To Aru Majutsu no Index - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

[Pellissier]

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire 24 episodes of To Aru Majutsu no Index ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about the DVD only footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
  
  
• Expectations for the future (season 2 and such)
• Which kind of footage (DVD only) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun

[Keroko]

Well, what to say? It was an enjoyable right once you manage to muscle your way through whichever episode caused you to stall. It's a faithful adaptation of the novel, and the battles are great.

But.... the pacing of the anime is horrible. It goes from action to speeches that last several minutes in the blink of an eye. It also keeps repeating the same pattern in those speeches over and over. I realize that this is a part of the novel, and therefore a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' kind of thing, but it still remains bothersome.

The animation was good though. Mistakes can always be found, but there was nothing really glaring. Personally, I believe the cast to be a core enjoyment in this series, as its plot is currently all over the place. Opinions on which member of the cast is key to watching will differ per person, but I believe anyone can find someone he would love to see more about in this series. Battles are also very important, and the way they use overdone and cliche powers in new and inventive ways is really fun to watch. Mikoto is a prime example of this, taking the standard 'lightning-powaa' and doing all sorts of crazy tricks with it.

All in all, I can imagine some people stopping to watch at some point due to the pacing problems. I know I did. But once you get passed that one episode that irks you, To Aru is one of the better anime of the moments.

[Bordix]

Animation Quality: 10 - I think most of us agree that the animation was good.

Voice Actors: 8 - Most of them were good especially Acc's VA. Though for touma, took me a couple of episodes just to make out with the voice.

Script: 2 - I easily get lost with the speeches and technobabble. Had to watch the episode numerous of times just to understand wtf they were talkin about.

Soundtrack: 8 - liked all the songs. though at first, I didn't like masterpiece but after listening to it repetitively, you'll get used to it XD

Enjoyment: 6 - made me "wut?" more than "wow"...

Emotional Involvement: 2 - I think the only time I was "emo" is when Kazakiri bid farewell. Even though I'm not really into her character the scene still got me.

Overall 9 for me, Just because of the awesome characters (xcept for -hero mode Touma <.< )

[Spectacular_Insanity]

9/10

I really loved it. Not quite good enough to get a 10 because I didn't like how Touma lost his memory, and the Touma x Index romance storyline kinda got nerfed, but overall it was a really great series with a lot of heart.

[Tjaard]

9/10 me too

I liked the 2, 3, 4 e 5 arc, first and last less; see Index is a real pain, the only chara that surely i don't like here (Touma speech was sometimes a little boring too, usually people that lecture always is because their power is lame but well, here is good).
For the other things, awesome animation, awesome chara and a so various and different story than those that I know, so 9.

[idiffer]

8\10

awesome animation. awesome story/plot, that made me go WTF? in a good way. and the speeches (as well as a lot of the plot twists) really seemed like a parody of the genre. the speeches are too cheesy and corny to take them seriously, so i just laughed. like when Touma lost his memory - first you think he did, then that he didnt, and then again that he really did. that was a really funny brainfuck. why 8 then? cause after ep 15 the number of wtf moments decreased drastically.

[serenade_beta]

Overall, it was a fun series to follow. Of course, it was full of problems and wasn't all that good as a story, but just of entertainment, it was worth once a week... Perhaps?

The overall story was... well, not bad, but not good. Plot devices (like Tsuchimikado's power), contradictions (well... a lot), useless characters, a heroine that might as well be stated as heroine?!, etc. Pacing was also terrible all the way through. I still haven't forgotten the boredom of that episode in Mikoto's arc that didn't even move the story.
Yet without really giving us much, it leaves us for a 2nd season, which doesn't really help give much points in this category.
For most part, I can blame the original novel, but there are clearly parts that make no sense. For instance, in the fourth arc, why take out an IMPORTANT Kanzaki's backstory and yet include a very random and pointless Index moment? There are other characters completely taken out, which lowers the excitement of the arc. Then there are other changes that just make no sense, like having Touma talk to Hyouka on top of a beam or something... THAT was just too entertaining, in a bad meaning.

The animation quality is high. As expected! Ignoring a few misses.

Characters... So-so. If there are good ones, there are bad ones. Some examples are the holy preacher Touma, the Last Order which is a Touma + annoying voice and type of speech, Accelerator (..................*twitch*), and the useless characters like the ones in Last Order's arc and SomethingGami and... what was that character's name, that nun. Well, plenty of "unique" ones, yes.
Mikoto remains the best though, as always~

Voice acting... Pretty much good as most anime, though there were ones that didn't fit, like Tsuchimikado's and Himegami's and Kuroko's.

Emotional invovlement is pretty low. Because... it was just hard to get invovled.

Well, plenty of bad moments, but all in all, it was a decent anime to watch, and compared to some anime out there, was definitely better done... Which I shall say as I attempt to make my post not completely sound negative.

Onward to Railgun anime! Mikotooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Songs were mostly good. The 2nd OP was rather messy though. 2nd ED though, was excellent.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Voice acting... Pretty much good as most anime, though there were ones that didn't fit, like Tsuchimikado's and Himegami's and Kuroko's.

Out of curiosity, what is it about Kuroko's voice that doesn't fit for you? I found it to be pretty fitting.

The others... well, I personally think Tsuchimikado's voice rocks, but I agree on Himegami. Her voice is just so incredibly dull... though in hindsight that may have actually been the point.

[MrTerrorist]

I giving it a 10 since this the first HQ anime i ever torrented and enjoy watching.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Out of curiosity, what is it about Kuroko's voice that doesn't fit for you? I found it to be pretty fitting.

