Toaru Majutsu no Index Gaiden: Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator

This one of the my most awaited manga from the kagaku series and when I first read it, well it never fails to amuse me in every bit of time I spend reading it not just because I'm a big fan of accelerator itself but this one's really awesome.

first lets begin with the characters, for that Accelerator is the main Protagonist in this manga unlike the 1st to aru majutsu series where Accelerator played as the antagonist but because of last order he became the protagonist of his own story and that what makes the awesome character of this manga.

The story is pure awesomeness and it literary has no dull moment not including the part where last orders cuteness is presented.

This manga definitely make you excited every time you read every chapter.

The only reason to read this spin-off is if you are desperate for a few chapters of Accelerator being badass and Last Order being cute. Otherwise, this series is a mess that tramples over existing ideas from the Toaru series and introduces mostly dissapointing, underdeveloped new ideas.

The new villainous organizations are very one note and use incredibly powerful machinery with no explanation in a similar vein to the anime filler arcs of Railgun. The new support characters seem endearing during the calm moments at the beginning of each arc, but they hardly get any weighty development as you might have come to expect from reading the Index light novels.

This series also employs twists that generate artificial shock value despite not impacting the story in any meaningful way. Existing groups such as Anti-Skill are treated as disposable in stark contrast to how they were portrayed in Index volume 6, which occurs in the same time frame as the events of Accelerator. Large chunks of Academy City were also wiped out nonchalantly making this spin-off less believable in the universe.

The first arc of this manga is less guilty of all these faults compared to the second, but there is still not too much incentive to read it, as the anime adaptation of the first arc did an good job of playing up the exciting parts, leaving the manga less desirable to experience compared to the anime, which is rare for the Toaru series. The second arc has attrocious pacing and is written worse in every other aspect, making it hard to reccomend.

This spin-off has zero impact on the rest of Index, and it also has staggeringly little in the way of development for Accelerator and Last Order. Overall, watching the anime adaptation will give all the value that this story has to offer. Only those desperate for more Index content need to read this, as this manga was about as enjoyable as the last arc of Shokugeki no Soma.

(Warning: Some light spoilers ahead)
Accelerator is great, the manga is not… yet. At least, its potential haven’t really been fully realised since there’s so few chapters of it out so far (as of this writing, 27 chapters have been translated into Chinese.).

Story-wise, it is technically still in its first arc. Yeah, the story pacing is really, really drawn out. And interestingly enough, there is magic introduced into a manga that was supposedly about the really dark parts of Academy City, since that is what Accelerator is associated with. It takes place right after Accelerator gets nerfed in the novels. (So really, you shouldn’t be reading this unless you at least know the Raildex early storyline since it starts off after the 5th novel, or aka after episode 20 in the first season of the Index anime.)

But even while nerfed, Accelerator is still obviously the most badass powerful guy around, so he easily finishes off his opponents once he appears on the scene. It kind of takes the tension out of his battles. But it makes up for it by bringing in enemies that corner and threaten everyone else except Accelerator (the he’s-safe-but-everyone-else-isn’t idea), mostly using bombastic machines. And by bombastic machines I mean your giant robot machines that are just cool to see on paper.

This leads to another problem in the manga: The artist wishes to show off the machines so much that they take up too much screen time. Very often, there would be huge picture spreads of the machines gearing up or firing stuff at the characters and whatnot, causing devastating damage that is also given full picture spreads. Like multiple pages of just showing what the scene looked like, and sometimes even after all the pictures I still feel confused over what was happening. It contributes to the slow plot progression, and readers who prefer following the storyline instead of marvelling at the ‘beauty’ of the destruction, would end up feeling bored and think that the chapter was far too short. It’s like the author is trying to cover up for a lack of plot to progress through by filling up the pages with just pictures.
But if you like to go into the nitty gritty details of how the robot moves, probably to draw fanart of, the manga’s presentation style may be appealing to you since it gives very detailed views of the robots.

While I sound rather irritated about the manga, it’s actually quite decent when you put aside the amateurish-looking art and the excessive focus on the machines. There are new, unique characters introduced into the manga that later on has its repercussions in other parts of the franchise. (Although they still get their ass kicked so bad by Accelerator.) The main pull of the manga as of now is really just for Accelerator… who doesn’t really appear a lot to be honest. That new mage character Estelle does take up substantial screen time instead, and offers a different perspective on the relationship between magic and science. There is some fanservice (like full blown naked women) in the manga as well, but it logically makes sense in the plot so it’s fine.

So as for now, it’s still too early to tell. It’s also the mangaka’s debut piece, so cut him some slack, and it’ll be quite enjoyable to read through after filtering through the flaws. It’s also been improving exponentially over time with the art and pacing, so only time will tell if it’ll really become a great side-story that value-adds to the franchise.