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とある魔術の禁書目録 [Toaru Majutsu no Index] (Novel) #4
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 4
A certain unlikely hero...
Touma Kamijou has gotten permission to leave Academy City and goes on a beach vacation with his family. But somehow no one is who he remembers--and a certain magical spell is to blame for everything! Touma finds himself swept up in the mysterious Angel Fall spell in the latest volume of the smash-hit light novel series!
Touma Kamijou has gotten permission to leave Academy City and goes on a beach vacation with his family. But somehow no one is who he remembers--and a certain magical spell is to blame for everything! Touma finds himself swept up in the mysterious Angel Fall spell in the latest volume of the smash-hit light novel series!
248 pages, Paperback
First published December 10, 2004
20 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
About the author
Kazuma Kamachi
239 books153 followersKamachi Kazuma (鎌池和馬) is a Japanese-born light novel author and the original creator of the Toaru Majutsu no Index light novel series and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, its spin-off manga series.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 5, 2024
So, I have finally finished reading OT4 and well... I have a lot of thoughts about it. Overall, it's hard to separate this volume from the future of the series, because as much as it sets itself up as a standalone story, it also acts as a precursor to the World War III arc, and as such is as important as a prequel as OT1-3 are, even if one doesn't realise it at first. For now, I will try to focus on this particular volume alone and, fore brevity sake, reserve any further thoughts until I eventually reach OT20-22, which I read 10 years ago, so a lot of details are obviously a bit blurred.
One interesting thing I noticed from the start is how this book delves deeper into Touma's state as an amnesiac, something that was already touched upon in OT2. Having Touma as the point of view character allows the reader to experience Touma's past through the same lens as he does, and creates a wonderful synergy between the two entities. One of the biggest problems one faces as a writer when writing a character with amnesia is that it is hard to incorporate and draw from their past to provide external and internal motivation. Especially in a plot as long as Index, the only way to keep the character engaged and invested is to keep creating new obstacles and motivations for them. While this can be a narrative challenge, it also allows for a more continuous realisation of the past. Basically, from a reader's perspective, we know that Touma is hiding nothing from the reader. Everything he knows about his past is known to us, so every new revelation is a new revelation for him as well. So not only the present and the future are a mystery that the author can use to construct character-related plot points, but also the past, without making these situations seem too contrived. As such, I think Kamachi is doing a great job so far of playing with all three tenses, future, present, and past, to create conflicts for Touma to overcome: He used the past in OT2 to have him struggle with his own beliefs and eventually find a purpose in life, and in OT3 to question his relationship with Mikoto and thus completely reshape it, while using the present to create an external conflict, and the future by developing relationships with characters like Stiyl, Aisa Himegami, Mikoto, Misaka 10032, and Accelerator that also had an effect on him and his view of the world, however small. So how does OT4 hold up in that respect?
Well, I would say there are two sides to it. On the positive side, Touma's past is used as a premise to create conflict because it's the reason for Angel's Fall, while the crisis itself takes place in the present and relationships with characters like Tsuchimikado, Kaori Kanzaki and his father Touya are established that will play a role in shaping his future. Since Touma knows almost nothing about most of the characters he deals with in this volume, except for Index, he has to constantly struggle with the perception he has of them as opposed to how they act. This is especially evident when Touma suspects his father of being the (intended) cause of Angel's fall, similar to the insecurities he had in OT3 when it came to Mikoto's involvement in the experiments. While Touma has strong convictions and an almost naive trust in the people around him, he can never be sure that the way he sees them is the way they really are. While this is certainly present here, I feel that the body swap due to Angel's Fall provided the perfect opportunity to challenge these beliefs even further. The beginning of the volume seemed to set up a situation where Touma really starts to struggle with everything he thought he knew:
Could his father really be a perverted loli lover? Could Index have been secretly related to Touma all along, which would explain why she lived with him all this time? Could Mikoto really have a big brother complex? Could Blau be a weird cross-dresser?
While all of these things seem far-fetched given his previous encounters with the characters, there was really no other conclusion he could have come to if Angel's Fall hadn't been revealed. And here I feel that the external conflict (Angel's Fall) abruptly ends a potentially interesting internal conflict that was slowly building up. Although this internal conflict probably wouldn't have been enough to drive the plot of the entire novel, it would have allowed one of the main themes of this arc – namely, the past and how to deal with it – to be explored further and Touma's state as an amnesiac to be given more meaning. After all, as good as the moment when he doubts his own father is, Touma's missing memories hardly seem to be a hindrance during most of the story: he can easily identify his house, find out its GPS location, navigate through it and talk to his parents, Tsuchimikado, his cousin 'Mikoto' and Kaori without any of them noticing anything too out of the ordinary. I have the feeling that this arc, especially for non-novel readers, might give the impression that Touma hardly behaves any differently before and after his memory loss, and that his amnesia hardly affected Touma at all, so that it is almost irrelevant for the plot. While this is certainly wrong, and the anime adaptation did a poor job of characterising Touma, I believe that there are already problems buried in the narrative of OT4 itself, and that it did too little to make Touma's amnesia feel like a key factor when it comes to dealing with his past.
