Negima 2005 is an anime adaption. It is the first anime adaption of Negima unless you count the introduction video trilogy that came out before the first chapter of the manga. Speaking of those, Negima 2005 actually uses the exact same art style. I used to be absolutely bewildered as to why the hair colors of the characters are different in many cases, like for example Yue having blue hair instead of purple hair or Misa having dark purple hair instead of pink hair, but I believe the reason for this is because 2005 had the same exact animators that the introduction films had. The similarity of the art and animation style is my first piece of evidence for this, but my second is that the hair colors are actually more faithful to the manga in 2005 than they are in the introductory films because some of them changed. In the introduction films for example, Fuuka and Fumika have brown hair, while in Negima 2005 they have pink hair like God intended. My third piece of evidence for this is that both the introduction films and Negima 2005 were both made by the same studio, that being Xebec.
Another notorious flaw with the anime is the voice acting. It's ok in Japanese, but the English dub is horrendous, especially given how many characters (Negi, Evangeline, Chachamaru, Nagi) have fake English accents. Barring the fact that it doesn't make sense for Evangeline to have an English accent, why couldn't they hire people who were either actually English and could do it naturally, or were good at doing an actual English accent? I find it hard to explain the difference, but I can tell a real English accent from an American pretending to do an English accent. There are also significant dialogue changes in the English dub that make the characters look way worse than they actually are. For example, in the first episode, Ayaka made fun of Asuna not having any parents because they died. I get that the two like to argue with each other and insult each other, but this just makes Ayaka look like a sociopath, and in both the manga and the Japanese dub of 2005, she never says anything like that. However, none of this isn't the main reason why I dislike Negima 2005 either since I can just watch it in Japanese instead. Also, the English outtakes are actually pretty funny.
The anime is of course not actually called "Negima 2005", it's called "Mahou Sensei Negima!" in Japanese, but weirdly, is just called "Negima!" in English. It starts out relatively faithful to the anime, but it goes off the rails as time goes on. Almost every time they try to stray from the manga and add in their own writing, it feels like the writing was done by a young child. This is the main reason why I dislike Negima 2005. Even if they do an episode based off something that happens in the manga, they will often either contrive it in a way that I dislike, or add bad writing to pad it out that just makes me wonder who it's for. It's certainly not for fans of the manga, nor is it for people who simply like good writing or a consistent story. You might notice me saying, throughout this long piece of writing, that I will say the phrase "in the manga" a lot. The reason why I do this is simply because the manga is better. The manga actually makes sense and the plot doesn't feel like it was written by a 10 year old, it feels like it was written by a smart adult.
The last time I comprehensively watched through the whole anime was a couple years ago, and I wrote a bunch of notes on it, so here are my thoughts:
It starts with some weird scene where Asuna does some weird superstitious dance to get with Takahata. Not only is it cringeworthy and doesn’t make any sense, but even if it did, I still don’t think it’s a good opening scene to the first episode because it centers the plot around Asuna when the protagonist is Negi. Asuna is a very important character, don’t get me wrong, but she’s not who the story of Negima is ultimately about.
Then we actually do get introduced to Negi when Asuna bumps into her and acts like a dick. Then there’s a scene with Takahata where he goes to meet Negi. The show zooms into a picture frame with Nagi and company. This is actually a pretty cool scene because it does a good job of foreshadowing the overarching plot, but the problem is, I’ll just say it right now, it doesn’t actually foreshadow anything. The manga foreshadows this when Negi sees the picture frame much later in the series, since he actually gets to meet most of the characters in the frame and learn about Nagi’s backstory, but because the Negima anime is so massively incomplete, it never does this.
Another weird thing about the first episode is that this appears to be their first year in middle school. Why? In the manga it was their second year, which is significant because it gives the students reason to already be familiar with the academy and how things work while Negi is just learning it all for the first time. Here, they just have that all figured out anyway for no reason despite being first years. How is there no confusion involved? Plus, why would Asuna have a crush on Takahata if she hasn’t spent a year of school under him? I know they have more backstory than that, but Asuna’s memory was wiped after that backstory so there’s no reason why Asuna would even know who Takahata is if she’s a first year.
Next episode, Asuna learns that Negi knows magic. Asuna promises to keep it a secret, but insists Negi helps her get with Takahata. Then they experience a surprise party for Negi’s arrival.
This is all finely executed, and it does happen in the manga, but then for some reason Asuna sits on a chair and reacts because it’s cold? I don’t really get it. Why does this happen? And as far as I’m aware, it doesn’t lead to anything either.
So afterwards, Negi suddenly realizes he has no place to live. Why doesn’t he? So Konoka basically takes him to their dorm. Negi stays with Asuna and Konoka in the manga as well, but the reason why is because the headmaster arranged it due to Konoka being his daughter. In the manga, however, for some reason nobody thought this part of Negi’s stay at Mahora through. I find that hard to believe
Of course, because Asuna isn’t authoritatively required to let Negi stay with them, she vetoes the whole decision, and Negi says he’ll stay with Takahata. But, Negi doesn’t know where Takahata lives, so instead he basically just... stays up all night picking 4 leaf clovers to make a love potion. Why are those the ingredients? In the manga, they’re this expensive thing that negi orders, but I guess you can just make them in the anime if you pick enough four leaf clovers? It's obviously just a contrived excuse to give Negi something to do over that night while at the same time getting Asuna to have more respect for him.
Then Asuna practices with Negi confessing to Takahata, but it doesn’t even lead to the comedic buildup that it does in the manga where Ayaka and a lot of the other students walk in on it and it looks worse than it already is. It was so much better in the manga for this reason.
Next episode, they have the scene where Negi talks to the headmaster and is told to stay with Konoka. But it was already established he was going to stay with her by Konoka herself last episode. And not only that, but Asuna was against the idea. If the headmaster demanded it, I think Asuna, critical as she would be of the idea, would probably not be so adamant and surprised about it. Why did they not inform her? Of course, in the manga, all of this makes sense because Negi, Asuna, and Konoka all met with the headmaster right at the beginning after they met each other. But because the writers of the anime apparently hate making sense, they decided to just randomly plop that in on the 3rd episode. As I mentioned previously, I don’t like the idea of just Negi not having an arranged place to stay, but I’d rather the anime be consistent. Did Konoka casually agree to Negi staying with her and Asuna, or did the headmaster arrange it? If the anime wants to do things differently from the manga and decide on the former then... that’s still pretty stupid, but this is even moreso because of how inconsistent and confusing it is.
