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BOOK REVIEW

VERDICT

8/10 Gear points

• Title: A Certain Magical Index Volume 6

• Author: Kazuma Kamachi

• Illustrations by Kiyotaka Haimura

• Publisher: Yen press (English)

• Genre: Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction

• Book 6 in the series

• Age Range: Teens

Setting

A Certain Magical Index's main setting is the fictional Academy City, a city that is dedicated to the advancement of scientific development in practically all fields. But the most important feature of Academy City (at least, storywise) is the development of Esper powers; people in Academy City also develop supernatural powers through its curriculum (hence the name, Academy City).

The main protagonist of the story is a high school student named Touma Kamijou, a Level 0 (no powers) with extremely bad luck. Despite officially being a Level 0, he has a power called Imagine Breaker, which negates any supernatural power that touches his right hand (his school’s power measuring equipment can’t detect it however so officially, he’s a Level 0).

In the world of A Certain Magical Index, Magic is hidden from the general public and is an unspoken enemy of the Science-focused Academy City. They usually keep each other in check with a perpetual stand-off, but even if Sorcerers were to attack and Academy City responded by sending Espers to fight them, then if the Espers were victorious, then it would prove that Science is greater than Magic and would mean war. This is circumvented in the series by the Academy City higher-ups sending Touma to deal with them (mostly unwillingly) since he’s a Level 0 with a power that isn’t scientific (Esper powers can all be explained with science, but Imagine Breaker can’t).

In Volume 1, Touma meets an English nun named Index and learns that as well as Esper powers based on science, there also exists Magic that is based on religion. After that Touma gets into all sorts of incidents involving both Science and Magic (that is the main premise of the series).

In Volume 6, Touma returns to school (he’s been on summer break since the series began) and gets into trouble involving a mysterious transfer student named Hyouka Kazakiri who is being targeted by a Sorcerer attacking Academy City.

Review

A Certain Magical Index is already one of my absolute favourite book series, and Volume 6 is a very interesting development point in the series. In all previous volumes, the conflict is centred on something that is either Scientific, like an Esper, or Magical, like a Sorcerer, but Volume 6 has plot points centred on both. It’s the first volume where Science and Magic directly clash.

For the first time in the series, a Sorcerer is waging a one-woman war on Academy City and Touma is once again being unknowingly directed to stop them.

The Science side of A Certain Magical Index is mostly depicted through Touma’s everyday life and his interactions with other Espers. One of the main characters that Touma is acquainted with is Mikoto Misaka, a Level 5 Esper (Level 5 is the highest-ranking of Esper and only seven exist) who also appears in this Volume.

Each volume tends to introduce a new concept in the worldbuilding as the plot focus for that volume. For Science, it’s usually an Esper and their ability or some other Science Fiction concept, for Magic, it’s usually a new Magic Spell or magical object. Since Volume 6 involves both Science and Magic, a new concept is included for each. For Magic, the new concept is Golems, humanoid automatons made from earth and other materials as the signature spell of the Sorcerer antagonist. And for Science, the new concept is AIM Diffusion Fields, energies that Espers unconsciously generate like body heat (except it’s related to their powers, for example; fire-generating Espers will have a diffusion field of heat and electricity-generation Espers will have a diffusion field of static electricity).

Extreme Spoilers Ahead, I recommend only continuing after reading this volume for yourself:

My favourite thing about this volume is that it also serves as something of a “true introduction” of one of the major antagonists of A Certain Magical Index; Academy City’s Board of Directors Chairman Aleister, who firmly established himself as the most mysterious character to ever exist in literature by stating that he lives in a liquid-filled tube, suspended upside down, inside a building that is more durable than a nuclear bunker and completely sealed from the outside world to the point where the inside air is recycled to be breathable. Aleister was introduced in Volume 2, but as I mentioned, this is his proper introduction. Volume 6 starts with one of Aleister’s Sorcerer spies informing him of the Sorcerer attack and Aleister responds by insinuating that he’ll have Touma take care of it.

After the incident with the Sorcerer is resolved, we return to Aleister and his spy. The Magic power system of A Certain Magical Index is extremely intricate and complex, like a clockwork structure with a massive number of small parts. But with the reveal of AIM Diffusion Fields and their potential, Aleister can essentially stuff a giant cog into the clockwork structure called Magic and cause it to break down. It is then revealed to us that Aleister arranged everything about the incident to work entirely in his favour, even if it failed and that this incident and others that happened in previous volumes are just individual parts of a grand masterplan. And for one last bomb-drop of crazy reveals, we learn that Aleister’s true identity is “Aleister Crowley, Humanity’s Greatest Sorcerer” (based on a real-life occultist), so know we know there’s an insane master plan centred around Academy City that can rip Magic apart at the seams, and the forefront of Science is lead by a Sorcerer.

Overall this volume signals a turning point in A Certain Magical Index where conflicts start to escalate in ways we never dreamed of.