Normally i wouldn't write a review for an anime, but as i did just finish this i felt i had to write something, and this is the 1st review i've written on MAL
This anime is an eclectic mix of brilliant art and some rather...odd storyline. As noted in other reviews, this series has almost nothing to do with the manga storyline what-so-ever. Sure the Series starts with the Nagi-Evangeline fight, and that has some of the best visual presentation i think i've ever seen in an anime, but after that it goes....to left field...in a good way. (Not really...just keep reading...)
One of the big differences
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a fan of the manga will notice right off the bat is the turning of 3 of the most minor characters in the series (though one is major in a few ways) into 3 of the characters that the story revolves around in one degree or another--those three are: Takamichi, Anya, and Nekane. And it also introduces 2 characters that are series exclusive- Shichimii and Matsuo...Character development in this series is a bit off as well, with Negi essentially making contracts with all of the students in his class, to avoid becoming a Chupacabra (Yes...i said Chupacabra) instead of the ermine that is mentioned in the manga.
Story- As far as the story goes, it was enjoyable to me because i'm a Negima fan, while the first 3 episodes had me hooked, i am a bit disappointed in the rest of the series. It starts off well with the Evangeline arc, but then it begins to shift to a filler style storyline that sort of fits with what they were trying to do with this series. Essentially Negi is the target of a mysterious "Darkness" and between that and a mysterious "Black Rose Baron" as well as Shichimi and Matsuo things get...for lack of a better term...stupid. Often times episodes don't really have a solid story to them and have to resort to brief fillers to get through the episode, while some are mildly entertaining, most are pretty bleh.
One thing i will say about this series is that it must be meant for younger viewers to help get them into the Negima universe, because as far as story plot goes, if you can guess about 2-3 possibilities, then there's a good shot that you're right--Case in point- the "Black Rose Baron's" identity- I figured out about 4-5 episodes earlier who that character's identity really was, and as it turned out- HEY! i was right...I really wondered for a while if it was meant to be a serious entry into the Negima world, because if it was, then the writers failed on an epic level with some of the plots and storylines and character developments. HOWEVER- I don't think this is the case, i think its just a playful series meant for entertainment as something different, not to be taken too seriously.
And it seems that the SHAFT writers have an extremely weird fixation on all things Chupacabra...as you'll see it ALOT in the series, enough that it gets to the point where you're going "Really? Move on already", however they actually do that with a couple of other things as well....But despite all of my complaining, if you can stand all of the little quirks of the story, its really not that bad.
Art- SHAFT did this...which is often times obvious with their unique way of doing things. I will say on the record right now though, as stated earlier the Nagi-Evangeline fight is possibly the best animation style that I've ever seen in an anime hands-down. It was impressive enough to hook me all the way through to the end hoping for more...As far as the characters go, SHAFT did a good job not going overboard with things, all of the colors and characters pop out at you, though there are certain students who kind of seem to blend together, but in all honesty they do that to me in the manga too, so it doesn't really matter. One thing i'm personally curious about is SHAFT not making Asuna's eyes multi-colored---in the first anime, as well as the manga, Asuna has Green in one eye and Blue in the other. My thought is that maybe since they wrote out Asuna's abilities and essentially all of her history that they didn't need to make her stand out too much.
Characters- well...i pretty much wrote about this earlier, but as stated above there are a lot of minor characters that play a bigger part in this anime. ALL of Negi's students become partners with him, so you have to see each and every student, sometimes that gets to be a little...overbearing. Sure to me its great watching Takamichi, but there are some students that are shown often that made me wonder why couldn't they fit another more recognizable character in this scene? Evangeline in this is actually rather tame compared to the other series and manga as well, which makes things kinda feel weird if you've read/seen those entires in the Negima! universe. Other than that, the only other point worth mentioning is Konoka and Setsuna's "relationship" the Konoka in this series is rather "puckish" in that she likes to play jokes on people at certain times, a lot of these times are at Setsuna's expense.
Overall- If this is the first Negima you've seen, then you'll probably like it, if you've read the manga or seen the other anime series, you'll immediately wonder "what the hell?" and probably either watch it, or immediately stop. The only reason i kept watching was because it was random enough that i kinda wanted to see how everything turned out. Even though before most of the major plot points i already knew what was going to happen within a few episodes of it happening, though around episode 10-12, there's a major plot point that made me laugh, even though it was kinda expected...in a good way.
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Sep 4, 2009
Normally i wouldn't write a review for an anime, but as i did just finish this i felt i had to write something, and this is the 1st review i've written on MAL
This anime is an eclectic mix of brilliant art and some rather...odd storyline. As noted in other reviews, this series has almost nothing to do with the manga storyline what-so-ever. Sure the Series starts with the Nagi-Evangeline fight, and that has some of the best visual presentation i think i've ever seen in an anime, but after that it goes....to left field...in a good way. (Not really...just keep reading...) One of the big differences ... |
