Toaru Majutsu no Index II anime review
Despite its faults, I liked the first season of Index. It had an interesting backstory that looked at science versus magic, It was a bit inconsistent, but that was parrt of its charm. Every arc was different and interesting in its own way, which always made me guess what it would focus on next. The second season, though… I just can’t call it as good as the first. There were just too many things that feel half-assed.
Index II still follows the format of various arcs, ranging from two to six episodes. It’s just that the short arcs feel too short, and the long arcs feel way too long. This show has become completely unbalanced in the process, and it somehow lost its ability to determine how much time each arc needs. The short arcs still have their own charms in the way that they are concise and to the point. The problem really lies in the long arcs.
In order to fill up space the creators bring up endless strings of fanservice. The fanservice in this series in particular is terrible because it just keeps repeating itself with exactly the same set-up over and over. In just about every episode we are forced to sit through some horribly forced set-up where a guy (most often the male lead Touma) walks into a naked girl. It’s completely pointless, and even worse these scenes are so numerous, poorly timed and written that they just keep destroying the atmosphere that the rest of this show was trying to build up.
Beyond that, though, when you look at the big picture I also just can’t help but wonder what the entire point of this second season was. During most of its arcs, I just get the feeling like the creators are stalling or time and waiting for a hypothetical third season to wrap everything up. The different arcs all accomplish relatively little in both character and setting development. After this series, we hardly learned anything new about the cast of characters, aside from some introductions. Meanwhile, the purpose of most of the arcs in terms of the setting was establishing that the Roman Catholic Church is the enemy. It has completely lost the variety of the first season as well.
It does have its moments where it redeems itself, though. A few arcs are actually quite good, especially the shorter ones, but also near the final episodes the show picks itself up again. Index remains an action series, and when the action does pop up, it can get really good and creative. Purely interms of suspense, there’s nothing wrong with this show. It just fails at telling its story. Have I also mentioned the way that it tends to resort to Deus ex Machina with wrapping up its stories?