By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

Given the events of the last volume, and the fact that the cover art looks for all the world like a fun romantic comedy, I imagine the average reader went into this book thinking it would be a nice, relaxing volume. And it is… for about the first quarter of the book. Then Acqua of the Back arrives, and everything pretty much goes to hell. But hey, at least this book has Touma and Index in it, right? Well, not so much. Index is once again relegated to comic relief (she even lampshades how useful she WOULD have been after everything has already happened), and Touma is removed from most of the fighting by, yet again, half-fatal injuries. No, this book is about the Amakusa Church, their guilt-driven Saint Kaori Kanzaki, and their #1 Touma fan Itsuwa, who can cook, clean, is pretty with a nice chest, wields a spear magnificently, and loves Touma. In fact, in a series filled with heroines with major faults, her main fault may be not having one.

Introduced in this book: Fiamma of the Right, the “Knight Leader”, and the Third English Princess, whose name I will hold off on till I see how Yen romanizes it. This takes place about three days after Touma and Index get back from France. Touma is starting to worry about his attendance credits, and well he should – he’s barely been in class this semester. We have basically passed all the Index spinoff titles in terms of chronology. There are, of course, several ongoing plot threads from previous books. Itsuwa is dispatched to be Touma’s bodyguard after the events of tBook 14 (and so that the Amakusa Church can try to get them together as a couple, something doomed to failure). Acqua’s threat to Touma a couple books ago is carried out here, and he very nearly succeeds. And Mikoto has found out about Touma’s amnesia, and it’s bothering her, mostly as she’s not sure when it happened.

This book, as with a lot of shonen titles, is about seeing people who are so much better, faster, and stronger than you, and then getting up and fighting anyway because it’s right. Acqua doesn’t care what Touma’s motivations or desires are – his hand is a weapon, and therefore he treats Touma the same way. (Honestly, given the last two members of God’s Right Seat, he’s the least villainous, but that’s only by degree.) Itsuwa and the rest of the Amakusa fight because they know Touma is a good person, right hand or no. And Kaori leaps in to fight because Acqua is about to kill the rest of the Amakusa, and she may be keeping her distance from them but she still wants to protect them. In fact, arguably it’s Kaori who learns the biggest lesson here – no, not Tsuchimikado’s stupid ero maid thing, which made my teeth grind. But you can’t protect the ones you love from the shadows and by pushing them away. It only hurts them more. Seeing Kaori and the Amakusa team up was absolutely the highlight of this book, and I like that for once Touma did not get in the final blow (or even break any illusions), though he certainly made it possible.

It appears we’re going to be focusing on England next time (and watch out for Fiamma describing how to bring the island nation down to its knees in a way that sounds suspiciously similar to a no-deal Brexit). Also, I worry my discussion of the lack of a role for Index and her desire to help more may change for the worse soon – it sounds like Fiamma’s big plan is basically to capture her. In any case, though Kamachi remains as bad as ever at wacky harem antics, this is still an excellent volume of Index.

By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

Last time I said that Index was not in the book at all. Well… she’s not in this book either. More importantly than that, however, is that Touma is entirely absent from this book as well, though one might argue that his presence is felt in terms of the two protagonists who take over for him. In fact, as the series goes on and expands, we’re going to see this more and more. A Certain Magical Index is not just about Touma anymore. And so we have other protagonists that step up. (No, sorry, Mikoto, you aren’t in this one either. But you get the more popular side manga anyway.) The first protagonist should be very familiar to Index readers, as it’s Accelerator, who’s still calling himself a villain and thinking of himself as the worst, despite the fact that he saves more lives in this book than anyone else, and has a guardian and adopted daughter more than willing to lay down their life to stop him going mad and destroying the world. As for the other protagonist, I’m afraid I’m going to have to get EVEN NERDIER than usual.

I’m limiting “Introduced in this volume” only to those who either appear in future books or have an impact on future books. So: Shizuri Mugino, Rikou Takitsubo, Saiai Kinuhata, Frenda (Seivelun), Xochitl, Baba Yoshio, Kakine Teitoku, “Girl in the Dress”, Chimitsu Sunazara, Shiage Hamazura, Hattori Hanzou. The Railgun manga is ongoing, which may explain why Kazari Uiharu gets a bigger role in this book than she ever did before or will again. In terms of timeline, it’s the day after Book 14, so presumably Touma and Index are flying back from France. By the way, I mentioned the Railgun manga. Fans of that series will note that over half the people I just mentioned as debuting in this book had large roles in the ongoing railgun storyline to some degree or another, particularly the members of ITEM. Indeed, Frenda pretty much gets all her development in Railgun, for reasons that will become apparent once you finish Index 15. (She doesn’t even get a last name in this book!) Xochitl too is expanded on quite a bit in that series.

As for the obvious, I told a little white lie in the “this volume” above. Shiage Hamazura and Hattori Hanzou are introduced in the first volume of Index short stories, which came out between Books 13 and 14. Yen Press generally does not license side story volumes, so we’re not seeing this. Fortunately, some of the important stuff is covered in the anime, as it adapted the “Skill Out Uprising” story which introduces Shiage Hamazura and has him confront Touma as a rather two-bit villain. Touma, needless to say, kicks his ass. This happens about 9 days prior to the events in this book, in the long break between Books 13 and 14. At some point after that, Hamazura gets picked up by ITEM and turned into their lackey, which is where we see him in Railgun, and also at the start of this book. (The SS volume also shows us Sasha Kreutsev, who Index readers with long memories will remember had her form used by the villain of the 4th novel.) So while I hate to say “go watch the anime” in my light novel review, go watch the anime.

