YMMV / Negima! Magister Negi Magi

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Konoka acts like a Genius Ditz at first glance, but her excellent academic record, too-flirty-to-be-totally-innocent remarks to Setsuna and masterful handling of berserk Tsundere Anya point to Obfuscating Stupidity. The fact that we've only directly seen her thoughts twice (both for minor things) in the entire series helps.
  • Negi. Is he a Chaste Hero who cares for his friends and wants to find his father? Or is he a selfish Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who only cares about his goals of finding his father, becoming a Magister Magi and saving Mundus Magicus and making sure that his students don't get hurt is just a way to make sure he doesn't fail his training and is apathetic to anything that doesn't involve those three things?
  • Evangeline's ambiguous Dark and Troubled Past has led to some of this with her backstory, given not much of is revealed and her word on it isn't very trustworthy.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The True Final Boss of the series. After coming back and oneshotting Negi and Fate, the Lifemaker does absolutely nothing to prevent the girls from freeing Asuna, holding the Villain Ball until he's oneshotted himself by Negi and Asuna in a single chapter's span. Then he's defeated one final time off panel during a Time Skip.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The MahoraFest arc had taken up more than half of the whole series at its conclusion (96 of 168 chapters) and was so long Akamatsu was forced to drop a few plotlines, including Zazie's formal introduction.
  • The Magic World arc was even longer, spanning 166 chapters. After the defeat of the Arc Villain, the next few chapters quickly wrapped things up in time for The Movie.
• Ass Pull:
  • Most new pactio formed has a good chance of being exactly what the gang needs at that very instant, but most of them are predicted due to the girl's personality, a fact that's taken advantage of on several occasions.
  • Jack Rakan's return.
  • Chao's Inter-dimensional Travel machine
• Audience-Alienating Ending: The ending of the manga is considered quite unsatisfactory among its fans, to say the least. The main plot with Negi's father is resolved off-panel, a bunch of unanswered questions are left behind, and in general, lots of plot points are brought up right at the end and then quickly set aside. As a result of the lack of proper resolution, many fans felt that their investment in the plot and characters were wasted. The sequel has addressed a few of these complaints, though not all of them.
• Awesome Ego: The fandom does not appear to mind Jack Rakan's self-aggrandizing statements about his power and abilities (To quote him, "I have no weaknesses!") - probably because he more or less lives up to his claims, and then some.
• Base-Breaking Character: Negi. Some consider him a dull protagonist with little Character Development, mostly due to having probably one of the worst cases of Aesop Amnesia in shonen history. Others find him genuinely compelling in his goals with an intriguing backstory and character dynamic, especially in comparison to other protagonists in the Harem or Shonen genres (who can often be quite dull compared to their co-stars).
• Best Known for the Fanservice: As with most of Ken Akamatsu's work, Negima definitely carries a strong level of fanservice throughout the series, but it also drops it during tense moments and it has plenty of Fan Disservice.
• Crack Pairing: The Where Are They Now epilogue very strongly implies that Hakase eventually marries Kurt Godel.
• Crazy Is Cool: Jack Rakan tends to break the rules of magic just because he feels like it and the fans absolutely love him for it.
• Creepy Cute: Chachazero often falls into this, since her psychotic tendencies are entirely played for laughs. And she has miniature sized wine bottles that she drinks with Chamo − whether she can actually drink is anyone's guess.
• Damsel Scrappy: Ako somewhat comes off as one during the first half of the Mundus Magicus arc. The initial problem involves Ako getting herself, Akira, and Natsumi sold into slavery, resulting in Negi's mission to find the rest of his students to take a back seat somewhat due to him and Kotarou having to take part in a tournament in order to get the money to buy their freedom. However, most of the main ire comes when Negi receives an artifact that allows Negi to use the artifacts of his Ministra Magi, and rather than using this as an opportunity to allow her to make her Pactio, Ako instead just wishes good luck in the final match against Rakan, resulting in the whole "slavery/tournament" sub-plot (outside of Negi meeting Rakan and training with him) being almost pointless.
• Dueling Shows: With Fairy Tail. Both being mangas centered on magic and serialized on Weekly Shonen Magazine.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Yue dethroned Setsuna in the final character ranking. Must be because of her time in the Magic World.
  • Makie topped the first two character polls despite not having done much of anything.
  • Eva is quite possibly designed for this: She doesn't appear very much, but when she does she tends to dominate the scene.
