Negima Magister Negi Magi / Tropes D to F

• Dance of Romance: Chapter 260 has two of them actually: one by Negi and Asuna and the other one by Kotaro and Natsumi.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Magia Erebea was originally advertised as a technique quite dangerous to its user, though Negi seemed to have little trouble with it. At least, not until after his fight with Rakan, at which point it began affecting his soul itself. While Negi's body was able to deal with this on its own eventually, this was only by first petrifying him and then turning into something non human, though with Magia Erebea finally under control.
• Darker and Edgier: Akamatsu-sensei appears to be rapidly accelerating his use of this trope. Chapters 277 and 278 feature Rakan and a boatload of Mauve Shirts being dissolved into flower petals, and the dozen-odd chapters before it feature an ominous secret that borders on Go Mad from the Revelation, the story of someone who saved the world being sentenced to a brutal death for it, and Negi nearly murdering the wrong person for revenge.
• Darkest Hour: Well, see above. Most of what happened after the Governor's ball trumps their previous predicament in awfulness.
  • To see how bad it's gotten since then, see Total Party Kill. It doesn't get much darker an hour than that.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Varies, but the few right bastards have all been humans with no explicit connection to darkness.
  • Shadow magic is the manipulation of shadows, no relationship to alignment. The three prominent users shown so far have included an antagonist that quickly became the protagonist's best friend, a friendly character mostly known for ending up embarrassedly disrobed and a Punch-Clock Villain bounty hunter who was simply doing his job.
    • Also, Kagetarou, who looks like a villain at first but turns out to be Jack Rakan's buddy. Now we have a shadow-user named Dynamis in Fate's group, and this new guy is quite evil, erasing people from existence and making it quite clear that he intends to kill Nodoka, even using her as a shield and coming close to snapping her neck before Setsuna saves her by hacking off his right hand^note He seems to believe that he's doing them a favor by killing them. Then there's the whole summoning shadow demons thing he does, including a huge one.
  • The demons showcased so far have all been perfectly amicable, at worst neutral characters who just happened to be hired by the enemy team and don't seem very pleased at having to cause serious damage. Justified in that the "Demons" are a race of the Magical World. The more demonic looking ones are a different kind of demons. The demons summoned in the Kyoto arc are oni. Setsuna and Kotarou are half-Youkai (Han'you). Demons like Mana and Poyo are a different kind as well.
  • A basic principle of Magia Erebea is accepting oneself, including one's worst emotions. In Negi's case, his explicitly murderous thirst for revenge. While not necessarily "evil", it still leaves him unstable and the desire seems to be amplified by Magia Erebea.
• Day in the Limelight: Almost every girl gets a chapter, or even an entire arc, devoted to her. Especially if she hasn't had much "screen time" yet.
  • Lampshaded when Negi (in his bishonen form) tells Ako that `everyone's the main character in their own life'.
• Deadly Upgrade: In order to become strong quickly enough to beat Fate, Negi chose the "path of darkness" Magia Erebea, an ability set that isn't suited for human use. While first it appears okay, it begins badly affecting his health and mind. Eventually, it stops killing him, but only because he stops being human at all.
• Deal with the Devil: In Asuna's backstory in the anime, she made a deal with demons where they'd stop following her and breaking stuff, but she'd die on her fourteenth birthday.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Used humorously to illustrate Negi's confusion over a Power Level chart.
• Death of the Hypotenuse: Doesn't actually occur, but Haruna points out that this is how love triangles usually end, causing the two girls involved to freak out considerably.
• Debut Queue: Naturally given the series' large cast, students are introduced in waves, usually by Cast Herd. Most students get a chapter dedicated to them or at least some spotlight, and by the time the final arc begins, there's exactly one student who hasn't been formally introduced yet...
• Declaration of Protection: Setsuna says several times that she will protect Konoka with her life. Asuna does this to Negi as well... Unfortunately for her, she does it in front of a very large crowd and it's very easily misinterpreted for something else.
• Decomposite Character: Most of the girls in Love Hina had their personality traits and character designs inherited by multiple girls in this series, the most obvious being Naru Narusegawa becoming Asuna (the protective side) and Chisame (the nerdy side).
