Negima!?

TV (26 eps)
2006 - 2007
Fall 2006
3.602 out of 5 from 6,232 votes
Rank #4,363

Negi Springfield is a typical ten year-old Welsh boy -- except that he's a mage, and an English teacher at an all girls school in Japan! In order to become a full mage he has to prove himself as a teacher and find suitable partners to aid him; but above all, he has to make sure that no one discovers his secret. Much to his dismay his secret is discovered on the first day by one of his students, Asuna. To prevent Negi from being punished, Asuna agrees to become his partner -- however she isn't the only one to find out. As time goes by more of his students find out his secret. How long can he keep his powers hidden when little by little all of his students are becoming his partners?

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Reviews

EHero09
7.5

When I first watched this back in April 2012, I was relatively new to watching anime, so I didn't have many standards. I just wanted to watch something where I could kick back and enjoy myself with a decent story, entertaining characters and a bit of humour. The first time I watched Negima!?, it delivered. Sixteen months later... not so much. Story Negima!? essentially starts out exactly the same as the original Mahou Sensei Negima!. Ten-year-old Negi Springfield has just graduated from the Magic Academy in Wales, and receives his task to become a full-out mage: become the teacher of a Japanese all-girl middle school class. However, he must do everything he can to keep his identity as a mage a secret, else he'll have his magic licence revoked and be turned into an animal. Needless to say, he gets caught out almost immediately. What's notable about Negima!? is that it actually starts off with the original manga's plot; namely, the Evangeline arc. However, it's made clear that Negima!? is a spin-off from the original as this gets cleared up in the first few episodes and fast-forwards a whole year after the incident. What makes this show stand apart from its parent show Negima!, besides the extra question mark, is that it focuses more on comedy and action compared to the original's harem antics. However, even the comedy starts to lose its lustre as the show drags on, becoming just the same jokes repeated with some variety thrown in every now and then. Animation Being done by Studio SHAFT, the animation is one of the saving graces of the anime. Bright colours are often used with odd angles and flashes of title cards featuring the characters, especially in the later stages of the anime, used to show a scene break. The actions were done really well, particularly the battle with Evangeline in the opening episodes. Sound Not really that much to say about the sound this time around. The opening song, "Sparking 1000%!", is one of my favourite songs, and would make it onto my top 50 anime openings list if I make one. There were various endings; "Hoshizora Letter" didn't really stick out for me, whereas the regular ending after it, "A-LY-YA!", was a lot more fun to listen to, and fit the light-hearted feel of the anime very well. The background music was never really particularly memorable, except for one or two tracks used during action scenes, which were also used in the first Mou Hitotsu no Sekai OVA. The voice actors were much the same as they were in the original Negima! anime. They brought the characters to life much more effectively than the original anime, but that may just be because of the series' more colourful presentation. Characters As with the original, the characters is where Negima!? truly shines. What with introducing a total of thirty-six characters in the first episodes alone, there are a lot to choose from. One thing this anime does is stick with one attribute of each character and take it to the extreme; for example, Asuna, who in the original was often tired due to her paper routine and had poor grades as a result, was turned into an outright lazy character whose day started the moment class ended. One thing I really liked about Negima!? was the fact that it brought several characters who were never really important in the original right into the forefront much earlier, particularly the Narutaki twins and Kaede. Final thoughts In the end, Negima!? is nothing more than a spin-off of the original work. The only things the two share is the setting and the characters. It's better not to think too much when watching this anime, so just sit back, relax, with a nice cup of tea and watch the characters go through their various advantures. Story - 4.1 Animation - 8.7 Sound - 7.8 Characters - 8.1 Enjoyment - 9.0 FINAL SCORE - 7.54/10

