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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?

senshin
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Kusavil
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  • [Possible duplicate](http://anime.stackexchange.com/q/2675/49) – JNat Jul 06 '14 at 13:46
  • @JNat I'd say that one is looking for the connections between the two whereas the other is looking explicitly for a view order - the second answer to that question somewhat answers this, but I expect there's a proper 'canonical' answer to this question and having references (e.g. original broadcast order) wouldn't hurt. – Steven Stadnicki Jul 06 '14 at 16:32
  • In the question @JNat linked Krazer does indicate when Railgun starts and when abouts in Railgun Index starts, however both answers in that question doesn't indicate the viewing order of the 2nd seasons or the Movie – Memor-X Jul 06 '14 at 22:19
  • In universe chronology-wise for the the Accelerator series falls in September (see chapter 5 of the Accelerator manga). Same month as the Tree Diagram Remnant arc and the start of the Kazakiri Hyouka arc. – кяαzєя Apr 11 '19 at 05:37

4 Answers4

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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!

Shane John Paul
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Kent
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  • Would appreciate an update on this now that more seasons are out. – Lazar Ljubenović Feb 23 '19 at 17:05
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    Now that we know the release order, i.e. Accelerator was released and Railgun T (3rd season) is being aired, plus some of characters from Accelerator appear later in Railgun T, I suppose we can safely assume that watching these in release order is fine :-) [adding this comment as looks like it became quite popular question here] – Kusavil Aug 13 '20 at 01:01
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The "canonical" order in which to watch Raildex (i.e. production order) is correctly given in Builder_K's answer.

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.

Community
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senshin
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User /u/urban287 on reddit proposes an interesting non-conventional viewing order for watching the entire Raildex series:

  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).

Jason Sparc
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senshin
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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

Muhammad Nabeel
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