YMMV / A Certain Magical Index

• Adorkable: Harumi Kiyama: Super-Deformed mode, after being scolded by Kuroko and Saten for taking off her stained skirt: "But no man would take interest in my flat and unattractive body anyway." Aww...
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Aleister: Is he nothing more than a giant jerkass who loves nothing more than piling up one evil scheme after another? Or a Well-Intentioned Extremist with ulterior motives? His actions would suggest the former, while his backstory leans in the direction of the latter. Revelations in the later light novels suggest that he is indeed a Well-Intentioned Extremist, though one who doesn't deny his own selfish motives.
• Archive Panic:
  • Since the main series' start back in 2004, it just hasn't stopped. The Old Testament consists of 24 novels (including two series-relevant side stories), New Testament consists of 23, and Genesis Testament is likely to reach that number of volumes too. Most novels average between 300-400 pages, and yes, you will need to read all of them in order to avoid Continuity Lockout.
  • Note that this is just for the main series light novels; it doesn't include the various spin-offs mentioned on the main page (the events of which may eventually get a nod in the main series) and their respective Anime or Manga adaptions, or the various other side stories that have been (and continue to be) released to commemorate various milestones the series achieves (usually as extras for an anime Blu-ray release).
  • Also keep in mind that this is just for the media that takes place in the same universe as Index — Kazuma Kamachi has written many, many novels for other series that he has created, all while still working on main series novels and overseeing respective adaptions or spin-offs.
  Kazuma Kamachi: "If I don't keep writing, I'll crash. Like an airplane."
• Awesome Music: Has its own page.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Whether Touma is the hero all other heroes should aspire to be, or a horribly preachy Marty Stu. Not helped by how he's perceived by particular detractors as sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, on top of not actually suffering actual bad luck from the Imagine Breaker. Defenders of his Chronic Hero Syndrome points out that he does have flaws, while detractors call his attitude narratively broken.
    • Another (albeit related) point of contention about Touma is just how much of a character he is, or whether he is a character at all and not just a plot device. Some people have noted that even though he always saves the day, he rarely if ever has actually any personal relation to the problem at hand, and that the conflict could have been handily solved by any other sufficiently strong character that just happened to come along, and have argued that this makes him something of a Satellite Character in his own series. Said people are also somewhat divided whether this makes him a Black Hole Sue or not.
  • There are three separate camps for viewing Accelerator. One, the people who focus on his lethal methods who makes of him a bloody monster. Two, the people who focus on him trying hard to redeem himself even if that means throwing away his life. Three, people who liked him from the start, and don't have to forgive him for anything.
  • Not to be left out, the third main character Shiage Hamazura. There are those who like him for being a true Level 0 unlike Touma who still kicks ass with nothing but wits, guns, and luck (even defeating his own Level 5 Mugino), which makes him something of an Audience Surrogate like Saten, and they think his relationship with Rikou is very sweet while being amused by his Butt-Monkey status in ITEM before (slowly) gaining more respect from them. There's also the fact he's the first person to truly inconvenience Aleister. On the other hand, there are those who dislike him because he's not that attractive compared to Touma or Accelerator. He doesn't have any cool or interesting powers unlike the rest of the main characters and yet still manages to pull out wins against incredibly dangerous enemies due to the story seemingly bending over backwards to give his foes the Idiot Ball. And they find his servant boy and ButtMonkey status for Team ITEM annoying rather than funny.
  • The titular Index has her fans who find her and some of her interactions with Touma adorable, but she also receives a fair bit of flak for also displaying rather abusive behavior towards Touma (much of which is provoked by actions beyond Touma's control), exaggerated Big Eater tendencies showing little regard for Touma’s low finances, and seemingly having no purpose than just being in the background, with virtually zero stories focused around her.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Index-tan Episode 1 for the second season: Each of Saten's appearances are this.
• The Chris Carter Effect: A frequent phenomenon among fans. The series has by now introduced so many plot-relevant characters with even more potent powers with their own storylines that many people have trouble keeping up even with character charts. Combine this with the fact that the revelations about Imagine Breaker and the way Espers work have been minimal so far (and many other less important questions haven't been answered either, but rather just raise new questions) and that Character Development has been all but non-existent for the majority of characters as of late (including main character Touma), and that the staff seems to be more interested in working on the spin-offs rather than the main story, and you have a giant chaos that has little potential of eventually wrapping itself up completely.
