Mahou Sensei Negima/Headscratchers


 * In chapter 310, page 7,
 * I guess either she entered the Anti Magic field, or Fate deduced from seeing the others appear.
 * Or perhaps the artifact stops working if you know she's there.
 * This is confirmed.
 * During the memory replay in Chapters 65 and 66, how does Asuna see Nekane coming home when Negi was off fishing somewhere? The spell description basically says A Wizard Did It, but come on, it's a spell to recall memories, and Nekane was hundreds of miles away (let alone in Another Dimension entirely) at the time!
 * Maybe it is because Negi knew Nekane was coming at the time, so the memory reconstruction added this information to the 'dream'.
 * Nagi, Nekane, Negi...what's with the Springfield family members' names? Is it just a weeaboo tradition in the family? Or did Akamatsu get worn out after Sarah from Love Hina and Evangeline? Not Even Bothering With The Foreign Sounding Gibberish?
 * Well, to be technical, the Springfields aren't really Welsh. Negi did grow up there, but its more likely that Nagi was from the Magic World, and we have no idea what their naming conventions are.
 * Nagi's not from the Magic World, judging by his comments about the invention of the Atom Bomb in his "home world". So Japanese blood in the family. Or just weird.


 * Maybe there's some Japanese in the family. Heck, we know nothing about Negi's mother. For someone willing to die just to find out about his father; Negi is curiously uncurious about her.
 * It's possible she's, but if so, he's still strangely uninterested in her.
 * Or maybe he already knows (or thinks) that she's dead.
 * Eva ripped a chunk out of Nagi for not petting her head, and it grew into a whole new boy. Like starfish. Or something.
 * The manga is finally getting around to at acknowledging the question. ; even Negi is considering that possibility. (Although it's highly likely Akamatsu is just screwing with us.) Of course, everybody in the manga who actually knows the answer has been sworn to secrecy about it, so we're not probably getting an answer anytime soon.
 * Question answered. His mother was.
 * Was that confirmed by Word of God? The person mentioning it doesn't exactly seem trustworthy, after all.
 * Jack Rakan confirms it in chapter 258. He's a bit of an idiot, but I seriously doubt he'd lie to Negi about something like that.
 * It seems to be a relatively common practice among magic families--see Takane Goodman or Gateau Kagura von Vandenburg for other examples.
 * Fun fact: If you spell it Neggie, it is Foreign Sounding Gibberish.
 * In volume 9, Negi sends his sister a letter with language options - but which did he record it in? Logically, he would've been speaking English, yet Asuna seems to have understood what he was saying.
 * Then again, Asuna's.
 * It is, however, established early on that she doesn't speak English.
 * As far as she knows, anyway. Could remember it subconsciously or something.
 * If that's the case, then why did Negi not comment on her suddenly understanding a language she was having trouble with in class?
 * Well, it would be just like Negi to insist on speaking Japanese, even when talking to someone who speaks English, just so he doesn't get rusty.
 * Nekane does know Japanese, as the girls commented while they were visiting her.
 * Did Chamo even call Negi "Aniki" in England?
 * There seems to be a large amount of Translation Convention going on in the series. For all we know Chamo speaks in Erminese, and its magically translated to whatever language the person he's talking to understands/prefers.
 * No, he specifically says he's "gotta work on his Japanese" after accidentally trying to lure Negi into his first Pactio by creating the fake emergency that Nodoka was being attacked by "karaage"--which Negi translates as "fried chicken".
 * It's an extention of the "mages are weeaboos" thing.
 * Aniki can be translated pretty effectively as "bro." I'd assume that's what he called Negi in England.
 * Why does the series logo have a Magen David in the background?
 * Hexagram, Pentagram, To-may-to, To-mah-to....
 * Look up Seal of Solomon.
 * If Sayo has been dead for 60 years, why is she advancing classes with everyone else in the manga? Does she go through the gamut of grades, go back, and repeat everything?
 * If she is bound to that particular classroom, probably. If she were not such a softie she would have a worse attitude than Evangeline.
 * I don't think she's bound to the classroom. The anime shows her wlaking freely around the school, and even the manga shows her following Asakura around.
 * It's simple. She is bound to the school (or at least was), not the class room but has been going to it and sitting in the same chair to have something to do for 60 years. As the class advanced grades they stayed in the same room. I think the picture on the roster was more or less a joke, but given who the last teacher was they may have known she was there.
 * She's not bound to the school -- she was able to go on the class trip to Kyoto without any special arrangements (unlike, say, Evangeline).
 * Actually, at the start of that arc Setsuna says that the three other members of her group couldn't make it -- Those three are Evangaline, Chachamaru and Sayo.
 * Perhaps in the animes but not so in the manga. She doesn't even show up until 3 volumes after the trip and flat out states she is tied to the school but can go as far as a convenience store where she has been spending her nights before the others found out about her as she is scared of the noises she hears in the class room at night. she has gotten around being tied to the school by possessing a voodoo doll that is inside a small doll that looks like her.
 * And there's strong evidence she never made it on the trip even unnoticed by anybody - Zazie and Setsuna mentioned three students never showed up (in the manga), we see later that Setsuna at least would notice her if actually looking for a student named Sayo in the vicinity, and we immediately cut to two of the three missing students - Evangeline and Chachamaru on a rooftop.
 * Tied to the school, yes, but why in all these years has she not attended classes for higher grades? Sitting through the same middle school level over and over has got to be mind-numbingly dull. She could have gained so many college degrees-worth of knowledge, and in the short run this would have allowed her to stay around her old classmates as they moved up. Wasting this opportunity bugs me greatly. Same deal with Eva, perpetual loli-ness be damned.
 * Eva never tries as she doesn't want to be there in the first place. For a 500 year old vampire that has had to go through these classes at least 3 times, she is ranked pretty low; not even 500th of 737 students. Only the baka rangers, a 2 year old robot, and the daemon mime are ranked worse the she is. That aside she has mastered a few forms of martial arts over the years.
 * I know that if I had to go through the same classes for 15 years I'd eventually stop caring. She's probably just doing the bare minimum to keep people from bothering her about it. She probably never takes the trouble to study or hand anything in. She's already one of the powerful people alive anyway, so it's not like getting good grades really matter. As long as the barrier keeps her at the school, she can't graduate anyway, and as soon as the barrier is down, she'll go off and do some dark evil vampire magic stuff or something.
 * Sayo has been haunting the same seat in the same classroom for sixty years. The living students rotate out every three years as they graduate and a new section is formed. Eva's been stuck similarly, but everyone else can see her. Sayo has been "wasting" her educational opportunity because she's dead. Priorities change when you're dead.
 * It is simple, Sayo is tied to the classroom. More specifically, to her seat (note how Negi is said to not change her seat). It is just that, apparentely in Mahora the classes stay the same until they graduate. Sayo have just beem cycling from the first to the last year of the "junior-high" since she died.
 * Then how does she go to the local convenience store?
 * The area she's tied to extends beyond the class room for a certain distance. The convenience store happens to be within that radius.
 * In the ending chapters of the manga, you can see that Sayo attended and received her graduation certificate. It should be clear that the cause of her binding is that no previous teachers bothered to graduate her.
 * Seriously, what was up with Nagi's plan to Then again, Nagi is an idiot...
 * I always assumed it was a sort of indulgence, making sure his son is getting strong. Plus, it may be part of whatever Master Plan he has cooking related to his disappearance- it is possible that it was done to throw people off, to continue the mistaken belief that he'd dead
 * Did it actually say that Sanders' pactio was with Nagi?
 * Chapter 163, page 13: Sanders: This is the card between me and the Thousand Master. This card is alive. This is the proof of his survival.
 * Presumably, the artifact is only created/given at the making of one's first Pactio. Making a new Pactio when your previous partner dies doesn't result in a new artifact, but rather restores your access.
 * This is pretty clearly true, as Albireo has at least twelve dead Pactio cards that all show him in the exact same pose with the Bublio Biographica. It seems either he's been around for a LONG time or he's had really bad luck picking Magisters.
 * And/or he's a pactio whore and he tends to have multiple pactios at a time so even if Nagi's didn't work one of his others would.
 * Smart money is on the idea that he's been around a while. First off, he looks exactly the same now as he did in the flashbacks to twenty years earlier. Second, when they're busting Asuna out of whereveritis, he remarks that "her age, like mine, cannot be determined by appearance alone". Third, a person's artifact tends to reflect who they are, and an artifact that allows one to accumulate information and messages from others makes thematic sense as belonging to someone who's been around a while and would meet a lot of people.
 * Actually, no he doesn't. His hair is slightly lighter now than it was 20 years ago. Fans have noticed, and Word of God says it's important.
 * However, given Chapter 252, with Setsuna getting a new card with a different pose, wardrobe and (at least from what I can see) no hint of her artifact, we really can't confirm anything. (Speaking of, she seems to be holding some sort of axe with a really long handle...)
 * User:Zeful has an explination: Pactio artefacts are an expression of the person receiving them. Setsuna's changed because she is now a radically different person getting Konoka's pactio then when she got Negi's. The growth she got in the magic world. Before her priorities and goals were fractured, her numerous swords/daggers representing that (she very likely had goals for when Konoka didn't need her anymore, based on how willing she was to leave) now, with Konoka's little speech, Setsuna gained a truly singular purpose, which the pactio responded to. I'm guessing that whatever artefact she got from Konoka, it's singular.
 * Remember her normal sword is an oversized variant of the katana (either an Ōdachi or a Nodachi), with tassels tied to the end of the handle. It could be that on her new card.
 * Did they ever say that the pactio cards become non-functional on death? More specifically, did they state that Sanders wouldn't be able to use his artifact if the mage in question died? I mean, yeah, he can't get the power-up, the summoning, or the telepathy, but that relies on someone else on the other end actually doing something.
 * Translation Notes for volume 10 (Mana's Pacto Card): "Because her Magister is unfortunately deceased, Mana is no longer provided with magical support and can no longer call forth her artifact."
