10-year-old Negi Springfield is a wizard-in-training, and needs only to pass one more test in order to become a Master Wizard. Unfortunately, his final task is a bizarre one—to become a English teacher at an all-females boarding school. As soon as he arrives, he completely embarrasses one of his students, Asuna Kagurazaka, and replaces the teacher she loves, which garners her hatred. To make matters worse, Asuna learns that Negi is a wizard, and promises to tell unless he helps her out. But unfortunately, circumstances force them to work together to do many things, from fighting evil wizards to helping the class pass their final exam, with a lot of humor, magic, and romances thrown in.
(Source: ANN, edited)
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Comentários
blackdash
Before I start this review, take into consideration that when I watched this, I did not read a single chapter of the manga yet. This was also the first anime I was hooked on. During my last vacation to America, I got bored. So bored that I resorted to waching anime in desperation. When I first heard about Mahou Sensei Negima, I decided to give it a shot and watch it. I was surprised at what I had stumbled upon. The story was very original. I'd never expect a 10 year old teacher who teaches in an all girl's school. To make thingsmore interesting, he's also a magician. To make things spicier, the class he teaches is full of strange and interesting people such as a vampire, a person from the future, a robot etc. The combination of all these weird, crazy and wacky ideas makes the series really interesting to watch.
Now the animation is the series' weakest point. Everything looks like it was colored with watercolor. Everything looked kinda pale and lightish is hue. Also, the characters could have been drawn a lot better.
The music is where the series really shines. The opening and ending themes are really cute and are very addicting to listen to. 4 months after watching Mahou Sensei Negima, I'm still not bored of the songs.
The series also has the best bgms I have ever heard. They are composed so well that they could rival Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Character development was good. The relationship Negi had with some of his students was shown pretty well. My only problem was some of the students in Negi's class were given so little airtime that I couldn't remember who they were much less thier names. Well with a class of 31, it's obvious this problem could not be avoided.
Personally, I enjoyed Mahou Sensei Negima. It was fun and entertaining to watch and it took away most of my boredom. It even made me shed a tear or two. But after reading part of the manga, I can say that the manga totally owns the series XD.
Lindle
Negima, also known as Mahou Sensei Negima, Negima Magister Magi Negi and numerous other titles, is based on a long-running manga by Ken Akamatsu, best known for the archetype-setting harem series Love Hina. Love Hina was adapted by Xebec, and subjected to a not-particularly-great adaptation. Negima is almost the same in that respect, except that rather than a not-particularly-great adaptation, here we are presented with an appalling one. For starters, this series came out several years sooner than it should have done. The manga is, to this day, still running, and promises to be around 40-50 volumes in length by its completion. This, however, wasmade when they were still only few volumes in. When Akamatsu was going to make this series, he wanted to make a Shonen manga, but was forced to make a harem manga in an attempt to repeat the success of Love Hina. As a result, he kicked off with a blatant harem setup, and gradually shifted away to becoming a Shonen series instead. In the process, it eventually became something of a Shonen manga for Harem fans.
Of course, while battle Shonen series are increasingly becoming a patch on the anime industry, with repetitive fights, contrived plots, one-dimensional characters, and optimal capability to be completely recycled by another series with a quick, unconvincing makeover, the Negima manga is absolutely none of those. Negima knows what it is, and gleefully runs through all the battle shonen tropes and harem tropes in hilarious tongue-in-cheek fashion. But even while happily resigning itself to being a generic shonen series, it manages to be utterly exemplary as one, building three-dimensional characters, rich fantasy worlds, plots that skilfully manage god knows how many characters and still manage to make most of them interesting an memorable, fights that are well-constructed and compelling, and humour that is outright hilarious. In effect, Negima is something that every shonen series should strive to be.
That is, however, something this series decides to completely ignore. It kicks off mostly faithful to the first part of the series, but promptly decides to deviate whenever any of the story arcs pop up. Yes, rather than actually following the plot of Negima, regarding Negi's exploits to find his long-lost father, they just decide to do... well, pretty much nothing. All the series ever focuses on are the protagonist Negi Springfield's day-to-day activities as the teacher of an all-girl high school. In a nutshell, what this is series has done is taken every piece of filler from the manga and put it together into a series. The only time they really touch on any of the manga's story arcs is the Kyoto arc, which took about 3 volumes of the manga to cover. They then proceed to dedicate about 2 episodes on this, cutting out pretty much everything of importance, and cutting a major character (Kotaro) out of the story altogether. The end result is a rushed and butchered version of what was previously a good story arc.
Of course, Negima is a character-driven series, which it would really have to be considering that it starts off with around 35 characters, and in the current arc of the manga it must be nearing 100. Problem is that the series stops at around 45, and only remembers to make a handful or two remotely interesting. The only ones that are really worth mentioning are as follows: Negi, our protagonist, a ten year old Welsh magician. As part of their training, young wizards are sent off to work to test their abilities, with Negi's test being to teach a school of Japanese students who are older than he is. He has a fantastic backstory that spans childhood horrors, parental abandonment, and a crippling need to become a great wizard for reason I won't dare spoil. This adaptation covers approximately none of it.
