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REVIEW: A Certain Magical Index II BD+DVD


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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 5521
PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:33 pm Reply with quote
less than stellar animation? Huh. I haven't watched this in awhile but I remember this show being pretty top tier for a TV anime when it aired
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KidOblivion



Joined: 18 Feb 2014
Posts: 179
PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:45 pm Reply with quote
The second half that mostly focuses on Accelerator makes the pacing of the first half worth it in my opinion. The anime did a great job in showing how much he changed and his internal struggle with him trying to forgive himself. Also, the Invasion arc is my favorite arc in Index besides the last arc of the first series, which is a spoiler within itself.

I rather enjoyed the first half though, I honestly like Micah as Touma more than the Japanese Seiyuu, and Monica Rial got a lot better at voicing Index than the first season. Tindle as Accelerator is still an interesting choice. It's not even fair comparing it to the Seiyuu, one of my favorites, so I won't, but Tindle does a great job in my opinion.
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Princess_Irene
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 1:35 pm Reply with quote
Kougeru wrote:
less than stellar animation? Huh. I haven't watched this in awhile but I remember this show being pretty top tier for a TV anime when it aired


It mostly was, which made the wonky stuff stand out even more.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 2:05 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Although it is not mentioned, this may be a reference to Amakusa Shiro, a 17th century Japanese Christian considered a saint by some in his homeland, although he is not acknowledged as such by the church at large. While this is probably not the show in which to find symbolism, it is still perhaps worth noting that they are fighting a group from Rome.


Almost certainly intentional as Kamachi does toss other references in. I think he uses a pretty generous amount of symbolism for a LN author also.

Quote:
This ties in well with this set's general theme of power, even small amounts of it, corrupting its users, either emotionally or physically.


Going to disagree strongly with this being a theme. I think the theme in this set and the rest of Index is that blind devotion clouds moral judgement and logical thinking. Specifically for this set though, it makes even less sense to say it is 'power' as for these episodes the characters with the most of it are actually the least corrupt. The characters who are the least corrupt in this set are also the ones that think for themselves and make their own choices.

Really I'd say that the theme is that those who are just blindly devoted to their religion/science become corrupted in that they can't make their own moral choices which results in them hurting others despite religion and science being there for the purpose of improving people's lives. And Touma essentially breaks that blind devotion by punching people in the face which somehow forces them to face reality (well one arc I guess Kuroko stole Touma's speech and Accel stole his punch to the face).

Quote:
Only Toma is exempt from this corruption, possibly because his power is to take away power, nullifying not only magic or ESPer skills, but also the results of using them.


That last part is incorrect. He does just nullify the super natural and he can't nullify their results which is why for example when he had to fight Accelerator in S1 he couldn't use his hand on any of the things Accel shot out at him, the explosion, or the plasma even though Accel did them all with his power. There does seem to be an exception for Mikoto's railgun, but I guess that is because it is from the first book before Kamachi new it would get serialized and he didn't decide on the rules yet.
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 8:12 pm Reply with quote
I've only read the highlighted quote on the front of the site and I can't stop laughing. Index can be said to be many things, however 'romcom' is just about the furthest thing from it.
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Zalis116
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 12:37 am Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:
Kougeru wrote:
less than stellar animation? Huh. I haven't watched this in awhile but I remember this show being pretty top tier for a TV anime when it aired


It mostly was, which made the wonky stuff stand out even more.
Or did we just wind up with the TV version with errors that might've been fixed on the Japanese disc release?
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OH&S



Joined: 15 Jul 2013
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 1:36 am Reply with quote
On the whole, I think Rebecca has been quite generous with the grading for this first half. There are a few things worth commenting on though:

Quote:
What is more interesting about this segment is that one of the sects involved is the Amakusa group. Although it is not mentioned, this may be a reference to Amakusa Shiro, a 17th century Japanese Christian considered a saint by some in his homeland, although he is not acknowledged as such by the church at large.


And indeed it is. The Index series has quite a lot these. This is because the Idol Theory that dictates how magic works in the franchise is directly reliant upon history, religion and mythology.

Quote:
While this is probably not the show in which to find symbolism, it is still perhaps worth noting that they are fighting a group from Rome.


Why is there any particular need to note this? Its called the Roman Catholic Church; of course they're from Rome.

Quote:
One striking feature of all of the arcs on these discs is the fact that many of the female characters appear not to know how clothes work.

...

