Toaru Majutsu no Index starts off with an interesting concept, young girl has tons of magical tomes in her that could give massive power, but then after the first story arc, it throws that away and stomps on it and index is for the most part absent from the rest of the series in any meaningful way. That is the problem, the first story arc starts the series off pretty well and actually has plot and character progression, as well as a plot twist, but after that index disappears along with any sort of plot or character progression.
Story: There is ZERO overall plot. this is basically a random daily life anime where you could watch the various story arcs in any sort of order (other than the first one). Hell, you could watch the episodes at random and not lose to much. The environment and the situations the characters are in is static after the first story arc and there is no sort of well developed menace or anything to compel the characters to do anything other than live their lives like normal.
The other story related problem is that things are SLOW. I'm sure everyone knows the stereotypes of fighting animes where the characters take 3 episodes to kick someone, that is right, index is like that to a degree. It absolutely feels like it was stretched out quite a bit to hit 24 episodes and would have been a better fit for 16-18 instead. Some episodes even consist almost entirely of someone making a long and overblown rant at someone.
Art: The art is good. Seen worse, seen better, but it is good. The various powers look good and i like the character design rather well.
Characters: Touma is for the most part your typical generic main character, even to the point of risking his life to save a potential love interest for no other reason. There was an event that occurred at the end of the first story arc that could have allowed him to become a very interesting character, but out of sheer madness such a significant event does not change this character AT ALL. A lot of the supporting characters are pretty interesting at first glance, especially index.
The problem with the characters comes when you watch a few of the episodes and notice that there is zero character progression. Even with what happened to Touma, he is exactly the same and has exactly the same relationships with the other characters throughout the series, nothing changes and he is totally and completely static. The rest of the characters are even worse, Touma has a habit of rescuing people and then BOOM they're gone from the series for a while and serve no great importance. Why spend 6 episodes to show him rescuing someone when they aren't going to be in the series at all? Other than new faces appearing every so often, you could watch the episodes in any order an not be surprised at how they act, what powers they have or what kind of relationships they have with those around them.
Overall: I am a huge fan of series in general having overall plots with plot twists and progression, but i still enjoyed this series. I was disappointed that it didn't fully utilize the first story arc since after that things went way down hill, but i still continued watching it which says something. If you don't mind everything being static except the random situations the characters are thrust in to, it will probably be quite enjoyable. Even if you hate how static everything is, you still might enjoy it if you can get over how slow the show is sometimes.
