User rating of this review - 4 out of 5
Story/Plot - 4 out of 5
Characters - 4 out of 5
Drawing Style - 5 out of 5
Enjoyment - 5 out of 5
Overall - 4 out of 5
Plot/Story
Negi Springfield, 10 years old, has just graduated after seven years of study as a magician. A part of a magician’s graduation requirements is to take on a job and use that to prove their abilities.
Negi has received the assignment of 'Teacher' at Mahora High School, a Japanese, all girls school. He is now the teacher in charge of 31 15-16 year old girls.
Characters
(Too damn many)
Negi Springfield; our lead character... he's a non-perverted magic casting travel size version of Keitarou (from the Mangaka's other popular work Love Hina). Negi gives everything he can to his job and works hard to see that he succeeds. When out of the ordinary events start occurring Negi shows that he is far more capable and reliable than the average 10 year old.
Asuna Kagurazaka; The lead female character. She's aggressive, not all that smart and has a school-girl crush on the teacher Negi replaced (which she is not happy about). She works hard to pay for her tuition despite receiving special consideration from the principal.
Konoka Konoe; Asunas friend and the Principals granddaughter. She's a fun girl and comes from a line of wizards. Her grandfather tries hard to set her up with a partner, in the first chapter he offers her as Negi's girlfriend. This doesn’t happen, but Negi still ends up sharing a room with Konoka and Asuna.
Nodoka Miyazaki; Nodoka is the token super shy girl that has to exist in this kind of manga. She's cute, blushes a lot, fantasises a lot and falls madly in love with her teacher. cheers for Nodoka
Evangeline.A.K.McDowell; A strange girl who sits up the back of the class. In the notes left to Negi by the previous teacher she is mentioned as someone for him to rely on if he is in trouble.
Setsuna Sakurazaki; The silent Katana wielding girl. She plays a very minor role in the beginning but makes the manga better by a factor of three once she starts making regular appearances.
Drawing Style
If you have seen any of Ken Akamatsu's work then you know how it looks. If you haven’t, his characters are well drawn, body shapes range from normal to normal with huge breasts, (oh, and two super childish twins for the readers with Lolita complex’s).
Action is drawn quite well, as are the scenes with over 20 individual characters. It’s quite impressive what one can do with a reasonable budget and a good computer. Backgrounds are excellent (someone he knows must be an architect) and the characters are pretty much pasted on top of these backgrounds. But it works and Negima is visually impressive.
Enjoyment
This manga caters for a broad range of fans, its got action, magic, cute girls, breasts and panties. I couldn’t not mention breasts and panties, because at times they appear to be the manga’s main selling point. A chapter without multiple shots of the girls’ underwear is simply something that doesn’t exist. Communal bathing means that Ken gets to draw 31 naked girls; clever use of steam stops it from being full nudity.
Sadly the fanservice is way overdone. As fun as it is to look at 15 year old girls panties (note, not my thing) it does get old... but apparently not to the mangaka who is still going strong after 8 volumes.
However, if the gratuitous fanservice doesn’t steer you away; then the magic battles and antics of the characters are waiting to amuse you.
Overall
I like it; Id like it more with less panty shots, but meh, the mangaka is selling a tonne of this stuff... so he's obviously doing something right.
Negima is an amusing manga, the art is excellent, the characters are mostly tried and tested Love Hina remodels, so Ken knows what he is doing. A few characters are completely new, having had no real equivalent in Love Hina, Kotarou being one of them. This little Kansai-boy/battle-freak is good value and acts as a secondary male lead when he's involved. Which I think is needed, the male cast is woefully outnumbered.
So yeah; too much fanservice, but everything else is a good read.
I think that note about Eva that Takamichi left was not for Negi to rely on her when he's troubled but for him to talk with Takamichi if she makes any troubles.
Those are very similar sentences in japanese..
Also, comparing characters with those from love hina should have stoped quite a bit of volumes back. Negima being a long and still ongoing manga has very nice character development and most if not all girls changed considerably since beginning. Even if some of them still look like their Love Hina clones, consider the fact that same mangaka is drawing it.
Oh, and ecchi (fanservice) scenes aint that bad, some of them being very funny (Negi - Chachamaru in chapt.265 or something <3), but i agree that there was too much of those in first 2 volumes.
I’m current as at chapter 84 in the translations and I own the first 9 Japanese volumes of the manga... so I’m past the beginning (I won't review something that I'm not past the first few volumes in)... I can say that yes, there is less in later chapters, but its still there and its still unnecessary.
The latest big sorta event that I read was Kotarou coming to where Negi is and being chased by the daemon... and over half the hostages he took were naked... the other few wearing underwear... It just seems forced. (Note; I loved these chapters, Negi + Kotarou fighting something = awesome.)
I agree with Cypher-Khan, but I would like to add a few points. If you read down to the later volumes, you will realize fan-service has been severely cut (though still around), that is due to the fact that Ken Akamatsu was planning for this manga to be totally different to Love Hina.
According to an Omake, Ken Akamatsu was planning foe a action/magic based story but was rejected by the editors for they want something tried and tested, ie Love Hina, the result is the first 2 volumes, 80% fan-service, hardly any storyline. But as the story continue it is obvious that Ken Akamatsu take control and start follow his own idea (that's when Setsuna begin to taske center stage). So if fan-service story is not your thing, maybe endure it a little first, don't judge it just by the beginning.
Do note that I tends to ends up writing review a bit biased to the writers, so pleased don't judge me on that, I just respect people who draw 18 - 20 pages of manga per week.
