Cardcaptor’s Blog

As left off in the last chapter, Chao’s robot army attacks one hour earlier than everyone expects. Serving as the MC again, Asakura announces the beggining of the game.

Scramble!

Continue reading “Mahou Sensei Negima 148: The Great Battle of Mahora, Bang!”

Published in Shounen Magazine 39 (2006)

Negi’s plan is actually to change the annual massively multiplayer event from a ginormous hide-and-seek to a survival shooting game, codename: “Mars Attack vs. Mahora Mage Orger” (Order?). The participants play the role of the mages of Mahora academy who must defend six spots in school from being taken over by an army of robot from Mars.

Event Poster featuring Nagi, Al, and Nekane(?)

Continue reading “Mahou Sensei Negima! 147: The Full Picture of the Counter-Chao Plan”

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.

Continue reading “Mahou Sensei Negima 146: Defeating Chao! Secret Strategy!!”

Published in Shounen Magazine 35-36 (2006)

While hurrying for the root of the World Tree, Negi asks Kamo as to why they are going there. Kamo explains that, according to the 60+ years of data collected by “Loving the World Tree to Our Best of Ability Society” (whose website Kamo asked Chisame to check back 4-5 chapters before), every 22 years the World Tree gives off more light than usual, and on such a year it would continue to radiate until 7-8 days after Mahora Festival. The same thing happens this year (2004). Therefore, Kamo, gambling on the possibility that there is still some magical energy left at the root of the World Tree, decides to lead the Negi Party there, and he’s right. Cassiopeia starts to work again. Continue reading “Mahou Sensei Negima! 145: Time Limit of the Time Machine”

Published in Weekly Shounen Magazine 34 (2006)

It turns out that the magic user that created the illusion that pwned the Negi’s Harem Negi Party is a moelicious loli kindergartener who is the daughter of Mitsuru Nijuuin (the fat magician).

“I’m sowwy…” Continue reading “Mahou Sensei Negima 144: Friendship! Victory! Reunion!”

Published in Weekly Shounen Magazine 33 (2006)

• Negi finally decides that he will escape from the cell and return to the last day of the school festival.
• Facing Takahata, Yue dares Takahata to harm her, one of his former advisees. Takahata follows suit, blowing Yue to the wall, and then starts going after Asuna. who cannot do anything but dodging his attacks.
• Chisame is also caught by the three-headed hound. Being the only one left, Paru decides to use her artifact to fight. She draws a fully armored female sword knight that, upon animation, severs the dog’s leg in one hit, freeing Nodoka. However, the dog can regenerate its leg, and the three girls doesn’t know what to do any more.

Paru’s Servant No.1: Blade Goddess

• In fact, Yue’s artifact is not merely a magic textbook. It is an encyclopedia of wizardry that can connect to MagicNet (TM) and updates the information it contains. Even Chamo is surprised as it can access Class A classified information.

Yue’s artifact.

• Reading her artifact, Yue instructs Asuna to perform an attack that, in theory, even Takahata cannot defend himself against. The attack involves chanting a spell (which sounds like “Ultimate Kill” or something like that) and touching Takahata with Asuna’s sword. Asuna lands a direct hit on Takahata, causing a big explosion. However, the attack is totally ineffective. Amused, Takahata lets out a laughter.
• Yue then realizes that the Takahata appearing before her is a fake. The real Takahata would neither dare harm his former students, nor laugh in such a manner. He would also call every one of the Baka Ranger by her first name, and Negi by “Negi-kun,” not “Ayase-kun” or “Negi-sensei” like the fake one does. Yue then casts a spell she learns from her artifact on Asuna’s sword. The illusion is then destroyed, revealing the midget wizard who has been hallucinating the Negi Rescue Party.

Yue destroys the illusion created by the midget wizard.

