Negima #27

Finalmente termina o Torneio Mahora. Infelizmente, o professor mirim não conseguiu a sonhada primeira colocação, entretanto Negi teve uma bela surpresa ao poder conversar com seu pai… Mesmo que somente através de uma magia feita por Curnell.

Negi ainda tem muitas dúvidas a serem respondidas, mas como sua agenda de compromissos está absurdamente lotada, tanto Curnell quanto ele decidem deixar as explicações para depois do encerramento do Festival Mahora.

As alunas de Negi celebram o vice-campeonato de seu querido professor e, de quebra, resolvem interrogá-lo sobre a grande notícia que descobriram sobre o filho do Thousand Master: o desaparecimento de seu pai.

Yu-Gi-Oh #23

Yu-Gi-Oh vive seu maior dilema: enfrentar o melhor amigo que possui. No entanto, Joey não pega leve com seu adversário e usa de todos os recursos para ganhar a partida, inclusive cards proibidos no torneio. O pequeno Yugi parece ter um plano e entra em ação, porém, desta vez, recusa até a ajuda de seu parceiro, pois quer fazer por merecer a amizade que conquistou. Com apenas 700 pontos de vida, contra 2400 de Joey, faltando menos de dez minutos, conseguirá o herói salvar a própria vida e livrar seu companheiro do controle da mente de Marik?

Serenity chega finalmente à cidade e, com a ajuda de Mai Valentine, fica frente a frente com o irmão. A hora da verdade se aproxima e a bela jovem terá de tomar a decisão que afetará seu modo de encarar a vida!

A grande final da Cidade das Batalhas se aproxima! Quem serão os oito finalistas que competirão pelo título de Rei dos Duelos e tentarão obter os três Cards dos Deuses? Não perca mais este emocionante volume de Yu-Gi-Oh!

Is this awesome? (Y/Y)

(Plus, Misa's on the back.)

Granted, she does spend half the book beating the crap out of Negi...

Since the dawn of the Showcase, we have been hit with requests that Chase and Blake talk about the Japanese-born phenomenon of manga. The only problem? Blake and Chase don't know squat about manga. So in this special episode, recorded at BSI Comics, the boys invite their resident manga expert Kenny Fanguy to sit in, explain the popularity of the form, talk about some of his favorite manga titles, and reveal the previously unknown legend of Bob Viz. Fans of manga -- listen up and tell us how wrong we are. People who don't read manga -- listen up for one of the funniest chats the Showcase boys have ever hosted! In the picks this week, Chase recommends the new Rapunzel's Revenge, Blake pleads with you to read DC's The Family Dynamic, and Kenny suggests the newest volume of the manga series Negima and the series Seraphic Feather. E-mail us with your comments, "Ask Chase Anything" questions, or anything else at Showcase@comixtreme.com!

Episode 86: The Manga Episode
Inside This Episode:

I don't have that much to tell you about this week, but I'll tell you what I do have. To tell you.
I, of course, brought home more manga and stuff home after this week: vol 1-13 of Bleach, would've had up to 14 if I hadn't accidently bought two copies of vol 2; vol 1-4 of the kiddy shojo manga Shugo Chara!; vol 3-5 of the ever so awesome Fullmetal Alchemist; vol 4 of Sgt. Frog/Keroro Gunsou (or maybe I did that last week?); the first volume of the new Swedish manga called Kick Off!, just a little bit better than I thought it'd be (honestly, I though it'd be crap); vol 1-2 of REBORN!/Katekyo Hitman REBORN!; and hey, that's not all! I also got a package (although by then I was already home) with vol 19 of Negima! and vol 1-4 Fairy Tail and the third and latest issue of YEN PLUS. Yeah, I've got lots of reading ahead of me, and with my not-old-at-all speakers have broken by not being used for a week (I mean, come on! Geez ...) that's a real good thing. Not that'd I wouldn't've enjoyed it otherwise too. That's not all, folks, I also did lots (and by lots I obivously mean almost nothing) of other, real fun stuff, mostly with the girl next door. ;)

Have it good folks (why the h*ll do I keep saying that!?), see you next time. Btw, I'm leaving again on Sunday. ^^

P.S. Since, as I told you already, my speakers won't work as they should I can't watch any anime right now. Do you know how depressing that is after a week of waiting for just that!? You probably do or don't, I wouldn't know.

