Review of Negima - Magic 201: Magic and Combat

Introduction

The second volume of Negima is upon is, and I guess I should begin this review with my usual disclaimer about harem anime. The harem genre is to anime fans, what Marmite is to the average grocery shopper. Its comedy formula of a protagonist surrounded by several members of the opposite sex, clamouring for his or her attention divides fans most strongly. I`m strongly inclined to the genre and having enjoyed Love Hina, I`ve been looking forward to another Ken Akamatsu creation. The first volume of mayhem merely served to whet my appetite, with the ultimate harem of over thirty teenaged girls, quite frankly wasted on a ten-year-old schoolteacher. That`s until the final episodes of the volume where it becomes apparent that for the wizard to unlock his true ability, he needs to form a magical pact with a warrior of the opposite sex, and seal it with a kiss. There`s bound to be some awkward moments and red faces in this second volume of Negima!

Negi Springfield is the newest member of the faculty at the Mahoru Academy. It`s a girls` school the size of a small city, and would be a daunting prospect for anyone, but Negi is actually a child prodigy, a college graduate at only ten years old. He can`t even reach the blackboard, yet he has to teach English to a class of fourteen-year-old girls. Hailing from Wales, Negi has a secret to protect, he`s actually a wizard, and his final challenge before gaining the rank of Magister Magi, is to teach at the Japanese school. However, under no circumstances must anyone find out who he really is, or he will be recalled back to Wales, stripped of his qualifications, and worse, turned into an ermine.

This second disc contains the next four episodes.

7. The Appearance Of Things Is Deceptive (Fallaces sunt rerum species)
Asuna confronts Evangeline, who turns out to be the vampire. She assures her that as long as the moon isn`t full, the other students are safe. But what is a vampire doing at school, how does she know Negi`s father, and why can`t she leave? Negi has a crisis of confidence, but running away to the forest, he runs into another student, Nagase. Nagase decides that a little training is what Negi needs to get his confidence back, and puts him on a crash course.

8. One Night Befalls All Of Us (Omnes una manet nox)
Evangeline is on the verge of throwing off the curse and escaping her imprisonment. She`s growing stronger, gaining more power, and with her robot Chachamaru, she`s planned her getaway. Negi is determined to stop her, but first he`ll have to face four students under her thrall. They, the robot, and a magical vampire may be too much for him to handle. He needs to form a pactio with Asuna, which means his first kiss.

9. I`ll Get You, Wascally Wabbit! (Te capiam cunicule sceleste!)
Negi has an errand to run, but just getting across the city-sized campus is an adventure. He runs across the twins Fuka and Fumika, who are both in the mood to play a prank or two on their teacher. Instead of heading straight for the Tatsumiya Shrine, he gets a whistle stop tour of all the various extra curricular clubs. Meanwhile a phantom has snuck through the mystical barrier protecting the school.

10. Where There Is Harmony, There Is Victory (Ubi concordia, ibi victoria)
The senior students are muscling in on Class 2A`s volleyball court. It gets worse when Negi tries to step in and stem the bullying, as the senior girls find him just as adorable as his own class. This will have to be solved with a dodgeball match. If class 2A wins, they get to keep their court, if the seniors win, they get to keep Negi.

Video

Negima gets a 4:3 transfer that is clear, sharp and full of strong, bright colours. The transfer quality is good, with little to complain about. The character designs are excellent, with a wide variety of designs for the various class members. That said, the animation is the weak point, and when the pace of the story, and the energy of the humour begin to flag, then the limitations of the animation become apparent. Negima looks ten years older than it actually is, and compared to its contemporaries the lustre certainly fades. It`s all pretty standard stuff, and it does the job.

Audio

You have a choice of DD 2.0 English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles or a signs only track. As always my first choice is for the original language, and I found nothing to complain about. The dialogue is clear, the subtitles legible, and the music suits the show well, with a couple of toe-tapping tunes accompanying the credits. In an interesting bit of trivia, the arrangement of the opening theme changes every four episodes; we get the third version on this disc. As with a fair number of series, the Japanese voice artists also sing the theme tune, and with a cast as extensive as Negima`s, it`s the only way to get them all involved.

