[TV series] Mahou Sensei Negima

[Angelic-Essence]

Title: Mahou Sensei Negima
Alternate Title: 魔法先生 ネギま！ (Japanese)
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Shonen, Supernatural
Rating: Teenagers (Contains some bloody violence)
Year: Manga; 2003-????, Anime; 2005
Volumes: 12+
Episodes: 26
Status: Manga; Ongoing, Anime; Complete

Synopsis:
10-year old Negi Springfield is a wizard-in-training, and needs only to pass one more test in order to become a Master Wizard. Unfortunately, his final task is a bizarre one- to become a English teacher at an all-females boarding school. As soon as he arrives, he completely embarasses one of his students, Asuna Kagurazaka, and replaces the teacher she loves, which garners her hatred. To make matters worse, Asuna learns that Negi is a wizard,and promises to tell unless he helps her out. But, unfortunately, circumstances force them to work together to do many things, from fighting evil wizards to helping the class pass their final exam, with a lot of humor, magic, and romances thrown in.

from Anime News Network

Storyline: (9/10) Seeing that it's from Ken Amakatsu of Love Hina (and Love Hina Again), the storyline was simple but interesting.

Characters: (9/10) Each character have interesting and intriguing backgrounds. There are so many and each unique in their own way from talents to personalities. You would wonder how Ken comes up with everything. Especially when this is 30 girls and 1 boy... and along with the side characters.

Art: (9.5/10) Of course, when it starts off, it's a bit shaky but the art is pretty good compared to Ken's previous work. It's details on each character and battle scene is pretty impressive and make you wonder if you could do it too.

Animation: (6/10) The animation isn't much to boast about. It's on an average level, compared to the manga.

Sound/Audio: (8/10) The music was pretty good. The opening themes changed every 4 episodes and the ending themes were pretty good too. This probably makes up for the animation.

Plot: (9/10) It starts off simple but later on it gets intriguing, probably making you sit on the edge of your seat, wanting to know what happens next. But that's only for cliffhangers.

Overall: (9/10) Sure the anime adaption was a disappointment but the producers didn't keep with the manga series. The manga is funny and romantic in it's own way of portrayal through characters. Throw in the magic and you just have something crazy here. I highly recommend this series to anyone who would be a fan of Ken Amakastu's workas well as the magic category along with some fluff romance.

[bakakame]

Well, I finally finished watching this series last week, started to read the manga, but it looks kinda iffy after 1 volume...

Story: 3/10 - I usually try not to dock points for personal issues with a series when reccomending it to someone else, but this series has a harry potter feel to it that I just can't seem to wash out... If you liked harry potter then add about 2 points to this catagory.

Basically, the story in the anime is... broken, to put it bluntly. While the episodes are fun to watch, they don't seem to go anywhere in particular. Most of the series is left in little plot holes as the series abandons one particular plot and starts another without answering anything. By the time the series is over, almost every original question or lead is abandoned for a brand new problem we find out about in the last 5 episodes, and from there pretty much everything else is left to die. I don't know if the manga was better at this, but the anime was very poorly planned.

Characters: 10/10 - Although I really felt no connection to any of the 30+ characters in the series, I said before I try not to include that in the decision. Basically, with 30+ charecters, one would think it insane to try to write for them all... not with this fancy trick. Basically, every character is just one personality trait, which dictates their entire thought and actions. Put all of them together and you may just get a sensible human being. Uncreative? Perhaps, but many other anime use this technique as well, and it really does become interesting to see what happens when certain charecters mix up.

Art/Animation: 9/10 - Very seldome does this series conduct my most hated cliche, the flashback. Granted a flashback here and there is good, but they can get redundant, but thats off topic.

The charecters look fairly good, I generally start this catagory off with 10/10 and deduct for problems, so there was very little to complain about animation-wise

Sound/Voicing: 8/10 - Thank god there isn't an english dub of this yet for me to judge, I'm still trying to forget about the english voicing in Love Hina. Music was good, few area's it got more annoying though, and the japanese voicing was splendid.

Overall: 7/10 - Nothing overly amazing about this one folks. With so many characters, chances are you find a favorite and watch the series to follow them. Not your average harem anime, but then again that's not always a good thing.

[Knuffle Bunny]

I REALLY liked the manga. it was hilarious and original.

story: 5/10
I am very picky about story lines and sometimes tend to dock of as much marks as possible. The story lines shared a similar story line to some of his other works, such as love hina. Which is also about one guy and a bunch of other girls. the plot really had no "plot".

Characters: 6/10
Unfortunately i score high with characters...most of the time. The characters in Negima are just too alike! All the girls basically have the same personality and doesn't really change personality from beginning to end. With Asuna being an exception.

Animation/ Art: 9/10
I really like the art. Everything is very well proportioned.(thank gosh)
there isn't much to say here. I liked pretty much everything. But i just had to take off a point...

Voices:8/10

Im not saying i do either. Considering the voices in love hina??? But the japanese voices were good. When i closed my eyes and listened. you could tell who's voices it was.

Overall: 7/10

overall he did i great job on teh manga. (and of course we can't for get the anime producers). It lost some marks for the plot. But it was suspenceful. or i wouldn't have read it! ^^

[CrimsonMoon]

Hmm, I dunno. I have no grudge against the anime series. Sure, the manga version is hilarious and funny, but then again, so is the anime version.

Story: 8/10 I really like this story! I have no complaints whatsoever. However, the part about being a little bit the same as Harry Potter is true, I have to admit it. Kinda like depicting Harry Potter.

