June 23rd, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy Mahou Sensei Negima! ~Mou Hitotsu no Sekai~ OAD – 03
Negima! ~Another World~ OAD/OVA Ep. 03 Review
魔法先生ネギ ま！～もうひとつの世界～ Episode 03
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Negi, as Nagi, sends a message on TV for Makie and Yuuna to meet him in Ostia in a month. He challenges fighters to come on and one day, a shadow user named Kagetarou challenges “Nagi.” The two battle and Negi loses his arm until Jack Rakan, a former member of Ala Rubra, interferes and brings the fight to a stop. Negi is healed but Chisame and Chachamaru are not happy with what Negi did. Negi apologizes when Kotaro comes up with a message from Setsuna and Asuna stating they are OK.
Setsuna and Asuna bathe and talk as Asakura shows off her new pactio artifact from Negi. She and Chachamaru are off to try to find the others while Negi and Chisame go to meet Jack Rakan and train. They find Jack working on new techniques, which are quite impressive. When asked, Negi mentions fighting Fate. Jack remembers the name and decides to lay out where Negi stands on a strength chart. This shows Negi that he has a long way to go. Since Eva was Nagi’s master on Earth, Jack decides to train Negi on something to give him an advantage — Eva’s Magia Erebea technique.
Thoughts/Review:
Meh! SHAFT, which up until had been pretty good about holding their water, just couldn’t do it this time. Oh no. After all, it can’t be a SHAFT anime unless we put our pointless, stylized animation style into a series. And where do they choose to put this? In the battle between Negi (as Nagi) and Kagetarou of course. The result of this? Totally ruined the fight for me.
Seriously, why did you have to do this, SHAFT? You live up to your name by giving us 
the shaft this time (pardon the expression). *_* I think back to the battle in episode 1 when Fate takes out Ala Alba. That fight was well done. However, because of the stylized approach, the fight between Negi and Kagetarou, which should have been pretty awesome, is instead reduced to a parody of itself, and an annoying, eye-rolling one at that. Thus, SHAFT proves that while they can control themselves for a while, in the end, they are going to do whatever they feel like because they are SHAFT and they have a style which MUST come out or else.
Gah!
I had wondered how far SHAFT would go on the bathing scene between Asuna and Setsuna. Naturally, SHAFT would have loved to have gone full-bore hentai on this. After all, there probably isn’t a lot of hot, teen, yuri action where one of the girls has wings. *_* In order that SHAFT can spend more time on the fap material, they completely cut out the most important part of the scene from the manga — Asuna’s growing strength. SHAFT also found time to extend the boob jokes about Makie and Yuuna from the beginning of the episode. Can’t cut out the boob stuff, can we?
Speaking of cuts, we knew that there would be a TON cut in order to squeeze the Magic World arc into four episodes. Well, that’s a fail as we all knew it would be and even adding a special OAD (or OVA, not sure which) to cover Yue’s adventures, still too much is cut to make this OAD even worth it IMO. If you haven’t read the manga, forget it. You are going to be confused because so much is skipped between episode 2 and 3. SHAFT does some covering by extending the meeting scene between Kotaro, Negi, Sayo, Chisame, and Asakura, but I don’t think that will be enough. Most of the gaps will be filled with the audio dramas, which don’t do us any good. However, some gaps will just be left blank.
So I’m thinking, “Why the heck didn’t Kodansha just do a proper OVA series if they didn’t want to do a TV series?” At least that way the whole arc could have been done properly. Then again, why’d Kodansha choose SHAFT in the first place? *_*
Basically, I find myself highly annoyed after this episode and mostly from that stylized crap early on. I knew the cuts to the story would harm this OAD series and they have to some extent. That will increase with the final episode going into the theatrical movie. It really is a shame too since to date, the OADs’ for Negima! had been acceptable despite things that had to be cut. SHAFT made sure that would not remain true.
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That’s a shame they screwed it up. I’d actually been pretty excited to see that they were continuing the manga storyline with the OVAs. I’ll still check it out just because I’m a pretty big Negima fan. Sad that it looks like I’ll just be disappointed. -_-
Heh, the art from the stylized screen shots you posted almost looks as bad as the art style in the sixth One Piece movie.
You call it stylized animation. I call it going cheap and then labeling it art.
No doubt, the art was craptastic… but it could be worse, considering all the “Lookie what we can do!”s they pulled in Negima!?. At least they didn’t hire Setsuna’s seiyuu as lead animator for the scene, eh?
@ANB: Can’t cut out the boob stuff, can we?
