First Impressions / Negima!?

Summary:
Some of the girls are ready to fight against the new monster, but Takamichi acts first with a blast of his magic. However, the monster fires back and injures Takamichi’s leg. Eva ends up using her magic to transport the group out of the castle, though she argues with Asuna afterwards. Seeing Negi feeling depressed because he thinks that it was all his fault, Kamo suddenly realizes how Negi can return to his old self: he needs to provisionally contract with the rest of the girls in the class who saw his magic. The problem is that, upon learning that a contract requires a kiss, the girls are very hesitant to go through with it. Negi doesn’t want to force them, so he suggests to Kamo that they think of another way. Around this time, Asuna notices Motsu floating in the nearby pond, but the monsters from before suddenly appear again from the water. They capture Negi in a bubble that the group can’t break through, and everyone is forced to retreat as Evangeline tries to hold them off with her ice magic.
The girls get separated into three groups, but each group has some of the girls Negi has already contracted with. Konoka tries to convince her group that a kiss is love while Fuuka and Fumika are trying to convince their group that a kiss makes you into an adult. Even Nodoka eventually convinces her group, and everyone gathers back up at the gate of the castle. To their surprise, the castle suddenly rises up into the air, supported below by a tall stack of plant roots. Meanwhile, Negi is still stuck inside the bubble and has been taken into the castle where he sees a vision of his past when he came to this castle with Nekane and Anya. He suddenly finds a doll that looks like Chachamaru standing beside him, and this doll becomes surrounded by a bright beam of light as the door to the castle opens and everyone comes in. After Chachamaru destroys the stained glass window that was possessed by a monster, Eva takes a giant mallet and frees Negi from the bubble. But before the girls can kiss Negi and contract with him, the castle starts to shake and crumble.
Asuna decides that they should all jump off and contract with Negi on the way down. The girls do just that and each of them kisses Negi during the fall. Negi turns halfway back into a human partway through and then changes fully back by the time they land safely on the ground. After Asuna welcomes Negi back and the rest of the class follows suit, they feel the ground shaking again and see more stone fragments of the castle coming down straight at them. A protective barrier shields them from the debris, but this isn’t the work of either Takamichi or Eva. Instead, Negi realizes that it was the Black Rose Baron who helped them. The Black Rose Baron refuses to answer if he’s their enemy or not, but he does tell Negi to hurry. Springing into action, Negi enacts his contract with Nodoka and asks her to find a way to get rid of this illusionary space. With her artifact, she figures out that he can get them out of here with a spell, so Negi utters an incantation that returns them to Mahora. However, they soon notice that something is wrong with their surroundings: all the buildings are in ruin.

For once, almost the entire episode was plot and not comedic side stuff. Contracting with everyone seems like an easy way out of the problem, but I guess it gets the job done. Hopefully they have a clever way of using these new contracts instead of just throwing the entire class into some battle later. I’m interested to see what everyone’s powers and artifacts are.
Production quality for this episode was once again across the board. Some of the beginning parts weren’t animated that well, though it got better towards the end. The fall scene was fun to watch (reminiscent of the beginning of the Spring OVA) and they unexpectedly played Happy Material during that part.
All this isn’t over yet as Negi and company still have to figure out what’s going on around them.

35 Comments

  7. “So the whole class is contracted now? I like the way that is going.”

    I don’t share the sentiment. Having Pactios with every basically kills any sort of character development that LEADS TO the Pactio. And that’s precisely what I was hoping for in this series despite it straying almost entirely from the original manga. Although Chamo treats Pactios as a money-maker, they have been always special to Negi and only occur after some sort of deeper understanding or closeness of said girl. You lose that by creating contracts with everyone. It feels like a cheap copout in order to emphasize/force more action and nonsensical story, which is why I prefer the original manga. Even if you leave that out, doing this takes away the meaning behind creating Pactios with first girls and also makes these new Pactios less meaningful because they were due to necessity (like the last episodes of the first anime series).

    deftoned
    Reply

  8. lol! So negi ended up contracting the entire class…. talk about pimpin’. Well i dont know what i can say about that, its just a tad silly to me and “lol japan”. But anyway i still like the series and i hope the subbing groups well get back in gear soon 😀

    Rexter
    Reply

  9. Sorry for dobbel post, but “deftoned” has a point. Even if it sorta “kills” the excitement about the series, im still gonna watch it because i think the producers might have something up their sleave.

