Supposedly, this episode revolves around a territorial battle between the middle and high schoolers. When the high schoolers begin to bully some of the 2-A girls, the two classes decide to settle their differences with a volleyball match. The 2-A class responds by showing a full force, but this plan ends up backfiring on them. Incredibly, the high schoolers are actually part of the “Black Rose” Kanto region championship dodgeball team. Before long, even Asuna is out and things are looking bleak. Fortunately, everyone utilizes their unique talents (including Makie’s amazing ribbon cheating), and the 2-A class prevails. Then the staff praises Negi’s good work on defusing the situation.
However, when I was watching this episode, I couldn’t help feeling like this was a metaphor for the changing of the animation teams. It was like class 2-A was the Fafner crew, while the high schoolers were the incumbents. The art was especially shoddy in this episode, as the original staff tried to go out with a bang. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it was like the old staff was holding Negi (the series) hostage. It even came to a head when Nodoka declared the old team in violation of the 5-second rule, where you have to throw the ball within 5 seconds of touching it. Shouldn’t there be an animation 5 second rule? Like… all characters should have to move withing 5 seconds of being drawn in the frame. Needless to say, this rule was violated numerous times in the episode. In spite of the craptastic art, this was a pretty funny episode with the initial bonking attacks, and the huddling of Ayaka with the leader of the high school girls ogling Negi pics like a bunch of typical male anime pervs would. I’m getting pretty pumped about seeing the Fafner crew’s work on the next episode, and hopefully once the animation issues are fixed, they can start working on the horrific coloring and shading used.
