I don't remember when I started to read Negima but it was probably early to mid-2013. Anyone who can read the post-date for this post, realizes it's mid-2015, meaning it took me about two years to finish this series. That should leave an indicator of how I felt about this series & by the way, 225 of those chapters were in this month, as part of my Manga May theme month. I'm really happy to have finally finished this series off, though I'm not yet done with the franchise as UQ Holder exists. But regardless, time to start my review on this part of the franchise.
Clearly the place to start is the story. Like any other battle shonen, this series was divided into many arcs. Unlike most battle shonen however it's arcs weren't always from of that genre (yes, I know shonen is a demographic, it's just easy to associate action series [intended for a younger audience] as battle shonen, since those series contain various tropes from eachother, we cool?). It's not unheard of for a series to introduce the action element at a later date as both Medaka Box & Yu Yu Hakusho did, the main difference for me here is that I liked Medaka Box & YYH pre-fights (heck, I might've liked YYH better in those stages). But unfortunately Negima starts off as a harem, which is quickly becoming my least favorite word in anime/manga.
The Child Teacher arc that begins the series is easily my least favorite in the manga. Look if you're a fan of the typical humor found here such as nudity & misunderstandings then you'll love it. Humor isn't always sexual in nature or Three's Company but a good amount of the time it is and I recall it being pretty rampant back then. Regardless, the series doesn't line up with my personal sense of humor, so it was just reading a bunch of unfunny gags for me. The second arc, Evangeline arc wasn't much better but I'd be lying to say I can remember much aside from the short Nagi stuff. Luckily, while reading the series (& several other long-runners [One Piece, Toriko & Medaka Box) I catalogue my rating for each arc. I gave the Child Teacher a 3 & the Evangeline a 4. The final arc I kept track of was the Kyoto Field Trip arc, which got a 7 & may have been the highlight of the series. It has its faults, several unfunny diversions & one of the least satisfying conclusions to an arc I've ever seen however this is when the series started hitting the direction that Ken wanted it to be from the get-go, a battle shonen. There are some unique powers & the fight with Kotarou at least was interesting & character-wise we saw some good development from Nodoka, one of my favorites. It also was the first time Asakura became prominent, another one of my favorites. One of the strongest points of this arc, & the next one, was it's length was relatively short.
There's not much to say about the Wilhelm arc, except that it probably features my favorite resolution to an arc in the series. This is mostly attributed to the other arcs featuring weak conclusion but this one wasn't to bad albeit being fairly standard shonen.
The last two arcs of the series go on forever. First up to bat it is the Mahora Festival, which is a little under 100 chapters in length. I think a lot of people in these threads consider this to be peak of Negima & I can see why. There's a lot of good stuff in here. The first half of the tournament was really strong, several off the side-stories thrown in throughout were entertaining & well-executed plus Ku:Nel Sanders added a lot of fun & intrigue into the series, as well as the first meaningful developments on the Nagi front. But the Chao arc that permeated throughout the tournament & dominated in the last third was, to put bluntly, boring. I've talked enough about this in an earlier discussion thread but outside of boredom, it was way too redundant with Negi's dilemma.
Finally we got the Magic World arc & even though I'm already sick of quickly recapping my brief thoughts on the series so far, I barely touched half of the series. Because the Magic World arc is about 167 chapters long, which is probably the longest arc I've seen in anything (beating out Chimera Ant by about 35 chapters). So much happens in this arc but I'll just quickly state that Negi vs. Rakan is the peak of Negima & the ending to the conflict was pretty bad. To be honest, once a bunch of other Averruncus where introduced I just kinda lost interest. Not necessarily because they were late introduction villains (not something I'm usually keen on) but because there introduction clearly only existed to make sure Negi had someone to curb when he got back. Though one of them was for Fate to curb since Negi's team fooled him pretty hard & he needed to look stronger than those guys for his battle with Negi to hold any weight. But the ending itself wasn't that fulfilling either, mainly the last-minute twist about Nagi that is never elaborated on or even acknowledged for longer than a page (Negi acknowledges it's him, next page until his last minute appearance in the final chapter, nobody ever brings this up again [it was irritating to say the least]). The last two chapters were especially pretty bad, focusing the penultimate chapter on a boring side-story about Yue is a decision that baffles me & the final chapter definitely suffered for it. The "Where are they Now?" ending was a pretty uninspired way to close off the series but mostly a boring slog to sit through & read everyone's finale.
