anime/light novels: A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun
A Certain Magical Index is a multimedia franchise based on the lightnovels by Kazuma Kamachi. Between the original series, the sequel series, and "side story" collections, there are I think 35 volumes of the light novel series. There's also a manga adaptation, and two spinoff manga series about supporting characters. The first 13 volumes of the light novels and the first volume of side stories are adapted into the two seasons of the A Certain Magical Index anime, and there are also two seasons of A Certain Scientific Railgun, one of the spinoff manga series. I haven't read any of the various manga series, though A Certain Scientific Railgun has been licensed in the US, but I've watched all four 24-episodes seasons of anime and the first 13 novels, and was halfway through the first collection of sidestories when baka-tsuki took the first 20 volumes down due to Yen Press licensing the series. The anime was pretty faithful up to that point, though, so I'm not overly worried about it.
I lead off with the sheer amount of media in this franchise to give you a general idea of how many hours of my life this series has consumed.
The series is set in Academy City, a city of around 10 million people, the majority of whom are students. The students of academy city are all teenagers (and younger) who are turned into espers through scientific experiments. Most students appear to be there by choice, but some are abandoned, and it's implied that some who showed potential were just taken. Students who never develop an ability are "level 0" with powers ranked up to "level 5." There are only a few level 5s (only 2 of whom have appeared so far in my readings/viewings) and both can easily destroy city blocks if they want to. One of the level 5s has been a living experiment since childhood with various organizations using him to try to create a level 6 esper (the equivalent of being a walking cache of nuclear bombs, pretty much) and the other allowed her DNA sequence to used by scientists who told her they would use it to cure an illness, but whom instead used it to create thousands of clones to be used in experiments, and maybe to help take over the world. This is about ruling class's idea of informed consent in Academy City, even if most in it don't realize that.
The main character of Index is Ikuta Touma, a level 0 who is cursed with bad luck, and whose right hand, called "Imagine Breaker," can cancel out other espers' powers. This isn't considered an esper ability, as he was born with it, and because it's completely passive in and of itself. The plot kicks off when Touma finds a girl dressed like a nun passed out on his balcony. Index claims to have a photographic memory, and to have memorized 103,000 magic grimoires. Because of this, she claims, people are hunting her, Touma doesn't believe this (or in magic) until Index is attacked, around which time Touma also learns that Imagine Breaker also nullifies magic. Index is being hunted because she has a spell cast on her every year to erase everything from her memory except for the grimoires, and one of the questions is if that's to keep her mind from breaking down, or to control her.
That's the first arc. Subsequent arcs involve Touma and a variety of characters (mostly Index, a magician from Index's past named Stiyl, a friend of Touma's who appears to be spying for both the magic and science "sides," and Misaka Mikoto, one of the level 5 espers) getting involved in various plots involving magic and/or science. "Science versus magic" is an obvious major theme, but also "science and magic." As the series progresses, it steadily moves from isolated incidents to the incidents being part of larger plots to head to war, with both sides trying to control if and hoow that will happen. I've seen some people express concern about whether or not the series is saying Christianity is evil, as many of the antagonists are Catholic or from the Church of England, but I don't get that feeling from it. Various protagonists, both major and minor, are Christian. What's portrayed as corrupt is people with authority but little or no conscious, and zealots who don't don't care who the hut while accomplishing their goals. This applies to both sides of the science and magic divide.
The series is...very much a series for teenaged boys, though the anime dilutes quite a bit of the male-gaze aspect. The books spend a lot of time of girls blushing and being cute, and objectifying Index for her whiteness. By which is mean, her PURE whiteness. Her CUTE innocence. Her REMARKABLE silver hair. Did I mention her PURITY is tied to her whiteness? Repeatedly. There's also the spell that's cast on Index that causes her to lose her memories. This also means that, despite surviving alone and on the run for almost a year when she first shows up, she somehow knows absolutely nothing about, and is afraid of, most technology. Meanwhile, at one point, another character has the same spell cast on them, and only loses memories related to personal experience, not anything related to technology, social skills, etc. While it could be argued that the difference is in part because Index has had the spell cast on her repeatedly, I'm pretty sure it's mostly for the CUTE helplessness. On the flipside, every once in a while, Kamachi goes "You know what? A person who can't use magic herself buts knows every magic spell ever could still seriously mess magic users up in a fight if she wanted to" and runs with that. Not often enough, but sometimes.
So, pretty much, it's a series that has a number of things that annoy me, but also a lot of characters I like, and it does things that I find interesting.