Colors

Iro-6

As I dig up my research (and wiki page links) for this post...

This past week, my project released its complete design of the system to the government. Along with the system design review, the software group also briefed their software design. After listening to software's boring presentations, I thought to myself: "There needs to be a better way to teach some of this dry stuff." Remembering that I once wrote about tsundere state machines, I thought of the various ways I can teach computer science/engineering theory with anime again. Here's the topic pairing I came up with for today: harems and operating systems.

Let's review some basics. Resource starvation is the situation where a process cannot finish its task because it is constantly denied a resource it needs. Starvation is more likely to occur when more than one process are accessing the same resource. One form of starvation is deadlock where two or more processes are waiting for the resources held by another process to be released. Deadlock becomes an issue in concurrent computer systems because these systems often allow for mutually exclusive shared resources. A classic example of starvation and deadlock is the dining philosophers problem which is often visited in most college computer science programs.

Interestingly, harem anime can be analyzed using similar terminology. What makes associates harem anime to these computer science theories is the male lead. The male lead can be viewed as a form of a mutually exclusive resource. The females in the show can be viewed as processes which require the male lead resource. With these building blocks, models of resource management can be developed and the models may be subject to the situations of starvation and deadlock. Today, I'm going to take a look at what harem anime can teach us about these concurrency issues (as the MCRC continues to develop the TsundereOS for the Combat Waitress Project).

The concept of resource starvation is fairly common in harem anime. If the male lead is mutually exclusive, then he would only be able to interact with one female at a time. This leads to the possibility of starvation in the harem world since more than one female fight for the male. The most basic form of this model can be seen below:

The resource (Male Lead) is the rectangle. Processes (the girls) are the circles. Process requests for resources are the directed edges from the process to the resource. Since the resource is mutually exclusive, only one process can access the resource at any given time (in this case, Girl B currently possesses the Male Lead). Depending on how long the process holds the resource, resource starvation of the other processes may occur (Girl A and Girl C) and may need to be addressed.

What makes the harem resource models interesting is the number of girls after the main guy. A Negima-like process load would drive the system designer crazy (although one can argue Negi is not mutually exclusive). Even a more common harem process load (take Shuffle! for example) would require a bit of design to manage possible starvation.

Shuffle! has one of the most straightforward harem resource models. Excluding Mayumi, Ama and maybe Benibara, Shuffle! allows for at most five girls competing for the male lead.

Solving harem resource starvation is usually the same as solving for regular computer starvation. Scheduling algorithms determine what time the process is allowed to access the resource and for how long. Advanced scheduling algorithms not only reduce the possibility of resource starvation but also allows for process priority over the resources (e.g. if the resource is CPU time and the program is a single player video game, then graphics-related processes should receive more CPU time than the network-related processes). Harems can be modeled with similar scheduling algorithms.

Note that the best scheduling algorithms are only able to alleviate the problem of resource starvation and not completely fix the problem. In most real-world systems, there is always some limiting factor which creates the possible starvation (not enough cpu time, not enough memory, slow memory, slow network latency, etc.) Harems don't need to have a robust scheduling algorithm since starvation for one girl usually a good setup to drive the plot along (think Mao from Kimikiss or the extreme cases of yandere with Kaede and Kotonoha).

I would argue that harems need to have some form of a scheduling algorithm to even out each girl's time with the male lead. This is primarily for the audience. The audience will favor a different girl throughout the course of the show and her screentime paired with the male lead will make the audience content. Otherwise, the show may alienate some of its audience (like this Clannad fan who is still waiting for the Kyou OVA).

Just like CPU time models, harem anime can be modeled by who has the resource at what time slot (in this case by episode). Notice how most of the episode time is focused on Asa (not including her role in the Primula-Nerine arc). Harem scheduling often leads to the tricky problem of not pissing off their fanbase.