In Oriana's case, as well as that of Kaori or poor Fukiyose's breasts, the fanservice is forced but otherwise unremarkable. In the case of Agnese the nun, who gets a bath scene and panty shots, some viewers may feel uncomfortable.


Laughing Actually, outside of the forced fanservice moments in the series there are only a handful of characters that wear such revealing clothes most of the time. Oriana obviously does it purposely because she enjoys it. Kaori has revealing clothes due to the kind of magic she uses; though she's given a lot of flack by Kamijou because of it.

As for viewers feeling uncomfortable, this series is one of my all time favourites and yet even I feel uncomfortable by the forced fanservice scenes shown in this set. This story covered in this set contains the most fanservice in it out of the entire Index (LN) series. Its really annoying Mad . Luckily, there's not a lot of it left before it gets completely drowned out by the action and plot.

Quote:
This ties in well with this set's general theme of power, even small amounts of it, corrupting its users, either emotionally or physically.


I didn't see this as the general theme at all; though in general this is true for the esper side. There is a stigma amongst the students in Academy City that Level 3 espers is the best Level ability to have as level 4s and level 5s are birds which are flying too high for their own good. One only needs to look at the 6 Level 5s that have been revealed. Only Mikoto (okay, maybe spoiler[Gunha] as well) was lucky enough to live a somewhat normal life (minus the superpowered adventures obviously Wink ). And even she was brought to the breaking point in the Sisters Arc.

Quote:
Only Toma is exempt from this corruption, possibly because his power is to take away power, nullifying not only magic or ESPer skills, but also the results of using them. On the other hand, it does occasionally feel like Toma has a perma-cheat card, since there is virtually no problem that he cannot solve by touching it with his right hand.


This is entirely the anime's fault. Even just comparing the anime to the LNs, Kamijou has an incredibly hard time fighting against his oponents because of how restricted his ability is; I mean he gets sent to the hospital every arc for a reason. The anime makes it seem like he's just randomly running around and swinging his fist.

Quote:
While the show generally has animation that varies between “above average” and “average,” it does suffer from some moments of stilted movement and off-model character designs.


There's some production issues which are behind this. Its quite a story as well. I think we can just say JC-STAFF and Hiroshi Nishikiori and call it a day. Wink

Quote:
While it can at times be irritating that an action sequence will be interrupted by shounen rom-com schtick such as Toma walking in on someone (with or without sparkly mist censoring) or falling between a girl's legs with his face in her boobs, it is still an entertaining time in front of the TV.


Thankfully, the series get magnitudes better in regards to this. Problem is that the part where this happens isn't animated yet. That's why the entire fanbase is practically shouting at ASCII to make Index III; it essentially drops the rom-com and fanservice aspects completely and goes into much more intense action and a grand escalation of events.

Quote:
Index II isn't perfect by any means, but it still is a nice combination of action and silliness. If you enjoyed the first season, chances are you'll like this.


And that's literally the bottom line. Cool
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Princess_Irene
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:19 am Reply with quote
Wow, okay, I guess I'm the only one who saw the power thing as a theme. Laughing Probably something to do with reading too much J. Hillis Miller for (other) work.

OH&S, I mentioned Rome specifically because of the fact that Rome doesn't acknowledge Amukusa Shiro as a saint, while Japanese Christians do. I thought it was symbolically interesting, but that's from a strictly research-based perspective, since I'm not Christian. As for the nun fanservice, I do have a couple of religious friends who get uncomfortable with that, which is why I even bothered to mention it - honestly, I think most anime fans have seen much worse.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 12:38 pm Reply with quote
Rebecca Silverman wrote:
They also spend a lot of time discussing the difficulties of matching mouth flaps in general, making this a good track to listen to if you've ever wondered about the process and how it influences both writing a script and acting it.


Hopefully this will give those annoying dub haters to back off of the reason why funi had kuroko use the term "sissy" instead of "sister" or "oni-chan". besides they wouldnt sound right at all either way.


Quote:
− Pacing can feel clunky at times, some less than stellar art and animation moments throughout. Comedy at times feels like it interrupts the action unnecessarily, nun fanservice may bother some viewers.


