Literature / A Certain Magical Index

When science and magic collide, the story begins! ^note  Clockwise from top left: Accelerator, Mikoto Misaka, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Stiyl Magnus, Kaori Kanzaki, Aisa Himegami, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Touma Kamijou, Kuroko Shirai, and two MISAKA Sisters. Not Pictured: Many others.

"My name is Touma Kamijou, and this is but another event in an adolescence riddled with nothing but rotten luck."

— Touma Kamijou's assessment on his life

Touma Kamijou is an Ordinary High-School Student living in Academy City, a state-of-the-art city dedicated to the scientific study of humans with Psychic Powers. Every single student is given an "Esper Rank" to indicate their power, and Touma is the lowest of the low: a Level 0 with no psychic talent whatsoever. The only thing he has going for him is his right hand: the Imagine Breaker, which has the ability to dispel any and all supernatural phenomena but also negates his own luck.

His misfortune filled existence in Academy City takes a turn for the worse when a strange nun ends up on his apartment balcony: Index, a girl with the contents of over 103,000 forbidden magical grimoires locked away in her memories. She's on the run from a secret sect of sorcerers who want the information in her head, and drags Touma into the conflict between the magical and scientific factions of Academy City as well.

A Certain Magical Index (Toaru Majutsu no Index) is a series of Light Novels written by Kazuma Kamachi and published by Dengeki Bunko which began in 2004. The first series of novels has been completed with 22 main volumes and two short story volumes, and its followup, NT / New Testament (Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index) is complete with 23 volumes. The third series, Genesis Testament (Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index) began on February 2020. Along with the novels, there is a media franchise consisting of side stories, anime and manga adaptations, games, and spin-offs that headline some of the series's Ensemble Darkhorses.

As of this writing^note July 2023 the Index series consists of the following:

Main Series

• A Certain Magical Index (2004-2010): The original novel series spanning 22 main volumes and 2 side story volumes. They have been officially translated by Yen Press. Retroactively dubbed The Old Testament.
  • The manga adaptation that began May 2007, and have adapted up to the 15th novel, while skipping the 2nd and 4th novels. Also translated by Yen Press.
  • Three anime seasons adapting the entire series by J.C. Staff and licensed by FUNimation, with Crunchyroll also providing a simulcast for the third season. The first season aired 2008-2009 adapting the first six volumes. The second season aired 2010-2011 adapting volumes 7 to 13.^note A chapter from the 5th volume and a couple chapters from a sidestory volume is also included. After years in Development Hell, the third season aired 2018-2019, adapting the remaining nine volumes.
  • A fighting game for the PlayStation Portable, with Touma's route being based on the novels.
  • A Chinese mobile RPG from NetEase that adapts the novels and spin-offs.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Imaginary Fest: A mobile gacha RPG by Square Enix, also adapting the novels and spin-offs.
• A Certain Magical Index NT (2011-2019): The second novel series spanning 23 volumes. Picked up by Yen Press with the first English volume released in December 2023. Previously known as New Testament by the fanbase.
• A Certain Magical Index: Genesis Testament (2020-ongoing): The third and current novel series, which began on February 2020.
• A Certain Magical Index SS: A collection of volumes included in the limited edition Japanese video releases of the Railgun and Accelerator animes.
  • Kanzaki: The novel volumes included in the Railgun video releases. It focuses on various missions undertook by Kanzaki Kaori that are connected to a plot to recreate the mythical weapon of Norse myths, Gungnir.
  • Necessarius Special Admission Test: The novel volumes included in the Railgun S video releases. It revolves around the Amakusa-Style Remix of Church taking a test to join the Anglican Church, only for the test to be disrupted by outside forces.
  • Bio-Hacker: A collection of volumes included in the Accelerator video releases. It focuses on Touma in his last year of middle school, where he first meets Mitsuari Ayu, a Tokiwadai Middle School student, and the high schooler Kumokawa Seria, as both girls are hunted by a dragon created by the Biohacker.
  • Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience: The novel volumes included in the Railgun T video releases. It follows Agnese Sanctis and the nuns under her, the Agnese Forces, as they find themselves doing odd jobs all over Europe for Stiyl Magnus so they don't get seen as freeloaders by the Anglican Church.
• Apocrypha Archive (2020): A Compilation Re-release of sidestories that were originally available in a limited fashion. The first volume contains the Kanzaki and Necessarius Special Admission Test sidestories from the Railgun limited edition Blu-Rays and the Road to Endymion bonus novel given to Miracle of Endymion theatergoers. The second volume contains the Railgun sidestories Liberal Arts City and Shopping Mall Demonstration from the Index limited edition Blu-Rays and the Cold Case short story published in the Dengeki Daioh manga magazine.

---

• A Certain Magical Index: Miracle of Endymion (2013): The Movie for the series. Taking place between the 8th and 9th volumes, the plot focuses on the Endymion Space Elevator and Arisa Meigo, an aspiring Idol Singer chosen to perform at Endymion's grand opening. However, she is targeted by magicians, as they accuse her of being of able to spark a war between the Magic Side and Science Side.
  • A Certain Magical and Scientific Ensemble: An adventure game by Bandai Namco Entertainment for the PlayStation Portable that serves as a leadup to the movie. It consists of four different stories that take place between the 7th and 8th volumes.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Road to Endymion: A bonus novel released to the first 103,000 people who viewed the movie in theaters. It is a novelization of Touma's storyline in Ensemble.

Spin-offs

• A Certain Scientific Railgun (2007-ongoing): A spin-off focusing on Academy City's third-ranked Level 5 esper, Mikoto Misaka, and her friends as they experience life in Academy City along with the many conspiracies lurking underneath.
  • An anime adaptation, also by J.C. Staff. The first season aired 2009-2010, consisting of the manga's first arc and two anime original arcs. The second season, A Certain Scientific Railgun S, aired in 2013, consisting of the manga's second arc and an original arc. A third season, A Certain Scientific Railgun T aired in 2020, adapting the third and fourth arcs of the manga.
  • A Certain Scientific Railgun: Astral Buddy (2017-2020): A manga spin-off to Railgun focusing on Hokaze Junko, the Number Two to Academy City's fifth-ranked Level 5 esper, Shokuhou Misaki, taking place during Railgun's Dream Ranker arc. Released as part of the Railgun manga's 10th anniversary.
• A Certain Scientific Railgun SS: A collection of novels included in the limited edition Japanese video releases of the Index anime.
  • Liberal Arts City: The novel volumes included in the video releases of the first season of Index. Taking place sometime before the Daiheisai arc, Mikoto Misaka and her friends visit the artificial island Liberal Arts City, only to be caught up in an attack by Aztec Magicians.
  • Shopping Mall Demonstration: The novel volumes included in the video releases of the second season of Index. Taking place sometime before the manga, Mikoto Misaka is in Russia to promote Academy City, only to be caught up in a conspiracy, along with encountering the magical cabal group New Light.
  • The untitled novel volumes included in the video releases of the third season of Index. Mikoto helps her friend Shirai Kuroko win a violin competition against Yuri Sakibasu, a new member of Shokuhou Misaki's clique. After they win, they find themselves being shot by unknown attackers, leading them to uncover a plot regarding the societal values of status symbols, in particular Yuri's Stativarius violin, valued at one hundred million yen.
• A Certain Scientific Railgun: Cold Game: A short novel written for the 10th anniversary of the manga. A photo taken on a school field trip leads Mikoto and her friends getting involved in an attempted murder case, as the photo captured a wanted criminal, notorious for escaping justice via loopholes in the system, fleeing the scene of his latest crime.
• A novel released for the 15th anniversary of the manga, featuring individual stories of each Railgun protagonist.

---

• A Certain Scientific Accelerator (2013-2020): A second manga spin-off focusing on the first-ranked Level 5 in Academy City, Accelerator.
  • A Summer 2019 anime adaption also by J.C. Staff, focusing on the manga's first arc.
  • A Certain Idol Accelerator-sama (2015-2018): A manga that reimagines the Level 5 espers as Idol Singers competing for popularity.

---

• A Certain Scientific Dark Matter (2020): A oneshot manga volume spin-off focusing on Teitoku Kakine, the second-ranked Level 5 esper, and his attempts to obtain Accelerator's calculation patterns out of a survivor of the Dark May Project — Ringo Yuzuriha.

---

• A Certain Scientific Mental Out (2021-): A third manga spin-off and sequel to Astral Buddy focusing on the fifth-ranked Level 5 esper, Misaki Shokuhou.

---

• A Certain Dark Side of ITEM (2023-): A light novel spin-off series and prequel to the main story focusing on Team ITEM's adventures in the Dark Side of Academy City, set one year before the first volume of Index. Exceptionally enough, it immediately got a manga adaption that will be running concurrently.

A Certain Magical Index has also been featured in various crossovers, usually with other Light Novel series that have the same the publisher, Dengeki Bunko.

Crossovers

• Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus: An RPG for the Nintendo DS featuring Index and other Dengeki Bunko novel series.
• Ore no Imouto to Railgun Collaboration Project!: A web-pubished crossover with Oreimo co-written by Tsukasa Fushimi, the author of Oreimo.
• A Certain Magical Index VS Durarara!!: A crossover with Durarara!!.
• The Circumstances Leading to a Certain Magical Heavy Zashiki Warashi’s Simple Killer Princess's Marriage: A light novel crossing over all of Kamachi's works, celebrating 10 years of him being a published author.
• Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax: A 2014 Fighting Game by Sega for arcades and PlayStation 3 and Play Station Vita. Mikoto was chosen to represent Index in the crossover, with Touma and Accelerator as support characters; Shirai Kuroko was introduced in the Ignition Updated Re-release as a playable character, with Kazari Uiharu as a support character.
• The NetEase MMO has some guest characters from other franchises, including Yumi from Senran Kagura, Adol from Ys, and Sakura Shinguji from Sakura Wars.
• A Certain Magical Virtual-On: A 2016 light novel written in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the original Virtual-ON arcade game.
  • An actual A Certain Magical Virtual-On game by Sega released in 2018 for the PlayStation 4 and Play Station Vita. It would make an event appearance in the Super Robot Wars X-Ω mobile game, where the Index cast would be drawn into the world of Code Geass.
• Dengeki Bunko: Crossing Void: A mobile RPG developed by Sega featuring Index and other Dengeki Bunko novel series.

Since there are still novels which are yet to be adapted into anime, please tread carefully, lest you get spoilers for future seasons.

---

Tropes found in this series:

A-E

• Abandoned Pet in a Box: Sphynx the cat was left in a box and adopted by Index. Ditto for the black kitten found by Misaka 10032.
• Accidental Pervert:
  • A Running Gag and the most common form of Fanservice in the series is that Touma, due to his bad luck, often finds himself accidentally walking in on girls when they're in the middle of changing, bathing or falling directly into their cleavage. While this may seem more like good luck at first, the constant pain he receives as punishment nullifies any joy he might feel, not that he ever learns from it. In general, he doesn't seem to understand the concept of knocking before entering a room.
    • In one of their very first interactions, Index wants to see a demonstration of Touma's Anti-Magic powers, and boasts that since her clothes are magical, he should try touching them. Touma touches her clothes, and his Anti-Magic works far better than either expected by promptly destroying all of her clothing. Cue Skyward Scream.
    • During the "Angel Fall Arc", Kaori Kanzaki really needs a bath at the Hot Springs, but her "appearance" makes it impossible to use the women's bath, so she asks Touma to stand guard outside the men's bathing room while she bathes. However, when his father Toya shows up, Touma fails to convince him not to go inside and they both enter the dressing room just as Kanzaki is finishing up and get an eyeful of her Toplessness from the Back and Sideboob. They both learn the hard way that Kaori bathes with her nodachi as she attacks them with her Seven Flashes, which prompts them to run away.
    • In the "Kazakiri Hyouka Arc", Touma ends up walking in on Index and Kazakiri while they're changing clothes in class and ends up getting bitten by Index.
    • In the "Orsola Aquinas Rescue Arc", Touma hears a scream from a tent and rushes inside to Agnese and Index showering (Agnese screaming due to a slug in the other side of the tent) and has an army of angry nuns waiting for him outside.
    • When he visits Shirai at the hospital, he happens to come in just as she's getting dressed. After being slapped he decides to visit Misaka 10032 instead... and finds her naked in a Healing Vat and she has a Naked Freak-Out, and Index bites him upon hearing about it.
    • In the "Daihasei Festival Arc", Seiri Fukiyose while she's getting dressed when Touma walks in on her while she's down to her panties and Godiva Hair. She gives him a Death Glare, but instead of leaving he just stays there babbling excuses until she throws her bag at his face. He later also accidentally splashes her with water, making her shirt transparent. This time, however, he learns his lesson and doesn't point this out to an annoyed Seiri, which lets him get away scot-free.
    • During his stay in Italy, Touma catches himself before entering the bathroom of Orsola Aquinas's house, as he hears humming and the shower running and decides to avoid a potential Shower of Awkward situation. However, he then tries the door across the hall... which turns out to also be an adjacent bathroom where Orsola is just stepping out of the shower. Then a naked Index bursts in, giving Touma a second eyeful and he laments the situation could have been avoided had he just knocked.
  • Seiri Fukiyose has the unusual privilege of being the only girl to get back at Touma, actually walking in on him while he was getting changed in the hospital (Although we only get to hear it). Still, even though he was the victim in the scenario, she still ended up beating him.
  • Accelerator gets some of this too, such as the time he walked in on Last Order, Yomikawa and Yoshikawa all naked in the shower. Unlike Touma though, his reaction is more subdued.
    Last Order: Why did you show up without any warning!? Misaka Misaka says as she desperately grabs for the falling bath towel, but it is far too late.
    Accelerator: Why didn't you lock the door?
    Yomikawa: Oh, I'm sorry. I've been living all alone up to now, so I forgot.
    Yoshikawa: Aiho, cover them up for now.
    Last Order: You two don't feel anything even though you're being seen naked? Misaka Misaka asks an innocent question.
    Yoshikawa: It's nothing to get excited about.
    Yomikawa: He's a kid, we're adults.
    Last Order: Instead of sounding like an adult, that sounds more like an old woman. Owowow! Suddenly you two are crushing Misaka's head!
    Accelerator: Have some sense of security, would you?
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: For the small size of Komoe's apartment, it sure takes a long time to sprint from one side to the other when there's a girl-turned-Terminator firing a massive laser all over the place. Justified in the light novel, as said Terminator mode uses a spell to stretch the space between itself and everything else.
• Action Girl: Almost the entirety of the female cast aside from Komoe, Himegami, and Fukiyose. Even Index has her moments.
• Actor Allusion: Newton Pittman previously played a character who has no problems playing both sides if he has to survive.
• Adventure Rebuff: The beginning of the series plays out like this. Touma meets Index and first encounters magic. When asked to enter hell with her, his indecisiveness causes her to leave to protect him. She forgets her hood, setting off the events of the series.
• Aerith and Bob: Almost every name in the series doesn't make sense for one reason or another, but then you have people like Acqua of the Back, whose name is simply William Orwell.
• After-Action Healing Drama: Touma is injured so often that this becomes a recurring trope.
• After-School Cleaning Duty: After getting punished in Volume 14, Touma and Fukiyose clean outside... and play makeshift baseball.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Subverted. In Volume 17, Touma asks if he could use the ventilation ducts in the plane, but the flight attendant says that the ducts are too small. Instead, Touma asks for some hot tea and coffee to pour down the duct, causing thermal expansion and making the terrorist on the other side think that there's someone crawling through the ducts, who lampshades that the act is just as suicidal as coming in through the actual entrance he was training his gun on. As a result, the terrorist gets some boiling hot tea to the face when he shoots the ducts, which also distracts him from Touma barrelling through the now-unwatched door and flinging a full pot of boiling coffee into his face.
• All-Accessible Magic: There are two main types of "magic": actual magic Magic, and the more scientific Esper abilities. Magic is described as a power created by and for "those without talent". In contrast to Espers' abilities, which require some degree of innate talent, anyone can perform magic so long as they are given sufficient instructions and follow them properly, unless they are an Esper. In one notable case, a spell that tore an angel down from heaven was cast by a non-magician because they unknowingly set up a ritual for it. That said, someone who has little to no experience using magic will face a extra risk when casting magic compared to a practiced magician. This is because regularly practicing magic makes magicians Resistant to Magic, which helps protect them should anything go wrong.
• All-Loving Hero: Touma. Also Orsola, to an extent, as she never holds a grudge against anyone, even those who personally attacked her.
• All That Glitters: The Power Curriculum Program appears like this to the outside world. The social class system formed by the Power Curriculum Program and the dark side are signs that while superpowers may seem wonderful, much lies under the surface.
• All There in the Manual: From the novels, manga, and anime, we see them spawning character relationship charts, timeline charts explaining the flow of events in the "Indexverse" in chronological order, etc. in which if you don't at least read one of these would result in confusion regarding who, what, why, and how things go about in the series. And it might be not an exaggeration to say those are just the tip of the iceberg...
• All Up to You: When Touma is beaten an inch from death by Acqua in Volume 16, the Amakusas step up to the mound.
• All Your Powers Combined: When she becomes a major villain, Yuiitsu Kihara makes use of the tools and abilities of several other villains. She uses Ayu's FIVE_OVER Outsider, allowing her to disguise herself as someone else. She infects herself with an attenuated strain of the St Germain virus, allowing her to use magic (especially magic that creates animalistic constructs). She also infects herself with modified Sample Shoggoth, giving herself a potent Healing Factor. Sample Shoggoth allows her to sever Kakeru's right hand and connect it to her own arm, while the St Germain virus lets her rewrite her own brain to fool World Rejector into accepting her as its user. Finally, in NT Volume 16 she creates her own version of the Anti-Art Attachment.
• Almighty Janitor: Touma as a Level 0 in Academy City.
• Alternate Character Reading:
  • It's all over the place in the series. The trope page has some examples, but something to keep in mind: A lot of the Gratuitous English Esper ability names simply originate from furigana attached to that ability's kanji. In some cases, the English reading provided may simply a translation of the ability's kanji (eg. "Super Electromagnetic Cannon" is read as "Railgun"), or at times, may be an embellished Gratuitous English variant (eg. As mentioned under Catchphrase, kanji that means "Illusion Killer" or "Fantasy Killer", is giving the English reading of "Imagine Breaker"). And then there are the terms whose English reading may have NOTHING to do with the given kanji whatsoever (eg. Kanji that means "One-Way Street" is read as "Accelerator").
  • The episode Strongest vs Weakest, in which Accelerator and Touma face off for the first time, has furigana that asks the viewer to swap the two designations with each other, and thus the true title is Weakest vs Strongest.
• Alternate History: Since magic exists in this version of our world, it is more of the Never Was This Universe type of Alternate History, but special mention goes to the United States being on its third Hispanic President, the G14 having been established, a second Costa Rican civil war having taken place, the existence of the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations (a union of nations and countries formerly part of Russia) and a non-nuclear power United Kingdom having retained its long-held animosity against France (in part because they were forced to give up their nuclear arsenal to France by the European Union).
  • As of NT 9 it is explained that the current reality the series takes place in is the result of reality being destroyed and recreated millions of billions of times, each with its own slight alterations to history and the varying laws of physics that make it different from the previous one. So it is very possible that the universe is still ours but the fabric of reality within it is not any longer.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Increasingly, the higher levels of Academy City; their response to any attempt to challenge their technologically based hegemony ranges from assassinations and extortion to, as featured in New Testament Vol. 4, wholesale slaughter using purposefully psychotic special forces.
  • More than anyone else in Academy City, the Kihara family. Every single one of them is an Ax-Crazy psychopath who conducts inhumane experiments with a smile. There are three exceptions, and one was created by a different author (Nayuta Kihara, created by the author of Baccano! and Durarara!!).
• America Saves the Day: Inverted in the whole of New Testament Vol. 3's plot, where the heroes have to save America.
• Amnesia Danger: Played with in Volume 14. Terra of the Left of God's Right Seat points out to Touma that he was under-utilizing Imagine Breaker's powers. What he exactly meant was left up in the air until Volume 22's reveal.
• Anadiplosis: In the second volume's second chapter's fifth section, the Gregorian Chant spell, spoken/cast by multiple speakers inhumanly with awkward punctuation to match and is structured like a chain, possibly for ease of chanting/repetition. Some fragments are:
  The seraph's wings are a shining light, the shining light is the immaculate white, which exposes sin———————-
  The immaculate white is the 'proof of purification, that proof is the result of' motion———————
  [...]
  singularity is sin, sin is man, man' 'fears punishment, fear' is 'crime
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Index actually gives one of these out early in the series right after Touma loses his memories. While trying to get him to remember his past, she told him that she loved him.
• Anime Catholicism: Or rather, since the series manages to avert Christianity is Catholic, we're dealing with Anime Christianity as a whole. Either way, we are using an incredibly loose definition of Christianity here, given their widespread use of magic.
• Anti-Magic: Touma's right hand, the "Imagine Breaker". He outrageously claims that it can negate even miracles from the gods, and subsequent events back him up on this. Uses include making espers look dumb, shutting sorcerers the fuck up, and making nuns' clothes explode. Yes, he did that. Repeatedly.
• Anti-Magical Faction: Necessarius is one of the hypocritical variety, because they use magic to subdue it—which is bad, but also necessary. Hence, their name.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Touma sees Esper powers on a regular basis, but initially dismisses the idea of magic as nonsense. Index's counter-skepticism of Touma's power is a lot more reasonable, considering he (an atheist) is claiming precedence over God's power. Academy City in general seems to hold this attitude, and they all dismiss the idea of magic powers and try to interpret them as esper powers developed by outsiders to the city.
• Arc Words: Several, which vary in prominence throughout the course of the series.
  • The phrase "an ordinary high school boy you could find anywhere" is often quoted by Touma and the narration, and becomes especially significant during the arcs involving Kamisato Kakeru, another student with a special power in his right hand.
  • The word "dragon", which appears in various contexts in both the Magic and Science Sides.
  • The concept of "aeons", especially concerning the end of the Aeon of Osiris and the start of the Aeon of Horus. It's a nice detail, especially to those familiar with Thelema, the religion of the real-life Aleister Crowley. Of similar origins is the phrase "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the Law".
  • "London, the city of fog and magic," or some variant thereof, shows up whenever the characters are in London, which subtly highlights the deep ties that London has with the Magic Side, and also reveals the priorities of the speaker. This later gains new significance as Aleister Crowley's origins as a magician is revealed
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Justified considering the usage of Public Domain Artifacts. We have Curtana, Durandal, and Hrunting. Whether Saint Peter's Cross counts as a weapon In-Universe is up for debate.
• Arch-Enemy: Aleister Crowley and Lola Stuart. Accelerator and Teitoku Kakine at least until the latter gets taken over by Beetle 05.
• Art Evolution: Compare this◊ picture of Touma from Volume 1 to this◊ picture of him in Volume 20. In fact, a lot of the characters from the earlier volumes have undergone art evolution over the novels.
• Artifact Title: After the first arc, Index has little relevance to the plot other than in passing mentions as a MacGuffin and providing to Touma information about the magic of his enemies. The EDs are still dedicated to her side by side with Touma. In the novels, she gets a little more relevance as Ms. Exposition and the MacGuffin Super-Person for the Big Bad, but in the end, several other side characters are more relevant than her. As the author said in the afterword to Volume 3 (the Sisters arc):

  Yes, this book is called A Certain "Magical Index". Those of you who have finished reading can have a nice laugh now.