• Defeat by Modesty:
  • Rakan's favourite method of dealing with cute female enemies.
  • After some Character Development to open up more, Setsuna becomes more susceptible to embarrassment and gets an Attempted Rape scene during a fight with Tsukuyomi as a result of getting distracted when her clothes are forcibly removed by a Demon Charm. Of all things, Setsuna was most humiliated by the fact that she was nearly defeated, since she takes it as a sign that she's getting rusty.
  • In chapter 354, Paio II makes her reappearance, completely stripping Yue and applying some serious Skinship Grope almost to the point of Black Comedy Rape. She even goes as far as to lampshade that she should overcome this weakness to become a better fighter.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • After Negi beats Eva, he makes her agree to go to class properly and whatnot.
  • Kotaro is just a mercenary, so after he has fun with his fight with Negi they become friends after Kotaro returns to give him a warning.
  • Later, Negi declares he will make friends with Fate Averruncus after realizing that Fate and Cosmo Entelechia really are trying to do the right thing.
  • After Chisame beats Chachamaru in a hacking duel, Chachamaru starts dragging her around everywhere, which apparently means they're friends. Well, Chisame does like being dragged around so she can pretend she isn't having fun.
• Defecting for Love: Given some developments involving Negi inadvertently romancing one of Fate's most trusted subordinates out of her disguise against her will and creating a pactio with her at the same time. Add the fact that her perfect disguise seems to drop only during times of intense emotion felt on her part, such as love, and it's as good as done.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Slavery is a state-sanctioned practice and completely normal in Mundus Magicus. Seeing how they use Latin as (one of) their main language and that the political powers date back to Middle Ages if not Ancient Rome, this is to be expected. The current slave system was created by Queen Arika to deal with the thousands of Ostia's homeless after the destruction of their country. Slaves can buy their freedom and are protected against "excessive mistreatment", which the Slave Collar reports automatically, but the electrifying feature of the Slave Collar doesn't seem to fall under "excessive mistreatment" until the heroes beat the the crap beat out of a guy who did it and told him that he was going too far. There might have also been other, off-screen punishments, it was explicitly stated that it's only supposed to be used if a slave revolts or a similar extreme scenario scenario.
• Demon Slaying: The Shinmei-ryu's specialty.
• Departure Means Death: Magic World natives cannot survive on Earth, so when the magic world goes they'll go with it. Albireo may be an exception, but he might just be a book instead.
• De-Power Zone: The execution site in the Magical World completely nullifies magic. Of course, Nagi Springfield doesn't care about that and rescues Arika from it anyway.
• Designated Girl Fight: Odd gender inversion: despite the series having far more women than men, the majority of Negi's opponents have been male. At this point, the only named male characters he hasn't fought are Eishun, Johnny, Filius Zect and some of the magic teachers.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • When Asuna dies in Negima!, Negi splinters like a broken broomstick. His artificial cheerfulness masks it temporarily, but it quickly becomes ghastly.
  • In the original manga, Negi probably crosses this after Fate attacks his students at the Gateport and scatters them across Mundus Magicus. It isn't quite as bad as in the anime, but the fact that he was completely unable to protect them after he promised to do so really gives him issues later on.
  • Played for laughs after Rakan's hilarious first failed attempt to teach Negi Magia Erebea. "I'M GONNA DIE."
  • Rakan MADE this happen, purposely depressing the crap out of Negi after his "Make a bad face and punch!" initial plan doesn't work. Also those were meant to be strong punches, Rakan told him to do 1000, which even for normal people would be quite tiring.
• Deus ex Machina: During the Gecko Ending of the first anime, the Time Machine used to fix the Diabolus ex Machina that kicked off the final arc. Fight fire with fire, they say...
  • In the manga, this artifact has a completely different purpose and gets explained in detail. But in the anime it's an Ass Pull that's immediately used to solve what had been an apparently unsolvable problem.
• Diagonal Cut: The finishing blow to the Tsukuyomi fight. Somehow.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Fate seems fond of his coffee parties.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • The first couple times Asuna attacks Eva (literally with a punch), before anyone understands her anti-magic abilities.
  • Also, Chisame to Magia Erebea-fueled Unstoppable Rage Negi, coupled with a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man slap in chapter 265.