We also see his first of many sidekicks, Asuna Kagurazaka, whose backstory digs so far back that I can't even say a word of it without spoiling anybody. But naturally, not a single bit of it was adapted, so we are left with a one-dimensional character who is bossy and annoying. It's worth noting that even in the manga she's not particularly likeable. We also have Evangeline A.K. McDowell, a vampire who was imprisoned in the school by Negi's father and needs Negi's blood to escape, Nodoka Miyazaki, the clumsy, hyper-moe bookworm girl and primary love interest, and Yue Ayase, friend of Nodoka and general deadpan snarker. Other than that, most of the remaining 40-something cast members aren't used much. Some of them get their episodes in the spotlight, but none of them ever really shine as a result. Several cast members get as many as one or two lines in the entire series. Some others are also quite out of character, in particular Sayo Aisaka, the ghost.
On the technical side of things, Negima is as poor as it is anywhere else. The animation is awful, littered with animation mistakes absolutely everywhere, and the colouring is horribly bland and undersaturated. The music is all either annoying J-pop or completely forgettable. Negima was a series I watched before I was in the habit of watching subbed series, so I regretfully sat through the horrible dubbing. Don't get me wrong, I actually like dubs, but this is a really bad one. Greg Ayres as Negi is the highlight of how bad it gets. Effectively, Ayres is the Michael Cera of English dubbed anime. He has a distinctive, whiny voice, that can either be amusing, loveable and endearing, or horribly annoying. And the absolute pinnacle of just how annoying Greg Ayres can be when casted poorly is Negi Springfield. His voice is, in addition to its usual nasally whine, made considerable higher and given something of a British accent. To simulate the experience of hearing this, find your nearest chalkboard and scrape your nails down it. Despite the large cast, there are very few decent performances here (Brina Palencia as Yue Ayase and Laura Bailey as Evangeline A.K. McDowell are the only good ones in here), as well as several other irritating ones such as Leah Clark (Nodoka) and Monica Rial (Konoka) both putting in extremely shrill voices, with the remainder of the cast simply being either poor or unremarkable.
At this point I'm sure that several readers are annoyed at how much I've prattled on about the differences in the adaptation, but the thing is that when you take that away there is very little to talk about. When depleted of all the manga's positives, what we are left with is a series that is honestly lifeless. The comedy is mostly absent, and when it does it falls flat. None of the characters are enjoyable in the least. The plot is almost nonexistent. This series doesn't even have any fanservice to carry it for the lowest common denominator (ecchi fans).
Being an ongoing series, Negima of course had an anime-exclusive ending. While it was very contrived and the drama was laid on awfully thick, the plot itself honestly wasn't that bad and at least saves this anime from being absolutely, 100% terrible, alongside a very small handful of funny moments.
Thankfully, Negima has since left the hands of Xebec, and moves into those of Shaft. Shaft have gone on to make a TV series that is essentially Negima in name only, although it is still a damn sight better than this, two random filler OVAs, and most likely due to complaints, two series of OVAs covering later arcs in the manga, which are easily the best animated chunks of Negima. Sadly, this pretty much rules out any kind of full series adaptation.
Thanks, Xebec. You ruined it.
Final Words: For the love of god, buy the manga first.
Animation/Graphics: 1/10
Story/Plot: 2/10
Characters; 3/10
Music/Background: 4/10
English Dub: 2/10
Overall: 2/10
For Fans Of: Love Hina, Harry Potter.
Master10K
A comedy series full of stupid fun and fan service, for you to enjoy. However this Shounen anime seems to be aimed more at the female demographic, leaving most guys cringing at all the cuteness. ^_^ Negima! is a Magical, Supernatural, Harem, Comedy about 10 year old boy Negi, who has become a teacher at an all girls school. There's one other shocking piece of info about him and that is, he's a Mage (Magician). Well that's the basic idea of this simple show and what helps it stand out is the shear number of girls (31 in fact), so learning their names are impossible. Even thoughthis harem, comedy has the advantage of being a magical one it seems to start of fairly normally, which can be quite dull for anime fans that are used to this genre. The story manages to become good and fun to watch at times, but with its cheesy outcomes it may leave little to be desired. With a pretty basic story, the romance is what supposed to help keep it going however he male protagonist is only 10 and with 14-15 year old girls it can be really hard to take it seriously. So throughout the show it has to rely on the slapstick comedy and fan service, which can be pretty weak at times.
The animation quality is as basic as it can get, with not an ounce of detail put into it at all. Because this is a comedy it could be forgiven however there actually is a fair bit of action in this series, which is quite disappointing to watch. The music is there but it does absolutely nothing to help and is just there to fill in the silence.
To summarize Negima! It had the potential of being one of the greatest harems, having every single type of anime girl crammed in, but the fact that Negi is a 10 year old teacher is just far to unbelievable. At least the story improves in the 2nd half where some of the girls are individually developed however it had to rely on a shocking tear-jerking moment in the end. The majority of the negative issues were addressed in the 2nd series (Negima!?) but the fact still remains that this is an overrated series that doesn't really deserve the recognition it has.
