Negima!? 24
ネギま!? Episode 24

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Negi gets sucked into the Star Crystal which then disappears where he’s taken into a black-and-white illusion world complete with his students. However in the Magic World, everyone is prevented from locating the missing Negi when the nearby forest attacks, forcing Takahata-sensei and Nekane to use their power for a shield. Asuna bullies Eva into using her powers to open a view portal into where Negi is, where they see he is being tricked by the illusions to head to the underworld. Negi is ultimately able to detect that his students are illusions and dispel them.

He finds himself back at Mahora Academy with Anya. He thinks Anya is an illusion but as she talks, he begins to realize she’s real. Her further revelations show Negi that Anya had taken the Star Crystal and that it controls her. Negi demands the Star Crystal give Anya back but he has no luck. He’s in a losing situation and about to be killed by the possessed Anya when all of his students turn into energy and power their pactio cards, where they enter the illusion world and form a shield in front of Negi. They encourage him and then reform from a shield into his staff where he’s able to break the Star Crystal’s hold on Anya. However, a black hole forms but before they can be sucked in, they are rescued by someone looking like Negi’s father. Anya is saved and everyone is back on the real Earth again.

Thoughts/Review:

Ugh. What a tedious episode Negima!? 24 is. And to think there are still two more to go. I guess SHAFT felt that since there were all these girls in the class, every seiyuu has be given line-time even if it means they say a lot of nothing. Sadly, a lot of nothing is said in this episode.

Then again, the Star Crystal storyline never was that interesting to me. With Anya being the villain here, I just couldn’t get worked up about that. Frankly, I just didn’t care and if your audience doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter how touching you try to make it, the audience won’t be affected.

The supposed humor stuff (Motsu and Shichimi’s return, the Baka Rangers omake bit at the end of the episode) wasn’t funny either. Man, this series can be all over the place. I’m stunned that with the crappy job that SHAFT did with this, they were allowed to do the Mahou Sensei Negima! ~ Shiroki Tsubasa~ ALA ALBA series. At least they are doing that one right, but then Akamatsu-sensei appears to be more heavily involved in that project.

Assuming I get to see the final two episodes (and I can’t believe they are going to drag this out that long), I will blog about them for completeness sake.