  • Although there is an argument that the real 'Magical Index' is the very plot-relevant Index Librorum Prohibitorum —considered the Magic side's most powerful weapon and an idealistic symbol of their strength — and not the character that is named after it.
• Artifact of Death: Grimoires in general. While they grant the users massive powers, the effects destroy the user's mind, body, or more. That is, unless you're a seriously badass mage. Or Index. Fortunately for normal magicians, only originals do this. That said, there is no known way to destroy, or even damage, an original grimoire. This is because they can absorb magic from the planet's leylines to protect themselves and recover from any harm they suffer.
• Artistic Age: In general, unless their age has been blatantly stated, viewers shouldn't assume that characters from the Magic Side are as old or as young as they look.
• Artistic License – Biology: It's revealed early on that 85% of Index's brain is taken up by all the grimoires she read, leaving only 15% for normal memories, and thus she needs to be mind-wiped every year or else her brain will overload and kill her, discounting the fact that the human brain can contain a hell of a lot more information than that. Justified, in that the whole thing is a lie made up by the Church in order to convince her allies to mind wipe her regularly and keep her compliant, and the thing that's killing her is something else entirely. The entire thing about how human memory actually works is even brought up soon after.
• Artistic License – Traditional Christianity: Quite a lot of this, but the big one is the whole idea of "The One Above God", which is a theological impossibility by the Christian understanding of God, which is actually lampshaded by The Pope himself in Volume 16 when he realizes the true scope of Fiamma of the Right's plan to become exactly that and how it can succeed.
• Art Major Physics:
  • In reality, lightning travels extremely fast (about 92,000 miles per second, or 148,000 kilometers per second) so dodging or blocking Mikoto's attacks should probably be out of the question. That's just the first one. This series isn't about the clash of Magic and Science, but the clash of Magic and Techno Babble. Given it opens with acknowledged psychic powers, you should really expect that sort of thing.
    • This is actually touched upon however briefly in the Accelerator vs. Touma rematch. According to the former, the latter is able to block the blasts because he can subconsciously sense the minor changes in the AIM field, as well as in the magnetic field, and react accordingly before they even activate.
  • Perhaps unintentionally HandWaved in-universe when an actual explanation for how the esper powers work is provided. Essentially, Espers are artificially created minor reality warpers. They reject reality as it applies to them and replace it with one wherein their powers work. So any discrepancies on how the powers disagree with physics can just be attributed to their "personal realities" having flat-out different rules than the one we know.
  • During their first fight, Accelerator explains the concept of Dust Explosions to Touma, right before a falling shipping container makes a spark that causes such an example. In reality, one of the main components needed for a dust explosion is an enclosed space, which not present as Touma and Accelerator's fight takes place in an open trainyard. The most that could happen under these circumstances is a big fireball similar to what happens in pyrotechnics, but the outward pressure wouldn't be that dangerous.
    • Maybe that explains how Touma was able to 'escape' the explosion.
  • The novels' sense of time don't always make sense from a real-world perspective, especially any time it comes to accounting for time-zones. As an example, Between The Lines 2 in Volume 12 states that it's early afternoon in Japan and late night in London, but in the real world, if it was early afternoon in Japan (say, around 1:00PM), it would be early morning in London (if 1:00PM in Japan, it would be 5:00PM in London).
• Art Shift: Touma—and drastically so—when he sees President KurokObama◊.
• Ascended Meme: Remember all the artworks which depict Squid Girl as an Expy of Index? Well, the producers went with it in the third episode of "Toaru Majutsu no Index-tan".
• Assimilation Plot: The Croce di Pietro arc involves this. If it had succeeded, Academy City and its residents would have become a part of the Catholic Church.
• Athletically Challenged: Shokuhou is terribly out of shape due to skipping P.E. constantly with her powers as the most powerful telepath in Academy City. She struggles to keep pace with a lightly jogging Misaka, wheezing and panting from even light physical exertion.
• Attack of the Town Festival: Happens twice. The first time is during the Daihasei sports festival, with magicians trying to forcibly convert Academy City to Roman Catholicism, and the second time happens two months later, during the Ichihanaran cultural festival, this time involving two rival magical factions fighting over a brain eating immortal, and a resurrected Level 5 esper looking for revenge.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Averted, usually. Played straight in some cases however, as some the most powerful characters in the series have been authorities (Fiamma of the Right, One-Eyed Othinus, and Aleister Crowley).
• Automated Automobiles: Academy City has self-driving electric buses, though they're only brought out on special occasions when the general public is permitted into the city. Most of the time they have ordinary manually-driven buses like most other places.
• "Avoid This Area" Effect: People-Dispelling Fields, which are made by magic to make Muggles avoid areas where magical battles happen.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Most fights in the series, no matter if the participants are magicians or espers, are determined not just by who has the strongest or more destructive power, but by how the combatant is able to figure out what the enemy's power is and how to use their skills, allies and environment to win. Particularly, a lot of time in Touma's fights is spent with him trying to figure out a weakness in his enemy's magic/ability, and a lot of magicians also analyze their opponent's magic to come up with a counterspell. In short, this is a series where smarts and analytical skills pay off.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Acqua of the Back's sword Ascalon is 3.5 meters long and weighs 441 pounds. He's forced to leave it behind when he loses his powers, since he needed his Super-Strength just to pick it up.
• Badass Boast: There's been a few.
  Accelerator: "This is not a negotiation. It is not a suggestion, not a trade, not a petition, not an agreement, not a compromise, not a surrender. This is my victory march, you stupid bastards."
  
  Accelerator: (to Kakine) "Between me and you, there is an impassable wall."
  
