Soooo, dunno if anyone else has started on this yet but who knows, maybe someone has! I love it so much it's time it had a thread anyway
For anyone planning on starting the series, it initially starts very love hina ish, standard romantic comedy harem type affair without much different until about the 3rd vloume, which is when the first big bit of action is, tho it's a predominantly magical affair and thus not that exciting.. the later battles (starting vol4) have much more swordplay/hand to hand combat for all you fighting fans. And I have to say, these are some really exciting battles that are very well done. None of them feel dragged out (my common complaint of shounen action, tho it's always more prevalent in the animes than the mangas), they just flow at a natural pace and are quickly resolved. And between battles instead of poor filler there's lots of fun episodes with cute girls, cute funny situations and all sorts of small details that just make you smile. (E.g. the time when the schoolgirls are all stripping Negi for the school festival preparations, and if you look in the background you can see inchou has a major nosebleed going on -- it's something you might even miss your first time reading through, but the manga is full of such tiny things and attention to detail).
If you like Love Hina you would like the start of this manga, as the first 2-3 volumes are basically more of the same, altho done even better and with much more likeable characters (tbh I think that's why I didn't think super highly of Love Hina, it was good and entertaining, but I think I didn't connect with any of the characters or really love any of them enough for me to rate the series very high). And after that there's a lot of action mixed in with all the fun to basically make it the best shounen manga out there atm since it has everything, and it's all done very well.
Spoilers up to chapter 102 in this post, since I just read it from #aquastar-anime on rizon..
First up, I have to lol at the fact it's a maid vs maid battle haha I love it And setsuna still has neko mimi on!!!! Omg! It's too much for me <head explodes> Loads of fantastic expressions on Eva in this chapter, I've come to like her more and more with her every appearance, and this chapter is no exception to my rising appreciation. Ofc there was much cute and cool setsuna too.. And asuna was there ofc, but who cares about her
We got to find out a bit more about asuna's mysterious past tho, from the looks of it, many of the uber magi types (including nagi) died trying to protect her from something.. which makes sense given her magic negation ability thing, and also she seems in the flashbacks to be exceptionally talented at magic All interesting stuff, but not likely to be fully explained for quite a while me thinks (Just think how many chapters passed since the previous childhood flashbacks lol)
page 15 of this chapter really scared me That sword coming down on setsuna was a total "OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT SETSUNA!?>!?" moment (Eva's expression there was great too ).. I mean, I didn't think she'd be killed ofc, but maybe seriously injured and out of the tournament But she's setsuna! I should remember that ;o And she wtfpwned Asuna just when it was looking really bad for her. Mwahaha Setsuna advances in the tournament \o/
I'd upload a pic but it's not functional again yet ;(
Also since there's not been a thread about this before now, I'll summarise some random spoilerish thoughts about the series so far: Inchou rocks, she is the best shoutacon ever! and when she saw negima as the mini skirt fox girl. roflmao that was classic. Chisame is CUTE! omg, at the cosplay contest. Too cute.. just argh, cute! Ku Fei rocks, she has such a great style to her not really much to say as they haven't developed her much beyond being negi's martial arts trainer and a baka ranger, but what we've seen, I really like And Mana, haha the bit when negi joined her on the kokuhaku prevention mission was quite funny Will be interesting to see what she's gonna do tho, she didn't seem stronger than takahata sensei, so does it mean chao is super strong? All so mysterious ><
Chapter 103
Eeeep Eva is scary ;E Tho can't blame her after what he said, thousand master is still alive, but you'll probably never get to see him again anyway.. that's not fair poor eva. And what is chao's plan, seems very odd she specifically ordered no filming, then is effectively doing it herself.. or was that rule just to make sure negi et al would fully let loose? I guess we'll know why in the next few chapters anyway..
Speaking of Eva, I finally got to read volume 6 now (the one I skipped) and omfg, it was absolutely amazing. Probably the best volume yet (tho the school festival ones all rock too), sooo many funky things happened and the climax to the whole kyoto arc was nothing short of superb. Not a let down in the slightest, and omfg Eva gained about 500 million points on the coolness scale. She is now a heavy contender for setsuna's spot at the top of the cool+cute chart (btw check out that massive blush on her when negi tries to protect her!!). Her arrival is the best appearance I've seen by anyone ever, and unlike other deus ex machina, hero shows up in the nick of time saves (well she's not a hero but .. ) this one you knew she was coming really really soon, so it wasn't as out-of-nowhere as such things can sometimes feel. And yep, I see now why negi wanted her as his master in the next volume, who wouldn't want to lick those feet? uhm no I mean, wtf she is totally overpowered, nerf vampire mages! She seems significantly more capable than negi, despite having lost to him previously.. tho rather than a plot hole it's pretty clear why she wasn't giving it her all vs negi, afterall nagi would never love her if she'd really killed his son right? Plus since at the time she though hagi was dead, it'd be like killing the last thing left of him ;o Anyhoo, negi is damn lucky she wasn't serious against him cos he'd of been dead in about 2 seconds if she was
Some interesting questions left open tho, who is the white haired boy? Who was he working for etc.. he hasn't reappeared even by the 10th volume, so I'm thinking it's prob related to asuna's past, and so won't become clearer until that is fully revealed much further on.. which I guess won't happen before the school festival/chao arc is over with.. and where was chacha zero before now? she was in the flashback of eva's dream, and she's in it regularily from now on.. so why wasn't she around before? Why did eva suddenly decide to have her around again? ah well, doesn't matter, she's funny such a blood thirsty little thing
Ah so many others showing up to help out too was rather cool also Kaede is of much pwn as expected, with her massive shuriken, and but ku fei really didn't get to do much Since I've come to like her a lot I was hoping for more but ah well, I know she gets better real soon (her group photo = rofl tho ) and Mana makes a rather out of the blue appearance since up to this point nothing was known about her other than being a miko and boyfriendless.. don't think she'd even spoken before. She's ofc a pretty big character now tho.. Oh, and I'm disappointed nodoka got petrified and didn't get to help at all in the big finale
Finally, animecouncil got around to releasing ep21 of negima anime this week. It actually also covers the contents of volume 6. For those of you who remember from the general discussion thread, I said that vol4 was rather badly compressed into one episode to make episode 20. Anyone else see the immediate problem with what they've done? Yup you guessed it, THEY SKIPPED AN ENTIRE FREAKING VOLUME! Oddly enough, the entire thing didn't make a single bit of sense as a result It was a massive rush with stuff happening pretty much randomly, no proper build up to any kind of climax, just haste, rushing and randomness. Trained monkeys could of done a better job tbh (I doubt they'd have skipped vol5 entirely ><). This pretty much made me cry in horror So I read vol6 for the third time again to cheer up
Kotarou vs "Colonel Sanders", went by rather quickly, as I think most people expected kotarou lost, and rather badly at that. Some development with him and kaede, nothing that big towards the main chao arc tho ;( so a bit disappointing overall. A pretty average chapter that was needed to move things along towards the finals etc..
-- it's something you might even miss your first time reading through, but the manga is full of such tiny things and attention to detail).
from #aquastar-anime on rizon..
All interesting stuff, but not likely to be fully explained for quite a while me thinks 
(Just think how many chapters passed since the previous childhood flashbacks lol)
That sword coming down on setsuna was a total "OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT SETSUNA!?>!?" moment 
And Mana, haha the bit when negi joined her on the kokuhaku prevention mission was quite funny 
