Around 2010, in my last semester of college. I’d already landed a job, but graduation was closing in and I still had to finish my thesis defense. I’ve actually forgotten the whole process of writing my thesis by now. I just remember that while I was working on it, it got so boring that I started looking for anime to watch online. I was looking for anime and saw some shitpost compilation blowing up on AcFun, so I went and tracked down the source material, and that’s how I found this thing called Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index). Looking back now it’s got plenty to poke fun at, but for me at the time I thought it was a pretty interesting watch. The interesting part is its setting: battles between scientific ESPers and magicians, with the male lead caught right in the middle as a third-party existence. Even more absurd is that this so-called “third party” male protagonist is actually the strongest one of all, and the story unfolds in the most formulaic way possible: some Boss suddenly pops out saying he’s gonna take out the protagonist, the protagonist fires off a bunch of trash talk, kills the Boss in one punch, keeps the guys around as bros, and adds the girls to his harem…… Of course, after finishing A Certain Magical Index, I went ahead and checked out its spin-off too — the famously well-known Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun). Frankly, the story in Railgun is way better than in Index. Most of it has nothing to do with magic — it’s all about espers. The heroine is a fairly strong esper, and she’s constantly running around with her friends solving all sorts of incidents, from espers losing control of their powers to crimes happening in the shadows. Honestly, the reason A Certain Scientific Railgun is the better watch comes down more to its story and character setups just being way cooler.