• Complete Monster: Terra of the Left is the most violent, self-righteous member of God's Right Seat. Using an ancient magical artifact to manipulate the people of a French town, Terra sends them after Touma Kamijou and cares nothing when the riot causes the brainwashed citizens to be attacked by an Academy City attack force. Revealing his intent to launch a full-scale attack on Japan, Terra shows disdain for all non-Catholic lives and shamelessly admits to murdering "heathen" men, women, and children to perfect his magic.
• Crack Ship: Touma is obviously part of a few since he is already shipped with just about every female in the series (and some males), but one of the most popular characters he's shipped with who currently doesn't show interest in him is Kuroko. Yes, that Kuroko. While the image of "KamiKuro" itself is funny enough to get people on the ship, what makes it so famous is that there is actually a degree of evidence to support it, given that the two can get on somewhat cordially so long as Mikoto is not involved, and that Kuroko has recieved the infamous "princess carry" from Touma twice, which even Imaginary Fest has taken note of.◊
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Now with the second season of Index, Seiri Fukiyose has become very popular with fans on her debut in Episode 8. Her Adaptational Curves in the anime compared to how she appeared in the novels certainly helped.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Neither the name of Touma Kamijou's ability "Imagine Breaker" nor the Invisible Thing/the Dragon is inspired by the American band Imagine Dragons. A Certain Magical Index first volume came out in 2004, while Imagine Dragons band was formed in 2008.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Many A Certain Magical Index fans agree that Frenda Seivelun from ITEM was underutilised, underdeveloped, and killed off in an undeserving manner. Some fans actually went out of their way to make Fix Fic where she survives for much longer and legitimately contributes to the plot, usually by forming a duo with the local team normal Saten.
• Fanfic Fuel: The sheer size of Academy City, the number of unresolved plot threads, and the nature of Esper and Magic powers involving practically every area of physical science and fairy tale imaginable provides ample room for creating Original Characters and new storylines by eager fans.
• Fan Nickname:
  • While not calling her by her In-Series Nickname "Biri Biri", fans also call Mikoto pikachu-tan (pikachu-chan) or pika-pika-tan.
  • Thanks to Mikoto in Episode 10 of Railgun, fans have now called Touma's doctor, Dr Gekota! (At least it beats calling him Frog Face but it still doesn't beats his title Heaven Canceller.)
  • Superman is what some fans are calling Acqua of the Back.
  • Enter TouMAN.
  • Cue The Thundere.
  • Pendex for Index's John's Pen Mode.
  • "Fre nda" for Frenda Seivelun, who had been killed by being sliced in half.
  • "Walking Porn" for Oriana Thompson, who is practically Ms. Fanservice incarnate.
  • "HOThinus" for Othinus, when she was revealed to be incredibly attractive and wear a Stripperific outfit.
  • "OTP" for Othinus Touma Pairing.
  • The duo of Mikoto Misaka and Misaki Shokuhou have been called "MisaMisa" as they spend more time together.
  • The Will of the Misaka Network was promptly nicknamed "Will" by fans, including acting as if her full name is "Misaka William."
  • "Headband Girl" for the currently unnamed girl that appears in the background of various light novel illustrations. The illustrator apparently refers to her as "mob-ko" ("background girl"). She is also sometimes called "Observer-chan" after the reference made towards her between High Priest and Touma in NT 13
  • "KnT", or the full title "Kamijou no Touma", to refer to Touma's Enemy Without that appears in New Testament 22 Reverse.
• Fanon:
  • Fans have speculated that the Amakusa Catholic girl that Touma fought and saved from a fall in Volume 7 may be Itsuwa, the Amakusa warrior who was first introduced in Volume 11 which may explain why she has a crush on Touma in the first place. However, the 2nd season anime had it Jossed as it wasn't Itsuwa that Touma saved but another girl.
  • It's also fairly common fanon that Lola Stuart is Index's mother, especially since the two are specifically drawn to resemble each other. This also adds an extra Kick the Dog element to Lola's treatment of Index if you buy that theory. This was disproven by the revelation that Lola is a demon.
  • Fans have theorized for years that Aogami Pierce is the 6th Level 5, by this point they would be furious if it turned out it wasn't him. Note that even after we find out the 6th's name, this didn't stop the theories, since "Aogami Pierce" is just a nickname (it literally means "blue-haired boy with piercings").
