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.

For the most part, the Index series has Kamijou Touma as the viewpoint character, with most of the books being from his perspective. The exceptions we’ve seen are the 5th book, which has a substantial chunk from Accelerator’s POV, and this novel, which has Shirai Kuroko taking center stage, though honestly the way the book is framed also seems to imply that she really shouldn’t be doing this. Not that she isn’t badass and awesome – she does a number of amazing things throughout the book – but the book puts her through even more damage than Touma, and suggests that this is sort of the thing that happens to protagonists. In addition, she and Touma have the same general outlook as to why they’re getting involved, at least when Misaka is involved – protect her worldview. And if Misaka is an optimistic girl who thinks people are basically swell except a few bad apples, then by god it will be so. Which is fine, except Touma is much better equipped to take on said world, which has a lot more to it than Misaka’s clone experiment.

Introduced in this volume: Uiharu Kazari, Kongou Mitsuko (For once I refuse to acknowledge Yen’s official spelling), Musujime Awaki. Technically we’d seen Awaki twice before, but we didn’t know it was her. Continuity-wise… eurgh. This is the volume where it’s very clear that this is being written before A Certain Scientific Railgun has really gotten off the ground – it comes out a full year before the Railgun manga debuts. As such, Uiharu’s characterization seems very odd with her obsession with being ladylike. The “teasing Kuroko” thing is still around, though, and Kuroko still does not react well. This is right around the time Kongou is introduced in the Railgun manga, which is why it sounds like she’s meeting Kuroko for the first time, and talking about Cliques. That said, in the anime, where she’s introduced much earlier, this makes no sense. This is why spinoffs give me a headache. Oh, and Accelerator and Last Order are still in hospital, being watched by Aiho, who it’s revealed here is friends with Yoshikawa Kikyou.

Whenever I’ve discussed Kuroko before, I’ve said I’ll save my beef with her till this review, and here we are. So let’s face it: Kuroko is a “Comedy Lesbian”, something much beloved among Japanese anime and manga authors. Kuroko is a bit more single-focused than many others, but exhibits the same symptoms – a constant desire to get into Misaka’s pants, even if that means sexually assaulting her without her consent. This is OK to the reader because it’s clearly meant as “comedy” scenes, not to be taken seriously, and Misaka always fends her off. It drives me nuts. It particularly drives me nuts as whenever she’s not in that mode, Kuroko is quite a nice character, devoted to keeping the peace as part of the student task force “Judgment”. At least I won’t get as much of it in the novels, where Kuroko is a minor character by dint of simply not being all that involved with Touma.

The storyline itself ties together many of the loose ends from Books 3 and 5, as Awaki helpfully notes, being very much in the “school of villains who love to hear themselves talk’. She is very clearly set up to be a dark counterpart to Kuroko, right down to similar hairstyles and similar powers – they’re both even Level 4! But Awaki’s villainy is based around selfishness and fear, and Kuroko’s heroism, comedy lesbian antics aside, around selflessness and pride. There is much discussion of the powers that Academy City is developing, and how students who are found to have that kind of power really feel about them. There is also a LOT of technobabble, and Kamachi’s flaws as an author sometimes become apparent in that he will get more excited about his worldbuilding than he will about what’s actually going on. That said, the fights in this are top notch, and Accelerator vs. Awaki at the end has a great quotable line.

So another good book for Index fans, and quite short too – I think it’s the shortest in the series to date. Next time won’t be that, though, as we get Index’s first two-book arc, devoted to the Citywide School Athletic Festival.

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.

There is a certain amount of religion in Index, more and more as the series goes on, in fact. The whole point of the Magic side of Index is that it’s made up of various religious factions who are at odds with each other and themselves, and even an Angel has gotten in on the act. That said, I’m not really sure Kanachi has anything deep to say about religion in particular. I think he’s just using the basics as fodder for what he wants to do, which is tell stories where cool things happen. Which is fine, and there’s lots of cool things going on in this volume of Index. I quite enjoyed it. But I also grew up Roman Catholic, and the group of nuns that are introduced here adhere far more to the “Spanish Inquisition” type than the more modern Catholic Church. In fact, the text goes out of its way to say “Roman Orthodox”, and casually says the word Catholic doesn’t really apply to them anymore. Which is true, because what we have here is not a convent, it’s a paramilitary unit.

Introduced in this volume: Laura Stuart, Orsola Aquinas, Agnes Sanctis, Lucia, Angeline, Saiji Tatemiya. Yes, Yen’s translation spells it Agnes, not Agnese. I think that’s fine. For anime and manga readers expecting Itsuwa, she was added to the adaptations but isn’t in the light novel. No worries, she’ll turn up later. This takes place a whole week after Book 6, which is huge in Index terms. for Railgun readers, Misaka’s not in this one, probably as she’s still in California dealing with events in the Railgun SS novel. For Accelerator fans, the Accelerator manga’s start takes place around this time.