A Certain Scientific Railgun is a spinoff series about Misaka Mikoto and her friends. It...is very much a series for men about girls (girls sexually harassing other girls is "'cute" occurs...a lot) but it's also a series in which girls with a lot of power are competent and allowed to be proud of their powers (and don't have to be brought down because of their arrogance), and in which girls who lack powers, or whose powers are way less impressive than their friends' powers, are also competent and have plenty to contribute. The closest thing it has to a major male character is Touma, who mostly shows up to help establish where we are in the Index timeline. Railgun's first season starts about a month before Index begins, and the second season ends about 3/4 through the first season of Index. Railgun doesn't focus on the magic aspect at all, instead having Mikoto and her friends discover various plots within Academy City in which individuals or organizations are abusing their power/students in the name of Science.
As a warning, both series have times when they can be violent. Sometimes it's just your normal shounen punching/energy bursts while making shounen speeches about the importance of a person/their feelings/whatnot. Sometimes a person's arm is being ripped off by magic or a brainwashed mass murdering sociopath. (I have yet to properly deal with the fact that I mostly both like and sympathize with said sociopath (well, after his introductory arc, at least), since I'm normally the one whose eyes are permanently rolled into the back of her head when fandom is going on about them.)
I've also read the first two volumes of The Zakishi Warashi of Intellectual Village, another "science and magic" series by Kamachi. In this one, mythological creatures exist and are a normal part of society, though they mostly avoid large cities. The main Character, Shinobu, lives in an "Intellectual Village," a modern, technologically advance town modeled after "traditional" Japanese villages. Anyone who lives in an Intellectual Village is technically rich, even if they live a lifestyle that implies otherwise. Because mythological creatures are integrated into society, various people attempts to use modern means to form contracts with them based on folklore. Both volumes alternate between three protagonists. Shinobu, his uncle Uchimaku, a police officer, and Mai, a mercenary considered to be a "monster woman" due to her extreme (and often violent) competence at her job, which mostly involves getting rid of various magic users. Mai's younger sister, Enbi, is obsessed with murder mysteries and has a crush on Uchimaku, and features heavily in his sections. (I can't tell if Uchimaku realizes that she's serious when she comes onto him and pretends he doesn't because she's a teenager, or if he thinks she's just trolling him. Either way, I could do without the crush angle.) Both volumes have the three protagonists having an adventure that appears to be independent of the other characters' adventures, and then ties them together at the end. The titular character is the zashiki warashi of Shinobu's house, who isn't actually featured much. It's even more male gazey than Index, with "cute" traded for "boobies" (and the illustrations are mostly the female characters in revealing clothing and provocative clothes) and so more irritating in that aspect, but interesting enough that I'll keep reading as more volumes are released.
I lead off with the sheer amount of media in this franchise to give you a general idea of how many hours of my life this series has consumed.
The series is set in Academy City, a city of around 10 million people, the majority of whom are students. The students of academy city are all teenagers (and younger) who are turned into espers through scientific experiments. Most students appear to be there by choice, but some are abandoned, and it's implied that some who showed potential were just taken. Students who never develop an ability are "level 0" with powers ranked up to "level 5." There are only a few level 5s (only 2 of whom have appeared so far in my readings/viewings) and both can easily destroy city blocks if they want to. One of the level 5s has been a living experiment since childhood with various organizations using him to try to create a level 6 esper (the equivalent of being a walking cache of nuclear bombs, pretty much) and the other allowed her DNA sequence to used by scientists who told her they would use it to cure an illness, but whom instead used it to create thousands of clones to be used in experiments, and maybe to help take over the world. This is about ruling class's idea of informed consent in Academy City, even if most in it don't realize that.
The main character of Index is Ikuta Touma, a level 0 who is cursed with bad luck, and whose right hand, called "Imagine Breaker," can cancel out other espers' powers. This isn't considered an esper ability, as he was born with it, and because it's completely passive in and of itself. The plot kicks off when Touma finds a girl dressed like a nun passed out on his balcony. Index claims to have a photographic memory, and to have memorized 103,000 magic grimoires. Because of this, she claims, people are hunting her, Touma doesn't believe this (or in magic) until Index is attacked, around which time Touma also learns that Imagine Breaker also nullifies magic. Index is being hunted because she has a spell cast on her every year to erase everything from her memory except for the grimoires, and one of the questions is if that's to keep her mind from breaking down, or to control her.