  • When Nagi punched the Mage of the Beginning in the face.
  • During the Magic World's final battles, a much more literal example: when Quartum pulls out his final move, Entei Shoukan, Negi jumps out with Raisoku Shundou and literally socks it across the face!
• Died on Their Birthday: In the anime adaptation, Asuna dies on her 14th birthday.
• Dirty Business: Negi wonders if defeating Chao's plan to reveal The Masquerade was the right thing to do throughout the Festival Arc. He's reassured by Chao herself, no less that there are no hard feelings, though.
• Dirty Mind-Reading: Nodoka gets a heavy dose of it when she uses her book Artifact to know Paio's thoughts only to see nothing but sentences about boobs. Heck, Nodoka gets this from herself when the book reveals that she subconsciously wants to get in bed with Negi and Yue.
• Disciplines of Magic: In the series, there exist two different disciplines of magic, western magic and eastern magic.
  • Western magic is based around Europe's cultural sphere of influence. Western mages use mana as energy and require spells, incantations and catalysts to activate their magic, the two languages of incantation that Western mages use are Latin and Ancient Greek, the former is more commonly used for casting spells while the latter is used solely for high-level magic.
  • Eastern magic is the general term for sorcery practised in the Asian world and utilized by eastern mages. These mages use Ki to cast spells. They emphasis the mage as a lone operative with many of their spells intended to confuse and disrupt the enemy rather than directly engage them in battle, as well as summon demons to assist the mage either by attacking the enemy or defending the mage that summoned them.
  • Mages in the series can also form a Pactio or contract between a Magister and his Minister. The Pactio allows a Magister casting the spell to transfer some his or her magic to the other person involved in the Pactio, improving their natural abilities by an average of ten times than normal capacity. Another advantage to forming a Pactio is the ability to summon a magic artifact.
• Dish Dash: When Chachamaru gets nervous and stumbles she sends her dishes flying into the air, Negi, with the help of Asuna and Setsuna, catches the falling dishes.
• Dispel Magic: A limited version of Magic Cancel is the "Dispulso" spell. The author notes this a "paradoxical" spell, being a magic that disperses magic.
• Disturbed Doves: Invoked. When he transforms into Nagi for his tournament match against Negi, Albireo has doves flying around him for dramatic effect. Lampshaded by the hologram of Nagi.
• Diving Save: Negi and the cat.
• Do Androids Dream?: Chachamaru begins stressing out and wondering if she has a soul around the time the Magic World arc begins. She eventually gains a pactio and therefore proof that she has a soul.
• Dodgeball Is Hell: Very early on, class 2-A engages in a pretty intense game of dodgeball with a class of high school girls.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Chachamaru needs to be fueled with magic every day to stay in peak condition. It feels good on its own and even better the more magic is poured in. The subtext couldn't have been more obvious if there had been a subtitle saying, "OMGSEXLOL!" During the ball, she has the robotic equivalent of The Immodest Orgasm when Negi gets too into it. After getting back home she refuels herself at one point, so of course Eva walks in.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Every song to date.
• Doomed Hometown: Negi's village was invaded by demons and everyone was turned to stone.
• Door Jam: Negi's party gets trapped in the Magical World with the villains when the Portals are destroyed by Fate and Cosmo Entelechia. This cuts off all the alies that could help fend off the villains, raising the stakes.
• The Door Slams You: An early chapter has Asuna kicking the library door off its hinges and into Negi.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Kaede can make a large number of solid clones, each of which has good offensive power. Kotaro can do it as well, but he isn't quite as good at it.
• Double Entendre: The word "Partner" being the biggest one.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: While this doesn't occur much (likely due to the fact that Negi is only ten), in one story arc where Negi gets aged up to 15, he suffers a few smacks in the face. Anya, his best friend from home, is also able to beat him up as much as she wants since they're the same age.
  • During the school festival, whenever someone would confess, Mana would only shoot the guy.
• Dragged into Drag: Poor Negi is subject to this by his class for their Haunted House exhibit, and Ayaka is nothing short of delighted. When Ayaka makes her Pactio with him, he's again crossdressing at her request.
• Dramatic Wind
• *Drool* Hello: Twice, with the same occidental dragon in the underground beneath Mahora.
