A Certain Magical Index



""I'm not pretending to be a hero. I will become one!""

- Touma Kamijou

Touma Kamijou is just an extremely-unlucky Ordinary High School Student living in Academy City, a state-of-the-art city dedicated to the study of people with esper powers. He does, however, possess a not-so-ordinary power to dispel any esper powers with his right hand. His ordinary, if not unlucky, existence in Academy City is shattered when a girl dressed like a nun ends up on his balcony window, claiming to be on the run from magicians trying to kidnap her and claim the 103,000 forbidden grimoires that she possesses. Because of the girl called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, he gets dragged into a world completely different from the scientific lifestyle of Academy City—the world of Magic.

Due to a combination of his terrible luck and the strange power of his right hand, he attracts the attention of both the Magic and Science factions, getting him dragged deeper and deeper into a secret conflict between the two sides. Along the way, he meets several other people, magicians and espers alike, unwittingly forming a combination of allies from both sides which just might tip the scales of conflict.

A Certain Magical Index (とある魔術の禁書目録, "Toaru Majutsu no Indekkusu") is adapted by J.C.Staff from a series of Light Novels. The first half of the story has been completed at 22 novels and two short story volumes, and the second half is continuing under the title "New Testament". Several other short story volumes have been released, focusing on side characters which didn't get much spotlight in the original.

A spin-off manga entitled A Certain Scientific Railgun and a corresponding anime adaptation has been released, centering on Academy City's third-highest-ranked Level 5, Mikoto Misaka, and the daily life in Academy City.

A certain Fan Translation project for the light novels can be found here. The entire first half of the story and four other short story volumes have been fully translated, and translation of the "New Testament" series is currently ongoing.

A Certain Wiki may help in understanding various terminologies and powers that may appear here on this wiki.

The anime has been licensed and released by FUNimation entertainment, along with the movie and both seasons of A Certain Scientific Railgun.

A Certain Magical Index: The Movie – The Miracle of Endymion is a side-story that features Touma and Index, with many of the characters from both Index and Railgun appearing.

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

A-E
": 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."
 * The Abridged Series: A recent one has came out, promptly named Index'd.
 * 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.
 * Accidental Pervert: Touma often finds himself in awkward situations with girls. At the very start of the series, he accidentally strips Index by negating the magic in her habit.
 * Action Girl: Suffice to say that this describes a majority of the female cast.
 * Adventure Rebuff: At the beginning of the series, Touma is initially indecisive about helping Index. He's forced into the matter when she's badly injured.
 * 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. As a result, said terrorist gets some boiling hot tea to the face when he checks the ducts.
 * Alertness Blink: Two in a row from Mikoto in the first episode of season 2 of Index.
 * 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/Toaruverse in chronological order, etc., etc., etc.. Without reading at least one of these, it's easy to be confused about who, what, why, when, where, 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... To give just a few examples:
 * The full backstory to the Sisters arc is only given in the corresponding arc in A Certain Scientific Railgun.
 * Two members of SCHOOL, Rakko and Banka, aren't even named in the original series, nor are their abilities mentioned. The former is a Posthumous Character who's only mentioned as having been killed by ITEM. They receive more development in the Dream Ranker arc of A Certain Scientific Railgun.
 * It is implied that Touma . This is outright confirmed at the climax of the Daihaseisai arc in A Certain Scientific Railgun, where
 * 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 Catch Phrase, 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 "Acclerator").
 * Alternate History: The combination of magic always existing and the existence of Academy City has given rise to this. For example, the United States has had three Hispanic Presidents, and Britain is not a nuclear power.
 * Always a Bigger Fish / Serial Escalation: Each villain is absurdly more powerful than the last, regularly topping the previous winner of the Superpower Lottery. Even the Big Bad, is outclassed by three more characters. Currently, the biggest fish title goes to Aiwass, but Kamachi may have an even more powerful character prepared.
 * Divine beings in this series go above the norm, in some ways absurdly so. We have Angels, who have the power to utterly destroy the world. God, who is above them. Then 'The One Above God', who is above God. But even this is dwarfed by the so-called "Invisible Thing", . And then Aiwass, as mentioned above, is stronger than all of the above.
 * In New Testament 4, Othinus has possibly topped them all. . This was something even Fiamma couldn't do, and she seemed bored at how easily she did it.
 * The end of New Testament 10 introduces.
 * Anime Catholicism: Or rather, Anime Christianity, given that the Roman Catholic Church is one of three major churches in the setting.
 * 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.
 * 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, considering its brain-enhancing Esper program as thoroughly scientific and counter to any related superstitions that might crop up. But since Science is basically proven hypotheses supported by data from repeatable experiments about how the world works, the fact that magic is repeatable means...
 * If you treat Science as just a separate religion, with more public "miracles" (i.e., technology), it makes a bit more sense. All of the religions deride the others as heretics and fools, despite the fact that their magic works just as well.
 * Arch Enemy: Teitoku Kakine to Shizuri Mugino and Aleister Crowley to Lola Stuart.
 * Art Evolution: Compare this picture of Touma from Volume 1 to this picture of Touma in Volume 20. In fact, a lot of the characters from the earlier volumes have undergone art evolution over the novels.
 * Artifact of Death: Grimoires can give a magician great power, but are extremely dangerous to their mind and body.
 * 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, but in the end, several other side characters are more relevant than her.
 * Artistic Age: In general, unless their age has been blatantly stated, viewers shouldn't assume that characters are as old or as young as they look. For examples at the opposite extremes, Stiyl is 14 yet looks like an adult man (not helped by being two metres tall) while Komoe is in her forties but is indistinguishable from an elementary school student.
 * 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.
 * Art Major Physics: 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.
 * In reality, lightning travels extremely fast (about 92,000 miles per second, or 148,000 kilometers per second) so dodging or blocking Misaka's attacks should probably be out of the question. That's just the first one. This is actually touched upon however briefly in the rematch. According to the former, the latter is able to block the blasts because.
 * Endymion is a major offender. A space elevator should ideally be built on the equator, though it's noted that Academy City deliberately built it within its borders as a demonstration of its technological prowess.
 * Art Shift: Touma—and drastically so—when he sees President Obama Kuroko.
 * 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 "A Certain Magical Index-tan".
 * Assimilation Plot: The Croce di Pietro plot was an attempt to.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Played with. Plenty of leaders are capable fighters (e.g. Aleister, Elizard, Lola, Othinus) but there are also many that aren't (most members of Academy City's Board of Directors).
 * Automated Automobiles: Academy City brings out automated buses during the Daihaisai festival, as a show of technology, but otherwise the vehicles are driven normally.
 * Awesome McCoolname: "Touma Kamijou" has two different alternate meanings. One is "The One Who Purifies Gods and Slays Demons", which has actually been lampshaded in the series. . Alternatively, "Touma" can be read as "Invisible Demon" and "Kamijou" as "Above God".
 * Awesomeness By Analysis: Battles between magicians and between espers usually come down to trying to analyse the opponent's abilities while trying to stop them from doing the same to you.
 * Badass Boast: There's been a few.

": Between me and you, there is an impassable wall."

": 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.
 * I'll destroy that screwed up illusion of yours!"

