Mahou Sensei Negima ~Mo Hitotsu no Sekai~
Director: Akiyuki Shinbo
Animation: SHAFT & Studio Pastoral
Plot: The best arc of Negima has just gone underway as Negi and his team make their way to the magical world in hopes of finding any and all information about Negi's father, the legendary Thousand Master, Nagi Springfield. But plans don't go quite as planned as a certain villain's appearance possibly tears apart Negi's group from the very beginning.
I thought it about time we gave Negima a new thread. For the Ala Alba OVAs we just kinda kept using the old Negima?! thread, but this one I feel deserves a new one. I was so happy to see that the first episode of this 4 episode OVA has finally come out. Been waiting for this as the Magical World arc is definitely the best arc in all of the manga so far and is still going strong. On that note though I have no clue much ground these 4 OVAs will actually cover. There is so much that has happened so far in the magical world. Just this arc would warrant an entire series, or at least an extended OVA series, although the manga would first have to finish the arc before that could happen.
Anyway for this episode: I've read people call it a bit rushed, which it actually kinda is, but that doesn't bother me. It wastes absolutely no time getting to the gate incident and the first showdown in the magical world. And what a showdown it was. Just like in the last OVA series of Ala Alba SHAFT/Pastoral has done an excellent job of taking Akamatsu's characters and animating them and unlike Ala Alba there are actual intense fight scenes to show off what they can do and how awesome Negima can be (something the original anime was so incapable of doing due to it being the worse part of the manga). Such an awesome moment as Negi gets impaled and the danger that the group will be in completely sets in. Can't wait to see more of Chisame (my personal favorite character) and finally Rakan will make an animated appearance.
Another spoiler that will contain more manga related hopes for the OVA: I can only wonder if they would be able to get far enough, but the Rakan vs Negi fight is probably the sole thing I would just absolutely love to see animated. That fight was just of epic proportions in the manga and I would be ecstatic if they animate it. If they do I'd see them keeping that more for the 4th OVA, or maybe they'd be planning it for the possible movie (assuming that the possible movie would even continue with this story). But for them to get to that point in the story the 4 OVAs would have to either cover or skip parts of 40 chapters. Also just for giggles and my love for Chisame I can't wait for the next episode and I wonder if they'd keep the tentacle scene with Chisame before Negi saves her.Â