Oh well i take really long break. Anyway time to promote something huh. Okay i want introduce you all about new manga by Kazurou Inoue sensei. Mahou no Iroha. If you hardcore manga reader that reading Midori no Hibi/Midori Days and Ai Kora/Love&College you already know how awesome Kazurou Inoue manga right ?. This manga about Rikka Naoki, 14 years old boy that like normal boy in middle school. Suddenly someone from future named Iroha appear and claim that actually her Inoue daughter. She come to change Naoki dark future. This manga full with mahou shoujo and ecchi too. This manga is damn funny and worth read if you like past Kazurou Inoue works. Anyway check this picture:-

Interesting right. Even she can summon Ifrit lol. I can not stop laughing when i see that. So i hope you try reading it first because it so damn funny and anyway this manga only 2 chapters is out but it definitely worth reading. Give it shot and i sure you will like it if you like gag and comedy manga.

Mahou Sensei Negima! is an ongoing manga series authored by Ken Akamatsu. After finishing Love Hina, a very successful harem comedy manga, he wanted to try his hand at something different. While Negima starts as the same genre as Love Hina, it evolves into a shounen action kind of story without losing the characteristics of a harem comedy. The result is a story which is able to mix those two genres smoothly and create something innovative. It can please both fans of harem comedy and fans of shounen action, yet also please those who aren’t fans of either of those two genres.

Negima started publication on 02/26/2003. As of today, it has 267 chapters and 27 bound volumes released.  It’s released weekly, but with a break week (a week with no chapter being released) between each 4 weeks with releases.

• The Story

The story starts with Negi Springfield, a 10 year old Welsh boy, graduating from his magic school. To continue their training to become a Magister Magi (something like a Master of Mages) each student receives a task after graduation. Negi receives the unreasonable task of being a teacher in Japan. That’s how he ends up being an English teacher for a girls’ middle school, and the homeroom teacher for Mahora Academy’s class 2-A: a second year class with thirty-one 14-year old girls.

Negi and the 2-A girls

Mahou Sensei Negima! starts with lighthearted themes:  a little slice of life, a little harem comedy, a lot of fanservice.  All three are on display as soon as he arrives at Mahora Academy.  He has a really bad start with Asuna, who happens to be not only his student, but also one of the two girls he will have to share a room with. Asuna, who already isn’t fond of children, gets an even worse impression of Negi through a succession of unfortunate events usually triggered by Negi’s naïve personality.  Things only get worse when she discovers he is a mage, something he is supposed to keep as a secret from all his students.

There are a few other students who, for their own reasons, don’t take kindly to Negi. And while most of the class likes him, they can’t take him seriously because of his personality, not to mention the fact that he’s younger than them.  Yet another problem arises as he arrives in the last trimester of the school year; he immediately needs to improve his class’ scores, by far the worst of all the second-year classes, on the end-of-year test if he wants to continue to be a teacher there – and he has to, in order to become a Magister Magi.

With lots of effort Negi is able to slowly gain the trust and respect of his students and conquer his hardships. The story dynamic starts to change when we learn Negi’s reason for wanting to become a Magister Magi:  he wants to follow in the footsteps of his father, Nagi Springfield aka The Thousand Master, famously touted as the strongest mage ever.  Nagi Springfield was supposed to have died a few months before the birth of his son, but in an encounter six years before the story, Negi met someone he still believes to be his father.

It’s in Negi’s search for clues about what happened to his father and his quest to become as strong as him that the story starts to take a different path. While fanservice and harem comedy stay present in the series, they take a bit of a back seat as the story starts to darken a little and shift its focus more toward powerful magic battles. For Negi to mature and reach his objectives he will need to learn that things such as good and evil, or right and wrong, aren’t absolute.  Negi will also learn that most of his students are far from normal as he discovers the relationship amongst them, the world of magic, and what happened with his father.

• The Characters

The main cast is sizable to start, with Negi and the 2-A students. In the beginning they may look similar, but as we are introduced to them and slowly learn more about their backgrounds we can see how unique each character is. The cast grows a lot with time as more and more important characters are added to the mix, but the manga is still able to keep most, if not all, of them interesting and each contributes at least a little to the main plot.

While Negi and Asuna are the central characters, many others take the spotlight during the course of the series. Some seem minor at the beginning but end up suddenly shining later; most get a decent amount of development during the series, which shapes them into becoming even more unique. Romance is also developed nicely, not only in relationships with the girls and Negi, but also between other characters.

• The Setting
  

Most of the story happens in Mahora Academy, a learning institution about the size of a small city with its own residential and shopping district.  It contains, amongst other things, elementary, middle and high schools, each divided by gender, and a university fully equipped with research facilities. It also features many clubs which have members from all grades.

A view of Mahora Academy

Mahora has many mysteries, like the Library Island, a giant library in the middle of a lake with many underground levels, and the majestic World Tree, which stands in a small hill in the middle of the campus.

Library Island and the World Tree

• Art

As the characters mature and the story changes its direction, the art evolves too. A panel in Negima tends to have many details spread through it, and to obtain that level of detail Ken Akamatsu uses CG for drawing many of the manga’s background elements.  Those details can be important, as Mahou Sensei Negima! has a lot of foreshadowing hidden in plain sight.

Negi as in the first chapter and in a later chapter

• Negima’s other media

Many adaptations and spin-offs based upon the Negima! manga have been created. I will give a short summary of each, concentrating on their relation to the manga. I asked Seishi to give a summary for one of the series as he knows more about it.

Mahou Sensei Negima! (Anime)

The first Negima! adaptation with a total of 26 episodes.  It faithfully adapts the first few volumes of the manga, although the art quality isn’t the best and the fanservice is downplayed.  The pace picks up for the last few episodes, cutting some important scenes out of the story, and the final arc is completely original.

Negima!? (Anime)

Summary done by Seishi:

First of all, we must establish the two things Negima!? is not.
1) An adaptation of the manga’s story
2) An actual coherent story of its own

Having said that, Negima!? stands out for its quirky but stylistic take on Ken Akamatsu’s popular manga. The first thing manga fans will notice is the noticable toning down of fanservice, something Akamatsu used quite liberally. In the beginning, the focus of the series goes straight to Evangeline and the problems she causes for Mahora Academy. The first batch of Negima!? episodes features a greater focus on action and pactio forming, the latter of which is very different from its manga counterpart. All wrapped up in this is Studio SHAFT’s (Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Bakemonogatari, Hidamari Sketch) magic touch; director Akiyuki Shinbo manages to entertain his audience with his usual animation tricks.

As the series progresses, it manages to fully separate itself from the manga, which in turn alienates long-time Negima fans.  This is rather disappointing because Negima!? has elements that hardcore fans should be able to latch on to if they can look past the obvious adaptation decay.

Mahou Sensei Negima! Haru OVA and Natsu OVA

Two 1-episode OVAs loosely based on events from the manga. They don’t really fit in any of the timelines from the manga or either of the two animes, so they’re more fanservice for the fans. They were also animated by Shaft.

Negima!? Neo (manga)

A manga adaptation for the Shaft anime. The main plot of the anime is shortened; after it covers all of the anime, it becomes more of a slice of life. It’s like a middle term between the manga and the second anime.

Mahou Sensei Negima! Shiroki Tsubasa Ala Alba (OAD) / Mahou Sensei Negima! Mouhitotsu no Sekai (OAD)

These two Shaft-animated OAD series were supervised by Ken Akamatsu, so the art and story are fairly loyal to the original manga. The first series, Ala Alba, with 3 episodes and one drama CD, animates some of the later chapters of the manga and acts an introduction for the second OAD series. The second series is still ongoing with 1 of 4 episodes released. It follows the events from Ala Alba and will adapt the latest manga arc together with a movie.

So we’re a few weeks into the Fall season now. Everyone bitched from the outset that there was nothing much interesting coming up, not to mention the overload of sequels. Me? I was pretty excited. Sure, there was nothing that stood out as on-the-edge-of-your-seat, I-am-staying-up-till-7am-to-watch-the-raws-god-damn-it (oh Umineko, how you abuse the fuck out of me again and again), but there was a small handfull of titles that appealed to me.

So now, dear readers, you get to experience my completely biased opinions on what few series I am bothering to keep up with this season! Hurray!

Sasameki Koto (Eps. 1-2)

I’ll get this one out of the road first, because as everyone on IRC should know by now, it’s the one I was–and am–gushing like a rabid fangirl about.

Sasameki Koto is yuri through and through, and it’s wonderful. The plot is simple: Sumika loves Ushio. Ushio loves cute girls. Sumika is not a cute girl. Sumika is, however, an awesome best friend, and consoles herself with by trying to make Ushio happy… even if it’s not together with her. Really, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. But the characterisation and Takashi Ikeda’s kinda quirky writing style really make it work for me.

It’s clear that everyone involved in this show knows the yuri tropes, but they work with them–and… well, at times they just walk right through them. They’ve picked a typical desaturated palette, with a frequent recurring sunset overlay. It’s nice to see the predominance of blacks and browns in the characters’ hair, too; this series doesn’t try to portray itself as anything amazing, just the type of drama you would expect in any average school, with any average people. That’s something I’ve found interesting about this series, really. Ushio comes right out and says she’s only interested in girls. Sumika never really questions that Ushio is female, or even her tastes in general. Sumika doesn’t even question why Akemiya-kun does what he does (you’ll see in episode 2.) All of it is just… accepted. There is, of course, drama from outside sources that find the lesbian tendencies disgusting, etc. But it’s all treated in a very… normal way. It’s nice to see that yuri drama that isn’t filled to the brim with OH NO ONEESAMA IS TALKING TO ANOTHER GIRL!!! Read the rest of this entry »

Oh well because i have time, i love to check any good new manga. So everyday i will scroll mangahelpers, mangaupdates and mangafox to find any new good manga. So i decide to pick Hyakuen! because i love Seinen and Slice of Life genre with moe character design. Even just 4 chapters currently, this manga really make me love it. Anyway before we enter deep, lets me summary first:

Two high-school girls share an apartment. Fun-loving Yamada Momo loves to spend any money she gets. Serious (yet cute) Madoka Suzuki scrimps and saves all the time. Madoka is saving her money to visit her grandfather in Germany. And Yamada? She wants to buy a scooter! But in the meantime they have to learn to live together. Can they be frugal, yet happy? Will Yamada ever find space for all her mangas? Will Madoka ever get used to having the toilet and bathtub in the same room?

-from mangaupdates.com-

This story actually about two girls, Momo and Madoka that live together in rent house with own money. Two high school girls live in rent house with using own money sound stupid right. Momo still get allowance from her family but Madoka do part time job to get money because she run from house. Madoka really strict about money because she works to get it but Momo enjoy spend it before she know she already run out of money. They both have dream. Madoka want to go France and Momo dream just stupid. She want a scooter. As the story progress, she change it to bike ala Harley Davidson. That make me laugh. Anyway lets see some picture:-

Madoka is the black hair girl. She also have nekomimi. Also my favourite character so far. Her full name Suzuki Madoka. Anyway she have complex personality and a bit tsundere. Very economic and sometime her shyness make me goes moe moe. Anyway she have problem with her family.

Momo is red hair girl. She has big breast and dojikko person. Her full name is Yamada Momo. She like to spend her money on unwanted stuff. Anyway she is good heart girl that always help her friend .

Gosanji Kyouka is super rich girl. She is Momo friend. Even she rich, she really think money so precious. She even give 100 yen that she found to policeman.

Nakata Chouko is Modoka childhood friend. She is tsundere girl and love bragging to Madoka about branded item that she has. Anyway Madoka just ignore her.

Enough introduction. Anyway my thought about this series is i think this series is good. This series teach you about how important is money. This series have comedy, nice art and also little fanservice. I enjoy it so much maybe because i am moe tard and some slice of life faggot. The easy way to say is this series is simple and you didnt need have headache or some grudge on any character because this series didnt have any plot. Just take your breath and read it. Enjoy some moment and laugh it if necessary. Anyway if u didnt like it okay. Everyone have different opinion.

Anyway thats all. I really didnt have idea to write it longer like some bloggers. Also english not my first language so it hard for me to write even this long. Anyway i am so lazy to write about visual novel currently. So wait for another my new manga review, Manabiya.

Simplicity, I can’t think of anything quite as beautiful.  With everything as complicated and convoluted as it is nowadays, it is the simple things I love.  My desktop’s background, the somehow elegant design of my plastic cup, and in this case, the characters in my manga.

Two very different characters stick out in my mind as prime examples of such a thing: Funabashi Masaya of Ocha ni Gosu and Tadami Mamoru of Translucent.

Let’s begin with Translucent.  (Not the greatest images, because there isn’t much on the internet, and I’m too lazy to scan my manga )

Okamoto Kazuhiro (if you don’t know him, that’s fine.  Translucent is his only thing available in English.) has an interesting drawing style.   Simple, certainly not what you would expect when you think of manga, but it works.  Their facial expressions come out well, he handled the drawing of the female lead translucent and transparent in an easy to recognize way, and the characters actually look their age. Read the rest of this entry »