Negima! ~Another World~ OAD/OVA Ep. 02 Review
Mahou Sensei Negima! ~Mou Hitotsu no Sekai~ OAD – 02
魔法先生ネギま！～もうひとつの世界～ Episode 02

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Negi dreams that he has a serious talk with Fate after seeing his companions petrified in the dream. He awakens to find he’s been out for several hours and looked after by Chachamaru. Negi is stunned to find that they’ve been transported so far by Fate’s forced teleportation spell and they are out of range of all his pactio partners. However, using his Ala Alba badge, Chachamaru is able to determine that two members of the team are about a day or so away and a third is a little further away.

Negi is not doing well but despite this, he wants to press ahead. The following day, he and Chachamaru cover ground but do not reach the closest Ala Alba member by nightfall. Instead, they are attacked by a tiger dragon, whom Chachamaru sends packing but at the cost of most of her energy. As a result, Negi has to wind her, using her key and his magical energy, something that she finds very enjoyable.

The next day they come upon Chisame, who’s just lost the use of her sprite-mice and who’s being attacked by a large tentacle beast who’s intent on consuming her clothing. Chachamaru sends the beast packing as Negi rescues Chisame. However, Negi’s fever starts to get the best of him and he’s down, being tended to by Chisame and Chachamaru. As Negi worries allowed about all that has happened, Kotaro arrives and attacks Negi for his whining. Fifteen minutes later, their fight is over and Negi’s fever is gone. Kotaro explains that it was the result of the healing spell Konoka had used, which resulted in too much magic within Negi.

Thoughts/Review:

Having already commented on the story via the manga, I’m going to focus more on comparing the manga to the anime.

Now that I’ve watched two episodes, I’m hard pressed to figure out how SHAFT will come to a satisfactory ending in two more episodes. They didn’t cut a great deal out of the manga story from this episode and I don’t see how they’d be able to serve the story but cutting vast portions of the remaining story out. So, the only thing I can think of that SHAFT might do is have Negi, Chachamaru, Chisame, and Kotaro come into town, find Asakura and Sayo, discover Ako, Natsumi, and Akira are slaves, and decide to fight in the tournament. In order to end in four episodes, SHAFT could then cover the tales of the others such as Asuna and Setsuna, Kaede and Konoka, Nodoka, and maybe even Yue. We’ll see what they end up doing.

As I said, not too much was cut from the manga story. The dragon flying overhead and Chachamaru’s talk of the dangers of traveling at night were cut but that was fine. Instead, SHAFT used that time to give a greater sense of Negi and Chachamaru’s journey to the closest member of Ala Alba (Chisame).

SHAFT also reduced the amount of time dedicated to showing Negi’s fever. In the manga, Chachamaru and Chisame are quite concerned about how high his fever is but that aspect is only touched on and I’m not sure the seriousness of his condition comes through in this episode. However, SHAFT takes the time that would have been used for that to pour into the fight between Kotaro and Negi, giving us a greater feel for that battle. So it is another trade-off and I can live with that.

Speaking of battles, I liked seeing how Chachamaru transforms her hands into weapons. That’s never really clear in the manga but the anime makes it quite clear. I’m guessing that Akamatsu-sensei approved of this considering his involvement in the project.

SHAFT didn’t waste an ecchi opportunity with either the Chachamaru bathing scene nor the scene of Chisame having her clothing dissolved. I tell ya, if I hadn’t have already known what was going to happen in the story, I would have thought that we were about to have a graphic hentai scene with the tentacles and Chisame. I realize that’s what Akamatsu-sensei was parodying in the manga, but SHAFT took it that little extra bit farther. *_*

On the other hand, I had thought that SHAFT might push the orgasmic reactions Chachamaru has when Negi winds her vocally. They didn’t do that.

I’ll need to go back and check, but I didn’t remember Chisame’s sprite-mice being active again after she hooked up with Negi and Chachamaru. It would make sense that she could use them again though considering they could pull power from Chachamaru.

I still have a hard time with Chachazero’s rapid “keh-keh-keh” laugh. I still think that her having a slow laugh would come off more evil but if that’s how Akamatsu-sensei designed it, then that’s the way it is. Unfortunately, the way SHAFT drew Chachazero, she’s not the scene stealer she is in the manga. I’m rather disappointed with that.

So overall, a very enjoyable episode that does what a good adaptation should do — stay faithful to the source material while bringing the source material story to life in color. In this, SHAFT succeeds quite well. We’ll see how they handle the final two episodes.