When Del Rey Books announced the first four books in its new manga line, I've gotta admit the first one to catch my eye was Ken Akamatsu's fantasy love comedy Negima! (a.k.a, Magister Negi Magi). I'd made one brief attempt to delve into the Clamp Studio's massive outlay (Clamp School Detectives, which made so little an impression on me that I couldn't even muster up the energy to review it), while the prospect of reading a Mobile Suit Gundan sequel didn't really do much for me either, since I could generally care less about "magnificent fighting machines in epic combat." But a new series by the creator of Love Hina - a popular manga series that I admittedly haven't sampled because, well, it's less intimidating to dip into a storyline that's just beginning than with an already completed fourteen-volume series - sounded worth checking out.

Found a copy of the first volume in a cardboard Del Rey display case at my local Borders, noting within the shrinkwrap that someone had belatedly thought to stick a "For Mature Audiences, Ages 16+" warning on the cover. The cover image shows a bespectacled young boy holding a long crooked staff, a plaid-skirted schoolgirl right behind him, waving at the reader. In the background is a scattered group of additional young girls; on the reverse cover, we see a different schoolgirl demurely clutching a book to her forefront. Okay, I know enough about Akamatsu's earlier series to recognize that he's not straying too far from the comic formula that proved so successful with Hina (young male hero surrounded by a bevy of comely schoolgals), but superficially at least, Negima! appears to be much more fantastic than Akamatsu's breakthrough manga.

The book's protagonist is ten-year-old English magic academy student Negi Springfield, who we meet as he's graduating and receiving his first sorcery diploma; the document (which appears to work like that big divining hat in Harry Potter) contains Negi's assignment, to become a teacher in Japan. Thanks to the academy's connections, he gets a job teaching English at Mahora Girls' Junior High, a campus school, where he immediately starts knocking heads with one of his students, the headstrong Asuna Kagurazaka, who has a major crush on the teacher Negi is replacing. Though he's supposed to keep his magical abilities secret, Asuna quickly susses out that her new teacher is more than a just a smart little kid. (The fact that whenever he sneezes, it rips the clothes off any student in his wake is an early cue - as the leggy blond gets disrobed twice in the first chapter.) She holds this fact over Negi's head as a vague threat, though we're fairly sure she won't intentionally do anything with it. At least not right away. . .