One of the biggest problems with Negima's story is the sheer amount of chapters devoted to one or two side-characters that don't necessarily advance anything important. A lot of chapters come across a filler (though most of them aren't completely pointless) & while I appreciate trying to give screen-time to other characters, it gets annoying that the main plot is put hold on so frequently & it also makes the series pacing incredibly slow. The Magic World arc isn't 160+ chapters long because it had that much content in it, it's that long because of the amount of diversions taken there. People have commented in previous discussions how the plot didn't advance in four months of new chapters or that it took 70 chapters for anyone to figure out that Asuna may have been kidnapped & they've been travelling with a fake. Oddly enough though, when it comes to fights, the arc we skip pretty much every fight that Negi wasn't directly involved with. Of course, that's not entirely true but Mana/Zazie's sister barely got any screen time (we got Mana turning into a demon to confront her, Mana noticing Negi did something [I don't remember what he did, though I do remember Zazie's sister was not shown despite them still fighting] & the conclusion of the fight [this is a more egregious version of Mana/Kaede, since we actually saw combat in the interlude]). Despite being perhaps my favorite, Mana isn't a huge character in the grand scheme of things, Setsuna however is much more important but she got shafted almost as badly. Her fight with Tsukuyomi actually had build up towards it yet we only see snippets from it. It's odd that the series would skim a fight with character relevance to Setsuna yet focus an entire chapter on the characters taking a bath & getting molested.
Speaking of it's characters, none of them are anything too complex or brimming with depth but a handful of them certainly are likable, entertaining and/or badass. For me though, I found most characters boring at best (Negi was this for the longest time, though I think he grew out of it a bit in the Magic World arc). Outside of Mana & Asakura, all my favorites are outside his class, like Takamichi, Ku:Nel Sanders, Fate, Rakan, Nagi & Kotarou (Tosaka's cool too). Honestly, I developed a hatred for anyone character who had feelings for Negi, so right there I hate half of them right off the bat (Nodoka & Ayaka [to an extent] survived this by being two of the earliest examples).
Oh right, that reminds me, Negima is one of the most incestuous manga I've ever seen. Ayaka's love for Negi early on was implied to be a substitute for her dead little brother, although it's clearly sexual due to those nosebleeds & her pactio. All the shipping moments with Asuna & Negi get a little creepier when the series reveals their related and the most blatant case being Yuuna & her father (though, that's called out in-series as wrong). While I'm not really being fully serious here, I will say I do think the idea of all these teens trying to get in bed with a ten year old does bother me, part of the reason I didn't enjoy the beginning of the series.
God this has gone on for too long, the visuals were okay. Consistent but (usually) improving, the difference between chapter 1 & 335 is pretty huge in term of quality. However, the constant "fanservice" brings it down a bit for me & the lack of variety in faces is a downer too (at the very least, Ken admits he has a problem with this & it's not as noticeable as Oda's constant Nami's [though Oda has more notable exceptions). Character designs are varied enough, though there are certainly a lot of stinkers out there. For the most part, I didn't have any trouble transition from panel to panel during the action scenes, which is definitely a positive.
I've spent 1,500+ words on this series already & I certainly don't have the passion to go on for it. Considering it's the longest manga I've completed I figure I'd out to air out some of my thoughts, especially since pre-magical world most of the threads for this series were created by me. Overall, Negima gets a 6/10.