Harem resource management gets a bit more complicated with the situation of deadlock. In the most basic form of computer deadlock (two processes, two resources), both processes would end up starving for a fair bit of time. If neither of the processes timeout and release the resource it owns, then both processes will be stuck frozen. If both frozen processes are a part of the system core, then a system halt may occur (or in layman's terms the "screen of death").

The harem deadlock model is slightly different. Unlike traditional computer deadlock models where processes are competing for two or more separate resources, harem deadlock maintains the model of competition over one primary resource. However, the primary resource has more than one sub-resource in which competition for more than one sub-resource may lead to process deadlock. In harem anime, deadlock usually occurs when one or more girls fight for the lead male's time. The recognition of not having enough of the male lead's time usually initiates the competition for the remainder of the male lead's time which may or may not be held by some other girl. If requests for more of the male lead's time get consistently denied (starvation) and the other competing girls is known, then there's a high probability that the traditional harem confrontation may occur.

The above is the classic deadlock situation found in ef. Kei wants to be more than friends and thus, wants Hiro's time out of school. Miyako wants Hiro to give up the time going to school so he could follow his dreams as a mangaka and she want to be there with him when he does. This setup was a solid foundation for the following events in ef.

There are a number of ways to solve computing deadlock. Certain processes can be of a lower priority and could timeout if they are stuck in the denied state for an extended period of time. If the process model is simple enough, algorithms could be used to find the possibilities of a cylic-stop-and-wait conditions and proposes new process models which prevent deadlock. In most computing systems, there's no complex implementation for solving for deadlock since the condition is bearable for the rarity of it occurring.

Solving harem deadlock is also slightly different than its computing counterpart.  One difference is that the guy could arbitrate who gets what himself. Another difference is the girl's recognition of competition to the resource and may force the other girl(s) to release the competing part. Compare this to the computing world where most resources are static and processes usually have no knowledge of the other process' state. Also, the girl may realize that she would never get the part she requests from the main guy and leaves (process timeout).

We can use classic techniques to prevent/correct harem deadlock. But why? Harem deadlock provides us with some of the most memorable scenes in the genre.

So what can you do with these models? Not much outside of the traditional computer models they represent. Harem resource models don't stray too far from the computer science counterpart. Thus the harem models don't reveal any new algorithms or implementation techniques. What these models do is to help teach some of the basics of operating systems. It's a useful tool to help train new entry-level engineers for the MCRC and prevent lost talent to go to the Mecha Research Triangle... more or less...

Today, I was looking back upon my old favorite list anime..

And there it was, sitting on #3, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni.

Now that I think about it, it was a pretty revolutionary series, because before Higurashi, I was watching something along the lines of "Love Hina", "Zero no Tsukaima", and such.. but then.. BAAAM.

I'm just 2 episodes into Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni.. and it's all like, "USO-DA!" And then I think that's when I got into some pretty psycho stuff. C:

Following Higurashi, I followed up on Mushishi, Dennou Coil and Gurrenn Lagann, mainly because I was sick and tired of typical harem animations. So I threw out H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~, Love Hina, Negima because they were too.. softcore? Is that the right word? I don't know, they didn't contain that -SPLURCH- -KABOOM- -CRUNCH- excitement some other animes had..

So yeah! Just a random thought for today, with a little bonus picture of Rena and Mion (Is it Shion?) having a waterfight (I think it was actually in the anime , 2nd season, 6th or 7th episode)..

But for those who haven't seen Higurashi before.. hmm.. that picture represents about 50% of what the anime is like. The other 50%.. you'll have to find out yourself.

This is the series that started it all for me, and I always have the latest edition on hand, no matter where I'm at in the world (Negima! #7 travelled with me to Italy in 2005, and Negima! #15 went with me to China about a year ago). My history with the books has been nothing but eager anticipation. If my love of manga were to be judged by this series alone, I think I'd be judged as a bit of a fanatic. That all being said, if a bit of my love for the series shows in this review, hopefully it's just because the series is good, and not because I'm over-zealous.

Ken Akamatsu continues to impress with amazing artwork, character development, and a good sense of humor. The characters are really what did it for me when I bought the first edition. Each is differentiated from the other by a hairstyle, height, personality, and Akamatsu keeps track of all of them very well. I never had any problems in this issue with knowing or understanding which character was which.