I wouldnt necessary say that. it would only offend those serious religious types but their very few to say the least while the majority of us wont even take that fanservice on since its technically a psuedo harem series to say the least.

also the comedy is fine otherwise if they didn't, it would have felt like if their forcing to take the whole series too seriously which is what the LN felt like for some so you cant blame the animators to mix in the comedy and fanservice at times.

also the only real fanservice in that series is unfortunately touma getting himself in extremely compromising situations. and of course he is completely clueless which have been the MO for male leads for harem series. at least he's no Issei Hyoto which is a relief to say the least or a complete spacecase like Ichika from Infinite Stratos.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2401
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2014 2:08 pm Reply with quote
OH&S wrote:
I didn't see this as the general theme at all; though in general this is true for the esper side. There is a stigma amongst the students in Academy City that Level 3 espers is the best Level ability to have as level 4s and level 5s are birds which are flying too high for their own good. One only needs to look at the 6 Level 5s that have been revealed. Only Mikoto (okay, maybe spoiler[Gunha] as well) was lucky enough to live a somewhat normal life (minus the superpowered adventures obviously Wink ). And even she was brought to the breaking point in the Sisters Arc.


But she said even small amounts which means it isn't really true for the esper side. The majority of the population of the city are espers and the majority of them are not shown to be corrupt by their power. Even among level 5s, the only ones I think that ever really got corrupt by it are 1, 2, and 4. #5 certainly plays around with it, but I wouldn't call that corrupt really.

Princess_Irene wrote:
OH&S, I mentioned Rome specifically because of the fact that Rome doesn't acknowledge Amukusa Shiro as a saint, while Japanese Christians do. I thought it was symbolically interesting, but that's from a strictly research-based perspective, since I'm not Christian.


Also the Amakusa acknowledge Kaori who in universe is a saint but isn't with the roman catholics.

jr0904 wrote:
Hopefully this will give those annoying dub haters to back off of the reason why funi had kuroko use the term "sissy" instead of "sister" or "oni-chan". besides they wouldnt sound right at all either way.


I haven't heard Index II dub yet, but there is plenty wrong with the Raildex dubs besides what word they decided to use to translate a word that doesn't really have a true, naturally sounding equivalent.
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SquadmemberRitsu



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1391
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:56 pm Reply with quote
I find it really confusing how the quality of the commentary tracks on Funi releases can differ so much.

For example on the Baka and Test S2 release one of the early episodes had Jamie Marchi and Brina Palencia in the booth. Since they both have had major roles working on the dub since Season 1 they had a lot to talk about. They drifted off topic ocasionally but it was still really good and I was even able to learn a little bit about the whole dubbing process.

One of the later episodes had two of the engineers in the booth. Unfortunately, they had only worked on the second half of S2 so they had no idea what was going on in the episode. They just talked about Sgt Frog, general engineer stuff and J Michael Tatum's podcast the entire time in between awkward periods of complete silence. It was really, really boring
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Tylerr



Joined: 13 Nov 2010
Posts: 475
PostPosted: Sat Dec 06, 2014 12:54 pm Reply with quote
rom-com?

I don't know about the novels but from the anime touma shows almost zero romantic interest in her, it feels more like a brother\sister relationship.
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SilverTalon01



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 07, 2014 2:51 am Reply with quote
Tylerr wrote:
rom-com?

I don't know about the novels but from the anime touma shows almost zero romantic interest in her, it feels more like a brother\sister relationship.


While I agree Index isn't really rom-com, the main character showing pretty much zero romantic interest in the female characters doesn't mean it can't be rom-com. In fact for LN based stuff, I don't think that is even all that rare.
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jr240483



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 3:39 am Reply with quote
Tylerr wrote:
rom-com?

I don't know about the novels but from the anime touma shows almost zero romantic interest in her, it feels more like a brother\sister relationship.


that's was kinda obvious is more of the big brother/little sister kind.

dont be surprised later on in the light novels,the author decides to have those two as siblings.

Also for one thing as with the usual harem male leads, he's completely clueless. sure he's no ichika from infinite stratos but clueless nevertheless.

the other thing is that index have to be like 9 or 10 yrs old (though her actual age is unkown as of yet).

that is definitely lolicon tendure which i highly doubt he have any interest in. he's a guy but he's no issei.

if there was any girl i would think he would have an interest in later on it would be misaka. especially considering there are some signs of that in the railgun manga.
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Princess_Irene
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:06 am Reply with quote
jr0904 wrote:

if there was any girl i would think he would have an interest in later on it would be misaka. especially considering there are some signs of that in the railgun manga.


That's actually more what I was thinking of in terms of actual romance, especially since she seems interested in him. When I used "rom-com," I meant it less in terms of actual romance and more as in the basic set up of the genre - the way all the girls (and their pertinent parts) are thrown at him while he's generally hapless/clueless.
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