  • As a way of hand-waving the aforementioned Stiyl's age discrepancy, a somewhat popular interpretation is that Stiyl uses magic to appear older.
  • It is fairly common for the fans to assume the region/district where Touma lives and places Mikoto and her friends visit on regular basis (such as Seventh Mist shopping mall) as the "Light Side" of Academy City. While the term "Dark Side" of Academy City exists in canon, no one actually mention the term "Light Side" in canon storyline either in the main series "Index" or the spinoff "Railgun" and "Accelerator".
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Touma and pretty much all of his female opponents, be they the ones who actually do grow feelings for him (such as Kanzaki, Agnese, Lessar, and Othinus), the ones who have flirty moments vague or overt (such as Oriana or Carissa), or even those who don't have any such feelings (such as Shelly or Vento). And then there's whatever Thor's got going on...
  • Kakine Teitoku a.k.a. Dark Matter and Uiharu. Yes. That Uiharu. Despite their first interaction with each other shows Kakine torturing Uiharu, that doesn't stop certain amount of fans from wearing their Shipping Goggles.
  • In a sense, Kuroko x Awaki pairing is also this, since they actually fight each other twice in one arc and barely interact again, yet fanart sites have so many pictures of them being lovey-dovey.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • Many were livid at J.C. Staff for not properly adapting Index III, instead making it a Compressed Adaptation, locking out a lot of information. The thing is, JC Staff did the same thing to both Index I and Index 2.^note Index I covered Vol. 1-6, and Index 2 covered Vol. 7-13 and Vol. SS, a side novel of the series. The difference is, while the first two seasons cut out plenty of information, it was mostly restricted to worldbuilding and extra characterization, and the plot was perfectly understandable otherwise. However, Index III cut out actual plot-relevant action, dialogue, and characters completely. By the time Index III had begun airing (seven years after Index II), plenty of fans had read the light novels and caught up to the series by that point, so now the changes that were made were much more noticable.
  • The Kudzu Plot and Myth Stall is often cited as a reason why the light novels are hard to get into for potential new fans, but at the beginning of the series the sheer amount of characters, factions, and moving parts was what was considered to make the books worth reading in the first place; Kamachi's skill with worldbuilding created a setting where everything felt alive and dynamic and there were plenty of interesting plot threads to explore. But when instead of resolving those plot threads, more and more characters and factions were introduced of increasingly higher power, cutting out any chance at prior characters being fleshed out, that it started to become a problem. Combined with the fact that the novels have reached over 30 volumes with no resolution in sight and it's easy to see why potential new fans would instead be turned away.
  • Touma is one of the most divisive protagonists among most of the fanbase, with many detractors considering him to be a flat, generic Invincible Hero, but most of the reasons cited for that are character traits that were always there but became more apparent the longer the series went on. Touma always was supernaturally durable, possessed a completely overpowered ability, and preached at villains constantly from the beginning, but had quite a few noticeable flaws: his fighting skills only worked against Squishy Wizards and he was easily beaten by those who were skilled at hand-to-hand combat, he took absolutely hellacious punishment even from the fights he won, and the Imagine Breaker had the side effect of making his daily life miserable. All these flaws begin to go away until by the time of New Testament he's convincing a Reality Warper villain to switch sides solely by preaching at her and being the major force behind stopping World War III. This leads to more fans finding him to be genuinely dull and uninteresting, since (as mentioned above) the Kudzu Plot prevented Touma from going through any meaningful Character Development.
  • One of the major criticisms of Shiage is how he wins his fights less by being smart and more through groups of villains passing around the Idiot Ball. This sort of Ass Pull actually occurs fairly early on with Accelerator seemingly forgetting he can just throw cars and rubble at Touma to crush him, but it's easily explainable as Accelerator is Ax-Crazy and might have either legitimately forgotten or wanted to kill Touma in a more humiliating way. In contrast, Shiage's victories are far more contrived and particularly infuriating when they occur because villains who are supposed to be competent grab ahold of the Idiot Ball.
• Friendly Fandoms: The fandom is on relatively good terms with some other fandoms.