One of my main beefs with the series is its lack of user-friendliness.  Any book besides book #1 in the Negima! series is not the book to start on, and volume # 19 is no exception. With all the characters, their relationships, and their experiences building off every book before the book you're reading, it's hard to get into the series in the middle. The story also has a high learning curve, and it takes a lot of effort to get into the series and learn all of the detailed, complex relationships and quirks of each character, which is an odious feat, considering the 30+ main characters of the book.

As a stand alone volume in the Negima! series, you can see that this book is wrapping up storylines from the festival arc, and is doing the prep-work for the upcomming "magical journey" arc, so there isn't as much action in this book as there was in the past 4 or 5 issues. Instead, this volume develops the relationship between Asuna and Negi, and their loyalty and devotion to one another. There's also a nice humor segment (the last chapter in the book) that segues into the movement of the White Wing from Japan to Wales. This volume certainly isn't the best of all the books in the series thus far, but it's not the worst either.

Del Ray Manga continues to produce a good book, and some added bonuses in this book make it worth the extra two or three dollars to buy it new (stickers!). In some panels, it was hard to read the text, because of its proximity to the spine of the book, but it was never so bad that I couldn't read the book. Thankfully, this doesn't happen in many panels, so it doesn't ruin the experience of reading the book. The cover is sturdy, and the paper caries the art very well.

All in all, it's a good book, but light on substance as a transition is made to move out of one story-arc and into another. It's not a book you can start the series on, but nevertheless, it's got me waiting impatiently for volume #20.

[Review]

Negima Springfield adalah seorang penyihir kecil yang masih berumur 10 tahun. Ia menghadapi ujian menjadi penyihir kelas atas, ujian yang diterima oleh Negima adalah menjadi guru di Sekolah Khusus Perempuan. Dia menjadi Guru kelas 9-A. Pada saat pertama kali ia datang ke sekolah itu, ia menggunakan sihirnya untuk memperbaiki gigi Chamo(Chamo adalah seekor... err.... yang adalah teman Negima) salah satu muridnya Kagurazaka Asuna melihat Negima melakukan sihir. Saat episode pertama, negima bertemu Vampire. Karena vampire itu menghisap darah murid-muridnya Negima, maka negima marah dan bertarung dengan vampire itu. Akhirnya karena sudah hampir tidak ada harapan Asuna yang berada di dekat Negima pada saat itu melakukan kontrak dengan negi, kontrak itu adalah kontrak untuk mendapatkan kekuatan pada si pembuat kontraknya, dengan syarat pembuat kontrak harus mencium penyihir yang dijadikan kontrak. Pada akhirnya terlihat bahwa vampire itu adalah Evangeline, yang artinya vampir itu adalah muridnya sendiri. pada episode berikutnya akan ada Kegelapan yang sering muncul saat Batu Sihir(Magic Stone) dicuri dari Akademi Sihir. Kegelapan - kegelapan itu selalu menghisap orang dan Negima, saat dihisap oleh kegelapan itu, akan ada peri yang muncul. Negima harus mensegel peri itu agar dapat keluar dari dunia lain yang dibuat oleh kegelapan itu. Ternyata pencuri magic stone itu adalah teman masa kecil Negi. Ia mencuri Magic Stone karena rasa kesepian yang amat sangat. Sebenarnya Magic Stone adalah Batu Kegelapan ( Kalo ga salah namanya dark stone ) yang dapat menghisap siapa saja yang memegangnya. Saat Anya ( teman masa kecil negi ) memegang dark stone itu dia langsung dikendalikan oleh kegelapan dan menyerang Negi. Saat Dark Stone itu keluar darinya, Negi tanpa sengaja memegang batu itu dan akhirnya terserap kedalam kegelapan. Ia berhadapan dengan ilusi yang dibuat oleh Dark Stone itu. Saat Negima hampir kalah, tiba2 teman-temannya(Murid2nya) memberinya kekuatan dengan menciptakan tongkat. Akhirnya Dark Stone itu dapat dikalahkan dan Anya memperlihatkan diri. tiba-tiba muncul blackhole(?) dan menghisap mereka berdua kedalamnya, tetapi mereka ditolong oleh ayah Negi, Thousand Master (NAGI SPRINGFIELD)

Wallpaper Negima

How our youthful hero got to this point --

Without going into exhaustive review about the entire storyline of the series up to this point: basically, a ten year old Welsh mage protege, Negi Springfield, is assinged a career to complete his training to Magister Magi, and he gets assigned as a teacher in Japan in an all girls junior high school of a massive, city sized academy called Mahora, elementary through college.

