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I am slowly coming to the end of watching "Toaru Majutsu no Index" anime.
There are a few anime series related to that world:

  * Toaru Majutsu no Index
  * Toaru Majutsu no Index II
  * Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
  * Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S

and some movies. But I am not sure in what order I should watch them. Someone
told me that "Railgun" came after "Majutsu no Index" - should I watch
"Railgun" first then, or the second season of "Index"? Are there some things
that I can miss if I watch them in the wrong order, like not knowing
characters that were already introduced?

And if it is Railgun I should watch second, should I watch "Toaru Majutsu no
Index II" afterwards, or "Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S"? Or is it that it really
doesn't matter and I can watch both of the "Toaru Majutsu no Index" series
before the two "Toaru Kagaku no Railgun" series?


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2014-07-06T10:31:04.773
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2014-12-20T19:04:49.997
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a-certain-magical-index a-certain-scientific-railgun
Watching order for "Toaru Majutsu no Index" and related anime


Having just watched them out of order (accidentally), I highly recommend
watching them by order of release date, including the movie.

The original and spin-off series were produced by the same company. (The same
team as well I believe) and never aired at the same time.

This makes the recommended order:

  1. Index season 1
  2. Railgun season 1
  3. Index season 2
  4. Index movie
  5. Railgun season 2 (S)
  6. Index season 3
  7. Accelerator season 1
  8. Railgun season 3

Enjoy!


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2014-07-06T17:44:43.437
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The "canonical" order in which to watch Raildex (i.e. production order) is
correctly given in [Builder_K's
answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/11675/1908).

* * *

However, there are alternate viewing orders that are also feasible, since
Index and Railgun are only loosely coupled to one another. Persons who enjoy
Railgun but not Index might wish to watch in the following order:

  1. Index season 1 (episodes 1-9, i.e. to the end of the Deep Blood arc)
  2. Railgun season 1 (all episodes)
  3. Railgun season 2 (all episodes)

Index season 1 up through the Deep Blood arc has almost nothing to do with
what happens in Railgun through the end of season 2, aside from

> Index destroying Tree Diagram

but I would suggest watching it anyway to get a feel for the Raildex universe.
If you find Index too abominable to bear with, just drop it and start at
episode 1 of Railgun season 1 - you won't have missed out on much.

If after finishing Railgun season 2, you want to continue with Index, pick
Index season 1 back up wherever you left off; and then watch Index season 2
and the Index movie.

* * *

If you like Index but not Railgun, do the following:

  1. Index season 1 (all episodes)
  2. Index season 2 (all episodes)
  3. Index movie

The Index side of things is not dependent on Railgun in any significant way
(Saten's first appearance outside Railgun is, I believe, in the movie, but
nothing else comes to mind), so you don't need to watch any of Railgun for
things to make sense.


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[User /u/urban287 on reddit proposes an interesting non-conventional viewing
order for watching the entire Raildex
series](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/2mf5hg/meta_i_need_help_with_a_wiki_page_im_setting_up/cm3rir5):

  1. Railgun season 1
  2. Railgun season 2
  3. Index season 1
  4. Index season 2
  5. Index movie

His reasoning is rather compelling:

> Watching the Sister's Arc first in Index absolutely ruins the emotional
> impact you get from seeing it from Misaka's perspective while providing
> absolutely no gain. The Sister's Arc is 4 episodes in Index and 14 in
> Railgun S as such the Railgun S version's enjoyment should _clearly_ take
> priority, especially considering the fact that it is the _primary_ arc of
> the entire Railgun series (and arguably the best arc of the _entire_ show).
>
> [...]
>
> The first season of Index is the weakest entry to the series. Index season
> one is written pretty badly. It does a horrible job explaining the world and
> what is going on.

Raildex is a situation where the conventional wisdom of "watch it in
production order" kind of breaks down because there are actually two parallel
productions involved. Since this watching order _does_ still preserve
production order within each individual production (i.e. Index and Railgun), I
think it works.

If you do watch the series in this order, note that episodes 10-14 of Index
season 1 are basically a condensed, crappier version of episodes 2-16 of
Railgun season 2. It'll be a bit of a slog to get through, but you should do
it anyway, because the Index version shows events from a different character's
perspective (Touma's).


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answer


This is how i came up with the watch order for "Toaru Majutsu no Index" whole
seires:

**Index Season 1** Oct 5, 2008 to Mar 19, 2009  
Index tan 2009

**Railgun Season 1** Oct 3, 2009 to Mar 20, 2010  
MMR + 2 OVA

**Index Season 2**. Oct 8, 2010 to Apr 1, 2011  
Index tan s2 2011  
Index Movie Feb 2013 + OVA

**Railgun Season 2** Apr 12, 2013 to Sep 27, 2013  
MMR S2 + 1 OVA

**Index Season 3** Oct 5, 2018 to Apr 5, 2019  
Index tan s3 2018 to 2019

**Upcoming** Railgun Season 3 and Accelerator Series


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