May 20th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy Howdy folks. Well, it will be a while yet before we in the West get our hands on the official English translation for volume 38 of Negima!, but in the meantime, Hata provided a bit more info.
[sic]
nazinani negima 38
question: wasn’t Negi born in 1994? (book 02)
Ken: this book is the correct one, consider all others typo or mistakes.
question: who did that?
Ken: ME!Arika
what happen to Arika after giving birth to Negi is BY DESIGN not made public.( it just means she might be featured in future Negima story, whether after death in flashback or alive in some capacity is anyone’s guess.)
I’ve long been of the opinion that Arika was more of an afterthought by Akamatsu-sensei. I say this because until Negi’s and his magical, battle harem traveled to the Magic World, he never thought of his mother, nor did anyone else say a peep about his mother. It was so odd to me, and it was one of the reasons I thought Akamatsu-sensei might be going the route that had Nagi disguise himself as his own son, fake his death, block his memories (ala Asuna), etc. I can’t imagine what would be so mysterious about her, and what we’ve learned to date doesn’t say a great deal, other than she was the perfect foil for Nagi, and she cared a great deal about her people, and the peoples of the Magic World.
Although I was as disappointed as anyone over how Negima! came to a rapid halt, it seems fairly clear that Akamatsu-sensei will bring the manga back down the road. If that’s the case, and if he does all the plot threads, including dealing with Eva’s linkage to things, including her time with Ala Rubra, then I’ll be satisfied.
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It seemed like the ending was more of an afterthought… Sadly, this will be one of the series that I like, but never really had a chance to see it’s full potential (not like Love Hina, where then story actually made sense). The ending left a nasty aftertaste to the story. I hope there is a sequel to the series.
Two blog posts down from this one.
I think you mean Eva’s time with Ala Rubra.
Yeah, I did. I’ll fix that.
Hey, did you see this? Assuming this isn’t an April Fools joke in terrible taste, Negima’s returning this September and is going to focus on Ala Rubra. I really hope Akamatsu isn’t going to leave everything else untold. Not that I mind a prequel, because honestly who doesn’t want to see Ala Rubra in action? I just hope another part of the story picks up where everything was left off, and another part tells about the former class of 3-A’s adventures throughout the new space age.
http://forums.mangafox.me/threads/375712-Possible-Negima-continuation-posted-by-Akamatsu
Ugh nevermind, It was a prank after all. Such a shame. Sorry for posting that.
Not a problem.
What isn’t an April Fools joke is this
“In an author’s comment in the 38th and final manga volume of Ken Akamatsu’s Negima! Magister Negi Magi! manga, Akamatsu writes that the series is done “for now,” specifically noting that the phrase “for now” leaves open the possibility of a future revival of the series.”
I got it from AnimeNewsNetwork
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2012-05-17/ken-akamatsu/future-negima-revival-a-possibility
I figure that yearly next year, we could hear something on a sequel.
I’m still holding to the Arika-Nekane theory lol.
^_^ Well, maybe we’ll see one day.
Hope Akamatsu-sama can conclude his Negima saga in a way he can be proud of in his later years. He puts such great effort and content into his work, like
* world-class artwork, including superb, foreshortened postures, right-on expressions and those very difficult hands for his characters; awesome computer-generated backgrounds; and the neat trick of identical foreground/background images in the same panel (did you-all catch the one with Zazie on her trapeze?)
*back and forth story references, sometimes separated by hundreds of pages
*complicated scene switching, probably necessary sometimes, but still very cool
*time dilation and contraction
*implied side stores (for example, to explain why Yuna’s aritfact is two guns)
*a plethora of ingenious, fun plots
*and the ever present details that refer all over the place, like the tiny, almost invisible silhouette on the left shoulder of the first roof of the lantern-tower seen across the budokai stage as Ku-nel bashes Kaede (third page of period 111, vol. 13). That’s gotta be Kotaro. And it refers back to him standing on the roof with his left hand on the tower two pages prior (first page of period 111)
I love that kind of thing. I’m still finding stuff I missed the first ten time through. Just discovered that Asuna has always had differently colored eyes — green and lavender! Wow. Kewl.
