A Certain Magical Index‘s big return for its much-anticipated third season was one of the highlights of the Fall 2018 anime season, and while characters have returned in tact fans have noticed one major change.
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Toma Kamijo’s Imagine Breaker has been a key part of the series since it began, but the third season has changed the way it sounds. You can hear it in this clip captured by @Kohilenn on Twitter.
Wow, they changed the Imagine Breaker sound in Index 3; I still think JC Staff is the lord of anime sound design 👌
— Meekanon (@Kohilenn) October 6, 2018
sounds like a star wars speeder bike tho lol pic.twitter.com/KzzAJzRW7N
Toma’s Imagine Breaker puts him on a level playing field with the many spellcaster and scientific foes he often comes across. Although he has no Esper talent himself, his Imagine Breaker ability in his right hand allows him to cancel out any magic of science attack (so far, anyway). In the series, it’s often signified with a very distinguishing noise which has been altered for the third season of the series.
It’s first heard in the season three premiere, when Mikoto uses her electric abilities to shock Toma after a hilarious misunderstanding (as is often the case with this series) and he Imagine Breaks it as a repsonse. As Twitter user @Kohilenn the new sound is significantly different than from the first two seasons of the series (produced seven years ago), and jokes that it even sounds like a vehicle out of Star Wars. But thankfully this seems to be the only major change of the third season so far, as the first two episodes jump right back into the story shortly after the events of season two.
A Certain Magical Index is set in a world where supernatural abilities are commonplace and follows Toma Kamijo who has the ability to negate the powers of others. However, when Toma meets a mysterious girl, Index, who’s on the run from the church, Toma discovers the true dangers of society’s super-powered state. The first season of the anime was released in 2008 while a second was released in 2010.
The action fantasy is based on the light novel series published under the Dengeki Bunko imprint between 2004 and 2010. In addition to the two anime TV seasons, the manga inspired a full-length movie in 2013. It also inspired a spin-off manga, A Certain Scientific Railgun, which itself inspired an OVA and two anime TV series. The series can currently be found streaming on Crunchyroll and FunimationNOW.
