You might be a shounen hero if you're too nice to stray girls, making it so that you just can't catch a break. That's Toma Kamijo's life in a nutshell – ever since he took in fugitive nun Index, his life has been a seemingly unending series of strange events requiring him to fight, and the opening episodes of his second season adventures are no exception. While there is a certain bizarreness to the show's use of the Catholic church as its villain – A Certain Magical Index has an interesting view of nuns, to say the least – the first twelve episodes of A Certain Magical Index II are a fun mix of traditional shounen rom-com elements and plenty of action, even if it still suffers from the clunky pacing of both its previous season and its sister series, A Certain Scientific Railgun.

Toma begins the series pretty much as we left him: a high school student in prestigious Academy City whose ESPer ability is rated at “0,” although it would be fairer to say that he has a very strong nullifying power in his right hand. He's still taking care of Index, a special young nun with the appetite of a Labrador retriever, and he still has a contentious relationship with Mikoto Misaka, the electro-user whose massive crush he is blissfully unaware of. All of this is abruptly shaken up when a magician kidnaps Index from the restaurant they are in, triggering a series of events involving an encoded grimoire and three warring factions of the church. Toma naturally stumbles up Sister Orsola Aquinas, the sweety busty woman who is the focus of all of the contention, getting him involved in the entire mess. Index mostly sits on the sidelines for both this arc and the next one, although she does unleash her Sheol Fear on the gang of killer nuns at one point, leading to one of the more disturbing scenes in the set. Let's just say that when the women whip out fountain pens, they aren't looking to write something. 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. 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.

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. Sister Agnese of the Vatican contingent is clearly missing the lower half of her outfit while later evil magician Oriana hasn't figured out how to button buttons or fasten belts. Actually, given that she's a very sexual character, her misuse of clothing is clearly deliberate; she's just yet another female character who wears her clothing to reveal rather than cover, an odd trend in a show with so many nuns. 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.

Oriana is a much more interesting villain than either Agnese or Musujime, who gets a couple episodes to face off against Kuroko. This is mostly because she so firmly believes that she is doing the right thing. When she messes up and harms civilians, she feels remorse, and when she's discussing her plans with her co-conspirator, she says several times that she honestly believes that their goal is admirable and what is best for Academy City. This ties in well with this set's general theme of power, even small amounts of it, corrupting its users, either emotionally or physically. (Poor Tsuchimikado really bears the brunt of the physical issues.) 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.

Both the English and Japanese tracks contain some very nice acting, with certain voices working better in one language or another. Orsola, for example, sounds a bit breathier when her voice is provided by Mallorie Rodak as opposed to Aya Endō, whereas Jennifer Green's Oriana sounds stronger than Ryōka Yuzuki. Amusingly Monica Rial and Robert McCollum discuss in the commentary for episode two how they did the voices for Index and Stiyl, with McCollum describing Stiyl's voice as his own “plus more a-hole.” 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. Less thrilling is the commentary for episode seven with Kuroko (Alison Viktorin) and Musujime (Bryn Apprill) wherein they discuss horses.

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. Legs suffer the most in both of these cases, with thighs and calves at times only being distinguishable by which side of the knee they're on and some very strange walking and jumping. While the jerky animation mostly goes away by the time we hit the Oriana set of episodes, that's when the art problems become greater.

A Certain Magical Index II's first half feels like it gets stronger as it goes on. 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. Episode twelve ends on a cliffhanger with Oriana, so you're almost certain to want to get your hands on the second half of the season to find out what happens, plus those who enjoy Kuroko will likely get a kick out of her hitting on Misaka's mom. 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.