Anime: Toaru Majutsu no Index III

A Certain Magical Index III is a continuation of a fairly long line of anime from J.C. Staff on a single universe. It started as Index and Railgun, but even with the first seasons of both animes, there was a clear disparity between the two, and Index only went downhill from then on. Unfortunately, it would be surprising if this third instalment did not nail the final nail into the coffin of a series loved by a devoted few.

The premise of the series is rather nice; a secret war is being fought amongst adepts of "magic", represented by various international factions, and those that put all their faith into science, living in Academy City (some part of Tokyo). The actual concept is rather appealing. It could be done in a lot of ways, but unfortunately this series does not do its best with it and that premise is the best part. Index adaptation has always had issues with the storyline, but Index III must have some of the worst plot holes in most contemporary anime. I understand that generally the story is made up of chapters/novella type units, where 3 episodes can make up an arc, but there is very little connection between events in this anime series as a whole. In the case of Index III this may be because there are simply too many active characters. The storyline in general has degraded significantly even in comparison to previous instalments. The plot holes and the later premises get unacceptably unfitting as the plot nears its end, not to mention that these premises are completely inconsequential 2 episodes on. These include such plot lines like an insurrection in Siberia that looks more like a bunch of hobos with SPAAs attacking a village or how every English policeman turns into a knight due to some conspiracy. These seem to be not so weird until you actually see the related episodes. Im guessing the insurrection in Index III maybe is a reference to Chechnya or some other post-soviet conflict, but that is irrelevant. This ruins the already nonexistent atmosphere and the original premise.

There are also events and even full characters shown in this anime that have no bearing on the story whatsoever. This was also a problem with Index II, but at least there such characters were part of an event building up to something. There is a character in Index III that appears for 5 minutes and that is it. It is not a background character mind you. It was a fully designed character that disappeared after its dialogue and there was nothing else about the character. There is a lot of things like that in this series as a whole. Generally there are a lot of characters in Index series that are underdeveloped because once they serve their arc(s) then they are barely paid attention to. This is probably 70% of all characters in this series.
The Railgun (character) in this anime is also shown very inconsistently and rarely. She was shown in the first minutes of Index I as a dark and almost evil character with little regard to anything. From then on she suddenly turned into a tsundere who had an annoyingly very limited role to play despite the fact that she is probably one of the more developed characters in this anime. She is literally not much more than an observer of events. This is also completely different to how this character is shown in Railgun series. The MC is unflinching and unchanging and seems to barely pay attention to dialogue or events around him. His emotions are limited to serious, awkward, or bored/sad. He is just an unstoppable force with barely any motive. The Index (also a character) is obnoxiously annoying throughout and likewise received limited character change or anything. All we get is how she is annoying. Thankfully there are about 5 characters that Index III did not kill off and that either have potential or have been well developed enough and Index III is responsible for those characters, but they cannot pull this anime from being a wreck in terms of character development. As for events that have no bearing on anything, a character announces that a nuke has been launched and nothing happens. Everyone forgets about it. That is a genuine example from this anime

The direction is odd to say the least. Battles scenes in this anime feel like nothing even compared to previous Index animes. One second there are 3 tanks shooting at another 3 tanks and then there is a one second screen of some mages fighting on water in a completely different battle and then you get to a character amidst all this talking about something. These battles are completely arbitrary and exist only to provide a setting for fights between characters.

The animation is an improvement over previous Index parts, but it is still insufficient for even 2016. Same can be said for the use of CGI. The soundtrack is nothing major. Some of the soundtrack has been taken from Index I and II as well as Railgun I but that is what gives it some merit if anything.

To conclude, it is really sad that such a decent premise has been wrecked like so. It is possible that this happened because of the original material structure. In general, the Railgun series, despite releasing at most a year after a season of Index, has always been stronger in just about every way; simple but sound story, well defined characters, better animation and so on. You can literally watch Index I and Railgun I and see this difference between the two, despite Railgun releasing only a couple of months after Index I. It is needless to compare Railgun S and T (the latest one) with any Index. And so the enjoyment and value of Index III is unfortunately bad. If anything, Railgun (despite being an original story I think) is proof that if the manga was adapted for Index in a more skillful way, then it would definitely not be half bad. Unfortunately, Index III is such a mess, especially at the end, that it becomes completely bland and forgettable. Probably do not watch this and rather either stick to Railgun or read the Index manga, I heard that was good.