Review of Negima - Magic 601: Magic and the Dark Arts

Introduction

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 vehemently. I`m strongly inclined to the genre and having enjoyed Love Hina, I`ve been looking forward to another Ken Akamatsu creation. Negima concludes with volume 6 of the anime, and things take a turn for the dark at Mahora Academy for Girls. While much of the series so far has been fun and light, we`re into serious territory now as the story builds up to a conclusion, continuing on from the rather unsettling Asuna storyline that was developed at the end of the last volume.

Negi Springfield is the newest member of the faculty at the Mahora 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.

The final four episodes are here on this disc, released by Revelation Films.

23. Remember to Die (Memento mori)
Asuna`s out of sorts and is feeling worse all the time. Negi notices this, and also notes that she has marked out the 22nd of October on her calendar. Negi figures out the problem straight away, and recruits the rest of class 2-A into organising a knockout birthday bash.

24. Both Weapons and Words Wound (Et arma et verba vulnerant)
It`s hard for class 2-A to come to terms with what has happened, but Negi is determined to put on a happy face for the sake of his students. The Cultural Festival is coming up, and Yue suggest the class puts on a musical production. Negi is the star of course, and Nodoka gets volunteered as the leading lady, a chance for her to act on her feelings. But the course of a schoolgirl crush never runs smoothly.

25. Death is Certain, the Time is Uncertain (Mors certa, hora incerta)
Negi just can`t cope with what has happened, and Takahata realises that perhaps it would be best for Negi to return home to Wales. Time is running out for Negi to act. Fortunately, the Robotics Club has an invention.

26. Not for me, Not for you, But for us (Non mihi, non libi, sed nobis)
The conclusion…

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. The arrangement of the opening theme changes every few episodes, and we get another, exceedingly poppy 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, as per the norm for anime discs, although no multi-angle credits this time around.

You get the textless credit sequences, and five pages of text offering a look at the mythology behind the Tree Of The World. There are trailers for Tsubasa and Fruits Basket.

There are 5½ minutes of bloopers, vocal screw-ups by the English dub cast that you may or may not find funny. I rarely do.

The final Schoolgirl Commentary accompanies episode 25 and features director Chris Cason and voice actress Trina Nishimura. It`s a light-hearted gigglefest, with more than its fair share of innuendo, but in the midst of the frivolity there is the odd interesting bit of trivia to pick up.

Conclusion

Well, that was an ending and a half. Negima has been a terribly uneven series, dabbling with comedy, drama, action and magic, and never quite fixating on one to really develop an identity. It`s through sheer force of personality, and sense of fun that it has become something of a guilty pleasure, and it`s far easier to stick a disc of Negima in rather than watch something more critically acclaimed. But it saves all its big guns and emotional strength for the final episodes, delivering an ending which certainly exceeds all that has come before, packs an emotional wallop for the main characters, and even though it is heavily clichéd and even predictable, still has a few tricks up its sleeve to keep it fresh and exciting.

Of course none of that is in the episode synopses I have written up above. I`ve just stuck with the b-story, and hinted at the rest. With an ending this good, you don`t share it all at once.

There`s something indescribably likeable about Negima. For all its shortcomings, it has an infectious energy to it that is hard to deny. Over the 26 episode run, the stories have been all over the place, the characters ephemeral and rarely developed, any threat of an overall plot was quickly buried under a mountain of daftness, and the series premise just seemed wasted for much of the time. I`d still defy anyone to remember just who is who in class 2-A without recourse to the manga, but that really doesn`t matter. Even if some characters were underused, everyone had their moment in the sun, and there was never a moment of dullness in the lot. And for the final episodes, it`s as if all that random rambling and odd detours into madcap comedy, suddenly coalesce into a meaningful whole. It`s as if you suddenly realise that everything has indeed been building to a dramatic point, and when that point arrives, Negima delivers with both barrels.

I wouldn`t recommend this show to everyone. You have to have a high tolerance for inanity to appreciate Negima. But if you can get behind the premise, and accept that it will hardly take anything seriously, then there is much to appreciate about this series. And rather than starting out big and fizzling out, Negima adopts a scattershot approach to storytelling, leaving the big bang for the finale and definitely leaves you wanting more. There are a couple of OVA adventures that hopefully Revelation can release, and if you want more after that, there is a second Negima series, but be aware that dissatisfied with this series, the creators simply tore everything up and started again.