Is Misaka Mikoto Index's Best Girl? | Character Analysis

[Music] tanoshi there has been one particular popular character from the series i haven't been giving enough attention to a perhaps stupid decision on my part if i want to appeal to the widest audience possible in this already niche franchise and as much as i'd wish it was giga chad biagio himself it is in fact the railgun misaka mikoto but damn this character is literally everywhere and i'm not just talking about her screen time across the toad franchise as a whole but also in marketing the franchise even when it comes to a certain magical index specifically where misoka isn't even the main or title character she tends to be the face of the franchise the reason for this is that she is by far the most popular character in the series with accelerator as perhaps the closest character to challenging her i want to talk about how misika's role in index evolved over time as she was introduced and became the face of toaru and to analyze her character in both index and in a spin-off manga and anime a certain scientific railgun musica's role in index is quite different to railgun and there is really a lot to talk about for both so that's why i want to split this video into two parts in this part i will talk about her role in index as that is where she made her debut and is the main story of the franchise then in part two i will talk about musica's character in railgun so if you are new to the channel please subscribe so you don't miss out on seeing part two when i upload it and for other great railgun and index content now is misaker one of the best characters in the franchise is she merely a cash cow that is misused just to get sales or is her character just plainly overrated whoa don't cancel me just yet these are intentionally hypothetical and open-ended questions to keep you watching so don't hate on me just yet as now we can look at the story of index and see how misoka's character evolves or perhaps devolves over time let's get started misoka makoto was first introduced in the very first volume of index intended by the author kamachi kazuma to be the guide or representation of the science side itself to introduce the audience to the concept of academy city psychic abilities and the ranking system of levels camijo turmer being a level zero and makoto being only one of seven level fives at the top of the espa hierarchy thanks to the contrast to these two characters in the first opening scene of index we see the difference between how level fives are perceived in academy city compared to how level zeros are perceived due to misaka's role in this arc she doesn't really have much to do but she's only in it for like two scenes in the light novel and komachi wanted the focus of the first volume to be on index and not misaker i think her debut scene is pretty good as it was a fun way to introduce these concepts by adding some comedy to it by turmer trying to help misika making an ass of himself in the process while also revealing misoka never needed help to begin with also establishing the dynamic between misoka and toma that was still fresh at its moment in time but more on that later if you watched my camachi video you will have known that the first volume of index was intended as a one shot so this short amount of screen time could have been all we saw of misoka which is kind of crazy to think about in retrospect and even volume 2 had no musica at all however with the success of index as a new light novel came a mob of crazy fans obsessing over misoka prompting kamachi to involve her more in the story than he originally intended as the spin-off manga that komachi wanted to write for index wasn't going to be focused on misoka as we know it became a certain scientific railgun he actually wanted it to be on kuroko but decided to change it to misika once he found out how popular musica was but what made her so popular amongst the fans well her popularity truly skyrocketed with the release of volume 3 of index featuring the sisters arc which fleshed out misika as a character fans also really liked her personality that she was a tsundere love interest and yet she was capable of fighting and being a badass her cool ability the railgun of course and people also liked her appearance so pretty much they like the overall package that miesika came with it was the sisters arc though that established musica as a flawed person taking on the burden of derailing the entire sisters project herself as she didn't want to involve others because she wanted to protect them and also because of her ego as a level five she later realizes it's okay to rely on others via her fight versus toma even if the odds seem impossible as toma is perceived as the weakest kind of esper and misoka kinda looked down upon him as toma challenged her ego as level 5 since he could nullify her attacks with ease proving that power and strength can be found in unlikely places this is further exemplified when termer fights accelerator with toma putting his body on the line for misika and the sisters musica repays toma by organizing the clones to help stop accelerators plasma attack that would have likely killed terma this shows musica has developed as a character from her interaction with turmer as she is now relying on the sisters who are seen by accelerator to be useless compared to him accelerator relies on no one but himself and his ego as a level 5 is ultimately his downfall in contrast to misika who changed to work together with the weakest people around her in order to overcome the odds misika herself also gains the strength to directly challenge accelerator and is