Characters: 8/10 I think they have individuality. Each of them has their own specialty. I don't remember most of their names but I certainly think that they are different in their own ways. Chachamaru is one of my favourite characters there!

Animation/Art: 9/10 I have no complaints whatsoever with the arts. Ken is one of the many artists that I like. In this anime, I don't see any flaws. Sorry if there is. It's just that I tend to look more at their expressions and faces rather than looking at the characters as a whole.

Voices: 8/10 Since I'm not a good critic, I'll just give it an 8 because some people may not agree if I give it a 10.

Overall: 9/10 I really like this anime, especially the ending. The part where they go to Asuna's past and fight the demons there. Oh, I really love that scene! ^^ Their cloths are fantastic! They were working together as a team. Wait, is that a spoiler? Sorry...

[KuroTan]

hmm..im torn here since i liked the manga but then again if there was no manga then i would have liked the anime as much as i liked the manga if there was a manga.uhm..am i making sense here?^^' anyway..

story:hmm..tough one. id have to give it a 7/10. i really liked the story but then for the last part everything seemed to fly off.^^'

Characters: definite 10/10!^^ i mean,the sheer numbers of them all plus each of them,as Crmison Moon pointed out, all of them having individuality.anyone who worked so hard to do that deserves a perfect score.^^


Animation/Art: Id have to give that a 4/10.sorry bout that but i really thought the art was a long way off from ken akamatsu's one.^^'

Voices: another 10/10! The voices were really well done plus they all sounded so cute!lol.

Overall:id have to give it a 7/10.it was a good series but i felt it could have been better.^^

[Stryyder]

(This is a review for the TV anime only)

Title: Mahou Sensei Negima
English Title: Negima! - Magister Negi Magi
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Shonen, Supernatural
Rating: Teenagers (Contains some bloody violence)
Year: Manga; 2003-????, Anime; 2005
Volumes: 15+
Episodes: 26
Status: Manga; Ongoing, Anime; Complete

Storyline: (7/10) I wish so much that they would have put in more elements from the manga. As it is it does a good job of showing the initial plot but by the middle of the series it stops being about Negi and fishtails into the life of Negi's students. While that is an integral role it just seemed as though they tried too hard to get them into it.

Characters: (8/10) They did a pretty good job with the characters they could use. They gave Sayo a better intro than the manga did, each girl had her own personality. They did a remarkable job fleshing out Akamatsu-dono's thoughts.

Art: (4/10) This is another point where I compare to the manga. Being that I started the manga before the anime there was just so much less character in the faces of everyone on the anime. I think the colors were a little too bright, not enough shadow and shading used and the "let's give everyone odd hair colors" factor really threw me off.

Animation: (7/10) I have nothing really bad to say about the animation. Good movement, nice magic effects but nothing that I would rave about. Just above average enough to keep me watching.

Sound/Audio: (7/10) Music and sound effects worked really well, but again, nothing I'd write home about.

Voice Acting: (Jap:8/10,Eng(US):4/10)
I am personally a dub fan. I like a lot of dub voices and can even deal with the not so good ones usually (i.e. Naruto). I can honestly say this is the first anime I have watched where the dub voices lessened my enjoyment of the series. I collected it disc by disc and after the first I had to watch it subbed. Chris Ayres did such a great voice for Chrono but I am disappointed with his inflection here. I didn't mind Asuna or Konoka. Setsuna was way too monotone and sounded just bad. For the rest I just imagined each unique character having their own unique voice, but unfortunately they had a few recycled actors and the voices didn't really stand out from girl to girl.

Overall: (6/10) - While it was a treat to see the manga I have come to love brought to life, I definitely was disappointed. Altered character design, plot holes, and a total deviation from key manga points. I really wanted to see Kotaro-kun on the screen and the Mahorafest/Mahorafest budokai. had they kept the storyline on Negi and not so much on Asuna I believe it would have lasted a few more seasons.

[Alexsis23]

Story - My Rating 7/10: The story was something to laugh and follow along with quite easily :P Also everything from Fantasies is just amazing

Characters - My Rating 9/10: Well everyone in Negi-Sensei's class was just amazing And Negi himself is quite impressive *Even for a 10 year old boy*

Art & Animation - My Rating 10/10: Its something to look at and see for yourself :P

Voice Acting/Music - My Rating 7.5/10: The Japanese dub is far better and also it gives more deep emotion to what they want to say

Overall - My Rating 8/10: Well this anime series is something you would want if you like magic and stuff :P but otherwise its still worth wathcing

[Sizu-chan]

I have seen it with Japanese dub and English sub.

Storyline: 7.5/10
It wasn't bad, but not great. It sometimes bored me.

Characters: 8.5/10
A lot of characters! :O They were all very typical, and that was nice.. Otherwise it'd have been impossible to keep them apart. :P And even though they were all so different from eachother, they were a group. Just like real class should be.

Art: 6/10
It wasn't very pretty. The colours were a bit vague, and the lines were a bit too thin.

Animation: 8/10
The magic-effects were really cool. And running and such movements were flexible.

Sound/Audio: 8.5/10
Nothing to complain about. The voices matched the characters.

Overall: 8/10
A nice storyline, but the art wasn't the best. The magic-effects were nice, but there weren't a lot of them.

[Peppermint Hearts]

This is the series that the authors of the Anime Encyclopedia thought was very creepy, mainly because it seems that Negi's students were crushing on him, but I just think the have their heads up their ! There's nothing wrong with this series, it was entertaining, with fun characters, especially the "tsudere" girl with the bells worn in her hair, and the different colored eyes! Overall rating is 8, good characters, artwork is OKAY, and good stories.