Mahou Sensei Negima! ~Mou Hitotsu no Sekai~ OAD – 01

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD/OVA Ep. 01 Review
魔法先生ネギま!~もうひとつの世界~ Episode 01
Mahou Sensei Negima! ~Mou Hitotsu no Sekai~ OAD – 01

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01Ala Alba arrive in Great Britain and are soon found by Ayaka’s group. Donet says that everyone will be welcome at Negi’s village so off they go where Negi is reunited with his “oneechan,” Nekane. After a meal, Negi and Nekane meet the principle of Negi’s old school where Negi reveals he’s going to the Magic World. The elderly mage leads Nekane and Negi to the underground room where the petrified villagers from Negi’s old village are kept, including Stan. Negi has some words to Stan before leaving.

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01The next morning, Donet leads Ala Alba to a stone ring that is the gate to the magic world. Ayaka catches Asuna and makes Asuna promise to bring everyone back OK, especially Negi-sensei. Asuna promises and is off. Little do they know that also following them are Yuuna, Makie, Ako, Akira, and Natsumi. When the gate activates, those five girls are also transported to the Magic World. So while Setsuna and Negi take care of their sealed weapons at the gate port and some of the other girls go to have a look at the Magic World, the five girls are caught.

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01Negi and some of the others of Ala Alba are astonished to see Yuuna and company and those girls are in shock, not understanding what is happening. Negi senses something and has Setsuna begin sensing for something wrong while he directs the members of Ala Alba to take up defensive positions. Fate realizes he’s been discovered and sends a stone spear into Negi. Fate is joined by three others and soon Setsuna, Kotaro, and Kaede are defeated. Fate is about to petrify Setsuna but is stopped by Negi, who’s surviving on sheer magical might.

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01Asuna knows that they need to free up their weapons and pactio cards so that they can fight and Konoka can heal Negi. Using her magic cancel ability, the seal on the storage container is release and everyone gets what they need. Asuna and Konoka activate their cards and Asuna goes to attack but Fate passes her to take out Konoka. Setsuna shields Konoka from attack and counters but ends up not doing any damage as she hits his water form. Fate is about to attack Setsuna but is hit by Fu Fei’s attack. Asuna gets Negi to Konoka and protects them from attack, allowing Konoka to heal.

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01The rest of Ala Alba arrive as Kaede and Kotaro return to the fight. Fate changes his opinion of Ala Alba but as Negi challenges Fate, Fate slaps him down, revealing how weak Negi is. Fate is told that they are ready to leave so he orders that a forced transportation spell be used to send the members of Ala Alba to various corners of the world. As Fate and company leave, the spell activates and everyone is teleported away.

Thoughts/Review:

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01And so it begins…

As with the first OAD series, the first episode of Another World pretty much follows the manga faithfully, but has to drop some material. Considering this is an OAD, why should it matter if the episode is 30-minutes (with credit time) or 35-minutes?

The first loss is in the scene where Negi is shown the room Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01where the petrified villagers, including Stan, are kept. In the manga, Negi, the “grandpa” mage, and Nekane are joined by Anya and several members of Ala Alba (Asuna, Setsuna, Konoka, Yue, Nodoka, and Chisame). It is here that the girls see an important piece of Negi’s past and we learn that Anya’s mother is one of the one’s stoned. Adding this to the scene would have added about 2.5 minutes at best (maybe three).

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01The next important loss happened at the gate on Earth where Donet casually mentions stuff about security to include how unauthorized people should not be allowed through the gate. This is important because when Negi senses Fate, realizes that the security can’t be that good if it allowed Makie and company through. This episode makes mention of Negi’s thoughts about security, but Donet’s talk of security should be there to set up Negi’s thoughts. Of Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01course, while Donet makes this little speech on Earth, Negi first senses Fate and has Setsuna on guard. That explains why Negi says what he says at the MW gate and why she is close by. Unfortunately, Negi’s first inkling of a problem is cut too.

The one loss that made sense to me was having the three cheerleaders dropped from the party of Akira, Ako, Yuuna, Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01Natsumi, and Makie when following Ala Alba. Since they didn’t come to the Magic World, there was no sense in including them in the following party.

Asuna taking out one of Fate’s pillars was cut too and I wish that had been left in as well.