still willing to sacrifice herself to stop the project as a last resort showing she is willing to put toma and the sisters above herself in order to protect them achieving a greater good via her sacrifice tomah however defeats accelerator and this is where misika truly warms up to turmer because he helped change her perspective in the darkest moment of her life so far the sisters arc is a classic part of the franchise and is arguably the best we have seen of miesica's character because of how well it is written and it was even further fleshed out in railgun which i'll talk about in part 2 as i've already mentioned now after this volume musica's character becomes a lot more static in index pun intended until like volume 16 that is misika still appears in a lot of the arcs until 16 but she really doesn't do much and feels like she's just being included in the story for her cinder gimmicks or to have a brief moment of action and then disappearing now it's not exactly uncommon for index heroines to disappear or become more like background characters after the arc which is directly focused on them but in comparison to himigami kanzaki kazakiri etc misika appears way more frequent than them so it's a lot more noticeable that misika is appearing a lot but nothing is really happening which is why i'll call misika out on this as opposed to the other characters i've mentioned i'll talk about what exactly i mean by this by exploring some examples so misoka appears in old testament five where ed zali is introduced she's basically used as a means for etzeli and terma to fight while i don't have an issue with this there was no proper characterization for misika other than i don't like this creepy guy turmer be my boyfriend please and i know these scenes are used for comedy and the interactions between turmer and misika are also admittedly entertaining so again i don't have a huge problem with it i'm just exploring misika's role in this story as these volumes progress she appears in volume six and uh is there a reason for it like i don't remember misoka ever really doing anything relevant in this arc apart from arguing of index about terma which ain't exactly contributing much misoka also appears in volume 8 and fights awaki off screen this volume was more focused on kuroko and her relationship towards musica rather than the other way around it definitely fleshes out kuroko more as opposed to doing that with misika also obligatory misakura fan service because you all love yuri you horny bastards next she appears in a dihesite arc yet again more cinderelly antics we do get more characterization with the introduction of misika's mum isuzu but it feels kind of generic oh ho you have a crush on the spiky head boy no no no i don't mom i'm definitely not a cinder obviously and again i get that some people like these moments and again they are entertaining but are you noticing a recurring theme again misoka appears for more slice of life interactions and she appears again in the academy city invasion arc which has more slice of life interactions until the latter phase of that arc where she has a little moment where she defeats some fodder soldiers and never shows up again like to me misika's character during these arcs feels stagnant like she wasn't really contributing much to the plot despite appearing lots and it felt like the only reason why she was appearing was to perhaps appeal to the fans by just making her a generic cinderer rather than continuing to give her meaningful character progression like in the sister's arc okay miesika's abilities are still cool and her character design is simple yet iconic and all but is that really all that's left to her character at this stage in index like even her role from being the representative of the science side in volume 1 faded into obscurity since that wasn't really needed anymore as the audience was now familiar with the world of academy city combined with the fact that her role of being this interesting multi-layered character from the sisters arc had been replaced with generic sunderie who can also fight i don't necessarily dislike misika's character during his volumes i just think she could have been far better utilized considering the amount of time she got in these volumes luckily camachi gave us a ray of hope for misaka's character in index with her learning about tomah's memory lost during the gods right sea arc finally we might have a chance to further flesh out and progress the relationship between tomah and misika as conflict and confrontation between these characters regarding this revelation was inevitable musica was thinking how much of thomas relationship with her was fake and when was this exact moment his memories were lost and how would this affect turmeric's role during the scissors arc in misoka's mind interesting questions and we do get this confrontation during the awkward of the back arc as toma has escaped the hospital with toma still heavily injured from his encounter with aqua misika doesn't know what toma is dealing with but she has a feeling he has been fighting against crazy powerful opponents countless times without her knowing myself sees a part of tomah in herself as toma isn't willing to get others involved in his fights just like how misika acted in her sister's ark before she gave in and let toma interfere but she even calls turmer a hypocrite for not relying on others when he told her not to burden herself alone miesika also calls turmer out on his memories and that he's been hiding the fact he's had amnesia from others turmer however explains to misoka it is basically his nature to act alone and fight crazy