"Mikoto: You're another "I didn't ask for help but he came to help anyway?" Index: * nod* Both: ... * exasperated sigh*"
 * Badass Normal: Many characters in this series are this.
 * Shiage,
 * Motoharu, who fights using his street abilities.
 * Amata Kihara might be the greatest Badass Normal of this series. The reason? He didn't need any powers to beat him, he just  against him and later kick his ass. It also helps that he's also the leader of the Hound Dogs and was.
 * And finally, the Dorm Supervisor of Tokiwadai Dormitories. In fact, it's stated that all of the dorm supervisors have to be this, to keep their superhuman charges under control.
 * Any conventional military force that Academy City fights against, barring the use of Asymmetrical Warfare, which would be almost as useless due to the accuracy and breadth of its ECCM and reconnaissance technology.
 * The Bad Guy Wins:
 * In general, Aleister Crowley and Lola Stuart always manage to benefit from each conflict in some way.
 * The ending of NT Volume 8 is a particular example..
 * Balanced Harem: Touma still doesn't show any notable romantic interest in any member of his harem.
 * Batman Gambit / Gambit Roulette:.
 * To elaborate on the latter (as it is explained in the Light Novels, but has been ignored in the Anime thus far),.
 * Battle Harem:
 * Touma has one. Among the girls interested in him are: a human repository of thousands upon thousands of spellbooks, the third most powerful Esper in Academy City (plus several thousands of her clones), a sword-wielding priestess, one of her spear-wielding subordinates, a magical spy/courier who wants to seduce him into working for her country, 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. Later on there's.
 * Beach Episode: Episodes 15 to 17 in Index, combined with Bizarro Universe.
 * Berserk Button:
 * If you hurt their friends and family, Mikoto and Touma will kick your ass.
 * Touma pushes pretty hard when he, something that likely hasn't happened to him in years.
 * Harm Last Order and will show you no mercy.
 * And if you try to kill Touma in front of Itsuwa, prepare to suffer the consequences even if you are !
 * BFS:
 * Kaori'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.
 * Fiamma of the Right beats them all: his Flaming Sword is about forty fuckin' kilometers long!
 * Big Bad: Aleister Crowley is set up as this for most of the series, being The Chessmaster behind almost everything in the series. Lola Stuart also seems to be this, as Aleister's counterpart on the magic side.
 * Big Brother Is Watching:
 * Underline, a system of nanomachines that allows Aleister to
 * Big Eater: Index, Agnese, and Himegami.
 * Black and White Morality: likes to distinguish between people of the light and people of the dark. In his opinion, the latter can just up and die (as long as they are not useful; if they are, he uses them).
 * Blatant Lies: From the preview of New Testament Volume 1:
 * Blood Spattered Innocents: Komoe-sensei gets drenched in Aisa's blood after Oriana mistakenly attacks her in Episode 11. Komoe-sensei is anything but innocent herself, but considering that she looks about six it probably still counts.
 * Blush Sticker: is regularly seen sporting these. Also Index from time to time.
 * Mikoto as a kid.
 * Book Dumb: Touma and Shiage, in contrast to (for example) Mikoto or Accelerator.
 * Book Ends: In New Testament Volume 7, Fremea has sections at the beginning at end where she debates Santa Claus' existence with her classmates.
 * 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: New Testament Volume 10 is a non-stop example of this, with . This is outright lampshaded in the afterword by the author. Though it's unusual in that.
 * Bottle Fairy: 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.
 * Breather Episode:
 * 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 to 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.
 * After the non-stop action of the Magic God Othinus arc, NT Volume 11 is a much lighter volume focusing on the previously-minor character Misaki. The central conflict is far smaller in scale and motivated by purely personal reasons.
 * Brick Joke: In New Testament Volume 14, Touma goes out to buy dinner early on. When the Kamisato Faction visits the same shop, one of them comments that everything good has already been bought.
 * Brown Note: Index' Sheol Fear, which incapacitates the religious by pointing out contradictions in their teachings.
 * But for Me It Was Tuesday: Stiyl assumes this is why Touma doesn't remember fighting him.
 * Butt Monkey:
 * Touma is never, ever able to take a break. It's best illustrated by a look at the series timeline, which shows him getting involved in world-shaking events often no more than days apart.
 * becomes this after being depowered. Being a fifteen-centimetre-tall fairy, she's at the mercy of Sphinx, who routinely plays with her like a toy.
 * 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 forgots about it, since he loses his memories.
 * Captured Super Entity: Aleister has managed to . Though the exact situation (such as whether is staying there willingly) isn't quite clear.
 * Casual Danger Dialogue: During, in the middle of heated battle, Knight Commander wonders if he should send a message to the queen for permission to spank Carissa. The response is speculation that she'd empower him with all the power of Curtana Second to do it.
 * Catch Phrase:
 * 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 (Genso 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
 * Accelerator's catchphrase: "Such stupidity..."
 * Kuroko's catchphrase: "Judgment desu no!".
 * Index's irritated proclamation of "TOUMA!" every time he upsets her.
 * Cat Smile: Komoe-Sensei and Index.
 * Chainmail Bikini: The Jeans Slasher in the second SS volume.
 * 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: The destruction of Tree Diagram at the end of Volume 1 comes back again and again in the series.
 * 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, Birdway 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 15, Rikou tries to use her power to influence, but fails. The true nature and potential of her power is further elaborated on in Volume 22..
 * 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 the 40th chapter of the Railgun manga. Considering that there are several characters which can benefit from her power, it's heavily hinted that she'll have a part sometime soon..
 * 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,
 * At the end of Volume 22, Ollerus name drops
 * The Chessmaster: Fiamma, Aleister and Lola Stewart being the most prominent.
 * Chew Toy: After being shrunk into a tiny fairy, becomes a literal example of this. She's treated as a toy by Sphinx, while her struggles are largely ignored by Touma and Index.
 * Chick Magnet:
 * Touma is this to a ridiculous extent. By just the third volume, he has almost ten thousand girls after him... and it only increases from there.
 * Amusingly, it seems his father Touya is one too, ending up in a Meet Cute situation with Misaka's mother. Mrs. Kamijou was not amused nor pleased.
 * Accelerator and Shiage also end up becoming this. Played for Laughs in the former case, since he seems to be asexual and aromantic.
 * Christianity Is Catholic: While there are a lot Catholic characters in this series like Kaori, the series also show other Christians of different denominations like the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church.
 * The resemblance to those entities is purely superficial; this series is a big fan of the Nuns Are Mikos and Crystal Dragon Jesus sort of Christianity. This is not a reliable source for your Church History project.
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome:
 * Touma. As explained by Mikoto and Index.
 * Touma. As explained by Mikoto and Index.


