Negima! Good God, Negima… This series is an inspiration to anyone who believes you can never have too many quirky characters and off-beat situations. I admire the ability of everyone involved in its production to keep these characters straight. The ending is just a bit of bummer and leaves a few too many loose ends for my taste, but I’d still recommend the show to anyone who can get past its quirks, which is easier than you might think.

The title character is Negi Springfield, son of a famous and powerful but MIA wizard, who is studying to become a master and teacher of magic himself. Negi is not quite 10 years old, but speaks multiple languages like a true polygot, hails from Wales, and has been assigned to teach an English class in Japan at Mahora Academy. His class is not only older than he is, it’s far, far more eccentric in its makeup, consisting of a ghost, a vampire, a robot, a cook, an equestrian (I seriously never thought I’d see someone ride a horse inside a school after Cromartie, but it’s here and in the recent Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora, so I guess it’s actually becoming something of an anime archetype), an Internet idol and computer nerd, a time traveler, the walking club, the library club (which includes an especially shy member), and multiple martial artists. Oh, and they’re all girls. And Mahora academy itself is a odd mix of magic and insane architecture (example: it has a Library Island with several prohibited underground levels filled with mystical traps).

The first member of the class that Negi meets is Asuna, who instantly takes a disliking to Negi, not least because she expected the class to be taught by her crush, Takahata, instead. It doesn’t help that he sneezes away her clothes, which brings me to a point about Negima that needs to be mentioned: it’s fanservicey. Negi is under [not so] strict orders to not let anyone in his class know about his magical powers, which he manages to mess up almost immediately.

If the characters in Negima simply existed as a background to the relationship between Asuna and Negi, the series would already be a technical triumph. Yet, every single girl in class 2-A has her own story, and the interactions among themselves and Negi make sense. I highly recommend this series for its impressive execution.

Information on other sites:
Buy Negima! at Amazon.com

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