^_^
rmmr111
As I started watching this, I was frankly afraid of falling into a pit of lollicon Ecchi with tons of pre teen boobs fallin all over the screen, but I was gladly surprised with a heartwarming comedy about friendship and loyalty. Story: 8. I don't give it a higher grade ONLY because you can tell it's unfinished. I mean, it all wounds up in the last episode, but you can tell the story doesn't stop there(that actually led me to the manga , - that continued for several more years after the anime ended - which I started reading after the finale). So, I think the concept isactually quite good, Negi Springfield is a Wizard apprentice who has to complete a mission in order to become a minister magi, and that mission is to be the teacher for a middle school class at an all girls boarding school. It can be kinda difficult if we take in account that he's a 10 years old boy. during his teaching period we get to follow some of his adventures with the all magic world getting entangled with his school teaching world, while getting to know his students bit by bit.
The story is kinda slow developing at first, and it's a bit rushed in the last 4/5 episodes, yet it's still quite enjoyable.
Art: 7
I would give it a 6,5 but well, there goes a 7.
Akamatsu's art is really pretty and clean and detailed, and somehow i think the animation was a little below that if you see the original art and compare it with the one in this series. Is not bad, it could just be a little better I think.
Characters: 8
The staff that adapted the whole manga into an anime had a though job with character development, if you think about it.
It consists in Negi Kun, 31 students plus the school staff, and they all appeared frequently in each episode. In only 26 episodes you couldn't possibly ask fo lots of character development with so many characters, still you got to know most f them at a superficial level, and in the overall they're all really likeable and spiffy.
Overall: 8
Okay, i really liked the all package. It was a really enjoyable story, about young love, crushes, friendship, growth, and a fairly happy ending, and I gotta say, I'm really a sucker for happy endings.
DarkRoseOtaku
If you read the manga, you may hate this because they change the storyline and the characters hair color. The animation is really quite bad with no shading and many distorted drawings. There is almost no real storyline because almost all the episodes are fillers from the manga. The only thing I really liked about this anime was the opening song and the music.
Dorcas_Aurelia
Watch episode 19, then pretend the rest of the series doesn't exist. Rarely does the series succeed in rising above the mark of generic in any aspect, more often taking advantage of being an adaptation of a work by Ken Akamatsu and assuming fans will mindlessly race to hand over money (which they did). Many fans laud the anime for originality because it features a harem surrounding a preteen teacher who happens to be a wizard. However, the magical aspect is used only infrequently, as are the child-teacher jokes. The preteen harem lead aspect is used fairly often, but is of limited improvement over the typicalspineless loser harem lead.
Negima's most obvious problem is the visual. The art is unpleasing, and the animation is lackluster. For all the vibrant colors, the characters look flat and lack dynamic. The action scenes are done so lazily, such as Negi's battle with Eva in episode 8, that they are almost painful to watch. The quality was so bad that Xebec had to change the entire animation team about halfway through the series and reanimated the earlier episodes for DVD release. While this was an improvement, it is akin to stating that dog food tastes better than chalk; much of the series only matches the quality of shows ten years older. Also, while generally a rainbow of hair colors is common to distinguish characters who look similar among a large cast, how many other series make fun of that point in the actual dub.
The dub cast was not really a strong point of the show either. While there weren't any bad performances, unless you couldn't stand Greg Ayres attempt to speak in a pitch several octaves above normal to play Negi, the number of characters required several actresses to play multiple roles. This in itself is not exactly a problem, except that in many cases the drastic efforts they made to sound distinctly different did not match the character. The Japanese audio track would be preferable, except that the English script took liberties with the dialogue that made the series if not interesting, more tolerable.
The music - background, OP, ED, all of it - was like audio cotton candy: light, fluffy, and sugary. A perfect, borderline obnoxious, match for the visual pallet of the series.
I've mentioned before that the cast of the show is rather large, and that is another of its failings. It is unreasonable to assume that over 30 characters could be properly fleshed out and given interesting backgrounds, but the anime was unwilling to concede screen time from the ensemble to allow individual characters to be given their 15 minutes of fame. Ayaka's story, for instance, had potential to be touching and personal, but the animators felt compelled to include the generic madcap hijinx of the rest of class 3-A. Such an inclusion did nothing to expand the personalities of any other characters, as the only character-specific goofy antics were based around the one-dimensional stereotypes the girls were slotted into. Seeing a robot go on an accidental rampage because someone pushed the wrong button is barely amusing the first time it happens, but in Negima it serves to undermine the nature of the character because lazy writers can only think in cliches.
Much of the series lacks an ongoing narrative. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but that few of the episodes are truly amusing or interesting. To make matters worse, the drastic rearrangement of the chronology of events adapted from the manga to the anime eliminates significant plot arcs and, at least once, undermines character growth. For example, in the manga, the dodgeball arc was Negi's first real trial as a teacher, requiring him to demonstrate leadership and competence. In the anime, this is placed after the vampire arc, in which Negi had to muster his courage and work with some of his students to defeat a powerful opponent, thus reducing its importance to filler material.
The closing arc of the anime, an original plot line, was well enough done that it evoked genuine emotion, but unfortunately created a number of plot holes and required a deus ex machina to complete.