What this volume did well, however, was to establish a theme by contrasting two characters in a believable way to show their similarities on the one hand and their different perspectives on life on the other. This was done by contrasting Touma's bad luck with Kaori's good luck, which at first seems like a curse for Touma and a blessing for Kaori. However, this perspective changes when Touma learns how Kaori's good luck negatively affects others and how this makes her suffer. This revelation, in my interpretation, causes Touma to question his own view of his bad luck, and eventually come to a more favourable perspective once he confronts his father. After OT2, this is another great character arc for Touma, where he is able to overcome his previous perception and grow through the influence of the people around him. This contrast also helps to explain why, despite being at opposite ends of the luck spectrum, both eventually come to similar conclusions about their beliefs in life, and why both are actually very similar in the end: Kaori fights to protect people because she's seen people suffer due to her lucky nature, while Touma fights to protect people because he knows what suffering feels like, having been on the receiving end due to his unlucky nature. While Kaori is afraid that people will get hurt because her good luck acts as a shield for herself and a target for them, Touma eventually realises that his bad luck actually acts as a shield for them, as his intervention redirects the pain and suffering to him. As I said, this is one of those cases where Touma's amnesia actually acts as a hindrance, since his inability to remember all of his suffering also means that it can't be used directly as a motivation for his altruistic tendencies and his desire to prevent others from suffering the same fate. However, Touma's reconnection with his beliefs established in OT2, and Touya's revelation of his past, help to contextualise his feelings to the extent that his behaviour can be put together convincingly. It also helps to solidify Touma's newfound appreciation for his bad luck, as he experiences firsthand how trying to fix it causes calamity. As such, this is probably the novel in which Touma grows the most as a person, and in which a single character – in this case Kaori and, by extension, Tsuchimikado, who tells her story – has the greatest impact on him.
While this volume is great when it comes to characters, as I hope I just highlighted, I feel it struggles in the story department. What it does do well, however, is expand the lore of the world organically, especially by introducing the character of Tsuchimikado. His role is extremely fascinating, as he acts as a mediator between the scientific and magical worlds, constantly trying to explain the fantastical elements in more general terms, not only for Touma but also for the reader. I especially remember one scene where he explains heaven and hell using wavelengths as an example to show how each "dimension" is technically in the same area but doesn't interfere with each other – only to have Kaori complain about the inappropriate comparison. This explanation worked so well for me because it provided an understandable and tangible understanding of how the cosmology works, while also maintaining a fantastical and mythical element through Kaori's interference. In this way, Tsuchimikado comes across as a very believable magician who understands both the magical and scientific worlds and tries to explain broad concepts in a way that his audience can understand.
Where the plot does struggle is when it comes to its basic premise of how Angel's Fall actually works. So, Touma actually sees everyone changed because his Imagine Breaker cancels the magic effect, which makes perfect sense. Then, Touya himself doesn't change, but he doesn't see the others changed either – he still sees "Index" as his wife, "Blau" as Index and "Mikoto" as Touma's cousin, except for Kaori and Tsuchimikado, who he sees substituted, but Touma doesn't. Then the characters basically see each other as normal, so Touma's mother still sees Touya as her husband, but doesn't see herself as Index, but "Blau" as Index, but again not Kaori and Tsuchimikado. These two see everyone substituted, but not themselves. So for the majority of the people nothing changes, because even though the bodies change, 99% of the people don't even notice the substitution, except for Kaori and Tsuchimikado, which technically causes Stiyl to exist twice, once as the restaurant owner and once as Kaori, but only Touma and Tsuchimikado can see the restaurant owner as Stiyl, while the other people see Kaori as Stiyl, except for Kaori, who sees the restaurant owner as Stiyl, but not herself, and then there's Jinsaku Hino, who apparently didn't have his body swapped with someone else, but with his "personalities", even though everyone kept their personalities and not their bodies, but nevertheless nothing really changes for Jinsaku, although even if both "personalities" were swapped, one would assume that the "angel" controlling his hand would become the main "Hino", while the other "Hino" would become the "angel" and control his hand...
In my opinion, this is a really convoluted mess. Even if I missed something, the plot shouldn't be so complicated to understand. In my opinion, Kamachi created far too many rules and exceptions to the rules for this premise to work. To the point that even the characters themselves seemed confused about how exactly the rules work, which is indicative when Touma thought his father wanted to replace him with someone else so that the negative opinion about Touma would be projected onto that other person – only that the other people would still see the person Touma would be replaced by as "the other person" and the person Touma would look like as "Touma". Unfortunately, I'm already getting a headache trying to understand the rules here, and I feel like this could have been handled a lot better.
