Magister Negi Magi: Much Better Than It's Original Premise

[Scrooge McDuck]

At first, I thought that Mahou Sensei Negima is nothing more than another Ken Akamatsu (AI ga Tomaranai!, Love Hina)-style "boy surrounded by girls" type comic with a little bit of magic involved. The first two volumes seemed to confirm my early judgement, after all.

However, after I read further I noticed some elements that are making it a rather more interesting material to read. At the end of the Kyoto Arc in Volume Seven, I deemed it worthy of closer inspection.

Then came the Tournament Arc which took me by surprise; I never even imagined that Ken Akamatsu would be capable of making such good shounen-style fights with such involved plot.

Finally, the Chao Arc made me unable to stop myself from reading further and after its conclusion at Chapter 161 I was blown away. I immediately jumped up and shouted unintelligible strings of words such as "WTOMGthisisthebestcomiceveralthoughimaybeexaggeratingalittlebit!" which resulted in me being kicked out of my College Library.


I want to give a more detailed review, but first I am curious of public opinion about this particular comic series.
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[Cedric]

As people in Tinto and our ambassadors can attest to, I am the biggest fan of this series.

You gave a very good impression of the timeline. The first two volumes are meant as an introduction of the series. we're introduced to Negi Springfield, the teachers, and all the girls in his class. Negi and the girls represent the main characters of this story. But because there are so many girls, you're going to get the usual fanservice Akamatsu is known for.

But the true nature of this anime starts at the third volume as you said. This is when Negi gets in his first true fight. The manga gets very action oriented from there. There will be spurts of fanservice, but they are all overshadowed by the conflicts and battles.


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Negi Springfield is my favorite character. My Suikox character (when I was still writing role-play) was based partly on Negi. That link gives a very good description of his character, but I'll summarize. He is the 10 year old protagonist of Mahou Sensei Negima, and he is in charge of teaching English to his class of 31 teenage girls.

Negi's true purpose in society is a Mage. Mages secretly live within the human population (a la Harry Potter) and assist humanity while keeping their arts a secret.

He strives to be like his father who rescued him when he was a boy (despite being missing for years and everyone was under the impression that he died). But this is harder than one believes because Negi is usually at the center of events within the magic and human world. He has to use his magic to get out of dangerous situations.

It's interesting to note that he's gone through several parallels with my character on this board. When he decided to become a magic swordsman and supplemented his magic attacks with Chinese Kenpo, I class changed into a Ranger. As a matter of fact, my duel tournament description was an exact replica of Negi's old battle attire.

Nowadays, he wears a similar white cloak as his father did. This made him look a lot more like a cleric rather than a magic swordsman. Shortly after that I class changed into a cleric.


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Actually, I like all the characters in Negima. Each girl follows a typical anime stereotype, but this has led them all to be experts in the same arts as some of our regiment types. There's a vampire, gunner, ninja, knight, samurai, robot, ghost, bookworm (strategist), mage, and many other types this site doesn't have yet.

Evangeline McDowell, the vampire in this anime even pulled off a Sonnenblumen. She was dealt a lethal blow, but because she's made out to be incredibly powerful in this anime, she regenerated (Vampire's ability apparently) and totally destroyed the foe that tried to kill her. Sucks to be you, Fate/Nitneamuy.

Because of the similarities between some aspects of Suikoden and Suikox to Negima, I've become fond of the series and their characters as a whole. For anyone that enjoys the fantasy side of this board's game combined with some light teardrop humor, this series is for you.
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[Aurelien]

I first got introduced to the series when a friend of mine borrowed the volume 1 of the manga from the library. I thought it was funny and I contacted Ced (because I knew he is a fanboy lol) to ask for more information about it. Ever since, I was hooked up too.

To be honest with you, at first I really thought that it was just a perverted kind of manga. It wasn't really my thing, but it was very funny that I was willing to keep on following the series. However, as time went by, just like Scrooge and Ced, I got hooked up by the story. I think the story is very very deep (seriously, I can only think a few other mangas that have as much text as Negima)

Though the story is really deep, I think what I'm really interested in is the relationship between the characters. Not the romantic side, but the general relationship between them. At first, I was expecting that Negi would obviously gathered everyone's support and stuff. But to see that there are a few of the girls who are on the "opposite side" made things really interesting. Reading how Mana fought Ku Fei in the duel tournament was awesome. Then Mana vs Kaede's battle was just equally awesome though it was nowhere near as thorough.

The development of the characters was definitely a good thing. Obviously with such a huge cast, I don't expect everyone to get big development. However, I'm very pleased with how the majority of the characters have got their big character development. Hopefully those who haven't (Zazie, the 3 cheerleaders, AKIRA!!! and maybe some others) would get theirs in the near future. Mini-development arc would be a good filler after wrapping up Chao's arc.

I'm especially impressed with Ku Fei as a character. We were introduced to her as the Yellow Baka Ranger, then as the great Chinese martial artist, and mainly just her goofing around (remember her first training with Negi with the wooden dolls and all that? lol that was very funny) and all that. However, the Chao's arc showed a much more sensitive and vulnarable side of Ku Fei that made me like her even more. She is just simply awesome.