Madoka
7

NegimaI normally start reviews with some general outline to the happenings of the anime with a slight insight to its good points and some of my favourite things, i won't be doing this for this review and for the next few throughout winter due to busy life. Anyway onto the Review. ***Applogies this review being simple plain text, i usually spice them up with images but i have had a lot happen in real life so sadly this one will have to deal with simple text, at some point i might return to edit it to make it look nice***Story:The story of this anime isn't what i call strong, actually its quite lacking, a 10year student of magic and sourcery named Negi is to take the role as a teacher in charge of a class of 30 odd students at a all girls academy. Now the problem i had here is, really a 10 year old to teach? besides it had no explanation of why this is useful besides it being his test it had no real play in the anime besides the fact he used magic. Simply this plot was created for nothing more than foundation for why he is a teacher and why is he there, which isn't really a bad thing, many anime introduce such to give them backbone.As suggested then the plot is weak and really its almost non existant, the real plot is a comedy/romance (maybe?) and some school life. Really this story was made and focused around him being a magic user, thats the key points to know.If you love serious strong story anime, this probberly isn't your cup of tea, however this doesn't at all make it a bad series, for them who love comedy or just laid back school life/slice of life this might be something to think about taking on. The comedy present in the series is quite enjoyable, not to forced on us or over used but quite well paced and feels 'right'. Though some areas feel like its breaking into Romance/comedy they are nothing special to them who enjoy harem or romance comedy, but actually i quite enjoyed this, the little crush thing worked well for Nodaka and i was happy to see it, the problem was it wasn't clear for others, Nodaka suffers fear from men and relations of such so her persistancy after growing attached to Negi was quite sweet or adorable, however for some reason it semt at times the whole class (30 odd girl) had a thing for him on and off, which is weird considering he is 10 and all, though i suppose 14 isn't much older it does feel it. I will further cover this in characters.Animation:I felt this was done quite nicely, the style of art work was nice to look at for me but also one thing i really liked was use of colour. When the series started the artwork was just another anime to me (nothing special and nothing weak), but as i began watching i began to notice the contrast of bright to dark colouring was done very well. With rather smooth running animated scenes along side aswell and no inconsistentsy i felt it was worth giving a decent score to here.Sound:alot of anime don't stand out to me for sound, unless its got some strong supporting BGM to the scenes (Remember Angel Beats, Air, Anohana?) then its usually gets about a 6 for me unless i notice some degrading to this point. OP/ED i offer a extra point (as here). The OP to me was quite enjoyable, i actually liked the visual but the music wasn't half bad either, as for ED(s), the first one was really enjoyable to me, sadly the second one was a litle below average, it wasn't awful just a bit plain. For BGM used throughout, well like most series, its present, its not anything beyond this world in greatness but it does its job well enough and doesn't feel misplaced or unused.Characters:My favourite thing to this anime are the characters.With a class of 30 something students we get a fun handful of personalities and traits. Though we don't really get to know all the students we do get at least half of the names into our head (or put simple, appear enough to learn the names) we do non the less see some nice faces. First character design is nice (more animation comment but meh), but from the Tsundere to the quiet shy type to the rowdy type it has them all making a real great combination with works suppringly well to keep our attention, heck if your like me you will take interest in several of these.There isn't many characters i describe to be annoying, i find a lot of series always have 1 character which really just gets to me and i wish to punch them through the rough, ok at times i found characters in here which i questioned why their brain is processing everything backwards but non of which was really annoying enough to make me say i 'hate' them.All in All:Overall its a good anime for people who like a slow paced anime and don't really care much about story. As mentioned if your looking for a good story to follow you might want to pass here, as stated its not non existant but it doesn't develop much and well simply is easier to say it isn't present. If your a harem lover maybe this suits you well, Slice of life fans might also enjoy this, i think it would also suit school life fans, i suppose anyone might not mind this just i think them genre don't always hold strong stories anyway. with a average or slightly above feel and characters you can love i think this anime scored decent with a passing score to me. I recommend it to any who feel school life is there sort of thing, heck my friend said she found Negi very cute, so the girls out there might enjoy some cuteness to follow whilst the guys can maybe find a girl they like (Nodaka for me xD). Anyway i found this a decent watch and think it was worth the time.***Applogies this review being simple plain text, i usually spice them up with images but i have had a lot happen in real life so sadly this one will have to deal with simple text, at some point i might return to edit it to make it look nice***__________________This review was part of the Secret Santa reviews. 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