As far as the structure is concerned, I think it's a mixed bag. One could argue that the whole Jinsaku Hino section is wasted, except for the insight we get into Kaori's past, but I don't mind that too much. For me, this volume feels a bit like a mystery novel or a detective story, where a large part of the story is invested in finding the culprit, which of course leads to several dead ends, but which in the end are important pieces that are necessary to slowly put things together and solve the crime. This works, as Touma's confrontation with Jinsaku Hino by visiting his house and seeing the picture of his family helps him to finally get on the right track. While I can understand that this might bother some people, it works organically for me. What I don't really like is that a large part of the mystery is solved off-screen. While Touma is the one who finally leads the group to his father, the rest of the mystery is solved in two big exposition dumps: one from the knowledge Kaori and Tsuchimikado gained about "Misha Kreutzev" off-screen, the other from the knowledge Tsuchimikado gained about Touma's house serving as a summoning circle, which felt a bit contrived and could have used more foreshadowing in the respective moment. I don't necessarily mind that Touma isn't the one to uncover the missing secrets, as he only has a very limited amount of knowledge – but it would have made the plot more interesting to at least give some clues along the way, so that the readers could come to the same conclusion as the characters themselves. This would also have helped to strengthen the mystery theme that the novel is trying to achieve, which unfortunately feels rather half-hearted.
I also have mixed feelings about the ending. On the one hand, it takes previously established ideas and themes and changes them a bit to create its own scenario. In OT3, Touma was attacked and beaten into submission by one of his friends and allies, Mikoto, who wanted to sacrifice herself and force Touma to let her continue with her plans. Tsuchimikado also tries – at least seemingly – to sacrifice himself and force Touma to let him continue with his plans. However, while Mikoto didn't want to hurt him and just wanted him to move, Tsuchimikado realises that Touma will never move, so he deliberately tries to hurt Touma. The situation is also subverted by the fact that Touma fights back – he didn't against Mikoto because she only wanted to hurt herself, while he does against Tsuchimikado because he's been led to believe that the magician is going to kill his father. Since we know that Tsuchimikado has been watching Touma during the previous volumes, it also makes sense that he would have gained enough knowledge to subvert the bridge scene from OT3 well enough for his plan to work. This whole section is excellent and one of the narrative and emotional pillars of the series – until it all gets undermined a few pages later. Don't get me wrong: I love Tsuchimikado as a character and it would have been a real tragedy to see him go. But the way Kamachi handled it just doesn't work for me. It feels like all the consequences were just negated by a deus ex machina moment, which retroactively makes the ending lose it's entire emotional core, making it feel shallow and meaningless. Very different from OT1, where Touma's memory loss was an extremely painful consequence, OT2, where the loss of Imagine Breaker may have been reversed, but was still used to foreshadow the existence of dragons, and OT3, where almost 10,000 clones were saved and Accelerator's story came to a turning point. While not all three of these instances had negative consequences, they were all related to Touma and had an impact on the world.
In OT4, neither Touma nor Tsuchimikado suffer any direct consequences from the end of the arc (remember, we're excluding WW3 at this point), and the question arises as to whether this whole endeavour was really necessary. Was there really no other way for Tsuchimikado to create the necessary spell between the discovery of the magic circle in Touma's house and the end? I understand that he wanted Touma out of the picture so he doesn’t interfere with his Imagine Breaker, but Touma was already on his way back to save his father. Was there no other place in the long stretch between Touma's house and the beach where Tsuchimikado could have used his spell? Did he really have to return to the beach and enter the only house he knew Touma would eventually return to? His explanation afterwards wasn't very convincing either, when he told Touma that he had to "keep up the act" to prevent the Church from discovering his secret. How was this act necessary when only he, Touma and Touya are present? And how was it different from the moment Touma and Tsuchimikado were in the hospital, where he revealed everything anyway? And even if you think that Tsuchimikado was somehow afraid that Touya would know: the man was unconscious during Tsuchimikado's "sacrifice", so there was no reason not to tell Touma. I don't want to sound nitpicky, but a lot of these elements just make the ending with Tsuchimikado feel shoehorned in to create an emotional and impactful ending without having the proper framework to earn said moment.
All of this is indicative of a larger problem I have with the second half of the volume, which is that a lot of events don't feel like they've developed organically from the established lore and rules of the world, but rather the lore and rules of the world are bent to fit the current narrative, making them feel contrived. This is present in both the way the rules of Angel's Fall are changed on a case-by-case basis, and the way Tsuchimikado explains his actions in the ending. While the characters and themes in this volume are outstanding, the plot often feels like a convoluted mess and, in my opinion, could have used a lot of work. None of this detracts from the fact that this novel, the lore it establishes and the ideas it implements are undoubtedly important to the overall story being told – but as a standalone work, it leaves a lot to be desired. These are my general thoughts on OT4, which I enjoyed in many respects, but had some major complaints about in others. I hope I've been able to express my feelings adequately, and that you'll at least be able to understand my point of view, even if you don't agree with it.
One interesting thing I noticed from the start is how this book delves deeper into Touma's state as an amnesiac, something that was already touched upon in OT2. Having Touma as the point of view character allows the reader to experience Touma's past through the same lens as he does, and creates a wonderful synergy between the two entities. One of the biggest problems one faces as a writer when writing a character with amnesia is that it is hard to incorporate and draw from their past to provide external and internal motivation. Especially in a plot as long as Index, the only way to keep the character engaged and invested is to keep creating new obstacles and motivations for them. While this can be a narrative challenge, it also allows for a more continuous realisation of the past. Basically, from a reader's perspective, we know that Touma is hiding nothing from the reader. Everything he knows about his past is known to us, so every new revelation is a new revelation for him as well. So not only the present and the future are a mystery that the author can use to construct character-related plot points, but also the past, without making these situations seem too contrived. As such, I think Kamachi is doing a great job so far of playing with all three tenses, future, present, and past, to create conflicts for Touma to overcome: He used the past in OT2 to have him struggle with his own beliefs and eventually find a purpose in life, and in OT3 to question his relationship with Mikoto and thus completely reshape it, while using the present to create an external conflict, and the future by developing relationships with characters like Stiyl, Aisa Himegami, Mikoto, Misaka 10032, and Accelerator that also had an effect on him and his view of the world, however small. So how does OT4 hold up in that respect?