 * Though as shown in her own series, Mikoto is the same as well.
 * 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 psychics and research their abilities. This goal is ultimately implied to be a cover at the end of Volume 22:
 * 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:
 * 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 Schrodingers 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 subjects 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.
 * This troper has figured out that Academy City produces espers by stripping away their five senses using exotic drugs and electrical stimulation, done at an early age (5) when the potential esper's sense of reality is still malleable, effectively forcing them to transplant their own version of reality onto the world.
 * Reality Warper/Master of Illusion magic is directed by his thought; the more he loses confidence in it and thinks it might go wrong, the more it will go wrong.
 * Classified Information: Less than five people in the world knows about the truth behind . And one of them,
 * Cliffhanger: The ending of any volume that's part of a multi-volume arc (and isn't the final one in the arc). The biggest one has to be the ending to New Testament Volume 8,.
 * Clingy Jealous Girl: 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 interest for Mikoto at heart.
 * Played straight once when she realizes Mikoto might like Touma. When Mikoto goes 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.
 * Cloning Blues: The Misaka Network are essentially this trope personified. Hard to get much worse than being created to be slaughtered in order to improve someone else's power. Even after they're released from that, they still end up being exploited in various schemes.
 * Clothing Damage: Touma's ability destroys any clothes with magic in them, as he demonstrates with Index.
 * Cold Blooded Torture: New Testament Volume 9 is essentially a constant attempt by to break  mind.
 * Color Failure: Komoe currently provides the page picture.
 * Compliment Backfire: Accelerator to  The Level 5 calls him an "Excellent Villain" as a compliment, but   has no clue what Accelerator's talking about. Quite understandably really, considering how messed up Accelerator's views on heroes and villains are.
 * Continuity Nod: New Testament Volume 3 has a couple nods to the side stories.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: Apparently his magic-nullifying power also gives Touma 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 mage, its not just his hand.
 * 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 it's heat, instead of risking it killing you by walking too close to it?
 * Cosmic Plaything: Touma, as a cost of his power. It's repeatedly claimed that it also negates any luck he would normally benefit from,.
 * Cosmic Retcon: Full Magic Gods have this power,.
 * Creepy Cool Crosses: A very creepy version goes to Vento of the Front. Now only does she wear two crosses earrings but also has a cross hanging from a chain from her tongue. It doesn't help that her face is heavily pierced. Intentional on her part; her magic, God's Divine Punishment,
 * Crouching Moron Hidden Badass Normal Army: Don't make Komoe cry or her entire class turns into this under Touma's command!
 * Crapsack World: For any nation other than Academy City, if you think about it; it has had a technological monopoly over all scientific fields since the before the Vietnam War, fields soldiers who can level entire armies, and its traditional response to any attempt to exit its hegemony is massacres and military annihilation that makes the Nazis seem nice by comparison, and utterly refuses to share any of its technology, even in medical fields, choosing to release a stream of obsolete (by their standards) technology that ensures no effective resistance can be mounted. It also feeds its own citizens (and the world) a stream of propaganda about how its technology can't be understood by "the outside world", and its cultural events are geared towards the creating an army of child-soldiers (espers). Then there's the fact that the city was effectively founded by Aleister Crowley with the sole purpose of . YMMV, though, due to the fact that this is a world where the ice caps have melted, and every single religion's myths can be used to summon eldritch abominations from higher dimensions or invoke magic spells capable of annihilating entire armies. Bonus points to the fact that almost every religion has a sect that is bent on using magic to dominate the world by force. Big Brother doesn't even begin to describe the situation.
 * Cry Cute:
 * Index when Touma (he really enjoys teasing her several times) teased her on the way to a hot springs.
 * Komoe when Touma ignored her lessons in the class room.
 * Kuroko's reaction to Mikoto's rejection.
 * Kanzaki when she couldn't figure out how to cancel a washing machine's wash cycle.
 * 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
 * Accelerator has another one before that when
 * 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. Regardless of the fact, the author seems to have no idea how military technology works, and real life seems to have outpaced him already; the Chinese have developed an aluminum based ceramic armor that took seven hits from a 125mm cannon at 1800 meters before it even dented.
 * and again in Volume 4 of NT: Academy City's response to the attempt to advance technology outside its say so is to obliterate Baggage City; just about one year 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. This troper guesses that by the point of NT volume 4, Academy City is approximately 100 years ahead of OTL in aeronautics technology, about the same in AI and robotic warfare, roughly 200 years ahead in computing and communications, and approximately 50 years ahead in vehicle and personal armor.
 * 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 Misaka Mikoto infiltrates Liberal Arts City and proceeds to flatten any and all resistance in her attempt to expose the US' attempt to create its own esper program, Olive Holiday, the resident CIA agent is prevented from taking any action due to the fact that, effectively turning any gains made into a pyrrhic victory
 * Cursed with Awesome:
 * Kaori is a Saint, which has caused her a lot of angst in her life. While it grants her incredible power and supernatural good fortune, the latter comes at the expense of others.
 * Touma himself, who isn't aware that
 * Kakeru Kamisato,.
 * Cute Kitten: Pretty much the sole reason Sphinx exists.
 * Cute Shotaro Boy: The Russian Orthodox Patriarch.
 * Cyborg:
 * gains a cybernetic eye and arm after being badly injured in her first two battles with.
 * Rensa is completely mechanical except for her brainstem. Her body allows her to remodel herself to.
 * Salome is an unusual example in that her cybernetics come from outside Academy City, being her own creation. She's replaced most of her body as an offering for her magic, giving herself superhuman physical ability.
 * Darkskinned Blonde: Sherry Cromwell.
 * A Day in the Limelight:
 * Volume 5 (episodes 19 and 20 of season 1) has former antagonist as the protagonist and shows the events that make him less of a jerk.
 * Volume 8 of the novels (Episodes 6 and 7 of season 2, the "Move Point" story arc) casts minor character (and eventual main character of the Railgun spinoff) Kuroko as the protagonist, as she stumbles into the world Mikoto has been fighting in since the Sisters Arc.
 * Volume 11 of New Testament features Misaki, delving into her
 * Defeat Means Friendship:
 * 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 Misaka twice, been interrogated by/hit on Misaka 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 a subversion since Touma would rather avoid fights and just run away.
 * And there's the Skills-Outs, gangs of Level 0's who protect themselves against higher level epsers who bully them. Noble at first until some of those gangs started attacking espers who never bother them.
 * Demonic Possession: NT Volume 18 reveals that has been possessed by the demon  for the entire series.
 * Demoted to Extra: Poor Aisa. Her importance in the series got reduced after the Deep Blood arc. She and even her Voice Actress Lampshades it.
 * Despair Gambit: This is . Among many other things, she shows him a world where he's considered an infamous villain solely by changing everyone's perspective, and another world in which a different person has completely taken over his life without anyone noticing..
 * 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. It's taken Up to Eleven in New Testament Volume 9,.
 * Special mention should go to the entire Amakusa Church who in vol 16.  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.
 * Determined Defeatist: Touma has terminal bad luck and a negative outlook, but will fight until the end for anyone he cares about.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Touma manages to win against many ludicrously powerful people. Bonus points because in most cases, he literally did punch them out. These include Aureolus (an imagination-based Reality Warper), Accelerator (the most powerful esper, capable of withstanding a nuclear explosion and dishing out even more),.
 * Disability Superpower: Episode 4 of the second season has Index subdue nuns by using the power of the magic books 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.
 * Dishing Out Dirt: Sherry's magic. She mostly uses it to summon a Golem to fight for her, but she can do other things with it too.
 * Divide and Conquer:
 * Fiamma remotely controls to attack her allies during World War III.
 * To weaken the science side, Birdway.
 * Downer Ending:
 * NT Volume 3..
 * NT Volume 4. At the end of the day, many people still died in Baggage City..
 * NT Volume 8. It's hard to get much worse than
 * Drama-Preserving Handicap:
 * Index's "Walking Church" robe provides her with amazing defensive capabilities. Touma inadvertently destroys it in the first episode to prove the existence of his Imagine Breaker. Index patches it back together, but it's lost its defensive powers.
 * Accelerator is crippled in Volume 5, requiring a special choker that to walk, talk or use his ability. The choker's battery lasts for 24 hours normally, and only 15 minutes when he's using his ability (due to the increased amount of information it has to handle). His effective calculation ability is only about half of what it was before. Even with these limitations, he's still incredibly powerful.
 * loses her incredible power and is turned into a tiny, almost-helpless fairy.
 * Touma has an incredible number of allies, including many powerful ones... and almost never asks any of them for help.
 * Dramatic Irony:
 * Whenever a science-side character encounters magic, and doesn't understand what it is.
 * In NT Volume 7, Rensa looks down on Touma as being ignorant of the true nature of the world. She claims that he's never experiences true suffering, as shown by him still having all four limbs. Not only does Touma know about the dark side of Academy City, he also knows about the magic side, which Rensa is completely ignorant of. On top of that, by this point in the series, he's lost his right arm on four separate occasions (to be fair to Rensa, it was reattached/grew back, so she had no way of knowing this).
 * After NT Volume 11, any scene in which Misaki and Touma interact (or any time they're mentioned together) becomes this..
 * 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.
 * The Dulcinea Effect:
 * Touma succumbs to this throughout the series. This is even discussed at one point by part of his Harem.
 * Kakeru is the same, something also lampshaded by his harem.
 * Dynamic Entry: Shirai Kuroko's favorite entrance when Touma is present.
 * 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 appear in Volume 4 of the Novels but was mentioned in the Volume 3.
 * Episode 2 introduces Kuroko when her first appearance was in Volume 3.
 * In episode 21, we meet a red hair girl who teleports Motoharu to, Novel readers might know her as
 * In the Epilogue of episode 24, we have the guest appearance of
 * Easy Amnesia: Index remembers very little of her own life, and at the end of the first Story Arc, all of Touma's memories are permanently destroyed due to magic-induced brain damage.
 * Eldritch Abomination:
 * In a side story, the Amakusa encounter magicians whose magic is based on the Cthulhu Mythos. Their schemes result in, among other things, a part of Cthulhu being (temporarily) summoned.
 * Sample Shoggoth, a bizarre parasite found in Antarctica which kicks off the plot of NT Volume 14. Its appearance is compared to an octopus, a piece of fat or a melted rubber film. It infects a human host, consuming and replacing their body fat - this ensures that it cannot be removed without killing the host.
 * Elite Mooks: Several, such as the Hound Dogs and
 * Enemy Mine: This happens on several occasions. A notable example is when the Anglican Church and Academy City team up against.
 * Establishing Character Moment:
 * Touma is introduced running away from delinquents, in a manner specifically intended to make them tire themselves out. It turns out that they're chasing him because he told them off for harassing a middle school girl. But then it turns out that he was actually trying to protect the delinquents from her. Finally, the girl catches up, challenges him to a fight and shoots lightning at him, which he easily blocks with his right hand.
 * Othinus makes her first appearance by.
 * 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's his real name since that's what Touma calls him.
 * Accelerator refuses to reveal his original name. In A Certain Scientific Railgun, he claims he doesn't remember it.
 * Also a minor character named "Management" as well as the leader of the English knights, Knight Leader.
 * The same applies to the members of God's Right Seat - only Acqua's real name is ever revealed.
 * The eponymous Index - "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" isn't a name, it's Latin (or at least Google Translate's idea of Latin) for "List of Prohibited Books". Considering how many times she's had her memories wiped, she probably doesn't know her own name any more.
 * Evil Albino: Accelerator. He later becomes an Anti Heroic Albino.
 * Extremely Short Timespan: The series runs at an absolutely breakneck pace, with World War III literally only lasting a few weeks.
 * Exclusively Evil: Increasingly, Academy City; their response to any attempt to challenge their technologically based hegemony ranges from mind control and extortion to, as featured in NT Volume 4, wholesale slaughter using purposefully psychotic special forces. Characteristic, perhaps, considering that the true purpose of Academy City is to.
 * Explaining Your Power to the Enemy:
 * It's common for magicians and espers to explain how their power works, though they usually don't explain everything they can do (or what weaknesses they have). However, once their enemy manages to figure these things out, they often won't hesitate to confirm it.
 * Parodied by Gunha, the #7 Level 5 esper. He always explains the mechanics of his power... except that it's never the same explanation, and another character will point out how his explanation doesn't make any sense.

F-J
"“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.”"
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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 5's 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 0's of the city's population; ripe for exploitation by people like 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 zeros 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 Hamazura, Kamijou and Co. have been deliberately sabotaged via the omission of classes that would allow them to develop their powers.
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Definitely. This is a world that contains: magicians (who can create or summon artifacts and beings from every single mythology), angels, demons, dwarves, Saints, Valkyries, an artificial elf, zombies, vampires (though they haven't actually made an appearance), gods and dragons.
 * Fashionable Asymmetry: Kaori. This is intentional on her part, as it supports her magic.
 * False Camera Effects: All over the OP.
 * Fastball Special: Touma and defeat  in this manner, with  using the flat of his sword to propel Touma at high speed.
 * 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.
 * Hamazura gets constantly picked on for his love of Bunnygirls.
 * Motoharu is an unrepentant sis-con.
 * Awaki apparently likes little boys.
 * The less said about Aogami or Kuroko the better.
 * Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three protagonists fit this dynamic. Touma fights using his magic-negating right fist, Accelerator with his extraordinarily-powerful esper ability, and Shiage relies on guns and other technology. Though there's plenty of overlap between them. Touma often has to use stealth or whatever tools are around him (especially against non-supernatural opponents) while Accelerator learns to use a gun and becomes much more physically resilient over the course of the series.
 * Find the Cure:
 * Volumes 1 and 2 are about attempts to prevent Index' brain becoming overloaded with memories, so that she doesn't need to undergo annual memory wipes..
 * In World War III, Accelerator's plotline is about finding a cure for.
 * Fish Out of Water: Some of the magicians are not used to or familiar using modern technology from Academy City which leads to hilarious results.
 * Trust me you will want to see a
 * Foe Yay: Touma and pretty much all of his female opponents. And some of his male ones.
 * Foreshadowing:
 * In the 1st novel, Mikoto accuses Touma of holding back and not using his full powers despite him saying he isn't.
 * Taking it even further is the Deep Blood Arc, where
 * In Volume 1, Touma also mentions the #5 Level 5 esper, who has power over the mind, as a possible solution to Index' memory problems. However, he never attempts to contact them to help..
 * Yet another example from the first volume: Index mentions the concept of a Magic God as a person who reaches the absolute pinnacle of Magic..
 * Invoked by one of the Sisters.


