Misaki Shokuhou is the fifth-most-powerful Esper in Academy City, a state-of-the-art city dedicated to the scientific study and development of Psychic Powers. Every student in Academy City is given an "Esper Level" to indicate their power, and Misaki is a Level 5: the best of the best, a telepath with the nickname of "Mental Out".
With her power, Misaki easily became the queen bee of her famous school, Tokiwadai, but that is hardly her first priority. While her friends and clique members are scrambling to keep her on top, Misaki herself is more worried about what Academy City is doing, and how the Dark Side might interfere with her friends. She begins working behind the scenes to sort out some very old mysteries of the city, including the mysterious metal that sometimes appears around the sites of battles between powerful espers.
A Certain Scientific Mental Out is an ongoing manga spin-off and supplementary reading to the A Certain Magical Index Light Novel series written by Kazuma Kamachi which began in 2021. Unlike the main light novel series, the Mental Out manga purely focuses on the science elements of Academy City, and not the greater Magic/Science conflicts of Index.
This manga provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Time Period: Senior mentions that, during their time, there was dial-up Internet access, CRT monitors with Slow-Loading Internet Image, and 8-bit computing, which would place their life somewhere between The '70s and The '90s. Academy City being 20 to 30 years ahead of the world muddles this even further.
- Exotic Eye Designs: Misaki has her starry pupils of course. The clique leader Kamino appears to have square pupils. In truth, these are actually square contacts that are designed to help her use her power.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Misaki's telepathy only works on humans. But that, as it turns out, is only a psychological block. She is able to affect slime creatures when she decides that biologically, the fluids they think with are essentially the same as human. It probably helped that they were very simple creatures.
- The Reveal: We are finally given an explanation for why there are no adult espers. Academy City has had espers for decades, but the power development program didn't really become reliable until the previous generation, when a gemstone esper came to the city and volunteered to help with research. Their unique power made creating new espers much easier.
- Serious Business: The running sideplot is all about how the various cliques of Tokiwadai are competing over the top spot. Misaki almost causes a scandal because she's working with one of her competitors on something entirely different and doesn't care about politics at all.
- Wham Line: In chapter 6, the last line touches on something that has been an ongoing question in the fandom for decades:Mysterious Cube: I might look like this, but I am in fact one of this city's espers. I am the first-ranked Level 5. The previous one, that is.
