“Epic Badasness” would be the most appropriate word to describe this chapter.

Fate is pissed off at Negi because he has a better idea than his idea of destroying the world. N0 one believes this, and I actually started doubting it even more when Negi mentioned that it involved the Class Rep… How exactly could an annoying blonde shoutacon help saving anything?

Anyways, Zazie’s Sister raises again from the rubble she was buried under and exclaims that she doesn’t believe it either, and goes Xenahort’s Heartless. Chisame’s comment: “Oh, God! She’s totally a Final Boss character! Just look at that design!“. Apparently, she’s one of the Demonfolk, and yes, she holds high enough status to be Final Boss Material.

Zazie’s Sister is seriously sceptical to how a 10 years old kid could possibly save the world (I am too!), and has her Guardian do a seriously overkill attack that’s parried by Mana, Kaede, Setsuna and Ku-Fei who awakens from Cosmo Entelecheia. Kaede apparently “spent an excessive length of time in the company of my late grandparents” in there, Mana looks silly, Harumi apparently dreamed of World Domination (anyone surprised?), Setsuna is ashamed of her dreams involving a lesbian relationship with Konoka, and Ku-Fei is also getting all embarassed despite her dream seems to have been to fight someone whom I can’t recognize.

Zazie’s Sister, whom Negi decices to rename to “Poyo Rainyday”-san (Chisame: “…we’re calling her Poyo now? Seriously?”), decides to go overkill again. Negi tells the others to go after Fate while he fights Poyo-san. However, he is stopped by Mana who triggers a bunch of Gravity Mines (made by Chao Lingshen) she had apparently put in there (Chisame: “Yep, she’s a monster”), which presses Poyo into the ground and creates a huge crater (just how thick is that floor!?) and jumps after her down into the crater. Poyo theorizes that Negi’s method will lead to the future which Chao Lingshen came from (the one where everyone dies, remember?), but Mana bets that Negi’s method works while loading some of the Time-Space Displacement Bullets used for disqualifications during the Mahora Festival Arc (I sure hope she modified them, having a Xenahort’s Heartless-ripoff appear out of nowhere outside school could scare anyone out of their minds), then transforms into a… Demon!? Mana is a Demonfolk!? Okay, it was pretty clear already that she wasn’t human, but a Demonfolk? Random but awesome!

Next week there will be yet another break (hopefully we won’t have to wait a month like last time)… But there will also be a special One-Shot of Love Hina included!! Woo-hoo!

Haruto and Yuzuki

Kimi no Iru Machi (A Town Where You Live) first seems to be just an ordinary love story-manga. A well-made one, but still nothing out of the ordinary. However, just like Clannad, that’s just on the surface – give it a chance, and you won’t regret it.

The story centers around a guy named Haruto Kirishima, who is living a fairly ordinary life until a girl named Yuzuki Eba turns up who will live in his house because she is the daughter of one of his dad’s friends and she desperately wanted to transfer to the school in Haruto’s town. Haruto doesn’t have any interest in Yuzuki since he’s already in love with a girl named Nanami Kanzaki. Yuzuki on the other hand has a clear interest in Haruto.