• Drop the Washtub: Characters can make a washtub fall on others' heads by casting it as a spell.
• Drum Bathing: Kaede and Negi share a barrel in an early chapter.
• Dude, He's Like, in a Coma!: Chisame tries to get her pactio kiss while Negi is asleep, but he wakes up in the middle of it and she has to do it the normal way (although she covers his eyes).
• Dueling Messiahs: Negi and Fate. Negi and the gang eventually discover that Fate and the Cosmo Entelechia are trying to save the human inhabitants of the Magical World, which is about to collapse and in turn cause the humans to be stranded on Mars, the landscape of which was used to create the Magical World. Negi opposes their plan to send the humans to a never-ending dream world by sacrificing Asuna and the Magical World's non-human inhabitants, and tries to get them to help him find another way.
• Dungeon Crawling: Library Island at first, then Nodoka's adventuring party. All also have...
  • Durable Death Traps: ...Though these can be explained by A Wizard Did It
• Dynamic Entry:
  • Anya's greeting to Negi is a flaming kick out of nowhere and Asuna kicks Eva right through all her barriers as a greeting sometimes.
  • As a rather amoral, energetic girl Haruna is quite fond of saying hi by kicking people in the head.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Despite being listed in the class registry, Sayo didn't make her first appearance until chapter 74 in the manga. Every adaptation since have gone out of their way to introduce her earlier and most leave her visible to the audience long before any of the characters take note of her presence.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Invoked. Invoked!? Invoked! The author wanted to write an action series, but was forced to write a harem series. He bent the rules.
• Easy Amnesia: After the Gateport incident, Yue had the bad luck to land right in front of a magic student who accidentally erased all the memories about her life with a memory erasure spell, and was too embarrassed to say so, so she just told Yue that she bumped her head.
• Ecchi: It is an Akamatsu manga, after all. At times the series stops just short of explicit.
• Elaborate University High: Mahora Academy encompasses a fair sized city.
• Eldritch Abomination: Two so far: the demon that Evangeline curb-stomped in the Kyoto Arc, and the huge black shadow-demon summoned by Fate Averruncus' shadow-using minion in the Ch. 270's.
  • Appropriately, this one also gets curb-stomped, this one by Chachamaru's Kill Sat Artifact.
• Elemental Baggage: Subverted in the literal sense, but invoked by Evangeline and Chao's high-level elemental spells. The supplementary materials at the back of the tankobon explain that Kosmic Katastrophe breaks the Laws of Thermodynamics, and that freeze spells are considered higher-level than fire spells because they break more laws.
• Elemental Shapeshifter: Negi has Raiten Taisou and Raiten Sousou, and Homura can transform into a fire spirit. Recently revealed Quintum, the Averruncus of Wind has an ability similar to Negi's transformation.
• Elevator School: Mahora Academy is an elevator school (starting from kindergarten and ending in university), though it mainly focuses on the middle school division since Negi teaches a middle school class.
• Elopement: Nagi suggested doing this with Princess Arika when he realized she had developed feelings for him, getting a blast of magic in response. Ironically, they end up eloping after he rescues her from her execution.
• Embodiment of Virtue: The Pactio cards include a word in Latin that designates a virtue for the Ministra. The virtues that have been seen are:
  • Audacia (Courage) for Negi, Asuna, Nodoka, Ku Fei, Yuuna, Sakurako, and Rakan.
  • Caritas (Charity) for Chachamaru, Konoka, Ako, and Chizuru.
  • Fides (Faith/Loyalty) for Evangeline, Mana, and Misora.
  • Justitia (Justice) for Setsuna, Ayaka, Zazie, and Madoka.
  • Sapientia (Wisdom) for Yue, Kazumi, Chao, Satomi, Misa, and Albireo.
  • Spes (Hope/Expectation) for Sayo, Natsumi, Makie, and Satsuki.
  • Temperantia (Temperance) for Chisame, Kaede, Haruna, Akira, and the Narutaki twins.
• Emergency Temporal Shift: Chao Lingshen does a minor time jump to evade capture, leaving the magical teachers after her baffled at where she went.
