With the release of the 38th and final manga volume of Mahou Sensei Negima! yesterday, many fans expected the end of sharing in the adventures of their favourite child teacher – who, of course, also happens to be a mage. Bar going back and rereading the series of course – which I’ve done a few times now.

But – is it really all done?

Ken Akamatsu, author of the wildly popular series, left comments in that volume saying that the series is finished “…for now”, and then specifically mentioned that “for now” means that there is a possibility of the series being revived in the future.

He also went on to say that the series had enough hidden mysteries to easily last another 100 volumes.

The story follows 10-year-old (at the beginning of the series) Negi Springfield, a boy wizard, who, upon graduating at his Academy of Magic, is assigned to teach English at a girl’s school in Japan, with his ultimate goal being to find his father and become a fully-fledged Magister Magi.

His class consists of 31 very energetic girls of various types, personalities and abilities, and from the beginning Negi had a lot of trouble keeping his magic abilities a secret. In typical Akamatsu fashion, it featured a ton of fan-service, but it was also highly entertaining, incredibly well-drawn, and managed to mix drama, fun, comedy, over-the-top action, and finally, fan-service in epic amounts, very well.

If you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you pick it up somewhere – maybe some extra sales will convince him to get back to it sooner.

Some art from the Anime Final Movie

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork

I’ve noticed that the editor, Shinzo, tends to feature quite often in these AMVs that I’ve been posting up. But I tend to enjoy his projects, so maybe that’s okay too :) In any case, for today’s AMV of the day, we have his entry for Akross Con 2011.

I don’t have the details of all the anime used, so if you spot any series I didn’t include, drop them in the comments and I’ll add them.

Editor: Shinzo [nlstudio]
Anime: Various (list at the bottom)
Music: OceanLab – Satellite
Category: Dance
Premiered: 29 October 2011
Download link

Full list of anime used:

Macross Frontier, Yumekui Merry, Hanasaku Iroha, K-On!, True Tears, IS Infinite Stratos, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Shakugan no Shana, Ore no Imouto

The release of the Blu-Ray and DVD versions of Miku’s concerts that took place on the 8th and 9th of March this year has been announced – as of today these are all available for pre-order, with the final release date being 29th August later this year.

The 8th of March featured the MikuPa concert, while Miku’s Final Thankgiving Day took place on March 9th, and you have the choice of getting both of these in a single box-set or purchasing just one of whichever one appealed to you most.

Personally, I’d just get them both, since both of the concerts were most definitely worth watching. The pre-orders are available on CD-Japan as follows:

First – the single concert releases:
Hatsune Miku no Hi Daikanshasai Hatsune Miku Live Party 2012 (Mikupa)
On Blu-Ray for ¥6,000 or DVD for ¥5,000

Hatsune Miku no Hi Daikanshasai Hatsune Miku Concert Saigo no Miku no Hi Kanshasai
On Blu-Ray for ¥6,000 or DVD for ¥5,000

Both of the above have only 1 disc with the concert on.

Finally, the box-sets, which are also available in either DVD or Blu-Ray format, and contain a total of 7 discs:

Miku Live Party (MikuPa) – 1 DVD/BD
Miku Live Party CD – 2 CDs
Miku’s Final Thanksgiving Day – 1 DVD/BD
Miku’s Final Thanksgiving Day CD – 2 CDs
Bonus Footage – 1 DVD/BD

The Blu-Ray version will set you back ¥14,800 and the DVD version goes for ¥12,800.

The prices listed above are those of CDJapan – Amazon has also listed the box-sets, while I haven’t seen anything on Play-Asia yet.

Some of the details above are likely to change – I’ll update as they do.

After doing a couple of single anime AMVs I thought it was time to drop another multi-anime effort into the list – today’s AMV is a rather touching collage of anime characters and their … well … reflections, if you will, with the creator carefully picking seperate characters that have very similar appearances.