 * OK, so where did Natsumi come from in the whole "magical world" bit? When they all landed at the station, it was just Yuuna, Akira, Ako, and Makie- Negi even said something about "Makie and her three friends." So was this an oversight or a later addition?
 * You must have missed that there was another robed person whose i.d. we didn't see that followed the rest in.
 * We later found out that was Natsumi.
 * A wizard did it.
 * Namely, the one running the teleportation system. ^_^
 * First, when it comes to "where did Natsumi come from?", she can clearly be seen among the girls who followed the Ala Alba into the Magic World (although some people couldn't recognize her because the only clear shot of her was a back shot). As for her not being noticed at the station, that's because unlike Ako and Akira, she pretty much stayed back at the gatepost rather than risk getting caught and go after Yuuna and Makie.


 * There are all sort of questions I have about the Pactios:
 * Can one person be the partner of multiple mages simultaneously? It would mean they could become even more powered up, and they would have a backup pactio if one of the mages dies.
 * There was a bonus chapter of early design and interviews some way back (around ch. 50) that answered that. Akamatsu likened it to club membership; you can be a member of several at the same time, but only participate to the activities of one at any time. So you can only have one powerup active at the same time.
 * Can two mages form a pactio with each other? If they could, would they both get power-ups from each others magic, or would they cancel each other out? Albireo and Nagi are obviously both mages. Does this mean that Nagi has his own artifact?
 * Normally, the wielder draws some power from the mage. In this case, the absorptions should just about cancel out (or at least weaken each other). Although it might be technically possible, they would have to support their own artifact on their own, something that may or may not be practical.
 * What if you have three mages, and they form a form a closed loop? i.e. mage A is the magister of mage B, who is the magister of mage C, who in turn is the magister of mage A. This could in theory work with longer Magister/ministra chains.
 * What happens if someone who is currently a partner becomes a mage? If Konoka becomes a full-fledged mage, would Negi retroactively receive a pactio card and artifact? Or if Konoka becomes a mage and makes a pactio with Setsuna, would it cancel her pactio with Negi, or would she be a mage and partner simultaneously? Would Setsuna's pactio with Negi be overwritten? If not, if Negi activated his contract with Konoka, and she then activated her contract with Setsuna, would Setsuna receive a power boost from both of them? What if Negi activated his contract with Setsuna at that point?
 * I'd suspect that there's some rules in the setup that there's the mage and the artifact-bearer (for lack of a better term) that's set up when the contract is formed. So Negi would probably have to form a separate contract with Konoka- which I would suspect would cancel out their first pact. For dual pactios, I honestly have no idea.
 * It's confirmed that you can be both a mage and a partner.
 * I always just figured that the circle they draw for making pactios specifies the identity of the mage in the equation. Remember that when Konoka formed her pactio with Negi, she was technically a mage, if an untrained one. It seems to me that this is the obvious solution.
 * Confirmed in the volume Q&As, the circle defines who is in which role.
 * Is there any way of destroying a pactio without the mage dying?
 * I'd suspect so, though how to go about it is anyone's guess.
 * This is just a theory, but I think the mage can cancel the probationary pactio(s) once they've chosen a permanent partner.
 * Theodora cancelled her contract with Negi (offscreen, admittedly), and she's still fine.
 * Does Evangeline actually have some sort of pactios with Chachamaru and Chachazero? She explicitly refers to them as her partners. Is a pactio with a magically created construct possible? If so, what kind of artifacts would they have?
 * I don't think so. Chachamaru's an odd combination of magic and science, so she was built that (Ford) tough. Eva doesn't seem the type.
 * In a recent chapter, Chachamaru and the ghost-girl both consider doing a pactio with Negi after they are told that to make a pact, all you need is a soul. This troper got the impression that Chachamaru didn't have any experience with the process otherwise.
 * Chapter 262 reveals that Evangeline apparently has something called a Doll Contract with Chachamaru, which I would guess is also the case with Chachazero. It's probably the result of the fact that Evangeline created them with her magic. So they do have some form of partnership, but seem to be a different type of contract than what Negi  have with their partners.
 * Yes I am fully aware that I spend way to long thinking about these things. My job is really, really boring and I have to occupy my mind with something.
 * I hear you brother/sister. Same boat here.
 * I think that at least Chachazero is a partner. When she attacks the monkey girl from the Kyoto arc, you can clearly see that her sword says "Minstra Magi Chachazero". I'm gonna guess that the sword is her artifact.
 * Could be. Or it could just be an engraved sword, there to make you think that. Eva's proven able and willing to use fighting styles other than her own, especially that of the traditional Western magister magi, and might be quite willing to make up the trappings and bluff. I don't think she bothered with Pactios prior to being Brought Down to Normal and afterwards it's doubtful she could perform a Pactio, or power a partner... at least up until Negi arrived and she stepped up her refeeding schedule.
 * In chapter 262, Evangeline mentioned that the contract she has between herself and Chachamaru is a Doll Contract. Not much is said about it, but one can assume that it is similar to a regular pactio contract, only between a master and puppet rather than two people. That would explain why it seems Chachamaru and Chachazero have artifacts of sorts without having formed a pactio.
 * While we're on the subject, has it actually been explained how a full contract is formed? Considering that a probationary one is sealed with a kiss and a full one is said to be as good as a marriage proposal...yeah.
 * That's Asuna's interpretation, but I think it's an overreaction. Yeah, a Magister/Ministra pair is traditionally male and female, but we've already seen that not a hard and fast rule. A mixed gender pair would naturally become a Battle Couple, it's no surprise that a lot of them do marry, but not all of them.
 * When
 * Since the permanent contract is as it says on the packet, it's probable that a much more complicated ceremony is involved, not just extending the kiss. (Which ties in to the whole marriage thing i.t.o ceremonies... no other implication)
 * And try and reconcile this: on one hand Asakura formed a pactio with Negi at a pactio shop, on the other one of Yue's comrades at the Ariadne academy calls an Artifact card "legendary"
 * One of Yue's comrades says that, a member of a group of young girls who have been shown to be both easily excitable and not particularly worldly. Or maybe pactios really are that rare, but the shop was a special one - Asakura mentions it being expensive.
 * Or maybe pactios are common but artifacts are rare. When Yue's comrade first sees the card, she calls it a pactio card, before correcting herself and calling it an artifact card. My interpretation is that anyone can make a pactio, but only a powerful mage will grant an artifact with it. Normal pactios just provide telepathy, summoning, and boosting the partner's strength and speed through the mage's magic. Even without an artifact, a pactio is still quite useful.
 * But, if artifacts aren't always given with pactios, wouldn't that make it seem REALLY unlikely that so far ALL of the pactios we've seen have granted an artifact to the partner? Especially in the case of Negi and his partners... if it's so rare, then somebody (Chamo, Rakan, etc.) should have pointed out how unlikely it is that all of his partners have artifacts.
 * Don't forget that Negi IS a strong mage, even if he is just a child.
 * If it's a function of the power of the mage, then it would be consistent: There are mages that (at their current level of power) never give artifacts when making a pactio, and others who always do...
 * This is more or less hinted at in the manga, where it's recently been stated that the creators of the Pactio system were Negi's ancestors.
 * Confirmed in the tankoubon Q&As; pactios only make artifacts if the mage is particularly powerful to begin with.
 * So what about Kokone and Misora?
 * We don't know how powerful Kokone is. Could be that her powers lie in something other than combat magic, as she's never been particularly proactive in battle.
 * Speaking of pactios, does anybody else find the Neo-Pactios of Negima!? to be a huge failure once Fridge Logic sets in? It seems cute on paper, but when you think about it, invoking a Neo-Pactio has a 30% chance of rendering your protector not only useless, but fundamentally helpless, right when you need them.
 * Now that you mention it,yes.
 * I was coming here to post something about that. Yes, whoever came up with that (in-verse wise) obviously didn't think it through. "So, you draw your partner's power at random and it runs out whenever they're hungry? And you have the chance of him/her being completely useless, possibly getting yourself and them slaughtered in battle? But they will look cute while it's happening? This is a brilliant idea!"
 * Wasn't it stated that the Dud is a 10% chance? Duds showed up for Rule of Funny.
 * For a 10% chance, Duds showed up a lot of the course of the series. Million to One Chance, anyone?
 * What makes the Neo-Pactios a bigger failure is that it's all Asuna's fault. Think about it: her Cosplay Card always wielded the harisen, while her Armor card always wielded the BFS. Considering the fact that Asuna was the first to receive a Neo-Pactio, I don't think this is a coincidence. I think Studio Shaft decided to make 2 seperate cards for Asuna's weapons, and made a third one (Dud) for Rule of Funny. This would later screw them over considering that they had a new system which had to be copied for every single girl in Class 3-A. Tell me, does this count as Fridge Brilliance if the realization makes it suck more?
 * Yue's pretty close to Ostia. Shouldn't her pin be in range of Chachamaru's sensors by now? I think it's something like 900 klicks in range.
 * Yue didn't make her appearance until the very end of the chapter. Maybe the next chapter will start with Chachamaru telling Negi that she's nearby. Also, given the, she might not view the pin as significant, and left it back at the school. My best guess is that she'll either recognize Negi at the tournament, or Asuna will somehow  that caused the whole problem.
 * Yue did bring the pin with here as we know she brought her card with her (obviously)and it shows the pin on the card, what bugs me is why negi hasn't used his telepathic communication to communicate with Yue even though he recognized her on sight, and wondered why she let him go.
 * I forget where, but it was mentioned that the giant warships provide a shielding effect. So if Yue leaves her pin on the warship (since it's not part of her uniform), its signal is blocked/weakened. The same goes with telepathy; if Yue was on the warship whenever Negi tried telepathy, it could be blocked by the ship's shields.
 * Did Negi ever go see the "Nightmare Circus" that Zazie gave him a ticket to? I remember he spent an entire timeskip going to all of his student's activities, but I don't think he ever did the circus.
