These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: To Aru Majutsu No Index
Alternate Character Interpretation: Accelerator: A young man who's trying to redeem himself for the terrible things he has done while trying to avoid turning back to his past self or a sadistic heartless monster who hasn't changed his ways and enjoys being a powerful killer.
And the Fandom Rejoiced: The Toaru Majutsu no Index anime is over? Oh man... But wait! What this at the end of the credits!? OH MY GOD! Jc Staff is gonna do a Toaru Kagaku no Railgun anime!!!!? YESSSS!! More Mikoto and Kuroko Action!!!
Fans reaction for the 2nd season trailer went something like this: "Oh my God! All the characters from the novels are gonna appear in the second season. But wait!? Is that Yamisaka? Is that Itsuwa!? God's Right Seat!!? And is that Accelerator VS Amata Kihara at the end!??! Yeahhhh Baby!!! The second season is gonna Rock!"
Base Breaker: Overlaps with Your Mileage May Vary above, there are two separate cams 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.
Big Lipped Alligator Moment: Index-tan episode 1 for the second season: Each of Saten's appearances are this.
Designated Hero: As Aiwass commented Shiage's more or less a powerless nobody, but when it comes to those he loves Aleister's plans, or even pre-destination for that matter, doesn't haveshiton him.
Designated Protagonist Syndrome: A significant portion of the fanbase sees Touma as the most boring character in the series. Him being an Idiot Hero is a small part of it, and his frankly bland and uninteresting personality is also a problem, but the real issue stems from his powers. Where Mikoto (for example) gets through her fight scenes with highly creative use of the lightning powers that she earned with hard work and ingenuity, all of Touma's fights boil down to him using Imagine Breaker to brush off everything his enemies throw at him and then punch them out with the weapons-grade Plot Armor that was handed to him without an ounce of effort or thought put into it. That the absurd degree of power creep in the series can be traced back to the author coming up with a Rogues Gallery of villains that only Touma's Plot Armor can defeat does not help this at all.
The best illustration of his blandness: Losing his entire memory had absolutely zero impact on his character or personality. If they didn't explicitly tell that it happened every now and then, it would probably have been forgotten by the next episode.
Actually (Volume 22 spoilers) Mikoto didn't earn her powers at all. She started off as a level 1 yes, but the only reason she's a level 5 and not other people who worked just as hard or harder, is because it's in her genes. People's potential level has nothing to do with their hard work it's genetics, and how much money AC is willing to pay to develop them.
Now with the Second Season of Index, Fukiyose Seiri has become very popular with fans on her debut in the episode 8.
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.
"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: 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.
Harsher in Hindsight: 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 Outs gangs 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!
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.
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.
Kanzaki and Orsola.
With some FoeYay , Oriana towards Himegami and Fukiyose.
Not to mention New Light has some Les Yay, but more with Bayloupe and Lessar.
At this point, To aru needs its own page.
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...
He's lived his life without regrets. No matter how many tragedies he suffers, no matter how much the world tries to trample on him, he has always done what he believes to be correct. Even if he ends up brutally battered and broken, he took that punishment for a cause he believed in. As long as everyone's alive and happy, the "misery" he suffers is a small price to pay. That's the kind of man Kamijou Touma is.
Marty Stu: Touma can have some pretty ugly shades of this, mostly going by the definition of a Marty Stu as a character who warps the story to become the spotlight. Some indications include:
As much as the story says that Touma is the underdog, his hand seems to cancel just about everything potentially harmful, including things that it shouldn't, such as heat or momentum. Add to this that he seems to arbitrarily shrug off any injury (which would be fine in a shonen story about heroic determination, but not when most villains go down after one punch) and he's basically invulnerable.
There are only two types of characters in the series: Those who respect/worship Touma and those who are irrevocably evil.
Otherwise competent characters will act stupid or incompetent if this is needed to make Touma look good in comparison. Examples include villains continuously using their powers (even when they have other means at their disposal) when they know he can just cancel them. Characters who are considered physically competent just standing there slack-jawed so that the otherwise untrained Touma can beat them up. An especially grating example includes Misaka fumbling her own signature move for no other reason than to let Touma save the day instead.
There's a 50/50 chance of anything to happen from the Mundane to the Awesome.
Memetic Sex God: Everybody loves Touma. His right hand shatters all your illusions and make you realize he's the one for you.
Moe: Several characters count, but special mention goes to Komoe-sensei, which is even in her name.
Moral Event Horizon: The researchers involved in both events under the For Science! entry above cross this line in a big way. Accelerator also crossed the line before he's even seen; however, he seems to be trying to come back from it. If you can forgive him...
Then there's the #2Level 5Teitoku 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. 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.
Narm: Apparently, Accelerator can state-change air into plasma by making ridiculous noises with his mouth. To be fair, the ridiculous noises are 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.
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.
Ships That Pass In The Night- Surprisingly, fans like to pair Touma from Index with Saten from Railgun because they're both normal, even though both characters have never met each other in their respective series.
There's also a minor one with Touma and Mitsuko.
And a very small Touma and Kuroko one, though this is more of a Crack Pairing.
Sure if you're talking about fanarts, but in terms of fanfics... this troper has seen as much as Touma/Kuroko as how much Touma/Mikoto totals up to. In 2ch. And a lot of them would like Kuroko turning straight. Still a Crack Pairing yes, but with the events based off on Volume 8 now animated, that doesn't help to fortify that fact much further anymore.
It's rather surprising how many fans are starting to pair up Fiamma and Carissa, considering their single canon interaction was an I Shall Taunt You on Fiamma's part.
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 Japaneses 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!
Spotlight-Stealing Squad: An odd example. The author realized that Accelerator and Mikoto were extremely popular, so he increased their roles to the point where the former is the second protagonist and the latter is more of a love interest than the character in the title! This leaves the show with something of an Artifact Title as Index rarely gets to do anything.
Fiamma of the Right's Holy Right. He can level entire cities to the ground without breaking a sweat, teleport anywhere at a blink of an eye, and conjure a FlamingBFSfortyfuckingkilometers long. There's a reason why he's one of the most blatant SNK Bosses of the series.
Simply being a Majin may qualify, in fact it is so much of a Story Breaker Power that it pretty much destroyed Touma's Imagine Breaker, with magic.
Unfortunate Implications: In Vol.20,Lessar tries her best to seduce Touma. Getting annoyed, he drags her into an alley and 15 minutes later, she's comes out with a very pale face. We have no idea what he did and hopefully it's not what we think it is.
As per confirmation from one of the translators, it isn't what you would like to think it is. Touma gives her a 15 minutes full lecture on how a girl should behave proper.
