Negima 21
...I was right about not really wanting to watch this, unfortunately. I don't know what it is with Xebec these days, but they seem to not respect the original works of the anime they're working on at all (didn't I just say that...). I'm not going to bother going into detail about everything they left out since that'd take me too long (^^;;;) No matter how much the art/animation quality might have stabilized or gotten better than before, if they're going to do this then it really doesn't matter. This makes the decision to move some of the events which were originally in Kyoto to the school all the more odd... oh well. Guess my expectations were too high. Well, at least we got to see the power of Konoka and Setsuna's yuri Eva again :)
...I'll finish watching Negima, though I'm not going to expect much here in the remaining episodes...
*WARNING* manga v. anime rant *WARNING*
I hate to write these kind of rants because I feel they're usually pointless and overly critical of anime-from-manga shows. But I just can't let this one go.
It's almost criminal what they've done to this title. To think of all the great things that happened in the manga Kyoto arc (Nodoka & her book, dog-boy's intro, the fight in the Movietwon place, etc.) and then to see it reduced to, more or less, a backdrop exclusively for Setsuna and Konoka's history. And they couldn't even get that right IMO. It was hard to care about Setsuna the halfhearted, condensed fashion the anime presented her. Whereas after the manga arc was done, I believe she ruled the character popularity polls with an iron fist. She'll prolly be relegated back to being a more or less silent character that you just see at Konoka's side occasionally.
What truly baffles me though is that ANN's info page for the show says there will be 52 episodes. I'd be surprised if there's 52 viewers (who've read the manga anyway) in a few weeks at the rate it's going.
On the bright side, Evangeline parts were fun and faithful and Kaede + chinese dress = hawtness. Sorry for the rant. Flame me if you wish, but I feel a lot better now. :D
Yeah, I'm pretty much in full agreement.
They essentially cut out an entire volume of the manga, and for no logical reason that I can see. Even the fact that they introduced the Pactio cards seems pointless at this stage.
Not terribly excited about how this is going to end, I just hope that it's going to be in the next few episodes and not drag this thing out any longer.
Eva's segment was awesome, and almost frame for frame from the manga (though its a shame they left out her getting impaled...), as for the rest...YURI KISS...and thats about all.
*goes to reread volume 6*
Consider me one of the so-called 52 viewers, then.
Here's the problem: Your expectations are too high.
I basically accepted all of this as another fun trip going a different way.
Just what is up with "anime fans" and "perfection" anyway? Do your hands hurt after punching the wall every time something doesn't go your way?
Carlsbad, it might not be so bad if they didn't rush the entire Kyoto arc into two episodes and badly at that. My house mate who has never read the manga (I'm planning to change that) thinks that its badly implemented and very rushed. She thinks the anime was ok at the begining but the last two episodes were really bad. The changes made at the start of the anime were quite within the acceptable range of changes, but recently the changes were all bad from the storyline point. Its not that our expectations are too high, you don't see any complains about slaughtering of storyline and such in manga adeptations such as Naruto. A lot of anime in fact have bonus story and such rather than killing off near 70% of the storyline in any arc. The last two episodes were rushed, and if you consider the fact that they were manga adeptations, its even worse.
I'm rather shocked....this anime episode was the worst yet....I can't believe they actually ruined the Kyoto Arc with this...this...episode! :(
lol...knew I'd get at least one.
I don't feel that it's a problem with my expectations. Certainly the animation wasn't firing on all cylinders earlier, and again now, and I didn't let it hurt my expectations of the show.
However, if you've read the manga, the Kyoto-arc is where the series really begins to hit it's stride. It's one revelation after another, moves along both the Negi/Asuna and Negi/Nodoka relationships, and opens up the next stage in the Eva story.
What they've done here, is equivalent to taking the original 'Death of Phoenix' storyline in X-men and pulling out Kitty, the continuing relationship between her and Logan, and essentially having one comic where she uses her powers, and the Shi'ar come in and sentence her to death. You lose everything that made that story so powerful by forgetting the other things that are going on around the series.
You can take the angle that they're simplifying the story for the kids, and in that sense, I guess you can say that the series has definitely been "Jar-Jar'ed" I can only hope that like AMG, someone will come along in another 10 - 15 years and do this one right.
In the end, it comes down to this for me. You can give me a bad storyline/writing, you can give me bad animation. But for the love of all that is anime... don't give me both at the same time.
Personally, I feel what Xebec did was alienating the Negima manga fan base. A lot of the changes they did were not needed and badly done too. Someone on AnCo's forum however said that what Xebec did was focusing purely on making it a romance/comedy anime and remove the shonen battle parts. Honestly I think she's wrong and they are removing the feature that makes this series stand out from other romance/comedy type story. I just think she's blindly trying to justify what they did. Then again, since I don't agree with her, I don't think I'll understand why she's saying so.
If you are wondering, AnCo's forum is at this url:
http://www.animecouncil.net/forums/index.php
I guess...
Once again the loudest crowd demands perfection over substance. And of course they're going to bullheadedly start on their dissing rage with Xebec.
Can't we atleast wait until Mr. Akamatsu himself say something about it?
Well... we knew Nodoka would not get her book since the "kissing contest" happened at Mahora.
I like the anime just to see some of the silliness animated, but I beleive the "best" animation of Negima was both Intro Videos shown at a convention.
The manga is way better, but with the only scanlators dead and Del Rey doing a terrible job well...
Anyways... you guys should remember something else. Love Hina.
Love Hina was as badly adaptated to anime like Negima. It seems this anime studios really do not respect Akamatsu-sensei and do this to his series (fears Istumadate my santa anime adaptation soon to be done).
i'll keep getting anime and manga though
Honestly though, I think the adaptation done on Love Hina was much better than the adaptation done in Negima for the recent episodes. Personally I think the artwork quality is much better in the anime version of Love Hina too, compared to the anime version of Negima (I can live with this though but I really don't like what they did to the story).