Mahou Sensei Negima

Okay, at least the Lotus-Eater Machine was smart enough to provide some justification for why Negi's mother is so shy and awkward with her son. On another note: Zazie's right; ignorance really is bliss in that case, because you can't be sure whether its Setsuna's or Konoka's dream - or even both at the same time!

BTW, does anyone know what that small bubble-less text (near Zazie's face) in the second panel at the top right of this page is saying?

PS: Since a new page rolled out before the 5-post count finished, the counter is reset. Move on.

edited 31st Jul '10 6:56:28 AM by MarqFJA

^full sized version of that page [1]◊ since one manga shrinks things. "she is like some kind of salesperson"

also it cant "be both at the same time!" because there is a bubble of them as kids so its one or the other. gd this is a question for the Q&As

^^^ yes onemanga is getting shut down at the end of the month (very old news)

edited 31st Jul '10 7:12:44 AM by Raso

That whole page shrinking thing is the main reason why prefer Manga Fox; while they too do shrink the pages, it's not as severe as One Manga, and the small text is still legible.

On another note, judging by her own dream-shot, it seems Luna/Shiori is a firm advocate of the second Tenchi Solution.

edited 31st Jul '10 7:13:10 AM by MarqFJA

For what I understood that world is not only a 'perfect world for Negi', but also a 'world where Fate was defeated earlier' right? Zazie actually explained that all the changes happened because of that.

This make sense, after all, Negi likes Eva as a master, therefore, I suppose his 'perfect world' would have her mastering he as well right? But if this is just a world where a little thing was different in the past, then it make sense it is not possible for Negi to have both his family, peaceful life and his master at same time.

There is one thing that made me curious then: Chao. After all, if she is there in the past, she is moving her plan forward. But her plan shouldn't have anything to do with Fate. She was just planing to do it when the World Tree glow is in it max, why it changed in that world?

My supposition is that Fate somehow altered the World Tree. I remember Chao saying she had to put her plan one year ahead because the World Tree started to glow too early. In Negi's illusion, Fate was not there, so the World Tree behave normally, and Chao put her plan in the right schedule.

Well, we already know Fate's current plan messed with the World Tree as well. I wonder if he was trying to do the same thing 10 years ago when Nagi stopped him? That is the only conclusion I could get.

Chao said that she expected another year to prepare for her plan and due to something that has happened recently has changed that (summoning of the demon in Kyoto most likely since they talk about that) or something that whats his face did when he attack Asuna with the slimes ect

edited 31st Jul '10 7:52:41 AM by Raso

I am pretty sure she had to start her plan earlier because of the World Tree, but I don't really remember when she said it. However, the Principal said once the glow started one year earlier. And Chao's plan relies in the power of the World Tree to work. The Principal also said the reason of the one year earlier was because of weather, but it he may be mistake or even lying.

@anyone who is interested: here is where the spoiler for this chapter started.

Heh, thanks. I always like to go back and read what people were discussing. It saved the time of looking for it.

Okay, this cracked me up. Especially Zazie's comment at the very bottom.

I'm leaning towards it being Konoka's ideal reality just because of Rule of Funny, although one has to give kudos to Akamatsu for realizing that we wouldn't figure out whose fantasy it is.

And of course, Call-Back strikes again with the whole "little bit of courage" thing.

Hmm.... it's curious that Nagi and Arika barely interact with Asuna given Nagi's involvement in helping 'Princess-chan', of course, I guess Akamatsu could have just cut for time but re-reading the chapter I couldn't see an instance where Asuna spoke to either Nagi or Arika directly. I might just be getting paranoid though since Akamatsu seems to foreshadow everything!

Also curious when Zazie says 'Chao's incident in the School Festival would have been averted for the present' does that mean even if things were resolved 20 years ago, whatever catastrophe in the future will still happen regardless of what happened to CE?

• facepalm* Dammit, sorry about that.

edited 31st Jul '10 10:56:46 AM by M_Grimorie

Look, you need to close the bracket before you do another paragraph.

Why's everyone so convinced that the "Konoka maid" scene is Konoka's dream? If it was Rule of Funny, then it would be Setsuna's.

It would make more sense for Konoka's dream to be the one with Konoka and Setsuna as children. Recall back to the Kyoto Arc, where it was revealed that Setsuna became distant of Konoka due to failing to save her from drowning, an act that Konoka regrets. Zazie states that CE doesn't just grant a person's desires; it creates an alternate reality where certain events are changed so that a person's desires come naturally. If this event never occured, then Konoka and Setsuna would never be distant.

edited 31st Jul '10 12:30:49 PM by Watchtower

Alright, after a bit of brainstorming and reading posts I came up with a few theories worthy of Wild Mass Guessing.

