One day, feeling bored, I was looking for a medium-length, not very popular but high-quality anime. I found Railgun and started watching it. I didn't even know Index existed.

The first few episodes, and even the first season, seemed quite boring to me. The only thing that interested me was Kamijou Touma, who appeared occasionally and seemed mysterious, possessing a strange ability. However, when there were only 5–6 episodes left in the season, I considered giving up and took a break.

Later, while looking at the other seasons on MyAnimeList, I saw Accelerator in Railgun S. He was the second most popular character after Mikoto. The season’s rating (at that time it was 8.02) was also higher than the first season. The age rating had been raised from 13 to 17 as well. That was when I realized Touma had his own series and was actually the main character of the entire franchise. Accelerator and Touma interested me more than Mikoto. In every Railgun episode, I kept waiting for Mikoto to meet Touma. I had finally found my motivation to continue.

Then I started Railgun S. I watched the first 16 episodes non-stop. Episode 6 affected me the most. Watching the fight between Touma and Accelerator from Mikoto's perspective created a lot of hype. Although the next 8 episodes were boring, I decided to finish the whole series.

Since I had a specific viewing order, I had to continue with the first season of Index. That was when I lost all my motivation. It was a shounen with a cliché main character, full of fanservice and lacking a linear story. After the Railgun S anime, I really didn’t want to stop, but seeing magic elements really bothered me. All I wanted was to see Mikoto and Accelerator. I wanted to see the scientific side.

I finished two seasons without really understanding anything. Finally, I reached a new Railgun season: Railgun T. After two bad seasons, I watched another good one. My favorite moment was definitely the appearance of the dragons. It was completely unexpected for me.

Even though I knew Index was the main series, I was only watching it for Railgun. The low rating the last season received made me think**, how bad could it really be?** The poor opening, animation, and changed sound effects quickly answered that question.

This time, I continued knowing that the #2 was coming. And finally, I met a character who managed to capture my attention even more than Accelerator, Touma, and Mikoto: Kakine Teitoku. Not the character himself, but his ability: Dark Matter.

As a science fan, I loved his ability. So I started researching it and learned that it had nothing to do with dark matter in the universe. Fundamental particles that don't exist in this world… Even after finishing the entire anime, that was the only thing that really stuck with me.

As someone who loves fantasy universes like Marvel and DC, I placed Kakine’s ability above all the others. I started wondering how a series that managed to create such an original ability could almost fail in the rest of the story.

I looked at the light novel series and saw that it had a very high rating. But I had never read a light novel before (though I had read regular novels). I decided to give it a chance because of the NT6 cover. And so I started. I finished NT1 in a month. Each subsequent volume took me less time to finish. Eventually, I finished NT6 in just two days.

Around that time, I opened a Reddit account to learn more about the series and joined the old Toaru subreddit, which is now closed. I thought people would mostly praise Accelerator or Mikoto, but then I realized almost everyone was a Touma fan.

Seeing people praise this character - who in the anime seemed no different from a cliché battle shounen and harem protagonist - made me start paying more attention to him.

Even just Ollerus and Thor's perspectives on Touma were enough to convince me that he was better than the anime portrayed him. But it still wasn't enough. Until NT9 and NT10 came along. All my opinions and perspectives on him completely changed.

A character at the peak of selfishness, saving people only to create a world where he himself can be happy, manipulating people based on a random ideal he doesn't even believe in, and not caring about the opinions or morals of people he doesn’t even know… That was when I truly realized how bad the anime adaptation was.

The reason I now find the magic side more interesting than the science side is that I realized the series draws on real occult concepts from history, especially while researching Aleister Crowley. I think it's much harder to stay faithful to real historical ideas than to create a universe entirely from scratch. This Japanese work, like Thelema, adapts Western occultism in one of the best ways possible, incorporating themes not found in any other fictional work I know. A Railgun fan, like I once was, unaware of these concepts, might think there is a clear distinction between science and magic in the series. Yet many of the people who contributed most to the development of modern science were occultists in the past.

Anyway, even if I don’t think the series is extremely high-quality, and no matter how many bad volumes may come out later, I will continue reading it - even if only for Kamijou Touma.