(L) Negima Manga Discussion

[quigonkenny]

There's been arguments about this in other forums almost since they entered MW and definitely since the "flashback" chapter (c210) that portrayed the Left Behinds in Wales, and Eva playing dress-up with Yotsuba, Hakase, and Zazie. What is known is that, at least before the Gateport attack, time ran concurrently in MW and on Earth. The Misora/Takane parts of that "flashback" chapter show this as it was the same day in Mundus Magicus and Mundus Vetus (August 14th) that the Gateport was attacked. Unless you want to assume that—cosmic lottery of lotteries—that happens to be the one day in all of history that the two locations share the same date, it's safe to assume that time ran the same beforehand.

Now we haven't really seen any set dates to compare with since then. I believe that they are currently close to the beginning of October in Mundus Magicus, and in Eva's latest appearance (starting in c264), it does mention "lingering" summer heat, although at no point does it give a date, so either it's still technically summer and there is a time difference, it's the beginning of October and the vampire finds it to still be too bright and hot, or the meeting between Eishun, Albeiro, and Eva is just not happening at the same time as Godel's ball. Albeiro does call the meeting because it's "likely that our young friend [...] will be uncovering the secrets of that world around now", but it's safe to say that Ala Alba are running a bit behind their planned schedule.

[TnAdct1]

Originally Posted by MidnightViper88

When Rakan speaks of Chisame as Negi's "closest", I interpreted it as her being something of a mentor/coach figure...Negi's focuses in the Magic World has shifted priorities from when he was back on Earth, with Negi having to gain new magical strengths and learning truths of the Magic World and the background of his family...Like you said, Chisame has been the one most, if not the only one at all, who's been at Negi's emotional and philosophical side during those times, even when shit hit the fan with Kurt's confrontation...

...which is really ironic for Chisame, since she started out as the background pessimist and has now stepped up-front as Negi's full-fledged adviser...180-degree character development...

Pretty much agree with these comments when it comes to Chisame being Negi's "closest" at the moment.

Now for an interesting question: who do you think is the "second-closest" at the moment when it comes to Negi. For me, I'd have to say Nodoka

Yes, when it comes to the "possible partner" aspect, that's still a three-way race between Asuna (favorite to be "partner in magic"), Nodoka (favorite in "partner in love") and Yue. Also, Asuna (emotional) and Yue (philosophical) probably are better people in understanding Negi than Nodoka. However, due to obvious reasons (i.e. kidnapping and amnesia), Asuna and Yue "closeness" have dropped somewhat during this arc. Meanwhile, Nodoka, even though she wasn't there when it comes to Negi learning the "dark magic" needed to confront Fate, has gotten not only gotten stronger and been useful to Negi once she reunited with him, but she also has probably gotten a better idea of Negi's "way of thinking". Examples of what I mean by this:

Spoiler for Magic World Arc:

-Nodoka is one of the first students to discover that the possibility of Arika being Negi's mother is actually true.
-Thanks to both her Pactio item and the fact that, of the three student that accompanied Negi in this confrontion with Godel, she's the one with the most knowledge of the incident that took place 6 years ago in Negi's home village, Nodoka has become aware of all the repressed anger that Negi had when it came to the people responsible for the attack, with her being the one that begins to bring Negi back to his senses by telling him that the "demon form" that he's using to fight Godel is not the person that she, Yue, and the rest of 3-A fell in love with.
-Along with Negi and Chisame, she knows the "final secret" concerning the magic world.
-Like Negi and Chisame, she was dealt with the hardship losing a Magic World resident that was very close to you (in her case, Craig and Aisha, two treasure hunters that helped Nodoka during her time away from the rest of the Ala Alba).

[Blank-Mage]

It's weird that I think of this manga visual novel style: At some point, Negi will spend enough time with one of them to trigger a route, followed by much backstory and an ero scene they live happily ever after.

"Well, class is over. I should-"

-Help Asuna with her homework.
-Head to the library.
-Train with Ku Fei.

