Final Impressions / First Impressions / Negima!?

Summary:

After he and the others release Asuna’s Chupacabra back into the wild, Negi senses that his father is nearby. He insists to his class that this is his own problem, but they refuse to let him search for his father alone. After Nekane tells him that it’s important to believe in his partners, Negi agrees to let everyone help and transforms them all. He manages to get three suka cards (Asuna, Konoka, and Nodoka), five armor cards (Misa, Sakurako, Madoka, Chizuru, and Natsumi), and the rest are cosplay cards. The girls end up splitting into smaller groups, and Negi leads Nekane, Asuna, and Anya around the school. They manage to find a black rose on the ground and realize that it could be a clue to his father, so Negi uses his magic to determine that Fumika could help. She and her sister have a magnifying glass that can see the future, but it is unable to help in this instance. Instead, Negi asks Ayaka to use her smelling ability to help him locate his father. She manages to trace the scent to the lake shore, so Negi rushes off in that direction. It is there that he seems to see his father, but when he gets closer, the Thousand Master disappears. Motsu and Shichimi take his place, and they tell Negi that Nagi has left already. The two of them used to serve Nagi, but he asked them to serve Negi from now on. Nagi’s final message for his son had been for Negi to grow up with vigor. Hearing this, Negi starts running across the lake shore before he finally collapses on his knees and cries. He eventually gets back up with a renewed determination to work harder to become a mage like his father. In the end, Negi returns to Wales with everyone, ready to move forward with his 31 partners.

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This wasn’t the most satisfying ending, but given the bulk of this show, I wasn’t really expecting it to be. As I’ve said before, I really had hoped that we’d get to see and hear more of Nagi, but at least the end of the episode had a little bit of him. The animation quality also stayed pretty good, and they finally explained why Makie refers to Motsu as otou-san (because he resembles her family’s dog that had that name). Oh yea, all those character screens near the beginning of the episode appear to be referencing the new ATLUS game Etrian Odyssey.

Final Thoughts: Looking back at it now, it feels like there was a lot of wasted potential in this show. I remember how so incredibly impressed I was by the first few episodes of Negima!? – it really made me quite excited for what this alternate series could have brought (especially when compared to the original Negima anime). In retrospect, those first episodes might have set my expectations the wrong way. I still think that if they had somehow managed to keep that level of action, quality, and story, I probably would have loved this. But as it stands, this concentrated more on humor with tons of parodies and recurring themes, and there were only a few episodes aside from the first ones that I would consider to be good story-wise. Overall, I still enjoyed watching this, but it left parts of me feeling a bit unsatisfied at the end.

64 Comments

  1. As far as fanservice goes, this episode is PWN 1000%!

    As far as the storyline goes, however, it failed somewhere past 10… then again after 12 I realized this was never its strong point, and neither was it meant to be.

    They only had 26 eps to work with. If there wasn’t enough reminder that Negima!? is essentially PPD 2.0, then this ep was it. Some may consider that a disgrace, but I consider it something at least worth a nice watch, if not something greater.

    Sin Ansem
    Reply

  7. I give this an 8.3 out of 10. While some of you are disappointed on the slowness of the plot on some point as Sir Ansem pointed out (I know some of you are), it is still superior to the first series because of its animation, crisper character design and funny points, not to mention the fanservice, in the sense of the number of references it has.

    I gave the first series, which is being shown here in the Philippines, a 7.0, because while it is very funny, and full of fanservice (in the sexual sense), the art is very bad, despite the reanimation. And I am not yet at the point in that series where Show Spoiler ▼

    , which I researched back in 2005. At least in Negima!?, the only bad thing happened to Asuna was her being possessed by the Dark Power—which only lasted until Eva got pactio’ed.