Later on, there’s the scene where Asuna is humiliated in class for being bad at English and accidentally getting her clothes blown off, which makes her angry at Negi. This happened in the manga pretty much exactly like it did in the anime, word for word. What doesn’t happen, however, is the scene where Asuna meets Takahata in the hallway and they talk about Negi after Takahata overhears her muttering to herself about him. The conversation steers into Takahata mentioning that Negi wasn't raised by his parents and he only grew up with his older sister. It’s not in the manga, but it’s not a bad scene. It seems to make Asuna have a little more compassion for Negi? But then right afterward comes the love potion scene.
So, Negi successfully made a love potion. In the manga, it is through some magic balls he has to make complicated potions with and in the anime, it’s collecting 100 4 leaf clovers I guess. Either way, he excitedly presents it to Asuna, who is still in a pretty sour mood because of Negi humiliating her in class earlier, so he makes Negi drink it in revenge, having full confidence it wouldn’t work. In the manga, this scene happens right after Asuna gets humiliated in class so it makes sense that she would be that angry at him, but in the anime, it doesn’t make sense how it would happen right after that scene with her and Takahata. Doesn't it just completely ruin the point of that conversation Asuna had with Takahata earlier? Anyway, the rest of this episode is fine and manga-accurate I guess. Again, not to the fine details, but accurate enough to give a pass
At the start of the next episode, all the baka rangers stay after class to get better scores on their tests. For those of you not familiar with the “baka rangers”, basically in the manga there are a few students who are academically challenged and are always staying after class to improve their test scores, and because there are exactly 5 of them they decided to parody the jurangers, or power rangers. I don’t know what they call them in the english dub, but for some reason the subtitles say “dunce rangers”? Why? The manga just called them baka rangers with a little note saying baka is japanese for idiot. The difference in translation is just going to confuse people more than help them.
Anyway so like in the manga, all the other baka rangers finish up and Asuna is the only one left, who keeps failing. Takahata stops by and sees Asuna being the only one left, so Asuna gets embarrassed and runs off. Sayo (the ghost student) just randomly sitting in the corner throughout this scene might seem like a nice touch, I thought so at first, then I thought about it and realized Sayo doesn’t have to be in the classroom. She can leave whenever she wants. As long as she stays on campus she’s fine. So why is she hanging out here? Being long dead, she’s exempt from the academic process and she’s not taking the tests anyway. This seems like such a boring place to be if you have no good reason to be there. Why is she staying after class like the baka rangers? Go hang out near your convenience store or whatever.
Also just like the manga, Negi gives chase and catches up with her, so Asuna rests and talks to him. Negi confides that he’s looking for his long lost father and Asuna vows to study more. this scene is fine and once again it’s not accurate to the detail of the manga, but it’s good enough in my opinion and the minor differences are fine. What happens next in the manga though is that Asuna tries many new times with new determination only to keep failing. For some reason in the anime, however, she passes? Why?
Then there’s the bath scene, where Asuna learns that Negi hates baths and forces him to bathe. Then they hide when a bunch of the other students walk in and get contentious about breast sizes, agreeing that the winner should be Asuna’s roommate. Chizuru has the largest breasts apparently, but I don’t see why Ayaka should care considering Ayaka and Chizuru are roommates, so if Chizuru wins then Ayaka gets Negi anyway. Why is she fighting her victory? Like in the manga, Negi and Asuna try escaping. They didn’t have much of a plan in the manga other than just run off, which makes sense, but in the anime they plan on flying out? If they did that, wouldn’t they be immediately in plain sight of all the students? Not much of a stealthy escape, I would think. Then they catch them, Negi uses magic to make Asuna’s breasts so large they explode, and Asuna gets mad at Negi.
These first 4 episodes are the first arc in the anime, adapting the majority of volume 1 and the first 4 chapters. Overall it's ok, maybe not as good as the manga but it's passable. It gets worse later on though.
Negi gets a letter from his cousin Nekane asking Negi if he’s found a partner yet. In case you’re wondering about partners, in the Negima universe they’re basically these contracts that western magicians can make between themselves and anybody else, known as a "pactio", which allows the less powerful person to get new powers they can activate at anytime, and the way they do this is by kissing. It's an interesting dynamic that is important to the Negima plot, even moreso in Negim 2006, but in both the manga and the Negima 2005, it matters too.
Anyway so like in the manga, Fuuka and Fumika eavesdrop and overhear the “partner” thing and the rumor spreads like wildfire that Negi is looking for a partner. Then later in the baths, the students all swarm him and try to be his partner. But wait, I thought Negi hated baths? And why would the students be this sudden and unstrategic? In the manga of course, this scene makes much more sense. Negi isn’t just suddenly swarmed in the baths, he is abducted into the baths. Moreover, Negi is feeling stressed and unhappy due to other reasons, so they double it as a cheering up party which devolves into the partner competition.
This is also the scene where Chamo enters the bathhouse, and when they’re busy doing a bunch of sexual harassment on Negi, Chamo brushes up against them and they logically think it’s Negi. In the anime, however, it happens fully above water, and it obviously isn’t Negi, yet they just think it is anyway? So basically they cut corners in a way that made the scene make zero sense. Also, in the subtitles they call him “Kama”? Did they just mishear and didn’t bother actually reading? Come to think of it, did the translators read the manga at all?
Next episode,there is this animation in the background of Negi struggling to use chopsticks. He literally mastered the japanese language in 3 weeks, I don’t think it makes sense that he couldn’t use chopsticks. He literally mastered the japanese language in 3 weeks, I don’t think it makes sense that he couldn’t use chopsticks
So to summarize both this episode and this part of the manga, there is a rumor going around that there is a vampire, due to Makie being found unconscious and carried to the nurse. The vampire, of course, is Evangeline, one of Negi’s students. She tries to get Nodoka as well but Negi fights her. Just as Negi thought he had won, Chachamaru comes out of nowhere and gang up on him. Evangeline is about to suck Negi’s blood when Asuna kicks her in the face and she disappears. Negi flies off, falling into the woods, losing his staff, and encountering Kaede.