 * No, it was going to be on the third day, but the Battle of Mahora ended up taking up that day.
 * Actually, according to this page it was on the second day, and according to this he went through Day 2 a few times; this would imply that he did go. We just didn't see it.
 * In 8 days later however Negi says he still has to go to Natsumi's play, Zazie's circus and Fuka and Fumika's strolling club.
 * Supposedly we were going to, but Akamatsu dropped it after realising the festival arc was going on for so long. A shame - we now know nothing about Zazie.
 * After thinking about it too much, it dawned on me that some people at Mahora are really neglectful of Negi, especially Takamichi and the Principal. Think about it, they import him from England, and dump him in a class with a ghost, a mercenary, a half-demon, Asuna, and an infamous, stupidly-powerful, evil vampire who just so happens to hold a grudge against Negi because his father trapped her in the school. The kicker is that no one thinks to inform him that numerous members of his class are magical beings who could easily kill him if they wanted to.
 * In addition, nobody tells Negi that most of the faculty are mages, so he's never able to ask for backup or anything when confronted with said evil vampire, or a demon, or whatever weirdness occurs on campus.
 * Well it is his final test from school to become a Magister -- they can't make it too easy and I don't think Eva ever planed to do permanent harm to Negi.
 * And Negi did know about both the headmaster and Takamichi before he arrived, who could presumably help with minor advice (or little offscreen things like telling Eva to cut back on the blood-draining before the media picks up the story). I think it's more the whole reverse Sunnydale Syndrome thing going on throughout the series where if you're not normal, you think not normal is normal. Most of the people at Mahora just aren't seeing most of this as worth warning Negi about.
 * I believe this is an effect of Mr. Akamatsu making stuff up as he goes along. The only thing you mentioned that he planned from the beginning was Evangeline. Negi couldn't call on any other teachers for help back then because back then the other teachers were just teachers and wouldn't have any idea what he was talking about. Later he made Mahora into a magic school and the teachers all became mages. And so on.
 * Time travel, dude. That *** is messed up, and they're lucky that nothing worse occurred. Sayo was actually born sometime in the next generation, but ended up being eaten by flying time monkeys about sixty years ago.
 * Be fair now, most of the class was actively laying low and/or just trying to get an education so there was little point . And they did warn him about Eva-chan (in the original Japanese, the note by her name on the class roster read as something closer to "If there is trouble, ask for assistance.").
 * Except that if I were a teacher, and I saw a note like that, I would assume that she was just disruptive in class or something; not that she's an ubermage who holds a grudge against my father.
 * One of the scanalations translates that note as "Talk to me if she becomes a problem". A subtle but important difference. Of course, Eva did threaten Negi off of asking for help.
 * The original message was just "If troubled, consult." It sounds more like, "Consult her when troubled" to me, though.
 * Made worse by the fact that both translations are seen a few chapters apart in onemanga: the "talk to me" one when we first see the class roster, and the "consult" one during her arc.
 * If I remember right, the headmaster did rein in Eva during her arc, after he found out about the bloodsucking. It's possible he and everyone else just didn't think she'd be a problem (and she wasn't, until the whole "breaking down the Mahora barrier" thing).
 * By my count, seven members of the class were in on The Masquerade to some degree when Negi got there. (Eva, Setsuna, Misora, Mana, Chao, Hakase, and Chachamaru. I think I've got all the names spelled right.) Someone might have mentioned that he could have called on three of them (Setsuna, Mana, Misora) for assistance if need be. Of course things didn't really get out of hand until the Class Trip, and the headmaster never expected things would get as bad as attempted kidnapping of Konoka. That was when a lot of students started joining The Masquerade. (Asakura, Nadoka, Konoka, Yue, and Ku Fei. Kaede had found out during the scrap with Eva, but kept quiet.)
 * I like the idea that just about every other class at Mahora would be nearly as weird. Like say, the next class over contains a Frankenstein's Monster, an Eldritch Abomination, a Mermaid, a Genie, a Top-Hatted Voodoo God, and the class next to that has a minotaur, a cyborg, some zombies, a psychic, etc. Certainly we know there are other mage students and relatives of mage teachers attending classes. And, judging by some of the stuff put together at the school festival, there are any number of students (like Chisame, Yotsuba, Hakase, Makie, etc) who're simply absurdly competent in their area of expertise.
 * Something trivial that bugs me, and may be common to multiple translations/manga (Negima's the first I've actually read): If the characters are speaking English, I don't really think one needs to keep the honorifics. It just kind of violates my WSOD - I'm supposed to believe that in Britain, they speak Japanese or use Japanese honorifics?
 * They're speaking Japanese. One of them compliments Nekane on how well she speaks it. Of course the ala-alba, and mages in general might be a different story, but that's magic for you.
 * And when, in his letter home, it's pretty much explicitly marked English?
 * Maybe people always hear it in the language they understand, so for the audience's convenience it's in Japanese.
 * It's magical letter which can be played in any language the receiver can understand. See difference in Negi's and Nekane's letters. Letter in hands of Nekane had more language options.
 * Yuuna's father and Donnet McGuinness deliberately conversed in English, during the summer break. I'm sure the Japanese version of the manga had that translated into Japanese for the reader's benefit.
 * It was indeed translated into Japanese, but it was written horizontally (like English) rather than vertically (like Japanese).
 * Back to the original bugginess: presumably, the translators keep the honorifics because it's easier to pick out how the characters see each other and the characters do reference honorifics and whatnot in they're dialogue. Why the translators bother to keep verbal tics, when we have pefectly good punctuation, is what bothers me.
 * Ku Fei's verbal tic indicates her incomplete mastery of the Japanese language. She speaks Japanese with a Chinese accent, and imperfectly. Which is why her English in the official translation is somewhat broken. Kaede's verbal tic (and the use of sessha) indicates her archaic Keigo dialect. Since English dropped the T-V Distinction over three centuries ago, there is no good way for the English translation to represent that Kaede speaks with an archaic formal style, distinct from the ordinary formal style Negi addresses his students with, and the casually informal mode he uses with Kotarou.
 * How come everyone is instantly able to recognize Chamo as an ermine? They aren't exactly a well-known animal.
 * All who recognized him instantly were magic-related. And erminization is common penalty. His class IIRC didn't recognize that Chamo is ermine at first and were told later.
 * I'm pretty sure most of them call him a weasel or a ferret, until they're informed otherwise.
 * And they're all the same genus, technical usage is to apply weasel to the entire genus, though in the UK only Mustela nivalis is referred to as a weasel.
 * Asuna and Konoka correctly identified Chamo as an ermine right off. At least, that's how the official translation represented it. The rest of the class was calling him a weasel or a ferret.
 * Alright, so, in the newest chapter, one of the knights  recognized   as a wanted criminal. So, why hasn't anyone recognized   as being one of the wanted criminals yet? She was there, and I'm pretty sure her picture was released on the news. Yet she's serving as a knight and nobody notices. What the hell is going on?
 * Well, back when  first showed up at the academy, the news wasn't out yet. Recall the doctor's words after the exam "... so long as one has the desire and intention to learn, any person -- even death himself -- will be accepted." The knights outfit makes recognition more difficult. And the rest of the Ariadne crew don't care, Ariadne is an independent city-state. Edit: checking the manga, Collet looked Negi's i.d. up on the spot, so I expect "not been paying attention" is also a big part of the reason.
 * That, and Negi is considered the leader of the whole band, and has the biggest reward, so people probably pay more attention to him than to the other people.
 * From the backstory we've now seen, the current headmistress led the Knights in support of Ala Rubra back in the day when the enemy had engineered Ala Rubra into outlaw status. She's seen this kind of frame up before, and is thus not likely to jump to judgement. And in the end of Ch 236, Rakan just told her that "Nagi Springfield" is Negi. I noticed that, unlike Theodora and Ricardo, Seras showed no surprise.
 * What exactly is the extent of Asuna's antimagic ability? She's able to form pactio and utilize them to their fullest, she can be affected by memory spells and that signum bioregens artifact, her power can even be channeled via magical means... yet pyrokinesis can't hurt her and petrifaction only reduces her clothing to brittle. Except for those hair bells, which are another JBM entirely...
 * It seems that direct hostile magic can't affect her unless she allows it. In which case she probably agreed to having her memory erased, and in light of recent revelations I can understand why!
 * Also, while Asuna was hitching a ride with Misora during the Mahora Festival arc endgame, her anti-magic interfered with the flight magic, but didn't completely cancel it out.
 * Ditto back in an early episode when Negi tried to help her on her paper route. Negi thought it was a weight issue at the time.
 * Neither of those situations necessarily had anything to do with her Magic Cancel. With Negi, she was carrying two bags full of papers, enough to tire her out to the point she was wobbling. With Misora, she had her big heavy sword slung over her shoulder, not to mention that Misora is a mage student in training, and probably not very experienced in broom flying.
 * I'm pretty sure that Asuna herself weighs more than those things.
 * But she got hit by that freezing spell from Evangeline in Volume 20. I believe someone even wonders aloud about how that happened. Is it because Eva-chan is just that powerful or something?
 * Was she, or was the environment around her frozen?
 * I'm pretty sure Eva is just that powerful: Asuna unfreezes a few minutes later, and Eva says something like "That was supposed to keep you frozen for fifty six years" or some other ridiculous length of time. Even an uber-mage like Eva could just barely get through it.
 * It was ten years. Which might have been foreshadowing - or whatever you call it when you "foreshadow" backstory...
 * Similar to an above troper's complaint about all the "I wanna get stronger stuff" and another's complaint about everyone being neglectful to Negi, I find it incredibly anooying that Negi is putting all this time and effort, taking entire days out of his training, in some vague effort to find his father, and nobody is stopping him. Nobody ever says "Stop, you don't have to do this", or "Stop you should be focusing on your life". It's not healthy, he's training for days. Asuna tries some half-hearted attempts at telling him to calm down, but they never stick. And everyone else says it makes him look mature. He's ten years old, maturity can only go so far. No one even says something like "Hey, maybe you should try a training regime that isn't so horribly abusive."