    As for this episode per se, almost everyone’s in a pactio form, though some are in suka, most are in cosplay, and others are in armor. BTW, did any one notice Motsu looks like the Mask in this pic?

    https://randomc.net/image/Negima/Negima%20-%2026%20-%20Large%2023.jpg

    Nanami Kamimura
    Reply

  13. Now I hope that the left episodes will be subbed soon..

    This show is something for me to sit down at the evening and to relax. Quite funny, animation is also ok. However I’m sure many people don’t expect the series to be like this. Good or negative aspect? No idea, but this show is definetely worth a try, not only for Negima fans (and cause I’m not a Negima fan I know what I’m talking about ^-~)

    Mutio
    Reply

  15. Since Negima & Love Hina is finished… I think Ken Akamatsu should make an anime about A.I. Love You … incase some of you don’t know .. it was made before love hina and negima.

    King~Philip
    Reply

  18. 10
    +100
    +1000
    this serie rocked BABY!! I LOVE COMEDY WITH THIS STYLE!!
    😀 make another one just like this and I´ll buy the torrent!
    WAIT THE TORRENT IS FOR FREE T_T BY SHARE WINNY SAN!!

    tensai_otaku
    Reply

  20. ah, a bitter-sweet ending for bitter-sweet series. Though it had it’s faults(for the majority of the series), it’s still nice to see everyone alive. Now the only thing missing is a movie…..

    Chiu^2
    Reply

  21. Since the subs seem DOA (????), its unlikely I’ll spend the time to figure out exactly what people were saying …. but there were lots of pretty pictures and animated moments throughout the series.

    The series still ranks pretty low on my Shinbo series list (Sorry, but it just didn’t feel like he was really paying attention and that the plot “twists” really weren’t. The single gag moments were the best elements for me). I did really like the character designs and artwork.

    I wouldn’t mind seeing some more OVAs with this team… but since the rumor is they’re going to do a live-action Negima (gods help us all), this may be it for the Negima animated franchise.

    Vexx
    Reply

  24. ^ The manga got close (Konoka and Setsuna were going for a permenant pactio), but Asuna walked in on them and Setsuna chickened out.

    So does everyone’s pactio forms appear at one point? I was thinking that it would actually work as a real RPG or something.

    Wererat42
    Reply

  25. I loved this series. Not much happened for the most part but it had a lot of comedy just like PPD, coming from SHAFT. So many episodes were hillarious. As far as the last episode goes, I knew they would someone show everyone’s forms in a cheap way but meh. Now we’ll have to see what the live action will look like lol.

    Totali
    Reply

  28. The last 2 episodes of this were totally unnecessary. They didn’t go at all with the rest of the series.

    This whole series sucked. It’s an abomination, the character styles were horrid, there was absolutely NO PLOT WHAT-SO-EVER. more than half the series was nothing but 3rd rate filler episodes…. i mean seriously what what the whole point to this series really? There was really NO reason to create such a lame, insulting piece of crap in the 1st place and this should be wiped from the anime world FOREVER! It doesn’t even deserve the name “Negima” in it’s title.

    I’m glad Akamatsu announced that he would never use Shaft in his work again.

    Hudson
    Reply

  31. You’re only mad because Shaft made Nodoka’s hair different, Hudson. The character styles Shaft designed were a whole lot better than what Xebec had created, and you know it.

    jaime
    Reply

  32. I’m mad because Shaft F***ed up this entire series with poor quality EVERYTHING. And why the hell was the last time Nodoka’s powers activated did they have to turn her into her botched card?

    Hudson
    Reply

  33. Hey, all throughout the series, Makie has been getting pwned almost every single episode. As a Makie fan, I hold no ill will toward Shaft, because at least they made the pwning funny.

    Hudson, as usual…..Do you have any proof to your claims? If not, leave Omni alone. He enjoyed the series, he doesn’t need your “rants”.

    jopchan121
    Reply

  34. The show had potential but I agree that they sort of went off on the parody and comedy. Not that there’s a lot wrong that, but I was hoping for more story. Maybe original anime was better in that regard.

    FlareKnight
    Reply

  35. Well, I am not sure what to expect from Ken Akamatsu other than mindless fun. When I watched the first series, I felt that the series was schizophrenic when they threw in the last arc involving Asuna. At that point, it seemed like a last ditch effort to make the series dramatic, an attempt that fell flat.