"I guess I'll help Nodoka with her librarian duties."

(Or have a Setsuna visual novel. "Well, class is over. I should-"

-Protect Ojou-sama.
-Protect Ojou-sama.
-Protect Ojou-sama.)

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by TnAdct1

Pretty much agree with these comments when it comes to Chisame being Negi's "closest" at the moment.

Now for an interesting question: who do you think is the "second-closest" at the moment when it comes to Negi. For me, I'd have to say Nodoka

Yes, when it comes to the "possible partner" aspect, that's still a three-way race between Asuna (favorite to be "partner in magic"), Nodoka (favorite in "partner in love") and Yue. Also, Asuna (emotional) and Yue (philosophical) probably are better people in understanding Negi than Nodoka. However, due to obvious reasons (i.e. kidnapping and amnesia), Asuna and Yue "closeness" have dropped somewhat during this arc. Meanwhile, Nodoka, even though she wasn't there when it comes to Negi learning the "dark magic" needed to confront Fate, has gotten not only gotten stronger and been useful to Negi once she reunited with him, but she also has probably gotten a better idea of Negi's "way of thinking". Examples of what I mean by this:

Spoiler for Magic World Arc:

-Nodoka is one of the first students to discover that the possibility of Arika being Negi's mother is actually true.
-Thanks to both her Pactio item and the fact that, of the three student that accompanied Negi in this confrontion with Godel, she's the one with the most knowledge of the incident that took place 6 years ago in Negi's home village, Nodoka has become aware of all the repressed anger that Negi had when it came to the people responsible for the attack, with her being the one that begins to bring Negi back to his senses by telling him that the "demon form" that he's using to fight Godel is not the person that she, Yue, and the rest of 3-A fell in love with.
-Along with Negi and Chisame, she knows the "final secret" concerning the magic world.
-Like Negi and Chisame, she was dealt with the hardship losing a Magic World resident that was very close to you (in her case, Craig and Aisha, two treasure hunters that helped Nodoka during her time away from the rest of the Ala Alba).

Also don't forget that it was Nodoka's understanding of the way "alternate planes" work (learned with Yue before the trip to Magic World, in preparation for the trip) that proved that Magic World was templated upon Mars.

You don't need to spoiler Magic World Arc info. The only stuff usually spoilered in this thread is current chapter info, and even then usually only for a week or so.

[TerrawindX2]

I have a very, very strong feeling that the Robed Figure is actually the Thousand Master, who either had his mind controlled or became mad, wearing the shoes of the former Robed Figure after realising that the magic world was an illusion. Whether or not its Nagi, it's probably someone close to Negi. It's probably going to be a cliche.... the real clue is when Nodoka says at the end "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" so that's gotta be an important character.

And the secret of the world? It's not that they are an Illusion. It's that they are all ghosts. Ghosts living out normal lives. The truth is that Nagi never saved the Magic World many years ago. Everyone is dead, and just like Zanarkand in Final Fantasy X, he recreated the world out of the memories and life force of the dead, probably through Asuna or Erika's powers.

Either that, or maybe, he was the one responsible for splitting the world into two; transferring the survivors into earth, and THEN create the illusory Magic World.

The Mars base is probably far into the future where Negi reestablishes the magic world...

The reason why Negi and friends are real, is because they are the very few who truly survived.

It would be ironic that the one the magic world touted as a hero is the one that proved their demise.

I can see Akamatsu putting the character FATE in the direction of actually turning out to be a good guy, neutral character, or anti-hero. The Goku Vegeta, Sonic Shadow relationship is very obvious between Negi and Fate.

By the way what happened to Anya-san?

[ZeroForever]

"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" is the trigger for the additions to her artifact that Nodaka acquired (ring).


Anya was captured by fate and was imprisoned with Asuna... it was shown a good number of chapters ago.

[DKN117]

A likely theory (possibly believed by Jack Rakan himself) is that the current Lifemaker is Asuna, mind-controlled (or maybe not). How many of you subscribe to this theory?

