Toaru Majutsu no Index III

Touma Kamijou can't catch a break. After the invasion of Academy City, political tensions continue to rise as both the science and magic factions collide head on. It appears that Academy City intends to declare war against the Roman Catholic Church, consequently plunging the whole world into global warfare. Touma soon finds himself on the front lines once again, striving to protect his friends and allies.

Toaru Majutsu no Index III serves as the last installment of the original franchise as Touma, Accelerator, and the true Level 0 Shiage Hamazura continue their separate journeys, leading up to the final act of the original light novel series.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Accelerator Main

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Kamijou, Touma Main

Abe, Atsushi Japanese

Hamazura, Shiage Main

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Misaka, Mikoto Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Shirai, Kuroko Supporting

Arai, Satomi Japanese

Last Order Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Index Librorum Prohibitorum Supporting

Iguchi, Yuka Japanese

Kanzaki, Kaori Supporting

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Uiharu, Kazari Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Tsuchimikado, Motoharu Supporting

Katsu, Anri Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Miki, Kazuma Producer

Isogai, Noritomo Producer

Reviews

Nov 18, 2025

Animablisher

Recommended

"Overhated!" I say.
Truly an overhated season.

At this point in time, it's no secret that Index III is one of the most hated sequels to exist. There are good reasons for the hate, but... let's not make it sound as if it's a crime against animation.

Now for the elephant in the room:

"Pacing Issues."

J.C. Staff, for some damn reason, decided to compress 6 arcs into 26 episodes. People were maaaad. How DARE J.C. Staff do that to our beloved Toaru series? Unacceptable! They cut sooo much details, off-screened so many fights, and so on and so forth.
...
The reason Index III is so overhated is because of LN readers. Keep in mind that they had been waiting for 7 years for their precious books to be adapted into a new season. The only thing that came out between Index II and III is Railgun S. You can imagine how disappointed they were upon the release of Index III. They were shocked to see the adaptation butcher sooo many things, including the characters. A lot of context behind the motivations and developments of characters have been cut or rushed.
The reality sucks, but... despite the massive compromises, the actual character developments are good, doing the bare minimum of explaining the reasons behind them.

Basically, Index III focuses on the "what" rather than the "why and how." The majority of this season runs at 3x speed, which is crazy to me.

Here's a hot take: the pacing isn't as bad as people make it out to be.
While watching, I never really had any trouble understanding the happenings, except for a few cases where the meaning was vague or nonsensical.
I do have lots of issues, though. More on those later.

Despite the rushed nature of Index III, I can proudly say I'm glad to have watched this. My main gripe with the previous seasons of Index was the missed potential. The third season of Index, however, finally capitalizes on all of that potential and takes advantage of everything that has ever been introduced so far.

Touma's memory loss, the Dark Side of Academy City, God's Right Seat, the true form of Imagine Breaker, Aleister's plans, Accelerator's character arc, the counter-thesis to the Sisters arc, the introduction of two new Level 5s (one of them already appeared in Railgun S), and just expanding on the world of Toaru in general. The season goes all out on all cylinders.

Index III consists of:
•Document of Constantine arc (1-3)
•Battle Royale arc (4-6)
•Acqua of the Back arc (7-9)
•British Royal Family arc (10-14)
•DRAGON arc (15-17)
•WWIII arc (18-26)

I must say, despite rushing the hell of these arcs, they somehow managed to maintain a solid quality for the most part. A LOT of compromises have been made, but the final product hit where it needed to hit.

Starting off with my favorite arc, Battle Royale! Some people consider it the most butchered arc (from a LN vs Anime perspective). For me though, as an anime-only watcher, I think this might be the best arc. It is a very fast arc, the fastest one in Index III, but I don't think that hurts the experience. Do you know why? Because... it's in the name! Battle Royale! It really feels like a battle royale because of its 3x speed pacing. So many Dark Side organizations are roaming around Academy City trying to kill each other, while GROUP (the organization which Accelerator became part of in season 2) is doing the same, running around putting a stop to them. One moment they're fighting SCHOOL, and in the next they're fighting BLOCK, and then MEMBER just shows up out of nowehere being like, "Ha Ha Ha! No, fuck you! I am not from SCHOOL, I am from MEMBER!"
I get it. LN is better. You don't have to tell me that. I fully realise that this arc lacks sooo much context. Even I could see that while watching. But... I don't think the full detailed context is required for the arc to be understandable. Do you know why? Because I'm already a die-hard for GROUP and the chemistery of its members. Even when the anime doesn't tell me what's happening, I just know what is happening. Call it a fan's intuition if you will.
By the end of the arc, I already had a grasp on everything that happened. SCHOOL sparks the whole conflict, BLOCK think themselves so clever by plotting against Aleister, MEMBER is doing its own shit to get to Unabara, GROUP is trying to maintain the whole situation, Uiharu suddendly becomes a badass suicidal girl, and AcceleGoat goes unga bunga against my new favorite Level 5.
It's simple, really.
My point here is that I think it's fun going through an arc at 3x speed and using my thick skull to wrap my head around everything.
I'm NOT justifying the rush, I'm just arguing against the claims that the arc is "inapprehensible."
THERE IS some basic context behind the plot. It just goes by so fast.

