Negima!? 21
ネギま!? Episode 21

SPOILER Summary:

Yue, Para, and Nodoka are in the library that looks a lot like New York’s harbor looking for magic books. As they are scaling the side of a building/bookshelf, Yue’s rope snaps and she falls and is rescued by Negi. Elsewhere, Chachamaru wakes up Eva, who discovers the hard way that her house is now a house boat as it is out in the middle of a massive body of water with Chachamaru fishing off the front porch. Apparently, they were sent to the Magic World by Takamichi.

Meanwhile, the Library group returns to the library and because Yue hurt herself, Negi offers to take her bag and her reactions make Paru think that maybe she likes Negi. Nodoka asks about the juice she’s drinking and Chamo tries some as does Negi. Turns out it is founder juice, which stuns Negi and the others. After they leave, Motsu and Shichimi wryly observe to Yue that she’s in love with Negi-sensei. She denies it, but Motsu presses on, stating that by Yue drinking from the same straw as Negi, its an indirect kiss. Shichimi doesn’t its any big deal and Motsu reminds Yue that she has kissed Negi. She counters that everyone in the class has kissed Negi, leading Motsu to respond that most of the class kissed a Chupacabra (Negi’s form at the time) but that Yue kissed him in his normal, human form. Since then, she’s been in love with him as he observes with a pun, leading Yue to stomp him.

Yue goes for a walk to ponder her feelings for Negi, and everywhere she goes, she overhears conversations where the phonetic sound “negi” shows up, causing her to be nervous. Observing this, Motsu and Shichimi again show up. Motsu speaks a two phrases leading Shichimi to wonder what that was about. He then puts them together as a single sentence with a linker so that the “negi” sound appears. Again he gets stomped. She runs away frustrated and is seen by Nekane.

Yue consumes several flounder juices and sees Negi. She then observes some 4-leaf clover in the area around her and figures to give him one as a charm. However, each time she attempts to do so, others in the class arrive to give Negi something. Paru arrives and remarks on how popular Negi is and how hard it must be for Nodoka. This reminds Yue why she shouldn’t be falling for Negi-sensei since Nodoka likes him and Yue is Nodoka’s best friend.

Elsewhere, Makie comes to Takamichi’s ramen shop, but discovers she has no money. Motsu shows up and so Makie decides to ask her “daddy” (a long-running joke in the series where Makie treats Motsu as if he were her father) to treat her to ramen. So Motsu agrees. He plays the part of Makie’s father, asking her about school, telling her if she’s bullied to see him, etc. Takamichi apparently serves them the special — so-called “Turbo World Delicacies Ramen.” Both end up in the hospital because of it with Motsu soon being pronounced dead. Meanwhile back at Eva’s place, both are fishing for food.

The research group are looking for clues and Chizuru thinks the names of the class are linked by the game of shiritori (the last phonetic sound in a word, or name in this case, is also the same phonetic sound as the next word/name), but that theory is soon proven wrong despite Chizuru calling Natsumi and trying to get her name changed in order to help make the theory work.

In the classroom, Nodoka and Yue do research in the books and discuss Negi. Nodoka’s casualness causes Yue to not feel right as she doesn’t think it is good that she loves Negi when Nodoka does as well. As such, she says something mean to Nodoka and flees to the waterfront. She’s met by Nekane who tells her this is her favorite spot to shout and get things off her chest since no one is around. She suggest Yue do the same thing, stating that she wouldn’t hear what Yue said. So Yue does so, shouting repeatedly her love for Negi-sensei. Yue returns to the campus and makes up with Nodoka, giving her the 4-leaf clover and telling her to give it to Negi. Yue has decided to not pursue her feelings.

Thoughts:

OK, maybe it was because I hadn’t seen an episode in a while or maybe it was because this had funny moments, such as Chachamaru having to “fish” Eva out of the sea, or Yue drinking a fish-flavored juice drink. Then it got tedious and boring when Yue wanted to give Negi a 4-leaf clover but kept being “blocked” by everyone else in the class because they are giving him stuff but then got humorous again when Motsu tweaked Yue. So, a mixed lot to be sure.

There were a lot of puns in this as there are so many Japanese words that sound alike (koi=fish and koi=love, negi=green onions and Negi=Negi-sensei, etc.) and while I got them, I guess not being that great with Japanese, they didn’t do anything for me really.