Well, I would say there are two sides to it. On the positive side, Touma's past is used as a premise to create conflict because it's the reason for Angel's Fall, while the crisis itself takes place in the present and relationships with characters like Tsuchimikado, Kaori Kanzaki and his father Touya are established that will play a role in shaping his future. Since Touma knows almost nothing about most of the characters he deals with in this volume, except for Index, he has to constantly struggle with the perception he has of them as opposed to how they act. This is especially evident when Touma suspects his father of being the (intended) cause of Angel's fall, similar to the insecurities he had in OT3 when it came to Mikoto's involvement in the experiments. While Touma has strong convictions and an almost naive trust in the people around him, he can never be sure that the way he sees them is the way they really are. While this is certainly present here, I feel that the body swap due to Angel's Fall provided the perfect opportunity to challenge these beliefs even further. The beginning of the volume seemed to set up a situation where Touma really starts to struggle with everything he thought he knew:
Could his father really be a perverted loli lover? Could Index have been secretly related to Touma all along, which would explain why she lived with him all this time? Could Mikoto really have a big brother complex? Could Blau be a weird cross-dresser?
While all of these things seem far-fetched given his previous encounters with the characters, there was really no other conclusion he could have come to if Angel's Fall hadn't been revealed. And here I feel that the external conflict (Angel's Fall) abruptly ends a potentially interesting internal conflict that was slowly building up. Although this internal conflict probably wouldn't have been enough to drive the plot of the entire novel, it would have allowed one of the main themes of this arc – namely, the past and how to deal with it – to be explored further and Touma's state as an amnesiac to be given more meaning. After all, as good as the moment when he doubts his own father is, Touma's missing memories hardly seem to be a hindrance during most of the story: he can easily identify his house, find out its GPS location, navigate through it and talk to his parents, Tsuchimikado, his cousin 'Mikoto' and Kaori without any of them noticing anything too out of the ordinary. I have the feeling that this arc, especially for non-novel readers, might give the impression that Touma hardly behaves any differently before and after his memory loss, and that his amnesia hardly affected Touma at all, so that it is almost irrelevant for the plot. While this is certainly wrong, and the anime adaptation did a poor job of characterising Touma, I believe that there are already problems buried in the narrative of OT4 itself, and that it did too little to make Touma's amnesia feel like a key factor when it comes to dealing with his past.
What this volume did well, however, was to establish a theme by contrasting two characters in a believable way to show their similarities on the one hand and their different perspectives on life on the other. This was done by contrasting Touma's bad luck with Kaori's good luck, which at first seems like a curse for Touma and a blessing for Kaori. However, this perspective changes when Touma learns how Kaori's good luck negatively affects others and how this makes her suffer. This revelation, in my interpretation, causes Touma to question his own view of his bad luck, and eventually come to a more favourable perspective once he confronts his father. After OT2, this is another great character arc for Touma, where he is able to overcome his previous perception and grow through the influence of the people around him. This contrast also helps to explain why, despite being at opposite ends of the luck spectrum, both eventually come to similar conclusions about their beliefs in life, and why both are actually very similar in the end: Kaori fights to protect people because she's seen people suffer due to her lucky nature, while Touma fights to protect people because he knows what suffering feels like, having been on the receiving end due to his unlucky nature. While Kaori is afraid that people will get hurt because her good luck acts as a shield for herself and a target for them, Touma eventually realises that his bad luck actually acts as a shield for them, as his intervention redirects the pain and suffering to him. As I said, this is one of those cases where Touma's amnesia actually acts as a hindrance, since his inability to remember all of his suffering also means that it can't be used directly as a motivation for his altruistic tendencies and his desire to prevent others from suffering the same fate. However, Touma's reconnection with his beliefs established in OT2, and Touya's revelation of his past, help to contextualise his feelings to the extent that his behaviour can be put together convincingly. It also helps to solidify Touma's newfound appreciation for his bad luck, as he experiences firsthand how trying to fix it causes calamity. As such, this is probably the novel in which Touma grows the most as a person, and in which a single character – in this case Kaori and, by extension, Tsuchimikado, who tells her story – has the greatest impact on him.
While this volume is great when it comes to characters, as I hope I just highlighted, I feel it struggles in the story department. What it does do well, however, is expand the lore of the world organically, especially by introducing the character of Tsuchimikado. His role is extremely fascinating, as he acts as a mediator between the scientific and magical worlds, constantly trying to explain the fantastical elements in more general terms, not only for Touma but also for the reader. I especially remember one scene where he explains heaven and hell using wavelengths as an example to show how each "dimension" is technically in the same area but doesn't interfere with each other – only to have Kaori complain about the inappropriate comparison. This explanation worked so well for me because it provided an understandable and tangible understanding of how the cosmology works, while also maintaining a fantastical and mythical element through Kaori's interference. In this way, Tsuchimikado comes across as a very believable magician who understands both the magical and scientific worlds and tries to explain broad concepts in a way that his audience can understand.
