A Certain Magical Index: Season One Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

A Certain Magical Index: Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 17, 2014

The very word “luck” seems to at least hint at the vagaries of chance in our lives, but consider the difference between those experiencing good luck versus those undergoing bad luck. Those blessed with a sudden occurrence of good fortune do tend to thank their —well, lucky stars that something wonderful has just happened to them. But those afflicted with less advantageous happenings can sometimes tend to blame something diametrically opposed to “chance”, namely fate. That’s certainly the case with Tōma Kamijō, one of the central characters in A Certain Magical Index. Tōma seems to drift from one unlucky enterprise to the next. These unhappy incidents can vary from interchanges with various people in the series’ setting of Academy City, to more mundane things like tripping on things on the floor, having the electricity turn off (thus spoiling all of his refrigerated food), and any number of other portents of some angry force working its way through his life. That force turns out to actually be part and parcel of Tōma himself, for A Certain Magical Index deals with variously magically empowered individuals who are positioned in echelons based on their level of magical expertise. Tōma is a so- called Level 0, meaning he has absolutely no magical power whatsoever—except for his right arm and hand which contains an ability known as Imagine Breaker. Imagine Breaker allows Tōma to withstand the force of any other person’s magical casting abilities, but unfortunately it also makes Tōma a magnet of sorts for bad luck. It’s a trade off that’s on display from virtually the first moment of A Certain Magical Index, when it initially seems that Tōma is trying to come to the aid of a woman being harassed by a group of thugs. That actually turns out to be a gambit on the part of Tōma, but it quickly backfires when first the thugs start chasing him and then, later, when he’s forced into a showdown with what turns out to be the magically empowered girl. While Tōma is able to withstand her temperamental show of force, Academy City’s electrical grid isn’t, leading to Tōma’s discovery the next morning that all of his refrigerated food has spoiled. That piece of bad luck is shunted to the background when Tōma discovers the odd sight of a young woman, apparently a nun of some kind, hanging off of his balcony railing.

The girl turns out to be part of a mysterious religious order that is part of the Church of England (as strange as that may sound). Her name is Index, an allusion to the fact that she has been more or less implanted with the texts of over a hundred thousand “grimoires,” magical texts that have been outlawed by the Church. Index may be living on borrowed time, something that plays into the series’ overall mythology as well as the relationship between the young novice and Tōma.

There’s a potent subtext here pitting science against religion, though it’s in a completely peculiar and I would argue unique context. In Academy City magicians can attain their powers through various means, either through scientific methods or more organically through genetics or quasi-religious practices like meditation. The fact that magic is the overarching phenomenon that both unites and divides science and religion gives A Certain Magical Index a really interesting ambience.

Despite an obviously dramatic thread running through the series, as well as a frankly rote tendency to rely on showdowns in any given episode, A Certain Magical Index is also goofily humorous quite a bit of the time. This can play out in any number of ways, including a lot of schtick laden material dealing with Tōma’s tendency to stumble from one unlucky enterprise to the next.

A Certain Magical Index may actually be more successful in some of the dramatic strands running through the series, however, including quasi-historical arcs that play out. While Index may be a secret acolyte (and maybe something more) of the Church of England, there are also allusions to Roman Catholic “history” that may remind some of a kind of ersatz Dan Brown in anime. This is a series that tends to exploit an arcane and cumbersome language, full of spells and powers and pseudonyms (perhaps nom de magicien?) that almost require a flowchart at times.

The series takes a somewhat darker (and perhaps more interesting) turn several episodes in with a subplot involving Mikoto Misaka (who is featured in this anime’s sibling A Certain Scientific Railgun: Complete Season 1), kind of a second lead here whose arc injects a science fiction edge to the proceedings. Unfortunately, this is once again in the guise of an epochal showdown, a trend that A Certain Magical Index tends to fall into a few too many times.

A Certain Magical Index: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Certain Magical Index Season One is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a solid if modest looking presentation, one that can only do so much with the series' at times minimalist design aesthetic. Colors are okay looking, and the series exploits a nice range of tones on the blue end of the spectrum to good effect, but a lot of A Certain Magical Index fails to pop overly vividly. One of the best things about the animation, and the high definition presentation, are some cutaways that suddenly inject whole new and often quite interesting styles (contrast screenshot 1 and 15 for a good example). Line detail is strong and there are no instability issues.

A Certain Magical Index: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Certain Magical Index offers the original Japanese language track via Dolby TrueHD 2.0 and an English dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The 5.1 mix significantly opens up the series' use of sound effects, which can include the crackle of electricity or booming explosives. There are typically hyperbolic moments in dialogue scenes as well, with sudden spikes in amplitude when one character or the other goes a little berserk. Everything is well prioritized and there's pleasing dynamic range throughout the series.

A Certain Magical Index: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Episode 3 Commentary features Monica Rial, Jad Saxton and Micah Solusod.


• Episode 6 Commentary features Zach Bolton, Rob McCollum, and Cole Brown.

Disc Two:

• Episode 14 Commentary features Brittney Karbowski, Austin Tindle and Micah Solusod.

Disc Three:

• Episode 23 Commentary features Monica Rial, Stephanie Young and Alexis Tipton.


• Textless Opening Songs:

  PSI-Missing (1080p; 1:32)

  Masterpiece (1080p; 1:32)

• Textless Closing Songs:

  Rimless - Fuchinashi no Sekai (1080p; 1:32)

  Chikaigoto - Sukoshi Dake Mou Ichido (1080p; 1:32)

• US Trailer (1080p; 1:05)

A Certain Magical Index: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Certain Magical Index is a really fun and involving anime with nicely distinctive characters and an underlying mythology that, while needlessly dense at times, at least gives the series a unique flavor. The uneasy combination between slapstick and some of the dramatic aspects of the series tend to make it a bit of a tonal mishmash at times, but overall the show maintains a consistent level of interest. A tendency to get into "showdown of the week" mode hobbles the series at times, but there are frequently so many subplots unfolding simultaneously that it's perhaps less of a problem than it would be otherwise. The show has some interesting design elements, but the more traditional looking animation style is less so. Recommended.