In the Index/Railgun world, the Academy City wide school system's Daihasei sporting event takes place over a few days.  Two major events, coupled with several secondary events, takes place during this timeline.

First, in Index, we have the Croce St. Peter's arc. This is well covered in the Index anime series. On the minor, but impportant side, Kamijou Touma's parents and Misaka Mikoto's Mother meet up. Misaka meets up with Index, I think for the first time, and naturally the tension and jealousy generally gets directed towards Touma. It is after lunch that the stories really start.

While Touma is running around in his arc with Styil and Tsuchimikado, doing the Index storyline, Misaka is is getting embroiled into an arc that is peripherally connected to the sister's arc, but focuses more on Shokuho Misaki, the telepath number 5 level 5 and self described rival of Misaka  Mikoto. Always looking for a tie in to exploit in a later story, Misaki meets Touma while she is talking with Mikoto, when he returns with drinks. Seeing Touma eyeing Misaki's prodigious knockers, Mikoto gets a tad violent and Touma, once again, bears the brunt.


The two Tokiwadai Middle School students will meet again, and reluctantly pair up, when a scheme Misaki has put together begins taking fruit. We also meet up with many other Academy City characters, including Kihara Gensei, mentioned in the first Railgun series, who is the head researcher and leader of the push to create a level 6, and another level 5, Sugiita Gunha, number 7, who has a hard to identify esper power.

There are a lot of typical To Aru style cross meetings. To me, the most important is Touma meeting Saten Ruiko while on a scavenger hunt. The reason I love this is that, while looking like a seemingly unconnected event, it is revisited in a wonderful way at the end of the arc. Without giving away spoilers, the author demonstrates that Saten can read the situation with the best of them, come up with a ploy for the sake of her friend and execute it almost flawlessly. It was a beautiful moment that Shirai screws up (like always) at the end. The arc manages to keep Mikoto as the main character, while allowing the all others (especially Misaki) to have their moments, while giving the Touoma/Mikoto relationship yet another nudge. By this point in the timeline, she already knows she has feelings for Touma, but she is no where near the point she finally gets to at the end of the Hawaii arc.

There are some problems with continuity, minor as they are. All the action that takes place, including meeting every so often between Touma and Mikoto are improbable, given the intensity of the arcs. Also Kuroko moves around quite well for someone still confined to a wheelchair. However, they successfully restore the situation at large to be able to continue with the timeline, and they even end pretty much how it began, with Touma and Mikoto's roles reversed.

All in all it was a very long arc, chapters start around 43, and ends at 71. It was a great read, though. There is a long period of time where the friends are not all together, for reasons important to the story, but it would probably make for as good animated series as well. I felt it was worth it if for no other reason than the way they ended the arc. Everyone is pretty much a frickin' hero, including Saten Ruiko. That's not a bad way to go with a story.

Posted by: topmaker at 12:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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