First Impressions / Negima!?

Summary:
15 years ago, a vampire girl named Evangeline faced off against the famous Magister Magi “Thousand Master.” He had offered his hand to her, but she slapped it away and proceeded to attack him. Now, in the present, Negi Springfield graduates from magic academy and gets assigned to teach in Japan as part of his training to be a mage. On Negi’s arm is a chain just like the one the Thousand Master wore in that battle against Evangeline. In Japan, perched on a cross on top of a building, a younger-looking Evangeline knows that the Thousand Master’s son is coming. But since she’s weak from lack of blood, she tracks down her prey in the form of a girl jogging on the school grounds.
Negi and his ermine companion Kamo meanwhile make their way to Japan via plane. When he gets there, he remembers how his friend Anya back in magic school didn’t think he could do this assignment, but his cousin Nekane had urged him to do his best. Negi and Kamo arrive in front of the school, but soon get caught up in a stampede of girls. This is Mahora Academy, which is its own city and is an educational establishment with schools from kindergarten up to university. It has over 30,000 students and includes a transportation system, public institutions, a hospital, a huge arcade, and restaurants. Incidentally, the junior high girls live in a dormitory.
That dormitory is where Konoe Konoka is trying to wake up her roommate Kagurazaka Asuna. Asuna keeps asking for a few more minutes to sleep, even after sword wielding Sakurazaki Setsuna comes by. With the school bells ringing, Konoka decides to leave without Asuna. By now, Negi and Kamo have escaped the stampede of girls, though not without some injuries. Kamo in particular seems to have broken is front tooth, so Negi decides to use his magic to restore it. With one spell from Negi, Kamo’s tooth returns to how it used to be. Unfortunately, Asuna is now standing beside them, having come out of the dormitory that Negi and Kamo stopped to rest in front of.
The two panic because they think she’s seen him use his magic, but Asuna doesn’t react to them at all. Kamo suggests that Negi erase her memory with magic, but Negi never gets a chance to do so because Konoka comes back with Setsuna. Negi and Kamo hide in the nearby bushes while Konoka figures out that Asuna’s mind isn’t really awake, only her body is. After the two girls drag Asuna off to class, Kamo thinks that there’s no problem since Asuna was only half awake at the time. Negi’s eyes start to tear up, but then a familiar voice wonders if Negi is crying again. The voice belongs to a man Negi recognizes as Takahata T. Takamichi. He is also a mage and thinks that Negi hasn’t changed because Negi is still a crybaby. Negi looks ready to cry from this statement until Takamichi pats him on the head and claims that he’s joking.
Over in the junior high class 2-A, the girls are talking about a rumored Dracula attacking students. One of the students, Sasaki Makie, got attacked while jogging one night and has the neck bite marks to prove it. The class representative Yukihiro Ayaka doesn’t believe this and thinks that Makie just saw a dream. Asuna, Konoka, and Setsuna arrive just in time before the last bell and join in on the Dracula conversation. Asuna doesn’t agree with Dracula interpretation and instead thinks that it was a Chupacabra. Looking at the picture that Saotome Haruna drew, Makie remembers something different.
Asuna and Ayaka start arguing about the existence of the Chupacabra, and Ayaka then points out that Asuna is dressed incorrectly. Ayase Yue thinks that it’s good that Asuna didn’t get seen by Takahata, whom Asuna has a crush on. Unfortunately for Asuna, Takahata chooses this moment to come into the classroom with Negi, causing her to faint briefly from embarrassment. Everyone is surprised when Takahata introduces Negi as the class’ new teacher, though Asuna feels that she’s met Negi before but can’t remember the details. Her staring causes Negi to panic, though Takahata calms him back down. After Negi introduces himself as the new homeroom and English teacher, the girls fawn over how cute he is. When neither Negi nor Takahata can make the class be quiet, it’s Ayaka who shuts everyone up and insists that Negi call her by her given name instead of “Yukihiro-san.”
While trying to memorize all 31 students’ names later that day, Negi realizes that the girl named Evangeline A.K. McDowell was absent from class. Meanwhile, Konoka is visiting the headmaster of Mahora, her grandfather, who has a request for her. Around the same time, Asuna is walking back home when she suddenly remembers seeing Negi cast that spell from earlier. Back at her dorm room that night, Konoka shows Negi in because her grandfather’s request was to allow Negi to live with her and Asuna until a room frees up. After Konoka goes to get some tea, Negi hears a scream come from outside. When he rushes out to investigate, he finds her body lying on the ground with a bite mark on her neck. Kamo notices that above them is a tall blonde female feeding on another girl with a red moon in the background. The woman – Evangeline – explains that she’s been waiting for this day, for Negi Springfield, the son of the Thousand Master.