 * Actually, they say it all the time. But like you said, it never sticks. Negi even says as much. He's just not gonna be able to rest until he finds his dad, or at least what happened to him.
 * It's Shonen-land. With sufficient determination, there is no upper limit on how hard one can work and remain reasonably healthy.
 * As of chapter 219, it looks like.
 * It could be punch-yourself-in-the-face-land for all I care, it's still creepy that a ten year old is driving himself to an early grave because he thinks it will help him find his Dad (keeping in mind he was doing this before he thought of going to the magical world) and no one is stopping him.
 * My point is that he's not driving himself to an early grave. That's not how biology and psychology work in these universes.
 * What a horrible place to live.
 * Really? A world where the more intense and dangerous your training, the more exponentially good you become at whatever it is you're trying. Even if something is labeled dangerous, how many people seriously die while training in Fiction? If you've got the determination, your health can go screw itself while you learn to be awesome. After all, when you're awesome, being healthy comes in second place.
 * The problem is that there is no upper limit on anybody. Negi has to spend days training constantly because his enemies are always going to be increasingly difficult. But I think I'm getting off topic. I was creeped out that he spends days training for what seemed like at the time a goal that seemed rooted in childhood trauma. I mean, I can see practicing baseball because it is a fun sport, but even professional players take some time off.
 * Technically, you're right. In fact, it's the entire point of Negi's characterization that he's driven to train to ridiculous extremes by said childhood trauma. In fact, it's this tendency that makes him so incredibly compatible with dark magic. Negi's entire motivation is rooted in what happened to his village right in front of his eyes and (in spite of the ridiculous gains in strengths he makes because of that training) it is not presented as a healthy condition for a ten-year old child.
 * At least in the manga, the point at which we saw him decide to take lessons from Ku Fei and Evangeline was right after the Kyoto arc, and his primary reason at the time was that he felt unable to protect his students when there are stronger threats out there. Not really a better motive for this, but it's at least a more recent one. He didn't start the insane training regimen when facing off against Eva, who was a danger to him more than the class, and his self-training before the series started wasn't really any healthier but was a lot less physically traumatic.
 * Remember kids, Japanese comic originally intended for a Japanese audience. Unless you're somehow related to the person, or otherwise in a position of authority over said person (teacher, police, boss, etc.), it's considered rude to try to stop someone from doing whatever they want with their body/life. His students, while they are older, are in an inferior social position, so it's not their place to say that his training is good or bad, even if it is detrimental to his health. The Mahora mage staff probably are at worst ambivalent about it, since magic itself is not inherently "good" or "evil". The mage's actions determine alignment. And Evangeline would certainly be happy to see Negi kill himself through her training, since it means she can get his blood and break Nagi's seal on her.
 * There's really no other explanation for this IJBM other than magic system peculiarities, but it sort of irritates me how Nodoka's mind reading - which you'd think is pretty elementary magic - is apparently a significant weakness of Fate's that he has no abjuration against. And why can't they just restart Nodoka's artifact and say "tertium" again? You'd think being able to read the enemy mastermind's, well, mind 24/7 would sort of give them the upper hand. I don't recall a mention that Diarium Ejus has some sort of upper distance limit to its target or anything.
 * My guess is that the reason it's so dangerous to Fate is because he has no way of warding it. There are probably other types of telepathy (like what Negi uses) that Fate could guard against, but Nodoka's artifact somehow isn't affected.
 * One limit of Diarium Ejus that they have mentioned, is that it only gets surface thoughts. Use it randomly, and the odds are you'll get random junk. By asking someone a question, they rather strongly tend to think of the answer, and Diarium Ejus can record all of it. Reset it, and that record is cleared. This also answers why Fate didn't cast some anti-mind reading abjuration, it was too late for that to do any good. Now, however, he could be keeping a shield up.
 * IIRC activation distance is 7.5 meters. Given exactly when DE was introduced. Reading range is arguably shown to be more than that - but all activations we had seen to date was in 7.5m range. So it's not possible.
 * I think the basic rule is that activation range is is 7.5m, while reading range is longer, but not infinite. It's unlikely that she can read minds from hundreds of miles away. In essence, in order to read Fate's mind, she has to be relatively near him, which is a rather large problem, given that out of everyone, she has almost no combat ability.
 * As for it being elementary magic... Where does it say that? It's the sole power of an artifact, so it should be fairly unique/surprising, and the likely well-travelled bounty hunters who encounter it are surprised by it. Why should involuntary mind-reading be elementary?
 * Because Negi can read minds, too...though only if chapter 1 of the entire freaking series is still considered acceptable reference. Fair enough, Negi's own mind-reading is considerably limited, but my main gripe is just that something so many other series take for granted is suddenly mindblowing here.
 * Negi's mind reading is extremely limited; he has to be standing next to the person and put his hand on their head, and even then, he only gets one or two words of thought out of it. Nodoka can read thoughts from a distance, read multiple people's minds at once, get much more info out of it, and it appears to be more or less instantaneous.
 * As for the fact that Fate has no protection against it: The reason that he tries to take out Nodoka may be because he does have some sort of anti-mind reading thing, but the Diarium Ejus is powerful enough to bypass it. For example, Negi's mind reading might not work on Fate (allowing that he could get that close and actually do the reading without Fate punching him or something). In addition, there have been several points in the manga where the telepathic Pactio communications are disrupted by various types of magical protection, but I'm pretty sure Nodoka's artifact was never affected.
 * A few points to consider. One, mages who have pacts are shown capable of summoning their partners to their location. It summons them in complete with everything they're wearing/carrying at the time. Two, Kaede's artifact is shown to have a house inside of it, suggesting it is some sort of pocket dimension. So... what would happen if Negi went into that house... and then summoned Kaede, complete with her artifact itself?
 * Trying for a recursion paradox, eh? We know the pacto cards have a max range limit on the summoning and telepathy, there's probably a minimum range on the summoning (it's pointless to summon someone already standing next to you). Either the summons wouldn't work, or wouldn't try to bring the artifact inside itself (we know Kaede can enter her own Artifact).
 * My guess is "partner is in different dimension from summoner" would equal "partner is out of range". The pactio cards can't summon the partner if the partner isn't there.
 * Imma have functional card from Nagi. Rakan have also... and IIRC also from Nagi.
 * Well, there is a theory that the Magic World is actually located on Mars, which would mean that Rakan and Albireo are in the same dimension. There's also the fact that being in different dimensions wouldn't render the Pactio inactive, but merely prevent the telepathic communication and summoning.
 * That theory is
 * Even if Negi could summon Kaede through dimensions, I don't think there's any problem. Look here. Her artifact is shown to be "vanishing". While one could interpret this as "turning invisible", I have a theory that Kaede's artifact actually disappears, travelling through dimensions when Kaede does. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense: It would be stupid for someone to be trapped in a pocket dimension forever by their own artifact, so Kaede's travels in and out of the pocket dimension with her to ensure that she's never trapped in the first place.
 * Aside from the whole "public indecency" bit, wouldn't it be awful if one of the first people hit by the anti-clothing rays at the festival, before everyone was warned, was a really dedicated cosplayer with a ridiculously awesome costume? Lots of wasted time, effort, and money. (granted, if their costume were Asuna, it would be perfectly in character...)
 * If they get hit before the warning, it's Chao's fault. Although lots of public nudity is probably preferable to potentially lethal force.
 * But if it is destroyed while battling a massive army of terminators, mecha, and demons, isn't it all worth it?
 * Why is Ala Rubra sticking to their promise not to tell Negi anything until he's fully grown when his lack of knowledge is directly responsible for him doing an incredibly large number of very stupid and very risky things that most of the group, in all likelihood, would not have wanted him to do? It seems like so many problems would have been solved if they just said "okay, it looks like if we don't tell him he's going to waste his childhood and get himself killed, it isn't as good an idea as we thought".
 * Honor Before Reason, Going Mad From The Revelation, or just pain old Fridge Logic. You choose.
 * It now appears that vow of secrecy was Rakan's idea, because he wanted to see Negi trying full out. It worked, and Rakan has acknowledged Negi as a man, so that's over with.
 * Some recent chapters imply that Negi's mother was responsible for (or at least blamed for) the destruction of Ostia. It could be that Jack Rakan and everybody wanted to make sure that Negi was mature enough to handle that revelation. And in the most recent chapter, it seems that it was a good idea, considering that Kurt Godel
 * So you're telling me that a Senator, the chair of an influential magic academy, and the third princess of one of the most powerful empires in Mundus Magicus don't have the pull to say "Negi didn't do it, let's let them come into the clear." I was originally going to complain about the non-fighters not being sent home, but then I remembered that all the gates have been destroyed. But is Negi pretty much in the clear now from the whole "destroying the gateport" incident?
 * In private, yes, they have the power. In public, no. The senator's vote is outweighed by the rest of the senate, which would cite a personal relationship clouding matters, the pull of an academic headmaster doesn't extend much past the students and past students, who, again, might not trust everything principal says (would you, when you were in school, trust your teachers over the police?), and the princess has shown herself to be eccentric enough and "third princess" is a low enough position that the people ahead of her in line will tell her to be quiet, the nonbiased people are talking. There is also likely a paralell to Harry Potter in that the governments cannot allow themselves to beleive that someone from the War is back, and so cannot accept evidence that Fate did it without causing mass panic.
 * There is also the point that Theodora, by her own words, is the equivilent of a ten year old in human terms. Edit: On the other hand, twenty years ago Theodora was engaged in a high level (and highly sensative) diplomatic mission, and had policy level command of her nations war fleet at the climax of the war. We don't know exactly how much clout the rank of "third princess" holds, but it appears to be considerable.