[Xacual]

Judging from what Rakan said, the Code of the Lifemaker requires a person of the royal family to use, maybe specifically one with magic cancel.

[nines]

Mmmm maybe it was Asuna's fate to control the life maker and had her mind erased for the better good of the magic world and thats why Fate brought her memories back

[Graskell]

Except that Negi and Asuna's presence in the magic world was entirely coincidental. Fate said so himself and passed up numerous chances to capture her both at the gateport and before she was reunited with her friends. As far as I know he had no plans to abduct her from the old world either. Thus it seems likely that whatever he was originally planning to do does not require her or negi (the most obvious remnants of the old ostian royal family).

Makes me curious why he altered his plan to include Asuna, and what he was planning to do before she turned up.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by Graskell

Except that Negi and Asuna's presence in the magic world was entirely coincidental. Fate said so himself and passed up numerous chances to capture her both at the gateport and before she was reunited with her friends. As far as I know he had no plans to abduct her from the old world either. Thus it seems likely that whatever he was originally planning to do does not require her or negi (the most obvious remnants of the old ostian royal family).

Makes me curious why he altered his plan to include Asuna, and what he was planning to do before she turned up.

Easy.

Logic suggests that in order to wield the power of the Mage of the Beginning, you need one of his descendents, right? I think it's more or less already been suggested in-story. Now from what we know now, there are most likely no more than three people that qualify as one of those decendants, because—let's be honest—if there were, they'd have Godel's job right now. Those three people are Negi, Asuna, and (if she's still alive) Arika. Two of those people randomly showed up in MW without prior knowledge, but we don't know where Arika is.

We don't, but Fate might.

If this is the case, then why didn't Fate just whack Negi and Asuna and continue on with Plan A? Maybe Arika's off in some nigh-impregnable fortress. Maybe she's got Nagi with her. Maybe Fate just knows she's here in MW and doesn't know exactly where. For whatever reason that makes Negi and Asuna easier targets, and most likely Asuna was the ideal choice of the three to begin with, but Fate was well aware that one does not simply walk into Mahora. As for why it took him so long, he had to work out a way to get Asuna without sending Negi on a rampage (he can't just kill him out of hand, in case he ends up needing him, too), and that took time.

If Arika is known to be in MW, this gives us the added benefit that if Fate does get defeated at the end of this arc, he might provide Negi with information on how to find his mother, or she might drop in herself to save his ass at a climactic moment.

Originally Posted by TerrawindX2

I have a very, very strong feeling that the Robed Figure is actually the Thousand Master, who either had his mind controlled or became mad, wearing the shoes of the former Robed Figure after realising that the magic world was an illusion. Whether or not its Nagi, it's probably someone close to Negi. It's probably going to be a cliche.... the real clue is when Nodoka says at the end "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" so that's gotta be an important character.

Part of me hopes that she's just going to unmask some random guy, who would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids. That would certainly be great for the luz, but it would seem like a copout. But I don't think it's Nagi. He'd have to be under some really strong juju, as the behavior if this guy is just completely different. Arika's more the type, but you can see I have different ideas for her. So who does that leave?

Let's see... Absurdly powerful mage... Ties to Magic World... I guess Seras or Ricardo, or even Teodora could be a possibility, but that really doesn't seem right to me (plus no room in the hood for horns or Ricardo's hair). This is going to sound a bit farfetched, but there's one character that's kind of given me the willies since his first appearance, and in typical Akamatsu fashion, he's recently showed up in an unrelated fashion so that we have him on our mind...in an unrelated fashion.

I am speaking of Albeiro Imma.

Now, once you quit laughing, think about it for a minute. We know he's got some secret to him, since he's all holed up under the Great Deku Tree. Considering recent events, the most likely reason appears to be that he's a Magicus resident and would wink out of existence if he dared step outside of a high-magic area, but I don't think there's inherently any kind of issue with MW residents coming to Earth. We have at least one character we know is from Magic World walking around Mahora all the time (Cocone), and it strikes me odd that no one would figure out there's something weird about the MW residents if they spontaneously turn into flower petals upon visiting Earth. I think the Godel Issue regarding saving them has more to do with Fate resetting Magic World itself than it does with killing individual residents.