  • According to Word of God, Madoka's involvement in Ako's first Day in the Limelight arc boosted her popularity.
  • Jack Rakan.
  • A poll held to celebrate the debut of the UQ Holder! anime had Nodoka topping the polls.

• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Negima is fairly popular in Japan, it's also one of the best selling manga in America and one of the few that had put a dent in Naruto's numbers.
• Gotta Ship 'Em All: Due to its large cast of characters, both main and side, the series experiences a ton of shipping with basically every single member of class 3-A in addition to Negi himself. It also helps that there is a significant amount of Ambiguously Bi amongst the girls and many of them go well together, some forming friendships that weren't present at the start of the story and others even engaging in minor Ship Tease with each other (Ayaka and Asuna, Yue and Nodoka, and the ever popular Setsuna and Konoka for example). The series is also rife with both in and out of universe examples of OT3, like Nodoka being okay with sharing Negi with Yue.
• Growing the Beard: Somewhere between the Evangeline arc and the School Festival arc. The latter is widely considered to be where the series really makes a name for itself with interesting character dynamics and a ton of the girls getting more involved with the overarching story.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • As part of Negi's and Kotaro's training in a diorama for their match against their mentor Jack Rakan, they do press-ups with huge rocks engraved "Defeat Rakan-san" on their backs. Later, they return to the diorama after Fate defeated and erased Rakan from existence to discuss strategy; the rock is still there.
  • During Tsukuyomi's first appearance, she mentioned wanting to make Setsuna and Konoka hers. That comes off a lot differently now given... what we know now.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The scene of the Slime Sisters attacking a group of naked girls is amusing now that there's a series that features a slime girl who's infamous for molesting people.
  • Long after the debut of Natsumi Murakami in this series, a Japanese voice actress of the same name went on to voice a girl named Ako in Aikatsu Stars!.
  • During the Kyoto arc, there's a throwaway scene of some of the girls playing a card-battle game, with something called "Frog Hell" being name-dropped. Only a few years later, players of a certain real-life card game would know what a real Frog Hell was like.
• Ho Yay: Has its own page.
• I Am Not Shazam: Why the "Ma"? May be a reference to a Japanese spring onion dish.
• Iron Woobie: Ako and Chao.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Just about everyone, although mainly Negi.
• Memetic Badass: Jack Rakan, and he deserves every bit of it.
• Memetic Molester: Tsukuyomi's In Love with Your Carnage tendencies have made her this, which is pretty much in character. Ayaka too her incredibly creepy attitude whenever Negi is around can make her a borderline child molester and get her arrested in some countries.
• Moe: The series in general, especially in regards to the female characters.
• Moral Event Horizon: Tsukuyomi goes beyond the point of redemption when she tries to rape and kill Setsuna.
• Narm Charm: The official English translation of the Manga, specifically Ku Fei's semi-Hulk Speak dialect. It's a spotty means of translating her tendency to stick '-aru' where it shouldn't be, but it grows on you after a while.
• Never Live It Down:
  • We're never gonna let Nodoka forget her "desired solution", are we?
  • No one is ever, ever going to forget Chachamaru's winding incident. Probably 'cause they just keep happening.
  • There's also Chachamaru getting chopped in half. It's become a sort of mini Meme in certain parts of the net to photoshop various reasons for her to be cut in half, like a Rider Kick for instance◊. It was even animated in Final. Cue videos and animated Gifs to the same effect popping up.
• Robo Ship: Negi/Chachamaru
• The Scrappy:
  • Anya is markedly less popular than most of the other characters. The two main reasons for this are her Bratty Half-Pint / Tsundere behavior (made worse by the fact that she appears extremely immature and petty compared to the rest of the cast), and because she has very little actual plot importance, making her presence seem kind of pointless. It doesn't help that you'd think Negi's childhood friend would play a big part in things or at the very least shake things up a good deal by appearing, but she ultimately didn't amount to much and was soon lost in the tidal wave of characters.
• Shipping: Far too many to list; more of a Love Buckyball than a Love Dodecahedron.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Naturally, due to being a Harem Series. Should Negi end up with Nodoka? Yue? Both of them? Maybe Asuna? Chisame? Or perhaps he should get with Konoka/Setsuna? Maybe even Fate? The series presents an extremely large amount of possibilities not only with Negi, but within Class 3-A itself. The only ship that's universally agreed upon is the aforementioned Konoka/Setsuna.