    This series was slightly better in that they at least tried to tie Black Rose Baron/Nagi Springfield together, and the introduction of Nekane and Anya was nice. Still, I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole Negi as a chupacabra arc in the middle, and would’ve liked the series to hit the Anya arc a little sooner. No expectations if Akamatsu comes out with anything in the near future.

    Yuri Rocks
    Reply

  37. Gee, last I heard, Akamatsu was actually unhappy with Xebec’s work, hence the changes made to the DVD releases (see the Answerman’s statements at Animenewsnetwork.com: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2006-10-20 and
    http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2006-12-08 quote from the 2nd link: Show Spoiler ▼

    )

    Personally I dig this series by Shaft okay.

    Sailor Enlil
    Reply

  38. Oh, my expectations for this show dropped at episode 10 or so. So at that point, I just came here to see what I was missing out on.

    My final thoughts on Negima!?, the most random crap ever. But hey, random gets a large audience for some reason. I probably would’ve actually kept on watching if it had more of a plot instead of random parodies thrown all over the place, not even half of them I could even get xD; But eh, it was pretty entertaining for the most part. Random plot twists ftw. But I’ll say the plot is weak for this series. But I guess the humor slightly makes up for that? Oh well, there’ll probably be another Negima anime in a year or two. Gosh shounen series go on forever @.@

    Jin
    Reply

  39. Once the plot started skewing like crazy, I kept trying to hope for it to go back on track… but I kind of feel the same way you do. The beginning episodes showed a lot of great potential and awesome action with its “retelling” and the Asuna pactio, but in the end I guess I’m just a manga purist with this show. Great animation, but it couldn’t have hurt to be a little more… serious?

    Tenkaichi
    Reply

  42. Well, it sure was interesting looking at the summaries, though I seriously wished the fansubbers have fansub it more quickly…

    To Hudson:

    A person who claims to be a great supporter of Negima, yet hates everything absolutely everything in this series??? Just view this anime as a fan-fiction… Of course in every fan-fictions the story are totally different, but puts the view that the author/artist really like that certain series… In this case, SHAFT is a fan of Negima! (If they weren’t fans, then they shouldn’t be even having thoughts of making the anime…) So there you should be supportive that they actually attempt to making something (and yes, they did have Ken Akatmatsu’s permission to make it or else they would be sued for copyright infringement)…

    As for you, if you think you could make the story better, create a fan-fiction and post it here… If one totally dislike an item so badly, then they should have the ability to make it better…

    Tsukuyomi-chan
    Reply

  51. The only thing I can admire about Hudson is his dedication to make a fool out of himself every episode of this series. Admittedly impressed >_>; I could never be thick-skinned enough to continue after the first bashing but he has survived all 26 episodes of being bashed. Tenacity of a cockroach O_o;

    Vander
    Reply

  55. Lol, it’s been months now. Let’s face it. The subbing of the series is going nowhere. Mahora just fell apart and Anon….well…..did we really expect anything from them? Chances are, this series will never finish being subbed, so you might as well just buy the DVDs. I used to think that Mahora could pull it off, but now that it’s been a month since episode 19 was released, I’ve completely lost hope for this series.

    Ryuzaki
    Reply

  58. Hmmm… I kinda started with the remake rather than the original one, but as I’ve seen, I find the 2nd half of the remake not having the same intensity as the first half… but I definitely love the Setsuna turned into a flying samurai angel episode though…

    raimaru2880
    Reply

  59. i’m glad that all the girls dropped out of school to become magical vagrants, but the big question of the series seems unanswered: does Asuna eventually convince anyone to buy a Chupa-Tee?

    eric
    Reply

  61. @jawich: Yep episode 22 was sub by Mahora weeks ago which suprise me that Mahora haven’t drop the series despite being license by Fumianimation.

    BTW, Hudson(also known as Shinobu’s Lover) + TnAdct1 = Retarded Nodoka fanboys that whine about her lack appearance in Magic World Arc in the manga.

    Sin Ansem
    Reply

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