Not a Review: To Aru Majutsu no Index
J.C. Staff’s track record for well done light novel adaptations isn’t exactly stellar. Actually, as of late, their track record for anything good at all hasn’t been all the great. Yet, despite a history of failure, I still come back and partake of whatever they have to offer, even if it does turn out to be mind-numbingly generic and boring.
Thankfully, To Aru Majutsu no Index is something of a success. That said, it still manages to be rather flawed, but in the end it’s time well spent. One of the show’s most egregious failings is its pacing–it is at times, absolutely terrible. The show’s opening six episode arc is needlessly time consuming, dwelling for long periods on paragraphs upon paragraphs of boring, needless exposition that just doesn’t work in the context of a 20-minutes-per-week television program. In one of these episodes, there is only about three scenes, one of them focused entirely on one area for a majority of the running time–that’s embarrassingly unprofessional direction. However, this terribly uneven, slow and sloppy pacing fixes itself as the show progresses, and only rears its head every now and again.
Another slight failing of the show is in its writing, which isn’t entirely J.C. Staff’s fault, and more the fault of original light novel author Kamachi Kazuma. There are a number of arcs in which the goal is unclear, and times when the pieces of the story just don’t match up. One other big failing of the writing is that Kamachi is one of those writers who just loves coming up with characters. As a result, we have a bunch of interesting characters but not enough time for all of them. For example, the titular Index is only really instrumental in the show’s terrible opening episodes, and after this is pushed aside for whatever other new character Kamachi has come up with. This lack of restraint is, once again, terribly unprofessional. That said, Kamachi’s plots present some very good and interesting ideas–they’re just handled very amateurishly. Similarly, all his characters are creatively moé, but like I said, they only get a few minutes to shine. A pity, really.
One thing that really helps the show is really stellar production values. Haimura Kiyotaka’s designs are rendered in loving detail frame after frame, and when there is action, it moves very well. There is also great care taken in the background art to present a realistic and deep environment in which these characters inhabit, and the lighting tends to be quite nice, too. And, of course, the great amount of fanservice–both sexual and non-sexual–is pulled of quite well.
To Aru Majutsu no Index isn’t really show I’d recommend to anyone unless they’re already a fan of such things, and in that case they’ve probably watched it already. It was a fine show to watch on a weekly basis, but I probably wouldn’t watch it again.
Whenever someone asks me if they should watch Index, I tell them “if you’re ready to see exposition after exposition after exposition, sure go ahead”.
Which is pretty much the series, imho.
And I LIKE expositions, so don’t take it the wrong way.
Don’t forget the occassionally awesome directing, like the amazing scene from episode 3… though I seem to be the only one who cared about it.
What the hell does expositin mean? >.>
Hiroshi Nishikiori is one of my favorite directors, thanks to series like Tenshi ni Narumon, Azumanga Daioh, the criminally underrated Boukyaku no Senritsu and Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo. Hell, I even enjoyed Ayakashi Ayashi, which is probably Bones’ biggest failure yet. So I had high hopes for this show, especially because it was animated by JC Staff, where Nishikiori usually does his best work.
However, Toaru Majutsu no Index ended up being my pick for most disappointing show of 2008. First of all, the source material is terrible. Kazuma Kamachi may have some clever ideas, but his dialogue and story structure are so bad that even talented writers like Seishi Minakami (Paranoia Agent, Shigurui) and Satoru Nishizono (NHK ni Youkoso) couldn’t make decent scripts out of the novels.
The overlong expository conversations aren’t even the worst part of it. I shudder at the thought of enduring another of Touma’s clichéd hero speeches or another character with an annoying, “quirky” speech pattern like “girl who narrates her lines as if she’s writing prose” or “guy who always starts sentences with an adverb”.
On the other hand, the show looked beautiful and JC Staff did a consistently great job animating it, especially in the action sequences. Anyway, I’m hoping Nishikiori finds a project more deserving of his talent instead of wasting his time working on the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun spin-off or the seemingly inevitable Index sequel.
To Aru is BORING, even for cliche shounen standarts, however the porn doujins are pretty nice, I’ll admit that.
>>The overlong expository conversations aren’t even the worst part of it. I shudder at the thought of enduring another of Touma’s clichéd hero speeches or another character with an annoying, “quirky” speech pattern like “girl who narrates her lines as if she’s writing prose” or “guy who always starts sentences with an adverb”.
I dunno, I liked these parts
to me i lke,have somer problem but to me left good impression,good no have emos.touma talks to much but have style.