Cardcaptor’s Blog

Published in Shounen Magazine 38 (2006)

Once the warp finishes, the Negi Party finds themselves midair, descending to the ground Marciano’s 12 Sisters style, but without parachutes.

(Akamatsu-sensei works really hard. Having them teleport to the same spot would save him a lot of trouble of drawing the background. Wait… That’s his assistants job, so I think he’s okay. Kudos to the assistants though.)

Of course, Negi saves the day agains with his all-purpose wind magic, allowing the Pary to land safely on a rooftop where Negi went Kiss-Terminator. Looking at the parade on the street below, Chisame confirms that the time is 8:00AM on the third day of Mahora Festival. Negi collapses, and Cassiopeia breaks.

The Party decides to take refuge in a library room inside the Academy, which should be empty due to all library related events’ being held at the Library Island. After Asuna lets Negi sleeps on a couch, Kamo starts a strategy meeting. According to the information Negi received from the Magical Teachers, around 7PM that day, Chao will mobilize 2500 robots, and will use 6 large organic weapons (?) to occupy 6 “magical power gathering spots,” with which she will create a giant magic circle, 3km in diameter. Once the circle is in place she will activate “worldwide forced recognition magic” to make people know and believe in the existence of magic.

Whose drawing is on the left? Negi’s? Well, at least it’s better than Spoo…

Kamo suggests that they focus their firepower to prevent Chao from occupying a spot, thereby preventing her from completing the magic circle. However, considering that their power is not enough to handle 2500 robots, he suggests that they set up another party that searches for Chao and arrest her at the same time because, according to Yue, activating such a large-scale magic requires performing a complicated rituals and chanting for many ten minutes, and the magician must be outdoor.

Negi rises up and suggests his own plan, but the details aren’t revealed to the readers yet. We only know that it’s quite daring, needs a lot of assistance from Ayaka to realize, and involves a yearly tournament in which everyone in the school can participate. Yeah, everyone agrees to Negi’s plan, and then splits up to his/her job. Negi, though, is still too exhausted to do anything, but he manages to pull some emo with his usual apologetic lines.

Asuna and Kuu goes to Ayaka to ask her to change the tournament according to Negi’s plan. Asuna and Ayaka get into a fight because the latter feels that she’s asked to do something that makes her seems like a selfish person who just have lots of money, without being given any reasons. But, once Kuu mentions that it’s a request from Negi, flowers sprout out from thin air around her as she proclaims that she would do anything for her beloved teacher, with her signature “hohoho” laughter, of course.

Ayaka’s attitude switches as if being passed through a NOT gate once Negi’s name is mentioned.

Kuu asks why Asuna doesn’t mention Negi’s name in the first place. Interestingly, the twintail replies that she knows how Ayaka would become like this, so she thinks it’s unfair.

Konoka and Setsuna tells everything to the principal, and it seems that the information is well received. At the moment the principal tells Konoka to leave everything to him and enjoys the rest of the festival, though, Kamo interrupts him, saying that if they let the magical teachers handle the situation then it’s already proven that they would fail. Kamo then tells the principal to let him handle things instead, and asks the principal to get him 2500 sets of special magical equipments stored in warehouse #17 of the Japanese branch of International Magic Knight Brigade. I guess the principal has no choice but to comply.

The scene cuts to Chisame, who’s spreading the news of the new tournament via the internet, and Negi, who’s still resting on the same couch. Negi wonders if what he’s doing is right, especially on the issue of using violence to stop violence. Chisame gets irritated with the fact that Negi, the leader, is still confused. She says that there’s nothing wrong with an-eye-for-an-eye, truth of the world, and she wouldn’t stop at knocking Negi in the head to make him understand. Yue then approaches Chisame from behind, reciting some philosophical gibberish and telling Negi that she thinks Negi is not wrong at all to hesitate because, if he thinks that he’s right, then there’s no way out of his own mistakes.

Impression

Man, this chapter is quite hard to read: there’s a lot of technical words like “coordinate,” “circuit,” “time leap,” “organic,” etc. However, it’s full of information and quite interesting. We get to know Chao’s plan and get to see Kamo’s logical thinking and street-smart tough bargaining. Kamo is so cool this time: he completely pwns the principal. I’m pretty convinced that he must have been a magic user before, but was turned into an ermine because repeated felonies of underwear theft.

Although Negi’s plan is not entirely revealed to us yet, it’s quite interesting already. We’ll see people fighting Chao’s robot using the equipment Kamo orders the principal to get, and everyone loves large-scale battles, right?

Also, I find these pictures of Chisame’s and Yue’s faces on the last page really kakkoii for some reasons.

Kakkoii Chisame.

Kakkoii Yue.

Vocabs