I don’t like how this episode comes after the episode where Negi almost gets a pactio with Nodoka, mainly because the pactio doesn’t make much sense without Negi feeling threatened to begin with. In the manga, this exact event is what causes Negi to want a pactio to begin with, not because he actually wants a partner that much but because he wants protection to fight Evangeline and Chachamaru with. Here, it’s like Negi automatically wants a partner for no reason, then this scene happens. It makes no sense.
So Asuna encounters Evangeline and asks her what she did with Negi, but Eva says that he ran off on his own. The thing that confuses me is that Asuna directly witnessed him run off, so why is she asking like she didn’t know he did? Of course, in the manga, this scene happened when Negi was kidnapped for the scene in the bathhouse, so that suspicion on Asuna’s part makes sense, but in the anime it makes zero sense at all. Also, what is Evangeline even doing up there? She walked over to Asuna as if she had something to tell her, but all she did was answer Asuna’s question and walk away.
So just like in the manga, Negi gets lost in the forest and cant find his staff, then happens to find Kaede so they camp with each other overnight and Kaede is able to cheer Negi up. it's actually a pretty wholesome part of both the manga and 2005 that makes you really like Kaede. Come to think of it however, snubbed a great scene from the manga. In the manga, due to Negi’s renewed confidence after his stay with Kaede, he decides to declare a formal letter of challenge to Evangeline, only to discover she’s out sick. So he visits her cottage and Chachamaru has to go out, leaving Negi to nurse her. Then the dream happens and Negi uses magic to listen in. This would have been great to have in the anime because it showed Evangeline’s weaker side and how much Negi cares about her as a student despite his fear of her. Instead, they just skip right to the big battle between Negi and Evangeline.
Negi is losing the battle. Evangeline is about to suck Negi’s blood and Chachamaru says not to do anything too extreme. In the manga, Evangeline reasonably responds with “don’t worry, I won’t kill him” but in the anime, she just... questions why Chachamaru has an opinion. Come to think of it, in the manga, Evangeline also wisely tells Negi what his father would do, which Negi later reflects on as a way to be brave and not cower from the fight, but she doesn’t do that at all in the anime. It's as if whoever wrote this anime hates Evangeline and wants her to look as bad as possible.
Asuna and Chamo show up, kick Evangeline away, temporarily hide, then kiss on the lips to do a more powerful pactio. The details are both unimportant and manga-accurate from what I can tell, but long story short, Negi catches Evangeline as she’s about to fall into the river and Evangeline flashbacks to her meeting Nagi, forming a crush on him, and eventually him confining her to Mahora Academy. It's done well, no issues there.
These 4 episodes are the Evangeline arc in the anime, adapting volume 3 and chapters 16-25. Overall it's by far the best part of Negima 2005 and it's all downhill from here. Notice how I didn't even think the 4 episodes before this one were bad but I had far less to complain about with the Evangeline episodes. I remember watching Negima 2005, getting through the Evangeline arc, and thinking, "why do I dislike this anime so much again?" I was reminded shortly after.
In this episode, Negi is trying to find his way to Tatsumiya shrine to deliver something. He meets the Narutaki twins, Fuuka and Fumika, on the way there, who promise to get Negi there, but they make a bunch of stops along the way. This is loosely based off an event that actually happened in the manga BEFORE the Evangeline arc, in which Negi wants to do a bit of exploring and learn about Mahora campus and the twins decide to show Negi around.
In this, however, they do new locations to tour around with new dialogue. Instead of walking around various sports-like areas, they walk to the engineering club. Satomi and Chao are there, and for some reason they’re making Chachamaru into a tank? It's never explained why or for what purpose, they just are.
Later they go to the library where Nodoka is fixating on Negi. Yue asks if Nodoka likes Negi, but I thought it was established they knew way back in like episode 3. does Yue have dementia? And she says Haruna hasn’t noticed, which seems even less likely to me knowing how obsessed Haruna is with the “love stench” in the manga.
Anyway they finally go to Tatsumiya shrine. They go through a sketchy entrance in which they’re worried about encountering a bear, and Negi insists they stay together. Fuuka and Fumika need to separate though because they need to pee, but why couldn’t they just do it behind a tree or something? Close enough so that Negi can still keep them safe and responsible, but Negi couldn’t see them. Doesn't make logical sense. The whole thing was basically an illogical excuse for the next scene, where Fuuka and Fumika get chased by a monster and scream for Negi sensei’s help. Eventually they reach Mana who lives at the Tatsumiya Shrine.
So Negi delivers a letter to Mana, who is apparently doing a job for the school? Don't get me wrong, it’s in her character to do something like that, but I don’t get the job. Something related to keeping things outside the Mahora Academy border? So Setsuna is around, she finds the same weird shadow thing that was chasing them earlier and kills it.
Another thing worth noting is that Tatsumiya shrine looks nothing like how it looks in the manga. In the manga, it's not just a shrine, it also has a giant stadium and multiple buildings around it. It's actually a pretty big place. In Negima 20005, however, it's just a small generic shrine surrounded by a forest. I believe the reason why is because this episode was written and aired before the festival arc of the manga and therefore the writers had no idea what Tatsumiya shrine looked like, but that's one of the many problems with adding your own plots to anime.
Beyond that, this episode just feels like pointless filler. The reason for this part of the manga was to introduce Negi to the campus and get to know the Narutaki twins. I guess this episode does the latter part well, but the former part just isn’t there, and the reason for this tour seems weird and contrived, considering Japan has mail service and it’s not really Negi’s job to deliver letters like this. Just do what the manga did and say that Negi just wants to explore the academy.