The song used in this AMV is a rather haunting and beautiful tune – I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. As always, there is a download link included :)

Editor: Seliafel (with Umika)
Anime: Various (list at the bottom)
Music: Lisa Miskovsky – Still Alive
Category: Drama, Sentimental
Premiered: 26 February 2012
Download link

Full list of anime used:

Guin Saga, Munto (TV), Persona 4, Seirei no Moribito, Tears to Tiara, Tsubasa Chronicle TV-1,2, Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations, Uta no Prince-sama, Maji Love 1000%, Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai!, The Idolmaster, Minami-ke Okaeri, Sola, No. 6, Cardcaptor Sakura, Cardcaptor Sakura The Movie 1, 2, Toaru Majutsu no Index II, The Disapearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya,Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira, DJMAX Air Gear, Angel Beats, Chobits, Clannad, D.Gray-Man, Oshiete! Popotan, K-on, Steins;Gate, Another, Bakuman, Kobato, Amagami SS, Natsume Yuujinchou, One Piece – Strong World, My Beautiful Girl Mari, Slayers Revolution, Clannad ~After Story~, Sora no Woto, Code Geass – Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Darker than Black, Ef – A tale of memories, Yozakura Quartet, Evangelion, Pretear, Mawaru Penguin Drum, Bakemonogatari, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika

Amid lots of excitement, fervent discussions and desperate prayers for sunshine (possibly), the Cape Town Cosplay group this weekend gathered for their second cosplay event at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, in a display finely calculated (again, possibly) to show the gardens what the term “colourful” is actually supposed to mean. With some success, I might add.

Cape Town had decided to leave aside all the fussing about with Autumn, and had skipped straight over to Winter, so we didn’t get to experience the awesome weather we saw at the December event – after about two hours of dry weather the clouds came along and dropped a quick shower that managed to wet the attendees but failed to dampen their spirits.

About as colourful as Kirstenbosch gets ...

The weather probably played a part in discouraging spectators from joining us, as the turnout was disappointingly small, but, excitingly enough, the number of cosplayers more than doubled, with somewhere between 25 and 28 (I’m not sure, since some of them left before I could grab their details) cosplayers rocking up – with a few others, for various reasons, not being able to make it.

We saw a few first-timers at the event – amongst them Olivia, who decided to cosplay No-Face from Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away, and if I was inclined to hand out awards, she’d probably qualify for the Personality of the Day, and possibly also the Photobomber of the Day award. Scroll down to the album below and you may see why I say that xD

No Face from Spirited Away (Olivia) contemplates its next photobombing oppurtunity ...

We also had some staffers from the Cape Argus in attendance, which resulted in a lovely captioned photo on the front-page of the Sunday Argus. Way to get attention ;)

So, in an attempt to convey the fun we had, some captioned photos for you all to enjoy – while the full album (of my shots) are available at the bottom. I’m also putting links to various profiles, pages and sites for all the attendees at the end of this post, so please visit, cheer on, support, or do whatever else it takes to give them warm fuzzy feelings ;)

There were so many awesome cosplays at this weekends event that it was actually pretty hard to choose favourites, but I was definitely a huge fan of Sasha’s Effie from Astarotte no Omocha (Astarotte’s Toy).

Milk, anyone?

With so many different characters at the event, there were bound to be some clashes of good and evil, with Darren’s Padawan (Star Wars) and Elza’s Renegade Commander Shephard (Mass Effect) facing off:

Did you just bring a gun to a force-fight?

After he vanquished Shephard, I decided to press the young Padawan for some information:

Turns out he didn't have the droids I was looking for ...

Present as well was photographer Marius van der Westhuizen (here is his site if you want to see more of his work), and he put his skills to good use to put together some epic shots like the ones below. If you want to see the rest of the album, you can find it on Facebook :)

Above: Everyone ^_^

Above: Olivia (No Face – Spirited Away), Sasha (Effie – Astarotte’s Toy), Genevieve (Yoruichi – Bleach) and Natalie (original costume)

Above: Genevieve and Elza (Renegade Cmdr Shephard – Mass Effect)

Above: Genevieve and Sasha

Above: Olivia (No Face), Sasha (Effie), Natalie, Danielle (original costume), Genevieve (Yoruichi) and Faye (Nekomusume – xxxHolic)

Above: Melanie (Azusa – K-On) and Hadiyah (Kaede – Shuffle!)

And now, for your further enjoyment and distraction – here is the album with all my shots – this album is also available here on Facebook – with all the names and characters (I’m busy tagging them, it’s a work in progress)

Finally – links to participant profiles, sites and albums. I’ll update this as I get more.

Genevieve (Yoruichi – Bleach) – Blog / DeviantArt profile / Facebook Page / Twitter / KomboKitten’s event album
Natalie was modelling the Cat Ears and Tail which will in future be available on Kawaii Concept.
Elza (Shephard – Mass Effect) & Darren (Padawan – Star Wars) – Deviant Art / Elza on Twitter

Thanks to all those who came and participated – you guys were all awesome. Since questions about the next event already seem to be floating around – yes, it is happening ;) We’re already discussing it in the Cape Town Cosplay Group. Why don’t you come and join us?