Let me give you a pro tip to enhance your average experience of watching Index III:
After finishing each episode, take a moment to rewind through it and pick up on any name drops, expositional dialogues, and such. Try NOT to advance to a next episode without fully grasping your head on a current one.
Personally, what I always do for every anime I watch is taking notes after every episode I finish. This might be why I love Battle Royale arc so much, as I applied the same approach on the Toaru series.

My argument in favor of the pacing also applies to the other arcs, except for British Royal Family and WWIII. Those two... have issues.

Document of Constantine arc is fairly solid. It is the first arc of Index III, straighforward in its plot, and sets a good tone for the whole season. Touma gets commisioned by Tsuchimikado to travel to France and destroy the titular document, as the Church of England believes it to be the source of the concurrent French protests against Academy City.
The only aspect that was butchered in this arc is the tension between Academy City and France. This aspect is never really touched on, because the focus is on Touma's fight against Terra of the Left, a member of God's Right Seat who tries to stop Touma from breaking the illusion of that cursed document.
Additionally, Itsuwa the Waifu appears in the arc. Did she get a glow-up? I could swear she looked different in Index II!
I don't have much to say here. It is a basic arc that comes and goes without any major crazy stuff happening, so the content doesn't feel rushed.

Acqua of the Back (not Rear) arc is also solid. It might be my second or third favorite arc. This arc also features a very unique location within Academy City at night that I've never seen before. It is very beautiful. This is an example of what I was talking about when saying "expanding on the world of Toaru."
The characterization is probably the highlight of this arc. Chronologically, Touma and Misaka never had any meaningful exchange ever since the Sisters arc, so this arc is a big deal in pushing their relationship (not a romantic one) forward. I love Misaka's inclusion here and having her serve a purpose (finally).
Acqua gotta be one of the most mentally-stable individuals from the magic side. His characterization is the best out of all God's Right Seat members.
My only disappointment is the fight against him. Its resolution is off-screened. Lame...
Regardless, just like the first arc, I have no major issues to add here.

DRAGON arc is the most interesting one. The name is first referenced at the end of Battle Royale. The capitalized name implies it's a Dark Side organization, but the truth is more complicated. The big plot of the arc is discovering what is this mysterious DRAGON. Why is it off-record, why are the higher-ups so secretive about it, and why does anyone who tries to find it get wiped from existence?
The arc follows GROUP as they do everything they can to survive from enemies and betrayals, while hunting down DRAGON and reaching its root. Add to that the fact that this is the arc where the indentity of GROUP's mastermind, a member of the Board of Directors, is revealed.
I love how, in this arc, GROUP turn from the hunters to the hunted, forcing them to fight for survival, while also trying to find answers.
The arc is so chaotic and full of tension, making you think that DRAGON is gonna be some tough big enemy with an insane fight. However, the moment DRAGON really pulls up on GROUP, everything becomes irrelevant. That moment becomes the point of no return. At that moment, you know that shit just got real. The conclusion of the arc gives me the chills.
(DRAGON is everywhere, guys! It's even behind you right now!!)

So, 4 out of 6 arcs are really good.
My problems lie within British Royal Family and WWIII. The best way to describe those two is:
"Big L for Toaru."