This is the episode where Mahora class 2-A is doing dodgeball with high schoolers who are trying to take a court from them. It's not a bad animation of it I guess, but honestly even in the manga it feels like a filler part of the story. I don’t really understand why of all parts of the manga, they decided, with their limited runtime and budget, to animate this chapter. I don’t even have a lot to say about it because the execution was good per se but their decision to do an episode based off of it just doesn’t make sense. It feels like they just gave up after the Evangeline arc and realized they could never match up to the manga so they just did stupid stuff instead.
This episode is about Chisame, whose basically a heavy PC user and cosplays as a cute girl online. It starts with Negi getting a laptop and not understanding it, asking other students about it, who all don’t understand it either. This drives Chisame insane, who heads home.
This episode is based off something that really happened in the manga, but this beginning scene is just all wrong. In the manga, Chisame’s whole deal is that it drives her crazy how bizarre her class is, as she, in both the anime and the manga, even complains to herself about on the train on her way back to her dorm. In the anime, the only reason why she storms out to begin with is... because she cringes at her classmates computer illiteracy? Something I suspect she actually likes about her class in the manga because of the perceived normalcy?
Anyway, Chisame goes back home and, like in the manga, transforms into Chiu, her online alias, a popular net idol. Negi meanwhile still can’t figure out how to do basic things on a computer, so his decision is to... start a web page for his class? I guess it’s not quite 0 to 100, but come on Negi, you have to learn to walk before you can run. How about you learn how to do simpler tasks before you think of doing more of a project like that?
And yes I do understand this was made in the mid-2000s when using a PC and browsing the internet was a much less common luxury than it is today, so it makes sense that Negi and most of his class would be PC-illiterate, but if you’re impressed at Chamo being able to buy panties online, then you have simpler things to learn how to do than making a webpage.
They come across the web page of net idol Chiu and decide it would be a good idea to all be net idols themselves? Really? Would there not be one student in the entire class that wouldn’t want to do that, simply due to the sheer embarrassment?
Meanwhile, Chisame, or Chiu if you’d rather, is sitting at home on her PC, discovering her class is just narrowly behind Chiu in terms of ranking. So a couple questions: first of all, where was Chisame in all of this? She clearly wasn’t in class, meaning she likely just stayed at home and continued to work on her web page, but why didn’t she come to class? They gave a good reason why she went home for one day, but it’s apparent she’s done that before, and she seems to usually come back to class the next day. This time around, for some reason, she just didn’t? It's not even out of character, I could see Chisame acting this way, but it’s not the norm so there’d have to be a reason for it.
Moreover, how did 2-A get that many results in such a short amount of time? They don’t really say how much time it’s been, but if I had to guess, I would say maybe a week? Getting over 150,000 views on a new site in a week is an insane amount of traffic and I don’t understand not only how that happened, but also how their servers can handle that.
In response, Chiu ramps up her game and gets her site way ahead of her class’s site, which makes the class freak out. But wait, since when did they decide to make it a competition? Chiu wanting to remain number one makes sense from her perspective, since she doesn’t want her bizarre class taking over even this aspect of her life, but from the class’s perspective it just doesn’t make sense. Having the 2nd biggest website of all time is a huge deal, and it’s really not a competition. The modern, real life equivalent would be freaking out because you’re trailing behind somebody else in Twitter followers or Youtube subscribers. Nobody does that except for petty lolcows.
Anyway, the class and Chiu are duking it out for web traffic, and Negi is checking his mail. Yue then tries to pressure Nodoka to... confess her love via email? That hardly seems like an appropriate time and place, and there’s no good reason why Yue wouldn’t know that. What is going on here? Then of course Nodoka declines for usual Nodoka reasons like “I’m just happy to be with Negi-sensei" or whatever.
2-A wins and becomes the site with the most amount of traffic. Actually, come to think of it, Net Idol Chiu or class 2-A being literally the top 2 sites in the entire world doesn’t make much sense either. I mean, think about what kind of site it is for a second. These are literally sites for a Japanese net idol and a Japanese all girl class, respectively. Why on earth would they get more traffic than, I don't know, fucking Google?
Chisame goes back to class and Negi is worried about her because of how often she’s been absent and how tired she is from trying to compete with her class’s website. She goes home and is about to send a virus to her class when Negi intrudes in and Chisame is embarassed. Most of this episode thankfully didn’t happen in the manga, but the “Negi intruding into Chisame’s dorm when she’s Chiu” actually did, as did the next part where Negi drags Chisame, still dressed up as Chiu, out to a big outdoor event the class is having to celebrate the success of their website.
Of course, nobody recognizes her as “Chiu” in the manga because nobody has good reason to, but in the anime the cat is just completely out of the bag that Chisame is Chiu. But then they decide she can’t really be Chiu because her photos lack acne and have bigger breasts? I understand not understanding photoshop, but come on, Yue and Kazumi aren’t dumb, they’d have to know something must still be up. Why do they just conclude she must not be Chiu after all with no other conjecture?
The party was actually to celebrate ending the website because they wanted to make it more “middle schooler appropriate” or something. All around, this episode sucked. I think what happened is they wanted to make an episode around Chisame, but her introduction at the beginning of the manga series wasn’t very long, nor did it frankly need to be, so they just added a new story to make it long enough for an episode, but the episode is just dumb. This is easily the worst episode so far.
Exams are just around the corner, and Negi has a challenge to get class 2-A out from last place or else he’s fired. Negi almost uses magic but Asuna scolds him for using magic for everything so he seals away his magic for 3 days. He's desperate to find a way to, when he and the baka rangers hear about a book on library island that makes you smarter just from reading it. So they traverse down the library, discover the book, encounter an iron golem that makes them answer questions related to English, and Asuna and Makie accidentally get one wrong so they get sent down to the underground library room.
Negi and the baka rangers continuously study for a whole day, then take a break. In the manga, that break consists of a bath scene, but in the anime, that break consists of them simply... falling asleep. Come on, why not have a bath scene? There's tons of clean water all around you, nothing else would make sense. I’m guessing they didn’t want too much nudity in the anime for the purpose of airing this on TV, but episode 4 had a bath scene with plenty of (well-hidden) nudity, so I don’t see why they couldn’t just do the same thing here.
