Negima!: Magister Negi Magi

It’s that time of year again. Thousands of children graduating from school and moving on to see what life has in store. Although at this Welsh school, things are a bit different. With the ceremony over it’s time for the students to find out what fate has planned. And for our lucky protaganist he’s managed to bag himself a job as an English teach in Japan. Not too shabby for a 10 year old.

Welcome to the life of Magister Negi Magi! or to you and me, Negima!

Negima! Is the latest manga series from acclaimed manga-ka Ken Akamatsu (of Love Hina fame). It’s focused on Negi, the 10 year old wizard who has somehow ended up in Japan teaching to a class of cute Japanese School girls.  Over the course of Volume 1 we follow Negi as he begins to adjust to life in Japan and his class. Fortunately for him there are a wealth of characters to offer support and, most of the time, get him in to trouble.

Now where to begin with Negima! ? there is so much to talk about, but I’m struggling to censor myself in order not to give the game away. For this review, and I think the whole series I’ll split it down into 3 distinct areas. These are; Story, Characters, Scenery. It may seem a little rough around the edges, but I’ll work something out.

For anyone familiar with Akamtsu’s previous work, this should be a no brainer. Get lots of cute girls, add in some fan service every 10 pages, a bit of will they won’t they and mix it all together in your cauldron and out pops Negima!.

The story for the first volume of Negima! is fairly simple. Negi finally gets shipped off to Japan and is introduced to his class and fellow protagonists (there are 31 of them!). Over the course of the volume we get the usual class adapting to their new teacher, we’ve all been through it at some point in our lives so it’s to identify with the story, which makes it easier to concentrate on other parts of the plot. There is nothing amazing or out of this world in the first volume, instead of being thrown in at the deep end, the story slowly builds momentum; wait until volume 3 before it gets into full swing.

The core characters are fantastic, they all work together and in some cases clash. But all in all it’s a fairly good cast. One problem I did have though is the 31 kids in the classroom. It’s a novel idea, but I think its out with the storys limits. That and Ken’s drawing abilities only go so far. In the end you have 30 characters that generally look the same and many look like they came straight from Love Hina. Although this might not be a bad thing because Love Hina was drawn superbly. Negi is a decent lead character, typical to the genre. He is shy, quirky and at the begining of the story a bit of a dweeb. But I’ll put money on it by the end of the series he will be a different character (gee I wonder how I know that).

Now so far Negima 1 is basically a carbon copy of Love Hina with some magic in it. It’s almost boring until you see the settings in which it takes place. I have always been a fan of Akamatsu and his background work. The sheer amount of thought and effort he puts into it boggles the mind, and the story is better off for it. The school grounds are very European (as revealed in the story) and drawn fantastically.

You also get a bit more for your money with Negima!  Del Rey have done a great job with the whole package. Before you even get to see the drawing you are greeted by a word from Ken himself, and then on to a quick introduction to the honorifics used in the manga. Also once you’ve finished with the volume you get some extras at the back of the book, now I loved these. I’ve had a look at the next few volumes and they seem to follow a pattern. You get a few pages of production drawings and sketches, after that a few pages on the translation notes, some adverts and a sneak preview of the next book in Japanese. These extras are great, they show just how much work goes in to translating these manga into our language. Purists will also be happy, it’s right to left only here. None of this flipped nonsense.

On the whole, I really enjored Negima! 1. It’s a manga that you can easily read a chapter, go away and do something else, come back later and pickup exactly where you left off. Obviously with it being an Akamatsu manga there will be plenty of fan service. And if that’s your thing, great, but if you’re like me and aren’t such a fan there is enough substance to make it a great read, which is probably one of the reasons that his previous series, Love Hina, was so popular. Negima’s retail price is £6.99 per volume, however i’ve spotted it elsewhere for a measley £5.49.