Where the plot does struggle is when it comes to its basic premise of how Angel's Fall actually works. So, Touma actually sees everyone changed because his Imagine Breaker cancels the magic effect, which makes perfect sense. Then, Touya himself doesn't change, but he doesn't see the others changed either – he still sees "Index" as his wife, "Blau" as Index and "Mikoto" as Touma's cousin, except for Kaori and Tsuchimikado, who he sees substituted, but Touma doesn't. Then the characters basically see each other as normal, so Touma's mother still sees Touya as her husband, but doesn't see herself as Index, but "Blau" as Index, but again not Kaori and Tsuchimikado. These two see everyone substituted, but not themselves. So for the majority of the people nothing changes, because even though the bodies change, 99% of the people don't even notice the substitution, except for Kaori and Tsuchimikado, which technically causes Stiyl to exist twice, once as the restaurant owner and once as Kaori, but only Touma and Tsuchimikado can see the restaurant owner as Stiyl, while the other people see Kaori as Stiyl, except for Kaori, who sees the restaurant owner as Stiyl, but not herself, and then there's Jinsaku Hino, who apparently didn't have his body swapped with someone else, but with his "personalities", even though everyone kept their personalities and not their bodies, but nevertheless nothing really changes for Jinsaku, although even if both "personalities" were swapped, one would assume that the "angel" controlling his hand would become the main "Hino", while the other "Hino" would become the "angel" and control his hand...
In my opinion, this is a really convoluted mess. Even if I missed something, the plot shouldn't be so complicated to understand. In my opinion, Kamachi created far too many rules and exceptions to the rules for this premise to work. To the point that even the characters themselves seemed confused about how exactly the rules work, which is indicative when Touma thought his father wanted to replace him with someone else so that the negative opinion about Touma would be projected onto that other person – only that the other people would still see the person Touma would be replaced by as "the other person" and the person Touma would look like as "Touma". Unfortunately, I'm already getting a headache trying to understand the rules here, and I feel like this could have been handled a lot better.
As far as the structure is concerned, I think it's a mixed bag. One could argue that the whole Jinsaku Hino section is wasted, except for the insight we get into Kaori's past, but I don't mind that too much. For me, this volume feels a bit like a mystery novel or a detective story, where a large part of the story is invested in finding the culprit, which of course leads to several dead ends, but which in the end are important pieces that are necessary to slowly put things together and solve the crime. This works, as Touma's confrontation with Jinsaku Hino by visiting his house and seeing the picture of his family helps him to finally get on the right track. While I can understand that this might bother some people, it works organically for me. What I don't really like is that a large part of the mystery is solved off-screen. While Touma is the one who finally leads the group to his father, the rest of the mystery is solved in two big exposition dumps: one from the knowledge Kaori and Tsuchimikado gained about "Misha Kreutzev" off-screen, the other from the knowledge Tsuchimikado gained about Touma's house serving as a summoning circle, which felt a bit contrived and could have used more foreshadowing in the respective moment. I don't necessarily mind that Touma isn't the one to uncover the missing secrets, as he only has a very limited amount of knowledge – but it would have made the plot more interesting to at least give some clues along the way, so that the readers could come to the same conclusion as the characters themselves. This would also have helped to strengthen the mystery theme that the novel is trying to achieve, which unfortunately feels rather half-hearted.
I also have mixed feelings about the ending. On the one hand, it takes previously established ideas and themes and changes them a bit to create its own scenario. In OT3, Touma was attacked and beaten into submission by one of his friends and allies, Mikoto, who wanted to sacrifice herself and force Touma to let her continue with her plans. Tsuchimikado also tries – at least seemingly – to sacrifice himself and force Touma to let him continue with his plans. However, while Mikoto didn't want to hurt him and just wanted him to move, Tsuchimikado realises that Touma will never move, so he deliberately tries to hurt Touma. The situation is also subverted by the fact that Touma fights back – he didn't against Mikoto because she only wanted to hurt herself, while he does against Tsuchimikado because he's been led to believe that the magician is going to kill his father. Since we know that Tsuchimikado has been watching Touma during the previous volumes, it also makes sense that he would have gained enough knowledge to subvert the bridge scene from OT3 well enough for his plan to work. This whole section is excellent and one of the narrative and emotional pillars of the series – until it all gets undermined a few pages later. Don't get me wrong: I love Tsuchimikado as a character and it would have been a real tragedy to see him go. But the way Kamachi handled it just doesn't work for me. It feels like all the consequences were just negated by a deus ex machina moment, which retroactively makes the ending lose it's entire emotional core, making it feel shallow and meaningless. Very different from OT1, where Touma's memory loss was an extremely painful consequence, OT2, where the loss of Imagine Breaker may have been reversed, but was still used to foreshadow the existence of dragons, and OT3, where almost 10,000 clones were saved and Accelerator's story came to a turning point. While not all three of these instances had negative consequences, they were all related to Touma and had an impact on the world.