Ohaiyou!! We hope those of you who celebrate Easter had a pleasant break – as you could probably tell by the extreme silence on the Animated Meanderings Facebook page, I was definitely enjoying it.

In any case, it’s back to work today, and with it, we move on to our next AMV of the Day.

Our AMV today is probably one of the most emotionally powerful AMVs I’ve seen in a very long time – featuring the anime Clannad and its sequel Clannad ~After Story~, which by themselves were enough to transform most who watched them into bawling balls of tears.

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not watched Clannad, and you are still planning to, I’d advise you to give this particular AMV a miss – it is very spoiler heavy.

Editor: Perfect Blue
Anime: Clannad & Clannad ~After Story~
Music: Poets of the Fall – Carnival of Rust
Category: Drama, Sentimental
Premiered: 16 February 2011
Download link

Okay, so I haven’t posted an AMV for a couple of days – so here comes the next one.

Dance-themed AMVs are always a favourite of mine, but as a rule they tend to be multi-anime efforts. Okay, so not a bad thing. Today’s AMV though, is dance-themed, and it’s from one anime. Not just dancing … it’s some pretty bad-ass ballet busy going on here xD

We’re also traveling back in time a bit with this one – this AMV premiered all the way back in 2006, but it’s worth a watch anyway. Enjoy.

Editor: alkampfer81 (Tidirium Studio)
Anime: Princess Tutu
Music: Nanne Grönvall – Håll Om Mig
Category: Dance, Action, Drama
Premiered: 26 May 2006
Download link (A-M-V.org)

We’re less than a week away from the start of the Spring 2012 anime release cycle – and while I was initially planning to get a preview page up, this season features a massive batch of releases (something near or just over 40 new series) – before we even get to all the OVAs and Movies – something I generally don’t cover anyway.

So taking that into account – I decided to skip doing my season preview page this time around; instead opting to experiment a bit with plans for the Summer 2012 release schedule. I’m going to keep quiet on that – you’ll see when we get there.

So, this time around, I’m only reposting theSpring ’12 Visual Guide from Moetron – also available at this link are the airing times for each series. The full visual guide is after the jump.

Click image for full size (v2)

Carrying on this season are Mouretsu Pirates, which I’m already quite enjoying, Knight in the Arena, Recorder to Randoseru, while the second part of Fate/Zero kicks off in April (although there’s no date listed on the visual guide yet.

The series I’m looking forward to watching, include, of course, Fate/Zero, as well as Jormungand, Tasogare OtomexAmnesia, Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? OF THE DEAD, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, Accel World, Eureka Seven AO and possibly one or two others – this is quite a full season.

Part of this season’s releases included the Strike Witches movie which aired in March, and there is also a Digital Remastered version of GAINAX’s Fushigi no Umi no Nadia being released in the second week of April.

For those who make use of Crunchyroll to get their fix: they have already started posting the line-up of Spring titles, which are at this link. Ozma has already started airing, and they have also at this point listed Kimi to Boku 2, Hiiro no Kakera, and Uchuu Kyoudai, among others. Please be aware that some region specific restrictions may apply, so it won’t be available everywhere.

[UPDATE: Here's some trailers for the upcoming series (Updated 1 Apr 2012)

Saint Seiya Omega

Hiiro no Kakera

Uchuu Kyoudai

Nisemonogatari finished airing a little more than a week ago – it was interesting, although personally I don’t think it was quite as good as Bakemonogatari, its prequel. We saw less of the original characters, but got to see some more of Koyomi’s younger sisters – Tsukihi and Karen. Plus a fair bit of additional fan-service, I might add.

Anyways, on that note, I figured a Nisemonogatari AMV would be good. Enjoy :)

Editor: SA Robert
Anime: Nisemonogatari
Music: She – Coloris
Category: Action
Created: 15 March 2012

Download link

We’ve got ourselves an energetic, action based AMV for today :)

This is a single anime project; the anime used is Black Cat – the story follows Train Heartnet, formerly an assassin for an organisation known as Chronos. Train, also known as ‘Black Cat’ is violent, uncaring and antisocial, up until the point where he meets a Sweeper known as Saya, a meeting which allows him to consider some of the other aspects of life, which leads him away from the ideals of Chronos.

The anime was a good, fun watch – so is this AMV.

Editor: JadeCharm
Anime: Black Cat
Music: Nickelback feat Kid Rock – Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting
Category: Action
Premiere Date: 2009/09/19

Download link: A-M-V.org