  Fiamma: (just before all his plans crash and burn) "I'm about to save this world. Therefore, I have no more use for you. Feel the glory, meatbag. Your value as a human being, obediently let me have it."
  Touma: "I'll destroy that screwed up illusion of yours!"
• Badass Normal: Badassery doesn't discriminate in this series. Academy City in particular has many who are completely non-powered, such as Anti-Skill, which is Academy City's version of a police force and is comprised completely of regular teachers and adults whom are trained to trained in esper suppresion techniques, and Skill-Out, a group of Level 0 thugs armed with regular weapons like baseball bats and guns. Specific character examples include:
  • Shiage Hamazura, former leader of the aforementioned Skill-Out who eventually shoves his way into protagonist status. Unlike co-protagonists Touma and Accelerator, he is a Level 0 through and through but pulls his weight with his guile and his marksmanship. With his skills he becomes a wrench in many of the Big Bad's plans and is able to defeat a Level 5, Shizuri Mugino. Twice.
  • Amata Kihara, leader of the Hound Dogs, is able to beat Accelerator up with his bare fists. It helps that Amata helped train his powers, and thus knows how to exploit its Achilles' Heel.
  • Some other members of the dark side are Level 0s, and get by using Academy City developed weapons or technology, such as Frenda Seivelun, Rakko Yumiya, and Baba Yoshio.
  • Touma himself is a borderline example since, Imagine Breaker aside, he's supposed to just be "an ordinary high school boy". That's easy to forget though.
• Badass Preacher: Numerous characters in the magic side, but the standout is Stiyl Magnus.
• Balanced Harem: Touma still doesn't show any notable romantic interest in any member of his harem.
• Battle Harem: Touma has one. Among the girls interested in him are: a human repository of thousands upon thousands of spellbooks, the third and fifth most powerful espers in Academy City, a sword-wielding priestess and one of her spear-wielding subordinates, a magical spy/courier who wants to seduce him into working for her country, and the pre-teen leader of a magical cabal.
  • Shiage's harem also counts: the fourth most powerful Esper in Academy City, a Sensor Character who can influence the powers of others, and one who can control nitrogen.
  • Kamisato has a harem that rivals Touma's and is even called the "Kamisato Faction". Of course, like everything else about him, he is a deconstruction of Touma in that he feels that the Magic Gods conspired to give him that harem against the girls' will and thus never completely trusts them.
• Beach Episode: The Angel Fall arc, combined with Bizarro Universe. The Liberal Arts City arc is the same for the Railgun cast, being a Vacation Episode in the United States. Interestingly, the Hawaii Invasion arc of New Testament sounds like it's something similar to LAC, but none of the characters actually get to enjoy Hawaii and are thrown immediately into action.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Often how Touma gains the affections of his rescue romancees.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Aleister Crowley was a real magician and he has survived to the present day.
• BFS: Kaori Kanzaki's katana, which is easily as long as she is tall.
  • Acqua of the Back's sword, Ascalon, is ~3.5 meters.
  • The Knight Leader's sword, Hrunting, is ~3.9 meters in its fully unsealed form, remaining a much more modest 80 centimeters when he's holding back.
  • Fiamma of the Right beats them all: his Flaming Sword is about forty fuckin' kilometers long!
• The Big Bad Shuffle: There are several that could qualify throughout the series, in particular the likes of Fiamma of the Right and Magic God Othinus, but Aleister Crowley and Lola Stuart are probably the strongest contenders for the position of "true" Big Bad, being responsible for many major events in the series, apparently even things as uncontrollable as the aforementioned Othinus. The morality of both is ambiguous, however, though later volumes of New Testament push Aleister into allying with the heroes and giving him sympathetic (or at least understandable) motives while Lola's true identity and motives sends her into full-on villainy (and it is not a coincidence that this is the case).
• Big Brother Is Watching:
  • Underline, a network of Nanomachines that allows Aleister to monitor practically everyone in Academy City.
  • Free Compound Eyes, a computer program, is used by the antagonists in New Testament Vol. 3 to observe the actions of the heroes by tapping into every internet-capable device with a camera.
• Big Eater: While it's Played for Laughs, Index's tendencies to gorge herself mean that Touma has to spend much of his limited income simply to keep her satisfied, constantly leaving low on funds.
• Blatant Lies: From the preview of New Testament Volume 1: "With that, he vanished. This is a world where Touma Kamijou does not exist."
• Bloody Horror: On his way home Touma sees now-familiar habit-wearer Index sprawled on the floor near his apartment door. Knowing Index's appetite, Touma can expect her hunger to be the cause again, and proceeds to help her up, quickly getting whiplashed by not knowing what's with all the blood pooling under her.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: Komoe-sensei gets drenched in Aisa's blood after Oriana mistakenly attacks her in Volume 10. Komoe-sensei is anything but innocent herself, but considering that she looks about six it probably still counts.
• Blush Sticker:
  • Last Order is regularly seen sporting these.
  • Also Index from time to time.
  • Mikoto as a kid.
• Boarding School: Many students live in boarding schools like Tokiwadai.
• Book Ends: Fremea Seivelun's arc in New Testament Vol 7 begins and ends with her debating with her classmates about whether or not Santa Claus exists.
• Bonfire Dance: A brief scene shows Touma dancing with a blushing Mikoto around the bonfire during the Daihasei Festival before Kuroko dropkicks him.
• Born Winner: Most characters developed their powers, but there are some that were born with their powers. These characters generally also won the Superpower Lottery.
• Boss Rush: NT Volume 10 is essentially this. It consists almost entirely of Touma's friends and allies. The author even noted he wanted to subvert the usual manner of a Boss Rush by having the most powerful opponent attack first (not that the subsequent opponents were not extremely dangerous).
• Boyfriend Bluff: Mikoto does this to Touma in the Three Stories arc to try and keep the fake Mitsuki Unabara from bothering her.
• Breather Episode:
  • Volume 12 largely give Touma a day off from having to save the world. Instead, he's forced finally fulfill his bet with Mikoto that he lost, and has to deal with her, along with two of the Misaka clones, and getting beat up by Kuroko.
    • The entirety of the volume can be seen as this. While part of the volume revolves around Touma and Mikoto's "penalty game", the volume also covers Accelerator's side of the events. All in all, the biggest problem in that volume that has to be resolved is Accelerator searching for Last Order, who's just run off to play. Compared to how hectic September had been for both Touma and Accelerator, this is a nice and well-deserved break.
  • New Testament Volume 2. Part of the novel is a Recap Episode regarding all the magical incidents, justified in that Shiage and Accelerator are being introduced to magic, and Leivinia Birdway wants to provide context for the new magical threat targeting them. Other parts include the numerous comedic interactions between the characters, the fate of the other members of GROUP, and seeing how Touma's associates dealt with his disappearance. There was some drama involving a possible Colony Drop, but there wasn't much combat in averting it.
• Break the Cutie: Shokohou Misaki, GOOD LORD. It turns out she's one of the first people to actually be part of Touma's "rescue girls", before he even met Index and she ultimately fell for him. But in the process of saving her he received such traumatic brain damage (also through Misaki trying to keep him alive) that his brain cannot form any lasting memories of her, so she's always destined to be forgotten by him. Her exhaustive clique and desire for control came from this very event. Then she started to run into Touma more and more as the series continued which brought more pain. Then she finally snapped in NT22R. Invisible Thing, taking over Touma's Imagine Breaker with his own body, also claimed Touma's forgotten memories including of her. When push came to shove and she had to choose between IT and the real Touma, IT used the fact that he remembered her to manipulate her into turning against everyone. She immediately regretted it but couldn't completely overcome her desire to be remembered by Touma. She suffered throughout the entire volume before almost dying at the end.
• Brown Note: At one point, Index uses "Sheol Fear" against an army of nuns from the Roman Catholic church, which incapacitates zealous religious types by pointing out contradictions in their teachings. Most of the nuns collapse clutching their heads and screaming in agony until they jam pens in their ears to puncture their eardrums so they can't hear it.
• Bust-Contrast Duo: The series has the rivalry of Mikoto and Misaki, two Level 5 espers who go to the same middle school. Mikoto is an action Tomboy with a Girly Streak with electrical powers who laments about her lack of figure, while the buxom unatheltic Misaki outwardly acts girly but has a calculating mind to go with her telepathy. Towards Touma, Mikoto was a huge Tsundere towards him before recognizing her own feelings for him, while Misaki rarely interacts with Touma (mostly due to the fact Touma is unable to retain memories of her due to brain damage), but when they do come across each other Misaki won't hesitate to tease him.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Touma, as a direct result of Imagine Breaker negating all the good luck he comes across.
  • Shiage as well. Given that about half of the members of his harem are sadists, hardly surprising.
• Bystander Syndrome: A lot of people tend to ignore problems that have nothing to do with them. At times, they tell Touma not to get involved with other people's problems because they do not involve him and he won't get any benefit from helping, but he always ignores them.
• Call-Forward: In the manga, Touma has a dream of some of the future events of the series including the Angel Fall incident. Too bad he's forgotten about it, since he lost his memories.
• Captured Super-Entity: Played with but still unclear whether played straight or subverted. Aleister somehow called Aiwass, one of the most powerful entities of the series, and has kept him on Earth. Whether it/he/she has the option of leaving of its own free will is yet to be seen. Ultimately somewhat subverted, as Aiwass was actually bound to Anna Sprengel.
  • Coronzon was in a similar situation under her contract to Mathers. She manages to free herself from it by burning his corpse.
• Caring Gardener: Harzak Lolas is a gardener and he is the kind guardian of Lindy Blueshake, who indulges her with stories even when she should be studying.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Everybody looks unique. One exception is that Shutaura Sequenzia from A Certain Magical Index: Miracle of Endymion looks exactly like Seiri Fukiyose. The series's artist, Kiyotaka Haimura, realized this too late and apologized to the fans.
• Catchphrase:
  • Touma's "Such misfortune (fukou da)" To a lesser extent, Touma is also fond of telling people that he's going to "break that illusion", or more specifically, he says "I'll kill it... That illusion/fantasy of yours!!" It's actually a pun: The Kanji given for 'Imagine Breaker' is 'Illusion/Fantasy Killer (Gensou Goroshi)'. Cue punching things with his right fist. He inverts his catch phrase in Episode 23 of Index, where he says "Let me show you now that in this world you reside in there's still hope! And I'll show you that your illusion won't break down because of small things like this!!!" to reassure Hyouka, who isn't human.
  • Accelerator's catchphrase: "Such stupidity..."
  • Kuroko's catchphrase: "Judgment desu no!"
  • Index's irritated proclamation of "TOUMA!" every time he upsets her.
  • Touma always finishes narrating the next episode preview by saying, "When science and magic cross paths, a story is born."
• Cerebro Electro:
  • Misaka Mikoto possesses electromagnetism powers. She is also very knowledgeable about machines and can think faster than a supercomputer.
  • The "Radio Noise" is a Hive Mind of the Misaka clones created by the Electromaster ability. The hive mind is smarter than each brain alone, worth multiple supercomputers of computational power and requires being Good with Numbers to utilize.
• Character-Magnetic Team: Touma and Index. Justified in that one has an unusual power, and the other is sought after for her information (and thus protected) by a large part of the world.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Remember that satellite that Index destroys in the Episode 6 of Season 1? That satellite and the fact that it was destroyed appears in various places throughout the anime.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Any time Touma encounters a magic item and doesn't destroy it, it's going to be important later on.
  • In New Testament Volume 2, Leivinia recaps everything about the magic side known so far, including how espers can't use magic due to the backlash to their bodies. In Volume 3, it turns out that Umidori Kuroyoru was listening to the whole thing while imprisoned in Touma's bathroom. She collapses a cliffside on a bunch of mercenaries by using her Personal Reality to make the ground as part of her body, and then purposely attempts to cast magic, controlling the backlash to affect mostly the ground.
  • In Volume 15 of the original series, Rikou tries to use her powers to hijack Kakine's Dark Matter, and fails. Volume 22 hints at her potential. Then in New Testament Volume 6, she inadvertently did manipulate Kakine's Personal Reality, which leads to a dark matter drone he created to claim to be the real Kakine Teitoku, hijacking control of Dark Matter in the process.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Misaki Shokuhou, the fifth Level 5 Esper, has been hinted at ever since Volume 1 and has finally made an appearance in Chapter 40 of the Railgun manga. She makes her first appearance in Index in NT Volume 7, running into Touma when he's smuggled into Tokiwadai.
  • Early in New Testament Volume 3, the President's aide reads a magazine article listing the most influential people in America. Later in the novel, it's revealed that media tycoon Olay Blueshake, one of the people mentioned in the article, is connected to GREMLIN's invasion of Hawaii.
  • At the end of Volume 22, Ollerus name drops Othinus as the one who stole the title of Majin from him. In New Testament Volume 3, Othinus (referred to as Odin) is revealed as a true member of GREMLIN and one behind the novel's events.
• The Chessmaster: Aleister Crowley and Lola Stuart being the most prominent. Fiamma of the Right too actually, but he gets demoted after volume 22.
• Chew Toy: Othinus becomes a literal example of this after her Redemption Demotion, being treated as a plaything by Sphinx.
• Chick Magnet: Exaggerated with Touma. The female characters in the series who know him and are not in love with him could very easily be counted on one hand, and there are a LOT of female characters here to work with. Included in this equation are all of the Misaka clones... Of which there are thousands. They're a bit of a Hive Mind so it's not as ridiculous a scenario as it sounds, but it's still most definitely a staggering number of suitors. Unlike most examples of this trope, it even extends to the background characters — every single one of his female classmates (bar Seiri (probably)) is in love with him.
  • Given in-universe justification when Index theorizes that Touma's right hand negates the Red String of Fate, which is why all the girls fall for him.
  • Amusingly, it seems his father Touya is one too, ending up in a Meet Cute situation with Mikoto's mother. Mrs. Kamijou was not amused nor pleased.
• Christianity is Catholic: Averted. While there are a lot of Catholic characters in this series like Kaori, the series also shows other Christians of different denominations like the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church. However, the resemblance to those entities is still purely superficial; this series is a big fan of the Nuns Are Mikos and Anime Christianity sort of Christianity. This is not a reliable source for your Church History project.
• Christmas Episode: The first novel in the Genesis Testament series is set in the leadup to the Christmas holidays, with Touma stuck with makeup schoolwork, while Mikoto being taken in by the atmosphere of the season. The second and third novel both take place on Christmas itself in a case of Simultaneous Arcs.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: As explained by Mikoto and Index.
  Mikoto: You're another "I didn't ask for help but he came to help anyway?"
  Index: *nod*
  Both: ...(exasperated sigh)
• Church Militant: All the religions. Mostly they use magic (see Religion is Magic), but they'll happily use mundane weaponry as well.
• City of Adventure: Academy City, of course, which is justified by the city's entire goal being to produce Espers and research their abilities. This goal is ultimately implied to be a cover at the end of Volume 22. One of the directors who ambushes Shiage all but outright states that they will lock Rikou Takitsubo in a concrete cell and never let her out, if it means they can mass produce the army of Level 5s needed to make the world their plaything. NT Volume 18 provides the real reason: Aleister created the city as a place of supernatural conflict specifically to draw in the user of Imagine Breaker.
• City of Spies: Academy City itself. Because of the city's unwillingness to share its research with the rest of the world, a lot of organizations have sent spies into the city.
• Civil War: In Volumes 17 and 18, Britain gets into a civil war with the two princesses of the British Royal Family vying for the throne, which leads two of the major magic factions of England to support one side against the other.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Esper powers affect reality based on their users' internal reality. According to the pseudoscience of the series, if a Schrödinger's Cat experiment was set up, espers would find the cat in the state that they believed it to be, because they believed strongly enough that the cat was that way. Hypnosis, brainwashing, and drugs are used to throw the subject's internal reality out of whack. So it might be argued that the strongest espers like Mikoto and Accelerator are the most stubbornly out of touch with the reality normal people live in.
  • Aureolus's Reality Warper/Master of Illusion magic is directed by his thoughts; he needs absolute confidence for his powers to work. When that confidence starts to fade, his powers also start to falter.
• Classified Information: Very few people in the world know anything about the truth behind Touma's right hand, which existed before under a different name. And one of them is dead. It's also hinted that some of these may be mistaken about its true nature.
• Cliffhanger: New Testament 8 ends with Othinus apparently annihilating the world on a whim.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Several of the girls in Touma's harem, like Index and Mikoto, do not take it well when they see Touma hanging out with other girls, usually resulting in biting/shocking Touma. Also Kuroko, who threatens Touma the moment she sees him out of suspicion over his relationship with Mikoto, telling him that if he wants to make a go at Mikoto he'll have to go through her first. Though despite her jealousy, she never tries to sabotage or otherwise impede Touma's conversations with Mikoto. While clingy and jealous, Kuroko has the best interests for Mikoto at heart.
  • Played straight once when she realizes Mikoto might like Touma and when Mikoto went on a date with him after he lost a bet in the sports festival, Kuroko tries to ruin their date. Ironically, Misaka 10032 and Last Order are the ones who ruin the date.
  • But also averted in the sense that, whenever Touma and Kuroko have to interact directly without Mikoto being involved, generally in terms of having to save the day, they work together almost flawlessly. She'll make remarks periodically about her annoyance of Touma's closeness to Mikoto but otherwise they are an incredibly efficient partnership. Kuroko may want her "onee-sama"/"sissy' all to herself, but when it comes to the well being of the people she's tasked to protect she is all business no matter whom she has to work with.
• Clothing Damage: Index suffers from this when she first tries to prove herself to Touma, and he ends up proving his power to her as well.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Motoharu's skills at extracting information can be quite brutal. At one point, he freezes a person's legs and threatens to shatter them if he didn't sing.
  • Accelerator's experiments with blood circulation were rather cruel as well.
  • Subverted when Accelerator had barely visible lumps of meat hanging around a room he was in when interrogating a spy. It is revealed they were only fakes. Only the clothes were taken from the other spies. He was then called out for having become soft.
• Color Failure:
  • Komoe after the Delta Force get beaten up by Seiri again, causing her classroom to be wrecked. She currently provides the page picture.
  • Touma suffers his own in Ep. 15 of the original anime, when he sees Mikoto running up to him cheerfully and calling him Onii-chan. It (eventually) makes sense in context.
• Combining Mecha: The Anti-Art Attachment, a special form of powered suit consisting of numerous weapons which link together around the user.
• Comic Trio: The Delta Force, consisting of Touma, Motoharu, and Pierce, is a group of idiots who basically do nothing but screw around... except Touma is The Hero, Motoharu is a Super Spy and no one knows what's going on with Pierce, but considering that isn't his actual name, there a theories he's not what he first appears to be.
  • Touma, Accelerator and Shiage may also count, despite the fact that any time they interact with each other they are trying to commit at least bodily harm to the other. Until New Testament at least.
  • Just for New Testament Volume 3: Shiage, Misaka WORST, and Umidori.
• Continuity Nod:
  • New Testament Volume 3 has a couple of nods to the side stories. Olay Blueshake backed the Liberal Arts City featured in Railgun Side Story 1, as well as the Gemstone Esper hunt in Side Stories Volume 2. Brunhild Eiktobel and her connection to Gungnir, featured in the Norse Mythology Side Story, is acknowledged by GREMLIN.