In OT4, neither Touma nor Tsuchimikado suffer any direct consequences from the end of the arc (remember, we're excluding WW3 at this point), and the question arises as to whether this whole endeavour was really necessary. Was there really no other way for Tsuchimikado to create the necessary spell between the discovery of the magic circle in Touma's house and the end? I understand that he wanted Touma out of the picture so he doesn’t interfere with his Imagine Breaker, but Touma was already on his way back to save his father. Was there no other place in the long stretch between Touma's house and the beach where Tsuchimikado could have used his spell? Did he really have to return to the beach and enter the only house he knew Touma would eventually return to? His explanation afterwards wasn't very convincing either, when he told Touma that he had to "keep up the act" to prevent the Church from discovering his secret. How was this act necessary when only he, Touma and Touya are present? And how was it different from the moment Touma and Tsuchimikado were in the hospital, where he revealed everything anyway? And even if you think that Tsuchimikado was somehow afraid that Touya would know: the man was unconscious during Tsuchimikado's "sacrifice", so there was no reason not to tell Touma. I don't want to sound nitpicky, but a lot of these elements just make the ending with Tsuchimikado feel shoehorned in to create an emotional and impactful ending without having the proper framework to earn said moment.
All of this is indicative of a larger problem I have with the second half of the volume, which is that a lot of events don't feel like they've developed organically from the established lore and rules of the world, but rather the lore and rules of the world are bent to fit the current narrative, making them feel contrived. This is present in both the way the rules of Angel's Fall are changed on a case-by-case basis, and the way Tsuchimikado explains his actions in the ending. While the characters and themes in this volume are outstanding, the plot often feels like a convoluted mess and, in my opinion, could have used a lot of work. None of this detracts from the fact that this novel, the lore it establishes and the ideas it implements are undoubtedly important to the overall story being told – but as a standalone work, it leaves a lot to be desired. These are my general thoughts on OT4, which I enjoyed in many respects, but had some major complaints about in others. I hope I've been able to express my feelings adequately, and that you'll at least be able to understand my point of view, even if you don't agree with it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 27, 2015
I was scared. Not about good luck, or bad luck, or whatever. I was scared of reality - where people would believe in that and commit violent acts against you like it was the obvious thing to do.
First there were espers, next sorcerers, vampires, and even clones. Now turns out there's also angels and gods nyaa~
Moving on.
Unlike the previous vols there's no girl to save, no , not really. Instead through highly unlikely events an extremely horrible situation arises and Touma, Kanzaki, and Touma's neighbor Tsuchimikado have to stop it. This is the first index book that really has Touma work with others rather than save the day on his own, and while I love when that happens, here I'm a bit conflicted.
I enjoyed most of this book, sure Touma wasn't doing much, he was more reacting than helping, but then we get almost a chapter from Kanzaki's pov. And, well, Kanzaki's pov was boring. I feel like Iearned more about her from Touma than I did from herself. Her section was just her battling, and as I wasn't really invested in her or the enemy she was battling I kind of lost interest. Not to mention it didn't add anything to the plot and felt unnecessary.
One of my favorite parts of this series is the excessive empathy it displays, and it does that here too, just not as previous installments so it was less impactful. Plus the ending, it was
Final Thoughts: I really liked this at first, but Kanzaki's long and unnecessary fight scene (not like it added anything to the story...), Touma mostly standing around and screaming in frustration when confronting dangerous situations, and the ending () dragged this book down for me. But I love that this series keeps building on itself and I had a really fun time before the final beach scene.
So not my favorite Index vol, but it made me laugh and it was interesting to see how Touma would deal with a situation as unclear as this one.
First there were espers, next sorcerers, vampires, and even clones. Now turns out there's also angels and gods nyaa~
Moving on.
Unlike the previous vols there's no girl to save, no , not really. Instead through highly unlikely events an extremely horrible situation arises and Touma, Kanzaki, and Touma's neighbor Tsuchimikado have to stop it. This is the first index book that really has Touma work with others rather than save the day on his own, and while I love when that happens, here I'm a bit conflicted.
I enjoyed most of this book, sure Touma wasn't doing much, he was more reacting than helping, but then we get almost a chapter from Kanzaki's pov. And, well, Kanzaki's pov was boring. I feel like Iearned more about her from Touma than I did from herself. Her section was just her battling, and as I wasn't really invested in her or the enemy she was battling I kind of lost interest. Not to mention it didn't add anything to the plot and felt unnecessary.
One of my favorite parts of this series is the excessive empathy it displays, and it does that here too, just not as previous installments so it was less impactful. Plus the ending, it was
Final Thoughts: I really liked this at first, but Kanzaki's long and unnecessary fight scene (not like it added anything to the story...), Touma mostly standing around and screaming in frustration when confronting dangerous situations, and the ending () dragged this book down for me. But I love that this series keeps building on itself and I had a really fun time before the final beach scene.
So not my favorite Index vol, but it made me laugh and it was interesting to see how Touma would deal with a situation as unclear as this one.