It would be a shame if a coherent, gratifying terminus for “Magister Negi Magi” weren’t possible. I anticipate a much different sequal with different characters and plots in which the author is released from the constraints of corporate manga-making. I hope he has enough juice now to be his own editor. Please accept my encouragement for your continued effort.
The things you mention are some of the reasons why I loved Negima! so much as a manga, and why the anime adaptations have been such a bitter disappointment for taking a good thing and mostly junking it (some OAD’s were OK).
As to Asuna’s eyes, it was difficult to notice this if you didn’t get to see a lot of the color artwork.
Sorry for not signing in. An oversight. The text that begins “Hope Akamatsu-sama can conclude . . .” is from William Carhart
Understood. ^_^
I agree. The one anime of Negima! I watched thoroughly sucked. That suckage inspires my stand that animators and comic book artists should follow the Disney and Warner Bros. guys. They wrote and drew for themselves. What they thought was funny or dramatic they put in their work. They didn’t even think about, much less read about, what a survey of two-digit teenagers thought. They created for intelligent, heterosexual adults, and the kids loved it. It worked! Gloriously. Miyasaki didn’t read a survey before he created “Totoro” — still the iconic hand-drawn movie from Japan. Listen to his interviews. He just made the movie and hoped for the best, and after people discovered it, bingo! Its virtue sold itself. Over and over.
Write it, draw it and they will come.
Dare we point out the elephant in the room? Except for a very few artists, manga-making is just, and only, marketing. My few: Ken Akamatsu, Kiyohiko Azuma and Toshihiko Kobayashi, who wrote and drew one of my favorite short stories ever: “Apricot Girl,” at the end of vol. 13 of his manga “Pastel.”
(William Carhart)
You know, I never could get into Pastel. I read the first few volumes, but it just never rang my bell. :-/
Yes. Not everyone likes “Pastel.” No swords, no battles, no magic except for fortuitous timing — just slices of life and romantic adventures. So-so graphics, but his backgrounds of a real Japanese city are great. I like Kobayashi’s noncommercial plots. Especially “Apricot Girl,” whose characters, An and Shingo, mirror Asuna and Negi. That story has nothing to do with the main plot line of “Pastel.” (WC)
The lack of a fantasy element wasn’t the problem for me. The story itself just never gripped me, and I really wanted it to.
Re: “Pastel” again. Responses to art are always subjective. Tomato, tomahto. Wow, eeww. For example, I’m not a fan of Mozart, an attitude for which I have been excommunicated. It occurs to me I may occupy the same ground for Pastel, except in the inverse sense. I like it but no one else does. No biggy. I still recommend Kobayashi’s “Apricot Girl,” which has no relation to the story in Pastel at all.
I’m always fascinated by the variation in the responses to “Mahou Sensei Negima.” Just read vol 36, in which lots of loose ends are gathered. I liked it for that reason, but still, all that ad hoc explaining, all that chaos . . . Are there many fewer details in these late volumes?
Can’t believe I misspelled “Miyazaki.” Please accept my abject apology. (WC)
> Are there many fewer details in these late volumes?
Sorry for the delay.
I’m not sure I understand the question. ^_^; The manga gets certain plots closed, but things are shut down in a hurry.
The details I was talking about are graphic, of which I am so fond, like Yuna putting a coin in the vending machine as the class enters the Shinkansen in period 28. I think there are fewer in the later volumes. Sorry for the ambiguity.
The following is about manga but not about “Negima!” I wanted to draw attention to another title that I consider very worthy. If it’s too irrelevant (too elephant — love malaprops) then I won’t be disturbed if it’s not used. In fact, I’m pleasantly surprised that my text is published at all.