    Rexter
    Reply

  13. Let me see, we still have 12 episodes to go, so having Pactio with everyone right now isn’t a bad idea. Because now Negi can face every challenge without fear, well maybe a little fear, but it doesn’t matter with how he get trapped in a dangerous situation, he has everything ready for those scenario with so many Provisional Contracts. The only thing or question that I would do will be “How many arc left?”

    Hell yeah!

    Syaoran Li
    Reply

  14. @ Don; stop posting if we all know that you hate this series so enough is enough.

    This episode had some good stuff which there are now some serious stuff rather than the usual gags.

    @ Houdson ;if you post we roit.

    shh227
    Reply

  16. So the deviant, loli-pedo, shut-in, otaku bastard still not posting ha?
    That’s ok…
    At least Negi’s back and the deck is complete. So much patios… So many kisses… hwaw!

    Moondoggiebuiscuit
    Reply

  19. What the hell is Shaft doing playing the origanl “Happy Material” song in this? Negima!? Isn’t even the same as the origanl Anime! I guess they’ll try anything to get this show to look better. But sadly nothing can help this load of shit get any better. And yet again Negi has to do a mass Patio session with the girls. This is just a load of bull shit.

    Hudson
    Reply

  20. Lol there’s the little troll! :3

    How cute~ Can’t even spell “original!” D;

    At least they’ve got a more valid reason why to do a mass pactio, unlike the last one. I mean, how else would Negi get out of that chupacabra state?

    Makie looks Fergilious in the preview xD;;

    Ah~ Black Rose Baron made himself a little more mysterious too :

    Jin
    Reply

  21. I’m feeling a bit like Deftoned … the Pactios were a plot device for the exposition of the personality and character of each girl. At this point, what we’ve got is a Huge Group Power Rangerettes show with Pimp Negi at the helm. Further character development (what little there was) is unlikely. Frankly, I’m moving to the attitude that they’re just setting up a Pokemon/Naruto/neverending fillers situation – possibly with intent to have it last multiple seasons (certainly a lot of figure merchandising possiblities).
    Though the series is still a somewhat fun frolic, I kind of find that treatment disappointing.

    I will agree that this “mass pactio” at least wasn’t as lame as that first series ending, but then that series had serious functional problems all throughout.

    I loathe the Baron at this point in a Team Rocket way, actually worse because the ego just oozes out of the character 🙂

    On the upside, lots of interesting little moments, the usual attention deficit editing, some excellent still art… another pile of omake pretty much.

    Vexx
    Reply

  22. Then again we can’t exactly expect character development–this anime assumes we’ve seen the manga or the first anime, thusly they’d feel that we’d feel that any characters getting development would be a rehash and therefore a waste of time.

    …not saying that we should happily be shafted out of character development, but… yeah.

    This series needs a PPD crossover, and I’m not writing it fast enough >:U

    Doctor Ansem
    Reply

  23. Is anyone else here getting repeated “503” (server overloaded aieee) messages from random curiosity when a page is requested?

    I’m wondering if someone is hammering the server or if it just suddenly got popular.

    Vexx
    Reply

  28. Awesome, this episode looks like it’s going to bring a bit more to the plot of the story, but I think it’s foreshadowing a one-season series. Also, the characters are starting to lose their uniqueness. Even though every character has their own pactio forms, the only ones that really stick out are Nodoka’s and Setsuna’s.

    Readarmon
    Reply

  29. A lot of QUALITY as opposed to quality in this episode. Not sure how to feel about the contract with the rest of em thing. Oh well, I guess they have to promote/sell those additional armor/character cards somehow. I lol’d hard when they played “Happy Material”.

    fict
    Reply

  30. I’m sharing similar disappointments on the mass kissing scene, since they should have their own reasons and unique ways of kissing Negi (I feel so perverted writing this). Happy Material kinda gives slack on it though, probably the only thing that needs to be transferred from the old Negima.

    Now that he has recovered, I am looking forward to seeing Paru-sama’s cosplay card power 😉

    Gains
    Reply

  33. Dear Omni,
    I fully support you in letting mentally handicapped people like Hudson post comments. Not only does it help them relieve the fact that they will never get laid, but also improve their poor vocabulary, grammar and punctuation so that in the future, they will have the necessary english skills to write a resume to get a job and a life.

    Yours Sincerely,
    Infinitelols

    Infinitelols
    Reply

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