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UQ Holder and the Troubled History of Negima


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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 7:21 pm Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
@Wrangler

If you are not seeing a lot of fanservice in the Negima manga you just aren't looking. It wasn't very erotic but it was plentiful. Pantyshots and even complete nudity. It starts on the train before Negi even gets to the school and continues relentlessly. (Negi sneezes and girls skirts flip up). It is possible that color and movement makes it stand out more, but it was always there.

Asuna especially, spoiler[since she was completely immune to magic spells, anything directed at her simply destroyed her clothes.]


Negima! is a lot of things and that includes wearing the "action adventure" beard on top of the comedy harem antics. I am still amazed at how people to this day think the series is the beard and not the other way around. "Ken Akamatsu wanted to do an action adventure shounen story and that's what he did!" If that was true, he would have ditched the harem comedy altogether, not double down on it.

The action starts late, the long serious adventure starts much later, the comedy and the sex run through out. Overall, it makes it impossible to successfully adapt the work because the people here just for the battles completely dismiss its harem heart while those who liked the perverted harem antics found the adventure tedious and drawn out.

And the first anime was terrible because the animation was awful and it was really ugly, not because of what it adapted.
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Chrono1000





PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:04 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
The action starts late, the long serious adventure starts much later, the comedy and the sex run through out. Overall, it makes it impossible to successfully adapt the work because the people here just for the battles completely dismiss its harem heart while those who liked the perverted harem antics found the adventure tedious and drawn out.
I don't think that a show has to choose adventure or harem since I have seen great shows that do both but Negima is a bit unusual in that it gradually changed over time. I think that UQ Holder is the final form of what Akamatsu eventually realized he wanted to make with Negima.

Animegomaniac wrote:
And the first anime was terrible because the animation was awful and it was really ugly, not because of what it adapted.
The first Negima anime is a bit rough looking but it is the one to pick for accuracy. The second Negima anime has nothing to do with the manga but it does have more chupacabra jokes than any other anime.
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BigHeadClan



Joined: 21 Oct 2013
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:18 pm Reply with quote
Such a shame that a manga as good as Negima had to suffer such poor and random Anime releases.

Each anime had their own merits but aside from the 5 episodes at the end of it's run it was pretty forgettable. Hopefully they learned from this regarding UQ Holder.
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myskaros



Joined: 13 Jun 2011
Posts: 598
Location: J-Novel Club
PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:35 pm Reply with quote
For me, one of the big draws of continuing to follow Negima was to find out what everyone's artifact ended up being. It was a rare case of characters obtaining not generic powers, but a whole outfit plus weapon! Or maybe I just don't watch enough Precure/Sentai.

Also wanted to comment how distracting the "Negima!?" titling in the article was, considering that's the name of the spinoff manga series by another author that I frequently see in used book stores.
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LuScr



Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Posts: 140
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 1:12 am Reply with quote
One other thing worth pointing out about the original Xebec anime--it was cut short. During its original broadcast run in 2005, ANN had it listed as a 52-episode series; apparently, it did so poorly (I want to blame the atrocious mishandling of the story, but it probably had more to do with ratings) that it was killed off after 26.

As it turned out, that was an omen when it came to Negima adaptations.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 1:25 am Reply with quote
Takkun4343 wrote:
Regardless of how awkward it is looking at it now, the original Negima! anime still holds a place in my heart as one of the first anime I watched outside of what was airing on TV at the time. That said, I disagree with your "totally forgettable" claim, at least on a personal level.

Besides, who could possibly forget Greg Ayres' attempt at a British accent?


The Negima anime, with or without punctuation, is one of the two titles that's become almost literally synonymous with the problems behind the 00's Anime Bubble:
It was sold on the strength of its manga, on the strength of its TV brand at home, on an easily fan-marketable concept, and on a lot of wishful thinking on the part of its licensor. The only problem, as noted, was that nobody liked it.
(I remember giving up early after finding out that the hero's harem actually needed a scorecard, to identify his cliche' trope-girls by number. So I never found out HOW weird things got after that.)

One early harbinger of the causes that Popped the Bubble was when "a major anime studio" complained that the initial sales of new currently-airing series to licensed US anime companies were being undercut by the trans-Pacific rise of the anime community on the Internet, and that Japanese fans were "warning early bad word-of-mouth" to US fans about new series before they'd reached the states.
Guess who the studio turned out to be. Rolling Eyes
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dark13



Joined: 04 Oct 2015
Posts: 562
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 3:47 am Reply with quote
LuScr wrote:
One other thing worth pointing out about the original Xebec anime--it was cut short. During its original broadcast run in 2005, ANN had it listed as a 52-episode series; apparently, it did so poorly (I want to blame the atrocious mishandling of the story, but it probably had more to do with ratings) that it was killed off after 26.

As it turned out, that was an omen when it came to Negima adaptations.
Yeah I remember ANN posting something like that a long time ago, Xebec should feel ashamed for even trying to make a 52 episode anime.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4369
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 4:04 am Reply with quote
Takkun4343 wrote:
Regardless of how awkward it is looking at it now, the original Negima! anime still holds a place in my heart as one of the first anime I watched outside of what was airing on TV at the time. That said, I disagree with your "totally forgettable" claim, at least on a personal level.