strong opponents the fact that he puts himself in a dangerous enough situation that causes memory loss to protect index alone proves that and that the term of old is still guiding him to make these decisions from the heart despite the fact that he has amnesia back in the sister's arc it wasn't misaka's nature to sacrifice herself or to try and solve problems on her own in an isolated incident in contrast to tomah whose very nature has become to self-sacrifice himself for the interest of others due to the new identity he has over the course of many incidents even if his enemy completely outmatches him like with aqua misika debates internally about helping him but ultimately realizes it is his nature and it is wrong to forcefully stop him as that's what she tried to do on the bridge in a sister's arc and ultimately regrets it while this scene is kind of short it's honestly really well written and the dynamic between these characters is given a huge revival in quality compared to those past volumes i mentioned while mitika has a seemingly small role in this volume it does so much for her and toma's character as we start to understand them more and yes the light novel version of this scene is by far the best as toma and misika's inner thought process is way better explored and articulated in the light novel than in the anime and manga furthermore aqua is defeated by teamwork involving toma proving that toma was probably wrong to tell misika to leave him alone but due to tomah's stubbornness an instinct to follow his nature no matter what turmoil would have gone ahead alone even if kanzaki and the immakusa were defeated by aqua misika also realizes she is in love with toma during this arc and she is prepared to put her own interests aside to let turmer be himself ok you'd think that by loving someone you would want them to get hurt but misigo definitely struggles making this decision and the reason she decides not to act is because she believes she would ultimately be selfish by going ahead with what she wants so she makes a difficult decision and sacrifice luckily this plotline does continue to some extent but i do have some issues with what's ahead in the story so in world war iii misika happens to spot turmer on tv in russia and then decides to go over there to see what's going on wait a second musica didn't you basically say okay i love toma so i'm gonna let him do crazy [ __ ] and not let my personal interest get in the way well let's just do a 180 on that okay i get it that it would be quite a shock to see toma in the middle of a war zone and in a different country but is this really the deal breaker perhaps that's a little bit nitpicky from me but my main problem with musica in world war iii is that she didn't really need to be in it i feel like this plot thread between musica and terma could have continued in a different arc as it almost feels like misoka is being forced into world war iii quite literally from what we see her going to russia because of what she saw on tv like that's a strange coincidence she even does a side quest of attacking a russian military base which was gonna use a nuke to be honest you could have caught this scene out from the ark and not much would change and to my absolute shock that's what jc staff did in the anime but i suppose it was to compensate for the fact that they already added a [ __ ] ton of musica philistines prior and that there were far more important plot threads in world war iii that needed more attention fast forward to near the end of the arc fiama has been defeated and the star of bethlehem is about to crash into the arctic sea misika hijacks an aircraft with the help of her sister and tries to save tomah who is still on the star turmer is like nah i still got [ __ ] to do because gabriel's about to explode and i need to stop that [ __ ] so miesika flies away and turmer does his thing the end okay i get the point pointless scene toma is willing to sacrifice himself like how misoka was going to do in the sisters arc but turmer being turmer goes ahead with it anyway but is it really needed and does it actually improve the dynamic of misoka and terma i personally don't see it to be honest the purpose of this scene was basically to trick the audience into thinking oh [ __ ] thomas might die and this might be the last time misika sees him as thomas fate at the end of this arc was left ambiguous in the light novel unlike the anime where we see he survived so yeah nothing necessarily badly written just wasteful and kind of pointless in my opinion like misika was dragged to russia to do one side quest that could be cut out and then just get tall to [ __ ] off by turmer and this is meant to be in the final and most important arc of index thus far and that's her impact in the final arc as one of the main heroines might not have included her to be honest like sure you can criticize index the character for making appearances for the sake of gags but at least even she had a climax to her character arc from the very first volume of ins in world war three with her forgiving turmer for lying to her about the amnesia with misika we don't really even get a conclusion to a character arc so now is the time to talk about new testament basically all the content in next past season free so click off this video now if you want to avoid spoilers you've been warned musica in early new testament falls into the same stagnation from between old testament free and old testament 16 with her not really providing much to the plot despite making regular appearances a game with more comedic moments like her encounter with drunk terma again that moment was kind