The iron golem comes back and grabs Makie. Like in the manga, Negi tries to use magic to fight it but forgot he can’t use magic due to having sealed it in the previous episode. In the manga, Asuna has the sensible reaction of wanting Negi to shut up so that he doesn’t blow his cover as a wizard, but here she’s just like “what are you doing?”
The golem chases them up a set of stairs. In the manga this is a pretty good scene, but in the anime they water it down so damn much. The manga continues to challenge the baka rangers to make sure they’re ready for the tests by giving them a bunch of walls with problems that open if the baka rangers solve them. The baka rangers do successfully solve them with surprising ease, which demonstrates their learning during their time studying. Here, however, they just... show a wall, that’s there for no reason? This is worse than having nothing at all because it’s so damn nonsensical.
They eventually find an elevator that won’t allow them all to enter due to weight limitations. They take off all their clothes but are still overweight. Negi decides to step off before Asuna pulls him back in and throws the book at the golem, going up the elevator. I expected them to water down this scene as well but they didn’t, so good job.
To summarize the remainder of the episode, Negi and the baka rangers return just as the tests are starting. They're late so they have to do them in a separate room. Negi’s magic seal wears off so he casts a spell to make the baka rangers less tired and more relaxed. The headmaster decides to grade the baka rangers test results. The class gathers around to hear the class rankings, and Mahora is at the bottom. Negi is about to leave when the baka rangers and a few other students confront him, saying they’ll try to get the school to give him another chance. Then the headmaster appears and says that the school forgot to take their scores into account. He then reads off their scores and the new class average. in the manga, it puts 2-A at first place, but in the anime it’s only 2nd place for some reason? The anime is a little more anticlimactic. Why not 1st? That would be so much cooler.
The headmaster then shows the magic book, saying that if knowledge was as easy as an item like this then nobody would need to study. The manga does a good job of heavily implying the headmaster was behind everything without outright saying it, but in the anime Negi just outright has the thought that he was behind everything. Come on, haven’t the writers of this anime ever heard of “show, don’t tell”? Not only that but this scene would have been no worse at showing not telling had they not added that one line.
These 4 episodes are the Library Island arc in the anime, adapting most of volume 2 and chapters 7-11. All things considered, it’s really not a bad couple episodes. The details are incorrect but the general idea is held up fine, and it’s even relatively sensical to put into the anime since it’s a legitimately important arc. So nice job 2005, I’ll give you this one.
This is the episode where Negi and Konoka walk around Shibuya and everybody thinks they’re dating. This episode is sort of like the volleyball episode in that it’s otherwise not that bad on it’s own merits but it’s easy to dislike when you take into account the greater story. Even in the manga this chapter felt like filler, and for the sake of being long enough for a full episode, they just padded it out further. In fact, I would argue this episode is worse than the volleyball episode when I think about it.
Also, the ending plot twist feels way less rewarding than in the manga. In the manga, the reason why they were out in Shibuya was to shop for a present for Asuna. In the anime, the reason why they were out in Shibuya was... to replace her broken alarm clock? It has so much less emotional impact.
The episode starts out not bad, being an anime adaption of a chapter in the manga where Negi visits Ayaka’s home. However, I had basically the exact same reaction as Ayaka when I noticed that the entire fucking class came with Negi. In the manga it was just Asuna and Konoka, which made sense because they actually are his guardians, but not the entire class. Why are there so many damn people visiting Ayaka?
Then I remembered that this episode is most likely going to have the exact same problem that so many of these other episodes have: they are based off chapters in the manga that were neither long nor needed to be long, so they needed to be padded out with extra nonsense. Usually not even good nonsense. They likely just made the whole class come along with to pad the episode out.
The class runs around Ayaka’s apartment causing mayhem and eventually they go to the pool. Ayaka asks Negi to rub lotion on her back, then rubs lotion on Negi’s back, which causes her to get in a fight with Asuna. In the manga the reason why they got in a fight was because Ayaka hugged Negi. You can say it’s still a bit creepy, but it was a moment that was vastly easier to take seriously, which just makes me wonder what the writers were thinking by replacing it with this.
Also, Sakurako informs Negi that those two have always fought regularly, which is true, but it’s nothing Negi doesn’t already know. Literally at the beginning of the anime this was established.
To be fair to this episode, the hugging part eventually does happen, but it’s at an occasion where Negi and Asuna are alone? But I thought Asuna’s whole deal is that she and Konoka are his guardians. Doesn't explain why the entire damn class is with him but my point is it’s out of character for Asuna to not insist Negi isn’t left alone with Ayaka.
This time, what interrupts them is not Asuna initiating a fight but rather Chachamaru going out of control because a remote control fell in the pool and short circuited. To be honest, considering Chachamaru has a soul and all that, I don’t really understand why Chachamaru is ok with just being tinkered with like this in the anime. Nor does such a weird accident seem likely since Chao and Satomi just aren't that clumsy, especially Chao. Come to think of it, Chao in general is depicted as a lot less deliberate and competent in 2005 in general. In the manga, she has a daffy exterior but is secretly a supergenius. Here, she just seems like the mad scientist archetype but also Chinese. I guess the reason why is because the festival arc hasn't happened by the time this episode aired, so the writers didn't actually know what Chao's personality is supposed to be like. I still cringe at it though.
Chachamaru ends up crashing and Chao and Satomi apologize along with her, I guess because they’re the ones who built that into Chachamaru? And then this causes a fight between Ayaka and Asuna anyway. Ayaka kind of puts a lot of the blame on Asuna for bringing them over, and to be honest, I kind of agree with class rep. Not that it’s really in character for Asuna to bring all of them over, she would never do that and she didn’t in the manga, but in the anime she would deserve to take responsibility for such a weird decision.
Eventually they all leave and... the rest of the episode is actually pretty well done, no real problems there. Honestly the fact that there are really good moments in this anime make me think, they’re not actually bad at doing anime, the problem is they pad the episodes out with low quality nonsense which ruins it. I think what would have made more sense is perhaps if they did multiple of these chapters in one episode without padding them out. That way you get good anime for them while making sure things continue to make sense. And it would have saved them both budget and runtime too, which they desperately needed given how long the manga series is and how short the anime is.