As for this book, it’s rather hard to review, mostly as I’m coming at it about ten years after it was published, and after the author has spent most of Railgun trying to expand on several of the groups and people introduced here. I have trouble judging if something felt forced or if the reader at the time would shrug and move on. As an example, Mugino going completely berserk and attempting to kill the rest of her team is something that I suspect might have had a reader going “huh, where the heck did that come from?” to someone who is meeting her for the first time here, to the point where Hamazura actually has to spell out her motivations to us in one of his speeches. But fans of Railgun will likely be thinking “I was waiting for her to finally snap, and now it’s happened”.

I’d mentioned Touma was absent here, but he’s very much on the minds of both Accelerator, who puts him on a pedestal that can’t possibly be lived up to, as well as Hamazura, who is inspired by him to actually fight back against a Level 5 for the sake of the girl he loves. (In general Kamachi is not great at writing romance, but I give him props for trying. Hamazura and Takitsubo are pretty cute here, and there are one or two hints dropped before the climax that they like each other.) Most of what occurs here, as with much of Index’s plot lately, is a consequence of the previous volume. In this case, all of Academy City’s heavy hitters being called to Avignon means the villainous groups are running amock. Naturally, our group of villains emerges victorious, meaning it’s the last group standing at the end.

I also want to take the time to praise Uiharu, who only gets about 3 pages to show off her badassery, and gets her shoulder and collarbone dislocated for her troubles, but standing up to the 2nd most powerful person in Academy City, and even sticking her tongue out him? That’s amazing. (I also note that Japan, for some reason, has fanart pairing her and Kakine romantically. To which I have to say: NO.) Also kudos to Yomikawa and Last Order for being able to talk Accelerator down. That said, I suspect that every single person in Academy City knows what his weak point is now, and if I were Last Order I would not feel safe.

There’s little humor in this book, and a lot of action and betrayal. As such, it’s playing on Kamachi’s strengths, and ends up being a quick and exciting read. I would like to check back in on Index next time, though. She is in the title.

By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

It’s hard, as this series goes on, not to feel that we are headed towards a certain point of no return. Indeed, Touma’s job in this book is to try to stop the world from descending into total war, and he only just manages to keep it in check. Both sides, magic and science, are clearly cruising for a bruising, so to speak, and I’m pretty sure that eventually there’s going to be no way to stop everything blowing up. This time around the French city of Avignon is completely destroyed, and though there are attempts to try to say “oh, they’re only knocking people unconscious”, there’s clearly significant innocent casualties. This is not helped by the Roman Cathol… Orthodox Church’s mid control weapon, or the fact that Touma and Accelerator are both used here as the equivalent of nuclear weapons dropped on the enemy. Despite Touma’s best efforts, things are getting worse, not better.

Introduced in this volume: Suama Oyafune, Monaka Oyafume. Terra of the Left also makes his first proper appearance here, though of course it’s also his last. We’re into October now, 3 months after the start of the Index series. Since the last book the Railgun cast has been busy, as most of the Dream Ranker arc has happened, and Saten and Frenda have continued to bond and become good friends. This assumes that you ignore the actual text of Index 14, in which Mikoto sees Uiharu and thinks “oh, that friend of Kuroko’s I don’t know”. On the bright side, in real life, the Index and Railgun mangas have both started, meaning hopefully that continuity will start to match up with them. And don’t worry, Uiharu, I bet you get a big scene soon! We’ve also seen the first Index short story collection come out. These sadly are not licensed by Yen, which is a shame, as sometimes they tie into the plot of the main storyline more than most short story collections. More on that next time. And, most significantly, this is the first volume that has not been made into an anime.

As for this book, Index is completely absent, and it’s Itsuwa who plays the heroine, as you might have guessed from the cover. Aside from the hand towel joke, which has already gotten old (as with almost all jokes the author attempts), I quite like Itsuwa. She’s capable, cute, and clearly meant to contrast with all the girls Touma knows who get angry and hit him at the drop of a hat. When he points out her top has become see-through due to rescuing him from a river, she just blushes and rushes off to change. No surprise that she rapidly became a fan favorite, and we’ll see her back soon. Tsuchimikado is also around in this book, mostly serving as Touma’s backup and deliverer of exposition, although we’ve reached the point in the series where Touma can figure most things out on his own. The plot is, to be honest, slight. Touma is sent to stop a magical maguffin that is causing Roman Orthodox believers to riot and want to destroy Academy City. He does, eventually. The end.

That said, there are important things going on here, not least of which is realizing that Touma’s last name, Kamijou, may be a lot more significant than we had previously expected. Touma’s right hand power, Imagine Breaker, is clearly a giant mystery still, and he hasn’t harnessed most of its power. Terra fo the Left implies that he knew more about it before the memory loss, but I’m not really sure that’s the case. More importantly, thanks to accidentally leaving his cell phone on during a battle, Mikoto also now knows about his memory loss – but not WHEN it happened. Given that she’s been worried lately that he’s been ignoring her, I suspect she thinks he may have forgotten the Sisters arc.

In any case, it looks as if Acqua of the Back, who has proven to be the most reasonable of the antagonists du jour, is up next. Before that, however, we’ll flip back to the Science side, which is having its own chaotic power struggles. Index fans will enjoy this one, although I suspect most of them are looking towards the next volume…