Just wait ’til they get to Paio. $20 says she gets her own spin-off series out of it. (^_~)
well i am deeply deeply disapointed. no scratch that i am agitated because Kodansha can’t do anything RIGHT for this series. no one and i mean no one should blame SHAFT they are an excellent animation company and SHOULD animate a third series. Kodansha is fully responsible and some fans have been pointing the gun at Akamatsu lately, he as the manga artist has no control over what Kodansha does as a distribution company. in my opinion if it takes Kodansha 5 or more years to make the worlds 11th most popular manga a successful and true anime then they shouldn’t even be in the anime industry. Kodansha doesn’t even listen to the fans. well gee you know maybe if they listened to the fans years ago we wouldn’t have gotten crap like the XBEC version in 2005 or the fan service, non manga related Negima? Negima shouldn’t have been an anime until the manga ended and thats why we as fans are screwed because when people think Negima they are gonna think of the abysmal animes and the set of OVAS… i don’t care what any negima fan says those ala alba and no sekai OVAS are just a tease and didn’t accomplish anything. even the new OAD that stars yue will be completely pointless and Kodansha will keep on screwing up. Akamatsu has to strike a deal with a better company because 5 years and still we fans haven’t got anything we wanted…
At first, before any of the OADs were released, I was disappointed with the artwork. I really like the ones in the 2 OVAs and thought that they should just do the same with the OAD. Then when I watched the 1st episode of the OAD Mou Hitotsu no Sekai, I was impressed mainly due to the fight between Ala Alba and Fate’s group. The 2nd episode however disappointed me. And though I have not watched the 3rd one yet, based on the reactions of a lot of people, I think it would really disappoint me. I hope they would just make a new season of Negima that is manga based and do a better job. Its a shame that the manga is so good and then the anime would ruin it.
oi astro if you noticed they also editted the opening a little
best part is that the part with the paru doesnt cut off right when they get to ku’s face
I’m glad there’s a blogger that agrees that the OVA (and all the anime adaptation) are crap. All the characters look fatter, the action scenes are unimpressive and they cut off the slave girls screen time. Why did they choose Shaft in the first place anyway? Damn, if only Kyoani didn’t convert to moe…
I’d like to point out that these OADs aren’t intended to be watched by people who haven’t read the manga
@Anonymous:
no one and i mean no one should blame SHAFT they are an excellent animation company and SHOULD animate a third series…
maybe if [Kodansha] listened to the fans years ago we wouldn’t have gotten crap like… the fan service, non manga related Negima?
If you mean Negima!?, it was actually Shaft who was responsible for that one.
Don’t feel too bad, though. Given that what Shinji did to Asuka is a really good metaphor for what Anno did to EoE, I used to think the clusterschmuck way Kare Kano ended must’ve been Anno’s fault as well. (Found out years later that it was really the author who was at fault. The incomprehensibly-bad last handful of episodes were the result of him walking after she yanked the license, because she thought he was focusing too much on the humor and not enough on the romance.)
Personally, I think Shaft has done an okay job overall, with Negima!? being a really bad start. But if you think everything in the last five years has been disappointing, I’m not sure why you want them to keep working on it – that’s almost exactly how long it’s been since Xebec was kicked off and Shaft took over.
Kind of sad how they’re messing with it a bit. I will still watch this if Funimation gets the OADs.
@Derek — That was just a couple of screen shots. Having the whole scene play out like that was rather “ugh!”
@Anon — Yeah, I guess that could be true too.
@arimareiji — I would guess that SHAFT would long to do the Paio onsen chapter but we’ll have to see whether they do it or not. I haven’t seen what the final episode will cover.
@Anon — SHAFT is hit or miss with me. Sometimes, I find them to be very funny in their productions and sometimes irritating. They do enjoy a certain stylized art approach at times which seems to be a signature of theirs, at least of the titles I’ve watched.
@Anon — a complete reboot from scratch like Fullmetal Alchemist received would be my preference.
@Ku — I missed that. ^_^;
I’d like to point out that these OADs aren’t intended to be watched by people who haven’t read the manga
True, but there is a possibility of their being licensed in the U.S. There are still a lot of people who watched all of the Negima!/Negima!? anime put out by FUNimation who’ve not bothered to touch the manga. Those folks would buy these OAD’s and go, “What the…?”
@arimareiji — I haven’t had a problem with SHAFT’s adaptations of the OAD’s until this episode.
@Zeether — nothing wrong with that. ^_^
@ANB: Sorry, I didn’t mean to give the impression I thought you shared Anonymous’ opinion. I wish I’d made it more explicit, but the entirety of my last post was a response to Anonymous.