• Energy Absorption: By constructing an elaborate spell circle, Negi can use Magia Erebea to absorb attacks his enemy uses. However, it's not very practical in large battles.
• Enhanced on DVD: Both the Xebec and Studio Shaft animated adaptations received better quality episodes on DVD.
• Even the Guys Want Him: At this point, Negi's harem consists of a whole lot of girls...and Fate. (If that's what he meant by 'he already belongs to me,' anyway...)
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: Asuna experiences this in chapter 352. Though to be fair she is 130 years in the future.
• Everyone Can See It: Even Negi notices Setsuna's Bodyguard Crush on Konoka. Setsuna tries to deny it, Konoka doesn't.
• Everyone Has a Special Move: Every Pactio featured in the series is completely unique, although Fate indicates that some are reused after a great period of time.
• Everyone Is a Super: At least, in the magic world, magic is, understandably, very common, and nobody bats an eye at its use.
• Evil Chancellor: A group of them has been manipulating the Megalomesembria Senate and is responsible for every major event that has happened in the story so far, starting with the war. Even the events of the Festival Arc may have been a result of their actions.
• Evil Is Easy: Rakan laid out two paths for Negi. He could stay on the path of light and be as tough as Rakan or Nagi in, say, five years or so. He could also take the path of the heretic, choosing black magic to gain that kind of power in mere weeks. It's not quite evil, but it's incredibly dangerous to not only himself but those around him as well as damaging to both his mind and soul.
• Exact Words: For Negi's apprenticeship test, Eva gave the conditions "If you can hit Chachamaru even once with your Kung Fu, then you'll pass. The match continues until you're dead and you can't attack anymore." This backfires on her when she declares the match over after Negi was completely thrashed, only for him to stand back up, stating that there's essentially no time limit since the condition was "until I die". He manages to get a hit in while Chachamaru is distracted.
• Exploding Calendar: Used in the Training Montage in the Magical World Arc.
• Exposition of Immortality: Evangeline reminisces about having known Negis' father and about her own, lengthy existence.
• Expy:
  • A few of the girls are based off of the characters from Love Hina: Naru (Asuna and Chisame), Shinobu (Nodoka), Kaolla Su (Ku Fei), Motoko (Setsuna, Akira and possibly Madoka), Kitsune (Asakura) and Mutsumi (Chizuru).
  • On top of that, Kotaro is a tribute to Inuyasha.
  • Plus Yuna seems to be based off of a certain gun-wielding summoner.
  • Yue is very obviously based off of Patchouli Knowledge.
• Extra-Strength Masquerade: After a while, characters' attempts to maintain the Masquerade start to seem kinda half-assed, but everyone still falls for it anyway. It's implied that there is a spell in place that makes people less likely to accept the existence of magic.
• Extreme Graphical Representation: Chisame's artifact lets her mentally enter the computer system, Tron style, for super-hacking. Some of the extreme graphics include viruses that look like jellyfish, Magical Girl anti-virus programs which she leaves her Ayaka and Makie during Mahorafest, and Clothing Damage to represent data being destroyed.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The Festival arc spanned only 3 days June 20-22, 2003 but took up half the manga up to that point — 9 volumes.
  • It's okay though, because they actually go through the three days four or five times at the end of it.They only run into themselves once, and manage to not cause any issues. Never mind that the World Tree's magic that is letting Negi's Cassiopeia work, as well as power the then Big Bad's plot, never runs down.
• Eye Catch
• Face Fault: Characters almost always fall over when shocked, a natural staple of anime.
• False Camera Effects: Fish-Eye Lens
• False Start: Nodoka attempts a confession a few times before getting halted, but eventually gets it out. Unfortunately, she did it too early in the series.
• Fan Disservice: There's a surprising amount of Squick in the series, since many fight scenes against severely messed-up people occur with the girls in various states of undress. There's also guys in states of undress.
• Fanservice: Any excuse to get the characters naked, up to clothes-destroying sneezes, lasers, and octopodes.
• Fanservice Extra: One girl that shows up for a single panel in the magic world encapsulates about 12 different Fanservice Tropes and adds nothing whatsoever to the story except some eye candy.