The story isn’t very original, but neither was Clannad. However, it has just enough originality to avoid being unoriginal, and is executed beautifully. The setting is based on the author’s hometown, which means that it has the same realistic feeling as Love Hina has, and actually feels living. The art style is also beautiful, on par with D.N.Angel and just slightly below Ken Akamatsu(Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima!, Mao-chan)’s art. It has some issues with misplaced eyes and sometimes there’s an arm pointing in a slightly impossible direction, but the overall quality is really impressive. The character designs are quite good too. The main character, Haruto Kirishima is not the most original character ever, and initially appears to be just a stingy, skeptical and a bit shy guy, but similarly to Ryoshi from Ookami-san to Shichinin Nakama-tachi, he can go any lengths for his friends if the situation requires him to. He’s fairly smart, but a bit too realistic for his own good. He could be considered a male Tsundere, but that’s not as obvious as for example Himuro from Fairy Tail. Yuzuki Eba is a far better character. It’s a bit hard to decide if she’s really smart or an idiot, she’s really clumsy (in a moé-ish sort of way) and reminds a lot of Nagisa from Clannad. She can also appear to be completely helpless and lost, just to surprise you by actually knowing exactly what she’s doing – though she generally actually is helpless and lost. She loves Haruto, but isn’t possessive like a lot of other heroines (Shana, Naru, Louise, etc) and actually helps him get closer to his crush Nanami. She also has a mysterious past, but as of now not much is known about this. Nanami Kanzaki is one of those characters you know will just be there to create some tension, since she lacks the details that separates main characters from major characters – just like Yoshida Kazumi from Shakugan no Shana, Risa Harada from D.N.Angel or Siesta from Zero no Tsukaima. She’s not a bad character, just not unique enough to really stand out. She’s a typical cheerful girl who will sooner or later reject the main character who will give up on her and move on to the main heroine. Then there’s Yuzuki’s evil and manipulative little sister (if you’ve seen Durarara!!, think a less prominent version of Izaya and you get the idea) Rin who somewhat shares Ryuk’s viewpoint from Death Note in that she does things because the effects are interesting, and Haruto’s childhood friends Akari and Takahashi who seriously acts like two halves of a whole, acting as a bokke-tsukyomi Comedian pair and cheering for Haruto. Akari also likes smacking people in the back of their heads with Newspapers, textbooks and similar – she once also hit Haruto with a dictionary after Kanzaki’s idea. Takahashi is Haruto’s inseparable friend and they’ve been friends since forever, and he’s also the kind of Kida Masaomi-character who hit on just about every girl he sees but never has any luck with them (sadly he doesn’t have a long list of “Girls I’m gonna’ make my girlfriend” like Kida) and has been rejected by more girls than he can remember – including Yuzuki, Rin and Akari.

The story is a typical slice-of-life one, divide into shorter arcs. It’s really beautifully written and well executed – there’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular mangas on OneManga – and it never really breaks the atmosphere like Fruits Basket among others does, and said atmosphere is on par with D.N.Angel’s. Haruto and Yuzuki also make a really cute couple, mostly by being each others’ polar opposite. The character growth may not be on par with Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima! or even D.N.Angel, but it is there – even though you may not notice it. Even though this is a typical love story, there’s thankfully not much Ecchi like most other love story-mangas tend to be. The first page of each chapter always has an illustration that has nothing to do with the chapter itself (up to a certain point, where it starts being an enlarged panel instead), and while some of them are annoyingly ecchi-ish, they don’t get as much on my nerves as for example Fairy Tail’s does, some of them are actually really cute. The Summary and Closing texts can also be skipped, since they make about as much sense as Angel Beats’ official plot summary (just what is a spilled memory!?). One thing that may cause you to lose track of things like the characters’ ages and such is it’s somewhat annoying way of fast-forwarding through up to half a year, but except for that the story has a good flow without being either overcomplicated or too simple.

Despite it’s faults, the overall quality of it all means that you should immediately start reading it here. It’s definitely one of the best series I’ve read in a long time. It’s position on the top list of the most popular mangas on OneManga is well-deserved.

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Note that this post was written before Yuzuki was redesigned to a hated bitch rather than a moé-ish cute girl…

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Yeah! Go get her, Negi! No one is gonna miss her!

Here it is! The first Single Chapter coverage on this site! And also, it is a chapter in the middle of a story arc so if you haven’t read the past chapters, this post (and the chapter) will make no sense. If you actually haven’t read Negima, I really recommend you start since it’s a real masterpiece.

