, I would probably rate it at a 2, but it's part of a much larger world, and as such, this anime is fairly integral to understanding future events and characters. As I said before, I highly recommend watching Railgun first; it offers a much more interesting introduction to this world and it's story. Thank you for reading!
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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