Another interesting thing about this episode is that, when I look at the average IMDB rating of each episode of Negima 2005, this episode scores by far the lowest. I'm not really sure why. Don't get me wrong, I did dislike this episode, but it's definitely not the worst episode. I'd say it's about average by Negima 2005 standards.
This episode genuinely pisses me off from beginning to end. It is by far the worst episode in all of Negima 2005. I could immediately tell it was going to be a bad episode the moment it started, and I was not disappointed.
So for some reason they’re doing a “courage testing” event? Why? Why did Negi agree to that? And where did this random abandoned building come from?
Of course, the whole thing was an excuse to have a competition where the first person to kiss Negi wins. This event sort of happened in the manga, but it was after Kazumi found out about Negi’s magic and Chamo cut her a deal to not expose Negi and instead get a share of money from pactios for him. Is this ever explained in the episode? No, there is no reason why this happens in Negima 2005. It just does because the writers weren't confident in committing to the Kyoto arc yet but were running out of ideas. Also in the manga, Ayaka teamed up with Chisame for it, but they changed it to Chizuru. Why? I don't know.
They also randomly have pillows with them. Again, this made sense in the manga because they were sleeping over at an inn, but why do they randomly have pillows here? Could they think of nothing else? In fact, why even have this episode to begin with if you’re not going to give it any proper context? It feels so forced.
Anyway, Chamo randomly sneaks in, though it’s never explained exactly what he was doing there to begin with. So they find the biology room with the skeleton that Negi is supposed to pull the ribbon from or whatever, but his flashlight breaks so he uses magic as light. But why did he get out a wand if he was just going to hold the light in his hand anyway?
He freaks out at the sight of a mannequin and faints which... causes a bunch of Negi clones to appear? There were Negi clones in the manga, but they actually had a logical reason to exist. Negi intentionally made a clone to make the other teachers think he hadn’t run off, but he accidentally made multiple of them because he kept accidentally writing his name wrong and starting over. Here they just... randomly appear from Negi’s light magic. That's not how magic works. Wouldn't the magic just go out if Negi went unconscious?
Team Yue/Nodoka encounter the Narutaki twins. Yue starts... just abusing them with books. They rightly say it’s against the rules to hit with books. In the manga she does this as well, but she uses pillows to cushion them so she’s playing by the rules. Why didn’t she do that here? She even still has her pillow and everything. Instead she’s just beating a couple poor little girls. Yue would never do this in the manga.
Then Yue just throws Nodoka into the biology room and shuts the door. How did Yue know Negi would be in there? He could have gotten lost on his way there, or he could have gotten the ribbon and is walking out by now.
Kazumi and Chisame just... conclude that the whole thing was ghosts. Ghosts don’t exist for living people, dipshits. And then the episode just... ends. The payoff was so much better in the manga but here they didn’t do it at all. This whole episode was just completely inconsequential filler that contributed absolutely nothing to the plot at all whatsoever.
This episode is such a betrayal of the battle for Negi-sensei's lips. Like my god it’s so bad. This episode is the epitome of why this anime sucks so much ass. It's stupid it’s ass and I hate it.
I predicted this episode would be complete ass but it was actually one of the better episodes. the reason why I thought it would suck is because it's the episode where Nodoka and Negi go out and Nodoka confesses her love, like in the manga, but the setting is completely different and instead of happening in Nara, it happens at some amusement park, so it relies on a lot of writing completely independent from the manga, which is usually where the manga goes flat. However, the writing, although it still has its problems, is actually somewhat decent in this episode. So decent in fact that this weird thing started happening where I actually started to enjoy what I was watching. I know that's scandalous but it's genuinely how I feel.
Come to think of it, the next couple episodes are like this as well. Episodes 17-19 do a lot of independent writing that's actually decent. It's as if for these 3 episodes, somebody else did the writing. I actually checked to see if that was the case and it wasn't. Ken Akamatsu actually did the a lot of the writing for every episode that I checked the cast for, which I view as proof that he was just making up the plot of Negima as he went along, and the manga is proof that he's a competent writer when he wants to be, which makes me think that even he would agree that Negima 2005 sucks. But for whatever reason, both him and his cowriter actually put a lot more thought into the writing of these next few episodes. It's all downhill after that though.
The beginning is genuinely funny. Yue tries to get Nodoka to leave an amusement park ticket on Negi's desk but Nodoka is too embarassed to do it. Nodoka runs off in a panic, but runs into Negi and falls unconscious. Nodoka is bigger than Negi, so that doesn’t make any damn sense. That would be like if a 20lb weight smashed into a 10lb weight and somehow the 20lb weight felt more of the impact. Some other mischief happens that I'm too lazy to get into but felt genuinely amused watching, and Negi and Nodoka end up going to the amusement park together.
Most of this episode is just Nodoka trying and failing to confess to Negi except instead of it being a walk around Nara like in the manga, it’s a walk around some random amusement park. Also, I just noticed that for some reason Haruna is always left out of matters relating to Nodoka and Negi in the anime. I find this not very plausible considering how good Haruna is at figuring these things out. So instead of Yue and Haruna hiding in the bushes and watching them, Yue brings Asuna along for some completely unexplained reason. Theres this random part of the episode where Asuna and Yue dress up as mascots for the amusement park to try to get Negi and Nodoka to do something together, and as they leave they do this really humorous song and march for no reason. It feels so out of place but it's so entertaining and I love watching it. It raises the question of how Asuna and Yue even got the costumes and it's completely out of character for them, but that just makes it even funnier so I don't care. I am genuinely disappointed that there is no clip of this on Youtube. Maybe I should upload it myself.
There’s other stuff but it’s not important and neither adds nor subtracts from it really. All you need to know is that at the very end, Nodoka successfully confesses to Negi.
This episode isn't bad, but it's not that interesting to talk about. Like in the manga, Negi is freaking out over Nodoka confessing to him and Asuna makes Negi help her bake a cake for the purposes of giving to Takahata for his birthday so that she can confess to him. She's bad at baking cakes, but they eventually make a good one.