Tsukyomi is caught by the neck by Negi, who has turned into his Dark Lightning form(Come on! Break her neck! No one will miss her!). She tries to cut his arm off with her Zanmaken-ni-no-Tacchi attack, but Negi dodges it by turning his arm into lightning. She instead attacks him directly with Resshuuzan-ni-no-Tacchi, which he can’t block in time, and drops her. She then threatens to “slice up” Nodoka, something that actually makes Negi angry and he fires his arm, again turned into lightning, into her stomach, unleashes a violent series of Lightning-Powered attacks which actually blows a rock outside the ship to pieces, and tells her to quit if she’s just a mercenary hired by Fate. Tsukyomi just laughs at him, saying that she doesn’t do this for money, but instead just for the fun of killing (something here also seems to turn her on completely), and delivers a message from Fate: “I’ll be waiting”. She then pulls out Code of the Lifemaker, and uses it to summon a huge bunch of Shadow Demons. Negi stays behind to stop the demons, while the others escape in Paru and Johnny’s airships – something that actually even gets Asuna (actually Luna) worrying about him. The rest of the chapter is spent on a long, unfinished scene where the two airships escape from Tsukyomi and the Shadow Demons, protected by Ku-Fei, the Battle Maiden Squad(Yue, Collette and Bea), Saiyo (still playing with the Sagitta Magica-Turret Gun), Mana(who is for the first time in the series actually getting worried, and seeing our cool and collected mercenary sniper actually worry is not just a bit odd), Kaede, Koutarou and Yuuna, the latter mostly experimenting with her Twin Gun Artifact and seemingly not helping that much – her similarity with Yuna from Final Fantasy X and X-2 is getting even more prominent here.

My feeling that Negima is turning a bit too much towards Dragonball is getting even stronger now with Negi’s Dark Lightning Form (named by me, the actual name is a very long phrase of mixed Japanese and Latin). But, knowing Ken Akamatsu, he’ll probably find some way to correct this. Unlike Dragon Ball, Negima still has side characters (a whole lot of them, and they’re all quite capable on their own) and, more importantly, a Story. A good story at that. Dragonball stopped haing a story after book 17, Negima has been announced to be at least 400-500 chapters long so he can’t really let it slip out of his grip this early. My guess is that Negi will be unable to use Magica Erebea outside of the Magic World, since the normal world has much less magic power in the air, as someone explained a few chapters ago, or something along the lines of that. I also wonder why there hasn’t been much comedy in a while, but I guess it’ll be more of that soon enough…

Next chapter: Enter the Gravekeeper’s Palace!

Gallery
Click on the thumbnails to view the full pictures in Lightbox

After having read all 292 currently released chapters of Mahou Sensei Negima!, I’ve decided to cover the new chapters released every week. These posts will contain  a summary of the plot, a commentary and a couple of screenshots taken from the chapter. I’ll do this just because I want to write something about just about every chapter, and this is the perfect excuse to do so!

The next chapter should be out by wednesday, and my first Chapter coverage will be published then as well.

The reason why I started reading Negima can be summarized in two words: Ken Akamatsu. The guy who wrote my all-time favorite Manga “Love Hina”, Ken Akamatsu, is back as the author of a still running (since 2002!) fantasy series involving a 10 years old english teacher of an all-girls middle school, who is actually a mage-in-training. Ken Akamatsu is the only one I know of who can make a this weird plot make a jack of sense.

Negi Springfield is a 10 years old mage, newly graduated from a magic school. He hopes to become a great mage to search for his father, the Thousand Master – one of the most powerful mages who ever lived, and he’s so mysterious so that no one even knows where the Thousand in his nickname stands for, and who has a seriously weird sense of humor. Instead, he is appointed as the new english teacher of an all-girls middle school, and the homeroom teacher of class 2-A.

This could have turned out to some kind of slice of life series, or a sick harem series due to the 10 years old main character. Instead, it’s a great fantasy-comedy that picks the best out of all it’s genres.