of funny but misoka really fell into purgatory in early new testament okay she had a cool moment with accelerator in new testament 3 meeting him for the first time since the sisters arc and roasting each other for what happened while also working together but this moment lasts for me a split second which is a shame because i would have liked to seen them interact way more misoka also fights brunhild in new testament six but again this fight was just hey this is a volume full of fights so let's add another one for a fight which is supposed to be a level five versus a saint it's kind of forgettable and ends abruptly in a stalemate musica also helps out terma against freyja when he asks for help for the first time which is a nice nod to their encounter in old testament 16 and shows toma is developing as a character again misika gets a sudden resurgence of life to her character in new testament 10 during the offenus arc where she fights toma because she wants answers for him teaming up with offenus tomah explains to misoka some of what happened in new testament 9 including how he destroyed the happiness of the entire world to follow his own desires and needs to pay for his sins by saving offenus misika rejects that the omega world was the superior one as personally she feels like she wouldn't be able to face her own sins if the sisters were saved and that there is no such thing as a perfect world as it will always be twisted underneath it's a nice change to index's formula as usually it would be termer giving the ideological speech to his opponent but it's the other way around this time as misika beats the sun turmer and destroys his illusion ironic this shows how much influence turmer has had on misoka as a character she's basically matured thanks to turmer and now has gained aspects of thomas personality which is now helping turmer in the present who is now figuring out his way in the world after the traumatic experiences he faced and how he is basically the enemy of the entire world at this stage and misaka is basically using her knowledge and the progression she has had to her advantage to help turmer and make him realize that he shouldn't feel guilty about this turmoil doesn't have to feel the weight of destroying the perfect world or the fate of six billion people and can solely focus on saving oftenness rather than living in self-doubt with his actions this directly follows on from thomas character development of being more selfish which is a great follow on from all the iconic terma and musica moments i've talked about so far that has improved the two characters combined with a spin on the formula we have seen so far this scene was truly poetic by camachi as miesika using her own character development develops toma in response as it was normally the other way around because if you remember from the sisters arc tomah helped develop misika's character but now the roles have pretty much been reversed in every aspect and this moment was just great for me like i really enjoyed this moment and again we don't get much music from this volume but when we do she stands out so i'll give her credit musica gets even more screen time during the latter half of new testament and this is where things get interesting in regards to musica as a character sum ups and some lows but one recurring theme is misika's ignorance of magic like no matter how many times she's been exposed to it and has even had it somewhat explained to her by other characters she keeps acting dense about what it is for no reason miesika is supposed to be a genius so that is why it's kinda annoying that she still thinks magic is some weird esper power after all his time you could say mizuka's role in the orphanage arc was foreshadowing what was to come as she becomes increasingly eager to be involved with thomas issues and figure out what the [ __ ] has been happening to him lately musica tags along with tomah to help him escape from high priest as miesika realizes she is completely outmatched by the magic god this follows on to new testament 15 where misika is humiliated by salome in a fight which then causes miesica to snap in a completely unexpected way this comes in the form of character development where misika turns a bit psychotic she realizes she needs more power to be able to compete with the magicians she has encountered as she becomes increasingly obsessed with entering thomas world it makes sense she would want to be more involved with toma's affairs than before as tomah literally stood against the entire world and allied himself with the most wanted person alive but it was so surprising that misoka was turning power-hungry as a result it's like all the crazy situations revolving around turmeric academy city and herself feeling incompetent and out of her death as level 5 that it caused her to become more power hungry hell it was even reminiscent of when accelerator was power hungry in the sister's arc making misika's development a role reversal again in a way so it's kind of funny how he got a role reversal in new testament 10 with tomato misika and now we get a role reversal with accelerator and misaka i personally love this shift to her character as misika had felt the same for a long time and it was also the fact that this development was definitely a shock to most readers misaka then obtained the aaa or anti-art attachment blasted yuitsu and the volume ended with me feeling really hyped and curious about where misika's character would go after this it certainly made me the most excited about misika's character in index ever as prior she wasn't really the focus of the main plotting index but now she