The one truly bright spot of the series was episode 19. Interestingly, the best episode of this harem comedy romp is an episode that features very little of the harem, and almost no comedy. Also, the episode is not adapted from a corresponding manga chapter, demonstrating that the writers were capable of creativity, and the series could have benefited greatly had they attempted to use it more often (like in parts of the last four episodes). The story revolves around Sayo, the ghost girl that nobody notices, and how the class reporter looks into the circumstances of her death. The tale is tender and tearful, and it manages this by following only two characters and resisting the urge to cheapen the plot with the silly games of the rest.
Negima has its shining moments, but they are few and far between. If you're looking for an accurate adaptation of the manga, you'll be sorely disappointed. If you're looking for a harem comedy, there are better out there.
Lirima
This is a great anime for people who likes a little bit of everything. There is action, a tad bit of romance, comedy, fantasy. There is always something new happening. I believe this is one of those originals that isn't really a knock off of something. Very Unique with a small twist every now and again. I know I said it once but I must say it again. It is HALARIOUS!
artist-retired
I'll start off by saying the original manga is one of my current favorites and I went into this one with high expectations for the first anime adaptation, so this review is in the perpective of person who is already a fan of the series. STORY: If you know plot of the beginning- *10 year old child prodigy magician Negi Springfield becomes a teacher for an all girls school of a class of about 30 girls with each one having their own unique and some what quirky traits and has to keep the fact about him being a magician a secret while the genre slowly evolves intoan actual shounen story while retaining it's other genres*
-then I guess this adaptation does "follow" the source material, but only just a very limited amount of the original's story.
The majority of the episodes tend to mostly spend time trying to introduce each girl by doing seemingly non cannon wacky episodes with Negi and several other characters (And his perverted mascot pet, Chamo) pretending to be the main characters with no actual plot going on (Yeah it's episodic as hell).
In fact, all it really just felt like they did was simply pick random chapters from the manga, stuff them with filler, and called it a day, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, the episode's can be little enjoyable as light harem entertainment, and the whole filler-ed up episodes is pretty normal since the majority of long running manga series tend to get the filler treatment all the time (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc).
However, I would go as far as to say these episodes are very pointless, besides the few episode arcs, these episodes have almost nothing to actually do with any sort of story build up, but even with those arcs, the adaption still manages to screw it all up.
Especially for one arc in particular towards the end, which was done in about roughly 2 to 3 episodes, literally butchering the story at that point with this anime skipping events, rushing through important story elements, and even cuts one of the characters out completly, which stops any source for certain future events from the source material (Although the anime is only 26 episodes).
So what does an anime company normally do when they seriously tamper with important elements to the original story? They pull the old anime only ending routine.
The plot of the final episodes is about (the main female character) Asuna Kagurasaki, being killed off out of no where and Negi has to try to bring her back to life by stopping an event in Asuna's past that would cause her random death in the future by traveling back in time. with his whole class coming along for the ride (For a surprising lack of any kind of fun or zanyness from the early episodes had).
The end result has Negi's entire class of girls gaining magical powers to fight an army of demons led by, what the plot strongly suggests, the devil himself, with the fights ending up being very silly and comical.
Pretty much ends it out of no where with the mood going from happy and wacky school days to gloomy plot shredding, mood killing, and even a little depressing.
ANIMATION: Very poor, the animators even had to redraw some of the frames (One of the characters head disappears for a couple of frames and apparently also had six fingers). And I can't imagine this anime looking worse than it does.
Though it kinda recaptures the look of the early manga art style with the character designs, it's shoddy and pathetic overall.
SOUND: I watched the dubbed version by Funimation and I have to say; this is honestly one the better dubs I've heard from them.
Luci Christian is well suited for her role as Asuna, and I enjoyed Chris Carson as the perverted mascot, Chamo. However, Greg Ayres who played the lead, Negi, sound like he had cancer or something. While the rest of the cast range from great to good enough.
Happy Material, the opening theme song which gets a remix mutiple times throughout the anime, is an okay song but not really something thats in my taste and I would rather skip (Especially because pf how repetitive it is).
OVERALL:
The Good:
+ Light and fun
+ Good english dub
The Bad:
- Wastes a lot of time with filler
- Several story arcs are poorly done with little source material covered
- Crap-tastic animation
- Repetitive theme music
- The overall mood of the anime derails at the end
FINAL WORD: I for one was very disappointed with the end result, but at the very least I enjoyed some of events from the manga that were (poorly) animated, so in the end it's not an absolute let down (Though, I feel like I'm being lenient), but it should have been done much better in my opinion.
DarthDaimyo
The first thing I'm going to say is that I am a fan of Akamatsu-sensei's work and may be a bit biased. Now, the next thing I am going to say is that Xebec did not do "Negima" the justice it deserves. Why? There are several reasons. For starters, the character designs throw you off right at the get go. Any Akamatsu character, more specifically females, have a sensual feel to them. Xebec's designs lacked that. The cheacters looks stiff and unnatural. This leads me to my second point, there was no fan service. An story from Ken Akamatsu without fanservice is like a cold bowl of ramen, it's just damn disappointing. What's worse is they include Negi's sneezes that reveal Asuna's panties but leave out said panties. When I first saw this I thought it was edited and actually e-mailed Funi to learn it was uncut.
