A Certain Magical Grimoire

Absolutely do not want.

This was probably one of the few episode that I’ve watched that had actually made me *giggle*. It’s unbelievable just how much effect there is when you have characters just switch appearances but who maintain all their personalities - especially more so when the main character is the only one who sees it as such. You can see some of that wackiness here in the gallery.

Index in swimsuit? Check.

So Touma and Index are off to the beach for some rest, shut-eye and to meet his parents (not to mention to get away from all the commotion of the city - after all, Touma did shut down the Accelerator leveling up experiment). Everything seems nice and normal - Index’s tantrums, amazing eating habits and her chewing on Touma’s head when she gets shown the R18 channel are all part of a daily routine. All this changes after Touma meets his dad…after being given a little charm of an Indian deity, his cousin shows up…who is practically a carbon copy of Mikoto! It gets even worse when Index shows up…as his mother. And just when you think it couldn’t get worse, Stiyl and Misaka turn up as the old man and landlady from the hotel! And you can see who Index turned into *points up*.

I wonder what Touma is thinking of here

Unfortunately it’s not just Touma’s family and Index as he finds out later on - the entire world seems to have undergone a complete appearance switch. Kioko’s now the president of the USA (Yes We Can! - sound familiar?), otakus are old men and babies, sumo wrestlers’ are wearing cheerleading outfits…it’s just bizarre. In the end Touma meets only three other people apart form his dad that seem unaffectedby this distortion - Kanzaki, his friend Tsuchimikado, and a leather wearing sorceress from the Russian Church Annihilatus (who almost kills Touma on their first encounter). They explain that a spell was cast which unbalanced the spheres of the Sephiroth and that as a result of this ‘Angel Fall’ the appearances of people have been mishmashed with who they really are - the explanations really quite interesting (even if i did forget it already). They determine that Touma is at teh centre of the spell and that it has something to do with him (even if he doesn’t know himself). At the end, he gets a further shock as he finds out that Tsuchimikado is also a member of Necessarius.

Yes We Can~

I don’t think any Russian Churches sport uniforms like this.

Quite the place for a serious discussion.

So this episode serves to introduce Touma’s predicament in a humorous fashion that makes fun of some aspects of reality - we have a guest appearance by Obama, mentions of Shana-tan, Index in a very….revealing bikini (since she was Touma’s mother to everybody else), and Mikoto in a school swimsuit. Otaku dreams have come to life it seems. I found the idea of the Sephiroth fascinating though. As a occult fan I actually managed to read and make sense of some of the writing on the tree diagram presented and I’m impressed at the detail they included in making the explanation credible. Unfortunately, the actual people who maintain the Kabbalah might disagree with that. A good fun filled episode that leads us hanging for more.

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