  • Fate/stay night for various reasons, such as both magic systems being being based on real life myths and religions, the heavy presence of churches in both series, and even taking male historical characters and applying Rule 63 to them. Fans will also heavily overlap for both Touma and Shirou Emiya, due to the two sharing several, several similarities in both personality, motivations, and circumstances, as outlined in this image.◊
  • One-Punch Man, because both Touma and Saitama rely on their fist to win battles. The fact that Saitama's old hair style resembling Touma's also helps the two series relating to each other.
  • KonoSuba, usually because of "I believe in Gender Equality" meme and the crossover game between the two series.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Index-tan Episode 2: Himegami is asked what her wish for the second season is. Her response? "Um, I won't ask for my episode, but I just want to be treated more-". Guess what happens in her first lengthy appearance in Season 2? She gets filleted by Oriana Thomson because she thought that Himegami was an agent of Necessarius due to the Celtic cross around her neck.
  • Aogami's perverted tendencies seem less funny when his first English voice actor, Scott Freeman, was arrested and convicted of possession of child pornography.
  • Academy City's Power Curriculum Program. In theory anyone undergoing this program can become an Esper yet there are still people who have yet to gain powers and even those who did never go a higher level which suggest the program has some problems. However Vol. 22 reveals the program is secretly being undermined by the Higher Ups of Academy City who decide who can and cannot gain Esper powers and/or go a higher level based on the type of the powers that person has. This revelation makes it much worse once you realize Level 0's like Saten, the Skill Out gang members who are actually nice people such as Wataru and low level espers like the Level Upper users, who work hard to gain powers/higher levels but never can because their training is being sabotaged as the Higher Ups see no point of helping anyone who doesn't have the powers they want. That's right, the city is responsible of destroying the dreams of many students and leading them into path of cynicism and crime. Particularly harsh since the Program prevents anyone who goes through it form learning magic, even if they don't get anything out of it.
  • All intentional; while Mikoto claims in SS: Liberal Arts City that Academy City has no intentions of taking the world via military force, the revelation via Chapter 22 suggests otherwise. Why else would you try to make an army of level 5s or an "interceptor" aircraft that has the ability to fly halfway around the world and level a city single-handedly? Basically, the reason why the corporate crooks of AC haven't bothered leveling the level zeros of their population isn't just because they don't want to, its because they need cannon fodder; they needed a group of disgruntled individuals who they knew would resort to violence in order to defend themselves against those termed and rewarded for being genetically superior, so that they might label that group as people on whom it is okay to use your powers, people whom it is okay to murder, because no one will care about them due to their collective reputation.
  • The Russia arc has a storyline where Shiage helps a village from being taken over by hostile militia forces without any visible uniforms is one if you think about how the Crimea occupation started in 2014.
  • Kuroko swapping minds with a president in Angel Fall becomes this after her English voice actor Alison Viktorin lost her job after a couple of political related tweets revolving around the Capitol Riot in 2021.
  • In the Side Story, Biohacker, Touma and Seria are hit at one point by a plague of rats carrying a bioweapon designed by the eponymous Biohacker that leaves them paralysed. They're able to recover, and Touma notes that if the Biohacker modified something deadlier like the Ebola virus or the SARS coronavirus, the results could have been catastrophic. Yeah...
    • To make things worse, Biohacker's final part was released in Feburary 2020, after multiple cases of COVID-19 had been reported. An unfortunate coincidence or Real Life Writes the Plot?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This AMV shows Accelerator as a singer of rock band. Then in 2015, came a new spin-off manga titled "To Aru Idol no Accelerator-sama" staring Accelerator as an Idol singer.
  • A big reason for Princess Carissa's coup d'etat against her mother in Volumes 17 & 18 is that she believes the United Kingdom has become too stifled by the European Union and having its rights infringed upon with impunity by a corrupt alliance deep in the Roman Catholic Church's pockets, and wants to break free of it by force. In June 2016, the real United Kingdom voted by referendum to leave the European Union peacefully, and by the end of January 2020 actually did leave.
• Iron Woobie: Touma gets his ass kicked on a regular basis, and even the fights he wins tend to end with him in the hospital. There's no real explanation for why he puts himself through such misery, especially considering he has his own inherent bad luck to deal with. And yet he claims to be happy with way he lived his life...
  • The novels explain all of this in detail... eventually. Volume 22 summarizes it quite nicely, though NT volume 9 best outlines his "real motivations." NT volume 9 partially trolls and explains that Touma doesn't really believe half of the "hero speeches" that he gives to villains. He just does this to briefly get through to people who have temporarily gone crazy as a result of experiencing severe loss/tragedy in their lives. As of NT volume 9, he has a higher moral ground and it is actually justified because of what he went through...