The Japanese dub was very well done. All the girls sounded very natural and like what i imagine a class of Japanese jr high students would sound like. The English dub however, I cannot say the same. No usually I hold Greg Ayres in good standing i believe he did poorly with Negi. He spoke so quietly taht at points i couldn't understand him and the accent sounded ridiculously fake. I couldn't get enough of the opening song though, however I have a bias toward that type of music.
So you may ask yourself why i gave the series an '8' if I had so many quarrels with it. Well, the truth is it was still the story and characters that I love. Also, the ending was done very well, even if the rest of the story wasn't, and proobablly made the overall difference of a '7' and an '8'. The last five or six episodes are a very intense watch.
Overall though it's not hard to see why SHAFT was able to remake the series. I recently saw the trailer for the second version and actually watched two of the OVA's that go along with it. It looks like an improvement so I'm very anxious to see how it turns out. And if nothing else has changed, ladies and gentlemen WE HAVE FAN SERVICE. I give you...Asuna's panties!
kawaii123456
"Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan" When it comes to Negima this isn't true at all. It's failure has more family than you can shake a stick at. You have lazy writing taking the part of the father. A difficult concept failed in its execution the mother. Poorly animated art is the c airhead of a little sister, while ridiculous and unrelatable characters are the bratty brothers. Finally very good music used for nothing but obvious emotional manipulation is the older sister trying to hold it together but being ground down into dust. Negima is no orphan but its familymakes the Bundy's from married with children look good.
Lets start with older sister music. She's beautiful and if she could get out of this family could really be something on her own, instead she is trying to carry her family on her back and suffers for it. The music really may be the best part of Negima. It's a bit schmaltzy which isn't surprising seeing as it's used to try and carry scenes that the writing and art just can't pull off.
Little sister Art, how she dreams of seeing her work in the Louvre, but even mom has trouble hanging her work on the refrigerator. She may do better one day but today isn't that day.
Time for the match made in hell that birthed this family. Lazy Writing that took on a project far too large and characters were just not there. The source material for this anime is large far larger than can be fit into a single season of an anime, and therein lies the problem. If the story is to be told well, parts have to be left out, unfortunately instead of biting the bullet and doing the job Lazy Writer dad just makes a hash of everything. This is doubly so for the characters, who have plenty of change but no development.
***************Spoilers Ahead******************
How lazy is your writing ? Let me count the ways.
Lazy as retroactively mindwiping characters.
Lazy as bringing in time travel at the last moment to solve everything
Lazy as filler episodes that contribute nothing while the plot and characters languish.
Lazy as characters that act for no reason at all
Lazy as completely unresolved plot lines.
Lazy as characters who can't recognize their friends when they put on a hat.
Lazy as just being told what's happening instead of having the characters figure it out for themselves.
Lazy as I want to kill you becoming, I want to serve you for the rest of my life for no reason.
Lazy as turning death into something vanquished at whim.
Lazy as endlessly interrupting people whenever they try to say something important.
And as lazy you are, you fail in being funny.
Keirik
I'm a really big fan of Negima. The manga, that is. SHAFT also made a borderline gag series (Negima!?) that somehow worked really well. However the first anime, made by XEBEC, is, by far, the worst version of Akamatsu's weird magic harem fighting manga. Yes, even worse than Neo. As for the story, you all know the drill. 10 year old mage becomes a teacher at an all-girls junior high. Hilarity ensues. Now, adapting an ongoing manga into 26 episodes is, well, impossible, (which is why I applaud SHAFT for coming up with their own plot in their version) so a premature, anime-only ending was inevitable.I accept this.
However, the ending arc here is complete nonsense, and has some of the most ridiculous mood whiplash of all time, complete with a handy Deus Ex Machina to save the day. Joy.
Now, if there's any aspect in which Negima! absolutely fails, it's animation, which doesn't bode well, to say the least. Off model shots are common, and the character designs look ugly, blocky, and very much unlike Akamatsu's designs. The last few episodes look better, though, with better looking characters and more fluid, less jerky animation. Not to mention the fact that the animation lacks any sort of detail, which the manga and Negima!? were overflowing with.
Also, the opening animation, with all its fantastic music, is one of the most hideous displays of gratuitous, er, "fanservice" I have ever seen.
Now, if there's any aspect in which Negima! actually succeeds in, it's sound. I've never seen the dub, so I can't judge that, but the voice acting is absolutely top-notch. The background music, while not quite at the level of Negima!?, is at least memorable.
However, the real success is Happy Material, the opening song. Really, the opening is the only reason I'm not pretending this anime doesn't exist. It's iPod worthy.
Character development is more akin to character derailment, as the rather huge cast is nothing but mere shadows of their former selves. Really boring, really obnoxious shadows. I mean, Negima!? successfully quirked them up to the maximum without making them annoying, or derailing them.
If you're looking to get into Negima, skip this. Just skip this. Read the manga, watch Negima!?, and check out the OVAs. Hell, even Negima Neo is at least worth a read.
