A Certain Magical Index II #21 — Can You Hear Me Now?

March 4th, 2011

 

Get off the damn phones already.

Impressions:

Meh. I’m having a very hard time getting into this plot since they seem to have gone into almost full blown information dump mode without the characters having any idea what’s going on until after it’s happened, whereupon they feel the need to talk everything out to each other, often ended with one of them saying "I don’t understand what’s going on." At that point, some other random thing happens and they start the process anew. It’s moving too fast with too little weight put on any part before they get distracted by some other shiny plot point for any of it to have a real impact. Hell, most of the first half is spent watching Accelerator and Touma talk on the phone. The long and short is that they used Last Order to turn Hyouka into a kind of fallen angel and that’s bad newstm, but Index wants Touma out of it because he’d probably end up killing Hyouka. Also, Accelerator is beting up more faceless grunts.

Admittedly, Accelerator beating up yet more powerless NPCs was kind of cool, but it was still just Accelerator beating up literal nobodies… or throwing buildings. Ugh. They couldn’t figure out any other way to show that other than having it slide along the road like an air hockey puck before literally bouncing off the other building? And Vento? Just hanging around. Shows up, throws an energy ball, disappears. Great use of time there. Mikoto also stood out by being crammed in for the sole purpose of having her pose, shoot her railgun, and then immediately disappear again from relevance. I guess this is likely the last arc for this season. They’ve gotta try to fit every major character in, no matter how awkward it is.

Preview:

Touma, what are you even doing in this arc?

Posted in Index | 16 Comments »

16 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • sage says:
    March 4, 2011 at 9:00 am

    http://tenka.seiha.org/images2/index221/index221_84.jpg

    Now that’s one HIDEOUS ahegao.

  • pe says:
    March 4, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    actually, this arc is pretty serious since is the begginig of sometheing really bigger (spoiler).
    Hyouka is kind of the last defense line of academy city and to that purpose is also is main weapon to its final objective (spoiler) thats the reason of Vento getting sick of all suden.
    also the purpose of Accelerator beating a lot of NPC’s is to make Kihara think : “I cant complete my plan if I dont defeat Accelerator first”. In other words Accelerator wants to draw the attencion of hound dog towards him.

  • Rai Kitsune says:
    March 4, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    Teh sad thing is the first series actually made sense. This second season is random bs.

  • john says:
    March 4, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    i love this show was so happy about a 2nd season but not gonna lie it kinda sucks most people wouldnt say so because they like it but if you know anything about anime you can’t say this has been good. but as long as people keep watching it they will keep making it and all the other terrible shit they keep showing. if you look back in past years anime was good but its been getting ALOT worse as years go by. ive been watching anime for LONG time but i think im done after this season i mean next season even more garbage is coming out its sad you just dont see good shows anymore all just crap and anyone who says different well thats your right lol.

  • Anonymous says:
    March 4, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    They really shouldn’t have condensed this arc into 3 episodes, it’s one of the longer and more important arcs in the series and they only gave it 3 episodes while they gave the stupid sports festival arc 4 episodes.

    Index is having really bad pacing problems this season.

    • Longhaul says:
      March 4, 2011 at 3:05 pm

      Uh, the sports festival arc had 6 episodes, and it was 2 novels. This arc also was 2 novels and is also getting 6 episodes.

  • Nanaya says:
    March 4, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    It’s perfectly in-character for Accelerator to be gambling with the grunts about where their bodies will land and what condition they’ll be in.

    Also, although this could have been handled a lot better, it’s sticking pretty close to the source material and even there I found this part to be kinda ‘meh.’ The better parts of the series are the after-effects of this, though…

    But if they screw up the latest volume’s arc when it comes around, hell will hath no fury like a pissed off fan.

    • Skrillsex says:
      March 4, 2011 at 5:28 pm

      Ur right. Though I still like this part of the season the most. What really ruined this season for most people was the dahaisesai arc. Also some mishaps with animation. Someone else posted that it’s unfair they only put 3 eps for this volume. It’s true the dahaisesai was the volumes like this one and it got six eps but really. Which arc is more important and epic? Also. Since this season end with SS1 it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to start season 3(if it happens) where I think it will. Though would’ve preferred SS as an OVA

      • Nanaya says:
        March 5, 2011 at 3:36 pm

        One thing I’m really looking forward to, though, is Aroduc’s reaction to how the Last Order situation is resolved. I expect full sarcasm there, even I thought it was really ridiculous given what Accelerator had to go through to help her last time >:(

  • Wilfriback says:
    March 4, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    “Touma, what are you even doing in this arc?”

    Captain Obvious says to Aroduc if Touma defeats Vento everyone in the city will wake up, got it..

  • Twi says:
    March 5, 2011 at 9:15 am

    Daihasei took too long so they’re skipping random parts…loved when Accel just flat out shot the board of directors member.

  • hikaricore says:
    March 5, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    Was anyone else extremely annoyed by how retarded Hyouka looked with her tongue hanging out? They could have illustrated the exact same point without her looking like a full-grown crack baby imho.