• Signature Scene: Nodoka stealing Dynamis' key and announcing that her counterattack has begun.
• Squick: To some people, the fact that a lot of 15 year old girls fall in love with or even are merely attracted to a 10 year old boy is rather uncomfortable. Ayaka does have a Freudian Excuse (her younger brother was stillborn and would have been the same age as Negi had he lived, so she projects that affection onto Negi), but it doesn't do much to lower the squick, not even when her attraction towards him is largely played for humor.
• Story-Breaker Power: A few examples:
  • Negi's Pactio artifact allows him to use all of his Ministra's artifacts. There is a good reason it was cancelled.
  • Jack Rakan's whole existence. Even lampshaded by other characters.
    Chisame: He's so broken it's not even funny!
  • Code of the Lifemaker. As said by one person on a forum:
    ...using these keys in battle always feels like playing any The Elder Scrolls game, opening the console, selecting an opponent and typing "kill".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Pretty much anything involving the first anime. While it was understandable the ending would likely be changed since the manga's monthly status made it impossible to keep from catching up (This was in the days where anime didn't adopt a seasonal approach and often opted for Gecko Ending). Some were disappointed with the shortening of a few of the arcs (Evangeline's arc for example severely cut down the climax where Negima fights the vampirized girls while chasing Evangeline, instead just using a spell instantly knocking them out) and the oddness of last few start arcs. Likewise some where annoyed that the last few arcs were regulated to OVAs and a movie, making a very annoying task watching the rest of the story.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Ako. Given the scar on her back and how she can't handle seeing blood, the manga could have easily use her screen time to provide her back story for both of these. Instead, her character arc has her falling for an older version of Negi and basically being a Damsel in Distress that he needs to save. Even at the finals of Magical World tournament, when Ako has finally learned the truth and Negi is given an item that can allow him to use any of his Ministra Magi's Pactio items, the only thing she really contributes here is wishing him good luck (rather than making a Pactio with Negi, with her item being the trump card in his fight against Rakan).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Chapter 352: Asuna is now 130 years in the future on her own, though sad because of the fact that she has lost everyone she loves. It almost seemed like the premise for a new series centering on Asuna in a new world and becoming the heroine of her own story. But no, instead Akamatsu decided to take the Writer Cop Out, by having Chao conveniently appear with not only the Time Machine, but the gigantic Ass Pull that is the Inter-dimensional travel machine, and have Asuna go back to the exact moment that she left, making her supposed sacrifice redundant.
• Too Cool to Live: In chapter 278, Rakan finally succumbs to the might of the Code of the Lifemaker and disappears in front of Negi. Then he comes back from the grave (briefly) to Bright Slap Negi out of his Unstoppable Rage. It just takes spirit.
• Villain Decay: Notably subverted and twisted with Evangeline: although after her first defeat, she is no longer really an enemy, she later reveals (several times) that she is far, far, far more powerful than she let on at first, making her absolutely terrifying. Among other things, she uses her ice magic to shatter a demon several hundred meters tall, she KOs an extremely skilled martial artist in one hit without her magic while she was distracted by thoughts of Negi's father, and draws a character into an alternate dimension (well, an illusion of it anyways) and proceeds to nuke said character multiple times. Motive Decay? Maybe. Villain Decay? Not even a little bit.
• The Woobie:
  • Ako, to an incredible degree.
  • Being a happy little boy with an Unwanted Harem of hot cuties aside, Negi has been through enough pain, horror, and trauma in his short life to give the most hardened Child Welfare officer nightmares for months.
  • Nekane is also one.
  • Poor, poor Shiori. And then the truth came finally out... Of all things, did she have to look like this?! It's outright impossible to be angry with her!
• Writer Cop Out:
  • Chapters 352-53 Asuna is now stuck alone in the future with everyone dead, so what does Akamatsu do? Have Chao and Eva appear out of nowhere to take Asuna back to the exact moment she left.
  • Might be also the reason why both Negi and Setsuna suffer from so much Aesop Amnesia, because once it seems that they have finally overcome their issues and insecurities a few chapters later, they're exactly the same as they were before. It's possible that Akamatsu had no idea how to have these two characters develop after overcoming their insecurities and so had these two forget everything they had learned just so that they could learn all over again, because otherwise he'd have no idea what to do with them.

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