Negima!? 2

  
 

Negi and Asuna speak under the moonlight about magic and its customs. Negi wants to become a magister magi, the highest level of mage, but for that he needs to get through his training at Mahora and find a lifelong partner (we know what that means) and he's too young to do that now anyways. But, what he can do now is make a temporary pact with someone. Kamo-kun asks Asuna if she'd like to do that.. but how? Kamo-kun tells her -- kiss, you gotta kiss, very easy. Asuna, when you say you're not gonna do it no matter what that makes it almost certain you will ;) Kamo-kun tells the two to get along since they'll be living under the same roof now... what? Kamo-kun whispers what he means in Asuna's ear.

Eva transforms back into her usual 10 year old form in a very mahou shoujo-esque way as Takamichi comes to visit. He can't have her causing harm to anyone, even if she is a vampire and needs blood. Eva doesn't care if she's punished more -- she's waited 15 years.... (switch to more Soultaker-ish style here for the flashback) 15 years ago she was defeated by the Thousand Master, who placed a curse on her that limited her movement to Mahora Academy and prevented her from growing, repeating the same thing over and over and over again for eternity... However, if she can suck the blood of the Thousand Master's son, Negi, the curse will be lifted, but of course Takamichi wouldn't allow that. But what does he know about not being able to move freely and never being able to grow up, Eva retorts... poor Eva....

  
  
  

The next day, Asuna wakes up early to find Negi in her bed, saying "onee-san" in his sleep. Seems she's a bit nicer in this setting ;) In class the topic of discussion is still the vampire incidents, and still that darn Chupacabra. I don't think Haruna's sketch of it is quite right... and Vampire vs. Chubacabra? (^^;;) Negi finally comes into class with a huge bump on his head (no doubt caused by Asuna) which worries Ayaka. Chiu's busy updating her website and surfing 2ch, complaning about Ayaka as usual (is it okay to say shotacon at this time in the afternoon?). Chachamaru and Eva are absent as usual... and Chizuru is darn fast at typing text messages. I have no idea what her quite philosophical answer means, too, Natsumi (^^;;)

Meanwhile, back in Wales, Anya wonders how Negi's doing. It won't be too long before she has to leave, too, going to London. Nekane says not to worry about things. She's sure Negi's doing well.

After classes, Negi runs into Hakase and Eva, rushing along a quite broken Chachamaru to Hakase's lab to get her fixed. Negi's surprised at Chachamaru -- robot and a student? He then remembers what happened the previous night. His attack is what put Chachamaru in that condition, so Eva would be...

Takamichi explains it all to Negi (while they observe the swimming club and track and such for no particular reason). Eva's forever cursed to stay as a child and never to leave the school. When it's the full moon, she turns into the adult she wishes she could be, but will never become for eternity... but if she sucks Negi's blood the curse will be broken. Takamichi warns him that it's too dangerous to let her free...

Eva helps out Hakase with repairing Chachamaru. Bit of a shocking experience there for her. Cute ;) They do manage to get Chachamaru fixed all up, so Eva's happy that it turned out fine...

That night, Eva transforms into her adult form once again, aiming to obtain one thing...

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And we'll have to wait 'til next time as our narrator teases ;) After that first episode I wasn't expecting the Eva arc to be quite this dark and serious, even moreso than the manga was. More Tsukuyomi than PaniPoni for this time. Really makes you feel that much more sorry for Eva... We're moving at a pretty quick clip here, so perhaps it's a bit too quick for those new to Negima, but I can understand the need to move quickly along so they can try and feature as many of the 31 classmates as possible, and also to get to the battles quickly so the capabilities of those new neo-pactio cards can be shown off.

Animation quality was excellent, even better than the first episode, the battle between Eva and Negi a mix of Tsukuyomi and Nanoha. Nodoka was extremely cute, and so was Anya. We'll see Anya again, right? :)

Akamatsu-sensei has already seen ep 3, and apparently we'll be wrapping up the Eva arc then. Seems like it'll be good :) btw, I read in an excerpt somewhere from an interview in Megmami with director Akiyuki Shinbou where he said that he'll give the staff of each episode a good bit of latitude to do things their own way, so it should be interesting to see how things compare. Also, a familiar name to those who've seen Seven Arcs shows (Nanoha, Inukami) is listed as episode director/storyboard for episode 6 -- Yoshinari Saitou. That'll be an interesting one. I would not be surprised if a fisheye lens (or other odd direction) is used for something during that ep ;)

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Baka Rangers
  

Makie wants to finish her intro which was cut off last time, so they start from the beginning... and the expected happens: "Baka Pi....", and on top of that, the camera's out of focus. Y'all be nicer to Makie, though it is pretty cute to see her teased a bit ;)