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Zalis116
Moderator
Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6902
Location: Kazune City
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 9:23 pm
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Hmm, I guess it's "better luck next volume," then? I'd have to concede that these episodes are a bit of a low point in the series, though I did think that Chachamaru_x_Cats made for some cute scenes. As for the ghost character, you'll have to wait for episode 19 on a later volume, but imho, that episode and a few others (such as #15 and the final arc) scattered throughout the series go a long way in making up for the mediocrity found in other places.
And despite some of my purist nitpickings about the dub, I've really enjoyed it while watching Negima again. Especially Chamo; he had the best one-liner on the disc when he called Asuna a "cheater" after she reneged on kissing Negi on the lips for the Pactio ceremony. More credit goes to Funimation for these extras that help make things more understandable for people who haven't been gobbling up every school-life/romance/comedy/drama that's come out in the last 4 years; even the "Schoolgirl Commentary" mentions that the bathing scene with Kaede & Negi is supposed to be a "big sister" thing instead of something creepy.
But no matter how creepy she is, Ayaka still has my adoration (just had to throw that in there )
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Dorcas_Aurelia
Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5344
Location: Philly
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Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 3:57 pm
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I'm torn. I can't decide whether I prefer the sub or the dub. My indecision is due to the increased humor in the dub's dialouge compared to a large number of irritating and, in my mind, out of character voices.
In the end, the matter is trivial, since I only purchase the DVDs to nitpick the points on which it fails to live up to the manga. Take the dodgeball match. The episode itself is almost an exact replica of the two chapters of the manga it covers, but its location in the chronology of the story is not. The significance of the event's place in the timeline does make a difference. Whereas in the manga the dodgeball incident finished up the first volume (chapters 5 and 6) and was Negi's first challenge as a teacher and a means to introduce a few of the minor characters, in the anime, it occurs after Negi has already faced down a vampire and concerns over his inadacquacies as a teacher (which occur in the third volume of the manga). The episode actually regresses Negi's development.
Regarding the reviewers comments in paragraph 4 that Asuna should have had more screentime and the trivializing of most of the class, it makes sense to focus a series on fewer characters so as to develop them, but part of the appeal of Negima is supposed to be that it is a harem series with 31 girls. I realize that it is completely impractical to effectively deal with so many characters in a 26 episode show, but how is it any better to make more than half of the characters 1-dimensional stereotypes. A prime example of this massacre of character occurs during Negi's tour of campus with the twins when the three wander into the lab where Chao and Hakase are working on Chachamaru. Ignoring completely the crap about giving Chachamaru treads for improved terrain mobility (How are teads better than legs? Besides which, SHE CAN FLY FOR GOODNESS SAKES!), Chachamaru loses all of her personality and ability to control her own actions, apparently, because one of the twin's pressing a button causes her to fire a homing rocket at Negi.
I would have rather the anime just ignore the less important girls than the feeble attempts at characterization that were provided.
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daxomni
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 2650
Location: Somewhere else.
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Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 2:22 am
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Based on the first volume, this series was every bit as bad as many folks said it would be. Nothing redeeming about it whatsoever. Poorly written plot, annoying voices, cheesy conventional 'comedy', clichés up the yin-yang, and a large cast of utterly forgettable little kids. The volume 1 box they offered was about as nice as most boxes ever get, but the show itself was just crap. I'm not sure who this series is targeted at, but it certainly wasn't me.
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