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • The three primary characters, Touma, Accelerator, and Shiage, have all gained their own Unwanted Harem as the volumes moved along. Touma in particular has been shipped with pretty much every female character at least once, including members of Accelerator and Shiage's harems.
  • Mikoto can be shipped with practically anyone from Science Side regardless of their gender. Other than mainstream pairing Mikoto/Touma and Mikoto/Kuroko, Misaki Shokuhou and Accelerator often get paired with the aforementioned Electromaster. Oh and let's not forget that Mikoto/Saten has a rather small but solid fanbase too.
• Les Yay:
  • Mikoto and Kuroko, though mostly on Kuroko's end. Mikoto's more annoyed at it than anything, but on occasion (when Kuroko isn't being obsessive about it), she does return it.
  • Misaka WORST and Umidori.
  • Kuroko admits that she would love to have both Misaka and at least 1,000 of the clones to herself.
  • Kanzaki Kaori and Index, more so in the first arc and in their past.
  • Index and Kazakiri Hyouka. Hyouka notes that Index acting Tsundere for Touma is a sign that she loves him. Then, much to Hyouka's surprise, Index acts the exact same way towards her.
  • Kanzaki and Orsola.
  • With some Foe Yay Shipping, Oriana towards Himegami and Fukiyose.
  • New Light, particularly Bayloupe and Lessar, though Floris and Lancis aren't exactly innocent either. The group seems the be well aware of their apparently abnormal closeness too.
    Floris: "Hey, you two lesbians who look like you’re from some erotic novel or something." ^note Said when Bayloupe and Lessar were in a compromising position in the back seat of a car.
    Lessar: "Floris! Lancis!! Quit awakening strange new tendencies and wake up! We need to use this room!!" ^note Said when Lessar found the two sleeping in the same bed when she needed to have a chat with Mikoto. Apparently Floris just likes to crawl into other people's beds when sleepy.
  • Mikoto and Misaki, carrying over from the spin-off it got started in. By the later New Testament novels, the author has reached the point of lampshading it.
    Their lips were less than 5cm apart, so to an observer it would have appeared as an incredibly lily-scented scene between two high-class girls. (from New Testament 18)
  Other notable incidents include:

  • Mikoto eating a french fry from Misaki's hand.
  • Mikoto picking up Shokuhou bodily and spanking her (while both wearing swimsuits).
  • Kuroko walking into a hospital room to find Mikoto wrestling Shokuhou (who's wearing only a baby doll negligee) on a bed.
  • At this point, To Aru needs its own page.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Touma Kamijou. In the Japanese side of the fandom: Put him up against anything, he'll Imagine Break it into oblivion, and he has his own meme: Sogebu (stands for Sono Gensou wo Buchikorosu^note "I will Kill that Illusion"). In the West? He's the freaking TouMAN.
  • Accelerator. Dude has invincible powers, loses them, and that just makes him even stronger. He's still Academy City's #1 esper.
  • Acqua of the Back is Superman.
• Memetic Loser: Fre/nda, a mocking nickname used by both Western and Eastern fandoms after she gets bifurcated by Mugino.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • GENDER EQUALITY!^note The fact that the male protagonists have no problem beating up female opponents seems to resonate with the fans when so many other series take Wouldn't Hit a Girl so seriously.)
  • The Kami-Yan disease.^note what his male classmates tefer to his ability to attract girls as. Also has been adopted by the fandom whenever someone new falls for him.
  • George R. R. Martin is helping write the series. ^ExplanationNT Vol 7's incredibly dark storyline, which includes characters being told that Maika Tsuchimikado had died offscreen (it was a false alarm), was similar to A Song of Ice and Fire's Anyone Can Die style.
  • OTP ^ExplanationOthinus Touma Pairing
  • Maid spin, maid spin, maid spin...^note Maika, a maid, constantly riding a robot and sometimes spinning around on it
  • Hothinus ^note A reference to Othinus and her Stripperific outfit
  • To Aru Majutsu NO Index due to Index being Out of Focus and Touma taking the main character role despite Index being the title character.
