From Akamatsu Ken, the creator of Love, Hina, comes another romantic-comedy show, Negima!  This story of a ten year old boy with secret magic powers who just happens to be teaching a class of eighth grade girls is a lot like Love, Hina.  It's funny, sweet, and has just a touch of mystery to keep the story interesting.  Fans of Ken's earlier work will surely want to give this series a look too.

Asuna Kagurazaka is a 14 year old student at Mahora Academy, a private all-girls school in Japan.  As the eighth grade is about to start, she really hopes that she'll be assigned to Mr. Takahata's homeroom class since she has a big crush on the hunky instructor.  Unfortunately, she's not that lucky.  Her homeroom teacher turns out to be not the teacher of her dreams but...a ten year old boy; Negi Springfield.  Asuna naturally takes an instant dislike to the young prodigy teacher from Scotland.  How dare he take the place of her heart-throb Takahata?  Not only that, but all of the other girls think he's cute!

To add insult to injury, Negi doesn't have any place to live, and since Asuna and her roommate are sharing a dorm room built for three, he gets assigned to live with them by the dean of students.  Things look like they can't get any worse when Asuna discovers Negi's secret.  He's no ordianary teacher, he's actually a magician.  As part of his training he's been assigned to teach at Mahora, but no one is to know that he has powers.  If the students find out, he'll fail and never obtain his goal of becoming a Magister Magi.

There's some fun episodes on this premier disc.  After the premise of the series has been set up, there are some stand alone comic episodes before the plot starts moving.  There is a cute episode where a rumor starts that Negi is really a prince who has come to Japan to seek his bride.  With all of the girls throwing themselves at him, the poor young kid has no idea what to do.  Something similar happens when Negi brews a love potion so that Mr. Takahata will fall in love with Asuna.  The young girl thinks Negi is up to something though and makes him drink the potion, making him irresistible to the other girls in the class.
 
With the sixth episode however, things start getting a little bit more serious.  Hints dropped in the earlier installments start taking on a more significant meaning as a vampire starts stalking the girls of Mahora Academy.  When Negi confronts the beast, it turns out to be someone he knows, and someone who is more capable and dangerous than he is.

There are a few things that were a little silly in this show, like the fact that Negi has graduated from magic school but doesn't know about taking a partner and all that entails for a magician, but these little inconsistences are easy to overlook. Some of the humor worked really well, I liked when the students assigned to stay after school transformed into the Baka Rangers (Baka means idiot) complete with color coded costumes and flashy helmets.  There's only a little bit of fan service, which is nice, and some of the sexual jokes are actually funny, such as the time the girls are arguing over who Negi should room with.  They conclude that since he's 10 he needs someone with maternal instincts, and the best measure of that must be breast size.  Then an argument ensues as to the best way to judge who has the biggest chest which is hilarious.

Though this light comic series is a lot of fun, I have to admit that the animation was done on the cheap, which is too bad.  The illustrations are pretty basic and there are a lot of slow pans over still images when there's a lot of action (who ever came up with that idea?  It really doesn't work.)  The backgrounds are generally sparse and there are a lot of close ups since they are faster to draw.  It's a flaw with this show, but not a fatal one.

My biggest concern is that the program will start to repeat itself too much.  With two episodes out of the six presented here being very similar, the fear isn't without grounding.  Hopefully they've run through all of the 'girls fall in love with Negi' stories for this series and will concentrate on other plots from here on out.

This volume comes as a stand alone DVD or as a limited edition set with a box to hold the entire series.  The box that Funimation came up with for this series is really a nice piece of work.  A thick cardboard box that is paper covered inside and out, it has a hinged cover with a magnetic clasp.  A very study and nice looking box.  Inside is the first volume, a sticker sheet, and a cool small plastic model of Asuna.  Altogether this LE edition is a very nice set and worth the extra money.

This disc contains an ample six episodes on a single disc.  Unfortunately, there is an unskipable trailer that plays before the menu.  You can't fast forward or chapter skip past it, which is really a pain.

Audio:

This disc comes with the original Japanese soundtrack and an English dub, both in stereo.  There are also optional subtitles in English.  I watched episodes in both languages and I really liked the Japanese audio much better.  I found the English voice for Negi to be a bit irritating.  Greg Ayres provides the voice for the young teacher and tries to make the character sound both Scottish and 10 years old.  It doesn't really work.  I've enjoyed Ayres work in other series such as Burst Angel, Detective Loki, and D.N.Angel, but this voice sounds a little silly.

Both audio tracks sounded fine with clear music and strong voices.  There isn't a lot of separation between the two tracks, but some use is made of the front soundstage.  Overall, the disc sounds good.  There is one big defect though: signs and labels are not translated, even when the subtitles are turned on.  This is too bad because some of the signs, such as the names the "Baka Rangers" take, really should have been translated.

Video:

The full frame color video looked pretty good.  The lines are tight, the blacks are firm, and the colors are solid.  On the digital side things also looked good.  Aliasing, something that usually plagues animation, is absent from this show.  Blocking, cross coloration and other compression artifacts are also missing. A fine looking DVD.

Extras:

The disc itself has character profiles, a text piece on the schools in Japan, and a textless opening and closing.

Final Thoughts:

This series has gotten off to a great start.  As one would suspect with a show based on a manga by Akamatsu Ken, the creator of Love, Hina, the show has a good amount of humor, There is also a slightly dark undercurrent that makes the program interesting, and hints of a bigger story that will be told.  If the rest of the series can build off of the foundation that was set down with this volume, it'll be a very entertaining show.  This premier volume gets a strong recommendation.