Negima!? 1
A note before getting started: I absolutely can't stand watching pan & scan conversions of widescreen originals, especially when things are cut off as much as they are with Negima!?, so I'm going to be watching the widescreen version which airs on BS-Japan on Fridays.
Areeee? Did The SoulTaker or Tsukuyomi start or something? Right from the start, it's obvious this is the work of director Akiyuki Shinbou. High contrast, usage of shadow, so on. Anyways, we start off with a stylish battle between the Thousand Master, Nagi, and Evangeline (ChachaZero was in there, too, though crushed....), then move to the present where someone is in need of blood, and a victim is running nearby...
Negi Springfield gets his assignment from the magic school -- teach at a girls' high school in Japan. Older sister Nekane is very supportive of him, but Anya@Chiwa Saitou doesn't want him to go. Seems she's been made more of a tsundere character ;) Too bad we probably won't be seeing much of her again... oh well :s
Negi arrives at Mahora Academy, with Kamo-kun tagging along from the beginning for this time. Unfortunately for them, they get crushed under the rush of students running to make it to school on time. After an explanation of Mahora from our narrator (Mugihito, a regular in Shaft shows) we move to Asuna and Konoka's room. Asuna is in no hurry to get up, asking for more and more time (the time shown by her hair), when Setsuna comes in. Seems that she and Konoka are already pretty friendly with each other. After Asuna asks for 20 minutes more Setsuna's ready to wake her up by more forceful means (^^;;)
Meanwhile, Negi and Kamo-kun are rather battered after getting run over by the rush of students. Poor Kamo-kun's lost his front tooth.. it's over for him.. but Negi decides to use magic to fix it, and with some very Nanoha-ish effects, it's back to normal. One problem -- Asuna, in a very odd getup (you a tono or something?) saw it all. Ooops (^^;;) Fortunately for them, Asuna still seems to be rather tired as Setsuna and Konoka take her away. The very much dandy (even moreso than the... was there a previous Negima anime?) Takamichi shows up soon after... Evangeline watches from a nearby tree...
Now moving to the very Paniponi Dash-ish classroom, where the topic of the day is a vampire attack. Makie's been bitten by one, but she doesn't seem to care about it that much. We get an introduction for each of the 31 students in the class, each getting a chance to speak (even Satsuki and Sayo and Zazie, yay) while discussion about the attack goes on. Asuna finally makes it in, barely in time, though in that ridiculous outfit (^^;;) Asuna says that it was obviously a Chupacabra, not a vampire that bit Makie. While Yue drinks her juice as usual, Haruna (with moving ahoge. Maho!) does a quick sketch of a Chupacabra-- is that really it? Anyways, after Ku Fei does some martial arts moves, Ayaka finally points out Asuna's outfit. And if Takamichi sees her like that.... of course, Takamichi walks in with Negi right then, making Asuna lose it (^^;;) While Negi introduces himself to the class, Asuna takes a long, hard stare at him -- she's seen him somewhere before, but she can't remember.. The class immediately takes a liking to Negi, especially Ayaka. She is a shotacon, no helping it (^^;;)
After class is all done, Negi takes a look at the roll, trying to memorize the names of his students. He notices one student that wasn't there, Evangeline. Evangeline's having tea with Chachamaru at the time, saying this is the night she'll finally be able to escape from the hell she's been in...
Konoka visits the headmaster, who instructs her to let Negi stay with her and Asuna for the time being. Speaking of Asuna, as she's walking that night she finally remembers where she had seen Negi before. Konoka goes out to get some tea, and as she does she's attacked by the adult form of Evangeline we saw at the beginning. Negi rushes outside to confront her -- she's waited for this day to get her revenge on the son of the Thousand Master.
Well, pretty quick development here, ain't it? But with this we know that Negima!? isn't necessarily going to be all original, taking at least some parts or ideas from the manga (like the vampire incident this time) and putting them together in a different way, which sounds just fine to me as a fan of the original manga.