Just like Love Hina, the script has gone through a significant alteration for the English dub. The saucy and ribald humour has been toned down, the character interactions altered slightly, and minor plot points and jokes changed completely. The English and Japanese versions offer completely different experiences, although I prefer my humour on the raw side. Unlike Love Hina however, this dub is actually a good one, with the character voices working well for the most part. That`s with the exception of Negi and his family. He`s Welsh, so he gets a generic Dick Van Dyke English accent. Aimed at the American audience it doesn`t matter of course, but to UK ears it`s Daphne`s brother all over again.

Features

Jacket picture, animated menus and multi-angle credit sequences, as per the norm for anime discs. Fortunately, there is no glitch this time around.

You get the textless credit sequences, and five pages of text offering an insight into Japanese communal bathing. There are trailers for Gunslinger Girl and Rumbling Hearts. The big extra feature this time around is the audio commentary for episode 7. Clarine Harp and Caitlin Glass talk about their characters and the episode. It`s light and trivial, and there is no mention of the difference between the Japanese and English scripts.

Once again there are no character profiles, but if you watch the English angle of the credits, at least the name of the character flashes up when their image appears. You have to be pretty nifty with the pause button, and without a story to highlight that character, the name is pretty meaningless anyway.

Conclusion

Dropping from the bumper six episode opening volume back to a regular 4 episode disc was going to have an air of disappointment to it, but for the first half of the disc, Negima: Volume 2 manages to make up for this with an interesting tale that fills in a fair bit of back story and adds some colour to Mahora Girls Academy. The comic mayhem and harem humour is still there, but there is something of an overarching story and a depth to proceedings. Unfortunately that depth vanishes in the second half of the disc, the momentum stalls, and it takes a while for the show to get going again.

We begin with the unmasking of the vampire that has been preying on the girls, and it turns out to be one of Negi`s own students, Evangeline. Evangeline isn`t who she appears to be, and has had previous run ins with Negi`s family. This provokes a crisis of confidence for Negi, who has to fight a member of his class in order to protect his class. We meet another of his students, Nagase, whose ninja training is put to use helping Negi fight his demons, and we also finally get to see what the consequences of the `pactio` are.

Then we come to I`ll Get You Wascally Wabbit, an episode title that promises much, and delivers nothing. After a major plot arc, it would be fair to expect a wind down episode, light hearted and inconsequential, but this one is ridiculous. Negi has to complete an errand, and he is helped/hindered by the twins Fuka and Fumika. That`s it! It accomplishes something in letting us get to know a couple of the girls, and also taking us on a breakneck tour of the various clubs that the schoolgirls attend. But it really doesn`t have a story or a point. The only really interesting thing happens in the background, a mention of a mystical barrier protecting the school, and the fact that something or things are trying to break in. Mahora Academy isn`t what it appears to be.

We finally find first gear again with the final episode on the disc, which while still light and fluffy, at least has a point to it. The opening shot hints at a beach volleyball episode akin to the opening credits, but the final product is more… clothed. Classroom rivalry comes to the boil as the seniors challenge their younger schoolmates over a volleyball pitch. Once again the girls all find Negi sweet and huggable, so naturally they wind up arguing over him, and the whole thing degenerates into a dodgeball game to see who will prevail. Negi learns something of responsibility here, and the characters get a little development. It doesn`t hurt that this is the funniest episode on the disc either.

Despite a rather aimless episode 9, Negima still had me grinning from ear to ear while I was watching it. It`s not the most technically accomplished anime, and it certainly isn`t the deepest or most original, but it is silly and madcap. There`s something to be said for just sticking in a DVD and giggling at some animated inanity. Negima offers 90 minutes of this, for which it is still a title I hasten to recommend.