could play a larger role with a change in her character that would keep her fresh and not repetitive i remember following the novels around this time the volume was released and surprisingly this change was controversial among a lot of the misoka fans i saw on social media complaining that misika isn't cute anymore and hating the new character developments because of that and now you know why i joke about misaka on twitter sometimes i don't know if the japanese fandom were also like this but i find it weird how immediately after this volume misoka just acts like herself again it's like kimachi discarded this development or was maybe influenced by the opinion of some fans and i think it's a real shame as mitsuka's character development has so much potential combined in the fact that misika becomes even more pointless after this arc she's basically partnered with shokaho all the time and they don't really contribute anything important to the plot and yet keep reappearing again and again and again miesica even follows tomah into another country again this time in england and yet you could caught misika and shokoho out of the quran's on arc and nothing would change i feel like camachi was sorta looking for an excuse just to have the two of them where terma was for the final volume i can justify it for shokaho as she was exceptional during new testament 22r as it concluded the character arc that she had had nicely from new testament 11 and you can watch my video about that for more information well miesica well she tries to protect tomah i guess and then is mind control for the rest of the volume that's it seriously that's more disappointing than her role during world war iii i don't know what was the point of having her in all these new testament volumes just to have her character regress and do nothing by the end luckily genesis testament is showing signs that come actually wants to bring misika's development from new testament 15 back so i won't hold my breath until i see it so fingers crossed genesis testament actually makes misika a character that will actually contribute something in regards to her screen time which obviously won't diminish overall i feel indifferent about miesuka's character in index considering how long index has been going on and how many appearances she has made misoka only has a handful of moments in index where she really stands out and in the rest it's just bland which is a shame okay i get it she's not a main character in index she is in railgun because she's the main protagonist but she is definitely one of the main heroines in index and you can't deny that and she appears way more than other heroines in a series such as itsuwa and kanzaki and yet i'd argue that kanzaki and it's better utilized overall in index specifically than misaker as although they don't appear much at all their limited screen time feels like it's being more efficiently used in terms of justifying why they are present in the arcs that they appear in in contrast to misoka as of late in new testament where she feels kind of out of place without a clear sense of direction for a character at times i feel like it's a huge shame considering how promising her character was in the offenus arc and new testament 15. but i still have some hope camachi does have a plan for her and isn't simply just throwing her into arcs for the sake of it i do feel like parts of genesis testament 2 and the revelation of genesis testament 4 has showed some degree of potential again i'm not going into specifics because darby spoilers for genesis testament and i'd rather just do the entirety of genesis estimate for this character when it does get released but that won't be for a long long time uh also i want to note that i do like music as a character despite what you might think for this video i just think that she is a lot stronger as a character overall in railgun where she is more suitable as the main protagonist in a spin-off and obviously i'll talk about that in part two so don't think i'm hating on the character because of this video i know some people online get really triggered over criticizing waifu's literally i've been blocked by at least three or four users on twitter for just having a civilized discussion about index or misika or making jokes about the character i just want misoka to progress and have an impactful role in index if she's going to appear i want the best for her character she's not just a love interest who's meant to blush and be a sundari in my opinion that's boring i want kamachi to take risks with a character and see meaningful progression as one of the main heroines is that too much to ask also i'd like to keep the comments as civil as possible whether you agree or disagree with me let me know your thoughts in the comments below and where do you see miesika heading overall in the story of index remember part two will be looking at miesca and railgun so stay tuned to the channel and i'll see you all next time thank you and bye bye

Channel: Aeon of Horus

Views: 20,389

Keywords: To Aru, A Certain Magical Index, Toaru majutsu no index, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, A Certain Scientific Railgun, To aru Majutsu no Index, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator, Theory, Fanfic, Discussion, Light Novel, Anime, Manga, Review, Reaction, Sisters, Clones, Imouto, Project, Sisters Arc, Kamijou Touma, Accelerator, Last Order, Esper, Level 5, Network, Season Four, Railgun, Index, vs, fight, ability, NT, Kuroko, Touma x Misaka, Love, Romance, Kiss

Id: 8VvMsSHn2IY

Length: 34min 41sec (2081 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021