Oh…My…God…That is the most impressive piece of work I’ve seen all season, no contest. I had heard this was going to be more fighting oriented, but I had no idea it’d be like this. The opening two minutes had my jaw on the floor because of how good it was. It almost felt like it was the finale or something, and I got goosebumps watching it. Both animation quality and background music so far are amazing, and that level of quality carried through the entire first episode. I personally have no problems whatsoever with the character designs. They look different from the manga, but they’re not ugly by any means, and everyone still generally looks like their manga counterparts. I’m just glad that Chisame’s hair is no longer f-ugly green like it was in the previous series. On that note, I’d say that this series in general is probably more appreciated if you’ve seen the quality (or lack thereof) of original anime. That one just can’t compare at all to how good this is.
As many of you know, this is the GANSIS/SHAFT version of the Negima story, and if this first episode is any indicator, it’s an alternate re-telling. If you go by the manga, they’re taking some huge liberties in the plot, mainly pushing up the Evangeline stuff to right when Negi arrives. This would seem to make her a much more central character than she was in the early parts of the manga. To me though, that’s a good thing because they’re basically skipping a lot of the fairly boring introduction stuff that preceded Evangeline.
Incidentally, there was no real OP/ED this episode. After the first two or so minutes, there was only an instrumental opening showing Negi going to Japan. The ending credits came on as the episode itself was ending, and there was even a Baka Ranger extra at the end of the episode. I can’t wait to see what the OP and ED are like, and what the next episode will bring. There’s no doubt in my mind that I will continue blogging this.

96 Comments

  1. I’ve never seen the first season nor have i read the manga. But i’ll pick this up, when it get subbed. I’ve always been a fan of Ken Akamatsu, well mostly Love Hina, but Negima has looked interesting, since the first time i got to know about it. And when it was annuoced that another season would come up, i decided to watch it. ^^

    The first six screencaps look amazing~~.

    Ai-Tan
    Reply

  2. Yo, first in. 😀
    Looks very, VERY appetizing, although I’m not really into retakes and whatnot. Is it just me or did they start putting parts from various arcs of the manga series together? Especially the Evangeline part. Anyway, it looks kinda wilder than the original series.
    Mmmmh…I might take this up as my main series to keep an eye on.
    Thanks for the screenshots, Omni!

    Renegade334
    Reply

  5. That was indeed a great first episode – SHAFT gets all my trust for a worthy adaptation of the manga. I just wonder how the beginning worked for everyone who didn’t know a thing about the story, it might have seemed a little too quick.

    The Baka Ranger special was awesome too.

    Ahuri
    Reply

  9. It’s a remake with a lot of changes from the manga storyline, but with production quality so much better than the previous version. It’s definitely worth watching, ESPECIALLY if you thought the first series was horrendous (like I did).

    Omni
    Reply

  11. Nya! What happened to Asuna’s eyes! There both blue in this series! In Season one her eyes where two-colored! I thought she was so cute before with two different eye colors (one green, one blue)……

    Jaga
    Reply

  13. Wow, even I have to admit the animation looks nice, especially the ED-looking images @_@ but what about the story though? I tend to stay far away from harem anime/manga so I donno if I wanna watch this since the original mangaka is so well known for his harem manga (i.e. Love Hina).

    mangaka-chan
    Reply

  14. LOOKS VERY GOOD! better animation from the last one! so will this anime take the route same as for the first season? or not? i thought this Negima was an OVA only? or not! i’m gonna Look forward more to this! 😀

    222333
    Reply

  15. Hmmm… this is interesting. I actually liked the first series, especially after it was remade on dvd, so this 1st episode is a bit of a shock. My first thought was, crikey, this is completely different to what I had expected. I was expecting the animation to be almost the same as Pani Poni Dash! (which I love) since this is done by the same company, but the camera angles that are used and the general design? Hmm… it’s certainly a departure from the looks in the manga (although there’s that new manga out now, Negima Neo, whether or not they’re going to carry that on I don’t know). My second thought was, finally they’ve changed the hair colours to what they should be. And the bit with Mana cleaning her gun is absolutely hilarious.