 * At one point, Touma sees wind turbines turning with no wind, and realizes that Misaka's electrical powers are causing them to turn.
 * 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
 * The Four Gods: The global spell that swapped everyone's appearance was
 * Funbag Airbag: Komoe-Sensei in the second intro.
 * Functional Magic: Two types. The magicians 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.
 * Genre Savvy: After getting hit with magic-induced amnesia, Touma knows that any bizarre-looking characters he encounters are likely important acquaintances of his. He's quite proud of this prediction, actually. Unfortunately, the first time he tries this, he's wrong. But the person is quite important to what's going on, regardless.
 * Girl of the Week: Generally, Touma's plotline revolves around a particular girl in each volume (e.g. Index in the first, Aisa in the second, Mikoto and her clones in the third). Though said girls can show up again later, with Index and Mikoto being major characters.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: Accelerator's red eyes and some of the Level 5s when they start to fight, also
 * God: 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". It's stated that God is beyond magic and science but the things get interesting when
 * Golem: Sherry can create one from the earth around her. It can absorb more earth to repair battle damage and grow larger.
 * Go Mad From the Revelation: Aureolus doesn't take it well when he learns that.
 * Good with Numbers: This is a Required Secondary Power for all espers. Notably, ).
 * Good Versus Good: There's several occasions when heroic characters clash with each other. This is especially prominent in NT Volume 10, where it applies to almost all fights:
 * 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.
 * Handicapped Badass: In connection with Good Is Dumb and No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, . He's a Badass since he can still use his incredible redirection powers,
 * Harem Show: Touma's harem includes but is not limited to: Index, Misaka Mikoto, Tsukuyomi Komoe, Himegami Aisa, Kanzaki Kaori, Orsola Aquinas, Agnese Sanctis, Fukiyose Seiri, at least some of the 9,968 Misaka Imoutos, and Itsuwa. And since Volume 20, Lessar is on it too. Volume 2 of New Testament has some very heavy hinting from Kumokawa Seria, considering she went from genius to "blankly sitting around like an idiot" during his disappearance. In the same Volume, Touma finally make his glorious return, maknig the papers and all, greeted by all of his female acquaintances in Academy including: Hyouka, Seria, Fukiyose, Komoe, Aisa, and AWAKI. Mikoto ends up complaining about the guy to girl ratio and yells at them to stop taking her scene. [[Unwanted Harem|Touma is genuinely bothered by his harem.
 * Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: This describes.
 * Healing Factor:
 * Motoharu's esper ability, Auto-Rebirth. It is very limited, only reconnecting damaged blood vessels, and being a Level 0 ability, it doesn't always consistently activate.
 * Touma has an extremely-powerful one, but it only triggers under specific circumstances. It's also possible that he has a much weaker version that works in normal circumstances, considering the incredible amount of punishment he experiences in a short timeframe.
 * Magic Gods can rapidly regenerate from any injury, including their head being destroyed.
 * Heel Face Turn: Several characters, the most notable of which is, almost bordering on It Was His Sled territory, since he's one of the main protagonists.
 * Heel Realization:, 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 . But after being defeated by Touma he comes to realize that he was the bad guy. After meeting
 * 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 to save her life until he
 * A sad one goes to Itsuwa as she
 * Accelerator suffers a major emotional break down when
 * Heroic Rematch:
 * After reveals himself as the Big Bad of the first series, Touma fights him multiple times throughout World War III.
 * Taken up to eleven with Touma versus.
 * 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 5's.) 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 consiousness goes down. The computer analogy is quite literal. The safe-mode even shouts out status messages.
 * A lesser example is shown with Touma
 * Highly-Visible Ninja: Played straight by Kuruwa (who's obsessed with the traditional, or rather pop-cultural, image of ninjas) and justified with Oumi (who dresses conspicuously to distract people from her allies). Averted with Hanzou and Sugitani, who look like a normal delinquent and a man in a suit.
 * Hime Cut: Aisa.
 * His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which is Latin for "Index of Forbidden Books".
 * Hive Mind: In yet another unexpected use of a power, the Sisters (clones of Mikoto) use their electrical powers to maintain a collective memory.
 * Hoist By Their Own Petard: To defeat Othinus, Ollerus.
 * Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Index has mastered, functional knowledge of all magic, but . If someone would just, Index would become a nigh-unstoppable force of nature. As it is, she just makes sporadic analyses and is of little direct plot relevance.
 * Justified since Index becoming an unstoppable Person of Mass Destruction is something Necessarius wants to prevent. Her act as a Restraining Bolt on someone who could very well destroy the world, though with the former no longer in place...
 * Holier Than Thou: The Catholic Church, the Saints,
 * 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 Chick with a Sword: The katana wielding Kaori.
 * Hot for Student: Komoe. Touma used to be a naughty boy, apparently. Various things happened. Various.
 * Hot Mom: Touma's & Mikoto's moms are hot! Heck, Touma's mom is voiced by Kikuko Inoue. Their Dads are lucky men.
 * Ice Queen: Kanzaki Kaori.
 * As much as she is an Ice Queen, in the novels there are some funny moments involving her. Of course, given that she's, she's pretty much a young maiden at heart.
 * Ideal Hero: Touma is a definite example of this trope. No matter what, he will never kill anyone and always tries to save everyone.
 * Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The name of a chapter usually consists of Japanese text followed by English text. Some volumes deviate from this:
 * NT Volume 4 has an Anyone Can Die format, and uses a very atypical layout to ensure that the reader can't predict what will happen next. Chapters are categorised as either "Main" (these usually end in someone dying, accompanied by an image of the survivors), "Sub" (relatively normal chapters with a variety of viewpoint characters) and "Period" (the ones where Touma makes an appearance).
 * NT Volume 10 has each chapter named "VS _", with the blank being a title for the enemy/enemies encountered in that chapter. This fits the Boss Rush nature of the Volume, though it also makes it easy to guess who the enemies are just by looking at the table of contents.
 * Idiot Ball: An immediately-lampshaded example in NT Volume 15. After, Touma shouts to Salome to be careful of ! Salome immediately yells at Touma for this, since
 * 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:
 * Magic was originally developed for this reason, in an attempt to gain the same abilities as naturally-occurring espers.
 * Many of the Skill-Outs and former Skill-Outs, being Level zeroes who didn't have the same abilities as higher-level espers. Shiage expresses this sentiment occasionally, even after becoming a Badass Normal in his own right.
 * I Let You Win: NT Volume 10 contains many examples of this..
 * Image Song: Index, Misaka, Kamijou, Himegami, Stiyl, Kanzaki, Misaka's sisters and Kazakiri all have insert songs, sung by their voice actors. Many of the show's OPs and EDs seem to specifically describe Kamijou Touma, his situation or his feelings and ideals.
 * 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 Misaka and Kuroko do.
 * Also both Index and Touma usually exchanges their food and drinks, but neither seem to care.
 * In-Series Nickname: Touma calls Mikoto "Biri Biri" (a Japanese sound effect for crackling electricity) which she does not like. The fandom on the other hand have adopted it.
 * In the Blood: Seems Touma got his lady skills from his dad Touya, who even in his old age attracts the ladies.
 * Inverse Law of Complexity to Power: The level 5's of the world seem to have very broad powers. Misaka boasts power over electricity, while Accelerator has control over all physical vectors. Lesser espers have abilities like Jufuku Miho's Dummy Check, which simply makes her less noticeable to those around her.
 * This may simply be because of the 'choosing' of who gets to level-up their abilities, or that the ranking depends partially ON the versatility. If Dummy Check was leveled up, it could be the controlling of the perceptions of others in general.
 * Irony:
 * Of the rather cruel kind. Touma manages to prevent the yearly erasure of Index's memories, just to lose his own when he was hit on the head by those white feathers which were a side effect of the Frickin' Laser Beams cast by Index in Johann's Pen Mode.
 * Accelerator, after slaughtering over ten thousand Sisters,
 * The entire Magic God Othinus arc. The entire world mobilizes to stop Othinus from gaining her full power as a Magic God,