British Royal Family arc consists of 5 episodes.
I am confused as to why it even needs 5? I'd argue it's the least important arc in Index III, and yet it gets 5 episodes, and it doesn't even do much with them.
I think the issue here is the mentality behind adapting the arc. Index III was clearly facing production issues, and for some reason the director tried to stretch the arc to make it feel like the average non-rushed toaru arcs from previous seasons.
It should not have been treated like this. It should have been THE arc to be rushed, as it's really just a bridging gap between Acqua's arc and WWIII. The main plotline of this arc is that Princess Carissa sparks a rebellion against her family (for [SPOILERS] reasons) after the eurotunnel was bombed. Meanwhile, Fiamma of the Right, a member of God's Right Seat, is taking advantage of the conflict which HE started to steal a mythical artifact that will help him achieve his goals in WWIII.
Fiamma barely appears during this arc, only showing up at the end and being like "Ha Ha. I sparked the conflict. I got what I wanted off-screen. Bye now.)
I'm not saying the arc is not important, I'm just saying that it should have been at the bottom of priorities of the production committee. It was never destined to work. The only way to save it was to rush it in 3 episodes.
Sadly, they never did that. The result is a filler arc where barely anything meaningful happens, and production resources were wasted.
Its first episode is a filler, by the way. It is fully dedicated to Touma's trip to Britain in a plane. The episode follows a terrorism attempt plotline, but I'd say it wasn't worth it.
To make things worst, there are many scenes throughout the arc which were really unnecessary and resource-wasting. Examples are the feast scene, the fight against the magical golem under the castle, chasing New Light (British version of Academy City's Dark Side), fan service, and many more. Such scenes were really stretched, while the important scenes were rushed as hell.
What the hell happened here?
Priorities, people! Priorities!

The arc isn't bad, but I'm just trying to address the criticisms against the pacing of Index III.
It really should have been compressed and freed from all of the bloat, focusing only on addressing the tension between France and Britain, and quickly moving on to DRAGON.
Two of its episodes could have been spared for Battle Royale or DRAGON. Sadly, that never happened.

Finally, there's WWIII arc, the final arc that comes right after the conclusion of DRAGON.
For those who don't know, this is the big finale of the current Toaru adaptation! It is the final arc in the original Toaru series now dubbed as "Old Testament."

In my opinion, WWIII is a mixed bag. It did many things right as much as it did many things wrong. Not from a writing aspect, but from a production aspect. This is the arc where all of the cracks of Index III start manifesting. The production value takes a major hit, many moments that should have been highlights leave a lot to be desired, the direction is abysmal, characters like Misaka are either sidelined or reduced to one-dimentional statues, the whole conflict between Russia and Academy City is reduced to a background component that isn't directly addressed, important scenes were rushed while useless ones were stretched, and even the big fight against Fiamma was very lacking.
To me, this arc is what I call a disappointment. If given the priority and proper direction, it would have been the best Toaru arc, and I would have not hesitated to give the season a higher rating.

WWIII feels far from an actual world war. I wasn't expecting a military documentay, rather I was expecting the "war factor" to be the central driving force. Sadly, it is not. We see Academy City military planes and Russian tanks, but the main plot is completely disconnected from them.

For some damn reason, the production committe decided to, once again, waste resources on the fights that don't matter, such as one fight against an angel, and dragging out the fight for two episodes!
Meanwhile, the important fights took a major hit in quality. Actually, it wasn't really JUST the quality's fault, it was also the mediocre direction. Because of it, the standout scenes barely have any unique frames that I can call good.

There are two big standout scenes in my opinion (there could have been more, but... you know... rushed season):

•Accelerator VS [SPOILER CHARACTER]: Ooh man! this one comes out of fucking nowehere and I was NOT expecting such an encounter to occur! Anyways, the fight itself is not directed in a good a way. Well... I know there's no way a Level 4 can put up a good fight against THE Level 5 Accelerator, but still...
It's not just about fighting, it's about the tension in the scene. The direction did a poor job conveying the needed tension.
However, it is a decent fight regardless.
The real highlight is what comes after, as Accelerator just completely loses it! It is EPIC! It isn't a cinematic scene, but It is full of character because of the writing and voice acting that carry it so hard!

•Accelerator VS Touma (Round 2): This is something that I have always wanted, a second heart to heart therapy session between TouMan and AcceleGoat. The scene does have better animation compared to all of this arc's fights, but... once again, the direction gets in the way. It is very stiff and rough around the edges. It is very much like... a random encounter, rather than the big ideal destined encounter I was hoping for.
I'd say the first fight against the Level 4 is better.

The animation itself might be lackluster throughout the longest two arcs (British Royal Family and WWIII), but thankfully other aspects of production were not butchered.