 * Well, now we know there's an active government conspiracy, that targeted Negi six years ago with that demon attack. They might not have been the ones who actually framed him, but trying to use political clout to get them to acknowledge the innocence of someone they've already tried to assassinate at least once before sounds both futile and dangerous, even for a very highly-placed person. Godel says he has enough authority as Governor-General, and he also specifically says Seras, Theodora, and Ricardo don't.
 * My question is why the heck hasn't the headmaster linked Yue and Negi yet? She knows Yue has a pactio card because she watched the Griffin Dragon battle, and it seems that Pactio's aren't exactly common. Yue even noted herself that the name on the back of the card is "Negi Springfield". One would think that if one of her students who appeared out of nowhere happens to have a rare magical artifact, it's worthy of a little investigation. Like, oh, I don't know, looking at the card and seeing Negi's name on it?
 * As I noted above, Grand Master Seras did not exhibit the mouth-open surprise that Ricardo and Theodora did when Rakan announced that the "Nagi Springfield" in the tournament was in fact the real Nagi's son. She's obviously more up on the situation than has been shown.
 * Although that still doesn't explain why she hasn't told Negi about Yue. If she thinks that Yue is one of his partners, she would probably tell him where she's been, inform him about the amnesia, etc.
 * Probably Rakan or someone else stops her. Yue now is in perfectly good shapes (learning magics and stuffs), and Negi is learning to be stronger, focusing himself to defeat Rakan. Why would do anything that disrupts it?
 * I don't think she saw the back of the pactio card. Yue showed it to her schoolmates, but not to her.
 * I don't think she saw the back of the pactio card. Yue showed it to her schoolmates, but not to her.


 * Okay, so Negi can  Has it not occurred to him to   If he would do that, he could essentially keep going on indefinitely. Or at least until Rakan inevitably figures out a way to counter it.
 * Did you not read the part where Rakan explained that Negi was telegraphing his moves too much? Negi'd leave himself wide open while healing if he did that.
 * Actually addressed in the most recent chapter - Kotaro asks why Negi hasn't. It turns out it's an Honor Before Reason thing.


 * Anyone care to make an estimation as to just what exactly Rakan's Constitution score is?
 * Over nine thousand.
 * Partially fused with infinity.
 * An old one, but one that watching the Ala Alba OADs definitely brought back to mind: In chapter 179, after the 3-A girls have just met Anya for the first time, they're spying on her and Negi talking. Alone. One-on-one. During the conversation, Haruna points out to the other girls that Negi drops Keigo when speaking to Anya. Which begs the very big, obvious question: why on Earth would he be speaking Japanese with Anya? Especially since Translation Convention doesn't seem to be in effect (or am I supposed to believe that Japanese middle-schoolers who haven't gotten particularly great grades in the subject would be able to tell the difference between formal and informal English?)
 * The only explanation that comes to my mind is "because they're still in Japan", but it doesn't really satisfy me...
 * Umm, see the T-V Distinction remark in the discussion of verbal tics above. English hasn't been able to convey such subtleties of formality since about three centuries ago. Plot wise, Ken had to have them speaking Japanese, else the distinction he wanted to call attention to, wouldn't be present. And of course, his primary audience is in Japan. Bellisarios Maxim applies. Repeat the MST3K Mantra.
 * No, Read it again. Two characters, both of whom speak English as their native tongue and wanted to have a private conversation, speak in a language they both only just learned to each other. The only reason that happened was because them being overheard was a plot point, but it makes absolutely no sense! Aaargh!!!
 * They actually might be speaking English. Note that since they are not very good at it, the girls might interpret the lack of honorifics as informal speech, like it is in Japanese. The ones who are good with the language would surely be able to tell if he is using formal speech or not, since the rules of that are pretty straightforward.
 * How the hell could the mages from the Bad Future still not believe in Time Travel even though they got a taste of Chao's non-lethal ammunition? You konw, the freaking time-displacement bullets ?
 * Well, the Future That Was Bad For The Faculty was one where Negi and company were missing on day three of the Festival, meaning the faculty didn't get Negi's super-detailed forewarning or organize an effective defense. The three-hours-later bullets probably didn't get used, because they didn't need to.
 * Except Takamishi told Negi she got him with a One Hit KO when he hesitated.
 * She could have simply used the bullets on only those that she found to be a great enough threat to her plan. Takamichi was probably one of the few people powerful enough to be a serious problem, so she used the time displacement on him. During the new timeline, the time displacement bullets were the only way to get that many students out of the way. In the Bad Future, there wasn't enough opposition to make widespread use of the bullets.
 * But according to Takamichi, there were still enough bullets for the mages to notice them.
 * Except they may not have identified them as time displacement. They could have thought that they were simply teleportation, maybe with some form of Magical One Hit KO attached.
 * What happened to Kotarou ? The last time I saw him, he prevented Rakan from moving, but somehow, he must have been unconscious when the match ended, otherwise team negi would have had one standing, but the fight ended in a draw. The only thing i can think of right now is that he got cought up in some of Negi's lightshow, but I found no reference to something like that ...
 * He dropped from exaustion after keeping Rakan busy, giving Negi enough time to prepare all his spells. See the beginning of episode 247. While Rakan and Negi fought, Kotarou rested, and then used his shadow powers to bind Rakan's feet. Setting Rakan up for Negi's trap.
 * Yes, but if I remember correctly, Kotarou was standing after binding Rakan's feet. Unless he dropped again (well, they did throw some really insane magic around), he would still be standing, thus winning the match.
 * My guess is that he used up the last of his energy to hold Jack still. He took an enormous beating, and even with his healing factor, he was probably at the end of his rope by that point. Even if the binding itself didn't use up his energy, the enormous backlash from the spells Negi and Jack were using would be enough to knock him over.
 * Going all the way back to chapter 3, where the hell would Negi learn a Breast Expansion spell? (aer aer amplificet mammas which translates as something like "air air amplify breasts"). If Negi makes an enormous deal of being a "proper British Gentleman" why on earth would he know a spell that does that? And it's not something he made up either, much later on Anya uses the exact same spell on herself, so this spell apparently specifically exists for this purpose. At least it makes sense for Anya to know it. Although Negi did hang out with her a lot, so maybe he learned it from her.
 * Or they just think alike. How many ways are there of saying "inflate breasts" in latin anyway?
 * This troper believes that the spell doesn't actually make breasts bigger; it simply places pockets of air where the chest is, making it APPEAR that one's breasts are bigger. Obviously, one has to be dressed for this to work.
 * I think it's OBVIOUS that this is what happened. I mean, look at the end of the chapter again: the "breasts" BURST. There was never blood splatter, Asuna never mentioned her boobs exploding (and she obviously still has them), Negi's speciality is AIR MAGIC, etc. I think the person who posted this really didn't pay much attention.


 * In the first panel of Sayo's debut chapter, the wind blows her skirt up, showing her old-fashioned underwear. In every other panel she's appeared in, we can only see a single ghost-tail-thing. Sure, her legs might sort of meld together, but still, it really Just Bugs Me.
 * Actually, if you look at this page, in the second row from the bottom you can clarly see that she has two ghost-tails. In some other panels they sort of fuse at the knee.
 * How come the bystanders at the Mahora festival, whenever witnessing magic firsthand, they immediately dismiss it as CG. That doesn't even make sense. CG is Computer Graphics/Generated, therefore is created on an engine/program inside the computer, not outside therefore cannot even be projected to be as real as reality. Even if it is claimed to be holograms, the destruction of the area around the characters is as real as getting stabbed and bleeding such as the tournament stage getting destroyed or even the Tyrannobot getting decapitated by a girl wielding a Big freakin' sword that appeared out of nowhere.
 * Rule of Funny?
 * Most people know less than we do about CG? Seriously, people tend to consider technology as magic if it isn't a field they've studied.
 * Factor in the fact that for Mahora, this really isn't that unusual for them. With a reputation like that, would you assume Aha! Magic! rather than a rather iffy explanation?
 * Also factor in that there is a global Weirdness Censor put in place by the mages. Unless someone is confronted with incontrovertible proof of magic, they are predisposed to accept alternate explanations. (This is what Chao was trying to reverse.)
 * Chisame lampshaded it, too. Constantly. "WHY CAN'T YOU Â£$% SEE THIS ISN'T CG?!"
 * Most likely "CG" was being used incorrectly for the broader term "Special Effects"(SFX), which could include pyrotechnics, animatronics, stunts, etc. Just a miss from the Japanese side using the wrong acronym perhaps.
 * Could someone refresh me on the sub-plot with Asuna? I'd rather not go on an Archive Trawl right now.
 * Has magic cancel ability. Is lost princess of Ostia (of the royal Vesperitania family) who helped Ala Rubra out during the war, mention of being used as a WMD due to antimagic has been made. She learned kanka with Takahata, mastered it much faster than him. Continued following Ala Rubra after war for reasons unknown- destruction of kingdom? When Gateu died in bloody circumstances unknown, her memory of him was erased. Takahata took her to Mundus Verus, to Mahora, and had the rest of her memories erased. She grew up an angry slightly violent child, as her prime influence was the desire to not be like the annoying Class Representative. Negi, son of Nagi comes, and she gets involved again, not knowing that she was ever involved before. Due to her exposure to magic, she starts getting flashbacks from before the memory wipe in dreams, although she forgets them upon waking. She was last seen being hit by some memory-un-wipe from Fate Averruncus, which he seems to think will cause her to pull a Face Heel Turn.
 * Add to that, she might be Negi's aunt. Yeah.
 * Specifically, Negi's mom was also a princess of the Vesperitania royal family of Ostia. We don't know the exact relationship between Asuna and Arika, sisters is as close as is plausible. During one of Asuna's flashbacks, Albireo Imma remarked that Asuna's age couldn't be reliably inferred from her appearance, so it is possible that Asuna is older than Arika, even much older.
 * Asuna is over 130 years old. And it's been implied that she was created, like fate, by the Lifemaker.
 * Why does Konoka's botched Pactio card show her in Western mage garb when she's dressed as an Eastern mage in the actual one? If we go by the botched pactio cards made by people that have real ones now, they at least resemble closely to the original and not as far off as hers.