  • When Touma is recalling the events that happened after Index's version of the Daihasei Festival, the manga adaptation shows that he remembers his involvement in the events shown in Railgun too. Specifically, it's a cut off shot of him right before he unleashes the eight dragons against a Level 6 shifted Mikoto.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Apparently, Touma's magic-nullifying power also gives him an over-all immunity to convection, seeing how all these lightning strikes and flame demons end up two feet away without him being barbecued by the ambient heat they give off.
  • Considering the near complete lack of fire damage to the building (only metal doorknobs and such are affected at all) in his first fight against a Sorcerer, it's not just his hand. Although his ability may not be limited to his right hand anyway...
  • Also, it's a magical creature. Once you realize if you can create a giant flame demon, would it really be that much of a stretch for you to make it able to contain its heat, instead of risking it killing you by walking too close to it?
  • Real molten stone created by non-Esper/Mage methods definitely affected him, lightly burning him and apparently KOing him from just being in its general vicinity at the end of his fight against Terra of the Left, though part of it was probably from the damage he took during the fight.
• Conveniently Coherent Thoughts: Apparently telepathy is quite efficient.
• Cooldown Hug: Given by Touma to Misaka in New Testament 17.
• Cosmic Plaything: Touma, as a cost of his power; his Imagine Breaker not only negates magic and Esper abilities, but also the random good luck that happens to everyone else but him—making him probably the unluckiest man alive. Index describes it as "negating the Grace of God."
• Cosmic Retcon: It is eventually revealed that the series' universe was the result of countless of these courtesy of Magic God Othinus. Another one happens at the end New Testament Vol. 9 after Othinus frees Touma from torturing him in infinite worlds.
• Covers Always Lie: New Testament Vol. 7 has Mikoto and Misaki on the cover, with the summary explaining that Touma has to deal with a magic incident in Tokiwadai. It's all a fabrication done by Motoharu, since he wanted Touma out of the way somewhere, with the real story being absolutely nothing like what the reader would suspect.
• Crash in Through the Ceiling: Misaka Mikoto is thrown through the roof of the the Anti-Art Attachment storage room by her enemies, and uncovering the weapon that she uses to save Touma from Kihara Yuiitsu.
• Creepy Crosses: Vento of the Front wears two crosses earrings and also has a cross hanging from a chain from her tongue. Intentional on her part; her magic, God's Divine Punishment, causes people who are hostile towards her (whether through thought or action) to suffocate. Her appearance facilitates this effect.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
  • Don't make Komoe cry or her entire class turns into this under Touma's command!
  • For a character that the narrative repeatedly calls stupid, ugly, and a thug, Shiage's quite the combat pragmatist.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: There are a few of these, including Touma vs. Kaori (winner), Mikoto vs. Touma (winner, though neither was serious). One notable example is Accelerator vs. Kakine, the second most powerful Level 5. This is the guy who once boasted he could defeat any other Esper with ease. Accelerator defeats him while protecting all the ordinary people around them. Not even Kakine 'awakening' made a difference.
  • Accelerator has another one before that when Awaki runs into him after fleeing Kuroko, Mikoto, and Touma with the remains of the Tree Diagram and losing her subordinates to Anti-Skill. The look on her face says it all.
  • Academy City against Russia, actually more of a curbstomp slaughter. Word of God implies that until Archangel Gabriel shows up, Academy City suffered not a single casualty throughout the entire war, if it can even be called that, as war implies that both sides suffer horrific losses in matched combat.
    • And again in New Testament Vol. 4: Academy City's response to the attempt to advance technology outside its say-so is to obliterate Baggage City; just about two weeks after WWIII, Academy City has made the technology it used in the war totally obsolete, to the point that Powered Armor that could put a 40mm projectile through one end of a T-72 equipped with reactive armor and out the other is obliterated without a fight; they make advances that would take ten years or more in about six months.
  • Even the United States, which according to Word of God could match Academy City in tactical and military prowess, is reluctant to take action; when Mikoto infiltrates Liberal Arts City and proceeds to flatten any and all resistance in her attempt to expose the US's attempt to create its own Esper program, Olive Holiday, the resident CIA agent is prevented from taking any action due to the fact that Aleister Crowley threatens to declare war on the United States if they attempt any further research, effectively turning any gains made into a pyrrhic victory
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • Kaori Kanzaki is actually a Saint, which has caused her a lot of angst in her life.
  • Kakeru considers himself this. While World Rejector is an incredible power that lets him easily defeat Magic Gods, he hates it for ruining his normal life.
• Cute Kitten: Pretty much the sole reason Sphinx exists.
• Cyborg: Several examples, most using the advanced technology of Academy City:
  • Accelerator, after suffering brain damage that makes him unable to do most things (including using his power), receives a special electronic choker. It allows him to borrow the calculation ability of other people (specifically, the Sisters).
  • Shizuri gains a cybernetic arm and eye after being injured in battle.
  • Umidori had alterations done to her body so she could attach and control multiple robotic arms to increase the combat capabilities of her Esper power.
  • Rensa is entirely cybernetic save for her brainstem. She can alter her body to copy esper abilities.
  • Salome is the odd one out for not using Academy City's technology. Using everyday objects, she's managed to replace most of her body aside from her head, giving herself Super-Strength, Super-Speed and Super-Toughness. However, it's noted that her rough construction makes her body susceptible to contaminants.
• Danger with a Deadline: Cendrillon's magic lets her move fast enough to dodge a cluster bombing and automatically readjusts external factors to make her nearly untouchable. However, since her power is based on the legend of Cinderella, her power will fade at midnight. As such, her powers will fade at sunrise or if she's presented with something that represents the clock striking twelve, such as changing every nearby clock to show 12:00 or detonating an oil tanker to create a bright flame mimicking the sun.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: After having his life saved by Heaven Canceller, Aleister Crowley doesn't seem to bother going anywhere and stays floating upside down in his tube for most of the series. It is later explained that the tube essentially hides the magical signature of his lifeforce, which would be instantly recognizable by the Magic Side and make them realize he is still alive, which would make them go after him. In later volumes, he seemingly leaves the tube to handle things personally. It's eventually revealed that in these cases, he didn't leave the tube but instead sent out a copy of himself.
• Dawn of an Era: Though the implications of it have not been fully explored, the characters aware of it have noted the world's shift into the Aeon of Horus.
• Day in the Limelight:
  • Volume 5 of the novels (Episodes 19 and 20 of Season 1) casts former antagonist Accelerator as the protagonist and shows the events that make him less of a jerk. As he gains more and more prominence as a protagonist, his adventures become less like Day in the Limelight and more like full-blown Simultaneous Arcs.
  • Volume 8 of the novels (Episodes 6 and 7 of Season 2) casts minor character (and eventual main character of the Railgun spinoff) Kuroko Shirai as the protagonist, as she stumbles into the world Mikoto has been fighting in since the Sisters arc. She retakes that role again in GT Volume 3, as she participates in the operation to take down the Dark Side (though she shares the spotlight with Hamazura).
  • NT Volume 11 focuses on the #5 Level 5 Misaki, giving a deeper insight into her personality and explaining why she loves and unconditionally trusts Touma.
  • The short stories, some of which are nowhere near short, are these as well.
• Deadly Road Trip: Touma's trip to Italy quickly escalates into the Queen of the Adriatic incident.
• Decoy Protagonist: You would have thought, when reading the title, that Index would be the main character.
  • Lampshaded in volume 16: "However, she had been completely useless of late."
• Defeat Means Friendship: Agnese, Stiyl, and Lessar after Touma beaten them.
  • Inverted with Kaori, as it was after she had beaten Touma that he earned her friendship.
• Delinquents: Academy City seems to be crawling with them sometimes. So far groups of them have hit on Mikoto twice, been interrogated by/hit on Mikoto and attacked Accelerator. Unfortunately, since they are usually drop-outs from the Esper program they are usually Level 0-1, and so not the ones you have to watch out for.
  • An argument could be made for Touma and his friends being delinquents as well. Low marks and very little effort to improve them? Check. Constantly getting into fights? Check. Bleached hair, piercings and general disregard for the dress code? Check, check, and check. There are even hints the three used to go out drinking together and frequently ended up in back alley brawls. Of course, it's a subversion since Touma would rather avoid fights and just run away.
  • And there's the Skills-Outs, gangs of Level 0s who protect themselves against higher level Espers who bully them. Noble at first...until some of those gangs started attacking Espers who never bothered them.
• Demonic Possession: The demon Coronzon has been possessing Fran Karasuma.
• Demoted to Extra: Poor Aisa. Her importance in the series got reduced after the Deep Blood arc. She and even her seiyuu lampshaded it.
• De-power: Othinus was so arrogant about her immortality and Nigh-Invulnerability that she wore a skimpy outfit to show off that she can't be harmed. Then she loses her powers, almost freezes to death, and has to rely on Touma to keep her alive from all the people who want her dead. Without her powers, she can't do feats that she once considered child's play, like jumping onto a moving truck.
• Depraved Dentist: Fremea's view of the dental workers as they are about to operate on her cavities. Even Shiage realizes how she feels.
  Shiage: "I think dentist is the only occupation in Japan where you get praised for making little girls cry."
• Determinator: Touma is surprisingly tenacious against overwhelming opponents. Even when he knows he is outclassed and his power can't help him, he charges in anyway just to prove a point, and because he's the hero. His Evil Laugh is amazing. Poor Aureolus.
  • Exemplified by Touma in NT Volume 9, as Othinus is said to have defeated him thousands of times, subjected him to mental torture over and over again, and yet he pushes forward.
  • Special mention should go to the entire Amakusa Church, who in Vol. 16 defended Touma when Acqua of the Back was sent to eliminate him. They knew they had no chance of winning and would most likely all be killed, but when they said they would protect him with their lives, they meant it.
• Despair Event Horizon: Mikoto during the Sisters arc. Despite everything she's tried to do to stop it, the project marches on. It leads her to conclude that the project could be interrupted if she fights Accelerator herself, knowing full well she's no match for him despite being a Level 5 esper like him. She figures if the original person that the Misaka clones were based on dies in their experiment, they wouldn't have any reason to continue killing them. Fortunately, despite her protests, Touma saw enough to piece things together and intervenes on her behalf.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Touma's victories against a "Reality Warper" and an esper who won about ten different superpower lotteries feel a bit like this. Bonus points because he literally did punch them out.
  • At the climax of World War III, he at first suppresses The Invisible Thing that was totally dominating Fiamma, then he goes on to punch out Archangel Gabriel!
  • In New Testament, he's finally come up against something even Imagine Breaker can't beat: Othinus, who is pretty much an actual god and who knows how to use Reality Warper powers to their full potential. He's killed by her so many times that she starts breaking down from the strain of killing him, then he uses the experience of these deaths to dodge her attacks. This eventually leads to him destroying Gungnir by punching it! In the end, however, he's unable to defeat her in a fight (and doing so wouldn't have helped the situation, anyway). But because he now understands her as a person, he manages to talk her into a Heel–Face Turn.
• "Die Hard" on an X: Touma foils a terrorist plot on a plane in a very Die Hard manner in Volume 17.
• Disability Superpower: Volume 7 has Index subdue nuns by using the knowledge of her grimoires to point out the (supposed) contradictions in Christianity in rapid succession, causing the nuns to cry in pain. Their solution? Pull out a pair of fountain pens and stab their eardrums, permanently deafening them and thus rendering Index's attack useless.
• Disciplines of Magic: Magicians usually focus on one religion / belief / myth / folklore as their source of magic, except for very generally usable things, like the Christianity-based anti-flight spell, but knowing that there's one foundational theory that underlies how nearly all human magic works means they can replace the source of their magic if they're willing to put in the work. Since it's the same theory underneath it all, they'd just be using it differently.
  • More generally, there are also various disciplines that exist across mythological systems, such as alchemy, necromancy, and divination.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Oriana Thompson is fond of Show Some Leg tactics in battle. Also, when she is casually walking down the street, everybody can't help but stare at her.
• Divide and Conquer: In a brainwashing variant, Fiamma of the Right uses Index against her allies, much to Stiyl's chagrin.
• A Dog Named "Cat": One of the Misaka sisters finds a stray cat. When Touma asks what she wants to name it, she responds "dog".
  Misaka 10032: A cat named "dog". Heh heh heh.
• Downer Ending:
  • New Testament Volume 3. The enemies essentially won and Leivinia betrays Academy City and, by extension, Touma and his cadre.
  • In New Testament Volume 4, the body count in Baggage City was massive. Additionally, at the end of the volume, Touma is soundly defeated by the new Big Bad, Othinus.
  • New Testament Volume 8 ends with Othinus gaining her full power, despite all the attempts at stopping her, and destroying the entire universe.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap:
  • Index' Walking Church initially has powerful defensive enchantments that protect her against most attacks. These are removed by Imagine Breaker, meaning she has to stay away from the front lines.
  • Accelerator suffers brain damage that renders him unable to use his power on his own, or even to walk or speak. To regain these functions, he needs a special choker that borrows the calculating ability of the Misaka Network. The choker only has 24 hours of battery when used normally, and using his power increases power consumption to the point it only lasts 15 minutes (30 after an upgrade). The choker's signal can also be jammed or interfered with. Finally, he only has half of his original calculation ability even with the choker, weakening his power.
  • Othinus loses her incredible power and is turned into a tiny fairy that can't use any magic at all.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Shiage and Misaka WORST escape being captured by mercanaries by doing this. As for Umidori Kuroyoru, she gets stuffed into a bag.
• Dude, Not Funny!: After learning that her John's Pen Mode completely erased Touma's memory, Index tries to get him to remember all the time they spent together, gradually starting to cry as he fails to recognize her name or even his own. Touma suddenly passes off the whole thing as a joke and mocks her for getting emotional, provoking Index into her usual biting and leaving in a huff. Touma really does have amnesia, and admits to Heaven Canceller that he just didn't want to see her upset.
• The Dulcinea Effect: Touma succumbs to it throughout the series, even commenting on how silly it is that he's fighting for Index after knowing her for just a day. This is even discussed at one point by part of his Harem.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The anime version of Index has characters from the later novels appearing much earlier. Case in point:
  • Episode 1 has Motoharu who originally appeared in Volume 4 of the novels, but was mentioned in Volume 3.
  • Episode 2 introduces Kuroko when her first appearance was in Volume 3.
  • In Episode 21, we meet a red haired girl who teleports Motoharu to Aleister Crowley's Secret Lair. Novel readers might know her as Awaki Musujime, the antagonist from Volume 8.
  • In the epilogue of Episode 24, we have the guest appearance of Lola Stuart, the Archbishop of Necessarius.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: After the first arc is wrapped up, the narrative shifts ahead three weeks, apparently without any substantial events happening. Touma's life would "never" be quiet for that length of time ever again.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Shiage's goals and actions amount to this, especially in contrasting comparison to Accelerator and Touma.
• Easter Egg: Quite a few illustrations in the light novels (usually those involving Touma's class or school) sneak in a yet unnamed female classmate of Touma's into the background, who is referred to by fans as the "Headband Girl" after her distinctive Signature Headgear. Her appearences even carry over into the Anime and Manga adaptions.
  • There's also the "Spiky-Haired Glasses Girl", who also appears recurringly.
• Easy Amnesia: Index remembers very little of her own life because of her periodic mind-wipes, and at the end of the first Story Arc, all of Touma's memories are permanently destroyed due to magic-induced brain damage.
• Elite Mooks: Several, such as the Hound Dogs and the Dark Matter-enhanced soldiers during World War III.
• Enemy Mine: Used twice in the Orsola Aquinas Rescue arc.
  • The first time has Touma helping the Roman Catholic church and the Anglicans against the Amakusa who were threatening to obtain some powers with Orsola using a book with dangerous powers.
  • The second time, after the Amakusa are defeated, their leader tells Touma the truth, that Orsola's attempt to decipher a dangerous book would threaten the status quo the Roman Catholics had. Touma understandably doesn't believe him at first, until some nuns go a bit too crazy in attacking him and refusing his request to see Orsola. Touma ends up teaming up with the Amakusa and the Anglicans against the Roman Catholic church to save Orsola from execution.
  • For the last arc of the original series, everyone against Fiamma of the Right.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In NT Volume 2 Kaori has a long elaborate theory about why Mjollnir allowed herself to be converted into a giant magical artifact, figuring that she must have wanted to save someone that died in WWIII and now has nothing to use her great power for. Mjollnir is actually just really loyal to Marian and would do anything for her friend. She doesn't care at all that she had to give up her human form to do it.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time that we see Touma he is running away from a group of delinquents, after telling a single man off for hitting on a middle-schooler only for his group of friends to pop out of the bathroom. Then the girl that was being hit on shows up and we find out that he was actually trying to protect the man from her. Then she attacks him with giant bolts of electricity which he proceeds to block with utter ease. It shows his misfortune, his heroism, and his power in one awesome scene.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Aleister Crowley genuinely loved his daughter, and his current actions are motivated by revenge for her death.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Pierce Aogami. It's not his real name, since it actually means "Blue-haired guy with piercings". We have no idea what his real name is, since that's what Touma calls him. Also Accelerator, who has even forgotten his real name and simply goes by the name of his power, a minor character named "Management" as well as the leader of the English Knights, Knight Leader.
• Everyone Meets Everyone: Played with hilariously when all (or most) of Touma's romantic interests encounter each other in New Testament Vol. 2.
  • Played straight when in the same volume the three protagonists meet each other formally in a non-life threatening situation.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Everything in this series takes place over the course of a couple of months with the exception of the billions of worlds Touma experienced in New Testament Volume 9. Even World War 3 ends in a couple of weeks.
  • Taken to an insane degree with the start of Genesis Testament. A whooping 9 volumes worth of content has been packed between December 24th and the first days of January.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Subverted in a lot of cases, especially magicians, who will bluff and hide the true nature of their abilities, which makes sense given that magicians can come up with a counterspell once they know the source of the enemy's magic. In a rather sad subversion, it took thousands of clones dying before the Misaka Sisters figured out that Accelerator could reflect all attacks no matter the distance or direction, only for him to reveal that it was still not completely right: his redirection is merely a passive subconscious application of his power, control over all vectors.
  • Spoofed with Gunha, the seventh Level 5 esper, who will happily try to explain his power to the enemy as he believes himself to be a Sentai hero. The problem? He totally makes up those explanations in the fly, as neither him nor the several scientists who have studied his powers understand how they work.
  • Some particularly arrogant characters like Fiamma of the Right will explain what their powers are or how they are doing something because they truly believe that there's no way they can lose even if they reveal their tricks. And in Fiamma's and other cases, their beliefs are not unfounded.
• Expy: Accelerator's character design early on bears more than a few similarities to Nagisa Kaworu from Neon Genesis Evangelion. White hair, pale skin and red eyes are just the tip of the iceberg. Add to that his black-and-white t-shirt, which bears a striking resemblance to Kaworu's plug-suit and EVA-03.