The soundtrack is as great as usual. I'm glad they also used tracks from previous seasons, and I think that deserves recognition because Railgun S did not do that (boooooo!!)

Additionally, the OPs are FIIIIIRE!
I'm not even exaggerating when saying that they're the best Toaru OPs, even better than Railgun! (I'm a Railgun fanboy by the way) All the budget, for some reason, went to these two OPs.

The first one - Gravitation, is used from EP01 to EP17, and it features all of the characters that appear all the way until DRAGON. Though, rest assured that it features NO spoilers. All of the scenes featured are fake (kind of), so feel free to blast the hell out of it all the way. It's so damn beautiful in terms of both the vocals and visuals! I love that J.C. Staff uses CGI for Academy City. I think they only used CGI windmills in previous seasons? maybe? and started using CGI Academy City a lot in Index III, especially in the OPs!

But then... comes the second OP - Roar, dedicated solely for WWIII. Not only its song is good, but it's a cinematic feast, going all out in terms of animation and direction and everything! It's truly genius! It makes you feel like J.C. Staff is taking their CGI skills to the next level (sadly that never happens throughout the arc lol).
For real, though. Roar is a banger! Academy City's CGI has never looked more beautiful. I think it's better than Railgun's CGI (and I'm a Railgun fanboy by the way).

As for the voice acting... Peak as usual. It's already a given that every character offers its best performance, especially AcceleGoat and MisaChad (but sadly no Kuroku to be seen). Personally, my favorite performance in Index III is that of the newly revealed Level 5. Peakest of peak, because he is just so full of taunting and desperation, especially when he laughs. The guy feels like he is reeeeally into it. Bro has a long way to perfecting his evil persona lmao.

The characterization is decent in all of the arcs, especially the best 4, and even WWIII. Unironically, Accelerator is the star of the show, as always. Not just because of the amount of screentime he gets, but also because of how most of the iconic moments are HIS. Despite WWIII being my least favorite arc, Accelerator's development is its strong suit. Starting from Battle Royale and all the way to WWIII, you will be treated to seeing AcceleGoat develop into AccelePeak, facing his trauma, indulging in his evil persona, and changing for the sake of those he wishes to protect.
AcceleGoat really goes through it all this season, and my favorite moment is when [SPOILER CHARACTER] tells him "It's all your fault."
Daaaamn... that line goes hard!

Touma also goes through an interesting development, mainly related to his relationship with Index, but Accelerator's development is the best.
Thus, EVEN THOUGH Index III cut sooo many details and extra dialogues from the LN that further enhance those character developments, what we got is admirable in its own right.

The only character whose arc in WWIII is disappointing is [SPOILER CHARACTER].
Before WWIII, he is handled decently, but most of what he goes through in WWIII feels like plot armor. At no point did I feel indulged in his struggles, because he gets away with everything in the most coincidental ways, either by being randomly saved by a random character, avoiding attacks that couldn't be possibly avoided, enviromental miracles, enemies being slow or blind or dumb as heck, or sometimes by doing absolutely nothing. This issue starts manifesting in DRAGON, but becomes too much of a problem in WWIII.
I don't know if it's a writing issue or an adaptation issue. Do the same issues happen in the LN? I am going to cope by saying that this must be the studio's fault for animating his scenes so poorly and roughly, making his ways of winning seem soooo plot armor that it's not even funny.

In conclusion, the issues of Index III are pacing, direction, and mismanagement, all of which affected on the production value and faithfulness of adaptation.
The content itself is lacking, but is far from bad, hence why I don't excuse the overhate despite the validity of it.
Index III does NOT deserve anything more than 7, but I'm glad the glazers helped it reach a better rating. If you read other reviews, you'll notice that most of them are negative ones that rate the show less than 5.

I am not going to force you to enjoy or hate Index III, but I want you to go through it WITH the knowledge that it was rushed. I also went through it with that knowledge before I even started watching Toaru a few months ago. I have just finished Index III a few days ago, and I bet me knowing it was rushed played a part in how much I enjoyed it. I only hope you give it the same chance I did, and appreciate it for what it is rather than what it's not, especially if you're an anime-only like me.
Just know that the source material is not at fault, so you might fill in from your head the missing pieces that the anime lack.

