Negima

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Template:Infobox animanga/Header Template:Infobox animanga/Manga Template:Infobox animanga/OVA Template:Infobox animanga/Anime Template:Infobox animanga/Footer Negima: Magister Negi Magi (魔法先生ネギま! Mahō Sensei Negima; in English Magical Teacher Negima) is a manga and anime series by Ken Akamatsu, known for his best selling title, Love Hina, which contains a large amount of Fan service/ecchi scenes. The manga is currently being published by Kodansha and serialized in Shonen Magazine in Japan. The anime, produced by Xebec, has aired in the first half of 2005. FUNimation Entertainment announced on October 30, 2005 that it has licensed the series for production in America and the initial release date will be in August 2006. Additionally, two OVAs have been announced, produced by Studio Shaft. The series has spawned much merchandise, including Character CDs, Drama CDs, OSTs, and video games for the PlayStation 2 and Gameboy Advance.

1 Overview
2 Characters
3 The Anime
4 The Manga
- 4.1 Inconsistences found in English version
5 Magic in Negima
6 Trivia
7 External links

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Overview

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Negi Springfield is a ten year old wizard from Wales who dreams of becoming a Magister Magi, special wizards who uses their powers to help people. One example mentioned used a NGO job as a cover. Negi's reason for becoming a Magister is to find his father, Nagi Springfield, the legendary mage also known as the Thousand Master who many believe to be dead.

After graduating from the Merdiana Magic Academy in Wales, he is given a duty as a cover in the real world, and training, before he actually becomes a Magister Magi. That duty is to become an English teacher at Mahora Academy in Japan. However, the task will not be easy as Negi will become a teacher to a middle school class of 31 older girls, each very special in her own way. The series details his time and adventures in Japan as he gains acceptance and respect from his students, helps them in their problems, and faces magical threats from within and outside Mahora Academy. His main relationship is with Asuna Kagurazaka, his student and roommate who dislikes him initially but later accepts him as a friend and becomes his guardian, helping find clues about his father and his life.

During initial press releases, some criticized the premise of the series, noting an extremely large cast for a bishōjo series and fears Negi himself (who appeared to be the standard male lead in a harem comedy) would be a fairly forgettable character.

The series, while initially appearing to be another bishōjo work like Love Hina, has progressed into a fine mix of bishōjo, shonen action, romance and comedy. This coupled with the initial comments of Akamatsu that he specifically wanted to do something "different" than Love Hina has fueled fan speculation. Some feel the current turn in mood for the manga reflects Akamatsu's 'real' vision of the series, and the initial setup was just a ruse to placate the publishers expecting a bishōjo series (Similarly, Love Hina took a turn for the surreal during its later run). Others point to the set up of the series making the classic 'shipping' tendencies within such manga moot. Negi himself is prepubscent, and many of his scenes with Asuna are specific subversions of the 'awkward romantic scene' tendency of bishōjo manga, quickly diffused and only played for laughs. In addition many of the girls are able to fawn over him in a childish sense without any romantic expection from the reader.

Ironically, Negi himself is seen as a subversion to leads like Keitaro and other bishōjo males. He is hardworking, capable, and treated kindly, but due to his appearance and age (well below most of his students), he feels completely non-threatening and finds it difficult to be taken seriously as a teacher; many of his students treat him as a cute little kid, or, a playmate.

This title was also involved in a controversy surrounding the censorship of the English-translated manga in North America, typical of Akamatsu's penchant for fanservice and risque humor. Fans fell upon initial rumors of potential edits by Del Rey, and upon receiving news of this, immediately began fighting against the changes. The compromise reached was to release the book uncensored but shrinkwrapped, which some collectors feel can cause damage to the books.

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Characters

Please see Characters of Negima

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The Anime

The anime version began airing in Japan on January 6, 2005 and ended June 29, 2005. The anime showed the events of manga volumes 1-6 and ended with an original storyline.

List of episodes

The official names for the episodes are in Latin with the episode numbers written in Roman numerals. Additionally, each episode name is a Latin phrase.