F-J

• Failure Is the Only Option: For Mikoto in the Railgun Sisters arc. No matter what she does, she never manages to catch a break, especially when fighting Touma.
  • Though not revealed until several arcs later, it turns out the Sister's project to turn Accelerator into a Level 6 was doomed from the start, as the true purpose of the Sisters was to eventually distribute them throughout the world to form the Imaginary Number District for Hyouka Kazakiri and Aiwass; Touma and Mikoto's intervention just gave a convenient excuse to execute that plan. It doesn't count as a "Shaggy Dog" Story though, since Touma's involvement kickstarts Accelerator's Character Development.
• Faking Amnesia: Inverted. Touma loses his memory but passes it off as a joke so Index doesn't feel bad.
• Faking the Dead: Touma's dad, one of his friends, and an unnamed Gemstone do this in the second SS Volume by blowing up an unmanned Cessna that the bad guys thought they were on. We don't get to see it happen, though; we're just told that that's how they ended up resolving the situation.
• Fall-in Angel: Story begins when Index crashes into Touma's balcony.
• False Camera Effects: All over the OP.
• False Utopia:
  • Though Academy City presents itself to the rest of the world as a bastion of scientific knowledge and progress where any kid can become an esper and gain psychic powers, the series reveals a much darker side of the city. Not only do they keep the best technology, including how to develop esper powers, to themselves, choosing to only trade technology that would be considered obsolote for them, they respond violently to other nations trying to steal or reproduce said technology. They lie to the students about how esper development works, prioritizing whatever powers they like most to the detriment of others, and perform several human experiments with little regard to the lives of their test subjects. All the while keeping nearly absolute control over the communications both inside the city and with the outside, and monitoring all students that leave the city.
  • Played With in NT9 with Othinus' Omega World. It's a version of the world where everyone's happy, there's no conflict between Magic Vs Science, and all tragic deaths never happened, even those only mentioned in backstories. The problem is said world is built of the axiom that 'Touma Kamijou does not exist', forcing him to kill himself if he wants the utopia to be maintained. When consoling him, the Will of the Misaka Network reveals another fatal flaw with the the Omega World: Othinus made it so that no one remembers him or the old world, stating that if they did, his friends would give up that 'utopia' in an instant. Despite all that, Touma still believes that the utopia is worth it despite the costs, and thus the reason he decides to continue fighting Othinus isn't because of the utopia being false or because of its Dark Secret; he does so simply because he wants his old world back, even if it meant being hated by the world for stripping away that ultimate happiness.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Index, whose underdeveloped body is a source of contention, lacks any ability to feed herself. Itsuwa later makes this trope much more apparent.
• Fantastic Diet Requirement: Chemicaloids need to eat lollipops, because they neutralize toxins and were engineered that way.
• Fantastic Racism: Though everyone in Academy City is treated with equal rights in theory, in practice your chances of getting passed over for jobs, universities and all other opportunities in life steadily increases the lower your Power Level gets. Well meaning Level 5s such as Mikoto try to reassure their "lesser" peers with ultimately hollow mantras of "Do your best!! Your power level doesn't matter!!" oblivious to the fact that certain people are simply born incapable of crossing certain hurdles no matter how hard they try. Naturally, this breeds intensely bitter resentment, especially amongst the Level 0s of the city's population; ripe for exploitation by people like Professor Kiyama Harumi through schemes like the "Level Upper" incident... this is also before the Parameter List (power estimation) incident, where management and a team of spec ops reveal to the remaining members of ITEM that the only reason why Level 0s exist is because Academy City doesn't want to waste money developing the powers of people whose abilities can't be militarized or can't be brought above a certain level without massive effort. Thus, the power development curriculum of schools that cater to people like Shiage, Touma and Co. have been deliberately sabotaged via the omission of classes that would allow them to develop their powers.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Overlap with Scifi Kitchen Sink. It is to be expected from such a premise, but even then it can get pretty ridiculous at times. So far, besides Espers and Magicians, this world has (long breath): vampires, clones, angels, ninjas, an artificial elf, dwarves, Valkyries, cyborgs, Martian microbes, zombies, ghosts, A.I.s, at least one confirmed dragon, and multiple gods.
• Fastball Special: How Acqua and Touma ultimately end Carissa's rebellion in Volume 18; Acqua launches Touma with his sword, and Touma breaks Curtana Original and blows Carissa a few hundred meters away from the final battle.
• Fetish: Certain characters will loudly proclaim their interests, while others just get teased for them.
  • Touma has a thing for Onee-sans, something he doesn't like talked about in public.
  • Shiage gets constantly picked on for his love of bunny girls.
  • Motoharu is an unrepentant sis-con.
  • Awaki apparently likes little boys.
  • The less said about Pierce or Kuroko, the better.
• Fictional Counterpart: The series does this to Christianity of all things, likely so the author has more scope for artistic license. This can be seen in the official Yen Press translation which translates the terms literally (as opposed to the fan translation which replaces the terms with their real-life counterparts):
  • Crossism/Church of the Cross (十字教) instead of Christianity (キリスト教).
  • Roman Orthodox Church (ローマ正教) instead of the Catholic Church (カトリック教会).
  • English Puritan Church (イギリス清教) instead of the Church of England (イングランド国教会).
  • Russian Achievement Church (ロシア成教) instead of the Russian Orthodox Church (ロシア正教会).
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The Three Heroes — Touma, who relies on his Anti-Magic fist and inherent toughness to defeat superpowered foes (Fighter); Accelerator, a super genius who won the grand prize of the Superpower Lottery (Mage); and Shiage, a Badass Normal who relies on stealth, tactics, and guns (Thief).
• Find the Cure!:
  • Volumes 1 and 2 involve various characters looking for a cure or discussing how they failed to cure Index's apparent mental condition. Though this was based around a lie, as explained under Artistic License – Biology.
  • In World War III, Accelerator and Shiage are driven to find cures for Last Order and Rikou, respectively.
  • In NT Volume 18, Aleister inflicts a curse on Maika, forcing the heroes to break into the Windowless Building to find some way of removing the curse.
• Fish out of Water: Some of the Sorcerers are not used to or familiar with using modern technology from Academy City which leads to hilarious results.
  • Trust us, you will want to see a crying Kaori after she messed up on her attempt trying to use a washing machine. To be fair, it was a new high tech washing machine so there was bound to be mistakes.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Shutaura Sequenzia as a result of her father being the pilot and sole casualty of the space plane crash that was declared deathless by the media. She hates religion and the idea of miracles due to believing that God let her father die, refusing to accept that any of the clearly supernatural things she sees happening around her to be anything more than tricks or coincidences. She eventually gets over it when she learns that Arisa was miraculously born as a result of her prayer, saying she would give anything to survive the crash.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the first novel, Mikoto accuses Touma of holding back and not using his full power, despite him saying he isn't. In the 14th novel, Terra wonders why Touma is holding back and not using his full powers to fight. Terra (claims to) know the true nature of Imagine Breaker, and comes to the conclusion that Touma must have amnesia to have forgotten how to use it properly. The exact implications of this are unclear, as pre-amnesia Touma didn't understand Imagine Breaker either.
  • Taking it even further is the Deep Blood arc, where Aureolus Izzard cuts off Touma's right arm. After figuring out how the alchemist's powers work, Touma makes a comeback and wins when a dragon head sprouts from his shoulder. At the time it was hypothesized that the dragon head was actually born from Aureolus's imagination, fueled by his fear of Touma, but Touma is not fully convinced by the explanation. In Volume 22, something again emerges when the right arm is severed (though it's not certain if it's the same entity.
  • Invoked by one of the Sisters:
    "Come to think of it, whatever happened to Full Tuning, #00000, who was created by Amai Ao and cut off from the network?" says Misaka #19090 as she lays out a new piece of foreshadowing."
  • At one point, Touma sees wind turbines turning with no wind, and realizes that Mikoto's electrical powers are causing them to turn. This comes into play later in the fight against Accelerator, when she and the Sisters use the trick to disrupt his attempt at making a giant ball of plasma to finish Touma off with.
  • In Volume 1, Touma tries to tell Kaori and Stiyl that there may be multiple ways of helping Index within Academy City, including an extremely powerful telepath whom can manipulate memories. As the audience learns more about the Level 5s and the character, Misaki Shokuhou, it looked like Touma was just grasping at straws and was simply hoping to buy time for Index. It turns out that he did know Misaki in the past. However, NT Volume 11 reveals why he never considered contacting her - he has another case of amnesia specific to her.
  • In Volume 1, Index talks about how a magician who reachs the pinnacle of magic is called a Magic God, being able to do anything with magic. More than 20 volumes later, the new main antagonist is revealed to be a Magic God called Othinus.
  • After Ollerus explains Othinus' plan to create Gungnir in order to make her Magic God powers have a 100% success rate, Touma wonders if she could achieve the same results by using the exact opposite by using his Imagine Breaker, a 0% success rate. Ollerus answers that he doubts she would even consider using it since it's incompatible with her ideals. Othinus does end up using the 0% success rate, though by taking advantage of Ollerus and Fiamma's Fairy Spell rather than using Imagine Breaker.
• For Science!: In the interests of science, let's see if we can make an absurdly overpowered, power-hungry, and relatively unhinged Esper with little regard for human life even stronger by sending thousands of clones to their deaths against him.
• The Four Gods: The global spell that swapped everyone's appearance was accidentally set in motion by Touma's father collecting supposedly mystical figurines that represented The Four Gods and placing them in each of their associated directions.
• Founding Day: Academy City's independence day is October 9th.
• A Friend in Need: A major theme In-Universe that for nearly powerless characters like Touma, just his willingness to help anyone and everything that needs help makes him a hero.
• Funbag Airbag: Komoe-sensei in the second intro, getting it from Yomikawa.
• Functional Magic: Two types. The Sorcerers use Rule Magic, with a bit of device magic (created through the rule magic) thrown in for good measure. The Espers used to be Inherent Gift magic. That is, until someone figured out how to artificially "gift" people.
• Gambit Pileup: Volume 15 is what happens when all five of Academy City's secret enforcement groups (GROUP, ITEM, SCHOOL, MEMBER, and BLOCK) stumble into each other's plans and it turns into a city-wide battle royale that involves no fewer than three Level 5 Espers and several sorcerers in the groups who are looking to settle their own scores and use the chaos to their advantage. Everyone's acting at cross-purposes, and keeping track of what's going on and what everyone's objectives are can get very confusing. At the end of the day and when the dust settles, only GROUP remains intact and functional, though ITEM is eventually able to reform by New Testament.
• Gang of Bullies: Many Skill-Out groups come off as this. While some of them certainly are, and do bully espers via raw numbers, some of these groups are self-preservationist. Espers that saw Level 0s as lesser on the social ladder would at times attack them.
• Ghost Leg Lottery: In Book 15, Kakine Teitoku compares Aleister's plotting to a game of Ghost Leg.
  Even if you stop his crazy plans, he'll switch to some alternative scheme, then back to the original plan. Terrible guy. It's like a game of Amidakuji - he goes to a different line for a bit, but he ends up right back on the track where he started.
• Girl of the Week: Rather than having a real primary heroine, the story instead focuses on a girl or two per arc and then moves on. The trend started with Index herself and moved on to Aisa and then Mikoto before continuing from there. Index gets to be a Pretty Freeloader and Mikoto eventually forcibly attempts to move her way into the main plot, but by and large the girl is lucky to even be a recurring character, though apart from Aisa they generally get to do something again eventually.
• Global Ignorance: Touma's extremely poor grasp of history, geography, and language bites him in the ass as he travels around the world. It's convenient for him that most of the characters are fluent in Japanese. Touma did attempt to learn another language besides Japanese, but shows that learning another language takes time and doesn't give him instant fluency.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Name a sufficiently powerful character and they will sport this at one point.
• God: God exists in this series, although “God” is also a title used by both sides to describe people who have reached a certain level of power. In the Science side, God is called the one who reaches SYSTEM (aka Level 6). In the Magic Side, God is called the one who reaches the status of "The One Above God". Things get interesting when the word "Kamijou" (Touma's last name) is discovered to have this meaning.
• Godhood Seeker:
  • The ultimate goal of the Science side is to achieve SYSTEM (read "one who is not a god yet reaches the will of Heaven"), also known as "Level 6", a state in which an Esper achieves absolute comprehension of, and control over, the laws of physics. Accelerator is the world's strongest Esper, with a Swiss-Army Superpower and Super-Intelligence to match, making him the closest to achieving SYSTEM. Being a Reluctant Psycho Tyke Bomb, he's talked into participating in a "Level 6 Shift" experiment by scientists who convince him that once he's omnipotent, people won't be afraid of him any more. After learning that the experiment was a sham and he's been killing people for no reason, he completely drops this goal in favour of "revenge on scientists who treat people like tools"... ironically getting much closer to it in the process.
  • Some characters on the Magic side also seek to reach this state, which they refer to as "La Persona Superiore a Dio". In a strange coincidence, this term can be translated into Japanese as "Kami-jou", a homonym for the protagonist's surname. Becoming an actual "Magic God" is also possible, but it has enough downsides relative to a Kami-jou that some characters see it as not worth the effort.
• God Before Dogma: One of the running themes of the series, most notably exploited when Touma is fighting the ridiculously dogmatic Roman Catholic Church. Index's Sheol Fear is even specifically designed to combat those that put church doctrine above their own morals.
• God Is Good: Index theorizes that the reason Touma is Born Unlucky is because his Imagine Breaker creates a moving zone that negates God's Grace. In other words, the only reason anyone ever has any good luck is because God is willing it.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Aureolus Izzard suffers from this when he finds out that Index was already saved by Touma.
  • Also happens forcefully to anyone who can be affected by Sheol Fear, which forcefully points out contradictions in the enemy's religious beliefs or magic to break down their mind.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Touma, by the very nature of his character and Imagine Breaker, can't really understand why other characters would go to such lengths to search for power. In the case of Fiamma, for example, he already had so much power that the concept of going further was alien to Touma.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Touma's most preferred way of literally knocking the sense into people. Later, some characters follow this suit, such as Shiage.
• Good Versus Good: NT Volume 10 features Touma fighting the anti-GREMLIN forces for this reason. He wants to let Othinus give up her power so she doesn't need to be killed, while everyone else naturally wants to eliminate a major threat to the world.
  • In NT Volume 14, we have Touma versus Kakeru and the Kamisato Faction. Though Kakeru's goals put him at odds with Touma, both him and his faction are ultimately on the side of good; in fact, the clash between the two only happens right at the end of the novel, with the rest of their meetings being interrupted by the novel's Conflict Killer that forces them to team up temporarily.
• Good with Numbers: All powerful espers are really good at Math and Physics, as mastery in these fields are Required Secondary Powers for most of their abilities.
  • Vector Redirection requires mastery of Vector Physics.
  • Dark Matter requires immense knowledge of the laws of Physics to create new materials that can defy said laws of Physics!
  • Electromaster powers require knowledge of Electromechanics, especially if you need to make electromagnetic rails out of thin air for your Signature Move.
  • Most Teleporters except Kill Point requires the ability to calculate up to the eleventh dimension of time and space!
• Gotta Have It, Gonna Steal It: Fiamma's world-dominating plan involved the use of two particular things: grimoires and the Imagine Breaker. Whether or not he had access to the first is questionable, but he opts to steal both.
• Government Conspiracy: The various governments of the Toaruverse are not seen in good light. Academy City in particular does things that are internationally deplorable, like cloning.
• Gratuitous English: Anti-Skill, Dummy Check, Imagine Breaker, Judgment, Skill-Out, BLOCK, STUDENT, ITEM, GROUP, AIM...
  • Also, all the anime openings. All of them. Granted they are all perfectly understandable, and with the exception of the first opening "PSI-Missing", which contains no English whatsoever within the lyrics.
• Gratuitous Italian: When Touma and Index are in Italy, natch. Complete with horrible grammar and AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Neither the Magic nor the Science side are portrayed as entirely good or evil. Both sides do very shady things behind public eye and do what they think is best for everyone. Some characters in each side are Anti Heroes at best while others are Knight Templar or Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst.
• Happily Married: Touma's parents, Touya and Shiina Kamijou. Except, of course, when Touya is ogling another woman.
  • Also Mikoto's parents, Tabigake and Misuzu Misaka, though we don't get to see much interaction as the former is Walking the Earth.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Komoe Tsukuyomi is one of these, what with all those beer cans and her messy apartment. Her colleagues, Yomikawa and Tessou, are also these, although only Tessou usually remains sober enough to drag them back home.
• Handicapped Badass: A few.
  • In connection with Good Is Dumb and No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, Accelerator suffers major brain damage at the end of his first arc, requiring a cane and the Sisters' Hive Mind to remain functional and use his powers. He's a badass since he can still use his incredible powers, if only for 15 (and later 30) minutes at a time. But seriously, with that kind of power, few enemies would last 15 seconds. Although he completely throws away the handicap after growing wings.
  • With or without a right arm, Fiamma is still a Physical God.
  • As of NT 9, PTSD or not, nothing will stop Touma Kamijou from kicking your ass if you happen to hurt innocents in his watch.
• Harem Show: Touma's harem includes but is not limited to: Index, Mikoto Misaka, Aisa Himegami, Kaori Kanzaki, Itsuwa, Misaki Shoukuhou, the 9,968 Misaka Clones, Lessar, Leivinia Birdway, Seria Kumokawa and Othinus. Touma is genuinely bothered by his harem.
  • This isn't even counting how some of the other male characters develop harems of their own. Shiage has ITEM, Accelerator has his 'family', Stiyl has his 'apprentices' (though only in the movie), and Etzali has Xóchitl and Tochtli. At a stretch, Mikoto also has many girls who admire her.
  • And then NT Volume 14 shows up and becomes a Deconstruction of the Harem Show. Simply put, what happens when you give an Unwanted Harem to someone with crippling self-esteem issues?
• Have You Seen My God?: God has not revealed Himself, despite the appearances of beings like Archangel Gabriel.
• Headbutting Heroes: Until the New Testament series, the protagonists intermittently clash.
• Healing Factor:
  • Motoharu's esper ability, Auto-Rebirth, is a very weak version. It stops bleeding by reconnecting damaged blood vessels, but because it's a Level 0 ability, it doesn't work 100% of the time.
  • The first time Touma's arm was severed, it reattached itself at the hospital so cleanly that even Heaven Canceller was amazed. The next few times where Touma's arm gets severed, it regenerates, Imagine Breaker and all. The reason for this remains unclear, and the other two characters with a special right hand don't have this ability.
  • Magic Gods can instantly regenerate from any injury, including a split-open head, a pierced chest, or a broken neck.
• Heel–Face Turn: Several characters, the most notable of which is Accelerator since he became one of the main protagonists.
  • Some other notable ones are the entirety of God's Right Seat, save Terra of the Left, who instead dies, and Othinus.
• Heel Realization: Accelerator, the most powerful Esper in Academy City, is constantly challenged and attacked by Espers wishing to prove themselves. He just wants to be left alone and live in peace. He figures if he got even stronger then he would outclass everyone to such a degree that nobody would ever dare to attack him. So he accepts a proposal by Academy City researchers to slaughter more than 10,000 clones of Mikoto for a program that is intended to level him up exponentially. The clones appear soulless to him and they never made an effort to plead for their lives. Because of this, he never faltered. But after being defeated by Touma he comes to realize that he was the bad guy. After meeting a ten-year-old clone of Mikoto, he goes about atoning for his sins while simultaneously denying his intention to become a hero. He loathes the dark side of Academy City, which he considers himself to be a part of, and directs the majority of his animosity at them.
• Hellistics: GREMLIN tries to make an Esper based on Holism, who would change the macroscopic world to achieve a microscopic effect.
• Heroic BSoD: Several characters get one.
  • Touma suffers one when he thinks he can't do anything to stop Index's memory from being erased. Though he then remembers something about her brain.
  • A sad one goes to Itsuwa as she tries desperately to heal Touma after he appears to have been killed by Acqua.
  • Accelerator suffers a major emotional break down when Misaka WORST taunts him about the Sisters hatred for him and how Last Order's emotions for him are false (her claims about Last Order are false of course; those about the Sisters are warped). Plus, WORST has been sent to kill the sick Last Order and Accelerator must choose to either protect Last Order, or not hurt another Misaka clone. It was so bad that he went into black wings mode, and he lost faith in all good. He then beat WORST into the ground, and rampaged to the point where WORST feels bad for having done this to him.
• Heroic Rematch: After Fiamma of the Right becomes the Big Bad of the first series, Touma encounters and battles him multiple times until their final confrontation.
  • In New Testament 10, the True Final Boss that Touma has to face is Othinus yet again. She tries to stop Touma using the same crossbow attack that finished him off back in New Testament 9, but this time, Touma's able to avoid it.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Realizing all of her attempts have failed to stop the Level 6 Shift experiment and save the Sisters, Mikoto decides to do the one thing the Scientists in charge of the experiment didn't want her to do: fight and die against Accelerator. The reason they don't want this happen is because Tree Diagram, the Super Computer that help calculate the experiment was destroyed, forcing the Scientists to stick to their plans of Accelerator fighting against the Sisters without interruption. Mikoto intervening in the experiment would mess up their current calculations since they don't have Tree Diagram to help calculate the new data, thus ruining the experiment (and also getting them heat from the higher-ups since Mikoto is one of the 7 Level 5s). However, Touma tries to stop her from doing it because he claims even if she did it, it would have been all in vain since the Scientists might still continue the experiment, all to make Accelerator a Level 6.
• Heroic Safe Mode: Index has a literal safe-mode installed onto her that activates any time the main consciousness goes down. The computer analogy is quite literal. The safe-mode even shouts out status messages.
• Hero of Another Story: Mostly for science side characters. Mikoto gets her own Spin-Off story in A Certain Scientific Railgun. Later, Accelerator also gets his own, A Certain Scientific Accelerator. This trend would continue, with Teitoku Kakine, Misaki Shokuhou, ITEM, and even minor character Junko Hokaze all getting their own Spin-Off.
  • Implied with Gunha Sogiita, whose teachers comment that he often misses school because he's out helping someone or other.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Aleister Crowley. His motivation to create Academy City and wipe out all magic is because he believes that the Magic Gods' actions lead to innocent people (such as his daughter) being hurt. In the process, he became a schemer who causes suffering for countless people... just like the Magic Gods he despises.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Averted by Hattori Hanzou and Sugitani, who look like a gang member and a man in a suit respectively, and justified with Kuruwa (she's obsessed with period dramas and the fictional image of ninja) and Oumi Shuri (she dresses in bright colors because her role is making the enemy focus on her so her teammates can attack from behind).
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Index Librorum Prohibitorum is officially Index's name, given that it even appears on her passport.
  • Accelerator is a slight subversion. Everyone (himself included) calls him Accelerator, but in reality he just doesn't remember his real name, and has just settled for using the name he's used to.
• Historical Domain Character: Aleister Crowley of course. It started with just him at first, but as the last third of New Testament started delving into his past and his motivations, the series show more and more of the people in his life, at first through flashback, then many of them reappearing in the flesh (or close enough) in the modern day same as him. His daughter Lilith, his mentor and founder of the Golden Dawn cabal Samuel Liddell Mathers, Mathers' wife Moina (as a Virtual Ghost), late Golden Dawn member Dion Fortune, etc.
• Hive Mind: In yet another unexpected use of a power, the Sisters (clones of Mikoto) use their electrical powers to maintain a collective memory.
• Holier Than Thou: The Catholic Church, the Saints, and God's Right Seat.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Index has mastered, functional knowledge of all magic, being capable of destroying a satellite by accident with a giant magical laser beam. She refuses to use this power, limiting herself to analysing magic and rarely fighting directly. Justified since Index becoming an unstoppable Person of Mass Destruction is something Necessarius wants to prevent. Her Laser-Guided Amnesia and their lies about her true abilities act as a Restraining Bolt on someone who could very well destroy the world. Even after the memory wipes are stopped, it's likely that Index intentionally holds back since using her full power would force Necessarius (and every other magical faction) into action against her.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The entirety of New Testament Volume 9, but especially the last fight between Touma and Othinus. He loses.
• Hostile Show Takeover: In the DVD bonus shorts. While fighting crazy-defense-program Index, Touma tries to get Kaori and Stiyl to take action by telling them to quit being "just side characters. Don't you want to be main characters too?!" The pair think about it for a second and decide to murder Touma.
  • Or more like they quickly defeat Index and became the new heroes of the show.
• Hot for Student: Komoe. Touma used to be a naughty boy, apparently. Various things happened. Various.
• Human Weapon: The Level 5 espers get this to varying degrees. Accelerator, Teitoku, and Shizuri are the big ones. Teitoku and Shizuri are the leaders of powerful black ops groups, where they serve in the "blaster" role. Accelerator is in many ways literally treated as a weapon, especially once he needs a special device to use his powers, which his superiors can turn off remotely if they don't like what he's doing.
  • The Sisters Project started off as an attempt to clone a Level 5 (Mikoto) for this purpose. When that didn't work, it was recycled into the Radio Noise Project, which created a Hive Mind of 20,000 espers for use as a military. That was scrapped as well, and the project turned into Level Grinding fodder for Accelerator, so that he could become a more effective weapon. Subverted because Aleister Crowley wanted the Sisters Project to fail. The true purpose of the Sisters Project is to spread them throughout the world in order to blanket the world under an AIM field and thus create Aleister Crowley's Artificial Heaven.
• Ideal Hero: Touma.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The chapters of the light novels usually follow the pattern of "Short Japanese Text — Short_ English_Subtitle". The author also mentionned he tries to keep the same number of characters in the Japanese part for each chapter. Sometimes however, the novels deviate from their set pattern to reflect a specific volume's thematic:
  • New Testament Volume 4 has the chapters titled "Main" (6), "Sub" (24), and "Period" (3) instead of "Chapter": the "Sub" chapters are more or less normal chapters with a different Point of View each, the "Main" chapters usually end with a death and a shot of the remaining characters, and finally the "Period" chapters involve Touma to some degree, until he appears at the end of the volume and the chapter titles comes somewhat back to normal (the second-to-last chapter is numbered "n" while the epilogue is titled "Profound Destruction" instead of the usual "Epilogue"). Considering the Anyone Can Die nature of this book, the author used this format so that the readers wouldn't be able to predict what will happen next or know who would die.
  • In New Testament Volume 10, the chapters are Versus Title, with each chapter corresponding to a "round" numbered in the subtitle, to go along with the theme of Touma facing a metaphorical Boss Rush this volume.
  • In New Testament Volume 22, the chapters are all titled "(Untitled)" and only the subtitles are properly named, before it's inverted for the epilogue.
• Idiot Ball:
  • The Roman Catholic Church very nearly succeeded in planting the Cross of St. Peter in Academy City, which would have begun a citywide conversion to their religion with no resistance. A complete, eternal, bloodless victory. They were thwarted by fireworks. Had anyone thought to read a flyer, or a program, or asked a passing hobo, they would have known the fireworks display occurred that night to celebrate the ending of the sports festival; the same festival they were using to smuggle the Cross into the city in the first place.
  • When Yuiitsu steals World Rejector, she initially has no idea how to use it. Touma shouts to Salome to be careful of World Rejector, in the process explaining how to use it. The stupidity of this is immediately lampshaded by Salome, who already knows this information.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Several characters, mostly the ones living in Academy City, believe their conflicts and world of science is all there is, completely unaware of the conflicts and world of magic.
• I Just Want to Be Special:
  • Aisa Himegami's only power is to attract vampires and kill them when they try to drink her blood. She sometime expresses a wish to have more useful abilities. Unfortunately, she can't. Once an esper develops a power, they are stuck with it and can only improve that one ability. Espers also cannot use magic without nearly killing themselves in the process.
  • It is mentioned that in the distant past, magic was developed by ordinary people who were jealous of espers.
  • Skill-Out is a gang of normals who were jealous of espers and were told they had no potential to develop an esper ability.
• I Let You Win: In NT Volume 10 Touma goes up against a Boss Rush of big names from the series. Many of them just let him pass rather than him actually winning. Accelerator loses on purpose after making a big flashy scene in order to demoralize anyone that comes after him, Agnese makes a distraction for him, Kaori saves him when it's a choice between letting him die or letting him go and then holds back the three Saint level fighters that came with her, Roberto Katze is convinced to let Othinus go on the condition that she face justice later, Mikoto makes no real effort to use actual lethal force on Touma but still beats him before letting him go (while destroying the Academy City mechs that he couldn't deal with). Even Mjolnir lets him through after he beats Marian. Though in theory a single touch from him would kill her and she was quite close. Surprisingly, Index and Leivinia do genuinely turn on him.
• Image Song: Index, Mikoto, Touma, Himegami, Stiyl, Kaori, Mikoto's sisters, and Hyouka all have insert songs, sung by their voice actors. Many of the show's OPs and EDs seem to specifically describe Touma, his situation, or his feelings and ideals.
• Immunity Disability: Touma has his enchanted right arm, Imagine Breaker, that functions as an Anti-Magic. In a world filled with mages, this gives him a great advantage. However, among other sucky things, it also cancels beneficial magic such as Healing Hands. If not for his expert surgeon friend he would have died of many non-magical things that his enemy can use.
• Inconvenient Parachute Deployment: In the Document of Constantine arc, Motoharu slaps a parachute on Touma and himself, then casually kicks Touma out of a plane before jumping out himself. Since Motoharu has special black ops training and has likely done this several times, he is calm, composed, and uses proper skydiving technique. Since Touma has not had any skydiving training or experience, and Motoharu didn't even ask for his permission before suddenly kicking him out of the plane, he completely panics, tumbles through the air helplessly, and struggles to find the parachute chord. When he finally manages to pull it, his back was to the ground, so the parachute deploys wrong and a cable wraps around his neck and chokes him while the tangled parachute barely slows his fall. He lands in a river hard and would have drowned if Itsuwa hadn't been around.
• Indirect Kiss: Mikoto and Touma are eating together and at some point both put their hot dogs down next to each while distracted by something else. When they turn back to their meals, there is much confusion over which is whose. Mikoto panics over indirect kisses, while Touma doesn't seem to notice or care—after all, didn't they order the same thing?. The audience will note that they did in fact eat the wrong hot dog in the end.
  • They share another one later during the sports festival. They end up drinking from the same bottle of water. Touma doesn't seems to care, but Mikoto and Kuroko do.
  • Also, both Index and Touma usually exchange their food and drinks, but neither seem to care.
  • Around a year before encountering Index, Touma had given Misaki an emergency whistle, which she could use to call him for help. She gives it one blow, but not before Touma reveals he had tested it, causing her to realize she just received an indirect kiss.
• In-Series Nickname: Touma calls Mikoto "Biri-Biri" (a Japanese sound effect for crackling electricity) which she does not like.
  • The dub adapts this as "Bug-zapper", while the official translation of the manga has it as "Sparky".
• Inverse Law of Complexity to Power: The Level 5s of the world seem to have very broad powers. Mikoto boasts power over electricity, while Accelerator has control over all physical vectors. Lesser Espers have abilities like Miho Jufuku's Dummy Check, which simply makes her less noticeable to those around her.
• Irony:
  • Of the rather cruel kind. Touma manages to prevent the yearly erasure of Index's memories, just to lose his own by being hit in the head by a spell from a brainwashed Index.
  • Accelerator slaughters over ten thousand Sisters for the sake of increasing his power. He then makes a great effort to save the Sisters, making himself vulnerable enough to be shot in the head. The resulting brain damage means that he's no longer able to use his power on his own. He's now dependent on the surviving Sisters to use his power.