    I don’t know… I’ll stick with this of course since I really love Negima! and it’ll definitely be interesting to see how they’ve changed the storyline from the original, but the new animation… like I said, it’ll take a bit of getting used to. I’m sure it’ll win me over eventually. Oh, and there is one thing that they’ve nicked from PPD – the blackboard. Have fun translating it all those groups fansubbing this!

    Jade Maehara
    Reply

  18. woot. Finally justice will be done for one of my fav manga, yay!

    mangaka-chan: Negima and Love Hina are completely different. I personally found Love Hina totally crap but love Negima. There’s a decent amount of well done action and it’s nothing like any other harem series you’ll have come across. (well, I suppose some may compare it with ZnT in a couple of ways..)

    Mark
    Reply

  22. @Zelath: it’s a remake of the first season but I seems that they took some liberties with the timeline and storyline (both anime and manga wise), like introducing Kamo-kun from the start, inserting Evangeline straigth from the beginning while both manga and anime built up the suspense and mystery around her, etc, etc…
    Consider it as Mahou Sensei Negima v2.0 instead of MSN Season 2 like there is a S2 for School Rumble or Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. It’s a remake, not a sequel.
    We’ll see how it play out…
    And, yeah, pity they changed Asuna’s eye colors…maybe it had some meaning since, well, it is hinted in the manga that there is more to Asuna than meets the eye Show Spoiler ▼

    Problem with certain series is that they’re made into animes when the manga is still not finished and certain things might either seem out of place, retconned and whatnot. Or the anime has an open or crappy end that leaves us wanting for more (ex. Spiral, Suzuka, Gantz, etc)…

    Renegade334
    Reply

  25. i seriously implor you NOT TO REVIEW THIS ANYMORE! This OVA seriously disrespects Akamatsu’s work. I HATE WHAT THEY HAVE DONE WITH THIS! They’ve screwred up the story and several of the characters have gone through a serious redesign that makes me want to puke!

    especially Nodoka. I HATE HER REDESIGN. Her hair is actually fluffy, no fuckin way!

    I SAY AGAIN DO NOT REVIEW THIS ANYMORE! NO MATTER HOW “COOL” IT LOOKS!

    Hudson
    Reply

  26. I wouldn’t call this a remake, since that would imply that Shaft was inspired by Xebec, and that we would see nearly identical content (as would be the case with Kanon). All indications are that this is a completely fresh adaptation of the manga, and a big finger to Xebec.

    Tedisbest
    Reply

  27. @Hudson: That’s a very odd use of “disrespect” there. If you want disrespect, see Xebec’s Negima, where it was obvious that they only wanted profits rather than make a good show. The rearrangement of the plot here and new character designs indicates that Shaft is putting in serious effort.

    Tedisbest
    Reply

  29. People here seem to discover Akiyuki Shinbo’s style. As expected, he gave Negima a very strong visual, in particulary during the “dark scenes”.
    Udson, you must be glad and thank Shaft for giving such work on Negima. If Akamatsu find irrespect in this anime, it may be because he sees that it is far away better than his manga… like Watsuki when he saw Kenshin Seisou hen.

    gnriaoga
    Reply

  31. Yay for Negima, I’ve been waiting for it and it looks very awesome.
    I like the first six screencaps but at first I couldn’t tell who was that blonde looking girl in the second screencap, the baka ranger extra looks good too.

    shirousama1
    Reply

  32. @Hudson

    Dude, it’s Omni’s decision whether he wants to blog this or not. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t give you the right to try and persuade people to not watch it. And in case you haven’t noticed, this new series is getting a positive response, so there’s really nothing to complain about.

    DC
    Reply

  39. @Hudson:
    Stop spewing purist fanboy comments. SHAFT has (so-far) shown that it is capable of doing a wonderful job at adapting the source material. The character designs might be different, but that doesn’t automatically make it bad. I’m sure Xebec did a much worse job compared to what we see from this version of Negima.

