The 6th episode of To Aru Majutsu no Index II abandons the nun service pre-eminent in earlier episodes, instead adopting Railgun-esque saucy Mikoto/Kuroko bathing scenes thanks to the onset of an arc starring Tokiwadai Middle School’s Mikoto and Kuroko.
Six episodes in, the show has now roughly hit the full-quarter mark of the expected 2 cour-length season, and with that much time left a reasonable expectation for future episodes would be something about four episodes for this new arc, followed by some of To Aru Majutsu’s plentiful filler-ish minor side plots before returning to another major arc.
Sphinx in the above shot displays a facial expression close to what a real-life staredown from a hungry pet cat happens to look like.
Touma and Index take a rest from most of this episode.
Tokiwadai’s luxurious student bathing facilities.
Mikoto:
Unfortunately, the fog runs thick in the TV broadcast version.
Kuroko:
A handy Japanese word to know: 谷間 / tanima, meaning “valley”, “ravine” or even “cleavage”, referring specifically to the valley-like depths so integral to much late-night anime.
Mikoto and Kuroko probably aren’t the ideal models to show off the “valley,” but they still make for a interesting example:
Kuroko almost looks too big from this side angle…
Several of these shots could’ve easily been fogged to be reserved for the eventual home releases, so it’s a good thing that Index II’s censorship has been as lax as it has been so far.
“U.S. Space Shuttle Launch Successful”
The use of the kanji 米 / bei, or “rice”, for the Untied States above has an interesting concept behind it; the Japanese system of ateji, the use of kanji purely for their sounds rather than what the character actually means, assigned many foreign countries’ names haphazard kanji prior to the 20th century.
As odd as an Oriental country naming any Western country after “rice” is, there are even odder ones – the kanji for France is 仏, or “Buddha.”
Kuroko shopping for for even more lingerie.
Awaki Musujime, the show’s appealingly attired latest introduction.
Awaki is voiced by 櫻井浩美 / Harumi Sakurai, a relative rookie seiyuu with a very sparse history, but with the distinction of having done the significant role of Angel Beat’s SSS-dan chief, Yuri (aka Yurippe).
Last Order makes an appearance too, accompanied in the same bathroom by her guardian Accelerator:
This bathroom scene (the episode’s third so far by the 14:00 mark) goes on for a huge amount of screentime (over three minutes!), so there’s literally several dozen shots of charmingly flat Kuroko lovingly depicted.
The railgun effects are a step-up from most of To Aru Kagaku’s, and certainly the first Index season’s, and are animated quite beautifully.
The above pose had a blurry/glare effect running down the screen, so this is actually one of the clearest views of the electro effects available with just a screenshot.
As is typical for the first episode of a new arc in this series, this episode actually had a relatively small amount of action.
An imouto appears!
Luckily, the imouto seem to provide service much more readily than their primogenitor:
HEY! Its Ika Musume and Takeru!! They get a job as extras in Railgun? Good for them!
Somethings wrong with the gap of her breasts in the 12th picture. It just looks painfully wrong.
Lovely episode in my book. Not unlike the beginning of the first “Sisters” arc in the first series. Hope it gets better (which I’m sure it will)! ^_^
Needs moar Awaki~
Touma should just end up with Index so that Kuroko can have her Mikoto.