遠山の目付

第０２話　「うっそ、仮契約ってそんなことすんの!?」　“No way, you have to do this for a provisional contract!?”

Releases
[AniMa-Raws] - 1280×720/120fps, xvid, 192kbps-mp3
[Mahora] - 704×396/24fps, xvid, 192kbps-mp3

Comments
This episode is mostly exposition. At the end of the episode we are basically where we were at the beginning of the episode, with Eva facing off with Negi. The only difference is that Negi has a better idea of what’s going on. If this is your first time with Negima of any kind, then this episode was probably decent for you. For the Negima veterans like me, however, there’s almost nothing to talk about.

Well, that can’t be entirely true I guess, since I did watch the whole episode (those who know me can tell you why this is significant). Most of my focus, however, was on music, visuals, and general atmosphere, all of which are done quite well in this episode. There are many visual quirks and random effects throughout the episode, such as the oddly-shaped moon in the night scenes, or the zoom shot of the track field near the end of the episode. As in episode one, a variety of animation styles were used throughout the episode, although the morphing squares got more extensive use this time. It took me some time to get used to it, but that style is actually pretty effective, since it allows rapid shifts between multiple points of focus without the jarring full-screen shifts that would otherwise be necessary. Another interesting feature is the use of color themes. Night scenes had yellow-green glows, the area around Eva’s house had a violet glow, and the scenes in the later half of the episode were inundated with reds and oranges.

But anyway, let’s start from the beginning. We start where we left off in episode one, where Negi has just rushed out to face the vampire that attacked Konoka and Nadoka. Here, Negi shows that he isn’t quite as incompetent at magic as I thought he was in episode one. Though she’s supposed to be a powerful vampire, Eva clearly isn’t all that bright, since she didn’t learn anything from her fight with the Thousand Master. She uses the same Black Mass of Formless Bad Things attack on Negi, who, like his father, simply deflects it right back at her. Maybe she doesn’t actually know any other attacks. I hope not though; just seeing her shoot black stuff at people all the time is going to get pretty old pretty fast.

After Konoka and Nadoka are taken care of and everyone leaves, Asuna confronts Negi about his magic. Negi attempts to wipe her memory with magic, but his incompetence returns. Well, that’s what you’re supposed to think, but if you’ve read the manga you know there’s a different reason. In any case, the most he can manage to do at this point is drop giant pans on people’s heads - including himself - knocking them all out. There’s some kind of logo on the inside of the pan that smacks Camo, but I don’t know where it’s from or what significance it has, if any. Asuna did have an awesome voice when she was telling Camo to shut up. It reminded me of someone, but I don’t know who. The voice actor isn’t particularly famous either, as far as I can tell. Moving on, Negi and Camo fill Asuna in about being a mage, how mages need partners, and what a provisional contract is. At this point, the kids get all cute and embarassed about having to kiss to make the contract, while Camo plays the part of the perverted old man goading them on. I didn’t particularly care for this part. To be fair, it’s hard to make a scene like this work, and these *are* supposed to be young kids. I just don’t like kids.

The shot of the front of the school with the fountain is overused.

Obviously, the vampire attack is the talk of the class the next day. Their wounds have all disappeared, courtesy of Takamichi, but they busy themselves in speculating on the appearance of the vampire. There’s a funny black-and-white cinema rendition of an imaginary battle in the style of the old Godzilla films, with the students giving commentary. Negi shows up to class with a bump on his head, courtesy of Asuna, who found him molesting her in her sleep in her bed when she woke up. The class president, whose name I can never be bothered to remember, is too turned on by this to contain herself, and engages in a lot of blushing and high-pitched gushing, in a voice I assume she thinks is seductive, but is actually pretty damn annoying.

At this point, the show shifts almost entirely into exposition mode, with Takamichi filling Negi in on the Eva situation until the end of the episode. Well, there are actually a number of scenes before and during Takamichi’s monologue. My favorite is the attendence book scene. There’s no short way of explaining it, but it’s basically students talking to each other after school, while the screen shifts between their faces in Negi’s attendence book. It’s a short, simple and utterly unimportant scene, but I really liked the way it was done. Shortly before Takamichi’s exposition, Negi meets Eva and Chachamaru for what he thinks is the first time; he doesn’t yet know that Eva is the vampire that attacked him. Chachamaru apparently suffered serious damage from Negi’s counterattack, and was being wheeled around in a cart to be repaired. I mention this scene because I thought it was odd that Chachamaru had time to stop and chat with Negi when she was supposedly in real danger of breaking down. Her monotone was also quite amusing, particularly after part of her midsection exploded.

The ecchi is beginning to show in this episode, though I still don’t think it’s enough to really land this series in the ‘ecchi’ category. Eva’s dress is transparent starting slightly below the crotch, but even though you get a full view of her legs, the camera never focuses on them or emphasizes them, as in other ecchi anime. Nadoka was drawn a bit more attractively in the opening scene of the episode when she’s being saved by Negi, but it’s hardly ecchi. Eva has two naked transformation scenes where she glows, spins, and shows a whole lot of nothing. I suppose if you use enough imagination you can convince yourself that you can see her soft, sweet, loli body past all the glow and effects, but if you do, please keep it to yourself. Near the end of the episode, Chachamaru is shown with only a cloth covering her upper body. But then again, she’s a robot, so unless your fantasies involve getting mangled by a steel vice, she doesn’t count. You can argue that she was drawn that way purposely as innuendo, but I don’t really buy it. If this is the level of ‘ecchi’ we’ll see throughout the series, it won’t be anything to worry about.