K-O
"Touma: This Kamijou Touma won't repeat the same mistake he made back in the Nurses room."
 * Karma Houdini Warranty: Accelerator. After killing over ten thousand clones in order to improve his own power, he starts to make a Heel Face Turn...
 * Kansas City Shuffle:
 * While the heroes may have stopped in New Testament Volume 3, that wasn't the true goal of
 * An even bigger example in NT Volume 8..
 * Kindhearted Cat Lover: If someone is shown being kind to cats in this franchise, there is no doubt that he or she is a bona-fide good guy.
 * 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 responsible for the death of Ellis. Their actions would come back to haunt England 20 years later when Sherry Cromwell, Ellis' magician 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!"
 * Also the various discussions about how Touma keeps meeting new girls and expanding his harem. Various characters imply that he's the protagonist of a galgame.
 * Aisa feels like everyone is forgetting about her. (Poor Aisa, she needs a hug.)
 * Laser Guided Amnesia: There are several examples of this in the series. Notably, these are not resolved at any point, and the repercussions of this are often important.
 * Prior to the start of the series, this was done to Index regularly, as her perfect memory would overload her brain otherwise . It's also inflicted on Touma at the end of Volume 1.
 * NT Volume 11 reveals that Touma has another case of this..
 * Last-Name Basis: The narration usually refers to characters by their surnames, and many characters do so as well.
 * Late Arrival Spoiler:
 * Touma loses his memories, permanently! Some fans find this as a waste. However, most seems to forget that Touma's memory loss is permanent so there's no way for him get them back and even Touma keeps it a secret. In Volumes 14 and 16, it gets partially addressed when
 * Another one is Accelerator's after Volume 5. The character sheet doesn't even bother to hide this anymore.
 * Othinus . It's very difficult to discuss volumes from NT Volume 9 onwards for this reason.
 * Layered World:
 * Heaven and Hell (and other comparable places) are believed to be in the same physical location as Earth, but on different "wavelength". An analogy is that Heaven is ultraviolet rays, Earth is visible light, and Hell is infrared light. Normally, the different worlds are unable to interact. More is revealed in NT Volume 9, with the concept of phases..
 * The Imaginary Number District is another, artificial example. It is formed from the AIM given off by Academy City's esper population, and is an important part of Aleister's plans..
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Happens occasionally.
 * Legal Jailbait: Komoe-sensei, chain-smoking beer-guzzling Christmas Cake teacher who looks like an elementary student.
 * Lethal Harmless Powers: Plenty of powers in the series can be used in extremely dangerous ways. For just one example, any teleporter can teleport an object into something - or someone.
 * Letter Motif: Academy City has the Hard Science line of technology, all of which have names beginning with "Hs".
 * 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: Acqua specifically invokes this. He considers Imagine Breaker a threat, but is willing to let Touma live if he cuts it off. It's a good thing that he doesn't go through with it, consider what happens when his right hand is cut off.
 * 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 Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition: The Index DVDs contain an 8-part Railgun side story mini novel written by the author of the novels, Kazuma Kamachi and art drawn by Motoi Fuyukawa of the Railgun manga. Wanna have good reasons why you want to read this mini novel? Lets see:
 * The Railgun cast vacationing in the USA with a Beach Episode too.
 * Get the Limited Edition DVDs now!
 * For the Railgun DVDs, the limited editions contains an 8-part Index side story mini novel staring Kaori Kanzaki, written by the author of the novels, Kazuma Kamachi and art drawn by Kiyotaka Haimura of A Certain Magical Index light novels in each DVD. So what's it's about?:
 * And also don't forget the Beach Episode too!
 * Limited Wardrobe: Index and her Walking Church is the only outright justified example in Index.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Just check out the MASSIVE character sheets.
 * Locard's Theory: Idol Theory is a form of The Law of Contagion, 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. Magicians 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.
 * Lovable Sex Maniac: Aogami and Kuroko are the prime offenders, though they are by no means the only ones. Lessar, 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
 * Love Letter Lunacy: Invoked by Seria in the Love Letter SS.
 * Love Makes You Crazy: Aureolus Izzard, in addition to being a Woobie of sort. He betrayed the Roman Catholic Church and went into hiding for 3 years all so he could find a way to prevent Index from losing her memories. In the end though, his dream was stolen by Touma, leaving Index eternally attached to Touma. Needless to say, he did not take this well.
 * Luminescent Blush: Most often seen in Misaka, typically because of some situation involving Touma.
 * Mad Scientist: The scientists behind the Level 6 Project. Or its better to say half of Academy City's scientists.
 * Magical Database: In a literal sense, with Index herself being an index about magic.
 * Magical Girlfriend: Many of Touma's love interests are magicians, espers or some other flavor of supernatural.
 * Magic Versus Science / The Magic Versus Technology War: 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.
 * Maintain the Lie: Touma's lack of memories is unknown to most characters. In Volume 16,, but is convinced to keep the secret.
 * Make Way for the New Villains: At the end of NT Volume 13,.
 * Man Behind the Man:
 * Aleister Crowley is the founder of Academy City, and controls the city's Board of Directors. He's behind countless plans, including the Level 6 Shift Project
 * The Pope controls God's Right Seat, a secret Magical organization within 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 and Lola Stuart throughout the series..
 * Marshmallow Hell: Poor Sphinx, stuck in Hyouka's breasts like that..
 * Meaningful Name: Aogami has blue hair and Himegami has hime hair.
 * Touma is another case. "Touma" can be read as "Invisible Demon" while "Kamijou" can be read as "The One Above God". Alternatively, the full name can be read as "The One Who Purifies God and Slays Demons". The latter name receives attention in-universe, from various people.
 * 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.
 * Magician's magical names tend to be fairly self-descriptive, justified because they are chosen later in life.
 * Mega Corp: Academy City. Even though it's located in Western Tokyo, the city is actually international territory so its not under Japanese Jurisdiction and International law which helps the city do certain research that most countrys would ban . The city is ruled by a 12 member Board of Directors who decides the city affairs. Furthermore the city gets its major funding for its research in Esper powers and Higher technology from all over the world like goverments, corporations who sponsor their products there like the Strange Juices and scientific organizations that help in their research. Later in the novels it is reveal A.C. is much more powerful than appears to be as their power of influence  and not only do they have their own security/police and Rescue force like the Anti-Skills and the Multi Active Rescue unit,  and they even have  They are so powerful
 * Meganekko: A couple of girls.
 * Meido: Maika. She goes to a maid school and sits on a cleaning robot that spins round and round.
 * Melee a Trois: A huge one in Volume 15 involving GROUP, ITEM, SCHOOL, BLOCK and MEMBER. The arc is even unofficially called the "Battle Royale arc".
 * Mind Rape: Index' Sheol Fear technique.
 * Minor Injury Overreaction: Accelerator goes from toying with Touma to raging fury after Touma slaps Accelerator's hand away with impunity. He really isn't used to people being able to ignore his power like that.
 * Later this scene was turned into some sort of a yaoi joke in the DVD extras.
 * The Mole:
 * Motoharu was originally sent by the Anglican Church to spy on Academy City. However, he became a Double Reverse Quadruple Agent, passing information to the Church, to Academy City and to other groups.
 * is another agent sent by the Anglican Church, this time to infiltrate
 * Monster of the Week:
 * The first few volumes are more or less self-contained story arcs. The major plot featuring the Roman Catholic Church only starts in Volume 7.
 * After the Magic God Othinus arc, the series starts returning to this format. NT Volumes 11, 12 and 14 feature their own distinct antagonists, with no relation to each other or to the main plot.
 * Morality Pet: The young girl Last Order, for , the guy who ! She even gives a long speech about how he isn't such a bad guy deep down. Even is in disbelief.
 * Morton's Fork: in New Testament Volume 3.
 * Mugging the Monster: See Rescue Romance below.
 * Mundane Fantastic: Esper powers such as teleportation and invisibility are just facts of life.
 * 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 after her fight with
 * Mundane Utility: In addition to deflecting bullets and lightning bolts, Accelerator also uses his ability to protect himself from sunburn and irritating background chatter.
 * Mutually Exclusive Magic:
 * Esper powers and magic are fundamentally different. Once a person becomes an esper, they will experience a physical backlash when they try to use magic, which manifests as ruptured blood vessels. This doesn't outright prevent espers from using magic, but it does encourage them not to except in dire circumstances.
 * The members of God's Right Seat possess powerful and unique divine magic, but are unable to use normal magic.
 * Touma's Imagine Breaker prevents him from using either esper abilities or magic.
 * 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:
 * The members of God's Right Seat possess powerful and unique divine magic, but are unable to use normal magic.
 * Touma's Imagine Breaker prevents him from using either esper abilities or magic.
 * 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:

"Hamazura: “IT’S BECAUSE YOU INTRODUCED THAT MOVIE! YOU ACTUALLY INTRODUCED SUCH A STUPID MOVIE!!” Kinuhata: “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?” Hamazura: “That’s the hardest part to understand…”"
 * Of course, fate conspires against him.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Here's some of them:
 * In 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 7 Level 5's of Academy City. Introduced later on is
 * In the magic side:, Vento of the Front, Terra of the Left, Acqua of the Back, Fiamma of the Right, Knight Leader, Ollerus, The Power of God (Archangel Gabriel), The Likeness of God (Archangel Michael), The One Above God, and Magic God One-Eyed Othinus.
 * Finally, there's "The Invisible Thing", the second most powerful being in the series,
 * Naughty Nuns: For a series with a load of nuns, close to none of them actually follow their vow of celibacy.
 * Narrating the Present: The Sisters have the habit of narrating whatever they're doing.
 * 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 new job is to protect Britain from any magical threats that threaten the country, no matter what.
 * In the fourth volume of New Testament, it's claimed that this is the reason why Academy City doesn't share most of its technology and scientific knowledge with the outside world.
 * 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
 * New Transfer Student:
 * Subverted when Komoe-sensei announces 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. Himegami is the actual new transfer student.
 * Played straight when Kakeru transfers to the same school that Touma's school is 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. . 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: The ninja in the series stand out for how relatively normal they are. They're all normal people without supernatural powers, and use whatever tools or strategies they need to win. Though one group of ninjas, the one to whom Oumi belongs, are trying to gain supernatural powers in order to keep up in a changing world.
 * No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The first time Accelerator actually tries to help someone with his powers and what does he get?
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The second round of Accelerator's battle with Teitoku. Not that it really could be even called a battle..., Teitoku starts gloating about how Acclerator 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, is still only known amongst the fandom as "Girl In Dress."
 * Deliberately averted with the members of Useful Spider, none of whom receive any names. In the afterword of NT Volume 17, the author comments that this was to give them a different impression to the usual named characters.
 * 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; the 6th Level 5 has yet to be named; the girl in the red dress, a member of SCHOOL never gets named; Heaven Canceller goes just by that (or is nicknamed the "frog-faced doctor"); 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.
 * Non Sequitur Scene: Regarding the Heavy Object C-movie:


 * 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:
 * Not Distracted by the Sexy:
 * 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, Touma makes fun of her big breasts!
 * Accelerator walks in on Yomikawa, Yoshikawa and Last Order bathing together, and merely asks why the door isn't locked.
 * Nuns Are Funny: Index, Orsola, the members of the Agnese Forces.
 * Nuns Are Spooky:
 * Nun-Too-Holy: Index,.
 * Older Than They Look:
 * Komoe-sensei looks like a young girl (and wears bunny pajamas), but her home is littered with cigarettes, beer cans, and neurology books.
 * Two lesser examples 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.
 * 108: When rumors first surfaced about the Sister clones running around, Kuroko fantasizes about having 108 all for herself.
 * 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 Badass Latin Chanting remixed to techno-pop, symbolizing the struggle between magic and science.
 * Only Sane Man: In the 15th episode, 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.
 * Perhaps the best part is that the first one he notices is Mikoto as his cousin, and he just went through the Sisters arc. So he (and the audience) are thinking "Well, I guess Mikoto has one more clone than I thought, so I guess this makes sense..." and then Index shows up as his mother.
 * 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.
 * Kakeru is both a parody and a deconstruction of this trope. He claims that he's perfectly normal, right after he.
 * Our Angels Are Different: Apparently, if you They don't seem particularly thrilled about this.
 * And there's also the
 * Our Vampires Are Different: Mentioned in Aisa' backstory. They're described as being normally indistinguishable from humans, aside from immortality and a thirst for blood. Aureolus, who studied them, also claims that they have an infinite memory capacity as a Required Secondary Power for their immortality. However, no vampires have appeared or even been hinted at since then.

P-T
"Aogami: "Haaa, you're too naive, Kami-yan. I have a wide range of acceptance when it comes to women, not just including fallen female main characters, but also includes foster sisters, foster mother, foster daughter, twins, widows, senpais, kouhais, same-class classmates, teachers, childhood-friends, ojou-samas, blondes, brunettes, brown-haired, silver-haired, long-haired, medium-length haired, short-haired, girls wearing bobby pins, wavy hair, twin-tails, pony tails, one-sided pony tails, twin braids, ahoges, curly hair, girls in sailor clothes, blazers, judougis, kyuudougis, kindergarden nurses, maids, policewomen, witches, shrine maidens, nuns, military women, secretaries, lolis, shotas, tsunderes, cheerleaders, stewardesses, waitresses, Goth girls wearing black, Goth girls wearing white, girls in China dresses, frail girls, albino girls, fantasists, girls with split personalities, queens, princesses, thigh-high socks, garter belts, girls who crossdress as guys, meganekkos, girls who wear an eye-patch, girls who wear bandages, girls in school swimsuits, one-piece swimsuits, bikinis, V-shaped bikinis, bikinis that barely cover anything, youkais, ghosts, kemonomimi girls etc. Any female is within my area of acceptance". Touma: "At least one of them isn't a female right?"."
 * Panty Shot:
 * Played straight and subverted. Soon after Touma just met her, Misaka Imouto gave him one. It's how he told her apart from Misaka, who always wears Modesty Shorts.
 * Justified as Kuroko needs to feel comfortable in order to do the calculations for her powers.
 * Averted by Mikoto and Shizuri, both whom wear a pair of shorts under their skirt to avoid becoming Ms. Fanservice.
 * Papa Wolf: In episode 20 and the 5th novel, refused to kill Last Order and stood up against Amai Ao to protect the remaining sisters although
 * Bonus points on this because the author, Kazuma Kamachi, clearly states on the Volume 22's Afterwords section that Accelerator is like a parent for Last Order.
 * People Jars: Aleister spends most of the series floating in one, upside down.
 * Person of Mass Destruction: Suffice to say that this applies to many, many characters in the series. There's every Level 5 esper, every Saint (and similar beings like Valkyries), angels, ...
 * Phantom Zone:
 * "People-clearing fields" are a spell universally used by magicians, to prevent normal people from entering an area.
 * In NT Volume 4, one of these is created
 * Playing with Fire:
 * Touma's first magic-using opponent, Stiyl, uses liberally distributed magical runes to throw 3000 °C fireballs and control an indefinitely regenerating fire demon. He's a firestarter, twisted firestarter.
 * Fiamma of the Right is an even more powerful fire user. He can conjure up a colossal Flaming Sword that can cut entire mountains.
 * Physical God: The concept of a Magic God, one who reaches the pinnacle of magic..
 * Playing with Syringes: Academy City is built around this trope. Its stated purpose is development of esper powers through experimenting on children on a massive scale. And then there's the countless experiments done in the dark side, which don't even have to pretend to be ethical...
 * Post-Modern Magik: Especially used by the Amakusa Catholics.
 * Power Born of Madness: The basis of esper abilities is being so out of touch with reality, that you can force it to behave the way you want. This is especially apparent with the seven Level 5s, the most powerful and the most delusional of them all.
 * Powered Armor: Widely used by Academy city's military and other departments.
 * 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
 * Power Limiter: has one to prevent her powers from harming her. Apparently if she released it
 * 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.
 * Power Trio:
 * The Delta Force, consisting of Touma, Motoharu and Aogami, 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 Aogami, 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, Worst and Umidori.
 * 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
 * Pretty Freeloaders: Index, and thanks to his memory-loss, Touma doesn't even know why! Later on,
 * Private Military Contractors: Trident,
 * 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 percieves 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 ever esper encountered in the series is a teenager or younger. This is justified by natural born espers being rare, and all the children in Academy City are students taking part in an esper development program. Said program only reached the point of being able to mass-produce espers fairly recently, so older espers are a rarity.
 * Psycho Lesbian: Played for Laughs with Shirai Kuroko.
 * Rant-Inducing Slight: Touma insults Aogami's infatuation with girls that fall from the sky, and he goes into an incredible Troperrific rant about what he's into that contains so much Fetish Fuel it has to be seen to be believed. Here is the original list from the novels, be prepared:

"Doctor: "You've been hospitalized twice in ten days." *beat* "Don't tell me you have a nurse fetish?""
 * Reality Ensues:
 * Touma might be the main protagonist with an Anti-Magic fist... but he's still one person without formal combat training. Against multiple opponents, people who actually know how to fight, or people with proper weapons, he's at a clear disadvantage.
 * All the time Touma has to spend on heroics cuts into his school attendance. His failing grades are a Running Gag, and actually end up becoming plot-important in NT Volume 13.
 * Mikoto tries to take down the Level 6 Shift Experiment on her own, refusing to let anyone else know about it. But even a Level 5 esper with power over electricity can't do much against a project with the resources of an entire city behind it.
 * Reality Subtext: In the Index-tan special, someone who used a voice changer asked Kaori Kanzaki about her age, her Stripperific outfit, and her voice actress' Lady Drunk antics in the launch of the anime.
 * Reality Warper: Aureolus Izzard by all appearances.
 * Recognition Failure: No one recognizes Roberto Katze, The President of the United States of America, much to his annoyance.
 * Redemption Demotion:, 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
 * 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 that her "love index" will go up if he feeds her.
 * Religion Is Magic: Whereas ESP is science.
 * Religious Bruiser: The magic side is filled with them.
 * Rescue Romance: Subverted at the beginning of the series. 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. Played straight with many other girls that Touma rescues.
 * Retcon: The space elevator Endymion, which plays a major role in the movie. Supposedly, it's been under construction for several years, yet is never mentioned in the series or it's spinoff (at least, not in instalments released before the movie).
 * Ret-Gone: The Queen of the Adriatic Sea is capable of not just physically destroying a city, but outright erasing its influence from history..
 * Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Etzali,
 * Robo Speak: Index seems to enter verbose debug mode when ever accessing the tomes.
 * Rotating Protagonist: Touma is initially the sole protagonist, but later on Accelerator and Shiage are introduced. The point of view rotates between them, with the latter two having entire volumes (e.g. 15 and 19) to themselves. That said, Touma still has the most appearances.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: The British royal family, composed of Queen Elizard, first princess Rimea, second princess Carissa and third princess Villian. They are part of a power triangle that controls Britain (the other two being the Knights and the Church).
 * 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 why he doesn't have a huge bill by now or why his parents aren't coming by Academy City more often (considering how many times he's been injured).