• Fanservice Faux Fight:
  • During their Kyoto vacation/school field trip, several of the girls of 3-A have an epic pillow fight with their boy teacher's kiss as the prize. Staple of the harem series.
  • Also take note that the girls will indulge in the occasional pillow fight given the opportunity◊.
• Fanservice Pack: Yuna outright states that her breasts are getting bigger as the series goes on.
• Fantastic Arousal: Setsuna's wings seem to be very sensitive, and poor Chachamaru can't seem to impress on Negi to wind her up slowly and gently. Her own damn fault in that she keeps telling him that it feels good and Negi, being only ten, thinks that more is naturally better. Chachamaru ends up talking in a wingdings-like font from the overwhelming pleasure.
• Fantastic Fighting Style: The Shinmei-ryuu is a swordstyle that uses Ki Manipulation. It was created to fight demons that threatened the people of Kyoto since the feudal era.
• Fantastic Nuke: There's magic spells that can produce destructive explosions.
• Fantastic Racism: Against woodnymphs and other demihumans by humans, who also had no problem cutting horns off them(a bit like real life, the horns, not hunting humans) and selling young girls into slavery.
• Fantastic Time Management: Negi uses Time Travel and Year Outside, Hour Inside techniques to get more things done during the Mahora Festival and also to have more time to train as well as do his job as a teacher.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Ninjas, robots, ghosts, vampires, nuns, priestesses, aliens, half-demons, mad scientists, hackers, Time Travelers...
  • And that's just some of the girls in Negi's class.
    • Mana even lampshades it at one point, having figured that Zazie Rainyday couldn't be normal, simply because hardly anybody in the class was.
    • Let's put it this way: Even the normal kids Makie end up either with supernatural powers, or are so normal Makie they're immune to reality warping effects because they have no worries, Makie again.
• Fictional Currency: "Drachma" are used in the Magical World. Based off of an ancient Greek currency.
• Fighting a Shadow
  • The demons behave much like those from Dungeons & Dragons. Negi has a spell that can kill a demon permanently, but it's implied something very bad would happen if he were to cast it.
  • Evangeline uses her "Boss"-level powers to freeze and completely shatter the Demon God that was released during the Kyoto Arc. Nevertheless, Konoka's father and the other priests still had to reseal it; presumably it would regenerate otherwise.
  • Albireo Imma uses a more or less indestructible magical projection of himself to guarantee himself a spot in the finals of the Tournament Arc. The only ways to defeat it are to dismiss the projection, or attack his physical body (which is several miles away). Nobody except Kaede (a ninja who uses similar body replication techniques) figures out what he's doing, and admits that she can't really do anything about it.
  • Later in the Magic World arc, Fate's minions use this to taunt Jack Rakan and Konoka after trapping them in their pocket dimension. Unfortunately for them, they were close enough for Chamo to spot them.
• The Final Temptation:
  • During the assault on Cosmo Entelechia following their attack on the Governor's Ball, Poyo uses a special artifact to show what Cosmo Entelechia is: Negi is placed in a Lotus-Eater Machine that gives him the happy family he always wanted, though some of his friendships have taken setbacks since it's the ideal possible world for him. The rest of the group apart from Chisame and Makie are shown similar temptations, though we don't see much of them. Negi chooses reality the instant he realizes he's not in it. Spending too much time in such a happy place would make it impossible to leave.
  • Eva tries to convince Setsuna to give up her swordsmanship in favor of living the life of a normal girl. She also says just focusing on being a bodyguard is fine, but that she can't handle both. Setsuna rejects both choices.
• Finger Poke of Doom: Negi manages to stun Sextum briefly with a poke that also removes her clothing before she gets up and is then incapacitated for real by the Gravekeeper, who attacks from behind.
• Finger-Snap Lighter: When Konoka asks Setsuna about trying out magic, Setsuna reveals she can do this with her own kind of magic.
• Finger-Suck Healing: Konoka teases Setsuna once by starting to suck on her fingers and saying it's healing, then laughs and uses magic.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Negi and Kotaro start out as enemies in the Kyoto arc, after which Kotaro is arrested offscreen. A few chapters later, he shows up again to help Negi defeat a demon and becomes his rival/friend once they're done.
• First-Episode Twist: That 10-Year old Negi is the teacher is kept rather secret from the reader initially, although it's not hard to figure out.