Ditto on not particularly having a problem with their OAD work. But I still think their work on Negima!? was… to be kind, subpar for something called Negima!? If they’d called it “Affectionate Parody of Negima That Runs Off On A Wild Tangent Looking For Humor”, I’d have had no trouble with it. (^_~)
@Derek Brown
…must…hold…temper…
must…not…get…angry…
Just kidding. But seriously on the Arlong Park forums I started a topic about One Piece’s animation style and a lot of people are quite divided on the 6th movie. I personally, love the style as this movie and Strong World have come off as the most theatrical.
No as far as Negima goes, I have to see what the style looks like in action. I know you (Astronerdboy) also criticized SHAFT’s work on Natsu no Arashi which I actually liked. But do you remember the series Soul Taker? That also had a stylized art style and while people praised it for being artsy I HATED it. I re-rented the title several times and I could just NOT watch the show. The art just drove me nuts.
@arimareiji
there are some personal reasons why i hate Kodansha. i used to be a youtuber who used to have 350 subs back from 2007-2008. i made a video promoting Ala alba through nararation and Kodansha pulled it down and my account was suspended i was so angry that day and as well as the other negima fans who promote negima under fair use have there stuff pulled down. hell naruto and one piece get pulled down but the videos from that series are vast in quantity and fans get it around. negima has failed commercially because no one really knows about it and thats one reason why Kodansha has done a terrible job
by the way i SA99 posted as Anonymous in the first comment i posted
Did anyone else noticed that Ako has completely disappeared.
@SdetsunaAngel99: Heaven knows I’m not going to tell you whether to like, dislike, love, or loathe Kodansha. De gustibus est non disputandum, and I’ve certainly had my share of vendettas against companies and directors. (Anno may have done a bangup job on Kare Kano, but I still sorta hold EoE and the Mahoromatic ending against him.)
And I don’t doubt Kodansha could’ve done a lot better than to keep picking up, dropping, fumbling, and booting Negima around like a loose football on a rainy night. All I’m saying is that Shaft is hardly blameless.
wat the hell is wth the animators ….only show the boobies to be good , wat abt the other part of the oad…wat abt slave girls just tossed them aside …..
i wish to really kill the animators they are degrading the name of Mahou Sensei Negima series
Hey there, long time Negima fan.
And guys, what was really so wrong with it? I don’t think they did a bad job at all. It was more like Akamatsu’s style this time around, humour, fan service, awesome fight scenes.
I have to admit the whole SHIFT art style is a little bizarro (I believe it was used for Nagi/Eva fight in Negima!?) but the animation was slick and much more exciting to watch than to read, at least for that part.
I almost turned it off when I saw Rakan use his “pactio” with loads of flashing lights, but then was saved by “Zankanken!” a giant friggin sword.
All in all don’t give em a hard time, it was well done and well suited to Akamatsu’s work.
Looking forward to the fourth.
Speaking of which is anyone pre-ordering from Japan, I’m doing it just for the pactio cards.
hi!
I for one liked it.
Negima has a serious case of adaptation decay so you can not expect some onas will save it.
However we got to see how fights look in shaft style and i like it.Really like it.
In other animes in shaft style there weren’t many fights.
Also we got to see how key scenes would look animated.
These onas are more of an experimentation ground and have a trailer feel. You can not reasonably expect to compress that much story in 4 eps.
this is for everyone, yeah so i am pretty sure no one liked the XBEX version. i am embarrassed i actually forced myself to like it at one point. but the difference between FMA and Negima is that FMA had better commericaling in America. Negima just needs a strong company backing it up like Tv Tokyo. some may doubt it, but if funimation is bought by nickolodeon than funimation maybe able to get negima out there more, but nbot the other two animes maybe if were lucky we have 2 options
1 Kodansha steps dpwn and we get a new distributor
2 SHAFT LEAVES( that would suck but i wouldn’t mind a stdio that can make negima look like a great shonen series of about the range of bleach
so negima just needs time, the first 5 years were crap, but to be honest the fans are keeping it alive and thats why it is 11 out of 900 on onemanga because we as the fans are dedicated. remember the dragonball manga didn’t get reconized some years after its debut so why can’t negima excel like any other anime can
I thought the Kagetarou fight looked awesome, so I can’t say I know what you’re talking about there.
SHAFT Hating?
RAGE. RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE.
OverMaster has entered RAGE mode…
Hi, umm I thought this was pretty good, However I don’t think it was AS good lol. Umm did you see the announcement at the end idk what it said or meant, Can you please tell me?….
I have to agree with you about the Negi vs Kagetarou fight. The change in style was instantly noticable and a DISGRACE compared to the batlle scene in th first episode which LITERALLY made me have an anal evacuation at the end. Still, the rest was alright. That being, this is just my opinion.