I have some extra context-specific notes to say, just for fun. See if you can guess what I refer to with each one:
•Damn, there are so many guns all of a sudden.
•I never imagined the day I would hear a French pronunciation of Imagine Breaker.
•The imagine breaker is just... (FUCK! LET HIM FINISH!)
•Accelerator finally joins the magic club. He's three seasons late, though.
•Fre/nda.
•I feel bad for Uiharu. She just wanted ice cream.
•We should just kill Index.
•Misaka > Itsuwa.
•Can you believe that a lot of girls know of Touma's address by this point, and Misaka isn't one of them??!!
•They forgot to get the voice actor for Sasha lol.
•"I'm a villain", my ass.
•I like to think she's a bad driver.
•H A M A Z U R A ! !
•YES! YES! FINALLY! Stand up for yourself, Touma! GENDER EQUALITY! Get your ass up, bitch! Do the dishes!
•Does Aleister have boobs???!!!!!

Index III final rating:
•Characterization (7/10)
•Animation (6/10)
•Soundtrack (10/10)
•Voice Acting (10/10)
•Writing (7/10)
•Enjoyment (8/10)
=Overall (6/10)

I wish the soundtrack and voice acting had the privilege to push my rating higher, but let's be real here... British Royal Family + WWIII equal around HALF of Index III, and they're both the weakest links, so their runtime really holds down the experience.

6/10 is fine. I believe it's a 6.5/10, but there are no decimal numbers on MAL, so...
Toaru Majutsu no Index III is a fine piece of fiction. In my heart, I think it's good (7/10), but butchering around half of the LNs was not the brightest idea.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 29, 2021

UnorthoDon

Mixed Feelings

**REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS; CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION**


A Certain Magical Index III was a major letdown from its predecessors. It was promising at first but as the season went on, it starts to get more and more confusing to the point to where I almost forgot what I was watching. Now, with my personnel experience out of the way, let's get into an actual review

Story: 4
The story overall was interesting at first. As we got more and more into the show, the story becomes a confusing mess. However, it is not because of plot holes, or at least from what I can tell. ... No, it is because of the lack of explanation of what is happening in the plot that makes it confusing and at times, unwatchable. With other anime, you make the plot confusing and still have it be a good anime. But Magical Index is not that kind of show. You need to understand what is going on in the scene first, but this season hardly does any of that. That is a shame since all of the arcs seemed very interesting, but completely flopped because of the execution of them.

Art: 5
Now the art is a wild one. In order to talk about this I am gonna split into two parts: the animation and everything else...
-Animation: The animation was all over the place in this season. There were some points were superb and absolutely amazing and other times, it would seem lazy and pretty choppy (there were huge points of time where the "animation" was literally a frame of that character that was moving from left to right... so annoying). A good way to understand this is by looking at the two OPs of this season. The first OP had some good animation but at times it was super choppy at times. However, the second OP was abosolutely beautiful. It was crisp and clean and the coloring was... WOW! But seriously, consistent animation is better than incosistent animation almost 99.9% of the time. One of my favorite animation failures was when Touma just watched on his allies fall from a pretty high height and his face looked as if he was annoyed rather than scared for his ally that she fell high enough to kill anyone.
-Everything else: The CGI in this season was par to all of the other seasons. Nothing say about that. But what really shines is the amount of detail that went into the backgrounds! Every fricken background in this show is absolutely STUNNING! There was obviously so much time and care that went into everything single bit of each and every background. Whoever did the backgrounds deserves a massive pay raise or something because it was just that amazing!

Sound: 9
The sound was absolutely amazing. Music and voice acting were really good. Both of the OPs slap. EDs are fine; not great just fine. There is nothing to really say about the sound other than that though.

Character: 5
Here is where is starts to go down hill quite a bit. In this season, a lot of side characters from both A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun come back into play with bigger parts for the overall arching story. The probably is that there wasn't enough time in the season to flesh out all of the side characters and even some of the main characters. A lot of growth for characters were rushed feeling pretty jarring. However, I did like there was an arc involving a pretty insignificant character. It was a very nice character arc that suprisingly liked.

Enjoyment: 3
This show really didn't entertain me. It was so confusing with a lot of what is happening not being explained. It seemed like they did this at the last minute. I found out later that they were trying to catch up with light novel since they were behind quite a bit. They tried to put too much into one season and I hate it.