I - Asinus in cathedra
II - Omne initium est difficile
III - Amantes, amentes
IV - Nullus est instar domus
V - Fama volat
VI - A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi
VII - Fallaces sunt rerum species
VIII - Omnes una manet nox
IX - Te capiam, cunicule sceleste!
X - Ubi concordia, ibi victoria
XI - Cum tacent clamant
XII - Aut disce aut discede
XIII - Tamdiu discendum est, quamdiu vivas

XIV - Amicitiae nostrae memoriam spero sempiternam fore
XV - Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur
XVI - Amor tussisque non celantur
XVII - Nihil difficile amanti
XVIII - Amor ordinem nescit
XIX - Verba volant, scripta menent
XX - Nisi credidentis, non intelligentis
XXI - Nil desperandum!
XXII - Difficile est tristi fingere mente jocum
XXIII - Memento mori
XXIV - Et arma et verba vulnerant
XXV - Mors certa, hora incerta
XXVI - Non mihi, non tibi, sed nobis

Songs

See main article in List of songs from Negima

Note on color changes

The conversion from manga to anime has left several characters hair colors changed, the most radical color changes being Chisame's hair color (Bright orange hair in the manga, but has dark green hair in the anime), Misa (light brown hair in the manga, but purple hair in the anime) and Yuna's hair color (black hair in manga, bright brown in the anime). It is thought by some fans that the color changes may reflect a need of the animators to more easily identify characters. In addition, the Del Rey translation of the Negima manga changed a limited amount of colors, including Asuna's eye colors: Instead of her left eye being blue and her right eye being green, her left eye is a light purple and her right eye is blue.

Note: It was officially noted that Misa is meant to have purple hair, as the hair colour is carried on to the games and related materials. She is the only character whose hair colour change was made permanent.

Anime revisions

Due to protests against the animation in Mahō Sensei Negima, the DVD release has been revised from the TV version. Various episodes have redrawn characters, expressions, scenes, and even a few episodes have been redrawn completely. Despite early rumors, there are no dialog or storyline changes.

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The Manga

See also Timeline in Negima Manga

In America, the manga is licensed and published in English by Del Rey Manga. Additionally, it is published by Tong Li in Hong Kong, Chuang Yi in Singapore, Play Press Publishing in Italy, Pika Édition in France, EMA in Germany, Glénat in Spain and Editora JBC in Brazil.

Miscellaneous facts

Haruna Saotome: Pseudonym "Pal"

The conversion from Haruna to Pal looks unusual. To understand this, one must have knowledge of some knowledge of Japanese pronunciation or either hiragana or katakana. Basically, one starts with "Haru", short for Haruna. In Japanese, Ha, Ba, and Pa are basically the same character, and to the Japanese ear are pronounced fairly similarly. Thus, "Haru" becomes "Paru". Keeping in mind more Japanese pronunciation, when one converts that to English he or she winds up with "Pal".

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Inconsistences found in English version

There are a number of inconsistencies found in the Del Rey translation of Negima. While Del Rey makes a strong attempt at communicating, as fully as possible, the cultural and lingual nuances of the manga - most notably in the inclusion and explanation of the various honorifics - the translation, and the explanatory notes in the back of each volume periodically demonstrate misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

Thousand Master/Southern Master

In the first volume, the Del Rey translation refers to the Thousand Master as the Thousand Master, and mention that it is said he knows a thousand spells. In the third volume, they refer to a "Southern Master", who supposedly knew a thousand spells. Negi also identifies the "Southern Master" as his father. Del Rey has verified that they are in fact the same person, and it was improperly translated in Volumes 3 and 4, since in Katakana, "Thousand" (サウザンド) and "Southern" (サザン) looked about the same to the translator. The translator in question has been replaced, and future prints of Volumes 3 and 4 will have this correction.

Modified Surnames

So far, the surnames of two characters appear to have been adjusted. In the first two volumes of the Del Rey translation, Chachamaru's surname is given as "Rakuso". However, in Volume 3, her surname is listed as "Karakuri". This actually stems from the fact that with the kanji that make up her name, the most common pronunciation of each is as "Raku" and "Sō". This is not especially uncommon, as many kanji have multiple ways of pronouncing them. Making use of some of the audio CDs released in Japan, the proper pronunciation of Chachamaru's surname is "Karakuri".

In addition, Satomi's surname has been changed from Del Rey's "Nakase" to "Hakase" in the Del Rey translations. The proper spelling is Hakase, and the first character can never be pronounced as "Na", so the most likely conclusion is a simple typo: It is entirely possible that the editors of the first volume didn't notice that it was an N in the first volume.