 * Inbetween the two Konoka learned that she is the daughter of a powerful Eastern mage, this colored her self image enough to change the form of her attire on the card. It's only a cosmetic change, after all.
 * So would Setsuna's new card be in the same situation, same abilities but different form, or is it different since she made it with Konoka?
 * The Artifact selection is based on the personality, self image, and goals of the ministra, not the magister. That's why "Ku:Nel Sanders" cards all have the same artifact. In Setsuna's case ... I don't know. She has changed, in how she views herself vis-a-vis Konoka. From a bodyguard watching over her from the shadows, to a frontline defender and friend (other complications aside). It might be a different Artifact entirely, though still relating to her purpose of defending Konoka.
 * Even though it's clearly stated that Negi's from Wales, why does everyone - cast and translators alike - refer to him as 'English' or that the cast going on a trip 'to England'? Surely saying that he was from 'Britain' would be a more geographically accurate translation and less annoying for all those Welsh readers out there (or even better, saying that he's WELSH!)
 * Becuase the writers and cast are Japanese, and don't know much about Britain, and the translators are stupid Americans. No Brits involved, unfortunately.
 * Technically, Yankee and its derivitve (Yank), only refer to people from the New England region of the Atlantic Coast of the United States. It's long been used to refer to anyone from the U.S. Most of us don't care, but it's liable to tick off people born and bred in the American South. Similar issue.
 * Negi is NOT FROM WALES. It is clearly stated that he and Nekane moved TO WALES after their village was wiped out.
 * Perhaps it's brought up in a later chapter, but what exactly is the "Good/Light Path" in magic training? I mean, the way Rakan makes it sound is that Nagi simply trained for years and had lots of allies. Is it really that simple?
 * Light Is Not Good. Think Yin/Yang, not Good/Evil. Nagi is an idiot. Part of that means he is a near-incurable optimist, and doesn't sweat the details. Like actually memorizing all of the spells he is likely to use. Nagi is a heavily Yang personality (like Rakan himself), focused on getting it done now. Personality affects the style of spells selcted, tactics used, and strategy (or absence of same). Negi, like his mother, is a Yin personality, planning, brooding, worrying. Prone to trying to take on the entire burden alone.
 * Are they only making jokes about Chizuru being the oldest because of her figure? Here, I'm reading her birthday as January 29, 1989 and other classmates, like Natsumi, have their birthdays in 1988.
 * I would assume so. She not only has the largest bust size of anyone in the class, but she's also one of the most mature, personality-wise...not taking into account her occasionally warped sense of humor.
 * I've only read the official Del Rey translation, but back in volume 5 during the "Operation: Kiss Negi-sensei" thing, why did Asakura refer to Kaede and Ku Fei as the only Baka Rangers to join the competition? Makie and Yue (Baka Leader, according to Kaede) were both in (Asuna was the only one not participating...likely because she would have stopped the thing immediately).
 * I think it was because they were both Baka Rangers that Asakura referred to them like that. None of the other teams were composed of two Baka Rangers.
 * Similar to the Above, I've only really read the Del Ray translation (and am In the process of rereading it), but this is going into a WMG that's been bubbling... Has Chisame's Artifact been of any use since the Battle of Mahora?
 * The mice helped her out in the Magic World jungle. She also summoned it before fighting one of Fate's girls, but I don't recall it being much help.
 * Not really no, but her artifact is a way to use magic to acess computer systems. It's only really useful in areas where computer systems are used frequently.
 * Apparently it also works on magic.
 * I wouldn't say it works on pure magic. But Magitek is definitely vulnerable.
 * Which teacher was originally going to have a child? Del Rey translation says Shizuna, but Chuang Yi says Takahata.
 * Isn't Yuuna the daughter of a teacher? I can't remember his name, but he I got the impression he was at least a staff member.
 * She is (Professor Akashi or something like that), but I'm just wondering which teacher's child got scrapped before the manga started since the two companies have different translations.
 * Okay, this is a stupid thing, but I may as well ask: Everywhere on this site, whenever people talk about the class, they always mention a half-demon. Who is that? It can't Koutaro; he's off on the boy's side. So unless Zazie has more characterization than I noticed...this isn't really Just Bugs Me so much as Just Confuses Me.
 * Setsuna is half Tengu AKA "bird tribe". In this case "demon" is a translation of Youkai, which is the best approximation, since fairies have suffered such bowdlerization.
 * update: Setsuna is half-Demon. Mana is also half-Demon. Zazie is full-Demon.
 * Has the charge-up ability granted by pactio cards been retconned? It hasn't been used in a long time. It makes sense mostly, since anyone who could really gain anything from that (Asuna, Setsuna) is already physically powerful, and Negi needs it for himself. But what about Yue? When they wanted to prove she was their friend (despite the fact that her pactio card had Negi's name on it...) they decided to use telepathy, when a quick activation of the contract would have created a nice, visible effect for everyone to see.
 * No it's not. Chisame used her card in fight with Fate ministra exactly for that - she noted that is why she didn't get any damage from fall. And if you think that nonmartialartist trio successfully battled on subsonic speeds without it's boost...
 * And when they were trying to confirm Negi's story, they weren't in an entirely private place, so something quiet like telepathy was indicated. Now, if only Emily Sevensheep weren't so prone to raising her voice ...
 * Something in the Mahorafest Day 2 arc: We know Nodoka's artifact has a maximum range of 7.5 meters. However, it looks like Nodoka used it from far farther in the library corridors... Not to mention the fight against Shirabe Brigitte...
 * It has maximum activation range of 7.5 meters. One it's activated, she can probably move further away without breaking the link.
 * Can someone explain Negi's family tree? I'm not even sure if his onee-san back in Wales is his sister anymore (due to a line which is probably just a bad translation, calling her his cousin). Then there's the guy he calls uncle, his grandfather...I'm just confused. Er, and that bugs me.
 * Honorary references. In japanese, people often use "grandfather" to refer to elderly people they are close to, even if they're unrelated. Refering to older males you are close to but unrelated to at that age as "uncle" is done even in America. And no, it wasn't a mistranslation, the girl in Wales is indeed his cousin, who he calls sister again due to Japanese conventions ingrained in the mind of the author. It is notable that the cousin closely resembles Asuna, who is his mother's sister. His family tree of actual relatives is five people- parents, Negi, Aunt Asuna, Cousin Nekane. How cousin Nekane is related to his mother is unknown, although its a damn good bet she isn't Aunt Asuna's daughter, for obvious reasons.
 * Asuna IS NOT NEGIS AUNT. She's hundreds of years old!
 * There is also person that Nekane calls "father" and Negi "uncle" and no, it's not Stan.
 * And Nekane's last name is Springfield, not some royal Overly Long Name, so she's probably not related to Asuna or Arika at all. This would mean that Nagi has (had?) an older brother.
 * Of course it is. Since Arika married Nagi, who is from the Western society, she received his surname of Springfield, and not the other way around (resulting in Nagi Vespertaria among other things). As such, the above point doesn't prove anything.
 * Right. Arika would have taken his name. That wouldn't have any bearing on Nekane's name even if they were related. Though I suppose it's possible that she took the name Springfield in order to remain incognito...
 * Did Takane and the girl that calls her 'Onee-sama' transport to the Magical World at the same time as Negi and the others? I don't remember seeing them for awhile and having them appear at the ball in 260 made me do a double-take.
 * They could have made the trip earlier than Negi's group. It's true that the mass transportation only happens every month or so, but they could have left at the beginning of summer, while Negi waited until later due to the training. Also, I'm pretty sure they made at least one appearance in the Magic World prior to the ball. They show up briefly after Negi learns that Fate trapped them in the magic world, if I'm not mistaken.
 * They show up during the tournament arc, complete with a quick flashback explaining that they were on vacation and got trapped. Then they meet up with the group watching Negi's match.

"The age changing spell is an ancient mysterious spell that even works on robots.
 * More of a question than a Bug Me- Chamo says when you take the pills to grow older, it's not necessarily what you'll exactly be like when you really get older, just what it would be like with your current physical shape, if I recall correctly. So when you take the pills to grow younger, would it show you as you really were a child years ago, or just what it would be like if your current form was a child?
 * There's really no way of telling, as we don't know what any of the girls looked like as children, to compare with when they use the pills. My guess about what Chamo meant when he says that you might look different when you grow up is that the pills don't account for drastic changes in body type. For example, if someone was a fat kid, but lost weight and was skinnier as a teenager, and took a de-aging pill, they would still be skinny in kid form, and vice versa. I would assume it also keeps like hairstyles and stuff like that the same. I would assume that the pills are a good predictor of what you would look like in 5 years or whatever, i.e. in five years Negi really will be a Bishounen, unless he does a lot of overeating or something comprable in the meantime.
 * A good example would be Chachamaru--she never actually had a childhood, but the pills still shrunk her down as normal.
 * No, the pills don't do anything to her. Chachamaru carries several spare bodies with her. Now, as to where those actually are when not in use... Also, nobody who has used a pill to look younger has noted that that's not how they looked as a child. Presumably it just shows what you'd look like x years from now assuming no injuries or body type changes like weight, disease etc.
 * Well, we've seen that there are "spare" bodies for Chachamaru, including ones that look younger. It's never actually been established if she's using them or age mis-representation magic. But she'd need magic of some kind to carry them around, at least until they linked up with Paru again. Then Paru's ship could provide storage space. Hmmm, did Chachamaru appear younger in Mundis Magikus before they linked up with Paru? I need to review the manga. Paru just recently provided Sayo with a robot body, was that a redress of one of Chachamaru's, or did Paru create it with her artifact? Maybe Paru has been providing Chachamaru with the loli body. Edit: OK, Chachamaru first used a loli apperance on Mundus Magikus in chapter 193. Negi, Kotaru, and Chisame all used Eva's age mis-representation pills, I naturally assumed Chachamaru did also. This is long before they linked back up with Paru. Where they got the change of clothes from, I don't know. Maybe a wizard did it. :)
 * Word of God is that Chachamaru is using the pills just like everyone else. And I quote:

She did not carry a spare robot body around with her for this purpose.