  • Normal high school boy/normal magician.^note In NT Volume 9, Touma claims, while fighting the full-powered Magic God Othinus, that he's a normal high school boy who could be beaten by a normal magician. There's a certain fan-made image juxtaposing Touma with Acqua, giving the various abnormal characteristics of each, to show what Touma apparently thinks a "normal high school boy" and "normal magician" are
  • "You just activated my trap card!" ^{note (spoilers)} A common phrase thrown around when Touma's right arm gets cut off, causing the dragons/Invisible Thing to come out, especially when a villain does it. The eight dragons Touma unleased at the climax of Railgun's Daihasei Festival Arc have only strengthened the comparisons between him and a walking YuGiOh! deck.
• Moe: Several characters count.
  • Special mention goes to Komoe-sensei, which is even in her name. She's also not above invoking this trope in order to guilt her students into doing things.
  • Quite a few of the Sisters, but 19090 stands out. She's a minor side character, but in her first appearance (when the four Sisters still in Academy City were getting sized for their winter uniforms), the others discovered that she wasn't quite as identical as she was supposed to be, due to reading girly magazines and dieting. She runs away tearfully, while her Sisters hunt her down ruthlessly in an attempt to measure her more precisely and force her to fix her eating habits.
• Moral Event Horizon: There's the #2 Level 5 Teitoku Kakine. He's Obviously Evil from the get go, but he still manages to be personable enough that you aren't quite sure what you think of him, especially since most of his darker actions to this point have been against people who aren't exactly paragons of justice even on their best days. That is, of course, until he beats up Uiharu, earning him the hatred and rage of the majority of fans. It could have been worse though, it didn't break or kill her.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The noise Imagine Breaker makes when it negates something.
  • The sound effect of Accelerator's Attack Reflector.
• Narm:
  • Apparently, Accelerator can state-change air into plasma by making ridiculous noises with his mouth, another form of his evil laugh. This is also a case of Formulaic Magic; those noises he was making were Accelerator performing the calculations necessary to use his Vector powers at high speeds... which does nothing to make them less ridiculous. Things get even more hilariously confusing when it is later revealed that those sounds are in fact a very basic form of the language spoken by Holy beings such as angels, which is why he's able to harness so much extra power whenever he makes them.
  • Every feeling of suspense or mystery when Kazakiri's Artificial Angel form appears is destroyed when they show her face, with her tongue hanging out and her eyes rolled back up. It doesn't help that it looks exactly like the so-called "ahegao face", a common and rather memetic phenomenon in Hentai, which just makes it look even more silly and out of place. Admittedly, it does get more awesome when she actually has control of it and starts chucking around attacks powerful enough to stand up to Archangel Gabriel.
• Never Live It Down:
  • No matter how much good he does or how many heroic acts he does, some fans still hate and can never forgive Accelerator for the terrible things that he's done, especially what he did to the Sister Clones before his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Misaki turned off many readers when she sided with Touma's Emanation in New Testament 22 Reverse, despite her obvious guilt and Mikoto forgiving her by the end.
• Once Original, Now Common: Index provides one of the earliest examples, and one of the major Trope Codifiers, of the Stock Light-Novel Hero archetype. Because of this, many people trying to get into the series now (after the genre has become one of the most saturated in the medium) find it hard to see past its generic over-powered hero, the bevy of beautiful girls vying for his attention, or its Extranormal Institute setting. However, being from a time before those formulas became standardized offers an advantage to still stand out: it also has many elements of a Shōnen series, as well as a greater emphasis on Worldbuilding and extremely entertaining fight scenes, which people who dismiss it at-a-glance may miss out on.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • It's rather surprising how many fans pair up Fiamma and Carissa, considering their single canon interaction was an I Shall Taunt You on Fiamma's part followed by him trying to finish her off.
  • Some of Touma's ships can be like this, since the most you can say of some of their interactions is that Touma punched them while giving them a dressing down (such as Vento x Touma). Heck, some of them haven't even had an embarrassing perverted moment with him in canon yet!
    • Touma and Saten get paired in a surprising amount of fanfics, despite the fact that they've only met face-to-face when he borrowed her good luck charm for the Daihasei Borrowing Race. Probably because they're both normal (mostly) and that Saten's protection charm actually managed to negate Touma's bad luck for once.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Which girl should be with Touma? Don't ask! because the moment you say so, you will get yourself in a nasty Ship-to-Ship Combat between other fans over their favorite girl!