Picking a team of great manga authors is almost impossible for its paucity. After Akamatsu, Kobayashi and Azuma, the candidates seem so . . . so banal. I know, my experience is limited, but in the bookstore I look in a manga for about 30 seconds before it’s obvious my target isn’t even on their radar. Their signal is bore ring. Time after time. So where’s the good stuff?
It’s out there. Mixed in randomly. Yesterday, among the several I looked at, I picked up “5 Centimeters per Second,” and put it back after scanning the graphics. They immediately qualified as worthy. In addition, the story stuck, so I went back today with the express purpose of inspecting it again. A quick read of the first twenty and last twenty pages did it. It now occupies a proud spot on my shelves. I have read it once, immediately enthralled with the scene-switching and time-switching, and with the classic Japanese boys and girls. Wow. “Beautiful” and “powerful” are not too strong.
And I could blather all day about how good Yukiko Seike’s graphics are. Comparison with Miyazaki is not out of line.
My quandry about the Japanese obsession with cherry blossoms is dissolving. Their sadness about the beautiful but transient nature of life puzzles me much less after reading this manga. I even see that the railroad train that rushes between Akari and Tohno represents the way today’s pace can suddenly change our lives, and especially our loves, without our realizing it. The book also makes it clear that it’s very difficult to see what’s happening when it’s happening. The plural endings are so evocative I’m still entranced. Great stuff.
I will read Makato Shinkai’s “5 Centimeters per Second” again tomorrow. And again, time after time. (William Carhart, retired mathematician and teacher)
Heh!heh! This is what I get for neglecting comments for so long. ^_~
I’m aware of “5 Centimeters,” but like so many titles, I’ve not started reading it.
More on the manga “5 Centimeters per Second”
Oh man, I’ve blindly bunbled into an enormous ediface. Internationally famous movie. Awards. Manga succeeding the movie. I hope my take is not too redundant.
Great story about missing a beautiful life (cherry blossoms falling at 5 cm/sec) for lack of courage and the pain it causes in partners. The lead character, Takaki, is still pining for Akari, his first love from grade school 15 -20 years ago. Akari is everything a boy could want. Thouigh their love is infinite and omnipresent, he was not able to tell her he loved her then, and now he writes e-mails to her, telling her, but never sends them! Obsessing, he has turned into a sort of kind, gentle love-zombie, unable to love anyone but Akari. The manga develops this theme throughout with devastating effect. At the end Takaki is on the street, without a job, without a future and without a love — after having lived a dream-life with three of the most lovable girls (Akari, Kanae and Risa) I’ve ever seen in a manga. And some not-so-lovable ones. All heartbroken because Takaki has abandoned them.
In the last chapter we see the adorable, adult Kanae, a much younger grade school partner, sitting on a park bench in Tokyo in a grove of cherry trees in bloom. She has come from their small town all the way here looking for Takaki because she too was unable to tell him of her love back then. But she is doing something about it. We can’t see him, but her surprised expression of recognition and a little trepidation, just before she stands up, is very gratifying to this reader. She does meet him again, now, these many years later in Tokyo. The next, very last page has no figures, but I choose to believe that the man is Takaki and this time he appreciates the cherry blossoms shown on that last page under a glorious sky. Kanae will led him home to love and at last he can say those words and release his bodage. It’s really great that Kanae, who is the least pretty of all the girls, gets him.
Could be other sequels, like with Akari, but I like that one.
Yukiko’s Seike’s effects are terrific — hand-drawn photographic, but dream-like, backgrounds. There are several defining panels. My fvorite is of Takaki and Akari kissing under an isolated cherry tree in the dead of winter while it’s snowing. Symbols and allusions are everywhere in this manga. I love looking at these reality backgrounds with an almost magical action between the girl and boy embedded in them. Whoever (Seike?) did the story boards uses very fast scene-switching with no warning, so fast sometimes it’s just one panel long for a flash memory: a conversation, a meeting, a look. Sometimes the memory is more than one panel long. And somtimes past and present images appear in the same panel. Time stops! Very effective.