August 5, 2016
In Volume four of A Certain Magical Index, Kamijou flees Academy City to go on vacation after the events of his foiling of the Sisters Project. He is told to go on vacation so as to avoid those who are out for his head. Hopefully things will calm down enough for him to return soon.
In the midst of all of this, he notices that everyone is acting strangely. Folks he knows are not who they say they are now are acting like they are other people, and he is bewildered. It turns out that someone has activated a sorcery that is horrible in that it could lead to incredible danger to many people. The only way to stop some bad stuff from happening, and reverse what has happened already, is to end this magic. But that might be more costly than Kamijou expects.
Only thing I disliked here was how the almost entire second half was non-stop action. I like action, but a little more breathing room would have been nice. On the other hand, the author uses words well and there is no filler with the action flowing smoothly.
I adore Kanzaki, so I am glad that she is back now. and enjoyed her character being fleshed out more. I can't wait to see her in future volumes.
Index was a bit character here but I know that in some future volumes she does do great stuff, so here's looking forward to that. And of course, it's awesome to see Touma's heroism. Despite the danger and so forth, he always tries to do what he thinks is right.
I enjoyed the magic in the book, which despite being so hokey and made up, is within the world of the book, reasonably consistent. It's funny, cause all of this unrealistic gobbledygook, which is different from real-life (in the areas I could recognize) religions or the supernatural, or so forth, were dead-on consistent in-story. This consistency made things easier to understand.
I really enjoy this series and think others will too.
In the midst of all of this, he notices that everyone is acting strangely. Folks he knows are not who they say they are now are acting like they are other people, and he is bewildered. It turns out that someone has activated a sorcery that is horrible in that it could lead to incredible danger to many people. The only way to stop some bad stuff from happening, and reverse what has happened already, is to end this magic. But that might be more costly than Kamijou expects.
Only thing I disliked here was how the almost entire second half was non-stop action. I like action, but a little more breathing room would have been nice. On the other hand, the author uses words well and there is no filler with the action flowing smoothly.
I adore Kanzaki, so I am glad that she is back now. and enjoyed her character being fleshed out more. I can't wait to see her in future volumes.
Index was a bit character here but I know that in some future volumes she does do great stuff, so here's looking forward to that. And of course, it's awesome to see Touma's heroism. Despite the danger and so forth, he always tries to do what he thinks is right.
I enjoyed the magic in the book, which despite being so hokey and made up, is within the world of the book, reasonably consistent. It's funny, cause all of this unrealistic gobbledygook, which is different from real-life (in the areas I could recognize) religions or the supernatural, or so forth, were dead-on consistent in-story. This consistency made things easier to understand.
I really enjoy this series and think others will too.
June 17, 2019
Tbh, I thought this volume was rather bland. It seems to try to set up a bit more world building with the effect of Angel Fall having literally dropped an angel to earth, whilst changing everyone's insides and outsides. It was quite clear from the beginning who the culprit was but I do admit that I enjoyed Touma's dad's feelings towards Touma. Touya always felt terrible that Touma was treated "unfairly" by the world and others with his "misfortune", so he wanted to do whatever he could to save his son, which accidentally triggered the spell Angel Fall. The first half focused on elaborating the spell and it's effects and was a nice read to understand a bit more about the magic side of things, whereas the second part focused more on emotions and fighting.
Honestly, it wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. A very forgettable volume because I don't remember watching this in the anime at all lol! But I did enjoy Kanzaki getting more screentime and understanding her a bit more. Reading about how she's someone blessed with "fortune" where the people around her would be dragged into her situation to make her "fortunate" was heartbreaking, since it essentially meant that because of her fortune, people would get hurt in her place so that she would "luckily" not get hurt. In the end, her fortune is built upon misfortune of others and it was saddening to hear.
I also enjoyed Touma finally relishing in his misfortune. It's cliche, but it is true that it is because of his misfortune that he has met so many people and encountered many things that he'd rather get involved in than not, since he's not someone that can look away when people are in trouble. He's someone that wants everyone to go back home smiling with all their family and friends, so even if he calls these encounters a misfortune, he still prefers to experience them, and I think I liked how he voiced his mentality. So really, even though I thought the plot/arc was rather boring this time around, I did enjoy the interactions between the characters so we could get a better understanding of Kanzaki, Touya, Touma and to an extent Tsuchimikado.
Honestly, it wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. A very forgettable volume because I don't remember watching this in the anime at all lol! But I did enjoy Kanzaki getting more screentime and understanding her a bit more. Reading about how she's someone blessed with "fortune" where the people around her would be dragged into her situation to make her "fortunate" was heartbreaking, since it essentially meant that because of her fortune, people would get hurt in her place so that she would "luckily" not get hurt. In the end, her fortune is built upon misfortune of others and it was saddening to hear.
I also enjoyed Touma finally relishing in his misfortune. It's cliche, but it is true that it is because of his misfortune that he has met so many people and encountered many things that he'd rather get involved in than not, since he's not someone that can look away when people are in trouble. He's someone that wants everyone to go back home smiling with all their family and friends, so even if he calls these encounters a misfortune, he still prefers to experience them, and I think I liked how he voiced his mentality. So really, even though I thought the plot/arc was rather boring this time around, I did enjoy the interactions between the characters so we could get a better understanding of Kanzaki, Touya, Touma and to an extent Tsuchimikado.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2021
This was a very confusing volume, but it did wonders for Touma's character, made Kanzaki much more interesting, and properly introduced Tsuchimikado while solidifying that espers cannot use magic. There was also a lot of interesting magical theory involved, incorporating real life occultism and Christianity.