As you can imagine, harem comedy madness ensues.  Luckily for us, mangaka (manga author, for us anglophones) Ken Akamatsu realized that doing another harem comedy just like Love Hina might be repetitive, so he's crafted it into a harem comedy/action/magic/stuff blows up and looks cool series.

So, at the conclusion of volume 8, Negi teamed up with former foe Kotaro and stuck it to an unsavory fellow named Hermann, setting us up for Volume 9, and the yearly, legendary MahoraFest school festival!

A festival, sounds fun!

And indeed it is.  Normally I find that post action arc volumes kinda take a down turn, there was definitely a lull in between the Kyoto arc of volumes 4-6 and the battle with Hermann in volume 8.  Not so the case here, as Akamatsu cleverly uses the excitement of the festival to sneak in character development and set up events -a LOT of events, but then again, it wouldn't be a festival if there weren't a boat load of things for Negi and co. to do.

Characters who were previously unmentioned, or even unseen, in the case of ghostly Sayo.  Ghost Sayo, mild-mannered cook Satsuki, robotics genius Satomi and mysterious Chao all get chapters devoted to their development, something sorely needed to flesh out those last few members of the class...now if only Akamatsu would do a bit for the engimatic Zazie...

Most important of those is Chao and Satomi, though.  The last chapter is a nice return to action, as Negi, sword wielding Setsuna, and Kotaro leap into combat to rescue Chao from some shady pursuers.  But under the surface, he wisely sets up Chao in a much larger, possibly more sinister role for the next volume.  Another smart move is to not tell us everything about her yet.  In a class with a vampire, a ghost, and a robot, it's good not to know just what she is yet.

With only one chapter I felt was weak (Asuna's date chapter, but that goes into a seperate discussion about Negi's relationships and his age that I'll save for another time.), Volume 9 is a great way to set up for what's sure to be a brilliant story arc.

(Cover picture found on theempire.com.au)

Headed over to the semi-local Kinokuniya this weekend... finally made a list of all the volumes I wanted to pick up.  Also needed to return a volume of かんなぎ {kannagi} - I accidentally bought it twice ^^;

Unfortunately the Kinokuniya inventory leaves a lot to be desired. I know they're no K-Books but it's still annoying when they have so many partial sets and I have to order missing volumes (luckily at no extra cost).  I remember an online store I used to get manga from would charge $10 or some crazy amount for each item not in their inventory, so I always had to deal with whatever they had in stock.

As pictured I got kannagi 4 and 5... but what I really needed was 3!  It's on order atm -_-  Also, that's 月姫 {tsukihime} 6 ... but I needed 5.  ロザリオとバンパイア {rosario & vampire} 8 and 9... but I needed 7.  And they didn't have any セキレイ {sekirei} in stock!  It was popular enough to spawn an anime for crying out loud!

Been following キミキス {kimikisu} in it's various manga adaptations... There's actually 3 different series that I'm aware of, above I got the latest for two of 'em.  I like the ~various heroines~ series (volume 4 with eriko above) a lot - each volume has been a complete story arc for a different character.  Content differs slightly from the game so it's not just a rehash for those that have played.

And yeah, that's negima volume 23... Love Hina was one of the first manga I read, so of course I had to follow Akamatsu sensei's latest shenanigans.  I've bought all the volumes, but I think I've only read up to 18 or 19 atm ^^;  Same with ToLoveる ... I'm only on 4? or was it 5?  gah! so far behind orz.

And thus my manga collection has been brought up to date a bit... and my backlog grows ^^;  My latest strategy is to keep the plastic on volumes I haven't read to more easily keep track.

Tried to make some progress with 一騎当千 {ikkitousen} and made it to volume 10.