However, this is not to say that she's my fave character. To be honest, I don't think I'd be able to pick 1 favorite character out of this series. In fact, I doubt that I'd even be able to pick like Top 5. Possibly, the smallest number would probably be Top 10 for me.

I would definitely recommend people to have a read if they don't mind the constant semi-nudity/perverted-bit involved. I'm sometimes sad that the light-hearted bit (perverted side) is mixed with the heavy bit (the depth of the story) because that can turn those who only like one or the other away from the series. Those who like Ecchi stuff would not enjoy the tons of text to read, and those who like deep story might not be comfortable looking at the perverted side. I guess I'm lucky that I'm able to enjoy both, though I have to be honest that I think I've kind of ignored the ecchi part for quite some time and far more interested to the story up to the point that sometimes I cursed the unnecessary fan-service moments.
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Cedric]

Hah. Hey, by the definition of the term, that would make you one too, buddy. I'm glad to see you stuck with the series to its entirety.

I didn't know that about Ku Fei. I figure she would get a heavy part in the Chao Arc because she's like her best friend and all. But the place where I get my translated scans and others are pretty slow with the translation. I've pretty much been waiting for the manga to catch up now. The last chapter that was scanned was the beginning of Kaede and Mana's fight. Anything else that happens after that is news to me.

Edit: And just as I post this, I find out the site I visit just did a massive upload and now they have everything to chapter 159! Rejoice!

I look forward to seeing her character developed. I didn't like the fact that she was portrayed to be a strong, dumb fighter with no personality. These last few volumes really helped her image.

As for the other characters, I wouldn't worry about them not getting time in the spotlight. We're nowhere close to answering many of the questions in the series, so I expect it to last at least 10 more volumes. The final number of volumes may even correspond to the number of people in the class including Negi.


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Have you two heard about "Negima!? NEO"? It's a manga counterpart to the Negima!? anime. It's supposed to be aimed at younger kids and it's published by the same company who owns Shounen Magazine, in which Akamatsu's version is published.

It's drawn by a doujin artist, who has previously released doujin works of Negima (It's not a doujin work, though). They change parts of the storyline, but I figure little kids won't care about that. Here are the first two chapters. Mind you, we're not going to like it as much because it is a kiddie version of what we currently read. But hey, you might want to expose the series to some young people.

The fact that they're releasing a manga version of Negima!? hints to me that they're trying to turn it into another big shounen franchise. I wonder if they're trying to amass the same type of overall popularity as Love Hina, for this series.
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[Scrooge McDuck]

The Aquastar Scanslation Team have translated the series up to Chapter 159. Personally I think they are the best Mahou Sensei Negima translation team.


I agree with Aurelien that the story is pretty deep even compared to most of the standard shounen-fighting comics, especially in Chao Arc. I think that this is partly because not like the standard happy-go-lucky, airheaded main characters of most fighting comics, Negi is a person who think much. I also like how the comic brought forth issues of leadership and ideologies of opposing forces without being redundant or dictating.

I love the "Evangeline Consultation Chapter" the night before the third day of the festival, the pseudo-philosophical debate between Negi and Yue about "doing the right thing" and also the speech Chao made when asked about her past in Chapter 161. I am unable explain it accurately but I feel them as coming off as natural and classy; they did not explain the situation blatantly but it had much substance.


My only fear is that Chao Arc was so good, the awesomeness could only be going down from there.


Hmm... I heard that in Negima!? there are three versions of Pactio Cards. Is it true?
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[Fudozukushi]

Yeah in the Negima!? series two anime there's a chance of getting 1 of three Pactio cards when you activate a contract.

Suka-Joke and worthless
Cosplay
Rare

Heh
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[Aurelien]

Hello, my name is Aurelien, and I'm a Negimaholic.

Well both sites you guys used are pretty much one and the same. That German site that Ced used is simply the "read online page by page" version of what Aquastar has translated. Whereas the Aquastar official website has the .zip file version in case you're using some manga reader software instead to read the manga. Of course Aquastar also has mIRC channel that would allow you to download their releases early as well.

As far as the Negima NEO! Is concerned, I somehow have a feeling that it's going to be more like what happened in the anime. The first chapter was definitely new, but the second chapter seemed to be similar to the early part of the anime (mind you that I don't really follow the anime, I think the graphics is really really ugly and the voice acting didn't work for me) like how Negi met Asuna. But I could be wrong anyways. ^^;;

I have no idea about the three pactio cards. I'm guessing that 1 is the failed one (the one with silly funny picture), and another 1 is the proper one. No idea what the third one would be. But I don't even know what Negima!? is. Is it the anime?

Oh Fudo, you slipped a post while I was writing. Is ther Rare one the proper one? And what's the cosplay one about?
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Fudozukushi]

Rare is the strongest of the cards and in Asuna and Setsuna's case makes them look like their End of Mahorafest battle outfits slightly.

Cosplay just gives them some sort of normal power, for Asuna and Nodoka it's like their normal Harisen and Mind-reader books, just with a slightly altered outfit.
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Pizza Hut supports the rebellion!