K-O

• Karma Houdini Warranty: Accelerator kills many of the Sisters in the Level 6 Shift Project. He starts to make a Heel–Face Turn and goes out of his way to help the Sisters... only to get shot in the head, causing brain damage that leaves him unable to function without external aid.
• Kansas City Shuffle:
  • While the heroes may have stopped the invasion of Hawaii in New Testament Volume 3, it isn't even the true goals of the true membership of GREMLIN. Their goals were already achieved when the volcano erupted, as part of their long-term goals of creating Gungnir.
  • In NT Volume 8, it turns out that Othinus could create Gungnir herself all along. All of GREMLIN's previous schemes, supposedly needed to construct the spear, were no more than a distraction.
• Kill the God: Noukan Kihara has the role of killing immortals. He first demonstrates this by killing the High Priest.
• Knight Templar: Literal knights, in fact. The 13 Knights of the Roman Catholic Church will hunt down the traitor Izzard no matter if innocent people are in crossfire.
  • The same goes for the Knights of England, who were reponsible for the death of Ellis, who was a subject of an magic/esper experiment despite Ellis already suffering from it. Their actions would come back to haunt England 20 years later when Sherry Cromwell, Ellis's Sorceress friend, tries to start a war between Academy City and Necessarius.
  • God's Right Seat is not above slaughtering innocent "pagans" in order to further their goals. Even if they happen to be well-intentioned.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Touma acknowledges his tendency to break into long monologues: "Quit getting depressed in this kinda long prologue!"
  • Aisa feels like everyone is forgetting about her.
• Land of One City: Academy City is an independent state, with border and customs controls, its own domestic and foreign policy (they wage WARS) and even an independence day.
• Language Barrier: Lampshaded when Touma's first reaction to finding out about the possibility of World War III is to make plans to learn English, so he can communicate with his enemies. He never does get around to it, and really, this is actually a subverted trope because even though Touma can only speak Japanese fluently and only knows a bit of English, anyone who is anyone in this world also speaks Japanese! May be justified by the influence of Academy City, whose official language is Japanese. The only times Touma faces someone who doesn't understand Japanese are nameless people he interacts with on his travels.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Happens occasionally.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • Index had her memory wiped each year, to prevent her brain from becoming overloaded with information (actually a lie to keep her under control). This practice stops after Volume 1.
  • Volume 1 also ends in Touma loses all of his memories, ironically while trying to stop the above happening.
  • NT Volume 11 reveals that Touma had a second, very specific case of this prior to the start of the series. He was badly injured and Misaki used her power as an emergency anesthetic. However, it somehow damaged his brain in such a way that he lost his memories of her and can no longer form new memories of her.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Touma loses his memories, permanently! There's no way for him get them back and he keeps it a secret.
  • Another one is Accelerator's Heel–Face Turn after Volume 5. The character sheet doesn't even bother to hide this anymore.
  • At the end of the World War III arc, and the Grand Finale to the Old Testament, Touma survives his Heroic Sacrifice to stop Archangel Gabriel thanks to Levinia Birdway. Considering there's two whole other series that have/are being published which feature him prominantly on the covers, it's unavoidable. The anime didn't even bother to hide the fact he survived and who saved him.
• Layered World: According to Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Heaven and Hell both exist in the exact same location as the physical plane, only at "different wavelengths", with Heaven being a higher frequency, and Hell a lower frequency. Humans of the world can detect neither, just as the otherworldly denizens cannot detect the opposite realm and its inhabitants. Only when angels and demons go into the realm in between, the physical world of the living, that the denizens can detect each other.
  • The Imaginary Number District functions in a similar manner: Another Dimension formed from the combined AIM of every esper in Academy City, it exists in the same location as the city, can be trasversed, and even brought forth into the real world.
  • Later, it is revealed that the series' world/universe/reality itself as it is normally perceived has various layers, known as Phases, over it acting like "filters" and affecting how it appears. The origin of this phenomenon is the various mythologies and religions throughout human history, through an unknown process, having had the effect of creating layers over the world: Heaven, Hell, The Underworld, the Land of Faerie, Mount Olympus, Asgard, etc. And beneath them all is apparently a "Pure World", called such because it is a world of science untouched and unaffected by religion. And Aleister is trying to reach it...
• Lethal Harmless Powers: Numerous seemingly-weak powers can be used to fight with great effect. For one example, teleportation can be used to teleport objects into a person's body.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: During the first day of the Daihasensai, Touma's class is so unmotivated that they are basically lolling on the ground. Hearing Konoe-sensei come vociferously to their defense stirs up their fighting spirit to the point where they charge an entire firing line of ESPers. They win through sheer guts and determination
• Letter Motif: Academy City's Hard Science things all have codenames starting with Hs, and the other letters relate to its function:
  • HsPS-15: A Powered Suit, likely the 15th version.
  • HsSSV-01: Likely, Hard Science Specialty Suit, which are Specialized Variants of Powered Suits, Vehicle 01 - A supersonic bike. ...SSV could also stand for Super Sonic Vehicle.
  • HsAFH-11: Hard Science Air Force Helicopter? Or Attack Force? It's assuredly a helicopter...
  • HsB: Bomber plane.
  • HsF: Fighter plane.
  • HsWAV: War Armored Vehicle, presumably. Shiosai from Old Testament Volume 13 says that it's made for War.
• Level Grinding: According to the Tree Diagram supercomputer, Accelerator needs to kill about 20,000 Sister clones in order to become a Level 6. And so the project begins.
  • In the Railgun manga, when Shizuri finds out about the project, she literally describes Accelerator's actions as "Killing 20,000 slimes to level up."
• Life-or-Limb Decision: Invoked by Acqua in Volume 16, who has been ordered to kill Touma but is willing to spare him if he cuts off his right hand, thereby making himself no further threat.
• Light Is Not Good: God's Right Seat. Each member is blessed with God's power. Except for Acqua who is the only noble member among the four, the rest are corrupt, selfish, or manipulative.
• Limited Wardrobe: Largely averted with most recurring characters. Though it was still lampshaded in one episode where Touma can be seen packing multiple of the same shirt.
• Locard's Theory: Idol Theory is a form of The Law of Similarity, which states that an "idol" or a duplicate which employs the symbolism of a greater object or deity will always receive a part of the power of that greater object. It also means that whatever affects the greater object will also affect the lesser object. Sorcerers also hypothesize that the reverse may also be true. Touma compares this to how solar panels receive energy from the sun; there are several solar panels around the world which receive a part of the limitless energy provided by the sun—although it's not even a fraction of the original, the panels still gain energy from it.
• Locker Mail: Touma finds a letter in his locker telling him to come to the roof, which he thinks is a love letter. It turns out that the letter was never a love letter at all, but an invitation by the Trollish High Priest.
• Long-Running Book Series: More than forty published novels for over ten years, and still ongoing, plus several side story volumes, and that's not even counting the various spinoff mangas.
• Lost in Translation: Laura's name is actually a mistranslation due to the difficulty of differentiating "l" and "r" in Japanese. It should be Lola instead. Even the official translations get it wrong, which only adds to the confusion when her name becomes plot important.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Pierce and Kuroko are the prime offenders, though they are by no means the only ones. Lessar, Misaka WORST, Shiage, and Motoharu all also have their moments.
• Love at First Punch: Inverted. Mikoto first met and took an interest in Touma after he blocked her electric attack.
• Love Confession: From Index towards Touma in the end of the first arc. Of course, he avoided any answer by changing the theme of the speech because he permanently lost his memories.
• Luminescent Blush: Most often seen in Mikoto, typically because of some situation involving Touma. However, others do get this at times.
• Mad Scientist: The scientists behind the Level 6 Shift Experiment. Also the entire Kihara family.
• Magic or Psychic?: The verse has both mages and espers. Mages are defined by being able to learn magic incantations and stuff while espers are stuck with one superpower. A few, such as Motoharu, are both (with difficulty). For some reason, Touma's Imagine Breaker works on mages and espers alike. Later revelations in New Testament about the nature of reality and Aleister's plan hint at the two being the same thing or at the very least sharing a similar source, explaining Imagine Breaker's effectiveness on them.
• Magic Versus Science: One of the main conflicts in the series. It's important to note that most espers and residents of Academy City are completely unaware of magic or that there is a conflict in the first place.
• Magical Database: In a literal sense, with Index herself being an index about magic.
• Magical Girlfriend: If Touma ever chose a girl as his love this would be it, but then again... the others would also have the power to kill him too so he's kinda screwed, Imagine Breaker might bring you the ladies but it also turns you into the universe's toy.
• Magitek: The Elements, which resemble giant translucent robots modeled after different kinds of animals, and are powered by magical cores. They are created by Yuiitsu, using her scientific expertise as a Kihara and the knowledge of magic she gained from the St Germain virus. A Certain Scientific Accelerator later introduces the Coffins, Humongous Mecha piloted by the brains of dead espers reanimated using [[Necromancer necromancy]].
• Maintain the Lie: Touma's memory loss comes up periodically through the plot and this trope is invoked in Volumes 14 and 16 when Mikoto discovers his memory loss and eventually confronts him about it. She is convinced to continue the masquerade.
• Make Way for the New Villains:
  • After Volume 14 establishes Terra of the Left, the end of the volume sees Acqua of the Back become the bigger fish.
  • At the end of NT Volume 13, the Magic Gods are instantly and easily defeated by Kakeru Kamisato.
  • After Aleister is finally defeated at the end of NT Volume 18, Coronzon shows up to finish him off and takes over as the last Big Bad of the series. Slightly subverted in that Aleister is Not Quite Dead.
  • After all the troubles they caused for the sake of their Summoning Ritual, at the end of GT Volume 8, the Transcendants of the Bridge Builders Cabal are quickly beaten by whom they were summoning, Christian Rosenkreutz. He also easily kills Alice Anotherbible, their leader and the most powerful of them.
• Man Behind the Man:
  • Aleister Crowley is the founder of Academy City together with Heaven Canceler a.k.a the frog-faced doctor, and controls the Board of Directors of Academy City (making him the real ruler of Academy City and one of the minds behind the Level 6 Shift Experiment). Despite this, the Directors are still in charge of the City's everyday affairs.
  • The Pope controls God's Right Seat, a secret Magical organization within the Catholic Church. But in reality, the current Pope is actually a lackey of Fiamma, the leader of God's right Seat so basically God's Right Seat controls the Catholic Church.
  • Lola is under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but in reality she controls the Archbishop and thus is the real power behind the Anglican Church.
• Manipulative Bastard: Aleister Crowley, Lola Stuart, and Fiamma of the Right. The last one is no longer this as of New Testament, however.
• Marshmallow Hell: Poor Sphinx, stuck in Hyouka's breasts like that. Also, Touma with Oriana Thompson's breasts during the Daihaisei sports festival. And just prior to that, his face gets up close and personal with Seiri's bosom.
• Martyr Without a Cause: Mikoto in the Sisters arc.
• Meaningful Name: Pierce Aogami has blue hair and Aisa Himegami has hime hair.
  • Touma is another case. "Touma" and "Kamijou" have the same pronunciation as "Invisible Demon" and "The One Above God", respectively. "Kamijou Touma" can also be read as "The One Who Purifies Gods and Slays Demons". The first two names may be referring to the strange entity inside Touma, which was considered terrifying by Fiamma when the latter was more powerful than God. The third name is referenced in-universe, apparently reflecting Touma's role of understanding the Magic Gods and acting as their "scorer".
  • Also Komoe-sensei's name as well. "Ko" means "small" or "tiny" in Japanese and "moe" means... well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.
  • Coronzon deliberately invokes this by choosing the name "Lola Stuart", taking the name of Aleister's daughter Lola Zaza to taunt him and "Stuart" because of his mentor Mathers' obsession with Scotland and The House of Stuart in particular.
  • Sorcerers' magical names tend to be fairly self-descriptive, justified because they are chosen later in life.
• MegaCorp: Academy City. Even though it's located in Western Tokyo, the city is actually international territory, so is not subject to Japanese jurisdiction and international law, which helps the city do certain research that most countries would ban, such as cloning. The city is ruled by a twelve-member Board of Directors (with a secret 13th Director who holds the true power) that decides the city affairs. The city's research in Esper powers and higher technology allows it to secure funding from entities all over the world, ranging from goverments (like the US military funding the creation and weapons of the Sisters), to corporations that sponsor products there like the Strange Juices, to scientific organizations that help in their research.
  • Later on in the novels, it is revealed that Academy City is much more powerful than it appears to be. Its influence rivals that of the three Magic powers of Britain and the Catholic Church. Not only does it have its own police and rescue force, like Anti-Skill and the Multi-Active Rescue unit, but a secret Black Ops group like the Hound Dogs, a private mercenary army, and even a private air force. Not only is this force filled with Espers, soldiers with the latest weapons and equipment like tanks, jets, Powered Armor troops and Mechs, it can be mobilized quickly. A strike force was sent to Avignon, France at first. Then they got serious and invaded a country. By the way, the country they invaded? Russia. Yes, Russia.
  • There are also several smaller Academy City branches around the world.
• Mêlée à Trois: A huge one in Volume 15 involving GROUP, ITEM, SCHOOL, BLOCK, and MEMBER. The arc is even unofficially called "Battle Royale arc".
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: During the terrorist threat on the Skybus in the first half of Volume 17, Neccarius attempts to force the plan down using an illusion on the fuel gauges to make it seem like the plane is rapidly losing fuel and needs to make an emergency landing on a seemingly abandoned road. While several other events come up to stop this (like one of the terrorists threatening to kill passengers if it lands), one of the big ones is that the illusion is dispelled by a third party who didn't want that plane to land in that particular spot. That's because said third party, the mercenary magic cabal New Light, is using that very road at the same time to transport a certain item to London and they couldn't afford to be caught in the crossfire, but in doing so alerts the British to their presence anyways and sets off the plot for the second half of the novel to stop them. And that's not even going into how New Light was hired by Second Princess Carissa to recover said item, the ancient Curtana Original, with which she intends to launch a revolution against her mother and England.
• The Mole:
  • Motoharu was originally sent to Academy City by the Anglican Church as a spy. However, he instead became a Double Reverse Quadruple Agent, passing information to both factions.
  • Fran is another spy sent by the Anglican Church, this time to infiltrate Kamisato Faction. Unlike Motoharu, she eventually became more loyal to her new group.
• Monster Façade: Accelerator tries to do this, but is horrifically bad at it due to a combination of poor social intelligence and the automatic nature of his Attack Reflector powers. Eventually he decides that the only way other people will treat him normally is if he becomes so strong that everyone will be too scared to challenge him, and agrees to an experiment in boosting his powers by fighting emotionless clones to the death... but out of uneasiness, he kills them in the most monstrous and nightmarish ways he can think of, hoping that one of them will beg for mercy so that he can use it as an excuse to stop. Somewhere in the middle of all this he is discovered by Touma, who defeats him and gets the experiment shut down... at which point Accelerator discovers that not only were the thousands of clones he killed real people, but the whole thing was an elaborate sham which the scientists had planned to abort as soon as he objected. This leads him to spend the rest of the series consumed with self-loathing, believing that he really was a monster all along.
• Morton's Fork: In New Testament Volume 3, this is how Olay Blueshake is defeated. As she is hiding, not wanting to be prosecuted for treason against America, President Robert Katze uses his influence to make it look like that Lindy is meant to inherit Olay's corporate empire at a young age while Olay's still alive. Now Olay has two options: either she reveals herself to regain her assets, risking prison time or assassination; or she does nothing as everything she owns is given to her estranged daughter. In either case, she loses everything.
• Mugging the Monster: Mikoto is targeted by delinquents surprisingly often, with none of them recognizing her as a Level 5.
• Mundane Fantastic: Esper powers such as teleportation and invisibility are just facts of life in Academy City.
• Mundane Solution:
  • Touma defeats Stiyl's indefinitely regenerating fire summon by tripping his apartment's sprinkler system, thus washing away the runes sustaining it.
  • An injured Awaki was scared and exhausted in her fight with Kuroko, who was about to hit her with a lamp when... BANG!! Problem solved.
• Mundane Utility: Many examples, notable examples are Mikoto (who zaps a vending machine to get drinks) and Accelerator (redirects UV and irritating background chatter).
• Mundanger: Imagine Breaker makes Touma the perfect guy to deal with supernatural threats like espers and magicians, even the ones that have won the Superpower Lottery. However, it is utterly useless against non-supernatural attacks, meaning that he can struggle just as much against a bunch of unpowered Skill-Out Mooks, if not moreso. While most of his (seen) fights are supernatural based, there's a handful that aren't:
  • In Light Novel version of the Angel Fall arc, the heroes at one point have to deal with a Serial Killer named Jinsaku Hino, who they suspect is the source of the Angel Fall spell.
  • The Skill-out Uprising arc has Touma deal with a bunch of Skill-Out thugs whom have kidnapped Mikoto's mother, Misuzu for ransom. Since they all have guns, he has to sneak his way around most of the time (with the help of some bullet-proof glass), and the arc ends with him having a non-superpowered punch-up with the Arc Villain, Shiage Hamazura. It should be noted that this arc chronologically takes place just after the Academy City Invasion arc, where Touma had to face off against a high powered magician who crippled a good portion of the city's defense force by herself.
  • In Light Novel Vol. 17, Touma and Index's plane gets hijacked by mundane terrorists, leading to a "Die Hard" on an X plot.
  • Magical organization GREMLIN learn and hires armed mercenaries to deal with Touma, since he can't negate their mundane guns, and at least one of their members trained in martial arts just in case he got in too close.
  • Aleister Crowley, who could outplan other chessmasters with his ruthlessness, paranoia and intelligence, spent centuries waiting for his main plan (whatever it is) to come to fruition, and built the entire metropolis of Academy City to acquire Touma Kamijou and his Imagine Breaker long before their birth was nearly brought down to his knees by an unexpected anomaly, who had seemingly out of nowhere managed to send his current plans careening down the ground through its actions by eliminating one of his prized Level 5s. That anomaly is Shiage Hamazura.
• Mutually Exclusive Magic:
  • Esper powers rely on creating a "personal reality" and imposing it on the world, while magic relies on inviting concepts with heavy memetic weight (such as deities and popular stories) into the user's body to gain their power. Once a person has been trained as an esper, even if he has no real powers, he cannot use magic without disrupting his personal reality and causing massive hemorrhaging. Motoharu, for example, is able to use magic anyway because his esper ability happens to be a mild Healing Factor, and another manages to pull it off by focusing all his esper abilities on holding his body together. Magic is said to have been created for people who couldn't use esper powers, back when they appeared only by chance.
  • The mages of God's Right Seat each wield an enormously powerful divine ability themed after a different archangel, but in order to do so they had to give up their ability to use standard magic. This is a bit of a problem for their leader Fiamma, who needs some standard magic to enact his grand master plan.
  • Touma is unable to use either magic or esper abilities due to possessing Imagine Breaker.
• Naked First Impression: Touma walks in on Index (many, many times) and Hyouka changing. Lampshaded in the following episode when he is standing in front of a changing booth:
  Touma: "This Touma Kamijou won't repeat the same mistake he made back in the Nurse's room."
  • Of course, fate conspires against him.
  • In Volume 12, Accelerator accidentally walks in on Yoshikawa, Yomikawa, and Last Order all bathing together. However, unlike any of the times Touma has walked in on women, only Last Order showed any type of embarrassment or shame in being seen naked, and Accelerator actually pointed out the surprisingly often forgotten fact that bathroom doors have locks.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Here's some of them:
  • On the science side: Vector Redirection (Accelerator), Dark Matter (Teitoku Kakine), Railgun (Mikoto Misaka), Meltdowner (Shizuri Mugino), Mental Out (Misaki Shokuhou, "The Queen of Tokiwadai"), and Attack Crash (Gunha Sogiita), a.k.a. the seven Level 5s of Academy City. Later, there is "The Artificial Angel" FUZE=Kazakiri.
  • On the magic side: Index (in her John's Pen mode), Vento of the Front, Terra of the Left, Acqua of the Back, Fiamma of the Right, Knight Leader, The Power of God (Archangel Gabriel), The Likeness of God (Archangel Michael). Later, there is the Magic God (or, Majin in romaji), the title for the Big Bad of New Testament, One-Eyed Othinus.
  • Finally, not connected to either magic or science, are "The Invisible Thing", one of the most powerful beings in the series, currently being sealed by Imagine Breaker.
• Naughty Nuns: For a series with a load of nuns, quite a few and two in particular (Agnese and Orsola) have feelings for Touma and imply they wouldn't mind acting on them. Most of them do wear reasonable habits... save Agnese, who upon her return is wearing a habit that is more holey◊ than holy. That one is explained in the novels as being a punishment: that a nun would be forced to wear something like that is supposed to shame them (and she screwed up pretty badly in said mission). Although Agnese wonders if Bishop Biagio doesn't have other reasons for putting her in it...
• Narrating the Present: The Sisters have this as a Verbal Tic. There are hints that this is to upload information to their network.
• Necessarily Evil:
  • Necessarius was originally formed by English Puritans to destroy magic & magic organizations in England for God and the country's well being. But in order to do that, they too use magic to destroy magic, hence why they were called the Church of Necessary Evil. Ironically, when the organization became a part of the Church of England, they became the very thing they try to destroy. Now, Necessarius's new job is to protect Britain from any magical threats that threaten the country, no matter what.
  • New Testament Volume 4 reveals that this is at least one of the reasons Academy City keeps such a tight lid on its technological advances and esper research. The Kihara family that have served as major antagonists throughout the series are the natural outgrowth of rampant scientific development. If Academy City allowed their technological developments to spread unchecked, "Kiharas" would start popping up everwhere and would be utterly impossible to contain or control. This is why Academy City only shares the dregs of their research and why they crack down so hard on anyone who tries to advance without their consent. At least, according to Yuiitsu Kihara.
• New Technology Is Evil: Vento of the Front sees people who use technology and espers as Heretics and thinks they deserved to be killed. All because her older brother died from a Ferris Wheel accident that she survived.
• New Transfer Student:
  • Subverted when Komoe-sensei announces that Touma's class will be getting a new student. Index walks into the classroom, only it turns out she was lost and looking for Touma. Aisa is the actual new transfer student.
  • Played straight when Kakeru transfers to the same school that Touma's has temporarily merged with.
• 90% of Your Brain: 85% of Index's mind is taken up by the grimoire collection. This leaves her only able to maintain one year of memories. Subverted when Komoe-sensei not only reveals that the 15%=one year explanation was completely wrong, but goes on to explain in layman's terms how the brain works with memory. Also averted in the fact that the 85% thing is about her memory, not "brain function" as the claim usually is with this trope.
• Ninja: Unlike what one would expect given the kind of series this is, the ninjas in Index are a healthy dose of reality and much lampshading of the usual ninja image in fiction, like when Shiage can't help but feel dissapointed when a kunoichi trying to kill him pulls out a gun, not the kind of weapon people usually expect a ninja to use. They are normal humans trained as spies and assassins, without any supernatural powers, that will use any weapon or tool at their dispossal to win. In fact, at least one ninja faction is trying to acquire supernatural powers so as to not be left behind in the world they live.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • The first time Touma tries to help people? He loses his memories.
  • The first time Accelerator actually tries to help someone with his powers and what does he get? A bullet to the head for his troubles; though he survives, he gets brain damage that makes him reliant on the Sisters' Hive Mind to make up for the impaired brain functions. His powers are also reduced; he can only use them for 15 minutes at a time.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: A few examples of this, most notably the second round of Accelerator's battle with Kakine. Not that it really could be even called a battle... After attacking Yomikawa and awakening, Kakine starts gloating about how Accelerator isn't even an opponent to him anymore, merely an object to test his new power on. The next line of text is Splat...
• Nominal Importance: Averted with a character who, despite being important in Volume 15 and showing up again in Volume 19, was still only known as "Girl In the Dress." She finally received a name in the Biohacker side story featured as part of the Accelerator anime BDs (Kaibi Gokusai).
• No Name Given: There are a lot of people or things that don't get named. Touma's school, which usually gets described as A Certain High School; Heaven Canceller goes just by that; Accelerator's real name is never given; the same for Aogami. Index has taken that as her name, if she ever had a real one to begin with. Eventually, as the series went on, a lot of previously unnamed characters got actual names: the sixth Level 5 is now known to be named Etsu Aihana (and that's one of the only things known about them), the SCHOOL members "Girl in the Dress" and "Boy with Goggles" were later named Kaibi Gokusai and Banka Yobou respectively, Shokohou Misaki's top follower "Ringlet curl girl" is named Junko Hokaze, etc.
• Noodle Incident: When Touma goes to Misaka's dorm to try to talk to her he discovers that Kuroko, Misaka's underclassmen, is her roommate. Touma notes that it's strange for students from to different grades to be in the same room, and Kuroko explains that she's not actually the original roommate. Intending to get closer to her precious "Onee-sama", she somehow took the old ones place. She doesn't go into much detail about it, only insisting that it was "absolutely lawful".
• Nosebleed: Touma in reaction to having a half-naked Index sleeping in his bed. Also subverted in that he had a nosebleed from humidity before he saw her, and lampshaded in that he defends himself by calling it unrealistic "manga-like" interpretation of a nosebleed. His nosebleed did get worse upon seeing her though.
• No Such Thing as Wizard Jesus: While the series makes it close to the line, there is no doubt that he was truly Divine. The Apostles may have been amongst the most powerful Magicians in history, the Saints' magic powers may be derived from possessing similar type and nature of body to Jesus, and there may be spells that were either developed from his miracles or used by him, but no one doubts that Jesus really was the Son of God, capable of miracles and truly Divine in nature. Coronzon later mentions that his sacrifice saved the world as the majority of the Sephiroth was under attack, but what that means exactly is left unexplained.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: From multiple characters:
  • Stiyl is not disturbed at all upon coming to complain to the Archbishop Lola bathing. Probably because he's used to her doing this kind of thing.
  • A hilarious one happens when Touma accidentally walks into Seiri topless. Instead of doing the usual response in these kind of scenarios, he makes fun of her big breasts.
  • When Accelerator walks in on three women in the shower, he ignores the obvious display in favor of asking why they didn't at least lock the door.
• Not So Episodic: Though the first few novels of the series appear to be disconnected to one another and just feature Touma beating the Monster of the Week, the events in them still end up having ramifications for later on in the series. The wiki even has a section dedicated to "effects and future implications" in each arc's summary page. This is especially noticeable in the Manga, which skips Volumes 2 and 4, resulting in character introductions and revelations from them to be shifted around and at least one re-write to avoid a Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole.
• Not So Invincible After All:
  • With his street fighting experience and Anti-Magic, Touma Kamijou can handily defeat street thugs and people who rely exclusively on their powers. Against people who actually know how to fight, and people who are way stronger and faster than him, he gets his ass kicked, a lot. Also, despite his Healing Factor, he gets hospitalized a lot, since it tends to work too slow to matter in a fight. When enemies pull out guns, Touma is forced to run, hide, and use trickery to win.
  • Accelerator was so dependent on his powers that in situations where he couldn't use them, or they couldn't protect him (such as suffocation), he gets his ass kicked and almost gets killed, until he starts using guns and fighting smarter.
• Nuns Are Funny: Index in general. Volume 7 has many more nuns running around.
• Nuns Are Spooky: The Agnese Forces and in particular, Agnese herself.
• Nun Too Holy: Multiple nuns:
  • Index.
  • Agnese and her army of nuns.
• Older Than They Look:
  • Komoe-sensei looks like a young girl (and wears bunny pajamas), but she's an adult and her home is littered with cigarettes, beer cans, and neurology books.
  • Two lesser examples, who are moms, are Shiina Kamijou (Touma's mom) and Misuzu Misaka (Mikoto's mom). The former is described as very young looking, and the latter is often mistaken to be Mikoto's older sister. Index hangs a lampshade on how strange it is that all three adult women look so young.
  • Appears to happen on occasion in the Magic side, in the case of Fiamma and Aleister, for example.
  • Index herself looks several years younger than she is when first met. (She's 14 or 15 at the time, but looks like she's about ten.) Illustrations in later volumes suggest she's just a late bloomer.
• Omake: Much as there was with Shana, there's a series of DVD specials titled Toaru Majutsu no Index-tan. They include, among other things, a nod to another of J.C. Staff's works, Toradora!.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Much of the music, especially the battle music, is Latin Chanting remixed to techno-pop, symbolizing the struggle between magic and science.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: A brief one occurs in Volume 12. Touma mentions to Misaka 10032 about getting her some jewelry to set her apart from the original Mikoto since her goggles were stolen by Last Order. She immediately recalls an earlier conversation with other sisters about the significance of a ring, and assumes he wants to marry her. But he then mentions a ring not being flashy enough, so opts for a heart shaped necklace instead, although she laments about not getting a ring.
• One-Man Army: Played with. Mikoto trying to go One Woman Army on the clone facilities without resting or telling anyone what she is doing ends up with her running herself ragged and almost getting killed by Frenda and Shizuri (as revealed in Railgun). Also, the company outsources, so no matter how many facilities she destroys, it doesn't affect the project.
• Only Sane Man: In the Angel Fall arc, Touma suddenly finds everyone around him inexplicably recast in different roles, with no one else the wiser. Among other things, Mikoto is now his Genki Girl cousin, Index is his mother, and Kuroko is now President Obama ("Yes. We. Can!"). He spends half the time yelling at everyone for playing a prank on him and the other half just wondering what the hell is going on before he finally finds out what's going on.
• Ordinary High-School Student: The nature of Touma's power makes him fit the bill compared to all the other superpowered individuals, so long as people are trying to find new and creative ways to kill him. Touma's protests to Mikoto that he's just a "Level 0" are met with a compelling rebuttal in the form of a giant blast of (ineffectual) electricity.
  • Later parodied and deconstructed by Kakeru Kamisato. Like Touma, he constantly calls himself an ordinary high school student, even while doing extraordinary things like defeating Magic Gods. Unlike Touma, he actually was one until receiving a unique power in his right hand.
• Our Angels Are Different: Apparently, if you force an angel down from heaven, it goes berserk in the attempt to get back home to do whatever its job is and may destroy the world in doing so. Otherwise, they are more or less accurate with religious depictions about them.
  • And there's also the Artificial Angels created by Academy City like FUZE=Kazakiri (don't confuse her with Hyouka Kazakiri).
• Our Clones Are Different:
  • Academy City created an experiment to try and clone level 5 espers, since they are rare but extremely valuable. For the base, they chose the third strongest level 5, Misaka Mikoto. In total they created 20001, dubbed the "Sisters", but none of them got higher than level 2 or 3. The Sisters where grown in vats, with drugs accelerating their growth to match the the original. Later on its stated that this process shortens their already reduced lifespans, and they need to receive treatments to return their aging to normal. Once they finish growing a device called Testament is used to fill their brains with all the knowledge they need. Apparently encoding emotions with Testament is difficult, and their creators didn't care enough to get it right, so it was originally believed they didn't any. Over time though, it becomes clear they do have emotions, they just aren't good at expressing them. An exception to this is Last Order, the final Sister produced, who's younger than the rest and acts like a normal cheerful child. A quirk of having similar brain patterns as a result of Testament is that they can use their electrical powers to create a hivemind, called the MISAKA network. Last Order was created to be the networks control tower. Since the Sisters failed to achieve level 5, they got repurposed in a different experiment where they where repeatedly killed by the strongest level 5, Accelerator, in an effort to achieve level 6. The researchers involved didn't consider this unethical as they viewed the Sisters as no different than disposable lab rats, and the Sisters where taught to view themselves the same way. After finding out about her clones, Mikoto accepts them as her real sisters and fight to protect them, eventually helping them to value their own lives.
  • Later on, a new cloning project was started, creating a clone who is older than Mikoto, Misaka Worst. The process seems to have been improved by then, as Worst is a level 4 esper. Like Last Order, Worst can properly express herself. In her case she was designed to channel all of the networks negative emotions, making her a bit crazy. They did this because Worst was meant to take down Accelerator, who went through a Heel–Face Turn and can no longer bring himself to harm any of the Sisters, and most of the negative emotions in question consist of repressed hatred for Accelerator.
• Our Dark Matter Is Mysterious: The Number 2 Level 5's power, is called Dark Matter, and it's the ability to generate material that has its own laws of physics. However, Kakine spells out that his "Dark Matter" quite literally doesn't exist in this universe and thus is different from "real" dark matter.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Apparently, they're identical to humans save for their immortality and thirst for blood. It's also claimed that they have infinite magic power (due to immortality giving them an infinite life force) and an unlimited capacity for memories. Aisa's esper ability, Deep Blood, makes her blood irresistibly attractive and also a fatal poison to vampires. However, no vampires have actually appeared on screen.

