Mahou Sensei Negima

Yeah, the ending was a disappointment and the beginning's kinda shaky, but the few hundred chapters in the middle are good.

I didn't say it went somewhere good, just that it went somewhere. And honestly, the first three hundred chapters were fun. And a sprinkling of chapters after that.

Still hoping for a bit of payoff in UQ Holder.

The best I hope for UQ Holder is to solve its own baggage, rather than dragging Negima's on. Save that one for a proper sequel/midquel (yeah, right).

I don't expect it to finish up Setsuna or Yue's character arcs for us or whatever. That ship has sailed, their stories are over. We can definitely expect a continuation of Eva's arc, we might get to see Negi's and possibly characters like Fate or Albireo. The little bits and pieces of the setting.

Well, that's good if you really like Eva's arc, I guess. I wasn't crazy about it, and didn't think her character needed or deserved major changes beyond 'stops being so openly mean, and becomes more helpful mean'. And I outright disliked Fate, so he isn't a selling point for me either.

Immortal characters, by their very nature, are far more 'static' or 'slow progresses' than mortals. They kind of have to work in a different, more distant, level than mortals. You do like that level, and that's fine, but I was more interested on the lower tie characters and their 'more mundane' issues. Which is why UQ Holder's premise alienates me more than anything else.

Actually, she didn't really have much of a character arc. Aaaanyway, I am sick to death of this kind of conversation so I'll just leave it at that.

Oh, and I didn't like Fate either. I was just noting that he's one of the characters you could reasonably expect to get some kind of update on.

Well, just finished Chapter 11 of the first manga. The library arc was nice, in a cheesy sort of way. But I still enjoyed it.

Ahhh naïveté what a wondrous faze

What do I do first? Watch anime or read the manga?

Manga, Definitely the manga. Both of the anime adaptations are considered something of a joke among fans

But did they at least animate the rest of the story until the end, or copped out like they did when they animated Love Hina?

IIRC, all Negima animes that have an ending have a Gecko Ending.

And all of the anime diverge from the manga considerably; the first one only managed to follow the manga rather loosely up until the Kyoto Arc, where the divergences start to become blatant. The second anime doesn't even try to pretend that it aims to be faithful to the manga; it only loosely adapts the early storylines, and goes off in its own directions and developments, though thankfully I hear it manages to do better than the original anime.

A bit of good news: Chunks of a late arc get animated in a series of OVAs, plus Akamatsu's "original" ending (officially called "Ending B" for some reason) was turned into a movie (though IINM Executive Meddling apparently messed up the presentation of said ending; some important stuff apparently was cut for no good reason).

Just started to read the manga. How many chapters should be read per day?

How fast do you want to finish?

Don't know to be honest. It took me like, 6 months at the least to finish Love Hina, and Negima outnumbers Love Hina by 133 chapters, it would be a nightmare taking on Negima.

It starts slow. No, actually, it starts bad, gets to be merely slow and then by around chapter 70 or so it gets to the point I actually like. I suggest powering through the early stuff as quickly as possible and then reading at your own pace.

Average chapter length is 16-17 pages. Multiply that by the 354 chapters (the "355th" one that I'm not counting is the first, which is around 50 pages long), and then decide on how fast you want to finish.

Of course, to some of us, the first parts aren't bad (in my case, it's actually good). It might not be so if you don't like typical Harem Genre antics, though.

edited 15th Apr '14 2:36:55 PM by MarqFJA

Let me rephrase that. It's very nonindicative. It does establish a level of characterization, but as far as plot and style for the story goes it is, again, not the best guide of what you're getting yourself into. It's much whackier and generic harem-...ier.

Thanks guys.

Sorry to double-post. Feeling that no one would reply to if edited.

Speaking of Negima anime, wasn't there Anime: Final?

All Negima anime were explained in this post. All of them. Including Anime Final.

edited 20th Apr '14 1:13:41 PM by burnpsy

Actually, there's yet another anime, a very early set of short promotional OVA they made even before the XEBEC anime series. They loosely adapted three of the earliest chapters plus adding a few narrated intros of some of the girls introducing themselves.

Was this what Marq FJA meant:

Yes, Anime Final was Ending B. If I had to be honest with you, it sucked, but it's arguably on par with the one the manga got.

edited 21st Apr '14 5:56:44 AM by burnpsy