neko's thinkbox

Naisu badii!

The preview to this episode looked promising with lots of action, but dialogue dominated today once again.

Accidentally pressed the Publish button earlier, sorry for that. Thought I was clicking on my video window…

Kaori has some sexy poses. Her body really isn’t bad either. But…

I’m looking forward to the release of the OP single on the 29th. Kawada Mami’s PSI-Missing is just awesome.

tl;dr summary: show

Kaori, who is from Necessarius – the same English church organization as Steyl (I keep changing his name every week) – attacks Touma so he won’t protect Index anymore. Her Nanasen (Seven Flashes) technique is rather powerful, but Touma can nullify it with the Imagination Breaker in his right hand. However, the Katana attack was merely a distraction, and Touma runs right into her trap: seven steel strings that she can manipulate with her hidden hand while striking with her Katana.

Then follows a long dialogue with explanations about the motives of Necessarius for hunting Index. Kaori reveals that Index belongs to Necessarius as well, but she cannot remember anything from before one year ago. In fact, Kaori and Steyl used to be friends with Index in the past, but they were forced to erase part of her memory in order for her to survive.

Index has a special ability: she has what they call a “perfect memory”. Humans usually tend to forget most of the less important and unwanted memories, but Index does not. Every memory she makes is stored in her brain, whether she likes it or not. In itself, it’s not that lethal – however, she already has 103000 books stored in her brain, which takes about 85% of her memory. The rest of the 15% are filled within approximately one year, and once the entire memory is used up, Index will die. That is why Necessarius ordered Steyl and Kaori to erase those 15% of her memory after every passing year in order to ensure her life. That is also what they meant with the question in episode 3, “why do we have to keep destroying her happiness again and again”.

And the very moment, Index has still three more days until her memories need to be erased. And Touma has quite a huge grudge against Kaori, because he can’t understand why she and Steyl would do something like that to their friend, Index. Instead of creating fresh happy memories again, they keep hunting Index, and end up hurting everyone over and over again. Touma regrets that he is unable to protect one single girl, and before passing out, he confronts Kaori with the questions: “Why did you want power? Who did you want to protect with those hands?”

Touma wakes up in Komoe’s apartment, with Index on his bedside (or should I say futonside? lol). He is wounded all over, especially his left arm has a large bandage. Index tells him he slept for three whole days… You know it, it’s exactly the time Index had left before her memories needed to be erased. And guess who’s standing in front of the door… Kaori and Steyl!

But this time, Index doesn’t run away anymore: she stands between Touma and his aggressors, trying to protect him. Not wanting him to be hurt anymore, and would rather have them hurt her instead.

In fact, there’s not really much to say about this episode. The action was rather limited. The music gave the situation a very dramatic hue, but sometimes it felt a overly exaggerated in my opinion; the organ music was simply too pushy. Even so, I believe Kaori’s fit of anger, when she totally went yangire on Touma, was the best moment. (Spinzaku anyone?) Her desperation was pretty intense, and it was very well conveyed not only through her actions, but also through her voice – excellent voice acting by (let me quickly look up) Shizuka Itou here.

Apart from that, the entire dialogue does feel pretty tiring at length. But it was quite predictable, as the entire story follows the manga to the letter… although it did not show the flashback of the past, when Index, Kaori and Steyl were still friends, and Index’s first erasing of memories. That would have made quite an emotional moment as well, I think. Too bad they didn’t show that… But perhaps that might follow up in the next episode, and I just spoilt it to you guys – oops!

Railgun Mikoto and her Judgment friend Kuroko were shown once again for a couple of seconds. I wonder why, as they have absolutely no bearing in this arc – or do the producers need to fulfill a certain quota of showing those two girls? Mikoto okay, but Kuroko is just annoying – Satomi Arai’s voice doesn’t fit at all. I’d rather watch Komoe smoking and drinking – wait, no. No no. No.

By the way, what the hell happened to Komoe just after she opened the door? Didn’t she hear what they were talking? She’d have gotten angry if she knew those two people harmed Index and Touma, right? Mehh.

Anyway, they moved faster than I had expected, actually. I believed they would have more of the fight in this episode, carry the discussion over to the next episode, etc. and have this arc wrapped up in two episodes. But at this pace, the arc might already be finished next episode, and it’s a pretty good (perhaps emotional) finale. Can’t wait to see it animated. PLUS we’ll have some bathtowel Komoe! YAY~

Incidentally, I just read the two latest scanlated chapters of Index (chapter 11 and 12), which gave me an insight into the next arc – and it seems very interesting and hot. That also explains some of the stuff that’s shown in the opening. Waaah, it’s gonna be awesome.

However, there is so much else in the OP, and considering that that arc would last 5-6 episodes as well, I stand by my call that this will be at least 26 episodes. (Blame me for being too lazy to look up the necessary info.)

See you next week~