March 19, 2025
Well this one took some time to get thorugh. Interesting to see how you could conjure up a magic circle with seemingly irrelevant items. Real scary to think that you could potentially kill people with random items that have nothing to do with each other.
But someone is probably going to die in this series at this rate.
3.5/5
But someone is probably going to die in this series at this rate.
3.5/5
July 13, 2023
3.5/5
December 13, 2015
A Certain Magical Index volume 4 is probably the weakest of the four volumes that I’ve currently read. Despite that, I do not believe this is a bad story. Indeed, the combination of humor and suspense presented a strangely interesting contrast. I enjoyed reading this volume, even if I don’t think the writing itself was as crisp or the story as good as previous volumes.
Before I get into the bad stuff, why don’t I share what I liked about this volume? Volume 4 starts off with Touma Kamijou going on vacation with his family - only to discover that, one morning, everyone he knows has somehow switched bodies. His mom has turned into Index, his cousin has become Misaka, and Index has turned into his blue-haired friend from school. Everything is messed up.
The story combines a blend of humor, suspense, and action to tell its story. I thought the humor was a nice touch, however, the switch from humor to suspense could be a little jarring occasionally. The shift from one tone to the other wasn’t always smooth. That being said, there were a number of plot twists that I didn’t expect while reading this. Despite having seen the anime, I still found myself surprised at certain points, which I enjoyed because it meant I couldn’t predict everything. On the other hand, certain parts of this story were more tedious to read than they were to watch. The fight scene at the end was a snore fest. I didn’t even care who won, not because I knew what would happen, but because I just didn’t feel anything about the fight.
Another thing I would like to note is that Kiyotaka Haimura is as sloppy as ever. Some of his illustrations were impeccable, and others sucked. I’ve noticed in this volume that Kiyotaka seems to excel at drawing nude females. There are two illustrations in here, one color and the other gray scale, of a naked Kaori Kanzaki. It was really well done. Consequently, all the others vary from just okay to “I want to gouge my eyes with a rusty spork.” Oddly enough, the only other drawing aside from nude Kanzaki that I can say was any good is the one of Blue Hair wearing a frilly one-piece bathing suit meant for little girls. I’m not sure how to feel about that.
Despite the flaws found within this volume, I still enjoyed the story and am looking forward to reading volume 5.
July 29, 2025
If there could be a filler arc equivalent, then this is it. It does introduce some new information, but it's a mystery with no payoff once the reveal happens. It just seems to be an excuse to be at the beach and have the characters in multiple risky situations for no reason.
March 7, 2025
This was pretty ok. I thought the concept of this was smart and I liked how radically different it was than the previous volumes. It smartly hints at all the important details such as Feng Shui, the artefacts and using the memory loss to the full effect. I continue to like how Touma sucks at fighting, he really doesn’t do anything in this besides the story circulating around his misfortune. Which is really refreshing such a good guy in a series but be powerless a lot of the times to do anything. But the fight scenes were still great with the serial killer in the house the angel fight at the end both being insanely different but both really enjoyable which was fun. Tsuchimikado was a fun character, both I definitely preferred seeing him earlier in the anime which was a great choice when they adapted it. Some of the jokes around substitution didn’t really land but it was still an interesting idea and by the end it definitely paid off with the reveal of Touys. Good book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 18, 2015
Volume 4 of A Certain Magical Index is not the most logical thing I've ever read. In fact, the machinations of the plot of the first two thirds of this book are among the most confusing and convoluted that I've ever read. Still, this book is impossibly enthusiastic, wildly earnest in its action scenes, and uses obscure religious mythology whenever possible, so I was very entertained by it. It's my least favorite entry in the series so far, but hardly bad enough to dissuade me from continuing with it.
November 12, 2017
Not sure if it’s the author or the translator. The comedy doesn’t work most of the time, there is weird sentence structure and word choice, and other odd things like suddenly taking a paragraph to describe furniture in a room in the middle of an action scene. Probably the only consistently good thing is the story, and the details and overall system of magic/occult. The author seems to take his research seriously… I would love to see his list of references.
November 27, 2015
Super funny, the dialogue makes me laugh every time between Kamijou and Tsuchimikado. I liked how they expanded on who Tsuchimikado and Kanzaki were in their pasts, and Kamijou's obvious uneasiness at meeting his parents for the first time since he lost his memories. The ending was intense as well while you are thinking that Tsuchimikado might actually betray Kamijou. 5 stars definitely
August 18, 2013
One of the best in the Index series. Started funny as hell, but then it gradually gets more dark and emotive. Culminating in a series of heart breaking moments and a very very very epic fight scene. The narrative is excellent and really builds up the emotion.
July 22, 2016
Well, that was weird, even for this series
February 16, 2020
wololo
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2020
A fairly confusing start, but once the meat of the story comes around, it's smooth sailing from there.
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