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REVIEW: Negima! DVD 6




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britannicamoore



Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2618
Location: Out.
PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 2:04 am Reply with quote
I had heard the rumors going into this dvd about how the charcter death was...misplaced and stupid.

After watching it I can do nothing but agree. This volume took a show I actually enjoyed and made a fool out of it. I'm sort of hoping Funimation gets the "next" season so I can see it done right.

Currently i'm reading the manga (i'm on number 8) based on some suggestions here and to see how...odd this shows plays out after reading it is weird.

If anyone asks me about this volume I tell them that it was horrible because even though it was suppose to be sad I laughed at the suddenness of it all. It just seems like they completly ran out of materil and maybe they did. it still sucked.
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Asrialys



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 1164
PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:06 pm Reply with quote
Heh, it was definitely a WTF moment for me. Seems like they had already decided by the end of the series that there wouldn't be a second season following this story. Darn, and I reeeeeeeaaaaaaalllllly wanted the school festival animated. If they do decide to make a second season from this, then things will be totally different because...

spoiler[...this anime got his entire class involved, meaning that they now know about his magic. In the upcoming English-translated volumes of the manga, only a few more girls find out about Negi's secret. During the martial arts tournament, everyone was questioning whether or not what they were seeing (lots of magic) was real. But by the end of the anime, his entire class knows. Also, Nagi is supposedly alive in the manga while they seemed to kill him off in the anime.]
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Grico



Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 201
Location: Fort Wayne, IN
PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 3:37 pm Reply with quote
Well it is was absurdly sudden and it made me laught in shock, but at least it made some plots actually start moving. Romantic plots moved forward, Negi actually had to deal with something real for once, and we got a history lesson that was pretty informative. Unfortunately most of that movment was spoiler[mostly completely negative by the, "we went back in time and changed everything and now no one remembers it anymore" ending. Dead Asuna that had real consequences would have set up a hella 2nd season on its own course different from the manga. ]
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6900
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:05 am Reply with quote
I figured this review was coming sooner or later...

To be honest, after reading through the presently released manga, I liked the way they handled the ending. If we look at a manga breakdown:

Vols. 1-3 ~ Introductions, Library Island adventure
Vols. 4-6 ~ Trip to Kyoto
Vols. 7-8 ~ Vacation and miscellaneous training
Vols. 9-10 ~ Mahora Festival (preparation and first day, spoiler[repeated several times])
Vols. 11-13 Mahora Festival (manga becomes Negiball Z for martial arts tournament)
Vols. 14-17 More Mahora Festival (I don't know, haven't read the scans)

It's not that they ran out of material; they just didn't have a good place to stop within the source material. I'd rather have some kind of actual ending with closure as opposed to a "and the story goes on, go buy the manga Wink" ending. And while I'd agree that the final battle was a bit over-the-top, they managed to pull off some good scenes before that, especially the beginning of episode 24 that spoiler[really captures the feeling of students having lost a classmate.] I didn't think that anything in Negima! could surpass the sadness levels of episode 19, but episodes 23-25 were an impressive effort. (Although I have to say that #23's lost some of its effect on me, since spoiler[I watched it over and over again when I slapped together an essentially one-man fansub release of it back in September 2005. 1-22 and 24-26 had been done, so what can I say, I took matters into my own hands.]

As for the English dub, I didn't like it quite so much in this final volume because there wasn't as much comedic material or opportunities to insert comedic material into the dialogue. But the performances stayed the course to the end, at the least.

Overall, I still hold the minority position of liking this series and its ending. It may not be perfectly faithful to the manga, but at least it tries harder than the Negima!? remake. Even so, some of my favorite spots were sections that changed or added to the manga, such as the more extended flashback in episode 15, the "net idol competition" in episode 11, all of episode 19 (which completely rewrote the class's introduction to Sayo, for the better IMO), and episodes 23-26, to some extent. I don't regret watching it twice or paying money for Funi's release, so it's one more "decent series" in the books for me.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 6251
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:06 am Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:
It's not that they ran out of material; they just didn't have a good place to stop within the source material.


I think the end of the field trip arc would have made a good stopping point.


Last edited by HitokiriShadow on Thu Apr 12, 2007 12:09 pm; edited 2 times in total
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PhatPhil



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 37
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:58 am Reply with quote
The way I look at it, until they have a Negima anime that follows the plot chapter to chapter or so, I'm really not gonna care for the anime.

This is one of the few times I would have to say I preferred the manga over the anime, except in the case of .hack//LotT.

I dunno, I just feel it's a series that deserves to at least have things replicated word for word. Maybe that's just how I feel but... It's kinda like how it's not a fantastic series, but at least it manages to hold things together to a point of everything being easy to follow.
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miredman



Joined: 21 Jan 2011
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:20 pm Reply with quote
I'm also in the minority, it seems. The events in these last episodes of Negima! were sometimes hard to watch, but IMHO, they brought everything to a close rather nicely.

I was a little shocked that ... spoiler[even though Asuna is always telling Negi to share his problems, she couldn't bring herself to do the same. ] But if you set aside that flaw (or rather, embrace it)... spoiler[ it just highlights the special kind of relationship they have. ] ... it grounds the series in a way that I admire and support.

The finale left me wanting more... but I think that's a good thing. Certainly, what I've seen of Negima!?, the follow-up series, leads me to think that, by trying to fix things, they only made them worse.

Anyway, I applaud shows like the first Negima!, which, even though it's set in an idyllic world, finds ways to push the boundaries and make us squirm. That, to me, is the whole point of artistic expression. Otherwise, it's just empty entertainment, which is the spiritual equivalent of drinking cola or an energy drink. With these last few episodes, Negima! aims higher, and IMHO, it succeeds admirably.
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