Enough with the complaints. Let us get to the good. ^_^

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01The budget for the episode is saved for the battle between Ala Alba and Fate’s group. So I am not going to complain about some cost-cutting non-animation scenes that are done because I thought the action sequences are pretty good. This is one aspect where the anime beats the manga hands-down. There’s only so much Akamatsu-sensei can do with action sequences in a manga and he does a darn good job of it. The anime format can go all out with the right budget and SHAFT does a decent job to be sure. I could have done without the lengthy henshin sequence for Asuna and Konoka though. ^_^;

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01Another element that came through very interestingly to me in the anime is Konoka’s healing incantation. Normally, spells are cast with a certain rhythm and flow for the incantations and Negima! has been no exception (though the Negima! OAD’s have had the coolness of a Latin/Japanese overdub for some of Negi’s, Eva’s, and Fate’s spells). So hearing Konoka’s incantation came across as a mantra or chant, which is appropriate due to the fact that Konoka’s pactio costume is that of a miko (as far as I can tell), was a bit surprising but cool.

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01Also cool is ISHIDA Akira (Xellos in the Slayers franchise and Nagi in the Mai-HiME/Mai-Otome franchise) as Fate Averruncus. I forgot he had voiced the role in the TV series (though to be honest, the time he appeared in the TV series, I was angry with the series and thus didn’t pay much attention) so hearing him speak as Fate was a cool moment for me.

So a lot of good here with a bit of missing stuff I wish weren’t missing. I’m afraid the amount of material that gets the axe will increase as the series goes on though.

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD 01

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

13 Responses to “Mahou Sensei Negima! ~Mou Hitotsu no Sekai~ OAD – 01”

  1. AstroNerdBoy says:

    Hopefully, there aren’t too many errors in this post. I wrote this in a hurry. SOOOO far behind. *_*

  2. fg7dragon says:

    Well, it was mostly well made. What was also skiped was that part when they looke at the vilage from afar and Anya tells them “this has been his hometown since he was 5”
    A nice part that was skiped was the handshake Negi is requested at the gateport.
    But the battle made up for ir. The one I noticed missing was Setsuna covering Konoka with her wings to protect her. In the OAD, it’s all smoke before she opens her wings.

  3. AstroNerdBoy says:

    Yeah, no “Negi-sama” fame at the gate port. I forgot about the little scene with Anya and the village. And Setsuna’s protection of Konoka is cooler in the manga than the anime, but I think that’s the only aspect of the fight that is cooler.

  4. Now that you mention it, why DO they have to cut things out? It’s released on DVD, so there’s no time limit. Hmm… maybe the budget didn’t allow it.

  5. AstroNerdBoy says:

    I’m guessing that it was a budget decision as well as well as a planning one. Since these aren’t traditional OVA’s, there’s no additional DVD money to be made once the number of copies made have sold out (at least, that’s my understanding). I also don’t believe these will be licensed in the U.S. and if they aren’t there’s another source of revenue gone. As such, I’m guessing that budgetary concerns are greater. Bummer, really.

  6. mastermack0 says:

    I thought this episode was AMAZING. I saw it without subs so everytime they skipped a part from the manga, it as noticed by me.

  7. JustSomeone says:

    They played down Makie and Yuna 🙁 In the manga, Negi called out to those two a lot more often and they had more of an impact then in this anime.

  8. Anonymous says:

    As for the review of OAD, thanks. AstroNerdBoy for a writing a good review and I agree that some material being cut might reduce the impact of the story and leave some details questionable? But, good work, Shaft as a production company for the Negima works!

    What does everyone thinks about the new anime series that coming out in 2011?

    Here is the link:
    http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-09-05/negima-anime-feature-confirmed-for-2011

  9. AstroNerdBoy says:

    I think the 2011 anime will be a movie, not a series. I’m not sure what to think really. I’ve no problem with a movie, but we’ll see how the OAD series goes and then have an idea of what the movie would cover. I still say that the number of hours they have dedicated to the Magic World arc isn’t enough to cover everything.

  10. Anonymous says:

    i watched this episode it was great from the beginning to the end even the opening song was good i also got chills watching it to see how tight it was animated (mostly when i saw rakan and negis ME) im curious are the other episodes out or anyone know when they will?

  11. AstroNerdBoy says:

    It will be a couple more months until episode 2 is released. That’s because the OAD’s are only sold with the limited edition version of the manga and the next tankoubon should come out in December.

  12. Anonymous says:

    I think the second episode rolls around February 2010…so I heard from a second-hand source.

    Anyway, it’s rather decent in my opinion. The way it was portrayed was not bad…the action parts are rather good. Like I thought, it won’t replicate 100% of the manga. According to comments before me, I need to re-read those chapters again since I don’t pick up on details too well.

    Still beats the two anime series that XEBEC and Shaft has produced, so it’s all good.

  13. Anonymous says:

    OVA 2 is out already by now..

    or at least in the cyberworld 🙂

Leave a Reply to AstroNerdBoy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Powered by WordPress