魔法先生ネギま！～白い翼 ALA ALBA～ (OAD) 01
Negima! Ala Alba (White Wing) OVA/OAV 01
Mahou Sensei Negima! ~ Shiroki Tsubasa~ ALA ALBA 01

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

After a recap which shows Negi’s defeat of Chao during the Mahora Festival, Chao’s return to her own time, the meeting with Al, the formation of Negima-dan, and the training of the Negima-dan members (Asuna, Setsuna, Konoka, Nodoka, Yue, Chisame, Asakura, Sayo, Kaede, Paru, Ku Fei, and Kotoro with Eva as adviser and Negi as teacher-sponsor) at Eva’s resort, the club forms its plans to take a trip to Wales, which is overheard by Fuka and Fumika.

Meanwhile, Ayaka provides Asuna with information regarding the disappearance of Negi’s father Nagi. As Asuna is thanking Ayaka, Fuka, Fumika, and Makie arrive in a hurry, not happy at being left out of the plans to travel to England. Ayaka is furious at learning that she wasn’t included either, especially after she gave the info to Asuna. Asuna tries to explain that they’ve done a lot of special training for this. Ayaka rejects this excuse and attempts to take back the documents but fails (Asuna’s training at work). Ayaka orders the other three girls to attack, but Asuna easily avoids them all and leaves.

This is all observed by Eva, who is amused by it all. She is wearing a sleeve badge to indicate she’s also part of this new club of Asuna’s and as honorary adviser, she decides to “graciously” help Ayaka, Makie, Fuka, and Fumika. The club members will be wearing special badges at the summer festival that night and should anyone obtain a badge from a club member, that member will be expelled and the one who obtained the bad may take their spot in the club.

Makie informs Yuuna, Ako, and Akira about this; Yuuna is all for participating in badge grabbing. Hearing that some of the members are Ku Fei, Setsuna, and Kaede (powerful people), she’s not sure about their chances. However, spotting Nodoka and Yue together, Yuuna sees a chance — attack the weak and score two easy badges. Meanwhile, Chachamaru is still handing out badges and when she hands Asuna hers (with Setsuna and Konoka), Asuna is suspicious. After all, why would Eva give them gifts. Chachamaru explains that Eva doesn’t like the name “Negima-dan” and made the badges white wings since Nagi’s group were the “red wing” (Ala Ruba). As such, Eva has decided the name of the club will be “Shiroki Tsubasa” (“White Wing” or “Ala Alba” in the Latin). Chachamaru warns them of the consequences of losing their badge before the trip though.

Yuuna decides to go after Yue and Nodoka’s badge by wearing a mask and pretending to be a badge maniac. However, the two are not fooled, so Akto and Makie try flattery to get the badge. When that fails, Yue suspects they are up to something. Yuuna has Akira and Ako hold Yue and Nodoka so that she and Makie can grab the badges. Yue casts a light spell so that she and Nodoka can escape. Yuuna uses the magic guns from the school festival to shoot at the retreating girls, giving Makie time to catch up with them and use her ribbons to try to snare them. Yue uses a wind shield to deflect the attack and a wind attack to make their escape sure. Once they’ve escaped, Yue figures out what Eva’s plan is, so Nodoka activates her artifact so that they can track Yuuna and company.

Elsewhere, Fuka and Fumika are with Kaede-nee and attempt to surprise her and take her badge. Kaede is much to quick for them and easily eludes their attack, even acting as if she didn’t know they’d even tried to attack her. The cheerleaders send a group of guys to attack Paru and Ku, but they too fail. Yuuna and Akira cannot find Yue or Nodoka, so Ayaka decides to get personally involved. She attacks Asuna, who’s able to easily elude the attack. Ayaka uses her special attack which does land on Asuna, but Asuna is still able to defeat Ayaka. Ayaka tries to trick Asuna with tears, but that too fails.

Ayaka throws a fit and Asuna realizes what Eva was up to. Asuna explains that their trip will be dangerous and that’s why the others can’t go. Ayaka rejects this since Negi nor Asuna should put themselves into danger. Asuna continues her explanation, stating that Negi has to find his father on his own and that the club decided to help him when it was understood that Negi was going to do this. Ayaka finally accepts this, but pinching Asuna’s cheek, she tells Asuna that Asuna will have to explain it completely to her someday.

At the Narita Airport, Anya arrives.

Thoughts/Review:

For those of you looking for an accurate adaptation of a Negima! story, your wait is over. I’d have to reread chapters 176 and 177 to see what (if anything) is missing, but at first glance, if there is something missing, it isn’t much.

While SHAFT is still in charge of the Negima! anime franchise, they’ve abandoned the silly character designs of Negima!? in favor of character designs closer to Akamatsu-sensei’s manga designs. At times, the characters look very much as if Akamatsu-sensei drew them but at other times, I could see flashes of the Negima!? designs.

I have to say that the art and animation didn’t impress me that much outside of the initial battle between Chao and Negi. As such, I felt that SHAFT failed to fully bring alive the Negima! story. It seemed like they were taking a lot of short cuts and basically just giving basic scenes from the manga without flowing well from one to another.

Oh, and there was a sad lack of Chachazero in this episode (but at least they worked her in, even if in a small fashion).

Still, this is a minor complaint on my part. It is gratifying to see an accurate adaptation of the manga, which should have happened all along. It is a shame that the entire Mahora Festival arc has been skipped as was the training of Asuna (which was a good and important story). The anime touches on these things to set up its main story but otherwise, I guess we won’t see them animated.

I did like how the spell casting had the Japanese speech in the foreground with the Latin in the background (well, I’m guessing it is the Latin), both spoken by the same seiyuu. Doing this makes the spell casting seem more “magical” if you will.

The ED sequence was rather interesting as the artwork all came from the covers of various recent Negima! volumes (the recent covers especially).

Two more episodes in this OAD (OVA), which I’m looking forward to a great deal.