• First Kiss: A lot of the girls on Negi's team have their's with him. Negi himself gave his to Asuna and her's to him.
  • Almost every person acts very nervous as well, and then came Asakura's turn. Her pactio was the only one to occur off-screen and she was so not nervous about it that she got a commemorative photo for it.
• First-Name Basis: In a similar vein, Konoka spends most of her time trying to get Setsuna to call her 'Kono-chan' rather than 'Ojou-sama'. It doesn't work.
• Flash Back: Sayo's memories in episode 19, Konoka's in episode 21. In the manga, Asuna also gets many flashbacks related to her mysterious past with Ala Rubra.
  • The most hilarious take on this trope is when Rakan watches Homura's Flash Back.
• Flash Step: A must when fighting professionals. Negi learns it from Kotaro before the Mahora Tournament. You use magic or ki to push off the ground very quickly and then when landing at your destination quickly use the same kind of thing to stop. However, you can be intercepted mid step since it's impossible to change course. Masters can even perform the technique in midair, as seen with Kaede, the Ala Alba master of the move.
• Flexible Tourney Rules: Averted, with Asuna disqualified instantly when she broke a rule.
• Flight: If you're a mage and either have a staff or just that powerful, you get this.
• Floating Continent: Ostia, though most of it has crashed.
• Flower Motif: In the anime Sayo’s associated with the leopard plant based on how she died in that adaptation.
• Food Slap: Chisame assaults Negi (who had just gotten his arm re-attached) with some fruit from a fruit basket, that was meant for him, for being reckless.
• Forced Bath: A recurring Running Gag. Negi hating baths sometimes seems like the only part of his personality that's actually ten years old. Naturally, a good portion of his class enjoy hauling him off to various bathhouses, hot springs, etc. whenever possible; a later chapter even shows Konoka throwing around "Wash Negi-kun" coupons.
• Forced Orgasm: Played for Laughs with Chachamaru, who feels pleasure from being refueled via the Wind-Up Key in the back of her head, which grows more intense as more magical energy is put in. Negi fails to notice it and enthusiastically winds the key while pumping way too much magic into it, and Chachamaru has to clamp her hands over her mouth to muffle her scream of pleasure and then falls into a panting heap, while Negi remains clueless.
• Forceful Kiss: Haruna forcefully stole a kiss from Negi for her Pactio. Twice, since the first time there was no magic circle set up.
• Foreshadowing:
  • A lot of Asuna's abilities and fractured memories are a hint as to her true nature, especially her magic cancel.
  • The location of the Magic World is suspiciously never mentioned. When the series actually gets to it, we get a few pieces of information from time to time that help point out where it must be. Most importantly, we're given the size of the place (slightly less than one third that of Earth) and the location of features such as Olympus Mons.
  • The scenes when Asuna awakens after the Time Skip foreshadow a couple of elements in UQ Holder!, including Yukihime's appearance and a pair of Generation Xerox versions of Konoka and Setsuna, whom we later meet as Honoka and Isana.
• Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Given how most adaptations (and the later chapters of the manga) focus more on Konoka being Negi and Asuna's roommate and her relationship with Setsuna, some fans tend to forget that she is also a member of the Library Exploration Club.
• Forgotten Phlebotinum: An aversion occurs in the kidnapping plot in the Magical World Arc. The Pactio cards ability to summon the partner to the master. However, it has been mentioned by Chachamaru that the functions of the Pactio Cards are very easily jammed. There is also a distance limitation, which is why Negi couldn't summon his students to him when they were scattered across a planet. It's more of a case of Awesome, but Impractical and Useless Useful Spell. Also, Fate himself also used that function to summon his subordinates just before confronting Negi and kidnapping Asuna.
• Formula with a Twist: Negima started as an on-the-fly example of the Harem Genre, albeit with a clear supernatural angle and focusing on a young teacher to a class full of girls. Slowly but surely, it turns more into a Shōnen action series as more of the magical world starts to come to play, and thus his harem becomes a Battle Harem. The reason it's "on-the-fly" example is because the author wasn't really trying to make another harem series and wanted to do a more straightforward shonen series, but seemingly relented because the mangazine he worked for pushed him into it. So he did as they wished but turned it more into the shonen series he wanted to do, killing two birds with one stone.