Another note in most of the class roster sheets in the Del Rey translations

Number 7: Misa Kakizaki is actually listed as Kakizaki Misa. Knowing that in Japan the surname does come first in speaking and in lists this could be nothing to worry about. But in several areas (Vol:1/Chapter3 and some time in Vol:4 on one of the chapter pages) Kakizaki-san's name is listed as Misa Kakizaki. It is unknown exactly why they have such different placements, but going by the Japanese version, Kakizaki is the surname, with Misa as the given name.

Latin Phrases Used in Negima

The second volume of the Negima Del Rey translation states that the Latin subtitle "Magister Negi Magi" means "Wizard Negi-Sensei." It also defines the "Magi" as "magical." "Magi" is a form of the Latin word "magus" ("magician" or "mage"), but the "Magi" in "Magister Negi Magi" does not grammatically agree with "Negi" or "Magister" if it is used as an adjective.

The original Japanese version of the second manga volume defines the "Magister" as "先生" ("teacher" or "master"), and "Magi" as "魔法使いの" ("of the mage"). It also defines "Magister Magi" as "魔法使いの達人" ("Master of the Mage" or "Mage Master"). Those translations are acceptable. "Magister Negi Magi" can mean "Mage Master Negi" (if "Magi" is interpreted as a Genitive of Quality with no adjective). (Incidentally, Negi's name is Latinized as "Negius" [Latin genitive, singular form: "Negii")], so "Magister Negius Magi" would have been a more consistent Latin title.)

For the most part, the Latin phrases used in Negima are meaningful and correct. (One notable exception is the "MACINATRIX" on Satomi's "Charta Ministralis" or "Attendant Card." That should be "MACHINATRIX" ["mechanic"].) However, the interpretations of the Latin phrases in the Del Rey translation are mostly inaccurate. For instance, the second volume claims that "Magister Magi" means "magical people," but "magical people" is "homines magi" in Latin. One possible reason for the many inaccuracies is that the translators didn't actually translate the Latin words directly, but rather they translated the Japanese translations of the Latin translations. If that is the case, then that can be a problem with Latin words such as "adeat," which is translated into Japanese as "kitare" (English: "come" used as an imperative form). "Adeat" is a subjunctive form, not an imperative form, of the Latin verb "adire" ("to approach," "to draw near"), so it can be translated as "Let him/her/it approach," but not simply "Approach."

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Magic in Negima

See main article in Magic in Negima

Magic artifacts & items

See Main article List of Items and Artifacts in Negima

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Trivia

Three of the voice actresses, Yui Horie, Natsuko Kuwatani and Yuri Shiratori also performed roles in Love Hina, an earlier Ken Akamatsu work, as Naru Narusegawa, Kanako Urashima and Mei Narusegawa respectivly.

In Negima, Akemi Kanda (Asuna) and Junko Minagawa (Ayaka) voiced characters who are at loggerheads with each other; in the Fatal Frame series, both ladies voiced protagonists (Mio Amakura in FF2 and Rei Kurosawa in FF3). Interestingly, Negima also features ghosts being captured on camera.

Some real life trademarks were changed to similar sounding parodies for legal reasons. The names that were changed include Starbooks (Starbucks), Somy (Sony), Taitan (Taito), NIKH (Nike), Meider (Weider), Canonic (Canon), Ponda (Honda), Conyami (Konami), Photoshock (Photoshop), Sax Pascals (Sex Pistols), Bagle (Google), Mahoo (Yahoo) and Windoors (Windows).

Trademarks that were not changed, however, include Sony, Docomo, Toshiba, Microsoft Windows (it appeared numerous times in the manga, apparently they have used Ken's computer's windows to be inserted into the manga), Nikon, Segway, Adobe, and Kyocera.

During the time when Satomi hacked into Chachamaru's database in hopes of finding out something about her crush, the operating system shown is a Windows XP using Classic layout. Chisame uses a Mac (erroneously identified as Windows by Del Rey), which is presumably modelled after Akamatsu's own machine since the source code for his website is seen on screen.

Some of the objects in the manga were modelled (in Lightwave 3D) after real-life objects to maintain a standard of realism. That includes the school building, the Tatsumiya Shrine (which was based on another shrine) and many others.

Transportation is realistically modelled in the manga, which is unusual since mangas like these usually overlook it in favor of objects that appear more often. Examples are the Toyota Hiace (late 4th generation) van in the Kyoto arc and Takahata's Dodge Viper (2003), which are the only road vehicles other than Ayaka's limousine and the trams that have appeared so far. The art of the vehicles are arguably better than some street-racing mangas, which usually focus more on vehicle art.

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