English Dub Review: A Certain Magical Index “Heroes”

Save the princess, save the world.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As reinforcements conjure a massive magic missile to fire on Buckingham Palace, Toma, Index, Itsuwa, Kanzaki, and Villian race there themselves to face Carissa. Villian arrives first, rocking an armed crossbow against Carissa’s sword. Toma shows up next and notices none of the knights around, which Carissa reveals to be because she killed some to make a point. That point being that everything is on the line for them, so they either give up their lives for her cause or die if they fail. Kanzaki and Index arrive soon after, putting her on the ropes. They all even begin coordinating their attacks with the magic missiles, eventually landing a direct hit on the palace…

…Which has no effect. But not being one to be outdone, Carissa decides to order her own missile to be aimed on their position: a Bunker Cluster that destroys everything in a 3 kilometer radius. While this is going on, First Princess Rimea uncovers Carissa’s true intentions and broadcasts them. Apparently, because of pressure from France, the Roman Orthodoxy, and the Russian Church, Carissa took it upon herself to retrieve Curtana Original in order to relieve Britain of these pressures. However, she also plans to lock herself away with the weapon once everything’s over and rot in a tomb so as to appear to be a solo tyrant.

Knight Leader rejoins the fight, hoping to save his princess from her own suicide. Acqua also shows up after taking out a satellite being used to call more missiles, meaning it’s Carissa alone against everyone, including Queen Elizard with Curtana Second. But Her Majesty has one more spell up her sleeve, an ancient magic requiring the Union Jack flag to give everyone in Britain power to fight! With this inspirational patriotism, Touma decides he’ll save Carissa the only way he can…but punching her in the face, ending the fight and destroying Curtana Original.

While the royals try to figure out how to explain all of this to the populace, the injured Carissa is visited by Fiamma of the Right, who takes credit for causing the pressure from the other nations that caused this whole thing in the first place. Toma shows up and confronts him, but he reveals he’s removed a device holding Index’s mind together, which he takes to Russia to find something to take down an angel.

OUR TAKE

Alright, that’s much better. Just about everything confusing about this story is cleared up a bit with this episode, making following along with the sequence of events a lot easier. Carissa’s motives for starting this whole mess are mostly coherent (we’ll get to that), as does Knight Leader’s reasons for helping her and then switching sides and Acqua’s return. Even Villian becomes a much more compelling character once she starts taking initiative and entering the fight. And the previously vague powers of the Curtana Original get used in a far more practical way, showing how big a threat it really is. That all said, there’s still plenty here that confounds me. I realize this is probably due to the same larger problem of this season, forcing too much material into too small a time frame, but this is the version I’m reviewing, so it’s what I have to judge.

First thing would be the revelations about Carissa’s reasons for doing all of this. Let’s put aside that she must have been well aware Britain would still be waist deep in the shit she stirred up regardless of whether she was alive afterwards. It’s the WAY this information is divulged that bugs me, since it comes from Rimea (who’s been just off to the side and observing this whole time) crapping exposition while the fight is going on. Surely, if anyone should be revealing why Carissa is doing what Carissa is doing, it should be CARISSA, yes? It might not make a ton of sense, but it would be at least a bit more believable coming from her impassioned pleas to let her die for her nation. Instead, while this is being said, she’s just kind of giving a smarmy grin while the dialogue is trying to make us sympathize with her. Just poor direction all around here.

Next is the climax with Elizard’s big British spell, that apparently gives magical power to every citizen in the country to show unity and allow everyone to make a choice about who and what to fight for. It’s meant to be a stirring speech that Toma takes to mean as a sign that no one in that country is unimportant and that he should save Carissa for the people…but the fact of the matter is it doesn’t end up physically factoring into much of anything in the fight (again, at least in this adaptation. I don’t know how the book handles it). So, like the reveal of Carissa’s motive, this feels like it is meant to be a strong emotional moment that just rings hollow.

And lastly, the reveal of Fiamma orchestrating everything. This is mostly because the phrasing about what he did is not well explained at all. I understand that his position as the leader of the Right Seat of God allows him a lot of power, but what exactly does “putting pressure” on France, the Roman Orthodoxy, and the Russian Church MEAN in this case? What exactly have they been doing that forced Carissa’s hand like this? Part of me realizes that one of the bigger missed opportunities of this arc was the lack of perspective from any of the common people in Britain, which probably would have gone a long way to help us understand what kind of pressure Britain faced that impacted its people and therefore forced drastic action by the royal family and the church, especially since the people turn out to be ostensibly pretty important in the end. Regardless, this does show Fiamma to be both a credible magical threat and a political one, so I’m expecting a lot next time we see him.

But that does it for this story. Next week sees us taking one last detour from the main story with a follow up to the second arc and the return of GROUP. I just hope it’s not as much of a clusterfuck as last time.