P-T

• People Jars: Aleister Crowley is floating upside down in one.
• Person of Mass Destruction: See the section on Names to Run Away from Really Fast.
• Phantom Zone: Various magicians utilise a spell with this effect to clear people around them.
  • The battles that occur in Baggage City, engineered by GREMLIN as an experiment into Holism, produce an effect which draws in more people and makes tragedy and violence more likely to occur.
• Physical God: The essential outcome of becoming the One Above God, or a Magic God (Majin).
• The Plan: The Chessmasters seem to have long-running, series-spanning plans. They are gradually revealed over time, but besides Fiamma's, the full extent of their plans aren't clear.
• Playing Card Motifs
  • Mikoto's title is "The Ace of Tokiwadai", an indication of her being one of the strongest espers in her school, and one of the top-ranked Level 5s in Academy City in general.
  • Misaki, another of the Level 5s, is "The Queen of Tokiwadai", and is known for controlling one of the largest cliques in her school. Also crosses over with the queen bee Animal Motif. Coincidentally, she is two ranks lower than Mikoto, like how a Queen is two ranks lower than an Ace in an actual poker deck.
  • Meanwhile, Touma, who is classified as a Level 0 despite having some anomalous power in his right hand, is commonly associated with the Joker. So is Kakeru Kamisato when he shows up.
• Playing with Syringes: The entirety of Academy City was created to allow for the large scale human experimentation of psychic powers on children. While a lot of it seems relatively harmless to the students (although "The Curriculum" involves quite a bit more invasive brain surgery and untested drugs than implied by the pamphlet), the series is positively littered with examples of more dangerous or unethical experiments conducted in the background. It's practically a Meta Origin for many Dark Side characters.
• Pretty Freeloaders: Index, and thanks to his memory-loss, Touma doesn't even know why! Othinus eventually becomes a second freeloader.
• Post-Modern Magik: Especially used by the Amakusa Catholics.
• Power Born of Madness: It's rather downplayed until you look at the Level 5s, but the basis for an esper ability is that the user denies the world so strongly that their view of reality warps what is actually true into how the user wants it. Their delusion becomes real and the world changes accordingly. Thus, when you look at the Level 5s, you realize that Accelerator is a twisted mess inside, Kakine is twisted to insanity by jealousy, Shizuri is psychotic, Misaki is incredibly paranoid and manipulative, and Gunha believes he's a superhero. Mikoto is viewed as the only one normal enough to actually be presentable to society while three of the other known Level 5s are murderers or criminals.
• Power Copying: Rensa is a cyborg with the ability to copy the powers of the first 6 Level 5s (She cannot reproduce Gunha's, as nobody knows how his powers work), as well as any other esper in a certain radius.
• Powered Armor: Academy City's military is filled with several types of Powered Suits. MAR, the rescue unit introduced in Railgun also uses them.
• Power Gives You Wings: More prevalent in the Science side than the Magic side, but once you reach a certain tier, you're most likely going to grow wings. Just ask Accelerator, Teitoku, Hyouka and Index.
• Power Perversion Potential: A mundane version. Touma loses a bet with Mikoto, where the loser has to do everything the winner says for an entire day. The night before the day in question, Mikoto is writhing around on her bed, moaning and muttering "What should I have you do next?" Kuroko notes she's been like that for a few days.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Surprisingly for a J.C. Staff light novel adaptation, the anime is very faithful to the novels. However some parts of the novels have to be cut for time and constraint like the serial killer in the Angel Fall arc. They still slipped up at the end of Season 2, where it is revealed that Academy City is prepping for war. Why it is preparing for war isn't too obvious to someone who has only watched the anime, while it is spelled out much more clearly in the novels.
• Private Military Contractors: Trident, introduced in New Testament Volume 3, hired by a media mogul to assist GREMLIN and defeat the American military stationed in Hawaii.
• The Protagonist: The novels as a whole take great pains in delving into the differing natures of 'protagonists' and heroes (or heroines). Of the three mains, one is the type who will always do what he feels is right, another is the type who wants to right what he perceives as wrongs, and another just wants to protect the girl who is closest to him. They also go into detail about what a protagonist is and how they affect the people around them.
• Psychic Children: Nearly every Esper encountered in the series is a teenager or younger. This is perhaps justified by natural-born Espers (Gemstones) being rare, and all the children in Academy City are students taking part in the Power Curriculum Program.
• Psychic Powers: The powers of all Espers originate from their brain/mind, fitting their name; said powers are even categorized as either "psychokinesis" or "extrasensory perception", terms which were originally coined in real life to describe psychic powers. That being said, only certain types of Esper abilities resemble what is conventionally thought of as "psychic powers" (e.g. Mental Out).
• Race Against the Clock: A subplot in New Testament Vol. 2 involved Kaori trying to take down Radiosconde Castle before it found and crushed Touma.
• Raised in a Lab: Academy City is a hyper-advanced "world capital of science" founded to research esper abilities. Children who were brought to the city and abandoned, known colloquially as "Child Errors", are easily preyed upon by underground Mad Scientists in need of test subjects, making this a fairly common background for esper antagonists.
• Reality Warper:
  • Aureolus appears to be an example of this trope when using Ars Magna, but it's actually a combination of Master of Illusion and Clap Your Hands If You Believe.
  • Magic Gods can warp reality on an incredible scale. Rewriting the entire universe is nothing to them.
  • The Transcendant Alice Anotherbible is another one, with her Kabbalah-based power capable of affecting the entire world. She can create events favorable to her or whoever she helps, using misleading or even wrong knowledge to create "paths" to the scenario she wants.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Reversed with Touma's verbal barrage at Aureolus.
  • Actually, Touma weaponizes "The Reason You Suck" Speech relatively often. It's how he managed to live through his first battle through Kaori (and eventually get her friendship), and how he managed to distract Aureolus Izzard long enough to make his powers stop working so he could hit Izzard with Imagine Breaker.
  • Played straight with Accelerator, who enjoys mocking his opponents and telling them why they'll lose.
• Recognition Failure: No one recognizes Roberto Katze, the President of the United States of America, much to his annoyance.
• Redemption Demotion: Accelerator, after becoming more of an Anti-Hero, is weakened in later novels. There is however a time-sensitive workaround for his disability. He also wields a pretty massively increased power when he summons his wings.
• Redemption Quest: Accelerator's encounter with Last Order serves as his opportunity to right some of the wrongs he inflicted during the Level 6 Shift Experiment.
• Redshirt Army: The extent of Anti-Skill's abilities seems limited to damage control, cannon fodder, and cleanup after whatever mess the protagonists get into is over. This is partially explained in-show because they are hamstrung by bureaucracy and the higher-ups, but one has to wonder about the merits of having a group of normals, even Badass Normals, guarding a city of superpowered children.
• Relationship Values:
  • In a Shout-Out to these, Last Order declares to Accelerator that her "love index" will go up if he feeds her.
  • Also in the end of the first arc of the series Index confessed her love towards Touma.
• Religion is Magic: Whereas ESP is science.
• Religious Bruiser: The magic side is filled with them, but Saints especially.
• Rescue Romance: Subverted. Touma tries to get a delinquent hitting on Mikoto in a diner to leave her alone—saying that he's troubling her—and winds up getting chased off when the delinquent's friends return from the bathroom. When he finally seems to lose them and stops to rest, Mikoto walks up and admits to frying them to save trouble. Turns out Touma had known she was a powerful lightning Esper the entire time, and had been trying to protect the delinquents from her. The "fight" that follows only strengthens her determination as his Unknown Rival.
• Ret-Gone: The Queen of the Adriatic Sea is a superweapon that has the power not only to destroy an entire city, but completely erase it from history.
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: A non-canon story released around Volume 11 and set at Touma's graduation is titled A Certain March 201st Volume. The text also references events in Volume 48 ("Kamijou Touma and the Terraforming of Mars"), Volume 88 ("Kamijou Touma's Third Death") and Volume 153 ("Kamijou Touma Actually Tries Clearing His Mind", in which he concludes that fire is cold).
• Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: The series has this as one of the central themes of the series and takes it to near-literal levels, with the Magic Side being Romanticism and the Science Side being Enlightenment. It reaches its pinnacle during World War III, and ultimately the Science Side wins, making the series more towards Enlightenment.
• Rotating Protagonist: The story starts with Touma as the protagonist, but likely due to the limits in what he can really do^note For example, he can't do much in Academy City, especially the dark side and the popularity of the villain character Accelerator the latter eventually becomes another protagonist with his own novels where Touma does not even appear. A third actor named Hamazura Shiage eventually appears and functions as more of a Badass Normal caught up in the events going on for purely personal reasons, which rounds out the story into having three protagonists that all have their own ongoing plot arcs.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The English Magic Civil War, where Second Princess Carissa fights Queen Regnant Elizard, First Princess Riméa and Third Princess Villain in a revolution to save the UK.
  • Furthermore, the Royal Family is part of the power triangle of Knights, Church, and Royalty, wherein they have a strong influence on the former.
  • Even further during World War III, when Carissa fights against the Archangel Gabriel.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Academy City is a walled city-state inside another country, headed by a man assisted by a council of aides, and represents the center of an important ideological viewpoint of what is reality, or a "side". Now why does this sound familiar...?
  • All magic qualifies. Thanks to Idol Theory, magic is based on the actual contexts of myths and religion.
• Runic Magic: Stiyl Magnus uses runes for his magic to define zones that perform certain functions, like allowing his summon, Innocentius, to manifest, and People-Clearing Fields to ward off Muggles.
• Running Gag:
  • Whenever Index is mad at Touma, she will take a bite out of him. Several, in fact. Even when she draws blood, it's Played for Laughs.
  • Another Running Gag is how many times Touma has been in the hospital, which still doesn't explain how he couldn't have brought up a huge bill by now or that his parents aren't coming by Academy City more often considering how many times he's been injured.
    Heaven Canceller: "You've been hospitalized twice in ten days. (beat) Don't tell me you have a nurse fetish?"
  • One of the biggest running gags in the series (in fact one that frequently results in his subsequent mastication by Index) is Touma's tendency to walk in on girls while they are a) in the middle of changing clothes or b) just plain naked. Worse still, even when Touma tries to be smart and avoid this, fate somehow still manages to conspire to force naked women right into his line of sight, none of the above ever seems to deter Index from pinning the blame entirely on Touma. Yes, he really is that misfortunate.
    • Perhaps it's because he always forgets to knock first.
  • His misfortune in general, to the point it actually becomes a serious plot point in NT22R. When the Invisible Thing takes control of Imagine Breaker and assumes Touma's identity he also receives all his latent misfortune, whereas the real Touma actually starts getting lucky breaks. Touma actually uses this to ultimately defeat the Invisible Thing by making him flinch at something that would only happen due to said misfortune.
  • In the side stories, shop owners refuse to sell jeans to Kaori, since she'll cut them up (necessary for her magic, but of course she can't say that).
• Sailor Fuku: Aisa, Seiri, Saten, and Uiharu's school uniforms.
• Scenery Censor: Whenever a character (usually the girls) is naked in the anime, their important bits are hidden by conveniently placed limbs, objects, or even rays of light. Sometimes they're simply shot with Toplessness from the Back or Shoulders-Up Nudity.
• Schrödinger's Cat: Used to explain why Espers are able to use their abilities.
• Science Destroys Magic: The power of magic and the various churches built around them have largely declined, leading to a balance of power that is roughly even between that of the Science and Magic sides. While science continues to grow, magic largely stays the same or lessens. While it was only hinted at up until now, recent volumes outright confirm this to be Aleister's ultimate goal.
• Science Fantasy: The series liberally draws ideas from both science fiction and fantasy.
• Science-Related Memetic Disorder: The Kihara clan is less of The Clan of blood-related MadScientists and in actuality is more like a condition that will always appear so long as science exists.
• Scienceville: Academy City to a T, obviously.
• Scientific and Technological Theme Naming: The Kihara Family Theme Naming is math and science terms. Some members are Noukan ("brain stem"), Gensei ("illusory life", "primitive", "primeval", or "resurrection"), Nayuta (a Buddhist term meaning a really big number; alternately 10^60note novemdecillion or 10^72note trevigintillion), Byouri ("pathology"), Ransuu ("random number"), Enshuu ("circumference"), Yuiitsu ("single", "sole", "only", or "unique"), Kagun ("module"), and Amata ("many").
• Self Made Super Powers: Magic in general is this, being described as giving power to those without "Talent" (referring to espers and gemstones). Magic in this series is such that anyone who studies in it can use it, with one's power as a magician being limited only by their knowlege, understanding, and preparation.
• Serious Business: Touma's class, especially the Delta Force, eat and breathe a mix of Serious Business, Mundane Made Awesome and a dash of Felony Misdemeanor. When someone made Komoe-sensei cry, their response was more like an all out war than anything. The cafeteria sold out because the class was let out late? Organize a small scale breakout so some members can go get some food from a local store. Someone mention Nabe? Let's all go out to eat~! Of course, the Delta Force (Touma, Pierce, and Motoharu) are the worst, getting into fistfights over being called Onii-chan by Motoharu's beloved little step sister, and which is better: Red, black or white bunny girls.
• Shadow Archetype: In NT Volume 14 we meet the ultimate Shadow Archetype of Touma, Kamisato Kakeru. Both have special right hands and a crazy big Unwanted Harem and a love for helping those who ultimately need it. You would think the two would get along, but they hate each other from the absolute start due to their conflicting philosophies. Kamisato feels immense guilt over his harem's feelings towards him and hates himself for how an average high school boy could be so beloved. He believes it's selfish to think they would actually feel this way under normal circumstances, so Touma's attitude towards his own harem infuriates him. Since Touma has already gone through his crisis of conscience thanks to Othinus, he quite easily rebuffs Kakeru's claims. In the end we have two boys of similar age, similar backstory, similar side characters and power but one has accepted his place in the world and the other has crippling self-doubt of his own.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • The Book of The Law arc. Orsola's deciphering method was a fake, meaning that the contents of the book were in no danger. The only reason why the Anglican Church even got involved was to use the incident to bring the Amakusa Catholics into their sphere of influence, so that they would have more leverage on Kaori.
  • Also the Daihasei Festival arc. Touma, Motoharu and Stiyl chase after someone who turns out to be plotting to use the Croce di Pietro to forcibly convert Academy City to Roman Catholicism. After finally figuring out the plan and beating her, she turns out to be a decoy, while the real mastermind is the one actually carrying out the ritual, and is too far away to stop in time. Fortunately, even if the heroes hadn't done anything, the plan would've failed anyway, because the artifact requires starlight to function, and right at the exact time it's supposed to activate, a giant fireworks show starts, blotting out the stars.
• Shipper on Deck: Now, how do we begin with to describe? Let's name a few:
  • Mikoto/Touma: The Railgang (save Kuroko, obviously), as of the end of Railgun's version of the Daihasei Festival. Mikoto's mother, Misuzu, is also heavy on the boat as well, introducing her to Touma's parents and telling her to "impress them".
  • Kaori/Touma: Motoharu seems to love teasing Kaori about this... and so do her former comrades from the Amakusa Catholics. Later, half of England finds out about this.
  • Itsuwa/Touma: Nee-chin, you're going to be in a very heated Lover Tug of War with your kouhai. And to make things worse your former comrades are all cheering for her nya~.
• Ship Tease:
  • Anytime Touma spends time with any of the girls, but especially the Misaka Clones (who all have a crush on him)...they are just darn right adorable.
  • The other main characters, Accelerator and Shiage, gets this as well with their harem.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?:
  • Yes, he should be. But unfortunately for Touma, fate (or Motoharu) seems hell-bent on constantly interrupting his life with some adventure or other. The fact that his school attendance is so miserable is brought up by Komoe sometimes, and Touma bemoans the fact that he's in serious danger of being held back a year.
  • This question also applies to the city's Dark Side, though there's a smattering of justifications as to why school isn't seen:
    • Level 5s like Accelerator and Kakine are smart enough that they don't need formal education.
    • Members of Skill-Out (like Hamazura) are dropouts.
    • Those who started as Child Errors (like Kinuhata and Kuroyoru) likely never got enrolled in proper schooling in the first place.
    • In Railgun, it's implied that at least some members of the Dark Side go to a normal school, it's just that they often get called to take part in "extracurricular activities", to the detriment of their social lives.
  • No explanation given for the Magic side's lack of formal education, despite the fact that several members there, Index included, are younger than 18.
• Shout-Out:
  • There are multiple references to Kazuma Kamachi's other works. Some light novel covers from Heavy Object or The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign appear in the background of color illustrations. Heavy Object and The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village have also appeared as in-universe fiction.
  • Misaki Shokuhou sees a portion of a Zashiki Warashi series at a fast-food restaurant in the Prologue of NT 11
  • Heavy Object is an action movie that Shiage and Saiai watch together:
    Shiage: "IT'S BECAUSE YOU INTRODUCED THAT MOVIE! YOU ACTUALLY INTRODUCED SUCH A STUPID MOVIE!!"
    Saiai: "At the climax right before the end, the super huge image of the Indian elephant jumping together with all the members was the super best. Right, Hamazura?"
    Shiage: "That's the hardest part to understand..."
  • Touma uses a trick he learned from the Heavy Object movie in NT 17, with the narration even alluding to the series' anime adaptation by alluding to a recent "remake".
    Fran looked doubtful and Kamijou skillfully continued his work using the costume’s mitten-like hands. There were a few ways to bypass the metal container’s safety devices to make it explode. He recalled one he had seen in an old action movie playing on TV the previous Sunday night. It had been called Heavy something-or-other and he was pretty sure a remake had come out recently.
  • NT 19 has small background references to all other published works from Kamachi. There's an Anti-Skill recruitment poster that's doing a collaboration with Heavy Object, a super-deformed Christmas-themed pixel art animation of Kyousuke Shiroyama being chased by the White Queen on a public phone booth display, a computer game with the Thousand Dragon as a boss, a VR action game where the player takes the role of Jack Elvan to manipulate the valkyrie Waltraute, an arcade Youkai battle game with a Zashiki Warashi and Yuki Onna characters from The Zashiki Warashi Of Intellectual Village, a bunny girl gathering participants for some kind of sketchy survey or monitoring, a web-broadcast drama about the Killer Demons from the Killer Queen and Killer Device short stories and a horror B-movie with a poster depicting a vampire older sister fighting a zombie younger sister.
  • After Touma finally loses the delinquents in the aforementioned first episode, when Mikoto tracks him down.
    Mikoto: "Being a good Samaritan by protecting the delinquents? Are you a certain hot-blooded teacher?"
  • At one point in the Index arc, Touma says, "I don't want to be a hero, I will become one!"
  • During the Angel Fall arc, Touma passes an old man and a little kid reading a magazine with Shana-tan on it. "Shana-tan, moe~"
  • In another episode, after seeing Aisa Himegami skillfully heal an unfortunate bystander, Touma asks her:
    Touma: "Are you a certain famous doctor without a license?"
  • Touma gets tied down in the exact same straitjacket and mouth restraints as Doctor Hannibal Lecter in Episode 15 of Season 1, when he goes berserk at Index, whose appearance had switched with a girl-crazy classmate.
  • Also in Episode 15, Kuroko replaces Barack Obama on TV complete with the "Yes We Can!" Catchphrase.
  • The A Certain Magical Index-tan omake is itself an imitation of the Shakugan no Shana-tan omake and makes clear reference to it several times. The Toradora! tiger makes an appearance, too, for the same reason — same publisher/studio.
  • Does the restaurant that Accelerator goes to the day after he meets Last Order seem familiar? Julian Cafe has a vampire working at one of the other branches...
    • And considering that Aisa's blood can kill vampires and there's no vampire featured in the series yet...
  • Another one is Accelerator of all people yelling "Who the hell do you think I am!" when he decides to save Last Order, at least in the manga.
  • When Accelerator is trying to erase the virus in Last Order's brain, he repeatedly says "Delete!" a.k.a "SAKUJO!!!". I wonder where he got that from...
  • In her official identification photograph, Index is repeating the word holding a leek.
  • When Komoe is asked if there is an esper who can detect other espers, she jokingly imitates the iconic scene from Dragon Ball Z where Vegeta yelled, "It's over 9,000!" However, she says, "70,000!" instead.
• Social Darwinist: Academy City's social system is made so that the higher your esper Level is, the easier your life becomes. For example, the higher your Level is the more money you get from the city from the experiments you participate in. This is the cause of several issues in the series as some espers abuse their powers and bully Level 0s (people without observable/controllable powers), which creates a backlash in the form of Skill-out, delinquent groups of Level 0s that attack higher Level espers (sometimes not sticking to only the ones bullying Level 0s). And this doesn't get into how espers working for the dark side of the city and its leaders have the destruction and deaths they cause during their work covered up by the city.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Averted. Antagonists can and do vary wildly in terms of strength and threat level while still remaining a threat, particularly individual Arc Villains, as seen when Touma goes from dealing with an archangel that fell from Heaven that could destroy the whole world to fighting a normal magician that can create a single golem. The BigBads of the series, though much more powerful than mid-arc villains and clear winners of the Superpower Lottery, also vary in strength. The first, Fiamma of the Right, is an incredibly powerful magician with a plan to manipulate the entire planet and triggers World War III to further said plan. He is followed by Othinus, a massively powerful reality warper that can control the entire universe. After playing with the readers' expectations of Serial Escalation by introducing a group of several reality warpers more powerful than Othinus, the next Big Bad is actually Yuiitsu Kihara, a scientist that uses the powers and tools of other previous characters, in an arc taking part only in Academy City. The most recent main antagonist, Coronzon, is significantly more powerful than Yuiitsu or Fiamma of the Right but weaker than Othinus, and the arc climax involves several characters joining forces to stop her from completing a ritual that would destroy the world.
• Spanner in the Works: Lampshaded by Aiwass, as he notes the three main protagonists, Touma, Accelerator and Shiage, are slowly but surely ruining Aleister’s plans.
• Squishy Wizard: Many magicians and high-level espers are this, discounting Saints and other physical-oriented fighters, as they are regular humans beneath their supernatural powers.
• Stalker with a Crush: Although at that point the crush part is debatable, Mikoto did follow Touma quite excessively in order to fight him, including once chasing him around for a full night.
• Stalking is Love: Played all over the place. Mikoto is being stalked by the grandson of her school's dean, Mitsuki Unabara. While he's pretty attractive, she still finds him creepy and she can't just zap him because of his status, so she enlists Touma to pretend to be her boyfriend long enough to throw him off (which does nothing but flame her own growing feelings for Touma). This doesn't work—because he's actually a Magic-side spy sent impersonating Unabara to keep an eye on Touma's growing list of powerful True Companions, specifically Mikoto. Except that he really is in love with her, and volunteered for the mission so that they wouldn't send someone else, who wouldn't have a problem killing her if she got difficult (and "difficult" is a pretty good way of summarizing Mikoto).
• Starfish Language: Angelic language, first heard when Accelerator awakens. It is rendered as gibberish surrounding a word that is as close as it can get to the meaning intended by the angelic being, though not exactly the same.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: For his penalty game where he has to serve Mikoto, Touma fulfills his duty by getting on his knees and fanning her skirt in public. Kuroko sees this... and is insulted that he would steal her role. She proceeds to get on her knees and fans Mikoto's skirt as well. Mikoto is flabbergasted by both of them.
• Summoning Ritual: A staple of the Magic Side, but the Angel Fall arc specifically deals with someone having unwittingly summoned an angel down to earth.
  • Part of Aleister's plan is to summon the alien angel Aiwass again as he did once in the 1900s, but this time through the scientifc AIM fields of espers.
  • In GT, it is revealed that the reason the Transcendants formed the Bridge Builders Cabal is so that they could use their own positions to summon Christian Rosenkreutz in hopes he can find the compromise in saving the world that they cannot.
• Superhero School: Subverted. Academy City doesn't teach their students to become superheroes, they just teach them how to use and improve their powers.
• Superpower Lottery: There's a ridiculous amount of these in the series. Even some of the lesser Super Power Lottery Winners like Mikoto are so strong they can destroy buildings with one attack.
  • The first one is Accelerator. He can change the velocity vectors of anything he comes into contact with, be it physical or magical—even automatically if he is in danger. When a character can theoretically fly, replicate the effects of a variety of other offensive powers, shrug off a nuclear bomb without even trying, and still have time for an Evil Laugh, you have to wonder if something went wrong somewhere...
  • On the other hand of the spectrum you have people like Uiharu who, while her friends can shoot lightning or teleport, has the amazing superpower to keep things she touches at a constant temperature. But only things which aren't too hot or cold for her to hold. People being frustrated with their weak powers is also the plot hook for the "Level Upper" arc in Railgun.
  • And then you have Fiamma of the Right. He is notable since he is the only one who was born with his abilities (although, this being the magic side, he may had modifications even before birth) and is so ridiculously overpowered and towers over most of the cast in terms of power. The guy can teleport anywhere he wants, cast a gigantic 40 km Flaming Sword, and has an ability similar to Accelerator’s “auto-reflect”...only with “auto-destroy” instead.
  • Once characters get stronger than God, you know the lottery is broken.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Despite being as powerful as ever, once word spreads that Accelerator got defeated by Touma, it emboldens other Espers to start trying to attack him on a daily basis.
  • Also, he still needs to breathe, and vector manipulation doesn't protect against suffocation.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Index, rather triumphantly.
  Index: "Touma, I never said that I'm hot or that I'm about to get heatstroke. Of course I never thought of spending other people's money to satisfy myself, so I never thought of eating ice cream at all."
  Index: "Touma, this clothing is a materialization of God's protection; I never thought about it being hard to wear, being hot, being troublesome, or whether there should be a summer or winter version."
• Take a Third Option: Many, as common to light novel protagonists when having to face difficult choices.
• Take Off Your Clothes:
  • Touma suggests that Misaka 10032 take off her bra when Last Order steals her goggles to help differentiate her from Mikoto. She assumes he wants her to strip for other reasons and proceeds to do so. In the middle of the street.
  • A similar event happens earlier in the fourth novel where Kaori forcefully removes Touma's clothes and he gets a Raging Stiffie.
  • In Season 1, Episode 19, Accelerator pulls this trope off with Last Order. Hilarity Ensues.
• Talking Is a Free Action: A lot of people in this show have the strange habit of starting long monologues to explain what they're about to do while attacking an enemy.
• Tank Goodness: While on the run, Othinus orders Touma to commandeer a tank, but when Touma tries to drive it, he keeps bumping into things and mixing up the pedals and other controls. Othinus angrily calls him a moron and asks what he's doing. Touma points out he was never taught how to drive a car, let alone a tank.
• Teen Genius: Espers in general are all high-level math geniuses:
  • Accelerator was a powerful esper. It takes 10,000 clones to make up for only half of his former calculation skills.
  • There's only 58 teleporters in the whole world, and in order to make any sort of teleportation, they have to calculate 11 dimensional vectors. Nineteen of them take it one step further and can teleport multiple objects at once.
• Teleportation with Drawbacks: The espers and the magicians have different drawbacks:
  • Espers: Usually mass and distance limits, along with endurance for performing the calculations, and the speed the calculations take:
    • Saraku is only able to teleport himself behind other people, something that makes him dangerous, but only as long as no one figures out how his power works.
    • Kuroko is limited to teleporting 130.7 kilograms total at a maximum of 81.5 meters from her starting point. Additionally, is someone breaks her concentration, she cannot teleport and can only move objects she is touching.
    • Awaki is one of the more powerful teleporters, with a maximum range of 800 metres and a maximum weight of 4520 kilograms. However, due to trauma from accidentally teleporting her leg into a wall, she can only teleport herself around three to four times in quick succession, and will feel ill from doing so. Unlike Kuroko, Awaki can teleport things she isn't touching, though trauma can cause her to lose control. She uses a machine to keep herself calm, though she still is unable to properly teleport herself.
  • Magicians need Mana, and then they all usually use different methods so they all have different drawbacks:
    • Fiamma of the Right, by drawing on the power of Archangel Michael with The Holy Right, can teleport, but only along a horizontal plane.
    • Both Othinus and Thor have an ability that looks similar to teleportation, but works in the opposite way: rather than moving themselves, they stay still and the entire world moves around them. Thor can do this via a very advanced spell borrowing from the legend of Thor as an almighty god (which he was considered at first, prior to later Norse myth relegating him to god of lightning instead), Othinus can do it because she actually is a god. They don't like using this ability too much though, as reckless use can throw the Earth's orbit out of whack, and nobody wants that.
• The Idealist: Too many to list, but most prominently Touma.
• Third-Person Person: The Sisters narrate everything they say in third person, complete with descriptions of how they are speaking and what they are doing at the time. It probably goes with the Hive Mind. Last Order takes this a step further by stating said descriptions of intonation and current activity twice.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Even though Touma's abilities aren't really that spectacular when compared with the abilities of everyone else, they end up being the only thing that can save the day most of the time. Which is justified because everyone (well, most of everyone) Touma has fought relied on their powers or items. When taken away, they become just like normal people. It also helps that his power is to negate the stuff they throw at him...unless it misses the right arm. NT Volume 18 reveals that Aleister Crowley deliberately invoked this trope, founding Academy City specifically to draw in the user of Imagine Breaker.
• Thunder Shock: Index and Aisa (plus a Color Failure), when Komoe starts happily talking about how Touma was a naughty boy, and how "various things" happened. Though in this case it's more like a Thunder Rage:
  Index: "Another one?"
  Aisa: "That bastard."
• Through His Stomach: Because of Index, this has turned into the main way Touma deals with women. Misaka Imouto angry? Offer to feed her. Last Order annoyed? Popcorn is the perfect solution. He even lampshades it.
• Training from Hell: The Necessarius training ground. It was actually toned down by the time of Volume 17, which involves being trapped in an isolated room and forced to conjure survival gear through magic. It was used against one of the New Light members.
• Too Dumb to Live: The escaping Hound Dog from the factory battle, who thought it would be a good idea to stop just before making it to safety, turn around, and taunt Accelerator about how his comrades were going to kill Last Order.
• Token Minority: Within Necessarius, a British Anglican organization, these three are the token minorities within the organization.
  • Kaori Kanzaki: Japanese, Catholic, Swordswoman, and a Saint. Those she gets a lot less "token" when her old Amakusa Christian Church joins Necessarius as well, though the organization still counts this way towards Necessarius as a whole.
  • Sherry Cromwell: British, dark-skinned, blond, Jewish, and Golem summoner.
  • Motoharu Tsuchimikado: Japanese, Onmyodo, Spy with questionable loyalties and a Magician/Esper Hybrid.
  • Then there's the European Catholic Battle Nuns led by Italian Agnese Sanctis, once they join Necessarius.
  • While most of the members of Team GROUP are Japanese, Mitsuki Unabara is the Token Minority of the group since he's actually an Aztec Sorcerer named Etzali in disguise.
  • There's Frenda Seivelun of Team ITEM, who's the only foreigner in their group.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore:
  • When Index mentions a few of the books she houses, they include both the Book of the Dead (a.k.a. the Necronomicon) AND the Book of Eibon. Is it any wonder she's wanted so badly?
  • All grimoires appear to be this. They only want to have their knowledge spread. Knowledge that is extremely dangerous to anyone who reads it, and in order to have it read they will do anything.
  • In Necessarius SS it turns out that Necronomicon in particular was inspired by Cthulhu mythos... and can be used to bring things from the mythos into reality.
• Tomorrowland: Academy City, which is said to have technology that's 20 years ahead of everyone else.
• Took a Level in Badass: Many, many examples, and boy when they do, they don’t disappoint.
  • Kazakiri Hyouka goes from a relatively normal girl into one that can take down a golem by herself, and then took an absolutely INSANE amount of badass levels to the point she can fight Gabriel. The same Archangel that can wipe out the entire planet, with one spell.
  • Accelerator is already a badass, but the moment he summons those black wings of his, prepare. To. Die. And when those wings turned white...
    • And then those wings turn platinum...
  • Subverted by Touma, who doesn't ever actually improve over the course of the novels. He just repeatedly uses the same thing over and over again to more and more awesome results, though he does get precognition later on, simply by having the shit beaten out of him so many times by crazy powerful opponents that his mind starts to sense these powerful attacks coming.
  • A more small-scale (though no less impressive) example with "Etsu Aihana" (AKA Shinka Kanou) in NT 12, who come the final battle gains enough courage to stand up, stop crying, and use his own name instead of the Level 5's that he'd been borrowing. He even gets the final blow on the villain!
• Traintop Battle: In New Testament Volume 8, Touma faces Freyja in one.
• Trauma Button: Although Touma seemed pretty well adjusted after his conflict with Othinus, he reveals he has PTSD when he sees scenes reminding him of it.
• Truer to the Text: The manga adaptation overall is this when compared to the Anime, which is ironic considering it skipped Volumes 2 and 4 and had to deal with the consequences of doing so. Still, the manga avoids being a Compressed Adaptation and manages to keep in a lot more scenes and information that's made explicit in the Light Novels but omitted or not as clear in the anime — examples include keeping in the subplot of Ouma Yamisaka in the Three Stories Arc (cut from the original anime, but made its own episode in Index II) and Touma's fight against Accelerator (including deliberately throwing gravel at Accelerator to use the Reflection to escape the falling shipping crates).
  • It's worth noting that the manga originally started before the anime, leading to the anime incorporating a few panes from the manga into its scenes...until the anime Overtook the Manga and the manga started taking inspiration from the anime! Specifically, it takes inspiration for scenes that the anime changes from the original Light Novels that makes the scene more visually striking while not detracting from its importance — an excellent example is Accelerator's attack on the Windowless Building, which is changed from him throwing a concrete wall to him throwing a skyscraper, the latter of which the manga uses. Coupled with a sprinkling of extra scenes the manga throws in to expand the novels even further, this means the manga somehow possesses a mix of Adaptation Expansion, Pragmatic Adaptation, Adaptation Explanation Extrication, and Truer to the Text!
• Tsundere:
  • Mikoto over Touma, obviously. And that extended to before she had an inner realization of her feelings towards him.
  • Index also displays lapses of Tsundere-ish behavior from time to time, especially when Touma ends up in the hospital without her knowing why.
  • Seiri Fukiyose is a non-romantic example towards Touma...probably.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Orsola Aquinas never holds a grudge against anyone, period, even those who personally caused her harm. Also applies to Touma, to a somewhat lesser extent.

