Toon Zone Talkback - "Negima!? Season 2 Part 1" Casts a Spell on Me

Negima?! was a mixed bag for me. On one hand, the loss of the fanservice was a definitive minus. Yes, horror of horrors, I'm defending the fanservice here. It was such a part of the original's part and parcel, its absence made Negima to lose a big part of its essence. Same thing with Love Hina's anime, although there I liked the manga much less (stupid Naru). The show is trying too hard to be Negima in Pani Poni Dash/Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei clothes (keep in mind I do *love* SZS). The threats are lame and badly executed (oh, Graff Herrman, come back, all is forgiven), and Motsu and Shimuchi (sp?) are two of the most annoying, pointless anime characters ever. The Suka card system made no sense. You can imagine the ancient wizarRAB that invented it. ('Oh, and what if, in the heat of battle, they draw a card and... the partner becomes an useless cute animal! That'll make for a hilarious death!'. "You're a GENIUS!').

On the other hand, I liked most of the character reinterpretations (except the cheerleaders' new uni-mind). Even Asuna and her wacky hair. Makie finally had a personality beyond Random Genki Girl. Zazie was given more to do than in the entire manga, and Sayo, as usual, ruled. The Baka Ranger snippets were fabulous as far as omakes go. The animation and music were a joy.
 
I never understood how she got so popular...I guess it's a Japanese thing, since in Japan she was ranked quite high in the poll.

Then again, I fell for Satsuki Yotsuba due to her plump cuteness and gentle nature. (in Negima!? she isn't even close to plump, in fact, all the girls have the same design).

Totally disliked Asuna going from Big Sister with Determination to Dizzy girl who talks about Chupacabra and acts like a moron.


I think Ken Aka does a lose and win when it comes to Fan service. Sometimes it can go so overboard I get sick of reading.
 
I think was more annoying in the first series.

So SHAFT also decided to toy with the characters, too...did they change any more characteristics?
 
They did focus on her crush with Takahata in the first Negima!.

Asuna specifically? It appears she has no crush on Takahata in Negima!?
She's gotten lazy and doesn't seem to want to learn (school wise). It's like a mirror opposite of her manga self. In the OVA's she acts more like the character Ken created.

SHAFT just tried to give all the girls some kind of personality that they didn't get much in the manga.
Asuna is missing her Heterochromatic eyes: one is dark blue, the other is light blue (almost green in tint). Xebec made it too obvious by making one eye blue and the other green.

Takahata comes off as more mean and teasing in Negima!? While in the first series and manga he is actually quite nice. And all though it's nitpicking...I still don't understand the reason for giving Nodoka glasses especially when she has her hair in front of her face half time, the glasses are useless. It may fit the "Glasses Girl" fetish, but Nodoka just isn't the type.

When it came to Makie, she wasn't exactly a "stupid girl" she was just young and dense, but hard working. I don't know what Xebec and SHAFT were going for in the Anime. Makie turned into "that loud girl with the pink hair and no common sense".
 
If you're talking about her "cosplay" form, it probably has something to do with SHAFT having a hard time coming up with a good cosplay outfit for Nodoka (after all, she can use her artifact in practically any outfit), and hence decided to give her some glasses (which I actually found to be very cute, although I'm already a big Nodoka fan to begin with).
 
Wow, none of my review discussion threaRAB get this many posts. I wish this were the case for more series, honestly.

Anyway, it sounRAB like one's enjoyment of Negima!? is largely dependent upon your tolerance for liberties taken with the source material. Granted, there are plenty of other reasons to hate it as well, but judging from this thread, it's a huge part of the disdain. Me, having not read the manga, these apparent changes didn't affect me, because the changes were unknown to me. I'm sure there are others in the same boat as me, too. It's all about perspectives.

But I'd like to throw this out there, as obvious a point as it may be: You can't please everybody. Believe it or not, there were many who felt the Lord of the Rings films were travesties that didn't do justice to the books. Yet it was a blockbuster and popular with a good portion of the audience. So do you do a word-for-word adaption but possibly lose out on a bigger audience, or take some liberties and piss off the hardcore fans? Those are the questions, people.
 
It's one thing to take liberties. Negima!? is on a whole 'nother level. It's a pretender. It pretenRAB to be Negima, but other than the character designs, everything about it is pretty much completely different.
 
That was my problem with Negima!. Once I read that Negima!? would have nothing to do with the manga, I was able to watch it on a different level. So my likes and dislikes of Negima!? are from what SHAFT did or didn't do. It was hit or miss on the comedy and as the series went on, it became more miss IMO.

The thing I wonder is why FUNimation is marketing this as "season 2," to imply that it is the follow up to Negima! when in fact it has nothing to do with the first anime. That has never made sense to me.
 
Not that I'm defending FUNi's decision here, because I do agree that using "season 2" is misleading, but they probably didn't want to write "Negima: This One's a Different Adaption, Vol. 1" on the cover.

Which leaRAB to a question: How would you have titled this series so your casual consumer won't get confused when they see two Negimas side by side? If they just called it "Negima!?", all that would be different is the question mark, and the average person probably wouldn't notice even that.

"Negima!?: SHAFT Version, Vol. 1", maybe? But then, what's a "SHAFT"? You mean THIS guy? And would you have to subsequently re-title the first series to "Negima!: Xebec Version"?

I suppose the case could be made that because the Japanese didn't make any special subtitles to differentiate the two series, we shouldn't either. I suppose there's some validity to that, as well as the idea that someone who woul be regularly browsing the anime section in the first place would already know the difference between the two series, and that a so-called "casual consumer" wouldn't even be in the anime section at all. Just giving some food for thought. Hopefully.
 
To answer the question on a new title, how about Negima: Remixed? I know I got that idea from when Disney was going to rename Phil of the Future season two as being remixed but that could help people in deciding which version of Negima! is worst than the other.
 
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