That's the first arc. Subsequent arcs involve Touma and a variety of characters (mostly Index, a magician from Index's past named Stiyl, a friend of Touma's who appears to be spying for both the magic and science "sides," and Misaka Mikoto, one of the level 5 espers) getting involved in various plots involving magic and/or science. "Science versus magic" is an obvious major theme, but also "science and magic." As the series progresses, it steadily moves from isolated incidents to the incidents being part of larger plots to head to war, with both sides trying to control if and hoow that will happen. I've seen some people express concern about whether or not the series is saying Christianity is evil, as many of the antagonists are Catholic or from the Church of England, but I don't get that feeling from it. Various protagonists, both major and minor, are Christian. What's portrayed as corrupt is people with authority but little or no conscious, and zealots who don't don't care who the hut while accomplishing their goals. This applies to both sides of the science and magic divide.
The series is...very much a series for teenaged boys, though the anime dilutes quite a bit of the male-gaze aspect. The books spend a lot of time of girls blushing and being cute, and objectifying Index for her whiteness. By which is mean, her PURE whiteness. Her CUTE innocence. Her REMARKABLE silver hair. Did I mention her PURITY is tied to her whiteness? Repeatedly. There's also the spell that's cast on Index that causes her to lose her memories. This also means that, despite surviving alone and on the run for almost a year when she first shows up, she somehow knows absolutely nothing about, and is afraid of, most technology. Meanwhile, at one point, another character has the same spell cast on them, and only loses memories related to personal experience, not anything related to technology, social skills, etc. While it could be argued that the difference is in part because Index has had the spell cast on her repeatedly, I'm pretty sure it's mostly for the CUTE helplessness. On the flipside, every once in a while, Kamachi goes "You know what? A person who can't use magic herself buts knows every magic spell ever could still seriously mess magic users up in a fight if she wanted to" and runs with that. Not often enough, but sometimes.
So, pretty much, it's a series that has a number of things that annoy me, but also a lot of characters I like, and it does things that I find interesting.
A Certain Scientific Railgun is a spinoff series about Misaka Mikoto and her friends. It...is very much a series for men about girls (girls sexually harassing other girls is "'cute" occurs...a lot) but it's also a series in which girls with a lot of power are competent and allowed to be proud of their powers (and don't have to be brought down because of their arrogance), and in which girls who lack powers, or whose powers are way less impressive than their friends' powers, are also competent and have plenty to contribute. The closest thing it has to a major male character is Touma, who mostly shows up to help establish where we are in the Index timeline. Railgun's first season starts about a month before Index begins, and the second season ends about 3/4 through the first season of Index. Railgun doesn't focus on the magic aspect at all, instead having Mikoto and her friends discover various plots within Academy City in which individuals or organizations are abusing their power/students in the name of Science.
As a warning, both series have times when they can be violent. Sometimes it's just your normal shounen punching/energy bursts while making shounen speeches about the importance of a person/their feelings/whatnot. Sometimes a person's arm is being ripped off by magic or a brainwashed mass murdering sociopath. (I have yet to properly deal with the fact that I mostly both like and sympathize with said sociopath (well, after his introductory arc, at least), since I'm normally the one whose eyes are permanently rolled into the back of her head when fandom is going on about them.)
I've also read the first two volumes of The Zakishi Warashi of Intellectual Village, another "science and magic" series by Kamachi. In this one, mythological creatures exist and are a normal part of society, though they mostly avoid large cities. The main Character, Shinobu, lives in an "Intellectual Village," a modern, technologically advance town modeled after "traditional" Japanese villages. Anyone who lives in an Intellectual Village is technically rich, even if they live a lifestyle that implies otherwise. Because mythological creatures are integrated into society, various people attempts to use modern means to form contracts with them based on folklore. Both volumes alternate between three protagonists. Shinobu, his uncle Uchimaku, a police officer, and Mai, a mercenary considered to be a "monster woman" due to her extreme (and often violent) competence at her job, which mostly involves getting rid of various magic users. Mai's younger sister, Enbi, is obsessed with murder mysteries and has a crush on Uchimaku, and features heavily in his sections. (I can't tell if Uchimaku realizes that she's serious when she comes onto him and pretends he doesn't because she's a teenager, or if he thinks she's just trolling him. Either way, I could do without the crush angle.) Both volumes have the three protagonists having an adventure that appears to be independent of the other characters' adventures, and then ties them together at the end. The titular character is the zashiki warashi of Shinobu's house, who isn't actually featured much. It's even more male gazey than Index, with "cute" traded for "boobies" (and the illustrations are mostly the female characters in revealing clothing and provocative clothes) and so more irritating in that aspect, but interesting enough that I'll keep reading as more volumes are released.