When your series is worse than Negima Neo, there's a problem.
A big problem.
Rukako122
Warning ! This review is biased, the Negima anime is the first anime I watched whilst knowing it was Japanese animation. (I had seen anime before without knowing what ''anime'' meant) And is Therefore my favorite anime and manga, and the holder of Best Waifu which I won't name. So extremely biased indeed. Negima, also known as abandonment issues and autism the animation, is an anime full of dumb soft ecchi and funny jokes. First, the art-style is old and might not be ''newbie'' friendly, but it sure has it's charms. The Ost is legendary, it's sogood that 15 years later, I'm still listening to it and changing from one music to another depending the situation I'm in, when outside.
The sound effect are also quite good, the one when they are reciting spells might be my favorite.
The Characters are ok-tier, there is 30+ ''main characters'', most of them seems to be there just to include ever anime tropes, but in the manga, they all end up being good characters.
And for the most anticipated part, the story. Even though a bit lacking and following the Akamatsu Curse that says that each and every manga made by Ken Akamatsu must have an anime adaptation before it is finished and that therefore they are gonna have an alternate ending. It is still fairly good. It's not crazy good and super long like the actual manga it's adapted from, but it's still good enough that it made me cry when I watched it as a kid and once more when I re-watched it as an adult, which is rare since I'm not the kind to cry over an anime.
Also the humor in this anime is quite good.
Overall an all rounded Ok-tier anime. Which I gave a Ten, because to me, it's a masterpiece (less than the manga but still).
SHivayogimaTH
A ten year old mage is a teacher!? When I first heard about the show, its concept really attracts me to go and watch it. The first thing you'll need to understand is that this isn't some fast-paced science fiction. The shows really takes it time to show us the aspect of each character's life, and in the end, making me care more about them as time passes. The show has 31 characters (I'm not even counting the staffs in the school). This could be a huge turn off to some people. It certainly made me feel a bit hesitant when going in. However, theshow does a descent job in introducing the huge cast. But, honesty, I felt like I cared for only 6 characters, which is not necessary a bad thing, since the show mostly focus on them anyway. Nevertheless, sometimes the show seems to be trying too hard, dragging the main characters along side with the minor characters so that the viewers won't forget about them. This happens a lot with Asuna. I the show can certainly sometimes get boring (especially the 4-mid-episodes of the show), but it was not too mundane to put me off. Sometimes I found my self wondering, "why the fuck are they dicking around instead of doing some shit relating to magic." But towards the last half of the series, I felt that this is a wonderful story about how a group of students had gone through trails and tribulation and became friends. In the end, I could say that I enjoyed the show. This show is for those of you who like a moderately paced slice of life show, with some element of fantasy sprinkled into it.
alidan
i have watched everything negima so far, and this is by far the worst version out there lets hit the animation first and formost here. it suits what i can only assume is the original concept art, look at chapter 1, and the student book, thats what the characters look like, but by the time chapter 1 came out, the characters changed to the point they look like they are from a different manga. i bring the manga up because the animation look almost NOTHING like the manga. characters are over all the same, though i have to say they are a bit toned down from theoriginal manga version. i cant complain, about it but it bugs me a bit.
sound, like i always say, i dont really have a way to tell if its good and almost dosent factor into any of my reviews unless it is glaring bad. this was a 5 because the dub did nothing wrong, though some things are annoying, but over all i can stand it.
the story bugs the shit out of me though, because not only is it different from the manga, it blows in comparison too. now, judging from when the manga was made and anime was made, the manga was close to chapter 100 when the anime came out, and at the VERY LEAST close enough to the festival to get the watch design. what pisses me off so much is when an anime company decides they can make it better than the manga and ties there own shit and have it all wrap up.
here is how it should have been, introductory episodes, some change ups to let things happen faster
the grade arc
the eva arc
kyoto arc - possible end
and school invasion - possible end
but what did they do, not only did they take it way to slow and focus on unnecessary things, they added filler that was by and large unneeded and than had the balls to put what i believe to be the worst possible end in the anime they could. this story as a whole is something that i cant stand, because even with the art ageist it they could have made a great anime and had a legitimate manga following end.
the characters are really the only reason you should pick this up. or if they happen to animate a part you like, and word of warning, the pillow fight part is not worth watching.
erwinmm89
An interesting twist within the harem genre, introducing a somewhat original plot. It entertains the viewer enough as to keep them watching. It includes comedy, drama, fantasy, and a bit of action. The comedy is just fine, like any other average comedy serie; drama is a bit tacky since it relies on the average romantic plot where two characters meet but do not accept their feelings until the very end of the serie; fantasy doesn't even needs to be explained i guess (Negi, the main character, is a wizard; I think that's enough explanation); and the action part is just above the borderline of being acceptable. Theshow is missing a definite storyline throughout the whole series, it seems just like a whole bunch of different things put together in each episode (except, maybe, in the last few episodes). Art is nothing out of this world, missing out on lots of detailing. The intro song is kinda fun, it's very lively; it suits the series pretty well. The characters are all very different and fun, each one of them being a different stereotype, basically.