Taken from the Q+ A section of volume 21"

They also show up in chapter 316
 * I'd like to note that Konoka when she was younger had slightly shorter hair, while her magically de-aged self reflects her current hair length.
 * So, we have a 10 year old moving to a foreign country to teach at a boarding school... why didn't anyone see the need to figure out living arrangements for Negi BEFORE he showed up so he wouldn't have to board with one of the students or sleep outside?
 * Given the person in charge and both Negi and Asuna's now-being-unveiled backstory, its entirely possible that Konoemon wanted Negi to room with Asuna to ensure that the two would bond, pulling Asuna back into the fray and/or providing Negi with valuable backup. Its also possible he was going on the "he should room with his closest relative, whether they know they're related or not" theory.
 * If its the latter, it proves that Konoemon does not adequately understand the Westermark Effect.
 * And what does this have to do with, well anything? I'm not following your line of thinking.
 * Did you read the page? Close relatives who are not raised together are sexually attracted to each other because of their similar genetics. So rooming Negi with a close relative he didn't grow up with would just encourage a romantic love, not a familial love.
 * Yes I read the page, I even understood it. But I didn't quite get the underlying implications goes along with it. Thank you for explaining.
 * Fortunately Negi is is only ten, maybe eleven (which is easy to forget with all the age mis-represtation magic he's been using) and Asuna initally had a crush on Takamichi-sensei. And a dislike of little kids, she had to get to know Negi well enough to except him. And now Negi knows he and Asuna are related, and most likely Asuna does too. Not to mention all the other girls who are feeling some degree of intrest in Negi.
 * Well, Konoemon is a bit airheaded sometimes, so he probably just forgot to arrange it. It's not like he didn't have anywhere to put Negi. It makes sense that he would stick Negi in with his granddaughter so she could keep an eye on him. Then when Negi started bonding with Asuna and Konoka, he decided to just leave Negi there rather than go through the trouble of moving him. For all we know, he might not have had any ulterior motives. It just made the most sense for him to put Negi in that room.
 * Or he could have had a sick sense of humor.
 * Why does Albireo look so familiar? He kinda looks like Kaede in that shot.
 * It's probably just a combination of Only Six Faces combined with the fact that they both have their Eyes Always Shut. Or, if you prefer wild speculation, it's because Albireo is Kaede's father.
 * While it would be awesome, I think it's more that I saw this a couple of times before that chapter came out.
 * Back in the Gateport (and in the recent OVA), Fate says that it would be a problem for him if Negi were to die. What's up with that ? (On the other hand, I must admit that I read over that at least 2 times, so I'm not gonna ask why none of the characters ever brought this up. Ok, Yue might have, she is a brainy type after all, but she got that convenient Laser Guided Amnesia). Why can't I find that anywhere even in the WMG ? We can't possibly all have missed that, can we ?
 * My best guess is that killing Negi would be an excellent way for Fate to get Rakan royally pissed at him. While recent events seem to imply that Fate thinks he could win that fight, it's understandable that he's rather not have to face Rakan if it's at all avoidable. It also means that Fate was able to use Negi as a scapegoat for the Gateport incident, which is a good way limiting Negi's influence (he can't act openly) and getting himself off scot free. If Fate killed him, then Rakan (and likely other important figures like Seras, Theodora, and Ricardo) could pose a significant threat to his plan. And it's been clear from the beginning that Fate doesn't really try to kill anyone unless they make themselves an obstacle to him.
 * Not to mention the possibility that Fate and  may be working together. The most recent chapters imply that   has his own plans for Negi, and if Fate kills him, those plans get shot to hell. As a result, Fate leaves him alive.
 * According to chapter 266,.
 * Fate states later that Negi is going to be his only source of fun, So for him to die then would be boring.
 * If Negi does share the same bloodline as Asuna, It's also possible that Negi plays some part in Fate's plans that hasn't been revealed yet.
 * Why does Ken Akamatsu suddenly change Makie's hairstyle in the beginning? I assume the title spread for chapter 1 was done along with the actual chapter, but she has her hair down in the spread (and class roster) but up in her pigtail things since she actually appeared.
 * As far as the pic in the roster goes, a lot of the girls look different on the roster than in reality. It's probably because either A) she decided to wear her hair differently for picture day or B) the roster uses the class pictures from an earlier year, before she changed to her current hairstyle. For the title spread, I have no idea. Akamatsu was probably just playing around with hairstyles and decided he liked the pigtails better. I also wonder why Zazie has claws in the spread picture.
 * Is being kissed by and generally fondled by a bunch of older women going to mess with Negi psychologically once hormones start kicking in?
 * Generally the answer would be yes, but he probably more or less immune to it by now, what with his tendency to be a complete Chaste Hero. Besides that, he's coped pretty well with having an incredibly twisted social life and he still manages to be quite well adjusted, despite all the crap he's been through. After growing up with no parents, having your hometown obliterated before your eyes, and going through Training From Hell for at least a year, being fawned over by a bunch of girls is the least of his problems. Like Chisame said, the source of any romantic problems he'll have is the fact that he's too nice; he'll end up accidentally leading on a bunch of girls. The only thing that all the attention is going to do to him is maybe give him a fetish for older women.
 * Nagi's defeat of Eva way back in a flashback shown near the beginning. He won by tricking Eva into falling into a pit filled with water which had garlic in it. Okay. But later, it turns out that Eva is a Shinso vampire who has outgrown traditional vampire weakness. Like garlic. And she can fly, which means that she probably wouldn't have fallen into that pit anyway. What's going on here?
 * We never see what happened. We don't even see a memory. We see a dream she had about what happened. Are YOUR dreams usually true to fact?
 * She does flashback to images from the dream later she's defeated by Negi. Although it does make more sense that that specific method was at least a dream.
 * Nagi does mention that he looked up her weaknesses. The way I see it is that the garlic and onions don't physically injure her, but that she has a serious aversion to them anyway (understandable, as she used to have a weakness to them), which was enough to distract her while Nagi pulled out that curse. The other option is that the battle itself was probably more dramatic and actually like a battle, but she was traumatized and humiliated by the ordeal (the man she loves rejects her, kicks her ass, seals her power, and dumps her at a school, guaranteeing that she'll be treated like a child for the next 15 years), and her dream simply reflects how she feels about it rather than how the battle actually went.
 * Why the smeg did Albireo let Asuna go with Negi to the magical world? He knew Fate was still active, Negi would have told him about Kyoto. He knew what had happened last time, what the evil plan was, and how Asuna would be used, and how her hidden memories would be used against her and the party as a whole. Things are shaping up to look like Fate is winning solely because he got his hands on Asuna. Albireo would inevitably have been able to predict some measure of this. So, why didn't he BS something about keeping her in Mahora?
 * First off, I seriously doubt that he would have been able to stop her. Once the magic from The World Tree wasn't leaking over the campus, he's stuck in the library, so the only way to stop her from going would be to tell the entire story. Which would likely not stop Negi anyway, and Asuna would probably still follow him there.
 * He may not be able to, but he has the ear of Eva. And Eva certainly could have, if persuaded, forbidden Asuna from going.
 * Secondly, the only thing he would know about Fate is that apparently he's still alive. He has zero knowledge of Fate's current plan to "destroy the world" or anything along those lines. He probably assumed that the risk of something like that happening again was minimal, as he's not aware of Fate's abilities. Note that Rakan didn't seem to have any clue that Fate was still a threat. Speaking of which, Albireo probably figured that if Fate, did show up, Rakan would just wipe the floor with him.
 * Asuna's first flashback showed her being used by someone as an antimagic weapon. There is ample evidence, held by the faculty who no doubt are in communication with him (via Konoemon, no doubt), that Hermann was connected to Fate. Hermann was performing experments in manipulating Asuna's antimagic. Ergo, Fate ordered experments with manipulating her antimagic, ergo he wants to use it for something. Albireo is much too smart not to figure this out if informed, and Konoemon is much too smart not to pass vital information along to the war hero in his basement.
 * Another thing, Asuna wasn't necessary for Fate's plan; he didn't even expect to see Negi and the others in the magical world.
 * Of course, he could have allowed her to go intentionally; if she ever got her Anti Magic under control, she would be one of the few people capable of  It's a huge gamble of course, but it may be the only means of prevent the , which as pointed out above, was apparently going to happen without her presence. So at the very least, he isn't making things much worse than they were to begin with.
 * Unless, of course, the Epileptic Trees are right, and he can do that because he got his hands on her. It has been noted that the power of the Royal Family, the power Asuna inherited, is "the power that created the Magical World". If he can do that because he got his hands on her, her going is literally all that prevented Rakan from winning that fight.
 * And now Rakan is implying that yes, he's got the Mage Of Beginnings back- the source of his reality warp- because he got his hands on Asuna.
 * Negi has the same royal blood that Asuna has. If Asuna didn't go with. Fate would have captured Negi, then the only people that could save him would be his class, their success being very unlikely. If Asuna went with, she would be targeted, allowing Negi to save her and the magic world, and he has a much better chance.
 * So Zect is apparently
 * Maybe something happened 1018 years ago that prompted the Magic World calendar to reboot, and its actually older than that? We've certainly had our fair share of calendar changes here on the Old World.
 * Before Magicus Mundus, Mages all lived on Earth. So, he wouldn't exactly have been "bumming", since all the other mages would have been there too.
 * Magicus Mundus is based on Mars, so it has Mar's day length (24.62 hours) and Mar's year length (686.98 days). Trying to use any Earth based calendar on Mars will quickly lose synchronization with the days and seasons. Magicus Mundus has to be using a calendar based on Mars' characteristics, assuming it's Year Zero is when Magicus Mundus was created, that would be 1,914.7 Earth years ago.
