The first anime series adapted from Negima's hit manga was definitely rough around the edges. XEBEC, the same studio who worked on Ken Akamatsu's previous manga, Love Hina, was also tasked with animating Negima!
However, while the anime did better in Japan, it was not popular among fans globally. One of the main issues critics had was with the poor animation, so it may come as no surprise to hear that many episodes of the series was reworked on to improve the quality of the art for its DVD release. The thing is though, the art that was so heavily criticized was the one with improvements.
Yes, during the TV broadcast of the series, fans were met with unpolished animation with little details to the characters and they cried out. Even Ken Akamatsu spoke about the drop in animation at times in his blog after broadcast. Future episodes would improve, but even late in the run, there were episodes suffering from the same issue. For the DVD release, inconsistencies were fixed and many episodes were redrawn. Most notably, colors were also enhanced, bust sizes increased, and of course, without restrictions of Tokyo, more panty shots were included. All the episodes streamed outside of Japan would show the improved version of the anime.
TV
DVD
Unfortunately, as mentioned before, even with the revisions, it was still heavily criticized for its poor animation and ended up suffering from entirely new issues - such as new errors and certain shots with arguably worse art. It is most likely due to this, the second anime series was brought to a new studio.
Below are comparisons between both versions of the episodes. Note that not every episode received improvements.
Also, a BIG thank you to Shiroi Hane for allowing us to use these pictures!
If miraculously you have the original TV broadcast tucked away somewhere or know of addional changes, please let us know! We'd love to improve the quality of the images and verify there's not more to see!
Episode 1
TV
DVD
Episode 2
TV
DVD
Episode 6
TV
DVD
Episode 10
TV
DVD
Episode 13
TV
DVD
Episode 15
TV
DVD
Episode 17
TV
DVD
Episode 20
TV
DVD
Episode 24
TV
DVD
Opening
While this isn't a comparison to the DVD release, these character shots did differ from the first opening and the last. The most noticeable changes are the old version is brighter/more radiant, Negi's outfit changed colors, and certain hair and skin tones were slightly altered.