The others... well, I personally think Tsuchimikado's voice rocks, but I agree on Himegami. Her voice is just so incredibly dull... though in hindsight that may have actually been the point.

Personally, I thought everyone's voice acting was great... except Himegami. I though Himegami's character design overall was dull, and the voice acting notably reinforced this negative trait.

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Out of curiosity, what is it about Kuroko's voice that doesn't fit for you? I found it to be pretty fitting.

The others... well, I personally think Tsuchimikado's voice rocks

Kuroko's voice... sounds like some oba-san, I guess, is the best way to put it? Just kind of... awkward. Got used to it, but it still left a negative impression somewhere.

Tsuchimikado's voice itself isn't bad, I guess. It's that when that voice tries to go ~nya or something similar, it just gets very creepy...

[danin8r44]

7/10 It would have been higher, but I felt it really lost it's steam towards the end.

[Deathscyther]

Animation Quality: 9/10
Animation was really nice most of the time

Characters: 8/10
- I loved Mikoto, Kuroko and Touma (when he's not preaching);
- Accelerator and Kaori were okay;
- Not really fond of Index and the girl from the last arc (don't even know her name anymore;
- Pretty indifferent about the others;

Voice Actors: 8/10
Didn't really like Kuroko's and Last Order's voices

Script: 6/10
Some boring arcs (especially the last one) and it was hard to understand what was going on sometimes.

Soundtrack: 8/10
Pretty good music. I love both OP's and the second ED. The first ED was so-so.

Enjoyment: 8/10
Some boring episodes and I disliked the long explanations and preaching. But overall I enjoyed myself a lot


Overall: 8/10

[aldw]

This was probably the first anime I've liked this season so far, Touma x Mikoto have a wonderful dynamic .

[ZeroForever]

hmm 7.5 if i could...

Animation Quality: 8/10 - solid, nothing to amazing but solid and generally well done

Characters: 6/10 - Touma and Index i have hovering around a 4/10, everyone else except probably himegami are like 8 or 9's. In short the 2 main characters i grew to hate...

Voice Actors: 8/10 - overall most were good as noted some were throw aways but didn't really detract.

Script: 6/10 - to many intelligence failure plots with excessive amounts of touma's righteousness

Soundtrack: 8/10 - good some of them i really enjoyed others like 2nd OP as mentioned were decent

Enjoyment: 8/10 - worth the watch overall.

Overall: 7.5/10 if i could.

[LeaD36]

I might write a detailed report later but just going by bias, i´d give it a 10 cuz

MIKOTO
BIRIBIRI
KANZAKI
HIMEGAMI

and ofc teh LULZ throughout the series

[Mentar]

7.5 from me. But due to the excellent animation, I'll move the tiebreaker to 8.

Yes, the show had flaws. Whenever Touma started preaching, I wanted to punch him (and summoned the image of Kaori laying down the law on him to compensate). And I'd have been much happier if the "explanations" for magic would have been less detailed/far-fetched. Guys, I'm willing to accept that it exists. Stop force-feeding me winded explanations.

That aside, I really liked the show. The characters were pretty good, and every once in a while we had brief strokes of genius. Mikoto was absolutely wonderful. Kuroko is a good addition. Especially the funny parts were handled really well, and the nightly fighting were also great from a technical perspective.

So, please just continue with Railgun, since it will emphasize the strong parts and cut out most of the weak ones. I'm already pretty excited!

[Imagine_Breaker]

Originally Posted by Bordix

Voice Actors: 8 - Most of them were good especially Acc's VA. Though for touma, took me a couple of episodes just to make out with the voice.

I was also impressed with acc's va what shocked me though was that he is the same va for yoichi from asuno yoichi and layfon from chrome shelled regios

[Proto]

Voice acting... Pretty much good as most anime, though there were ones that didn't fit, like Tsuchimikado's and Himegami's and Kuroko's.

The others... well, I personally think Tsuchimikado's voice rocks, but I agree on Himegami. Her voice is just so incredibly dull... though in hindsight that may have actually been the point.

Personally, I thought everyone's voice acting was great... except Himegami. I though Himegami's character design overall was dull, and the voice acting notably reinforced this negative trait.

Wow, this is like the first time I've seen anyone (let alone 3) not happy with Noto Mamiko's work. Personally I found her to fit the character, given that Himegami somehow fit the Yamato Nadeshiko mold that Noto Mamiko normally does but...

Otherwise, my impression of the series:

-Characterization: Decent for most characters. Not really outstanding, but not the worst aspect of the series by far.
-Plot: Well, personally I don't see any ongoing plot yet given that we are still in a recruiting met arc of sorts so maybe I shouldn't really judge this aspect
-Setting: the most remarkable aspect of the series to me. The world that TAMNI has created is one of the most interesting ons I've seen, pretty fresh and with plenty of aspects to explore.
-Pace: This one was actually a : It's so bad it's good thing for me. I was actually looking forward to Touma's speeches every episode just to see how akwardly and ridiculously placed it was going to be. Yay.
-Music/Art: Good for JC standards, though just decent when compared to the work of other studios.

A 7.5 overall, rounding down for the bland characterization, which is one of the most important aspects of the series for me.

[-Sho-]

Animation Quality: 9 - Good design. Well done.
Voice Actors: 7 - Good voice.
Script: 4 - Hmmm the plot wasn't good .
Soundtrack: 7 - Good music.
Enjoyment: 5 - Just some jokes , humors and 3-4 episodes make me laugh.
Emotional Involvement: 2 - no really emo.

Total = 6 .