A Certain Magical Index

とある魔術の禁書目録（インデクス）

by Kamachi Kazuma
published by Dengeki Bunko

Kamijou Touma is a student in a city of schools, where the developement of psychic abilities is just part of the curriculum. While he is a level 0 (powerless), his right hand contains the undetectable power Imagine Breaker, which negates any and all supernatural powers -- psychic, magical, or divine.

One day he finds a young Anglican Nun lying across the railing of his dorm room's veranda -- her name is Index Librorum Prohibitorum, and her photographic memory has recorded the entire 13,000 forbidden magical texts. She's being chased by evil Magicians, but is protected by the Walking Church, her nun's robes, made from a replica of the Shroud of Turin. Touma's Imagine Breaker destroys those robes, and before he knows it, he's fighting the evil magicians, trying to save her...

Some people seem to be sneering that this is an anime rather than a novel, but it's too much fun for me to care. I'm perfectly happy to overlook characters who disappear halfway through, some pathos I didn't really buy, and the fact that the author's stated plan to make magic work like actual, historical magicians have claimed it does has nonetheless resulted in anime style splodo, because this book is a blast. Very funny, a little nerdy, but manages to make that work for him (I've never seen anyone manage to make speech quirks quite this endearing. Index's habit of adding "ka mo" or "Desu yo?" to the ends of sentences is pretty catchy.) The plot twists are pretty satisfying, and surprising.
Of course, I ran out and bought the later volumes about halfway through the first chapter when he dropped a Jojo's reference, because I've learned by now that any novel author who's a Jojo's fan is probably worth reading.

easternstandard