Overall: 5
What saved this show from being rated less was literally the sound and the backgrounds, both of which were amazing. Other than that, everything was wildly inconsistent with me being confused from more than 3/4 of the season. It was way more confusing than like 90% of ACTUAL mystery series. Such a big letdown. If you wanted to get the full picture, read the light novel. I haven't read it yet, but from what I heard, it is better than the show. However, I am still looking forward to the next season. It better be good.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 18, 2024

Babineaux

Not Recommended

I want to make it clear that I am a Railgun fan. I like Railgun. Railgun S & T in particular are fantastic shows. Which makes it all the more baffling as to how a spinoff show like Railgun came to be hundreds of times better than the original source material, which is Index.

Here's the TLDR short answer: This season of Index is bad. But a lot of the problems with this show are actually the same as they were for seasons 1 and 2 of Index. Many corners are cut on the animation (unlike with Railgun), the direction is terrible (unlike with Railgun), the ... writing is lazy and nonsensical (unlike with Railgun), there is noticeable filler dialogue where the characters repeat themselves or shout a bunch to pad out the runtime, the characters are underdeveloped and are mostly token baubles, so much happens and yet it is mostly just filler and serves no purpose outside of bloating the number of characters in the cast. The reason why people are making a fuss about this season more than the others is that in addition to being bad (which is a given apparently), the studio also butchered the source material this time around, to the point where the "Battle Royale Arc" - which I gather is well regarded in the books - is made into an indecipherable garbled mess.

Otherwise, the show has some parts that are better than past seasons, and parts that are significantly worse. If you liked previous Magical Index seasons and haven't read the books, you will probably like this show. It's fine to like the idea of this show, I think. But if you think that it's actually unironically good, might I recommend that you watch something more like Railgun S & T (if you haven't already) to get a better grasp on what the genre can offer when it's firing on all cylinders.

Now for some HOT TAKES:

- Index shouldn't be in the show. She's not a character, she's not likeable, she does nothing, she's utterly pointless. She's what the show is named after, yet you could remove her from the plot and almost nothing would change. And the author makes no effort to remedy this at any point. She is "I'm hungry" and "I bite you when I'm angry ('cause get it, I'm hungry)" the character. It was a case of a joke that was never funny and never will be funny. Random "towel girl" crush Itsuwa is just the superior character and arguably what Index should have been from the outset. The time we get with Itsuwa is one of the bright spots of this season, even though it's relatively pointless and she will probably be demoted back down into being little more than a cameo again in future. Imagine if we wrote Itsuwa out of the script for this season, and instead gave all of her character development and character moments to Index herself. It would fix so many problems with the show, and make Index more human, but the author doesn't care, why would he care? He's too busy adding in horny middleschooler jailbait number #55 as a pointless throwaway cameo, he can't sacrifice that to work on his actual characters.

- Misaka Mikoto shouldn't be in the show. She's not a character, she's not likeable, she does nothing, she's utterly pointless. She's the number 2 girl and number 1 waifu in the show, so popular that she got her own spinoff title, yet she is entirely sidelined in Index and is just turned into a mindless simp for Touma (the MC). Compare that to Misaka in Railgun, who is genuinely an amazing character, a nuanced and relatable protagonist with an incredibly interesting and versatile powerset, and who has meaningful character development and heartfelt relationships with the people around her. Utterly wasted in this show.

- Touma is an asshole. In Railgun, things are different: he comes across as an apologetic bumbling average nice guy who's trying to do the right thing while muddling through life, and he is hot enough and helpful enough to attract Misaka's attention, but he manages to make her feel flustered and embarrassed, leading to her overreacting and being a bit of a Tsundere. It's a solid dynamic. Unfortunately, if you watch Index, this is recontextualised: the only reason why he achieves this likeable impression is because we don't get to hear his whiny self-righteous inner monologue, which upon being exposed to, quickly makes him come across as being a bit insufferable. He's painfully generic as a protagonist, and spends his entire time using very basic logic to demolish the hilariously nonsensical worldviews of (insert villain of the week). The author sets up a strawman and then has Touma beat it down with one punch. Every single scenario that Touma gets involved with has him giving a self-righteous lecture, which is usually just common sense that everyone in the audience was already thinking upon analysing the villain's laughably stupid worldview, that is resolved with the same stock standard punch to the face. And it happens over and over and over and over and over again. As a formula, it was stale during season 1, it was stale during season 2, and it is even more stale now in season 3. I guess they thought it would be like a running gag, in that it gets funnier over time because of how ridiculous it is? Or maybe they are just appealing to the domestic violence fetish crowd, punching them ladies in the face.