Just like Love Hina, Negima’s main strength lies in it’s characters. 3-A consists mostly of weird people – Some examples are a Robot(whom no one seems to notice is a robot despite the highly visible joints on her knees and her antennas), an immortal 10 years old vampire who uses an illusion to look older, an anonymous web celebrity, a ninja, a ghost, a mad scientist and a girl obsessed with all kinds of exploration. Ken also reused a lot of the character designs from Love Hina, Nodoka is Shinobu(Yay!) with longer bangs and who uses a book that reads minds, Asuna is Naru with bells in her hair and uses a giant folding fan that works like Touma’s Imagine Breaker ability in Toaru Majutsu no Index(apparently it can become a huge sword too) and Sakurazaki has Motoko’s personality and even uses the same Shinmeryuu skillset as she did(the main character almost getting his head chopped off by a Zanganken attack, sounds familiar?) with Angel Wings she normally keeps hidden(I love Angel Wings!), Ku-Fei is my favorite character Kaolla Su but a lot less silly(not good) and her obsession with huge guns put onto another character, etc. Almost all of these girls also somehow gets pulled into the magic world, some by accident, some due to a certain obsession with exploration, some were already there and some came by their own choice. The so far most notable character outside of the class is Kamo, the talking ferret who “organizes” most Pacts, has a tendency to pull cigarrettes out of nowhere pretty often and who fled his land to escape being sued for 2000 counts of stealing underwear. With a main cast consisting of over 35-40 characters, do I need to mention there are a lot of names? Fortunately, this isn’t that hard since there are a lot of character-focused chapters/chapters told from someone else’s viewpoint, Profiles, and they introduce one character at a time so it doesn’t feel like you are drowning in names. Most of these characters also has their own unique personalities and backstories, and it doesn’t feel like a class full of nameless nobodies. It’s not as well as Fairy Tail, though, where all the over 100 clan members had some kind of personality. But Fairy Tail is an exception, and Negima’s cast feels more living than most Animes and Mangas ever made.

You are constantly picking up tons of references to Love Hina, but also to several other series such as Clannad. I already mentioned the character designs, but there are also a visit to Kyoto where both Motoko in Love Hina and Sakurazaki trained for example. Ken Akamatsu also wrote himself that Nodoka was based on Shinobu on the cover of the first volume.

There is a bit of fanservice/ecchi in here as well, but unlike parts of Love Hina, Negima knows where the line between acceptable and tasteless goes. There are underwear showing a lot, and an occasional butt, but no more than that. The ecchi is a quite a lot less than Love Hina, generally just sightly more than The Familiar of Zero. Just like Love Hina, there are a lot of jokes centering around personality clashes and people not taking each others seriously or making fun of each others, mixed in with a bit of slapstick making a really nice mix that never feels repetitive despite many jokes are used numerous times. The action scenes in here are also more over-the-top than even those towards the end of Love Hina, but still not like Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou where you in some episodes(EP10 for example) had to really put some effort into finding anything not extremely over-the-top and/or overkill. There are several enemies that turns into allies(Evangeline and Koutarou so far), but they don’t make the mistake of putting extremely powerful villains on the good party like for example Dragonball does, but they down-power them significantly similarily to how Soul Eater does when Crona joins, by shrinking down Ragnarok from 3 meters tall to 30 cm. Evangeline who is at just a few percent of her full power due to a curse and Koutarou who lost his ability to use Wolf Spirits and his transformation. This also helps saving from the feeling that they’re just piling more and more powerful villains after each others, since that tend to make the story disappear, again like Dragonball. So far Negima’s story quality has just been getting better and better, as expected of Ken.

You can read the so far 291 chapters that has been released(it’s still in production with a new chapter every week, each chapter being about 20 pages) here, as well as getting an RSS feed that notifies you each time a new chapter is released. In order to get all the references, you should also have read Love Hina here, but it’s just heavily recommended – even if you don’t want to get all the references, it’s a really good Manga – the Anime wasn’t anywhere near though so if you only watch that you can’t expect to get all the references. Currently it is about to get a 10/10 rating from me, and I sure hope it doesn’t drop that score anytime soon.

(Extra Comment: Come on, Nodoka! Get Negi and avenge Shinobu’s broken heart from Love Hina!)

Gallery
Click on the thumbnails to view the full pictures in Lightbox

Some screenshots are sightly edited to remove unnecessary content
(such as overlapping boxes and talk bubbles) and focus on the actual content

Screenshots taken using an iPhone 3GS, so they are fairly small