I already went over the circumstances behind this OVAs production in my previous review so Im going to give you the quick version here. Ken Akamatsu is a pretty well known auteur in the manga market. Hes spent most of his career combining silly and somewhat pervy fanservice with slapstick comedy and fantasy action and while his work might not be popular enough to be considered a household name in the states its just well known enough that if youve ever searched an actual library for manga youre pretty likely to have come across it. Akamatsus work has been notoriously difficult to adapt thanks to all of the long involved story arcs and just barely PG13 level nudity and as such both of his first two adaptations... Love hina and the first Negima anime... Were huge critical and financial flops with terrible production values stories told out of order and rampant inaccuracies to the point that neither title were able to secure the second season they were banking on. And the less said about AI Love You the better. So it came to pass that Studio Xebec would lose control of the Negima license which was picked up by Studio Shaft and placed in the hands of yet another experimental auteur Akiyuki Shimbou. Youve probably heard of Shimbou from the Monogatari series and if youve been watching anime long enough youre probably familiar with his eclectic visual style which I have largely mixed feelings on. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt but one place where it usually seems to work more often than not is in gag comedy anime. Before starting work on his version of the Negima anime... Which would be nearly entirely made up of new material that wasnt present in the manga... He created two OVA episodes. The first was called Spring special and it was about a trip to the beach and the second was called Summer special and it took place at a bathhouse/indoor water park. Which is the best way you can describe the Mahora Academy bathhouse to be fair. Right off the bat I have one question about this. Shouldnt they have switched titles? A sunny trip to the beach sounds like a summer thing and a story full of romance and shipping kinda sounds more Spring to me like that one song sequence from Bambi. Then again Love Hina also had a Spring special that had a tropical theme so I guess this is just on brand for Akamatsus adaptations. Anyway the Summer special is the second OVA that Shaft produced both of which come packaged in the US on one very affordable DVD. This one isnt based on any existing material from the manga... At least not that I can remember although I do have a vague recollection of a red string of fate story in the manga. It seems to exist to make up for all the bath scenes that got left out of the first anime... But it follows the same idea as the Spring special Give each character a moment to shine and dole out the fanservice As a matter of fact Ill be blunt about this: If youre one of the people who was offended by all the nudity and fanservice in the manga avoid this title like the plague. Akamatsus fanservice style was to show frequent nudity but never fully show a bare breast or the nipples attached to themgoing to some extreme measures to censor them but bare butts were always fair game. The same approach is taken here making Summer Special the only Negima anime thus far to accurately represent Negimas fanservice style although that might also be because Shimbou himself has literally the exact same nuditylovingyetnippleavoiding style. Yue casts a spell to help Nodoka find out whos on the other end of her red string of fate but due to a misscast she accidentally binds Nodoka to Negi by an actual indestructible red string. Just when they decide to wait for the string to disappear Ayaka whisks them away to her new Spa Resort Negi and Nodoka will have to... bathe together? Yeah Im not gonna lie this episode plays out pretty much the exact same way as the Spring special. You have the main story arc and it serves as narrative framing for the antics of the rest of the cast pretty much all of whom get their moment to shine. The main story arc makes just as much sense this time around although I will say the Spring Special DID do a better job of covering up its budget issues than this one did. If you can ignore the perviness... Or hell if you enjoy it anyway... This is also a pretty fun episode. There are a lot of really clever sight gags and youll have to watch a few times to notice them all. There are also a few cameos to characters that would be appearing later in the second series. Nodoka and Negi have some really cute and funny moments together although Yues arc seems a tad forced and Asunas arc just feels kind of rapey. Most of the jokes hit and the ones that dont are over quickly. The fanservice seems to entirely revolve around minors but if that bothered you youd have gotten off the Negima traincome to think of it the Akamatsu train in general long before you ever encountered this OVA. I give Negima Summer Special a 7/10.