Laura Stuart is the most important of the names mentioned above. For all of the amusing “Your Japanese sounds stupid” jokes and occasional dojikko moments she gets, she’s clearly meant to be to the Magic Side what Crowley is to the Science side, i.e. a chessmaster who’s always thinking 10 moves ahead of everyone else. As Stiyl notes, she’s the one who told all those lies about Index that kicked off the series in the first place (a popular fan theory is that she’s Index’s mother, possibly as that makes it much worse), and certainly nothing that happens in these pages seems to surprise her – everything turned out as planned. That said, simply due to her nature and the way she’s written the reader tends to find her more sympathetic than Crowley (who, as we learn here, is likely also a magician in any case).

Much of the volume deals with a grimoire called The Book of the Law, written by Crowley, which is supposed to be undecodable, except Orsola thinks she knows how to decode it. Orsola is basically the one Roman Orthodox nun we meet here who isn’t a villain, and her tendency to underplay horrific injuries and forgive those who have attempted to kill her must surely strike a familiar chord with Touma. As for Agnes and the others, they’re zealots, thinking nothing of lying to Touma and the others about absolutely everything as, well, they’re non-Catholic heathens, so who cares? That said, Touma, who possible has been spoiled for the 11th novel, says he can totally see him being on Agnes’ side later. Touma tends to be on the side of whatever he thinks is right at the time.

There’s more I could discuss, including Index (who once again gets a lot to do) using a whole lot of magic given that she’s someone who supposedly is unable to use magic (I suspect that Laura may be responsible for that as well), but I think this is getting a bit long. Suffice to say this is a strong volume of the Magical Index series that will please its fans, unless they’re hardcore Catholics, in which case please note that Index is to actual religious theory of today what Goofy is to an actual dog.

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.

I’ve talked before about the way that Japanese manga and light novel series have to be planned out from the start with multiple ways to end, depending on popularity. If the series bombs, there’s the fast “wrap it up in 1 volume” ending. If it plays out as a minor hit, you get a medium-sized ending which develops the plot and characters more. and if it’s a big, big hit – as Index was – then you get to start to take out all your chess pieces and shuffle them around the board, confident that you have the time and audience to stretch and let things simmer for a few volumes till you can fire off all your plot guns. With this volume of A Certain Magical Index, we see Kamachi hitting that point. There’s a whole lot here that is relevant to later volumes down the road.

Introduced in this volume: Hyouka Kazakiri, Aiho Yomikawa, Sherry Cromwell. This takes place literally one day after Book 5 (in fact, we see Touma returning to Academy City at the start of this book), so the timelines for the spinoffs are still the same as the previous book.

While I said that this volume has a lot of setup for future plots down the road, a casual reader wouldn’t necessarily know that, as this is Kamachi’s smoothest work to date, with a minimum of bolded words and encyclopedic dissertations on the nature of superpowers. That isn’t to say that they’re absent, of course, but they blend together better with the story proper, as Komoe lectures Touma on diffusion fields while also reminding him of what’s truly important – saving anyone that’s in front of him. (This also leads to the funniest moment in the book, where Mikoto and Index finally meet each other and realize that they’re both “I didn’t ask to be saved but he saved me anyway” girls in Touma’s nonharem.) The absence of Last Order and Misaka Imouto also means there are less weird speech quirks for the translator to deal with.

This is also, for once, an excellent volume for fans of Index herself. She’s used very well here, showing off her childish side but also demonstrating that childish does not mean stupid, as she manages to go head to head with a giant golem for several minutes. She’s also exactly the sort of all-loving friend that someone like Kazakiri needs. Kazakiri herself is an extremely clever idea, but she’s also a sweet kid, and you feel for her when her sense of self is blown out of the water by Sherry Cromwell and her desire to start a war. As for Sherry herself, it strikes me that this is the first Index villain whose main motivation has simply been revenge. It’s also a misplaced revenge – as Touma hints, Sherry really wants to be stopped, but has to let it be known just how insanely dangerous letting the Magic and Science sides intermingle is.

We also see Aleister Crowley again, and he gets to show off his “mwahaha, just as planned” side to a disbelieving Tsuchimikado. As the mastermind behind most of what has gone on in the past several volumes, he’s clearly the Science Side’s final boss. I wonder if he has an equivalent on the magic side? (Foreshadowing: your key to quality literature.) In the end, there’s simply lots for the Index fan to enjoy here. Good fights, Kuroko being cool briefly (and lecherous, but I’m putting off that rant for a bit), Touma managing to stay out of the hospital for once, and, in perhaps the best moment of the book, Touma, turning his catchphrase he uses against antagonists – “I’ll smash that illusion of yours!” – and motivating Kazakiri by showing her that her own illusion “isn’t something that can be broken so easily!”.

It also breaks the even-numbered curse at last. Definitely recommended for Index fans, and those who like superhero books with 87 million characters.