Since I've seen a lot of director Akiyuki Shinbou's other shows (Soultaker, Tsukuyomi, 1st season of Nanoha, Paniponi Dash!) I was expecting something like this, but not quite this much of a mesh of all of those previous shows put together. Judging from this first episode it should work together pretty well, the more serious parts like Tsukuyomi, the classroom parts like Paniponi Dash. Make that extremely Paniponi Dash! -- seeing the whole classroom at once (everybody's quite active, especially Zazie), and of course the very active blackboard and the C part (see below).
Character designs are separated from the original, but Yue's cute, Nodoka's cute, Makie's cute, Eva's looking good, so it's all fine by me ;) Very high quality animation as it should be for a 1st episode, so GJ Shaft! I'm expecting a lot from the battles, so hopefully they can show us some good stuff, and hopefully the quality can stay up ;) btw, I checked Akamatsu-sensei's blog and he seemed to be rather pleased with it (he's seen the second episode already), which is good to hear.
Next time it looks like Asuna's already going to be doing the pactio thing with Negi. Well, something like it since the system this time is based around multiple cards for each character, apparently. Looking forward to it, especially seeing the OP and ED.
C Part - Baka Rangers
Of course, there had to be a crazy C part (To review: Avant - before the OP, A part - after OP to before commercial break, B part - after commercial break to ED, C part - after ED). And we get the Baka Rangers, doing a parody of some sentai show apparently. Poor Makie got cut off at the end (and if you watched the 4:3 version she was cut off at the left during the shot of everybody). Y'all be nicer to her, really (^^;;)
Blackboard
Where I attempt to point out as many of the references to the various random things that appaear on the blackboard during the show:
Uo! mabushi!
A very famous line from MUSASHI-GUNDOU. See here at about 35 seconds in. I have no idea what was that bright, but anyways (^^;;)
Another MUSASHI reference from earlier in the episode. The positioning of Asuna's hands is very similar to a certain "Sage Dance". See here at about 1:43 in. Not really all that impressive (^^;;)
Chiyo-chan~~~~ (Azumanga Daioh)
Da Bomb!
Favorite line of Joutarou, the main character from 内閣権力犯罪強制取締官 財前丈太郎. See here
OMG This looks superior beyond anything I had orignally thought! <3
I really enjoyed it, particularly the PaniPoni-ish parts. And Yue, yay, Yue, easily my favorite character. The ONLY thing I can say that bugs me is that, well, I always kind of liked Asuna with blue and green eyes. But that's so minor... I hope next episode as some hot-- er, cool Negi magic action.
The raw I saw was pretty bad... pan and scan issues would do it, I'm sure, and not exactly superior compression. It took a second watching to appreciate that, yes, it was the raw and no, the animation wasn't as disappointing as it seemed.
I was expecting nothing, having been sorely disappointed by "Negima!" as an anime. So this went much better than I expected and has me interested so see how they treat the Eva-chan arc. ^_^
Thanks for cluing me into the references on the blackboard and indeed Asuna's hand reference.
Eeek! Matthew, you haven't seen Cossette no Shouzou? 0_0 Maybe you did... but why not mention the greatest show ever (OK, so it's just my favorite ^^) in Shinbo's list? :P
This show is superb. I had high hopes for this when I heard Shaft was going to be doing it and I like their approach. Some of the bells and scenery also reminded me a bit of Utena in a way and especially the Utena movie, which fits very nicely because as those who have read the manga know Mahora is not exactly a regular or average school enshrined in realism. It is also cool to see the melding of the styles that Shinbou has explored in his other series and OVAs being melded here into something that is truly visually interesting, and especially every time Asuna is on the screen. I can't wait for the fight scenes.
Finally got to watch the first ep.. very amusing.. and so much different from the manga ^^
>>I've seen a lot of director Akiyuki Shinbou's other shows (Soultaker, Tsukuyomi, 1st season of Nanoha, Paniponi Dash!)
No wonder I kind of having some kind of deja vu, it was like watching Paniponi and Tsukuyomi, though I felt some Futakoi Alternative elements.