mokonanl

Story

Mahou Sensei Negima is a story set in the modern time about a 10 year old mage, Negi Springfield, who has just graduated from his magic school in Wales and is given a training assignment to teach at Mahora Acedemy in Japan, an all-girl boarding school. While he must hide his magic he fails to do so on the first day, which is the first mark for more trouble.

While I do enjoy the storyline created by Akamatsu Ken, the story changes made by the producers of XEBEC lack in the same quality. Parts of the story are changed, more useless things added in filler episodes. Whilst the humor in these fillers makes them bearable they do not match up to the manga's quality and in some cases even totally conflict with the manga.

Filler scene that is the opening of Episode 1. It is amusing yet quite ridiculous.

Animation

Animation is the weakest part of the series. The artwork isn't all that good in quality, the coloring lacks and the changes in the character design, such as Chisame's green hair and Asuna's two colored eyes, are totally horrifying.

Sound

The sound is probably the series strong point. The soundtrack has some amazing tracks, others are nothing more than mediocre though.                                                            The voicing cast is quite well selected, and with the spell incantations kept in their original language of Latin or ancient Greek it sticks with the manga quite well. The maintained spell incantations is the only thing this series beats the later OVAs in.

Characters

Generally the cast of characters is awesome, but with the plot changes mentioned earlier character backgrounds and development throughout the series also change. Sadly this decreases their quality. The worst example is the fiasco of the last arc (episode 23-26). The only change from the manga in terms of character I did not mind was the addition of a background story of Sayo. This is where the manga leaves you wondering.

Overall

The concept of the series is quite awesome with plenty of humor, action and even a dose of romance, the anime series leave room for improvement in quite a few areas. The series do offer some enjoyment but if you really wish to see the quality of the series I suggest you skip this and stick with the manga.