Meanwhile, Nodoka is anxious about her confession to Negi. It's refreshing to see Haruna finally, and not only that but she’s acting in character for once. She reveals she knew the whole time that Nodoka loved Negi and that she can smell love.
Negi decides to respond to Nodoka's confession, so they ask Yue where she is and she says she’s at library island but that doesn’t reassure Negi because library island is huge, so Yue agrees to help Negi. For some reason throughout this part of the episode Asuna is fully carrying the cake and I don’t understand why. Couldn't she just set it down somewhere and grab it before giving it to Takahata?
They encounter Nodoka who then freaks out and runs away. Nodoka almost trips on a stair but Negi... uses magic to catch her from underneath. Why couldn’t she just grab her by her shirt or something? Negi agrees to start as being friends with Nodoka which she agrees to.
Asuna tries to gift the cake to Takahata, only to find out that he’s gone and left that morning. They then eat the cake
This episode is about, well, multiple different things, but mainly the ghost student Sayo. It starts with Sayo having a lot of fun hanging out with the other students. Which I guess makes sense, but the problem is it’s completely different from what she’s like in the manga, where she isn’t very happy due to how she can’t talk to anybody in class due to not being perceptible by most of them. Apparently Evangeline can’t see Sayo, which doesn’t make sense. Eva is a powerful vampire and she could easily perceive somebody like Sayo.
Suddenly, the tone shifts to Negi announcing they’re having a class trip to Kyoto. So I guess we’re finally having this arc... near the end of the goddamn anime. Keep in mind most of the important plot points that happened during the Kyoto arc already happened in the anime in other parts where they weren’t at Kyoto. So all things considered, I can already tell it’s going to be a very boring and disappointing arc.
It doesn’t help that Negi is given no good reason to be as excited about Kyoto as he is. The reason why he was so excited to go there in the manga is because he was told there would be a hint about his father there, but in the anime there is nothing about that at all, so he’s given no incentive to be this keen to go. Don't get me wrong, Kyoto is a cool city, I’ve been there myself, but even for a classy kid like Negi, there is no reason why he would be this excited to go.
I also find it weird how this episode seems to have multiple different plot points that don’t really directly relate to one another. Don't get me wrong, that’s not inherently a bad thing, but every single other episode stuck pretty consistently to either one plot point, or only plot points that are directly and obviously related. Here, however, they decide to suddenly completely change the format and do 2 different plot points at once. It's as if the writers finally realized how little time and budget they had so they started putting more than one plot point in an episode, which is frankly what they should have done the whole time but they’re not doing either plot point well.
Suddenly, the tone shifts to Negi announcing they’re having a class trip to Kyoto. So I guess we’re finally having this arc... near the end of the goddamn anime. Keep in mind most of the important plot points that happened during the Kyoto arc already happened in the anime in other parts where they weren’t at Kyoto. So all things considered, I can already tell it’s going to be a very boring and disappointing arc.
Meanwhile, Kazumi is trying to do research on Sayo while Sayo sort of looks over her shoulder. Kazumi finds a bunch of info on her which brings back a lot of Sayo’s memories. It didn’t happen in the manga, but it’s actually not a bad scene. Sayo breaks down crying and somehow this makes Kazumi see her. She almost takes her picture but somehow decides not to, which Sayo appreciates but I don’t really get why. I thought her whole deal in the manga is that she wanted to be more known and visible.
Evangeline suddenly uses magic to make her visible to everybody. So Evangeline can see her like in the manga, but for some reason just ignored her earlier? So the rest of the class is very friendly toward her and Evangeline says she’s the only other one who understands the pain of being stuck here.
This episode wasn't bad either. It didn't stick to the manga very accurately, but I do like how 2005 actually tries to give Sayo some degree of a backstory, however shallow it is. The manga didn't even try except for in the last manga and even then they severely rushed it and didn't say much about it because of how rushed the ending of the manga was in general. Much like how the ending of this anime is also rushed but for different reasons.
Episodes 20-21 are the Kyoto arc, up to the point where they rescue Konoka. So the whole drama with frogs suddenly starts when they’re actually in Kyoto which I don’t really get. Obviously you would freak out if there were a bunch of frogs on a train, but outdoors, it’s not really that weird or freaky. Other than that, episode 20 is fine I guess, a little watered down but not terrible.
Episode 21, on the other hand, is just dogshit. so abridged and rushed it's actually unbelievable. They really try to rush things in a way that doesn’t make that much sense. They basically just immediately start at the Kansai magic association’s palace. There is absolutely no drama before it like in the manga which to be fair I could maybe see to some extent because a good chunk of it already happened in previous episodes outside of Kyoto, but they decided to not even make Kotaro a character. Seriously, Kotaro isn’t in this at all. What were they thinking?
It’s also such a rushed version of even the ending of that arc. No Yue escaping and summoning other people to help. Kaede, Ku Fei, and Mana all do show up, but they seemingly do so for literally no reason. Evangeline appears, but she just obliterates fate, which is not lore accurate at all. Don’t get me wrong, Eva is powerful, but it doesn't make sense that she can just instakill Fate. In the manga, Fate was supposed to be Negi's big rival for most of the story, but here, he just instantly dies.
In summary, they just completely watered down the trip to Kyoto in this anime. It's a multi-volume arc with many introductions and important plot points, and the majority of it just doesn’t happen in the anime.
One thing that people who have watched Negima 2005 all the through will remember is that the last few episodes diverge from the manga entirely and have a completely different ending which isn't very interesting and feels like it was written by kids. To be fair it is in some ways referential to the manga, but in the least interesting ways possible. This is what the last few episodes, 22-26 are.
By far the best part of this arc is near the beginning. Negi requests Evangeline to teach him magic and Evangeline responds by telling him to lick her feet and honestly Im surprised they had the balls to put that part into the anime. The rest of the episode is just Asuna acting weird for reasons. They all assume the reason why Asuna is acrting weird is because her birthday is coming up so they celebrate it. Then Asuna FUCKING DIES.
