>>280388320
>If this was the case i'd expect an Astral Buddy anime season over ITEM, or hell Mental Out itself but i'm not sure how close the current arc is to finishing....
That's very easy, that's because they're aiming to expand their catalogue of marketable character by trying to make ITEM girls the next Railgun girls, just like Accel the anime was a thing back with project Index or whatever it was called. There's no need to do that with MO or AB because Misaki's already in Railgun and she's already popular, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was nect in line. Also, I like the ITEM manga but I don't think it's going to work, they're making the same mistake rushing an adaptation just like they did with the aforementioned Accelerator spinoff.

>Beyond that Index not getting a new season when even a half baked season does pretty decent numbers is odd
My guess is that they're testing the waters with Railgun to see if the interest is still there before new Index anime can happen, since it's the safest bet considering Railgun T's performance over Index III. They just have to be cautious this time because as stupid as the people managing the franchise have shown themselves to be, they know for a fact that they lost a lot of the fanbase's good will with Index specifically over the last few years.