    Strange how they decided to start off right with Evangeline… Wonder how the story will be like though. One episode is definitely not enough to tell.
    And yeah, the first two minutes are amazing. It’s much better in action than in screencaps. =O

    Kaito
    Reply

  40. @hudson, you’re kidding right? you hate the redesign of nodoka’s hair?! i absolutely love it, it’s true at first sight it was a bit weird but man i love it

    Negima!? has done a great impact in my opinion, it exceeded all my expectations and i’m sure a lot of people here also wasn’t expecting this,

    i don’t think it’s weird they started with evangeline, after all it actually gives a clearing to the story like why she wants to attack negi now and why she is sucking everyone’s blood (well i read the manga so i already know XD)

    akurashy
    Reply

  43. Well no matter what you guys say im still not going to watch it becasue i find it a great insult to Akamatsu’s work. If they wanted to make a great series then they should have NOT changed the character designs and should have stuck with the story line. (minor changes to the Kyoto arc i wouldn’t mind) PERIOD!

    And i still implory you NOT to keep reviewing this.

    Hudson
    Reply

  44. The whole point of this series (and it’s related manga and games) is that it’s a spin-off from Akamatsu’s work. It’s supposed to be different, and Akamatsu knows fully well what’s going on.

    And just because… I implory you TO keep reviewing this.

    O_o
    Reply

  45. You’re probably the only one who think it’s insult to Akamatsu’s work. I already brought Negima manga vol 1-11 and I don’t see any problems with Negima!?. It already exceeded my expectations. You don’t need to tell Omni not to blog it. You don’t even have to read the next review.

    On topic: Already watched the raw, definitely one of my top three shows to watch this season. Great episode with excellent artwork and animation by Shaft.

    Jing_
    Reply

  47. this is wayyyy better than the first season. If u endured the cheesy first season, u would enjoy this 2nd making of the manga. Hopefully this quality will last for a while, at least…

    psychohare
    Reply

  53. I like the choice of deviating from the plotline at the beginning for dramatic and creative licence purposes – this change may hopefully lengthen the series’ anime run. (We’ll leave aside the question of whether or not this series or the last series have animation styles in any way shape or form related to the manga… since those are damn subjective.) Some may have heard of the “first series” that was done for Negima!? (Mahou Sensei Negima, anyone?) – although I daresay it can be noted for A) its non-use of English; B) excessive fanservice (beyond whatever Ken would have done — it was horrible); and; C) its blasphemous deviation from the storyline. (I never want to talk about the thing again.) I can hope this anime fares well – I imagine it will, especially considering how much thought was put into the first episode. (Dynamically adjusting detail to the distance at which we see the character feels to me like a great way to save work for more dynamic sequences. And it was mostly done in the right places. XD)

    Can’t wait for next week. Can’t wait for Kanon either, now that I think about it. XD

    cbhl
    Reply

  55. Whoa!!!

    This looks so good! I actually didn’t know what to make of the first version because the production staff didn’t seem to know which direction to take the show. They threw in the angle with Negi’s father in the end, and with that being paired with Asuna’s death, the whole show seemed to be confused. IS it a drama, comedy, or a bad mix of Love Hina and action? This looks like the show found its identity already.

    Can’t wait for the fansubs

    TJ
    Reply

  57. well … looking of the timeslot of this gig it is rather logical that they jump right into the package of action … it runs 5:30PM …

    futhermore … why are you (hudson) whining over Nodokas hairdo … its the same she had in the first few chapters of the manga … yeah … she changed it not even halfway into volume 1 … but still … she had that one beforehand … if they are able to get some decent viewcounts out of this i foresee that it will be a “neverending” show with 52+ episodes … evenangaline is problerly going to be the first 3 episodes and they could easily use like 5-8 eps for kyoto and it wouldn’t even feel like to much … and when looking from the preview out the beach act could also well use 2-4 eps .. thsose three alone is around half a season and we haven’t even started counting the protenial acts to incorperate (the famed ep 19 from the Xebec rape)
    weather that that it is protentienly neverending is good or bad though is another question

    Devilen
    Reply

  59. Your blog reminded me to download the manga off this website that hosts tons of manga that I got off of my classmate who was surfing the web in the computer room at school. (34 words).

    MUST WATCH SUBS.

    Pakxenon
    Reply

  64. Wow theres almost as many comments as death note! I wasn’t sure how people would react to the new negima (I mean I’ll watch either way cause I love Negima) but they did such a good job and such positive feedback. Finally justice for Ken Akamatsu’s Negima! I can’t wait untill this gets subbed and the best part is Setsuna starts right out in the first episode as a main character! Well for me anyway. Now lets just hope they don’t screw it up.