You can spend your time watching this series, you'll have fun with it. ^^
wenchnewwave
Mahou Sensei Negima is rather odd. It is kind of like if you take a harem, made the girl population about thirty times the boy population, and then made the boy, like, four years younger than the girls. Actually, that pretty much sums up this series. Ken Akamatsu, who created the show's manga, is also rather well known for his previous series, Love Hina. In my opinion, this show far surpasses Love Hina, and here's why. Story 8/10 The story of Negima starts off like your typical harem, but gradually evolves to become so much more. By the end of it, the girls aren't entirely the mainfocus, as the wizardry and magic also plays a strong role. It becomes somewhat of an unpredictable roller coaster of fun, from computer battles to a haunted mansion/pillow fight to an adventure into the depths of a library. Very entertaining.
Art 7/10
The art for Negima looks good for 2006, but now.... Not so much. This looks aged, and the style is very simplistic. Still I have to give it props for looking good for 2006... When it isn't being compared to Haruhi or Black Lagoon.
Sound 8/10
The soundtrack is good, but not amazing. It has tracks that provide good atmosphere, but nothing more. What I do have to give props for, however, is the dub. The dub was done by Funimation, and quite frankly, it sounds amazing. Memorable performances include Luci Christian, Laura Bailey, and Caitlin Glass. Trust me, dub is the way to go for this one.
Character 8/10
This is Negima's problem with having such a large female cast: not everyone gets an episode or even 5 minutes. But when they do, it's good. Stand-out characters include Asuna, our tsundere-baka, Evangeline, our Loli, Yue, our sarcastic bookworm, Chisame, our tsundere computer chick, and Kazumi, our hyper photographer. The rest are just okay.
Enjoyment 9/10
Negima is one of those series that you know isn't good, but is entertaining to watch. It has some solid humor, a cool plot, and some interesting characters. It's more popcorn material than anything, yet remains entertaining. I recommend watching it with friends.
Overall 8/10
It has it's flaws, but is still solid enough to watch. Stream at your leisure!
chuckles79
It's a tribute to the original manga's author, Ken Akamatsu, that he took a commissioned work like this and made it so compelling. On the surface it's Harry Potter in a harem anime; and it could have went there an stayed there. Instead we have a continuing evolving plot-line involving a regular cast consisting of over 30 characters; all of whom drive the plot with complex motivations and backgrounds.. This series roughly follows the manga for the first 21 episodes, then veers off into an original emotional rollercoaster finale that allows for a satisfying end of the anime. Story: The story starts out simple enough. Orphan boywizard wants to become a great wizard like his father was. It gets original when he's chosen to be a teacher at an all girls middle school to complete his wizardry training, but he must do it while keeping his mage status secret (which he repeatedly fails at). The fact that many of the girls are outright Shota-cons is a little silly, but it ups the fun quotient at the same time.
The story moves along but some of the episodes are silly, like the "dramatic" dodgeball fight.
The anime's original ending is quite emotional, but really hooks you into it.
Art: The art is simplistic, even compared to the sequel series. The drawing is almost minimalist and they didn't go to any special efforts to wow the viewer. The art was pretty forgettable.
Sound: This anime's weakest link. It was never inappropriate or ill-fitting; but it was entirely forgettable and the opening was almost trite in it's childishness.
Character: It's the characters that drive this show and make it fun. The main character Negi has a class of 31 students, all of them interesting and unique. They all have different hobbies, histories, motivations, and secrets (a WHOLE lot of secrets).
I can't go into too much detail since I could take up pages.
Negi and Asuna (the boy wizard and the student who first finds out about his abilities) are the primary protagonists. Negi is well written, but rather simplistic (he's only 10) as well. Most of the humor of the series is him getting into trouble either through magic or through the attentions (not always appropriate) of his students.
Asuna is the type of character who doesn't exist outside of animes. Overhyper, super fast and strong, and hot-tempered. She develops more character as time goes on and gains more backstory.
One can't mention characters in Negima without a huge shoutout to an early antagonist turned protagonist, Evangeline Anastasia "Kitty" McDowell. Vampire Girls are nothing new to anime. Even vampire girls who dress in (even called this by the character herself in the manga) "Goth Loli" are nothing new (disturbing).
Yet you never see one have as much fun playing the villain. Naturally in an anime like this she secretly is a sweet girl, but she outright enjoys being one of the badguys. She doesn't bring the usual skycap of vampire angst to the party; making no excuses for who she is and what she has done. The only sappy part is her crush on Negi's father, but even their interaction was humorous.
Enjoyment: Despite a few "dud" episodes, this show is very enjoyable. With a lot of humor and some satisfying action at times; the overall experience is very positive and emotional at times.
Overall: I highly recommend this series. Though it can get a little sappy at times, it's a fun watch with something for everyone.
Pros: Huge cast with great storylines and they are all unique and even poke fun at some classic stereotypes. Very funny in places but can get serious at times; giving a good mix of humor, drama, and action.
Cons: Follows the manga which developed slowly and you are left wanting more that is never delivered (sequel series is an original script with more comedy). The artwork is nothing amazing and the soundtrack is a dud.
Lastly the ending episodes is an emotional cartwheel, with some of the saddest scenes I've ever seen in an anime, followed by a dramatic reversal for the expected happy ending.