No, what I think Al's problem is is that the Al we all know and love is not really Al, but an orphaned shadow clone. The real Al is sitting under all those black robes, maybe as a result of magical manipulation, maybe not. Maybe they're both shadow clones of the long-dead real Al ("Don't just my age by appearance") and Fate's group was able to control him by means of the CotLM. We know something traumatic happened to him 10 years ago. Maybe that's part of it.

Plus we'd get a really nice Keyser Soze moment if we were to find out that the reason Al called Eishun and Eva to his lair was to get them out of the way... ^_^

[nines]

Fate being there by coincidence dosn't seem right, We know he has the charm to replace a person perfectly and blend in as that person. My thought would be he used zazie as a replacement to find out what they were doing and that Asuna and Negi are actually part of his plan, and once he found out that he was going to look for his dad he put his plan into motion. Itd be easy for him to learn that at mahora since the word about the club they made spread in the class fast.

[quigonkenny]

He could have just lied about the Gateport meeting being a coincidence. Sometimes the most obvious (and least meta) answers are the best. Good point.

[Ancient Death]

Originally Posted by MidnightViper88

...which is really ironic for Chisame, since she started out as the background pessimist and has now stepped up-front as Negi's full-fledged adviser...180-degree character development...

I agreed about Chisame's role. At the start of the series, she was just a support/background character who don't show up much until the martial arts tournament. From there, she start to make more appearances until she make the pactio with Negi. But when it reach the Magical World part, she become the "main character" of the moment.

quigonkenny - Your theories truly make my brain hurts. BUT then it's possible that some of them...heck, maybe even one theroy may be right. Who know? Ken truly know how to make this series from an innocent one into a such twisted one with a dark side that I DIDN'T expect it.

Now we should see the next chapter...next week...ugh.

[holyman282]

It's probably cause Chisame looks so much like Naru from Love hina, Ken is probably feeling nostalgic lol

[Kikaifan]

Makes me wonder whether Asuna's ability really is just pure anti-magic or is something a bit more complicated that just manifests that way most of the time.

[willyvereb]

@quigonkenny: Interesting ideas. Well, it's possible and then the other robed figure could be Filius Zect. It fits a few comment of his quite much.
It makes me wonder though how it could help Nodoka. Maybe it really isn't but Nodoka realized Albeiro's voice and so activates his articraft to inform Negi and Co. about the real intents of his.
OR
We really get to see a new ability of Nodoka's name-revealing articraft. Or maybe she has another articraft she hasn't shown before.
Only time and Akumetsu Kei could tell

Kikaifan: Probably she has another use of her ability or she has a third ability other than her magic cancel and Kanka use.
OR
There's a certain huge device which only be activated by someone from the royal blood and that's all.

Anyways it's sure Negi have some kind of royal magic too. I wonder what kind of ability he would have. Maybe he learns Kanka too?

[CanonRap]

Makes me wonder whether Asuna's ability really is just pure anti-magic or is something a bit more complicated that just manifests that way most of the time.

Unless it's something no one has ever brought up before, probably not.

IIRC, everything she was used for as the Princess of the Twilight had to do with her ability to manifest an anti-magic field.

[ZeroForever]

interesting theory with the Arika thoughts, personally I just think that Fates plans were sped up by negi's/asuna appearance as it was known that the magical world was collapsing already his only known goal at that point was the close the access between the MM and earth.

The coincidence at that gate port is most likely just that coincidence on his Fate's end at least because if anything it's most likely that there meeting was a trigger effect of Chao's xanatos gambit. As it likely pushed Negi to the Magic world sooner then the original time line intended.

[Sian]

Filius Zect would be my bet as well unless its someone completely new.

Chao does stricke me as a chessmaster so its in no way unreasonable that she planed to lose to push forward Negi's entry into MW