Negima! Box Set

LABEL: Revelation Films
RUNNING TIME: 710 mins approx.
RATING: 12
VIDEO FORMAT: 4:3 Non-Anamorphic
AUDIO FORMAT: English 2.0, Japanese 2.0
SUBTITLES: English
DVD REGION: 2
AVAILABLE: 19th May 2008


Synopsis
When class 3-A at Mahora Academy were told they were getting a new teacher none of them were expecting a ten-year-old genius, but with the mysterious Negi Springfield that's exactly what they've got! Short, nervous and unbearably cute, he's adored by his entire class – all except the cynical Asuma, who knows the real reason why Professor Springfield has come to Japan. Negi is, in fact, a Wizard-in Training, and his position at the school is a cover whilst he completes his tuition and searches for his missing father...

Review
When you get through the amount of anime that I do, professionally-speaking, everything starts to blur together after a while. A “superpowered girlfriend” comedy here, an angsty mecha drama there... the deluge of also-rans and cookie-cutter OVAs never seems to end. It's extremely pleasant, therefore, to be surprised every once in a while – something which Revelation Films have managed with every new title they've sent our way since 2007. On this occasion, the first surprise was that they'd sent us what appeared to be a generic magical high-school comedy. The second was that NEGIMA *is*, in fact, a generic magical high-school comedy. The third was that it one of the funniest shows I'd seen all year. “Generic”, it seems, is not merely a byword for “pap”.

Before we go any further, I feel it only fair to warn you of NEGIMA's one fairly huge caveat – Greg Ayres' attempt at an English accent is *awful*. Now, when I say awful I don't mean “so cheesy it adds to the comedy”, I mean *awful*. Dreadful. So toe-curlingly, insultingly bad that your first instinct will be to yank the DVD out of your player and burn it – and this is made all the worse by the fact that his character, the titular Negi, is supposed to be Welsh. There. I said it. Sorry, Madman, but you really should think of these things before you sign off on those casting sheets. Luckily for British viewers, however, they're always a fairly easy workaround for this – hit the audio button on your DVD remote and watch the show subbed. Yes, yes, I know, there are those of you who simply can't bear to watch anime in its original language but trust me, do it this time and you'll find the experience far more rewarding.

You see, NEGIMA might be corny and clichéd through and through, but it's also rather funny. Swiping its initial premise from the Square-Enix's oddball manga PANI PONI (later named PANI PONI DASH), the series places a ten-year-old child prodigy as the teacher at an all-girls school (with all of the ensuing hi-jinks that this implies). Unlike PANI PONI's Rebecca Miyamoto, however, Negi Springfield is not only male – which naturally inspires fan-service aplenty – but also a wizard trying to earn his qualifications whilst searching for his missing father. Quite how a position as an English teacher at a Japanese school will help Negi to become a Master Mage OR find his father is a little unclear, but it *does* open up the plot a tad, giving the series a lot more depth than similar fayre (AZUMANGA DAIOH, for example). The comedy is still present in spades, of course -- how many shows, for example, feature an episode in which a group of adolescent girls battle for the “ownership” of a ten-year-old teacher by comparing breast size? -- but with it comes a welcome tinge of drama and mystery, helping to maintain interest in the story beyond the slapstick and one-liners.

Of course, nothing about the plot is original whatsoever; but then, its story isn't what makes NEGIMA shine. Instead, that task falls to its wonderful, lunatic and entirely individual cast of characters. After a swift introduction to the wonderfully antagonistic relationship between the main characters, Negi and his misanthropic pupil Asuma (think Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley-Sohryu, just without the sexual undertones), the series engages the viewer with the unusual and often idiosyncratic daily exploits of Asuma's thirty classmates – and naturally these girls are far from normal, ranging from a grudge-bearing vampire and her android sidekick to a girl so painfully shy that she grows her fringe long enough to cover her entire face. Sometimes their stories converge with Negi's secret life and sometimes not, but they are rarely pointless and always entertaining, even if you can see the plot twists coming from miles away. More to the point all of these characters, no matter how big or small their part, grow to some degree over the series' twenty-six episodes, and no-one is every completely two-dimensional – a rare thing for a comedy, even in Japan.


So, why should you buy NEGIMA? I've just told you that it's clichéd and predictable, after all. Of course, I've also told you that it's damned funny, and in honesty what better reason is there to buy a comedy show? If you need another excuse, however, think on this – Japanese humour is, unfortunately, largely inaccessible to the majority of us here in the west, with niche shows like EXCEL SAGA, FLCL and PANI PONI DASH (all tremendously successful in their native land) failing to find a wider audience due to obtuse cultural references and a relatively impenetrable style of comedy. NEGIMA, on the other hand, represents something a little more familiar and a lot more mainstream; the Bash Street Kids by way of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, if you will. Warm, witty and occasionally endearing, it's impossible not to like -- put aside your pretension and give it a go.


Picture
It's TV anime, but it's well-encoded TV anime from the studio that brought us MARTIAN SUCCESSOR NADESICO. The picture is stable, with no colour bleed or motion blur, and the bright colours ensure that artefacting blacks are never a problem.

Audio
A solid stereo track in both languages, and in honesty the show doesn't need anything more. The English dub is probably best avoided by residents of the British Isles, but those from the colonies probably won't bat an eyelid!

Special Features
As a repackage of an earlier production run, each individual DVD retains the special features it originally shipped with – making a treat for anime fans with some bloopers, cast commentary (on selected episodes) and surprisingly interesting series of text-only articles on Japanese school life in addition to the usual textless opening/closing and trailers.



Matt Dillon




The Negima! box set is available on May 19th from Amazon, Play.com and all good retailers.