I really have only the vaguest idea of what's going on since I was just enjoying the eye candy and not looking up words often enough... ah well.

Also been watchin 地獄少女 {jigoku shoujo}... many thanks to those who pointed that one out when I made a little post on seiyuu's @ dannychoo.com.  Got through the entire first season in the last couple days!  ^^;;;

Makes me want to pick up the enma figure by Alter ^^;

Really though, I'd like one in her kimono.  Third season is coming out, so maybe then? ^^;

Finally, I'm on the last scenario for つよきす {tsuyokisu}!  Yoppi is kawaisugi~ ^_^

Alas I've also really far behind on blogs...

;_; Ok, so 91 of the 233 items are foo-bar-baz which I probably won't get around to, but still!  At this rate I'm never going to catch up orz

Rant over.

So this haul is exactly what the title says. I bought these figures after realizing that Hobbyfan had a surplus of ridiculously reasonably priced figures. The most expensive figure I bought was only $15.99. At prices like that who could say no?

I personally went for BMX Rei by Kotobukiya, Sakura by Alter, and Mina by Toy Planning. I had my eye on BMX Rei and Sakura but felt they didn't make the cut for pre-orders. As for Mina I had recently seen someone post images of a different figure they had of her and I thought she had a lovely look, and I love archers so the fact that she was an archer made me decide to keep an eye out for her.

I'm not going to post any further pictures of the figures in this post because they'll have their own photo shoots in the "My Figures" section eventually.

As for the Negima manga it was a steal on eBay at $60 for 12 new manga with free shipping. Considering the retail at over $10 a piece I'm pretty happy with the deal.

AniDB

First episode complete. Ohh, it was great, and with the 219th Negima chapter yesterday - it's more like overkill with emotions - so exited, can hardly breath.

Erm. About this episode. The beginning is a short recap from chapter 160 to chapter 173, and the main part is chapters 176-177 in details. Such a description means if you haven't read the manga, you will understand nothing, most likely, for the "... Ala Alba" isn't connected with the previous Mahou Sensei Negima series (AniDB).

Nothing good will come up if you let a unrestrained fan (like me) to write a review, so I'll go no further. But finally, some real Negima anime to show up, it's like a blessing... *__*

Still, sadly, result isn't perfect, but in any way they are good enough to post here. Also note, that these photos are not printable-quality. You can reprint 'em, of course, but the results may not satisfy you.

Pictures in this post is in half of their original size. If you want fullsize jpegs - grab a "JPG"-archive; or download "TIF" one for the lossless photos. Links are at the bottom of this post (RapidShare and SendSpace, as usual).

Btw, I hope, I didn't ruin anything for you, for pactio cards are major spoilers.

And here we go!

•Kagurazaka Asuna

•Miyazaki Nodoka

•Sakurazaki Setsuna

•Konoe Konoka

•Ayase Yue

•Saotome Haruna

•Hasegawa Chisame

•Asakura Kazumi

•Cards' back (same for every single one)

Archives

JPG - RapidShare | SendSpace - 5,7 Mb

TIF - RapidShare | SendSpace - 42,6 Mb - Quality is about the same as JPG-ones, so if you're not certain that TIF is what you want - dl jpegs and save your traffic/time/both. Uploaded just in case.

Better photos will be once another card is released, or there will be some other reason to take pictures of them again.

Except this time, there's a cute little boy and 21 middle school girls involved!

:D

And magic, did I mention that? :3

Bunny Meter? [|||||||||||] In case you can't read, that's pretty high.

Rating: ****

Yu-Gi-Oh #21 ( Lançamento previsto para 21/08 )

Marik depara-se com Bakura, e ambos vêm no oponente um perigoso obstáculo para seus planos. Enquanto isso, Joey e Mako continuam se enfrentando no Aquário da Cidade de Domino, para decidir quem ficará com os dois cards raros e os dois cards quebra-cabeças que faltam para chegar às Finais da Cidade das Batalhas.

Do outro lado da cidade, Yu-Gi-Oh e Kaiba uniram forças para derrotar os ghouls que virem pelo caminho, mas precisam ser rápidos, já que o lider deles está a caminho da cidade e ameaça a vida do melhor amigo de Yugi.