If one is looking for a similar story with a lighter plot, I recommend the sequel "Negima!?" which has a lot more comedy while sacrificing character development.
Moeruattack
= Spoiler free, opinions based on my view back in 2010. = Well. Back in early 2008, i think. This anime was broadcasted in my place, and its really extremely censored, probably this was broadcaster fault for showing ecchi anime. But after watch whole episodes back then, I fully regret the whole of it. The main reason maybe this occurs is when : 1 + You read the manga before watching anime. 2 + You watched the anime then after done, read manga. "Ecchi". Isn`t. Do not mistakes "Ecchi" and non "Ecchi" in thiis anime, conpared to manga which completely ecchi genre. Probably this is because the anime fix to Shounenanime, which to make appeal to younger children rather than teen. Yeah.
Plot are much butchered in this anime, trying to create original plot rather than manga plot, of course no need to follow manga completely. But when anime stays into that plot, while manga already go further, well anime stays dead on that scenes, unless reboot occurs.
And while to look at the arts, arts are really pale and blant. Probably because its 2005, but I seen there`s more 2005 anime that has good animation back then.
But hey, I don`t really cons this anime, there`s still good points through. Such as numerous characters with different personality but memoriable characters. Voice acting was pretty solid, even through music isn`t great in whole anime. OP was good.
Then again. Like I said.
I prefer manga than anime. I read the whole chapter. This anime devoid most of its charming. It makes coffee taste like drainage.
LaLeLuLiLo
I knew exactly what i was in for when i saw the first few minutes of the first episode of this anime. The beginning of the show has a girl in a fish suit dancing, floods of school girls running towards their school in an empty city, and a bear panty flip skirt scene, and all this sets the mood for most of the show. I still continued on mostly for the fact the this series is having a sequel (in some sense) coming out soon, and i just had to see what it was all about. I just wanted to know what would allowfor this show to have a spinoff, 3 separate ovas, and a sequel 13 years later.
The anime follows Negi, a 9 year old kid who is a mage and is also the newest teacher in an all girls school, i think. Because you see, the setting takes place in this school/city that has different areas for different schools, and is pretty much why there was a lot of girls running in the beginning since that is there section of the town. Why is this such a thing? I really don't know, and they really don't delve into it. Anyway Negi is assigned to a all girl middle school for his mage training although i don't see how any of this connects together other than that the principle, and some of the staff are mages or at least connected to the magical world. It's never delved into as well. It's mostly just a setup for the school harem that will take place with a teacher , but it's ok now since the the teacher is a kid. Well it's easy to say that all the girls take a liking to him due to how cute he is, and it could have been left just as girls liking a cute kid. However the show goes beyond that and has some of the girls having romantic feelings for him, and even setting out to get a kiss from him.
Nothing really interesting happens in the show with most episodes focusing on a character. While there are “story arcs” in the show it still for the most part focusing on a character or two. There is action and tension in the show, but it falls flat most of the time because it tries to set out to be something else but it still maintains the same tone. There’s also no buildup to anything which allow things to happen without any proper reasoning. It does later in the story shift tone pretty well, but when it gets there, it gets absurdly over dramatic until finally going back to status quo. For much of a story it was at least easily digestible, but mostly for the part that there wasn’t a lot of meat in it
.
31! That’s how many students are in the class and given that this is only 26 episodes long be unamazed that many of them are glossed over. Not only them but all the other characters as well from the staffs of the school, and even the antagonists. All these girls are defined mostly by a quirk or hobby that they have, and that’s about it. However some of the girls do get an episode of their own, and they sure do leave an impression on the viewers, but once it’s done they usually go back into the background. There are really three characters that have more relevance in the show than anyone else. First is negi the young welsh mage who is sent to teach at school for no apparent reason other than just because. Negi was never supposed to reveal that he was a mage or else he would be kicked out of the school, but that’s kicked to the wayside when more than ⅖ figures him out but no consequences ever happen to him. Next is Asuna who is more of the main girl since the show really does focus on her a lot more than anyone else. She basically a tsundere who has a crush on one of the teachers, and was one of the first to figure out negi was a mage because of her special ability that’s never really explained. Finally is Nodoka who is a shy girl who gets more screen time than for her own good with her defining characteristic is liking negi and her character development being have the courage to confess.
The art looks pretty basic. The character designs are basic and sometimes some characters look like each other, the background designs are basic, and the color palette doesn’t look any special. The animation is also just as basic but it really shows how substandard it is when anything worth of action occurs, and it just feels so underwhelming. Everything is still easy to put up with, but nothing really stands out. The soundtrack to the anime is decent for the most part although there are probably only two tracks that really stand out, and even they are forgettable. Everything else is standard fare when it comes to a comedic school story. The voice acting is ok as well, it’s rather diverse with each character sounding unique but not much else.
This show was dumb which was pretty much what i expected from it. I had a decent time, and there was nothing really wrong with how the show played out even though it was quite dumb. However it was the last few episodes that made the show less enjoyable to watch.
Overall it is a really forgettable show, and nothing really stand out that makes this anime any special.