Besides, who could possibly forget Greg Ayres' attempt at a British accent?


and there wasnt a problem with that. wasnt there?

sure it wasnt perfect, but he was definitely solid to say the least. though the main breakthrough for the dub version for the series was his perverted ermine chamo. though considering how long its been, its highly unlikely that he could even do negi's voice anymore.

besides. the series is licensed by sentai, not funimation.

and due to this fact, its more likely that the original dub cast wont be in UQ Holder unless their independent like evangeline's va or their former ADV Films VAs like the voice actresses that did asuna and konoka.
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dragonrider_cody



Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 2541
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 4:10 am Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
Takkun4343 wrote:
Regardless of how awkward it is looking at it now, the original Negima! anime still holds a place in my heart as one of the first anime I watched outside of what was airing on TV at the time. That said, I disagree with your "totally forgettable" claim, at least on a personal level.

Besides, who could possibly forget Greg Ayres' attempt at a British accent?


and there wasnt a problem with that. wasnt there?

sure it wasnt perfect, but he was definitely solid to say the least. though the main breakthrough for the dub version for the series was his perverted ermine chamo. though considering how long its been, its highly unlikely that he could even do negi's voice anymore.

besides. the series is licensed by sentai, not funimation.

and due to this fact, its more likely that the original dub cast wont be in UQ Holder unless their independent like evangeline's va or their former ADV Films VAs like the voice actresses that did asuna and konoka.


Pretty much all Texas VA’s are independent. For acting roles, they are paid by the part. They aren’t regular, salaried employees. So if Sentai is willing to dub it, they could get a lot of the VA’s back. The mains were also voiced by actors who work with them regularly anyway. The only issues would be those who are unwilling to travel to Houston and those who are no longer active or living in Texas.

But given the history of the series, I would actually be quite surprised if Sentai did dub it. I guess we will have to wait and see.
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:03 am Reply with quote
dark13 wrote:
Xebec should feel ashamed for even trying to make a 52 episode anime.

Uhhh...

anime#2259
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njprogfan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Posts: 1155
Location: A River Named Toms
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:15 am Reply with quote
Watched both series once, never to watch again. Classic 'source material monumentally better then adaptation/adaptations' scenario.
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Showsni



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 641
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:26 am Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
Takkun4343 wrote:

Besides, who could possibly forget Greg Ayres' attempt at a British accent?


and there wasnt a problem with that. wasnt there?


My problem with it is that he didn't try to do a Welsh accent. Negi lives in Wales, Wales has a long tradition of magicians, and it's a nice, distinctive accent, but he goes for some generic English accent instead. Negi will always have a Welsh accent in my head when I read the manga!
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Wondername



Joined: 29 May 2015
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:07 am Reply with quote
I was never much of a fan of Negima as it's just not my cup of tea, but this article was a nice read. This part is something I seriously had no idea about:

Quote:
The final Negima!? anime attempt was the appropriately-named “Mahou Sensei Negima!: Anime Final” a film with a story written by Ken Akamatsu himself, providing an official alternate ending to the manga (which itself was abruptly ending soon due to a complex, but temporary, legal situation). It provided a new, but canon-compliant story, and made for an effective and attractive send-off to the series.


What happened here? I remember the manga being ultra popular, how did it happen that Akamatsu was forced to rush the ending and even had problems later with what should have been a satisfying final anime adaptation? Anime dazed
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:49 am Reply with quote
Chrono1000 wrote:
Animegomaniac wrote:
The action starts late, the long serious adventure starts much later, the comedy and the sex run through out. Overall, it makes it impossible to successfully adapt the work because the people here just for the battles completely dismiss its harem heart while those who liked the perverted harem antics found the adventure tedious and drawn out.
I don't think that a show has to choose adventure or harem since I have seen great shows that do both but Negima is a bit unusual in that it gradually changed over time. I think that UQ Holder is the final form of what Akamatsu eventually realized he wanted to make with Negima.

Animegomaniac wrote:
And the first anime was terrible because the animation was awful and it was really ugly, not because of what it adapted.
The first Negima anime is a bit rough looking but it is the one to pick for accuracy. The second Negima anime has nothing to do with the manga but it does have more chupacabra jokes than any other anime.


Negima never changed though and I've been trying to explain it to people for over ten years now. Negima went from a harem fantasy comedy... with fighting... to a harem fantasy with fighting. I've pretty much settled on the "harems are bad but I like Negima! so it's not a harem." answer. "No, no, it's a serious adult fantasy now! Look, people are dying, anyone can die!" Yeah, they were all spoiler[fictional/unreal characters that died and they came back anyway] so, yeah... what was the point again? That story took several years to get nowhere?

About why Negima was cut short, the rumored reason is a right's issue between Akamatsu and the publisher but I lean towards to the idea that Akamatsu did a quick outline of the series as planned... a full year of 30 plus characters up to graduation... considered what he managed to do.... ten years of his life to make it through about 6 months of storyline... and just immediately pulled the plug after the summer vacation plot took years and only resulted in more characters and more stories to tell.

It was ambitious plotting to be sure, just probably too ambitious.
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dark13



Joined: 04 Oct 2015
Posts: 562
PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:21 pm Reply with quote
Takkun4343 wrote:
dark13 wrote:
Xebec should feel ashamed for even trying to make a 52 episode anime.

Uhhh...

anime#2259
Why are you implying NT Warrior was good ?
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