  • Yet two of the biggest Ship-to-Ship Combat by Japanese fans are the Mikoto x Touma fans and Kaori x Touma fans. These two fanbases are so big, the novel artist Kiyotaka Haimura knows it and even drew about it!◊
  • If you still remember Misaka Imouto, this only adds more fuel to the fire...
  • There's also a minor one with Touma and Mitsuko versus Aogami and Mitsuko.
• Signature Series Arc: Given how long the series has been going on, some arcs are bound to stick in the fans' minds.
  • In The Old Testament, there is the Sisters Arc, which is famed for introducing many fan-favourite characters into the series like Mikoto and Accelerator, being the first "Science" focused novel in the franchise, and expanding the worldbuilding of Academy City by showing what kinds of things go on behind the curtains. The arc was so beloved, it received its own adaption in A Certain Scientific Railgun that expanded on events from Mikoto's perspective, and between the original Light Novel, Railgun's adaption, the anime adaptions of both series, and the manga adaption of Index, that means there's a total of five different versions of the Sisters Arc that exist!
  • In the New Testament, there's the Magic God Othinus arc, and more specifically NT Volume 9, which is nigh-universally lauded by the fandom as the best arc in the entire set of The New Testament, if not the entire franchise.
• Signature Scene:
  • A popularity poll ran for the best scenes in the franchise, with the results featured in the mobile game Imaginary Fest's second anniversary. The winning scene was Touma's Pre-Asskicking One-Liner "Grit your teeth, strongest" from the Sisters Arc as he punches out the top esper Accelerator to put an end to his massacre of the Sisters.
  • In the New Testament, you'll be hard pressed to discuss NT9 without mentioning the Omega World, and more specifically Touma's rant to the Will of the Misaka Network: "It bothers me."
• Squick:
  • How does the Roman Catholic Church counter Sheol Fear, a sound-based spell? Whipping out fountain pens and gouging out their ears.
  • Numerous panty shots, nude scenes and skimpy dresses from characters who either are or at least appear to be early teenage girls.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Given the massive size of the cast, it's only to be expected that everyone would complain that someone didn't get enough screentime.
  • Index herself, despite being the title character, is largely Demoted to Extra after the first arc. Many fans complain that a character with interesting abilities and backstory is reduced to a couple Running Gags.
  • There are a lot of random one-off espers who show up with an interesting ability and a hint of a backstory, only to never show up again. The anime version of the Level-Upper arc, for example, added a few new users like the gang boss who could control the viscosity of asphalt.
  • The Sisters have a substantial following that complain they don't show up enough (and when they do show up, it's almost exclusively just 10032). Parts of the fandom insist we don't need to see anyone besides 10032 because they're all essentially the same person, parts of the fandom insist that runs counter to the theme of the arc, and other parts of the fandom insist that we don't know for sure because they don't show up enough.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The first opening video for Index anime adaptation features Staggered Zoom of various scenes:
  • Kuroko Shirai hanging out with her friends and immediately excuses herself by using teleportation to glomp Misaka.
  • Magnus and Kanzaki showing off their skills.
  • Touma walking past Misaka and Index walking down the steps.
• Woolseyism
  • Touma nickname for Mikoto in the original script is "Biri Biri", which is Japanese onomatopoeia for crackling electricity and is a nickname that Mikoto absolutely cannot stand. The English dub of the anime, rather than just calling her "zap zap", instead changes it to "Bug zapper" (sometimes just "zapper"), retaining the lip-flaps, the onomatopeia, and the embarrassing nature of the nickname in a form much more easily understood by English audiences.
  • Another nickname for Mikoto is Onee-sama, used by Kuroko. However, since the meaning of the nickname may not be caught by English audiences, as well as to avoid connotations of familial relations between the two, the English dub changes it to the affectionate "Sissy" (as in Sister). Notably, the Sisters also use "Onee-sama" to refer to Mikoto in Japanese, but their use is properly translated to "Big Sister" in the dub.
  • Exclusive to fan-translations of the Light Novels is the changes to the names of the religious denominations that the Magic side belong to. They're clearly based on real life church denominations, but the original script (as well as official translations) use Japanese slang terms to refer to them (e.g. "Crossism" instead of Christianity, "Roman Orthodox Church" instead of the Roman Catholic Church, etc.). Fan-translations will forego the slang and just use the real life names instead, and is almost universally accepted in the fandom as the "correct" terminology.

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