• For Science!: Hakase's justification for peeking into Chachamaru's 'treasured images' folder. Never mind that this effectively meant probing Chachamaru's mind against her will, on the subject of her crush, no less.
• Fountain of Youth: The Age Changing Pills can allow someone to look older or younger by several years.
• Freudian Excuse: Played with in Eva's case: after recounting the tale of her life, including how she became a vampire and killed her way through the centuries, Asuna's response is immediately "So... it's not your fault, right? Because you didn't choose to be bad?" Eva takes this as more evidence that Asuna is an idiot.
• Friendly Rivalry: There's a brief scene where his students joke that Kotaro and Negi call themselves rivals but spell it 'friends,'. It's a joke involving the Japanese writing system.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: The class pulls out a bunch of robot hands to do this to Chao during their farewell party in the Festival Arc. They wanted to see tears from her, and if they couldn't get them from emotion, laughter would do just fine.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Negi is forced to either stay behind and fight a giant monster so his students can escape with a magical book that can make them smarter (for the big exams) or dump the book so they can all escape safely. Subverted in that Negi ends up trying to stay behind, but Asuna decides to make the "right" choice for him anyway.
• Friendship Moment: After her early graduation and before the planned ritual that will put her to sleep for a century, Asuna tells Ayaka that she was the best thing that ever happened to her.
• Friends Turned Romantic Rivals: Subverted. Yue ends up falling in love with Negi while trying to Nodoka get together with him, but the two girls refuse to let it affect their friendship and spend more time trying to help each other than they do pursuing him themselves.
• From Roommates to Romance:
  • After arriving at Mahora Academy, Negi starts living at Asuna's and Konoka's dorm room, because Konoka is the granddaughter of the headmaster. Negi and Asuna have a lot of Ship Tease together, especially due to Negi's habit of sleepwalking into Asuna's bed.
  • Kotaro ends up living at Natsumi's and Chizuru's dorm room after the girls take him in because he's an orphan. Kotaro thinks of his female roommates as family, but Natsumi's feelings for him are obviously very different. According to the epilogue, Kotaro and Natsumi get married many years later.
• Fugitive Arc: Negi and company go on the lam during the magic world arc, after the villains frame them as terrorists for their terrorism.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Dynamis, of all people, does this in the final battle. No one saw it coming and no one knows why he did that... (though Takane D. Goodman mentioned earlier that her Shadow-created clothes provide even higher defense with direct skin contact, and Dynamis does use Shadow magic)
• Full Moon Silhouette:
  • Near the end of the Kyoto Arc, after Setsuna rescues Konoka from the clutches of the enemy.
  • Eva has one at the beginning of the Mahora Blackout Operation.
• Fun Size: Both Sayo and Setsuna have an absolutely adorable smaller form. Then there's Chachazero, who despite being psychotic can be quite cute.
• Funbag Airbag:
  • Negi's first meeting with Shizuna-sensei has him burying his face on her breasts when he bumps into her. It's used as a straight Marshmallow Hell to establish that he's still a child, when he's merely embarrassed. Although in this case, it's more of a "wumph" than a "boing."
  • Negi didn't watch where he was going while swimming, smacked headfirst into the bustiest girl in the class, and somehow got caught in her bikini top in the process. The other girls just took it way too far (as usual for them).
• Functional Magic: Most of the big spells will have enough explanation in-story for the reader to really get a feel as to what's going on and how it works. The appendices in the books give properly scientific and historical explanations for the spells, leaving enough room in the physics for the "it's magic" kind of Willing Suspension of Disbelief. This goes to create a very real-feeling system of magic that creates a link between ancient beliefs and modern scientific understanding, helping to tie the world together as "our world, but with magic".
• Funny Octopus: The Magic World has the pseudo-octopus called Cerberus Cloth Eater, which only eats and dissolves your clothes, but is still greatly feared by travelers since it licks them thoroughly then leaves them naked in the jungle. Poor Chisame encountered one.
• Furo Scene: Mahora Academy has a Japanese style public bath with the size of a swimming pool. The girls are shown bathing there many times in the series.