Just ordered the movie. If it’s half as good as the manga I’ll be happy.
I have a new, 13 year-old girlfriend, Akari Shinohara. She is adorable, loving and pretty to the point of beautiful when she smiles. Never mind that she’s fictional.
(William M. Carhart)
Well, it sounds interesting to be sure. Clearly, you are passionate about the manga. I’ll have to see what I can do about working it in. No promises, mind you. ^_^;
To fix above mistakes about Kanae: 1) she’s the same age as Takaki, and 2) she really did tell him that she loved him just as he was leaving on a plane after high school. She thought she would never see him again. Their ages are 32 maybe? Also Takaki uses phone-texting, not e-mail to pretend-call Akari
I really hope enthusiasts will take the time to follow all the time-shifts and scene-shifts that make the last twon chapters so great. (WMC)
THanks for the clarification. ^_^
Responses not expected, but much appreciated. Haven’t cried in 30 years, but I feel so sorry for Risa. Every time I read her episode I have to reach for the tissue box. (WMC)
Yes! Shinkai’s movie “5 Centimeters per Second” is as good as the manga of the same name. Great Miyazaki-like backgrounds, intense, realistic plot, lovable characters will grab you immediately. Amazingly, the movie and the print version are both great. The lead Character, Takaki, seems deliberately flawed and forgettable, but I’ll never forget his girls: Akari, Risa and Kanae. VERY romantic, very sad.
Incidently, if you already have “Negima!” vols. 13, 14 and 15, DO NOT spend money on Omnibus 5. It’s just those identical volumes glued together without the Nibley twins. (WMC)
>Incidently, if you already have “Negima!” vols. 13, 14 and 15, DO NOT spend money on Omnibus 5. It’s just those identical volumes glued together without the Nibley twins.
Yeah, I had been told that before volume 5 came out. As such, I won’t buy another omnibus short of the Twins being brought in to fix that mess from the translator that ran it just prior to them taking over the series.
Found a good site from which you can get tons of clips from Shinkai’s anime, “5 Centimeters per Second,” along with detailed plot. Google “Maps: Japan, Iwafune Village” and left-click “Images.” Select “Iwafune is completely buried.” It is the first image in the fourth row. The author filled in a few things for me, but impuned some motivations, that I doubt, for the characters. However, he did nudge me farther into the crowd of genuflecting fans. I agree with him: one ought to read the manga as well as look at that incredible movie. He talks about “the novel.” Is there such a thing?
(William M. Carhart)
I’m not sure. ^_^;
In the Iwafune site above the auther moves images around, probably because he wants to put in many of them. So “Iwafune is completely buried” will not always be where I said it would. It’s still there, but in a different place. Just select the first, green-checked item in the list under “Google Maps: Japan, Iwafune Village” and hit “Images.” Then hunt. Easy.
(WMC)
OK, thanks for the info.
Finally read the rest of your blog on “Negima!” and saw how late I was in the warning about Omnibus 5. Sorry. By glancing through it at the bookstore I saw just in time what they were doing and didn’t buy it. Luck. But that action by Kodansha is so CS (ancient invective, the first word of which is “Chicken.”) that I won’t buy ANY more Kodansha until they change. A good start would be to reinstate the Nibleys. (WMC)
I agree. They should have let the Twins just continue on and make things continuous with a single translator. Oh well, it’s money saved.
Found another good manga, “Saiunkoku,” done by two Japanese ladies. I haven’t seen that before. It looks like they sincerely flattered Murasaki Shikibu. It has the right stuff like exquisite artwork, a mysterious, complex plot, implied side stories and an attractive lead character. It’s set in ancient Japan/China and gives us Americanskis a painless entry into that culture. NOT done by Kodansha, and hurray, no magic so far. Highly recommended. (WMC)
I’ll have to give it a look-see.