Neste percurso surgem Umbra e Lumis, uma dupla de duelistas que arma uma enrascada para os dois usuários dos Cards dos Deuses. Este será o maior desafio enfrentado por Kaiba e Yu-Gi-Oh, já que terão de aprender o significado do trabalho em equipe para vencer!

Negima #25 ( Lançamento previsto para 22/08 )

Está tudo pronto para a 13ª luta, que é estrelada por Curnell Sunders e Kaede Nagase. A ninja já começa com tudo, utilizando sua técnica especial Kage Bunshin para tentar desvendar os segredos do oponente.

Os desafios para os competidores só aumentam conforme a final vai chegando, e Kaede sente o peso de seu oponente, porém não entrega os pontos facilmente, pois conhece sua própria força. Do outro lado do torneio, devido a um conselho de Eva, Asuna, Setsuna, Konoka e Sakura desconfiam da relação entre Chao Lingshen e os boatos que estão rolando na internet e colocando o segredo dos magos em risco.

Já a irmã Shakty enfrenta a atiradora contratada Tatsumi, enquanto as irmãs Misora e Kokone seguem em direção ao subterrâneo da escola para libertar o professor Takahata e,para isso, contarão com uma ajuda inesperada! Também chega a hora do confronto entre Negi e Setsuna, decidindo quem disputará a Grande Final! O professor é inspirado por outras razões para vencer a espadachim, já que desconfia de Curnell e este prometeu enfrentá-lo se vencesse!

Fullmetal Alchemist #33 ( Lançamento previsto para 22/08 )

Um invasor ataca o Forte de Briggs, alguém diferente de tudo o que aquele exército já viu. Agora, os bravos soldados das terras hostis têm de enfrentar um ser que não morre mesmo sendo alvejado por tiros.

Utilizando o rigoroso inverno a seu favor e com um criativo, porém arriscado, plano, os combatentes da fronteira contarão com a ajuda de Ed e Al para resolver o caso. Enquanto isso, um oficial da Cidade Central chega para visitar os colegas do Norte e, em um esconderijo provisório, May Chang explica ao Doutor Marcoh os princípios da Waidanshu.

No buraco deixado pelo homúnculo, no subsolo do quartel de Briggs, os irmãos Elric aproximam-se cada vez mais da verdade sobre o terrível plano do Pai e sua relação com a Pedra Filosofal e os “sacrifícios humanos”.

Inu-Yasha #106 ( Lançamento previsto para 22/08 )

A alma maléfica da Jóia de Quatro Almas, Magatsuhi, enganou a todos e tomou o corpo de Kohaku para levá-lo ao Narak e, finalmente, completar a jóia. Inu-Yasha, Kagome e Sango tentam impedi-lo, entretanto, o sucesso desta missão não depende do grupo e sim de Kohaku.

O irmão caçula de Sango terá de enfrentar novamente o dia em que assassinou, sob controle de Narak, seu pai, seus companheiros e feriu seriamente a sua irmã. O garoto terá coragem para fazer o que é preciso?

Fonte da news: JBC Mangás

Limited edition this time is quite rich - we have manga volume (obviously), DVD with the first episode of Mahou Sensei Negima!: Shiroki Tsubasa Ala Alba (AniDB), DVD-case for all OAD series and Asakura's Pactio Card.
Photo is clickable:

Strangely enough, but DVD-case for series is for five disks, and there's only three eps announced, which leave us wondering what are other two places for? If I have to suggest, however, I think one might be for Ala Alba's dorama (the one that is audio) announced on official Negima website. Still, no ideas about second DVD or CD...

As a little bonus - small photo of all Mahou Sensei Negima Pactio Cards:

Expect larger version of them soon enough (maybe even tomorrow). UPD: See Mahou Sensei Negima - Pactio Cards.

EDIT: I must've watched this while drunk or asleep, because of all the misses I made. Hence the overuse of "del" tags after a second (and currently third) rerun.

Which basically means that it was a moving manga. There were so many speedlines I'm not sure if they were parodying it or not, but anyway. It was... well, good. It took the story from the manga, took the scenes from the manga, and animated it and gave it colour, which given Negima's shoddy records in adaptations (0.5 out of 3) is probably what most fans wanted.