- Hamazura shouldn't be in the show, yet he is elevated to co-protagonist status in this season. He's basically just Touma, but with a sleazy criminal past and no powers. This arguably makes him more interesting than Touma in some small ways, as him being a normal guy means he has to be smarter than just punching his problems. But the thing is, he isn't different enough to be his own thing, and you could remove him from the plot completely and nothing about it would really change, he's just off doing his own mediocre filler content. He was also always the least interesting person in ITEM, so putting the focus on him rather than the girls that people liked is not good. ITEM are the characters most affected by the butchering of the Battle Royale arc, and it's extra painful to watch them as a result of that after the arc has concluded.

- Last Order is underserved. It was a real highlight in previous seasons that after Accelerator gets brain damage, he is tied into the MISAKA network so that he can think more clearly and use them to perform the complex calculations he needs to use his powers. It was also supposed to be a nerf that gave him some interesting limitations. Unfortunately, in the Accelerator show and also in this season, they just ignore these limitations entirely and he's basically just as strong as ever. That is lame. It would be nice if Last Order (as the control tower of the MISAKA network) could be more proactive in helping him use his powers. Even if it's just her having to concentrate real hard when he's doing some particularly monumental feat. She also needs more moments of actually contributing to the plot, she's basically just a little cuteness bubble that floats around vaguely nearby Accelerator now and again. Her and Accelerator are two more characters that are greatly affected by the butchering of the Battle Royale arc, which is deeply disappointing, as they get so few moments together as it is.

- Magic shouldn't be a secret. If there is a cold war between the forces of Magic and the forces of Science (plus the English weasels who side with Science against Magic even though they themselves are a Magic faction, although in fairness that's totally in character for the real life C of E, and I'm allowed to say this because I'm English) then have everyone in the world know what the stakes are, even if they don't know the full scope of what is going on or how any of it works. It's ludicrous to have had Accelerator interact with magic users in depth on multiple occasions prior to this, and then make a plot point of Season 3 that he has no concept that magic even exists still. It's a ludicrous proposition.

- The morality in Season 3 is utterly mad. It's out of control on drugs, while having a seizure. That's the only way I can describe it. Multiple instances where characters get to murder people and/or attempt to murder countless innocent people and yet they are forgiven unconditionally just like that. Characters get to torture people and that's just swell. But lie to protect someone's feelings? Damn, man, that's just unforgiveable, how will you ever live with yourself? Hold on, I've just got to sacrifice my life to rescue this mass-murderer over here, maybe that'll help make up for my lie. Utterly bonkers.

- Teenagers are horny. It is okay to portray teenagers as being a bit horny if it is within character and makes sense within the fiction, because yes, it is true to real life, for better or for worse. It is not okay to have 13-year-olds randomly perform strip-teases directly to the audience for no in-character reason, just because on a meta-level the show wants to declare: "And this is for all you sweet beautiful paedophiles out there!" I don't like the show consistently treating me like a paedo, it's gross. Now, this has always been a problem with Index/Railgun, it has always walked uncomfortably close to that line and even crossed it occasionally before now, but Season 3 of Index walks waaaaay over the line multiple times. Author, you can include "fanservice" without making it this genuinely creepy (and downright lazy to boot). Please desist.

- I'm gonna be vague about this last one, although maybe don't read it just in case if you haven't watched the show yet: Characters should be allowed to die occasionally. Without the prospect of death (or at least severe consequences), there are no stakes, and if there are no stakes, the audience has no investment in what is going on. There has always been some death in the show, of course. But it isn't utilised at all well. To the point where people make it out alive from situations where logically they should 100% be dead. This harms the credibility of the show, and this season is particularly guilty of that. Although as has been mentioned above, it instead lectures to you that "you're a bad person for thinking some of them probably should die" while it does it. And when there is death, it tends to be incredibly arbitrary and is done without any adequate explanation or fanfare. It's like: "People might have liked that character. They were cool. And yet you just did that to them out of nowhere and moved on. And you also let all of those other cringe characters survive ridiculous situations, or deliberately spared them, when people don't like them nearly as much. Huh. What a bizarre creative decision that was."

I sincerely hope this show gets better. Three seasons and a movie, and it's not done it yet. But as one of the other reviewers put it, I'm clinging on for dear life, even though it seems like there's no hope. If you've come this far into Index, either you're like me (in which case, what we are doing is questionable, but I guess stay strong), or you are somehow able to look past its problems, in which case, you may yet get some small joy out of it (and I suppose to be generous, I hope you do).

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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