A Certain Magical Index III

Episode 4

The world of Academy City is expansive in terms of significant characters, and A Certain Magical Index II did shift its focus on a couple of occasions, so it's no big surprise that this episode leaves Touma behind in favor of exploring other subplots. In particular, it looks at GROUP – the collective of ex-antagonists drawn together at the end of last season to deal with Academy City's dark underbelly – as well as a couple other groups with different imposing acronyms.

Since many of these characters have only appeared in their original arc and the two-episode follow-up to September 30, I'll do a “who's who” rundown on characters who have appeared previously in the franchise but not in this season:

• Musujime Awaki, the woman with the wrapped chest in GROUP, is the Level 4 teleporter who fought Kuroko in the second series and was responsible for her being wheelchair-bound for a while.
• Etzali, the handsome fellow in GROUP, is an Aztec mage who's using the form of Mitsuki Unabara. He can assume the appearance of others and ran afoul of Touma in season 2 when he tried to romantically pursue Mikoto, though he also had bigger objectives.
• ITEM is a group of four girls who first appeared in A Certain Scientific Railgun S and fought against Mikoto during that series' version of the Sisters arc. (They also got involved near the end of that series' second arc.) This episode marks their first appearance in the main storyline. Their leader, Shizuri Mugino, is the fourth-ranked Level 5 and possesses plasma generation powers, while other members have abilities including super-strength, generating explosives, and remote tracking.
• Shiage Hamazura, who seems to now be working with ITEM, is a LEVEL 0 who first appeared as the reluctant leader of the Skill-Outs during the September 30 fallout arc at the end of season 2. Though he's been a relatively minor character so far, I've heard that he doesn't stay that way.
• Aiho Yomikawa, the adult in the green jersey that Shiage encounters on the street, is the P.E. teacher at Touma's school and a member of Anti-Skill. She's had small to medium roles in several arcs of both Index and Railgun, as one of the most frequently-recurring characters not in the core cast. She's also the legal guardian of both Accelerator and Last Order.

By contrast, the organization SCHOOL makes what I believe is their first appearance in the anime adaptation with this episode. They start by trying to assassinate the suspiciously-healthy Oyafune (the older woman from the Board of Directors who sent Touma to France) and then get into a fight with ITEM, showing enough mettle to at least temporarily incapacitate two of ITEM's members, even though Shizuri is strongly implied to have killed one of them in the process. (They also seem to have a backstory with ITEM, though that doesn't look like it's going to be detailed here.) A future conflict with GROUP also seems to be on the horizon. This episode doesn't give any clear indication of what their Level 5 leader or the nameless girl in the dress are capable of, as all of the action except the girl trying to chase down Shiage happens off-screen. Knowing this franchise, I have no doubt that the flashy parts are still coming.

In other words, this is one of those episodes where a lot of characters get thrown at the audience, and never mind why they're doing anything yet. SCHOOL seems to be after some tech item called Tweezers, but what it's for and why they want it has not even been hinted at yet. Neither has who they might be affiliated with, or for that matter, who the guys in the full tactical gear are working for. Of course, given the way this franchise operates, we may never know. So it mostly becomes an issue of whether or not the focal point characters are getting involved in anything cool or having fun in the process. On that front at least, the series seems to be running fine with this new focus.

At least the character who had maybe the single dumbest design in the franchise to date is the one who got killed.

Rating: B

A Certain Magical Index III is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.