Everyone is sad that she died, so everyone's crying in class, then Negi comes in and... just automatically cheers everybody up by acting normal. They talk about the upcoming festival and list a bunch of ideas for it of things that actually happened in the manga which just makes it feel like the anime is taunting the viewer with “we know the manga is better and we’re not going to do anything about it”. And the ideas don’t really make sense either. It feels so random and out of character for Fuuka to suggest opening up a fighting tournament, for example. If you’re going to do mention that, at least make it come out of the mouth of somebody who would genuinely find the idea sexy, like Ku Fei or Chao.
Negi wants to use magic to revive Asuna so she consults Evangeline who denies it even exists and Negi storms off. Setsuna decides to leave Mahora and... wait... isn’t there a process for this? She can’t just storm off, she has to formally drop out and there’s just no proof she’s done that. And come to think of it, it’s really weird how Negi improved everyone’s moods at the beginning and now everybody is depressed again. It just makes the payoff of that scene not feel significant or meaningful. I’m guessing the point of it was to say that Negi is pushing his feelings down, in fact Takahata even directly mentioned that in his conversation with Shizuna which I also dislike because of how much it’s telling rather than showing, but I don’t really see why I should care.
Yue appears and almost confesses to Negi. Nodoka catches them right as that happens and Yue completely misrepresents why Nodoka likes Negi making her sound like a weird pedophile before randomly kissing Negi without consent and actually confessing which just makes Nodoka understandably freak out and run away. Yue secretely had a crush on Negi that was later revealed as well, but the way she dealt with it was both much better and much more sensical. I’m not going to say she handled it well in the manga, because she didn’t, but she handled it understandably if that makes sense. In the anime, on the other hand, how she handled it was just despicable and something she would never do.
Negi then decides to try to... summon the devil? To revive Asuna? Yue just sort of follows Negi around which is weird how Negi is talking about magic right in front of her and she just takes it with a straight face. Yue was given no knowledge of magic before this point in the anime from what I can tell, and she was given far fewer hints to deduce its existence herself like in the manga, so I don’t understand why she wouldn’t be either confused, shocked, or just think Negi has gone insane.
Takahata appears out of nowhere and tries to talk him out of it, then proceeds to knock him out to stop him. This doesn’t really work since Negi just walks out and is still thinking about it, when he randomly runs into Chao and Satomi. How did he sneak out? I find that pretty hard to believe considering he’d have to get past death specs Takahata. They offer to use science, then Negi goes missing.
They actually have the time travelling device in this anime which I would appreciate if not for the fact that the way it works makes much less sense and it’s never even explained why Chao would build something like that like it was in the manga. It also takes way too much work to use which is a plot convenience for sure. The time machine sends Negi back just as everyone looking for Negi enters the room they’re in.
Negi wakes up to Asuna as a young child and his father Nagi and apparently everybody else goes back in time too. Makie sees a sign and is like “doesn’t it look German?” I’m pretty sure the real Makie wouldn’t even be able to spot Germany on a map. How does she just see a sign and think it looks German? Moreover, what are they randomly doing in Germany of all places? They put no work at all whatsoever into explaining this new setting and why Asuna would be here.
Negi talks to his father, who has a completely different personality from his father in the manga. Seriously, in the manga, Nagi is casual, childish, and unacademic, but in the anime, he's this very formal, polite, serious man.
The thing you have to realize about this arc is that in the manga, there are these periodic memories Asuna has when she's dreaming or whatever where she's really young and around Nagi, Negi's father, and Takahata which implies there's more to her backstory than the reader initially thought. Which is true, and it's all explained later on in the magic world arc, but because that arc didn't even exist yet when this anime was near its end, the writers decided to just quickly improvise the first thing they could think of and apparently they decided that when Asuna was a child, she made a contract with the devil like Negi was considering, which would cause her to die 10 years later. That is so dumb, why is “the devil” even a character in this? Whose idea was this? I can at least sort of understand adding a new plot but they didn’t even try with it. Also, why are demons even still after Asuna? She's going to die in a decade anyway.
A demon tries to attack Asuna but attacks Nagi instead and stabs him, causing him to fly up. Asuna runs off and gets attacked by demons again. Again, why are the demons after her? She made a deal with the devil, so just let her be until her times up. What is the point of this? They’re about to kill her when Negi picks her up in his broom and flies upward.
Suddenly, Sayo flies up and notices that the rest of the class is down waiting and watching. They recognize the kid as Asuna, then a bunch of demons come after them. So then the class fights a bunch of demons, or at least the students who can actually fight.
Negi forms a barrier that will only last 2-3 minutes, then Nodoka makes a pactio with Negi, and all that does is remind me of how bad the kiss Negi episode was since Nodoka didn’t get a pactio with Negi then and that was the whole point of that part of the manga. Nodoka and Yue make up, then Yue makes a pactio with Negi too. Then the whole thing slips off the slope and they all just kiss Negi at once. I thought they only had 2-3 minutes, how do they have time to all form pactios with Negi?
Negi then has this class/harem army that all just destroy the demons and my god this is so empty. I’m not given a single reason why I should actually care about any of these powers or anything like that. Satsuki does a restaurant that serves the demons and they disappear after they’re fed and ok that part was actually pretty cute.
Nodoka finds out they’re preparing a canon and that cause Yue to shoot lightning at them? Yue doesn’t have that kind of power by default, her pactio is just having a huge amount of access to information and that’s much more accurate to her actual character which is the point of a pactio. Also, Natsumi is a biker girl, completely different from her pactio in the manga, and I get that this was aired before Natsumi got her pactio in the manga, but still, her power just seems really shallow and surface level, and only selected because she's in the drama club.
Negi destroys the demon (the devil?) that absorbed Asuna and then they go back to Asuna’s birthday and she suddenly starts crying and the class starts to comfort her and the credits roll? And Evangeline acts like it’s some big triumph on Negi’s part for no reason. So they use weird technology to cancel Asuna’s pact with the devil and that’s basically it.
To summarize, this anime has good moments but it was underfunded, aired too soon for the writers to really know what to do with it, and usually when they diverged from the manga, it just ended in bad writing, severe plotholes, and out of character moments. this is why I think people should read the manga instead. When they watch Negima 2005, they view Negima as essentially just a low budget, badly written Harry Potter-ripoff of anime, when the manga demonstrates it's much more than that.
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