Touma and Accelerator on the move!
Creative Staff
Story: Kazuma Kamachi
Art: Kiyotaka Haimura
Translation: Andrew Prowse
What They Say
In Academy City, magic and science coexist in an unwavering power struggle. Toma Kamijo, an academically-challenged student in Academy City, wields the power of the Imagine Breaker in his right hand, which allows him to completely negate all supernatural powers – as well as his own luck. When he happens upon a mysterious nun named Index, whose mind has been implanted with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum – 103,000 ancient texts banned by the Church – Toma’s luck is about to be pushed to its limits when he finds himself in the middle of a war he never expected!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
So, this volume is a bit of an intriguingly tricky one to discuss. That’s because it keeps a similar structure to last time of using dual protagonists, but things actually weave and trade off more freely. Though with that said, I still would say it’s best to discuss them separately, as they do each have their primary plots that are more their own than shared, despite the interlocking.
I’ll start with the primary protagonist of the series, Touma, because frankly his is closer to being the sideplot here, so it seemed better to get him out of the way first. Though he has some run-ins with the Hound Dogs and Last Order, his plot is largely about dealing with the invading sorceress, Vento of the Front. And frankly, this is probably the weakest link of the volume, proving not bad, but not exactly exceptional in any way either. Because you see, Vento has a big crazy gimmick power that knocks everyone out through ridiculous means… but Touma’s power makes him immune, so it turns into a fight against a sort of samey attack pattern. Like, her whole invisible attack thing feels REAL similar to what I recall of the fight with Agnes, for example. Oh, and her backstory of “a theme park ride’s safety measures failed, so I swore revenge against science!” just reads really, really stupid. Like, what was vaguely being aimed for with that aspect of her character COULD have worked, depending on the details and execution, but as is it just sounds dumb. That said, though, things feel nice and intense and pick up a bit when Hyouka turns into a damn artificial angel and things go nuts, so even this half of the story definitely has some high points.
Accelerator’s side of the story, though, is a real ride from start to finish. Rather than go through the details, I’ll just say that it’s more about him wavering back and forth between his roles as a hero and monster, and he’s a much more interesting protagonist for it. You can see the desire to do the right thing in him at a lot of points, but then you get some horrifying bits in which his actions feel so awful and merciless that it’s almost hard to read. Which, by the way, is another advantage of the approach taken last volume, as it only makes this all work that much better.
And hell, even the foreshadowing feels more meaningful for once. For example, instead of just being purely mysterious, Aleister actually starts to move and gets a bit of character. And on top of that, we get the introduction of what feels like a more overarching enemy from the magic side of things.
Really, all of this just works.
In Summary
This volume feels like the other side of the coin of the last book, using the dual protagonist setup from there in a more action-oriented manner. And fortunately, it works rather splendidly. I’d say the interlocking actually is more of just a cute little thing than anything significant, but it still plays a huge role in what it does for the pacing. Which is to say, everything just keeps on rolling at a breakneck pace, as we bounce back and forth between both characters and the tense situations they find themselves in. The one point I’d really knock the book on is that Touma’s story is a bit “been there, done that” especially in terms of the way the enemy attacks, though things definitely do pick up by the end. It’s not bad, mind you. Just not really anything special. But on the other hand, Accelerator’s story is fantastic and would have been more than enough to carry the book. Really, he’s handled so well that I frankly hope we keep getting him as a secondary protagonist, as his presence has been a definite boon whenever he shows up. But anyway, for now, this remains another good, worthwhile entry to the series that’s certainly worth a read.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: N/A
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: November 14th, 2017
MSRP: $14.00