    Hyosuke
    Reply

  68. like this already the first episode already shown 6 episodes from the first season(wat ever u call the other series). evageline is so dam hot!!!! love the baka-rangers lol.

    nodoka and yue has come back gotta luv those 2 for da love and friendship at stake

    anim3guy
    Reply

  70. Well I found out you were dropping Nana for this show and Bleach and I was kind of infuriated. Then I read the summary of this episode and decided that it’s an even trade so to speak. Wonder why you blog Bleach though, seriously.

    sealouse
    Reply

  72. Well i have to say that it changed a lot compared to the manga and it is going to be cut dead short. Anyways, the animation sure is good but the story is plain boring. There are too many pan ups or they take like a whole minute just to say three words. (XD)

    The first series might have been freecking bad in animation but the story was a little more interesting since it followed the manga. Well it was just the first episode, so that i hope it would be more interesting for the next one.

    Anymous
    Reply

  74. much better than the last negima!
    i like the quality + the character designs. most of all my setsuna!! she’s soo cool!
    i really like her! can’t wait for the op and ed of this series! keep this series blogged. good luck!

    zaira
    Reply

  79. seen it and it looks like a Mahou sensei negima makeover, but I hope the plot will be different this time, dont know if I could stand Asuna’s death again

    patiently waiting for the subbed release

    1vindanspoche
    Reply

  82. sucked. i know that they are doing something different with it and not following the manga or the first series, but they went to far. negima is a light hearted cute comedy, some how they are trying to make it serious and strip it of its cuteness. also, i dont know how people can say that the animation is good. the animation is the most god awful shit i have seen in years.

    but of coures, this is all just my opinion.

    enigma
    Reply

  83. If you’re judging the animation by the quality on the fansub Mahora put out, I’ve been told by multiple people that it didn’t look as good as the raw. That’s not to say that Mahora did a bad job because it’s possible the 16:9 raw they used wasn’t the same quality as the 4:3 raws.

    Omni
    Reply

  84. its possible that it was just the mahora version; however, im talking about the use of lines and color and not the resolution. I love negima so i will keep watching, hopefully it will redeem itself in some way. there are some characters that the manga and anime didn’t touch much on that i would love to see in this series. mainly just zazie, but add alittle more of my favorite char kaede and they might pull off a decent series.

    enigma
    Reply

  85. ^
    Kaede gets a lot of screentime in the manga.

    The Mahora version had an encoding problem which made the sub a little pixely on quick movement scenes.

    In my opinoin, this animation style is beautiful.

    Tohru
    Reply

  86. Hahahahaha! The English at the beginning had me busting a gut.

    “There is not a person to know what he does where as of now.”

    If they have the money to produce such a high quality anime, can’t they find a person who at least knows how to write English well enough that it doesn’t seem funny?

    I can’t really get used to Nagi’s or Negi’s feminine voices, either, but hey, no gripes otherwise. Both, I always imagined, being at least somewhat deeper in pitch. You know, boy-ish.

    The changes are interesting – sped things up quite a bit, but, but, but Setsuna’s in the cast right away. This might prove to be a problem further up the road, as hers is one of the best intro-stories around. Otherwise, it’s good that they’re getting most of the introduction’s out of the way as quickly as possible. I thought Takamichi WASN’T a mage? Well, it works. Whatever.

    ZAZIE.

    No wait, Chisame. At least she had a line this episode, one line. But, CHISAME = Awesome.

    Oh well.

    I loved it – every second of it. I loved it.

    Taxx
    Reply

  87. Man that whole introducing the entire class, plus the writing on the chalkboard, the craziness. That was a lot to take in a short period of time. I loved every second of it. What’s the story behind the ghost? Also you should have posted one of the shots of the entire class.

    sealouse
    Reply

  91. Very difffernt from the manga…Kamo is alredy with Negi from beggining?Whateaver,i think i should look upon this series despite the differences.The animation is great,The OP theme is also cool….Better find this fast!

    Hikarl_Reez
    Reply

  92. I remember watching the 2nd episode of Negima! just a couple of months ago waiting to watch the personally anticipating manga adaptation (what a mouthful) on the new dish. Within the first minute, I shut off the TV. Fast forward a little bit and here I am, jumping around in glee waiting for the hour-long Negima!? segment to download. Three days of mindless waiting, I’ve finally gotten to watch the new animé in its entirety, and there’s no doubt about it. You have got to watch this.

    Readarmon
    Reply

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