Akamatsuverse A better Keitaro/Naru ending?

[Crusader]

Ultimate Marvel is like most attempts at becoming darker and edgier: It becomes laughably, horrifically bad. The writers can't seem to figure out the difference between real angst and wangst and insist on making nearly all super-powered individuals assholes or sexual deviants.

Admittedly, not all of Ultimate Marvel is like this but the majority sure as hell is.

As for Keitaro/Naru, well, I think I've made my feelings perfectly clear before: In the manga or the anime, Naru's character development is lackluster, and Keitaro's can be defined as "turning him into Seta Lite for Naru."

As said before, Negima! is most definitely proving Akamatsu's growth as a writer compared to his earlier works.

That's one of the reason I lost interest in the Ultimate Marvel Universe pretty early, because they made too many of the characters more dysfunctional than they actually were for comfort, even though some of their twists in the beginning were interesting.

A.I. Love You seemed to me to have better character development and relationship when it came to Saati and Hitoshi over Keitaro and Naru, so I became a bit puzzled over Love Hina's manga ending, when it seems to me that Ken Akamatsu managed earlier to manage better than that when it came to character relationships and main girl character development.

Like all manga authors Akamatsu tries to learn from his mistakes, and he has managed to show that he's competent in working as a shonen manga writer when he made the Mahou Sensei Negima manga more into a fantasy action series than a romance comedy. Now if he only would do something against his quirk of having too much fanservice, I think he would improve much more in growth as a writer.

 

[Crusader]

Has anyone of you ever read the earlier issues of the comic Books of Magic?

I always seem to have in mind this particular quote that I loved in the Books of Magic: Reckonings tpb, when I feel critical of Akamatsu turning Keitaro into a Seta.

Timothy Hunter: You know all my life people like you have been cramming fairytales down my throat. "Do this and you'll be happy." "Do that and you'll have friends." "Be a good little scaredycat frog and someday you'll turn into a bloody prince." Well I don't want to live your rotten old fairytales. I want to live mine.

BOOKS OF MAGIC # 18

 

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

I've never read any Tim Hunter books, but maybe I should.

I did have a story idea wherein Granny Hina was being directed by a demon sealed into the Hinata Sou itself to have Keitaro and Naru marry, because only by a union of a member of the family that sealed it (Urashima) and a member of the family that served it (The Narusegawa Clan) could release it.

 

[Crusader]

I've never read any Tim Hunter books, but maybe I should.

I did have a story idea wherein Granny Hina was being directed by a demon sealed into the Hinata Sou itself to have Keitaro and Naru marry, because only by a union of a member of the family that sealed it (Urashima) and a member of the family that served it (The Narusegawa Clan) could release it.

I think the early stories are the ones I recommend reading, after the early issues seems that Tim seemed to go too emo for many to like him any more.

The Books of Magic antagonist demon Barbatos fascinated me when I first learned about him, his methods and how he reacts to failures. And then we have the most unusual golem ever, Happy the golem. ^_^

I always thought that granny Hina was a bit of a fruitcake, so that was an amusing approach to her eeriness in your fic.

 

[pyu]

It definitely could be better. The story itself was woefully shallow - Mutsumi was suddenly thrown off the bus when Ken realised she was becoming a better option for Keitaro - and didn't develop any of the characters much - with the exception of Motoko's storyline which showed off what Akamatsu could do. Somehow, I personally felt as the manga near its end, Akamatsu was trying to wrap it off as quickly as possible so he could move on. Perhaps he felt - or at least his editors felt - that he was done with the story.

Anyway, I think he has learn much from his Love Hina experience and is not making any glaring mistakes in Negima. Except that the fight scenes take too long but then since its not as long and stinky as Bleach, its okay...

 

[Crusader]

It definitely could be better. The story itself was woefully shallow - Mutsumi was suddenly thrown off the bus when Ken realised she was becoming a better option for Keitaro - and didn't develop any of the characters much - with the exception of Motoko's storyline which showed off what Akamatsu could do. Somehow, I personally felt as the manga near its end, Akamatsu was trying to wrap it off as quickly as possible so he could move on. Perhaps he felt - or at least his editors felt - that he was done with the story.

Anyway, I think he has learn much from his Love Hina experience and is not making any glaring mistakes in Negima. Except that the fight scenes take too long but then since its not as long and stinky as Bleach, its okay...

Personally I think it would've been better to force through an extensive character development and progression of Naru with a lot of drama, instead of making Mutsumi step aside, and having Keitaro undergo a big personal crisis over if he should choose Mutsumi or Naru who tries to better herself.

Final Max has come with some theories here earlier about why the ending could be interpreted as a rushed one-way train.

He has learned to tone down Asuna, lest she become as disliked as Naru was by many. But he still has that quirk to add too much fanservice even when it isn't needed.