10 Second Anime - Toaru Majutsu no Index III - Episode 9

Kaori fights Acqua with the help of Amakusa and Touma. The last Right Seat of God member makes his moves.

#09 - "Holy Mother Veneration"

Meh.

Look, I get it that at this point in the light novels an avid reader would know who is who in all the flashbacks and other scenes. But what about the guys who read this stuff twelve years ago and gave up hope for another season of Index anime after the fifth year? Would it kill the producers to stick some name plates under some faces? Like that one with all the piercings talking to the pope at the end of the season. We saw her (him?) in the first season, but it's been about 12 years or so. Throw us a bone!

Hmm.

This was another one of those fights where we had to care about how the one side figured out the weakness of the other guy's abilities. If you stripped away all the minutia, we were actually left with a Power of Friendship plot, a Nakama Power-Up, and the ultimate Plot Breaker showing up at the last moment to bring it all together. All I cared about was watching Kaori again.

The other important development was Mikoto realizing she had fallen in love with Spiky-kun. His heroic spirit, which he didn't lose from amnesia, still motivates his actions and it's something that totally makes Mikoto's heart go doki-doki. Her scene with Touma was also a nice mirroring with Kaori's character, where Mikoto has the same personality of wanting to be asked for help and not having to rely on others. In Kaori's case, she threw away her pride and relied on her Amakusa friends. For Mikoto, she placed Touma's intentions to do something by himself above her own wish to use her powers to help. Sometimes love is letting someone be their true selves and loving them more for it.

Heh.

I wrote a lot of notes about how Acqua's power works and how Kaori figured out how to beat it, but pfft. It's all Nakama fuel, Power of Friendship, and Deus ex Spiky-kun (that's almost not a joke considering how his right hand works).

And Touma is back in the hospital. And Index bites his head for flirting with Itsuwa.

Oh ho. Kaori is weak to Tsuchimikado's pace. You see, she really wants to wear that Fallen Angel Sexy Maid outfit. She's not just proud of her Saint abilities, she's proud of her boobs too!

Damn, there better be a figurine or something for that outfit.

And then there was only one Right Seat of God member left. Fiamma of the Right.

The Right Hand of God is supposed to be the most powerful. Peter is supposed to be sitting there in Heaven. Touma has an Imagine Breaker for his right hand. And this Flame guy has the Archangel Michael's nasty looking hand.

Finally. Index has been hidden away biting Touma's head for all this time, but somebody actually needs her now. Fiamma says he needs the Index to control Michael's Hand. Too bad he didn't want to go to Academy City instead of England. His little rebellion against the Vatican would have been over much quicker.

Nice. The Pope actually has some skillz! Doctrinally, he should have been able to counter any angelic ability, cuz Jesus said so, but we have a suspense and action story here. I did like how that spell was limited to 40 years like wandering in the desert with Moses.

There's a buxom nun wearing a pink habit. A name plate would have been nice here, but I suppose we'll get her name next episode.