Book Review: Negima! Volume 32

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I finished all three books that I had got as birthday presents, but that does not mean I have nothing left to read. I still have a large ebook collection. Anyway, this post is a review of that last book, which is called Negima! Magister Negi Magi volume 32 by Ken Akamatsu.

As with the review of Cage of Eden volume 2, I have not really reviewed the first volume, so I will give a series synopsis. Boy genius, Negi Springfield, has graduated a school of magic. However, the graduates do not just go out and do whatever they want, as is the case with the Harry Potter series. Each graduate is given an assignment that is known to nobody but the recipient. Negi gets assigned to teach a class at an all-girls academy, but he aims to search for his father and to become a magister magi (master magician), just like his father.

Out of the three series that I have been following, this is perhaps the only one that is not far off from where I currently am in the series. It does share the similarity with Harry Potter in that the protagonists are essentially children with magic abilities, but that is where the similarities end. Its similarity to the Harry Potter series is not why I enjoy the series though. What makes it so funny is the situations the characters are placed. Of course, the characters are not just placed randomly into situations, most of the time. In many, one could say that Negi is part of the jokes the girls come up with, even though he is just a kid. Things seem to move a lot kind of move more like a game though than just a mere random occurrence of events. For example, you have sub-boss type enemies and then you have major boss enemies, which happen at the end of each arc. In this volume in particular, the major boss is supposedly Fate, a boy that Negi and his class met back during the Kyoto arc, in which he was just a sub-boss kind of character. I say that he is the major boss because Negi is heading right for him, and has yet to realize that his father’s old enemy is about to be revived. I also kind of like how it seems everyone is growing closer and Negi has learned to trust his safety to female students, who are a few years older than him. From the beginning, he has been trying to rely on his own talents and knowledge, but learning Eva’s secret technique has shown him otherwise, which leads him to the need to control it. This is all quite understandable since Negi is a kid and most of us know that children either try to do everything on their own or are too dependent on others. This is much the same as adults in our society, but that might be for another topic. The series is very funny and I really enjoyed how Negi has learned to trust his students more, as they have more experience in life than he does.

I do not really have a whole lot to say bad since this seems to be a bit typical of a work by Akamatsu, from what I have what read or heard.

This work is really enjoyable. I would recommend this to current fans of Ken Akamatsu or those who enjoy harem type comedy. For everyone else, you might want to skip the entire Negima! series.

What is your opinion? Do you agree or disagree with me? Feel free to comment.

Copyright © 2011 Bryce Campbell. All Rights Reserved.