"Mikoto: Being a good Samaritan by protecting the delinquents? Are you a certain hot-blooded teacher?"
 * 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 Genre Savvy 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.
 * Sailor Fuku: Aisa, Seri, Saten and Uiharu's school uniforms.
 * Schrodingers Cat: Used to explain why Espers are able to use their abilities.
 * Your Mind Makes It Real: Or a variation of it.
 * Reality Warper
 * Schoolgirl Lesbians: Kuroko, who gets concerned at how much fun Mikoto seems to be having in her rivalry with Touma. Clingy Jealous Girl, too.
 * 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. Becoming a scientific esper removes a person's ability to use magic (without risking death)..
 * Science Fantasy
 * Send in the Clones: subversion, it's not
 * Serious Business: Touma's class, especially the Delta Force, eat and breathe a mix of Serious Business, What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome? and a dash of What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?. 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 break out so some members can go get some food from a local store. Someone mention Nabe? Let's all go out too eat~! Of course, the Delta Force (Touma, Aogami and Motoharu) are the worst, getting into fist fights over being called Onii-chan by Motoharu's beloved little step sister and which is better: Red, black or white bunny girls.
 * In the second SS Novel, Jeans.
 * Shadow Archetype: Kakeru is this to Touma. Both are self-proclaimed normal highschool students, with an Unwanted Harem and a special ability in their right hand. Both are compelled to save people in need. While Touma's Imagine Breaker destroys illusions, Kakeru's World Rejector drags people into their desired world.
 * Similarly, the Kamisato Faction can be considered this to the Kamijou Faction. Both are large groups comprised of magicians, espers and Badass Normals, gathered together by the actions of their eponymous figures. However, the Kamijou Faction is not nearly as close-knit, with its members frequently going their own ways, and Touma doesn't lead the group in any meaningful sense. The Kamisato Faction, on the other hand, is always at the beck and call of its leader. This reflects the key difference in that the Kamijou Faction's members all have their own lives, whereas the Kamisato Faction's consider Kakeru to be their highest priority. Also, the Kamisato Faction is comprised entirely of Kakeru and girls in love with him, while the Kamijou Faction is (relatively) more gender-neutral.
 * Shipper on Deck: Now, how do we begin with to describe? Let's name a few:
 * Index/Touma: Surprisingly, Mikoto's mother Misuzu is very well aware of this and...
 * Mikoto/Touma: ... this too.
 * Kaori/Touma: Motoharu seems to love teasing her about this... and so do her former comrades from the Amakusa Catholics.
 * 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 (who have a crush on him), they are just darn right adorable.
 * In New Testament Volume 1, Misaka Worst raises the flag when she tells Accelerator that she'd be willing to let him touch her tits and ass, if it means ruining his relationship with Last Order.
 * Shock and Awe: Mikoto has power over electricity, which she exploits in her signature railgun attack, accelerating a coin to multiple times the speed of sound.
 * Shout-Out:
 * After Touma finally loses the delinquents in the aforementioned first episode, when Mikoto tracks him down.

"Touma: Are you a certain famous doctor without a license?"
 * In one episode, Touma passes an old man and a little kid (illusions) 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:

"Step 1: Cut open the Jeans of random passerby. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Become a Valkyrie."
 * Touma gets tied down in the exact same straitjacket and mouth restraints as Doctor Hannibal Lecter in Episode 15 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! Catch Phrase.
 * 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 at least in the manga.
 * When Accelerator is trying to, 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.
 * In NT Volume 1, Shiage and Saiai watch a movie based on Heavy Object, another series by Kamachi.
 * At the start of NT Volume 7, Misaki watches a TV show based on The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village.
 * The Heavy Object movie comes up again in NT Volume 17, where Touma uses a trick he learned from it.
 * Shrouded in Myth:
 * Pierce Aogami to the fandom.
 * The #6 Level 5, Aihana Etsu. Nothing is known about them besides their name, not even their power.
 * Touma gains this reputation over the course of the series. This becomes especially apparent when he introduces himself to Shinka, who's immediately frightened and talks about how he's capable of knocking out anyone with a single punch and seduces every girl he comes across.
 * Skirt Over Slacks: Mikoto and Shizuri.
 * Slasher Smile: Accelerator's smile when he get serious or when he is enjoying a fight... or a murder.
 * Touma' smile at the end of the second arc where his arm got severed by Aureoulus Izzard, also this plus his evil laugh which scared the alchemist.
 * Social Darwinist: Academy City to a tee, in all its laws and regulations; level zeros (ordinary humans) might as well not exist, and are given just enough money to survive if they don't have a job (Touma), while level 3s, 4s and 5s are given multi-million dollar allowances, live in gated communities and ride in buses capable of taking hits from anti-tank rockets. Furthermore, crimes commited against level zeros by espers are rarely reported, even covered up by city management, to the point where some level 4s and all but one of the level 5s could take out an entire neighborhood, stick the heads of the dead on pikes and management would do nothing.
 * Sorting Algorithm Of Evil:
 * The successive members of God's Right Seat are each more powerful than the previous one, with Fiamma being the strongest of them all.
 * Othinus stands far above God's Right Seat, In her first appearance, !
 * But even Othinus can't hold a candle to.
 * Spanner in the Works: Shiage was a nobody that somehow defeated . Something Aleister did not expect.
 * Spell My Name With An "S": "Laura" Stuart's first name should actually be "Lola", but until NT Volume 18, translations have consistently had it as the former. This actually hid an important plot point:
 * Squishy Wizard: After his fire summon is negated, Stiyl goes down with a single uppercut from Touma, who to be fair has a pretty impressive punch. has no experience in streetfighting and subsequently thus goes down to a flurry of Touma's punches as well.
 * Stalker with a Crush:
 * Although at that point the crush part is debatable, Mikoto did follow Touma quite excessively, including once chasing him around for a full night.
 * There's Unabara Mitsuki, who forced Misaka to use Touma as a fake boyfriend to get him off her trail.
 * Starfish Language: Angelic language, first heard when awakens.
 * Step Three: Profit: The Jeans Slasher in the second SS volume.

"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."
 * Strange Minds Think Alike: When Mikoto accosts Touma to have him fulfil his promise to temporarily act as a servant, he does so sarcastically by getting down and fanning her from below. Upon seeing this, Kuroko is enraged at the fact that (in her opinion) he's stealing her role, and proceeds to do the same.
 * Suicide By Accelerator: Seeing how his revolution failed, Komaba Ritoku shot at
 * Super-Hero School: Subversion. Academy city doesn't teach their students to become super heroes, they just teach them how to use and improve their powers.
 * Superpower Lottery: On one end, you have people like Mikoto who worked hard to raise their rank and have intimidating powers. And then you have
 * And then there's Accelerator. He can change the velocity vectors of anything he comes into contact with, be it bullets or Elemental Powers—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 . People being frustrated with their weak powers is also the plot hook for the "Level Upper" arc in Railgun.
 * In the magic side we have,, better known as Acqua of the Back. He is special because he is blessed by God's power yet at the same time can use magic when the price of God's blessing is that they can't use magic. He can cast more powerful spells than most magicians and furthermore, he's a Saint, which gives him super strength and the ability to call upon God's powers! Heck, this man is a Walking Hax, hence his nickname "Superman".
 * And then you have Fiamma of the Right. Why? He's a bloody SNK Boss! The guy can move at godlike speed, destroy everything including a city in one move without any destructive force, and cast a gigantic 40 km Flaming Sword!
 * Touma. Yes, that Touma.
 * Surprisingly,
 * Magic Gods make all of the above look weak..
 * Kakeru is a third person with a unique ability in his right hand, known as World Rejector. He can banish anyone with conflicting desires in their heart, !
 * Super Weight: All over the place. See the main entry for details.
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: Index, rather triumphantly.