As advertised, it starts with the end of the Battle of Mahora; it was very disappointing to not be able to see the whole battle, by the way, and I don't even mean the siege and all - just Chao vs. Negi would've been beyond adequate. Instead we get Ancient Egyptian Laser Beams, which granted, was what happened in the manga too.

"Who's rippin' off that emo Harry guy now?! WHO!?"

The way they did the spells in Japanese but overlaid it with the actual Latin/Greek incantation was a good touch, though.

Ala Alba (White Wing) - Chachamaru, Chisame, Konoka, Setsuna, Ku, Kotarou, Asuna, Negi, Kaede, Nodoka, Haruna, and Yue.

Imma - ex-member of Ala Rubia - was voiced by Ono Daisuke. Akamatsu still hasn't said whether or not him and Nagi kissed for their Pactio.


EVA-CHAN HAS LANDED

Are they going to slot the previous attempted Pactio somewhere?

The OP was yet another remix of HAPPY MATERIAL, because the last six weren't quite gratingly cheerful enough, not that there's anything wrong with bubbly pink cheeryness... The animation is pretty much the only section where you could tell it was done by SHAFT (aside from the credits) because it was strange and filled with billiard balls. I mean, eight-ball, arrow, Asuna's open legs? That's Shimbo for you.

They also skipped over any actual 'training', including Asuna's week in frozen Hell. Damn it.

One of the last times we see Sayo full-sized.

It was around this point that I realized how lost one would be if one never read the manga.

Since the OAD is animating the (2nd) Summer Arc, which traditionally is where all plot progress is put on hold, there's really not much of a 'story'. Ala Alba is finished preparing for its trip into Mundi Magici (the Magic World), so they're going to attend a festival.

Evangeline, as a sort of final test (and to prove her loli awesomeness), gives them their Wing badges and tells other enterprising members of the class that ownership of the badge is a requirement for the trip to England. Thus begins the night of weirdness.

Yuuna, Makie, and Ako('s very interesting accent) all have had ample screentime. Need more Akira.

Kotarou is voiced by... someone whose sounds very familiar but I can't seem to identity her Yoko.

Expressions are lulz.

Eishun (young), Al, and Nagi of Ala Rubia (Crimson Wing) and more importantly, Chachamaru young version.

Yuuna, master of disguise.

Yue, kicking ass since Patchouli did it first. (Just kidding.)

To veer off a bit into the present - Nodoka's Artifact is probably the most nerfed out of all of them. Mind-reading, okay, name-reading, okay, a headset that reads the diary to her, so she doesn't even have to open it anymore - and she's still next to useless. What the-

Ku has worn that so often the delicious thighs never mind.

Ayaka would be an awesome first-tier primary character. Alas.

On the audio side of things, the music was great at setting the mood, except the "battle" music is still techno-esque beats. Couldn't the orchestral folks have done those as well? with the "battle" music keeping to Season 1's use of orchestral-esque themes with inserted techno-beats. Moving on, the voice acting left something to be desired - which was expected from the amount and variety of actors, but still disappointing. The core group (ie. the first-tier characters) was rock-solid, but the lesser roles were, well...

The ending was yet another remix, this time of Kagayaku Kimi e (was that the name?). Like the OVA's it was another spoilerrrrific parade of the manga covers. But considering the OAD's intended audience, that's hardly a problem.

In other news, a new challenger appears!

(OAD2 is the prerequisite beach/resort episode and a proper introduction for Anya.)

I'm kinda bord.... so lets talk about anime girls ^_^

This would be a great wallpaper for those fire - e types

It's sad but cute..... Aw comeon, everyone likes nemos ^_^

AH!!! Now I got it. It's Negima

.............. um

Ok, you know you like it -_0

If you know what show this is, tell me.

Dosent she look drunk lolz

Naked?? Yes. Awsome show?? HELL YES. It is a very good pic and I just love the show

Now from my favorit artist, Ken akimatsu. Love Hina ^_^

I can't wait for the anime of this one to come out. "Aria- Aqua"

There you have it. Lots of anime girls for you to soak up ^_^ Peace out!!!