U-Z

• Ultra Super Death Gorefest Chainsawer 3000: In New Testament vol. 1 Shiage and Fremea are hiding out at a private salon, and the room has a game console. Fremea picks out a game called Blood & Destroy, which apparently involves the player as a zombie attacking humans. Shiage tries to steer her towards more age-appropriate fare, without success.
• The Unreveal: Some examples along the series:
  • We never learn what Touma said to Etzali when the latter asked him to protect Mikoto. Whatever Touma said, Mikoto thinks she's misunderstanding him, but it sure made her blush!
    • Etzali later reveals to GROUP that Touma swore to protect Mikoto, and since Etzali believes Touma, he goes out of his way to save a target that he's supposed to be assassinating, Misuzu Misaka.
    • Later this is partially revealed when Kuroko asks Touma why he helps her:
      Touma: "...That's right, it's a promise. This promise is to protect Mikoto Misaka and the world around her. This is my agreement with a certain nameless person who fell in love with her so quickly."
  • From Vol. 7, we don't know the contents of Kaori's letter because she refused to hear the contents from Touma in front of her while blushing, even worse when Motoharu bumped into the room:
    Kaori: "Do I have to say it in front of this guy? Why is this guy so inopportune in coming here?"
  • In Vol. 22, besides his memory loss, Touma tells something else to Index before disappearing after crashing the Star Of Bethlehem on Gabriel. Whatever he said only Index and Touma himself knows.
• Universal Remote Control: Invoked by Misaki Shokuhou. She frequently uses a remote control to control people's minds; however, the mind control power comes from her own body/mind, the remote control is only there because she likes the idea of using it that way.
• Unusual Chapter Numbers:
  • When a particular Story Arc is extended over two or three volumes, the chapters of each individual volume are numbered as if it was one volume and follow from the previous ones.
  • New Testament Volume 9 has three versions "Chapter 6", named the same except for the English subtitles. It is to denote the fact that Touma is living through different recreations of the world by Othinus, each designed to make him suffer horribly.
• Unwanted Harem: Played straight, Touma is one of the rare Harem Anime protagonists who genuinely find their position unfortunate.
  • And now that Accelerator and Shiage have harems of their own, it would seem that this is a requirement for being a protagonist.
  • In New Testament Volume 14 this turns out to be a big part of Kamisato Kakeru's character. He was a normal high school boy living a normal life until he got his special right hand, World Rejecter. He then proceeded to gather over a hundred girls in a few weeks. This legitimately freaked him out and caused him to blame his power (and the Magic Gods who gave it to him) for brainwashing the girls into chasing after him, not believing that a normal boy like him could gain their attention otherwise.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • Touma might be the worst case. He is used by everyone for whatever reason, and sad thing is he doesn't realize it until it's too late. The best example of this is during the Sisters arc, when he stops the Level 6 Shift Experiment, not realizing that it was a pretext for creating the MISAKA Network. By defeating Accelerator and saving the remaining Sisters, all he does allow Aleister Crowley to move on to phase two.
  • The Pope. Under the belief that Touma is some heretic that will destroy the world by his former mentor Fiamma, he follows Fiamma's advice on what the Catholic Church should do during the series without even asking about it. By the time the Pope realizes that everything Fiamma told him to do was not for the church but for his selfish ambitions, Fiamma casts a spell to destroy the the Vatican. The Pope diverts the spell onto himself to save the Vatican. Though he survived, he is now hospitalized.
  • In New Testament Volume 3, the GREMLIN members that the heroes face are themselves unwitting pawns for the true members of the organization. They only sought to make the volcano erupt as part of an experiment.
  • Post NT Volume 10 spoiler: Even Othinus who was thought to be the magic god leader of GREMLIN, was a "failed experiment" just used by the real GREMLIN (a group comprised of Magic Gods from all of the world's religions).
• Urban Segregation: Depending on which district of Academy City you go, it's either good or bad. For example: The School Garden is one of the best districts to go to as not only it looks like an European city, it where most of the elite girl schools and high class shops are located. However only elite school girls are allowed in the School Garden and school girls from other districts need permission to enter there. District 10 aka "The Strange" is one of the worst districts as not only is it dirty and many building are run down and in disrepair, it's also where most of the gangs like the Skill-Outs lived. It comes to no surprise why the city's only cemetery and correctional facility is also located there.
• Vengeful Vending Machine: Touma puts in a 2000 yen bill into a vending machine to get a drink. When that doesn't work, Mikoto comes and charges it with electricity, causing him to receive 2000 yen worth of drinks in return.
  • Mikoto hates that particular vending machine and spin-kicks it into giving her drinks ever since it ate her 10000 yen bill.
• Verbal Tic: Several characters have unique ways of speaking, one of the more obvious ones being Last Order's tendency to repeat the "said Misaka" portion of her Third-Person Person speech twice.
  • Specifically she's announcing herself as the subject of the sentence twice (and she's the subject of all her sentences, given that she's narrating her own dialog), although the translators necessarily took some liberties in how it was phrased. This is also a case of a Verbal Tic being embedded inside another Verbal Tic.
  • And her Verbal Tic branches off from the universal Verbal Tic she shares with all the MISAKA clones, namely narrating themselves and all actions involved with their speaking. So she's narrating herself narrating herself.
  • Komoe-sensei has the ever-recognizable -desu! Results from her always speaking in a formal dialect.
• Wacky Americans Have Wacky Names:
  • Rockstar Douglas Hardbell
  • Media Queen Olay Blueshake
  • CIA Official George Kingdom
  • Film Director Beverly Seethrough
  • Presidential Aide Rosaline Krackhart
  • Air Force Base Commander Alfred Thirdman
• Wager Slave: Touma and Mikoto bet on whose school will win the sports meet, with this as the punishment. Mikoto eventually makes him go on a date with her.
• Warrior vs. Sorcerer: Touma relies on his brains, fists and ability to negate anything supernatural. These weapons serve him well against any evil magicians he goes up against such as Fiama of the Right. That said, Touma has no personal dislike of magic and only fights magicians that are trying to harm him, his friends or any nearby innocents.
• Webcomic Time: The start of the series was set in late July. By New Testament 11, over ten years and some 33+ volumes later, the narrative is just exiting November of the same year. The author has acknowledged the slow progression of time in the afterwords of a few volumes.
• We Have Reserves:
  • This seems to be the Roman Catholic Church's approach to everything—with two billion members, everyone except for God's Right Seat is considered expendable.
• Weirdness Censor: Ever since the creation of Academy City and revelations of Espers to the world, Magicians have an easier time operating out in the open without revealing the Masquerade to Muggles because they'd just justify it as an Esper ability.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everyone, even Accelerator, to the point that Touma had to give a punch to the face for almost all of them.
• Wham Line:
  • "Conclusion: Dark Matter is within this building."
  • "Begin the invasion. I now have Curtana Original, the sword that decides the king, within my grasp. This makes me, Carissa, the ruler of the United Kingdom. Anyone that does not want to see the country decay under the rule of the previous pacifist queen, stand up of your own will. To bring about the new United Kingdom, leveling some things will be necessary and some destruction will be necessary."
  • "We are deeply concerned over the likelihood that Academy City personnel intervened in the recent issues in "the Hawaiian Islands. We do not wish to hold power that can easily influence the flow of events of an entire nation, especially one large enough to be known as the world police. We began cooperating with Academy City in order to increase the benefits for both parties, but our roots remain in our respective countries. Dispatching personnel to alter the history of other countries like this is not what we would call "cooperation". We may work for Academy City, but we are not its slaves. As the twenty-seven largest cooperative institutions, we are now ending all cooperation with Academy City. This is a necessary step to protect our own countries."
  • The ending of New Testament Vol. 8: "These small fights are such a pain. I think I'll just end the world." And exactly as she had announced, everything was immediately destroyed.
  • Two different ones from the ending of New Testament Volume 11:
  Noukan Kihara: “The esper cyborg Rensa was created to crush the seven Level 5s in case they all rebelled against Academy City at once. My role is similar, but unfortunately, my target is not those homemade espers...Ladylee Tangleroad, Fräulein Kreutune, and Codename Dragon.”

  Noukan Kihara: “Now, how about you use the power I have returned to you. Use it to destroy all those irregularities known as magic.”
  • And the next volume immediately after drops its own bombs:
  The declaration of war was complete. That meant it was time for war. A true conflict between science and magic was unavoidable.

  Lola Stuart: Normally, I would wait until they had worn each other down and then make my move, but that would be meaningless if I can’t fully control both sides’ actions.
• What the Hell, Hero?: New Testament Vol. 5 for Touma. Touma and Thor get into a brawl while the latter, unhappy with Touma's newly defeatist mentality, scolds him for no longer being the hero he was earlier on in the series. Namely, his act now, think later attitude for saving people had waned.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Touma's complete lack of offensive power basically reduces his strategy to running at the enemy—using his hand to shield himself—and punching them really hard in the face. Some thought to figuring out the weakness in his enemy's flashy attack may be required first.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: When Awaki has Kuroko at her mercy, she decides to shoot her until she discovers Kuroko teleported a spoon into the gun... She did this after being shot the first time.
• Wild Card: There are many across the series, even Touma himself may qualify.
• Winds Of Change: The "Sisters" arc in both anime has the wind turbines in Academy City suddenly shift directions, a sign that the clones of Mikoto Misaka have decided to aid her, and are shifting the air currents to disrupt Accelerator's calculations, making his attack dissipate.
• Winged Humanoid: Teitoku Kakine usually creates six wings with his Dark Matter power for both flight and as weapons. Accelerator also grows wings as part of his Awakening.
• World of Badass: Take a look at the character page and count how many names are listed there. Go on. We'll wait. Now realize that about 90% of them will kick your ass to the kerb if you give them reason to.
  • What's that? Think you can take on that girl/child because they're a Non-Action Guy and their power has no apparent combat usage? Well, you better hope they're not secretly a Teen Genius who can make your life a living hell in some other way. Oh, and by hurting them, you might have also pissed off their guardian and/or True Companions, many of whom have won the Superpower Lottery. Good Luck!
  • And just to cap it all off, even if you're the most normal of the normal guy in existance, sometimes fate will still smile upon you and give you your own Moment Of Awesome or turn you into an Action Survivor. That's right; even if you're a Ridiculously Average Guy, you can still be a badass.
• The Worf Barrage: Nukes are frequently referenced regarding what won't work on Accelerator or the Windowless Building.
• The Worf Effect:
  • In Volumes 16 and 18, Kaori becomes the target of this. She's unable to beat Acqua on her own, and is instantly defeated by Knight Leader when she challenges him.
  • It seems that Fiamma’s goal, La Persona Superiore a Dio, or One Above God, only exists to be hit with this, by Invisible Thing and Aleister Crowley.
  • Touma gets hit by this in NT 4 when the power that comes out of his arm whenever it gets severed, which has scared Fiamma of the Right before, is crushed by the current big bad, namely Othinus.
• Wolverine Publicity: Uiharu and Accelerator in season 2's OP and ED. Mikoto in the official artwork.
• Would Hit a Girl: Despite his chivalrous nature Touma has no problem attacking females he knows that are harming/murdering innocent people or his friends. In fact, nobody in the series is ever seen to hold back due to their opponent's gender. Everyone is equal in a fight, it seems.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Aleister does this for the entirety of the plot. When variables make changes to his plans, he rewrites, deletes, and truncates his plans. It is also implied that his opponent in this chess match is Lola Stuart.
• You ALL Share My Story: As Kamachi's writing evolved and began to include more protagonists, many of the story arcs evolved into this. The WW3 arc is especially prominent, with five or more independent plots (from Touma's chasing Fiamma, Mikoto's fighting Russians while looking for Touma, Shiage's escaping AC with Rikou, Accelerator's looking for a cure, and the battle between England and France, and so on weaving in and out of focus as Kamachi progressed the war. Ultimately, however, many times, even with the focus shifting, it is usually Touma who gets the final, or most important, scenes.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Attacks from top-tier mages (Magic Gods or beings around that level) are often incomprehensible. Gunha tries fighting Ollerus in SS 2, only to quickly get floored by… something. Ollerus muses that the worst kind of attack is one that you can’t understand enough to block or evade.
• Younger Than They Look: The reason why Stiyl looks so old despite supposedly only 14 was because of a miscommunication between the artist and author: Touma and Stiyl's first confrontation was supposed be something of an Old vs New (which the artist took literally to mean "old man vs. young boy"), completely missing the note that said Stiyl was only 14.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Esper powers and Aurelous Izzard’s Magna-style alchemy work by manipulating the world through the individual's perception of reality.

---

"I'll destroy that fucked up illusion with my right hand!"