Impression

Oh, wow! Yuecchi and Pari are so cool here. Although having no firepower at all, a calm and wise tactician like Yue can be a great reinforcement to any fighting force. This chapter shows just that. Negi Party is now invicible. It has a tank (Asuna), three effective attackers (Ku Fei, Kaede, and Setsuna), the ultimate spy (Nodoka), a minion creater (Paru), a hacker (Chisame), a healer (Konoka), and now a strategist (Yue). I also totally agree with Chamo that her artifact suits her really well: there wouldn’t be anything that befits a true lover of knowledge better than a book that allows her to know everything.

Paru’s awesomeness stems from her Servant No.1: Blade Goddess. It’s design is very cool. Paru-sama, stop being a middle-schooler and start a career as a manga artist already! I’ll make sure I buy all volumes of your work! (You can also do some photogravure as a sideline, you know…)

Nevertheless, I’m a little disappointed with how the fight with Takahata turns out as I would love to see Asuna fight Takanata and pwn his ass (maybe with the help of Yue). Oh well, I guess Akamatsu-sensei manages to preserve the “nice guy” image of Takahata for now.

Grade: A-

Vocabs

Published in Shounen Magazine 32 (2006)

Asuna and co. arrives at the church Nodoka located by reading Mei’s mind.

Meanwhile, Negi and Takahata discussed whether Chao’s plan is correct. Takahata says that the Thousand Master might side with Chao since there’s a possibility that a lot of people can be saved in the world she envisions. However, he personally thinks that Chao’s forcing the world to be as she likes is wrong, and leaves the decision whether to stop Chao to Negi. After the discussion, Takahata receives a phone call, and leaves the room.

Gandolfini and Seruhiko was guarding the Church. The former was drinking cheap liquor out of the sadness of having to live his life as an ermine in the near future. The latter seems to be in control, and consoles his coworker to no avail.

Then, Gandolfini receives a phone call informing him of intruders. At that moment, Asuna and Ku sneaks up behind him, and knocks out the two magical teachers without much difficulty. Even Ku herself is bothered by the fact that Asuna-and-herself combo works so well against magic users.

The gang then descends a 30-storeyed helical staircase. Yue senses that something is amiss as it shouldn’t take them 40 minutes to do so.

But before they can think of anything, Asuna is knocked out by a giant three-headed hound, which then chases after Nodoka, Chisame, and Paru. Ku tries to help them, but a griffon stands in her way, forcing her to run away from it with Konoka.

The remaining two, Asuna and Yue, are then greeted by Takahata, who says that as a part of his job, he cannot let them pass. When Asuna says that, if he didn’t let them, then her friends would be injured by the dog, Takahata simply says that she shouldn’t have brought others in the first place. As he fuses magic with ki, preparing for battle, Takahata says that Eva must have told her to prepare herself before getting entangled with the inner world.

The three-headed dog nails Nodoka down, causing Chisame to protest that her friend is just a normal middle schooler. The midget magician look-alike on the dog’s back counters that, at the moment they get themselves involved with the inner world, they are no longer normal middle schoolers.

Trivia

• Gandolfini has a daughter who is still in primary school. He’s afraid that she will be teased by her classmate because her father becomes an ermine.
• The three-headed dog is in fact not Kerberos since Kerberos doesn’t have snake mane. Because of that, Nodoka thinks it may be Altoros. But then Altoros has only two heads, so she speculates that it might be their cousins instead. In any case, her reaction to the sight of the hound is just gold.

So scared that she cannot choose the appropriate reaction to have.

Impression

A fun chapter with lots of action. I found the Gandolfini and Seruhiko combo to be pretty entertaining: a duo with one person freaking about his/her predicament and the other being calm about it (like Touko and the teacher with sunglasses) seems to work well to me. Hmm… Maybe I like dark comedy? Chisame’s “This fantasy is going f*cking too far” made me smile as well. Oh, the cold-hearted Takahata also looks so badass, man.

Story-wise, this chapter sets a stage for Negi’s maturing as he has to make a decision regarding Chao’s action. How will this turn out? We’ll have to see in the next chapter.