1. Chao is in Negi's vision because even in the case the CE association was completely destroyed twenty years before (ESPECIALLY in that case, actually), the mana decay in the Mundus Magicus would still happen, since no-one would be aware of it nor would anyone try to stop it. This leads to...

2. Since Negi's vision takes place in September, after the Mahora festival, and Chao's still there, it means the World Tree's luminescence didn't happen one year early, and is still set to happen in May 2004. Then we can safely assume the abnormal conditions of the tree were set up by Fate during the Kyoto school trip and Wilhelm's attack (maybe the summoning of Sukuna and the demon swarm attacking Mahora overcharged the tree with mana or something).

3. Why would Fate do that? Because a new Fate awakens every ten years (the first was created by the Mage of the Beginning during the war in Mundus Magicus, the second definitely has something to do with the Istanbul incident and Nagi's disappearence, though we don't know anything yet); going by the timeline, Tertium awakened in 2003 and didn't find necessary to wait one year to set CE in motion. We know from the last time we saw Mahora Academy that the tree has some kind of influence in Mundus Magicus, so setting off its power early has to be part of the plan.

4. We finally more or less know Chao's motivation to break the masquerade. Given that the survivors of the Mundus Magicus decay got into a war with Earth in the future, letting them know of the existence of magic in the past would prevent that. Easy, yet a work of genius.

5. A timeskip could actually happen... Especially since it would be a ten-year one. Remember how a new Fate is supposedly born every ten years? The current one is the third, and they're elemental (Tertium is earth-elemental). There are four elements...

We could actually deduce all of this from two single chapters? Best Lotus-Eater Machine ever!

edited 31st Jul '10 12:02:04 PM by DOmen

Who says a new one is born every ten years? Rakan tried to completely incinerate Fate 20 or so chapters ago so all the pieces wouldn't reform. It's likely that Fate is merely very difficult to kill. Besides, current Fate was around at least long enough ago to rescue Homura, Koyomi and the others.

Whoops, didn't think about that. You're right. I assumed one was born every ten years mainly because we know the second one acted ten years before (around the time Nagi disappeared) for some reason, and didn't seem to be around before that. Tertium could be different, he's also way more human than his predecessors. We need more info about his backstory. @_@

@ Japanese Teeth- What I was talking about with the Paru and Yami thing was that their inhibitions, basicly Paru would become more reserved like Yami and Yami would have Paru's complete lack of moral's. Okay that would still probably lead to the same result. any bets on how this Yami would react to pervert's?

Also I'm not sure that each Fate had a different element. I could be wrong, but during Rakan's movie didn't the original Fate use a stone attack? I'm pretty sure that that was just during a single panel though.

The current one also uses water attacks, but maybe they specialize in a single element? Why else would Tertium be called Averruncus of Earth earth as in ground)?

Welllll the one who called him that apart from himself was Jack Rakan, who was presumably using the title he had heard before being applied to the first Fate. And only the first Fate, most likely, as he doesn't seem to appear in any group shots from ten years ago. It's likely they've all been using earth and stone as their primary element.

Good enough point. Now I don't know what to think about Fate anymore. I sure do hope Negi gets him to reveal his backstory before defeating/befriending him.

I ... really really don't like this thing with Zazie, it's such a fucking Soap Opera plot twist. "No, it's not the character you thought it was, it's their identical-looking evil sibling who has never even been mentioned before."

Akamatsu, I am disappoint.

Edit: It's kinda amusing that Natsumi's dream involves her and Kotarou as a couple, while Kotarou's is just him and Negi having a good fight. You're hopeless, Kota. Also, Nodoka's dream is still her, Negi, and Yue.

edited 31st Jul '10 12:59:40 PM by Neep

I don't know about the Zazie/Zazie's sister part (it's still a bit too unclear), but Akamatsu always pulls out a previously unheard of sister towards the end of his mangas. XD

We'll see where he goes with the Zazie thing. The fact that we've never heard of her sister before doesn't mean whole lot, since we've never heard pretty much anything about Zazie before.

Yeah, it is really unexpected, but as has been said, we know pretty much nothing about Zazie anyway, we can't really say what's going on. For all we know there's actually only one Zazie who just jerking Negi around. She always was the most enigmatic character of the series, right from the beginning, so the fact that she pulls that ridiculous kind of stuff shouldn't be that surprising. The twist itself could still be good, provided that he uses it well.

If Akamatsu had tried to pull this off with an established character, it would be way more jarring and hard to believe, i.e. if like Anya had a long lost sister or something.

edited 31st Jul '10 1:55:25 PM by JapaneseTeeth

Theory: Zazie is some sort of artificial construct like Fate, and the Zazie who sent them into the illusion just happens to be the same model as the Zazie we (kinda) know.

okay sorry for the stupid question but how do you load and set pictures for an avatar?