"Misaka: No way, I have no interest in that! Anyway, I'd get found out when I take off my clothes! *Beat*, during which Kuroko goes white with shock* That's not it! For gym! I meant when we're changing for gym!"
 * Sword and Sorcerer: Kaori and Stiyl play a Type 1 pair.
 * Take Off Your Clothes: Touma suggests Misaka 10032 take off her brazier when last order steals her goggles to help different her from Misaka. 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! He gets a boner.
 * In 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.
 * Tantrum Throwing: Index throws things at Touma a number of times, often because of things that weren't really his fault to begin with.
 * Teen Genius: Accelerator. What really makes him awesome (aside from being an unorthodox psychopath and grand prize winner in the Superpower Lottery) are his outstanding calculation abilities. Most notably,
 * Proven even more by the fact that it takes to make up for his calculation skills.
 * Teleporters and Transporters:
 * Kuroko can teleport herself or anything she comes in contact with as long as it weighs 137 kg. The higher concentration required relative to other types of powers prevents her from using it if she can't stay focused.
 * And there's Awaki, who's even more powerful than Kuroko as not only can she teleport objects without touching them, she can teleport objects as heavy as 4,500kg! She gets ill from teleporting herself, though.
 * In Volume 17, the spiritual item known as Skíðblaðnir is introduced, a group of suitcases which allow the transportation of objects to the other identical suitcases over a range of 100 km.
 * Tempting Fate: At the end of NT Volume 17, Touma and Index return home. After two volumes of non-stop action, they're relieved at a chance to relax. Literally 5 seconds later, NT Volume 18 begins.
 * That Came Out Wrong: When Misaka and Kuroko are discussing lingerie, and Kuroko suspects Misaka might want to buy breast pads to please Touma.

"Index:"Another one?" Aisa: "That bastard.""
 * "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 Izzard
 * Played straight with Accelerator who enjoys mocking his opponents and telling them why they'll lose.
 * The President's Daughter: Lindy Blueshake, the eight-year old estranged daughter of media mogul Olay Blueshake, and the only living heir to Blueshake's business empire.
 * 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. 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 most of Touma's opponents rely on their supernatural powers. Against opponents who are able to fight without powers, he has trouble.
 * 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.
 * 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:


 * Token Minorities- Within Necessarius, a British Anglican organization these three are the token minorities within the organization.
 * Kaori Kanzaki: Japanese, Catholic, Swordswomen and a Saint.
 * Sherry Cromwell: British, Darkskinned Blonde, Jewish and Golem summoner.
 * : Japanese, Onmyodo, Spy with questionable loyalties and.
 * And lets not talk about those
 * While most of the members of Team GROUP are Japanese,
 * There's Frenda Seivelun of 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.
 * 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
 * Took a Level in Badass:
 * Remember Kazakiri Hyouka? The useless, scaredy, Meganekko girl with big boobs? Well, by episode 24/the end of Volume 6, she In the later novels, she takes this trope Up to Eleven when !
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Traintop Battle: Touma fights Freyja on board a subway train.
 * Trying to Catch Me Fighting Dirty: Touma to a small degree. Using psychological warfare on one enemy and throwing a shovel full of dust at another, he's shown not to really care much about fighting fair.
 * On the other hand, just look at who his enemies are... no, more importantly, just look at what they have. It's less "fighting dirty" and more the use of quick thinking to negate the overpowering disadvantage he's at.
 * Tsundere:
 * Mikoto over Touma, obviously.
 * Index also displays lapses of Tsundere-ish behavior from time to time, especially when Touma ends up in the hospital without her knowing why.
 * Probably Fukiyose Seiri is one too with Touma.

U-Z
"Kaori: “Do I have to say it in front of this guy? Why is this guy so inopportune in coming here?”"
 * The Un-Reveal: Some examples along the series:
 * The sixth Level 5 esper is mentioned several times, but almost nothing is revealed about them, not even their age, gender or ability. New Testament Volume 12 confirms that their name is Etsu Aihana, but that's pretty much it.
 * 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 Motoharubumped in to the room:


 * In Vol. 22, . Only Index and Touma himself know what it was.
 * Unusual Chapter Numbers: In multi-volume story arcs, the numbering of chapters in a volume continues from the previous one. So if one volume has four chapters, the next one will start with Chapter 5.
 * NT Volume 9 (in addition to being part of a multi-volume arc) has three different versions of Chapter 6 in a row, differentiated by their English subtitles..
 * 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.
 * Kakeru is this Played for Drama. He believes that he isn't deserving of his harem as (unlike the previous examples) he really was just an ordinary student before receiving the power of World Rejector.
 * Unwitting Pawn:
 * The Pope.
 * Touma is used by everyone for whatever reason, and never realizes it until it's too late.
 * In New Testament Volume 3, the GREMLIN members that the heroes face are themselves unwitting pawns
 * The ending of NT Volume 10 reveals that even was no more than a pawn for.
 * Urban Fantasy
 * 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 district to go 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 district 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-Out's lived. It comes to no surprise why the city's only cemetery and correctional facility is also located there.
 * Unknown Rival:
 * Mikoto hounds Touma on a regular basis trying to get him to fight seriously with her, having misinterpreted his mysterious ability to negate her lightning as a sign of some incredible power that he's holding back. His nonchalance toward her and her otherwise remarkable power is a blow to her pride as one of the strongest espers in the city. And then she's really unknown after Touma's memory is erased and he can't even remember their original meeting.
 * Although not really focused on, Kuroko has a small rivalry with Touma over her Onee-Sama's affections. He has no idea about this, and even if he did his response would probably be along the lines of 'Wait, what?'
 * Verbal Tic: Several characters have unique ways of speaking.
 * All of the Sisters narrate their actions after they say something. Last Order takes this further, as she says the "said Misaka" portion of her narration twice.
 * Komoe-sensei has the ever-recognizable -desu! Results from her always speaking in a formal dialect.
 * Waif Fu: Kuroko, Awaki, several other female characters.
 * Wager Slave: Touma and Mikoto bet on who's school will win the sports meet, with this as the punishment. Mikoto eventually makes him go on a date with her.
 * The Walls Have Eyes: Sherry can literally invoke this, by turning parts of a wall into eyes to gather information.
 * Webcomic Time: The series has an incredibly short timespan. It begins in late July, and by New Testament Volume 18 (40 main series volumes and 13 years later) it's December 11.
 * We Have Reserves: The Sisters. See For Science for details.
 * Also, 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.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everyone, even Accelerator, to the point that Touma had to give a punch to the face, for almost all of them.
 * Wetware Body: Index's body is possessed by an AI of sorts some of the time. It's pretty competent really.
 * Wham! Line:
 * "Conclusion: .”
 * “Begin the invasion. I now have Curtana Original, the sword that decides the king, within my grasp. This makes me,, 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 . We do not wish to hold power that can easily influence the flow of events of an entire nation, especially . 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. ."
 * "These small fights are such a pain. I think I'll just.
 * When All You Have Is The Ability To Cancel Magic or Esper Powers: 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.
 * Something with which he is actually decent. Sometimes he has to bounce something that makes no sense off Index (here's looking at you, Spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli), but he's good at pulling apart a magician's tricks on his own after seeing it a few times.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Accelerator. The manga explains that his albino appearance and androgynous physique are due to his power passively reflecting UV rays, eliminating his body's need for pigmentation and making it more difficult to produce certain hormones.
 * Wife-Basher Basher: Kamijou Touma is a subversion of this trope: even though he is more than willing to hit a woman if she is willing to cause the death of innocent millions to further her own selfish agendas, he will hunt you down like a dog and kick you to the middle of next week if you harm helpless and nice girls; just ask Accelerator, the murderer of the gentle and innocent clone-sisters of Misaka Mikoto.
 * The Wiki Rule: Toaru Majutsu no Index Wiki
 * Wild Card:
 * Tsuchimikado Motoharu — self-professed liar — plays at this; at the end of the arc where his secret identity is revealed, he claims to be an agent, or maybe a double agent, or maybe a double double agent, etc... for the Church or Academy City. Conveniently, his esper power is slow regeneration, thus allowing him to survive the bloody backlash that accompanies an esper using magic.
 * Touma himself very loosely, if seen from the side of Academy City. One moment fighting in their best intrests, and the next against them, depending on what he thinks is right.
 * Wolverine Publicity: Uiharu and Accelerator in season 2 OP and ED. Mikoto in the official artwork.
 * The Worf Effect:
 * In Volumes 16 and 18, Kaori is at a disadvantage against the new villain, being immediately defeated in the latter.
 * The switches between being on the giving and the receiving end of this trope. When first introduced in Volume 22, . In its next appearance,  crushes it easily, even claiming that it wasn't much. When it appears in the fight against . And against, it's easily crushed again.
 * World of Badass
 * 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.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: Aleister and Lola play this with each other, incorporating new elements into their plans as they appear.
 * You Leave Her Alone! Invoked by Touma as challenges the invincible heartless psychopath Accelerator to stop him from murdering yet another Misaka sister, armed with nothing but bravery, kindness and a mean right jab.
 * X Meets Y: X-Men meets Angels & Demons.
 * Yaoi Fangirl: Tsuchimikado Maika, the Maid, who asks Mikoto to pickup some Boys Love manga for her. Except it isn't for her, it's for her friend, she's more interested in Brother-Sister Incest manga, which is kinda funny since her brother...
 * Younger Than They Look: See Artistic Age.
 * Your Mind Makes It Real: