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rating: 5 of 5 starsInitially I was hesitant about trying the Negima! series out. Ken Akamatsu's previous series, Love Hina, ultimately underwhelmed and disappointed me. I love the man's artwork, but his writing left a lot to be desired.
So it was with a bit of apprehension that I approached Negima!, even though a couple of my friends insisted it was pretty good. I bought the first two volumes and read them back to back, and while Volume 1 was simply okay, Volume 2 was good enough that I decided to give the series a bigger chance and kept reading. With Volume 3 the series continued to improve, and Volume 4 was fantastic. While 5 didn't quite reach 4's lofty height, Volume 6 certainly does.
Akamatsu has improved as a writer. Negima! is a much more solid read than Love Hina, and Volume 6 is not only amusing, but actually exciting, with a lot of solid action and a very generous helping of cheesecake. Akamatsu is known for including quite a bit of fanservice in his manga, and this volume has it in spades. And I'm certainly not complaining. It helps to have the main character surrounded by thirty very cute girls (especially when so many of them are such good fighters), as well as competent villains. The baddies he's been facing lately are intriguing. It's always better when the villain of the hour is harder to best than your average egomaniac.
Put simply, I'm glad I decided to stick with this series. I'm looking forward to Volume 7.
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Good entry in the series
Posted : 16 years, 3 months ago on 2 March 2009 07:51
(A review of Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, Volume 06)
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Chrno Crusade: Volume 8
Posted : 16 years, 3 months ago on 16 February 2009 07:26
(A review of Chrono Crusade, Volume 8)[Link removed - login to see] by [Link removed - login to see]
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rating: 5 of 5 starsAfter Volume 7 ended on one hell of a cliffhanger, I knew it was going to be difficult to wait until I had a chance to read the final volume, so I picked the very first opportunity I had. In an earlier review I listed Volume 6 as the best of all the series so far, and now I can say Volume 8 ranks right up there with it.
It would be kind of pointless to go over the story at this point; if you don't know what Chrno Crusade is all about, you need to go back and check out Volumes 1 and 2. Volume 8 is the end of the line, and in more than one sense.
With the world on the brink of chaos and her soul almost completely consumed, Rosette uses what little time she has left to track down her brother and convince him she really is who she says she is. Plenty stands in her way, including a major battle between Aion and Chrono, and of course, death itself looms close. It's kind of funny that a volume so packed with action could still have time for wonderful, emotional moments between characters (one reason why I ranked 7 lower than 6 and 8), but Volume 8 has enough of them, and by the time I arrived at this part of the story I cared so much about Rosette that every panel depicting her in tears made me all misty-eyed. Things don't really turn out the way she expected them to, and it's only through her sheer willpower that things take the turn they do. There's no cop-out here, though.
Without actually telling you what happens, all I will say is that the ending is the best possible ending this series could have had. Even in the epilogue there were a couple of surprises I did not see coming, which were effective enough, but the epilogue's overall presentation, showing the aftermath out of sequence and saving the most dramatic moment for the very last pages, effectively sucked me all the way in, made me teary-eyed, and left me in such a state that, even after I was done reading, a few minutes passed before I could even put the book down. I've read plenty of stories that go for the darkest possible ending and plenty of stories that cheat and go for an artificially happy ending, and even stories with endings that, while they made sense, were still disappointing in some way, either because they favored unhappy events or were just anti-climactic. Chrno Crusade's ending was none of the above. The ending was exactly what it should have been, a mixture of happy and sad, and was enormously effective and moving. The only thing I'm sorry about is that such a charming series is over.
I will very likely reread this in the not-to-distant future, and will probably choke up as much over the ending then as I did now. Rosette Christopher jumped right off those pages and into my heart, and she'll stay there evermore.
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rating: 5 of 5 starsAfter Volume 7 ended on one hell of a cliffhanger, I knew it was going to be difficult to wait until I had a chance to read the final volume, so I picked the very first opportunity I had. In an earlier review I listed Volume 6 as the best of all the series so far, and now I can say Volume 8 ranks right up there with it.
It would be kind of pointless to go over the story at this point; if you don't know what Chrno Crusade is all about, you need to go back and check out Volumes 1 and 2. Volume 8 is the end of the line, and in more than one sense.
With the world on the brink of chaos and her soul almost completely consumed, Rosette uses what little time she has left to track down her brother and convince him she really is who she says she is. Plenty stands in her way, including a major battle between Aion and Chrono, and of course, death itself looms close. It's kind of funny that a volume so packed with action could still have time for wonderful, emotional moments between characters (one reason why I ranked 7 lower than 6 and 8), but Volume 8 has enough of them, and by the time I arrived at this part of the story I cared so much about Rosette that every panel depicting her in tears made me all misty-eyed. Things don't really turn out the way she expected them to, and it's only through her sheer willpower that things take the turn they do. There's no cop-out here, though.
Without actually telling you what happens, all I will say is that the ending is the best possible ending this series could have had. Even in the epilogue there were a couple of surprises I did not see coming, which were effective enough, but the epilogue's overall presentation, showing the aftermath out of sequence and saving the most dramatic moment for the very last pages, effectively sucked me all the way in, made me teary-eyed, and left me in such a state that, even after I was done reading, a few minutes passed before I could even put the book down. I've read plenty of stories that go for the darkest possible ending and plenty of stories that cheat and go for an artificially happy ending, and even stories with endings that, while they made sense, were still disappointing in some way, either because they favored unhappy events or were just anti-climactic. Chrno Crusade's ending was none of the above. The ending was exactly what it should have been, a mixture of happy and sad, and was enormously effective and moving. The only thing I'm sorry about is that such a charming series is over.
I will very likely reread this in the not-to-distant future, and will probably choke up as much over the ending then as I did now. Rosette Christopher jumped right off those pages and into my heart, and she'll stay there evermore.
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