 * Besides, don't demons have their own plane of existence? I think it's just more common for them to show up in the magical world rather than them actually being natives.
 * True, but its unclear whether Rakan was speaking literally or figuratively when he called Zect a demon. Everyone calls Ala Rubra "monsters," after all.
 * Everyone "else" calls Ala Rubra monsters. Jack is one of THE most monstrous in the group, and called Zect a demon. That's pretty telling.
 * Zect was having a massive Out of Character Moment during that scene. Given the kinds of things he was saying, it's possible that the Lifemaker pulled a Grand Theft Me and took over Zect's body after he was defeated. That could be the Lifemaker's age, not Zect's.
 * Aaaand it turns out that
 * Link (or Links) to where Zect was interacting? I keep hear him getting mentioned, but I can't find him at all.
 * Chapter 267 would be the scene in question.
 * This has been bothering me for a while: Why do people think Setsuna's new artifact is an Axe of anykind? The Pactio card she got shows her holding something in her right hand, but it could just her ridiculously oversized sword and her artifact could be the dress, or Konoka might not have whatever it takes to grant an artifact, or it could be a naginata or a yari or someother polearm. Why do people insist on an axe?
 * I think it is her large sword (or one that looks like it), and its tassels, partially seen, are what some people are intrepting as an axe head. Hopefully we'll find out soon.
 * Chapter 274 previes images are out.
 * Looks like it's a Shout Out to Okami
 * WHERE DID THE MUNDANES GO?! It's been around 100+ chapters since we've seen hide nor hair of Chizuru, Ayaka, the Twins, the Cheerleader Trio, Zazie, Satomi, Satsuki, or Evangeline! (Not counting Eva's magic clone that popped up for the Negi-Rakan fight). Akamatsu-san had better have something planned for them, 'cause I'm starting to think that he's literally forgotten about them.
 * We're in the middle of a Trapped in Another World plot. Showing the other members of 3-A without having them provide a way to resolve the current dilema (which would be a standard Deus Ex Machina) is Filler, badly timed filler at that. Given that Ken is showing actual plot relevent characters from Mahora to recap what's been happening (Both Eva and Albireo are apparently Genre Savvy enough to guess what's going on and be right)kinda disproves your hypothesis that he's forgotten the norm's.
 * Sorry. You're right. I just miss them. I'm just really starting to suspect that Akamatsu has completely forgotten the above-mentioned group (minus Evangeline) and that we're never going to see them again except as some minor completely-unimportant one-page background cameo or something when Akamatsu finally goes "Oh, right, weren't there a few other girls with no relevance to the story whatsoever?" some 200+ chaps from now.
 * I do understand where you're coming from. Akamatsu missed several opprotunities to show the more mundane characters, even potentally plot relevant ones like Nekane or Ayeka reacting to the situation. But given the way he does show characters like Albireo and Eva, I fell confident in saying that unless this is the last arc, the other girls will get some more screen time.
 * They've finally shown up again, in Chapter 287.
 * They've finally shown up again, in Chapter 287.
 * Given that the Magic World is located on Mars (though "out of phase" in an alternate dimension), you'd figure the gravity would be significantly lower (about 3/8ths of Earth's gravity) and Negi & company would immediately notice it. Unless, of course, gravity just happens to be normal because A Wizard Did It (as is usually the case with other works that take place on Mars, like Doom).]]
 * Gravity magic is specifically mentioned to exist; Albireo uses it. Its only to be expected that The Lifemaker would think to include a gravity spell or two to bring it up to G.
 * What happened to Kristin and Lynn? We know that, but Kristin and Lynn never appear at all. One would think that Nodoka would at least want to tell them what happened.
 * Those two are alive and well (with them making an appearance in chapter 292 during the shots of the various Magic World citizens looking towards the ruins of Ostia). More than likely, those two were supposed to meet up with their fellow treasure hunter comrades, Nodoka, and Asakura. However, that plan went downhill when, and given how Nodoka had to use the key to warp herself and Asakura to the planned meeting place, there was no chance for Nodoka to inform Kristin and Lynn about what happened.
 * Two problems, both dealing with Mahora's school system. First, how does their homeroom system work at all? In volume 3, one of the girls changes the sign from '2-A' to '3-A' so it's the exact same class. I know Negi has to be with them because it's a special class, but what do they do? Do they switch a third-year teacher with him? Do they simply get new teachers each year for the freshmen? And about St. Ursula's High School, are they a completely separate school that shares the grounds or are they Mahora's high school section with a different name?
 * 1. Negi is their homeroom teacher and English language teacher. That's all. All other subjects are taught by different teachers. If you're ask about him being their homeroom teacher - they either change class each year... and not in "every year I teach class 2C", but they can be homeroom teach for 1st year, then for 2nd year, then again for 3rd year - etc; actually in many Japanese schools classes are formed anew every new year. Or they teach same class from start to end like in this case.
 * 2. Mahora Academy Campus is an agglomeration of a number of different schools with Mahora Junior High Girls School being only one of them, and actually not the most important one. There is Mahora Elementary (where Asuna and Ayaka met), there is Mahora Junior High Boys School (Ako is their soccer team manager) and there is at least one girls' and one boys' high schools + college/research university. St. Ursula's High School is a girls high school on campus. I don't know if the elevator system would make current 3A those school's students in the future or if there is a different high school on campus called something like Mahora High (Girls) School, but it's still a different school from Mahora Girls Jr. High School.
 * This troper counts at least two different male uniforms; the traditional black-with-high collar uniform common in anime, and the blazer-with-tie combo. There also appears to be at least four different female uniforms; the simple elementary school one-piece dress; the blazer-skirt combination the heroines wear; a seifuku style; and what's later identified as the St. Ursula's uniform. A fifth might be considered the nun outfit, but that might be related to St. Ursula's. So judging that all of those uniforms are shown in a crowd scene at the train station in Volume 3 (Del Rey release), it can be inferred that there are other schools around; probably separated by co-ed/non-co-ed status.
 * If Negi used his artifact to 'borrow' Setsuna's Sika Shishikushiro while Setsuna herself was using Takemikazuchi (the artifact from her pactio with Konoka) what would happen per the above 'can't use the powers of two pactios at once' rule?
 * A moot point; Word of God says Negi's Pactio with Theodora was cancelled after the tournament.
 * My best guess is that, for the purposes of the rules of magic, Negi's artifact was a completely different thing with coincidently similar effects to his harems' artifacts. So he could probably have, say, used the healing fans while Konoka was using hers.
 * Considering that the pactio case fits Negi's personality perfectly, I don't think it's a moot point: If he becomes the partner in another contract, he'll likely get the same artifact. On that note, I'm guessing that Setsuna (or whoever) would lose access to their artifact while Negi is using it. Again, it fits his personality perfectly, and would allow him to borrow his friends' power without actually putting them in danger. At least, that's how I think he'd see it. On the other hand, its implied that each artifact has a real, physical equivilant somewhere, and the cards just summon magical copies, in which case it would be perfectly possible for Negi and his partner to both use the same artifact at the same time.
 * This "law" doesn't apply in this case. Negi is NOT using Setsuna's artifact. His artifact is a notebook that can transform into the artifact of whoever's card he puts into it. He is simply using his own artifact, only in a transformed state. Setsuna is not affected at all.
 * This has been bugging me for a while... Why does a kid who grew up in england address his friends and family with japanese honorifics? And for that matter how does he seem to speak near perfect japanese upon arriving? I don't think there's enough time before getting the assignment and heading to japan to actually learn much? is that some kind of language spell or something?
 * Same reason everyone speaks fluent English in American works. Having him speak without honorifics would seem bizarre by in-universe logic, but is neccesary by out-of-universe logic to ensure that the proper impression and represetation of his character is given to the readers, as his character does not fit the impression given by the type who doesn't use honorifics. As for why he speaks Japanese with relatives and friends in the first place... so the Japanese-speaking target audience can understand it, of course. The only language spell involved in Translation Convention and a two-planet version of Aliens Speaking English.
 * I believe also that they mentioned that Negi learned Japanese in about a short period of time before he left for Japan. I think it was when Negi was tutoring the Baka Rangers.
 * Ah, but don't forget that the Magic World is split into Japanese-speaking and Latin-speaking groups--and Negi's cousin is somehow related to the Japanese-speaking royal family. This troper assumes Negi was raised on English, but his cousin peppered her speech with Japanese honorifics, and he picked them up. Then somewhere along the line he asked her to teach him the language (and he mastered it in two weeks), which is probably when Anya learned it too. This also explains why he sent his cousin a letter in Japanese, and possibly even why he speaks to Anya in Japanese even when they're alone.
 * Exactly why is Negi so powerful? Its not just 'training hard' because he goes up against professional elite soldiers, experienced bounty hunters, and other people with presumably years of training and practical experiance. And he beats them, with basically no effort at all. The only explaination I can think of is if its just him being born lucky or something. Which just bothers me even more.
 * Most professional elite soldiers don't train hard since age four. Maybe there is something about magic training working better for children (who are still growing up) than for a full-grown person... Also, they don't have Dark Evangel as their personal coach, nor access to her Dark Magic technique.
 * If thats true, then: Slavery is legal in the Magic World, so why doesnt someone just get a slave at age 2~3ish, and train them up? Sounds like something the military should be doing unless they always want to rely on random super powerful heroes showing up. Rakan is a result of something basically like that, so why not start getting those kids trained up.
 * 1. Because slavery as you think about that term is NOT legal in MW. What legal is something close to indentured servitude (or some forms of slavery in traditional cultures), slaves have rights and nobody born slave. As result something like that is illegal. Not that it would stop anybody...
 * 2. Rakan. Why so rare? Genetics. Magical powerhouses like Rakan, Nagi, Negi, Konoka, etc are rare and mostly born in families with heavy magical background... which actually results in things exactly like that in many cases - despite being dropout Nagi is also magical powerhouse in age of ten.
 * Something about Negi being a fast learner, his powerful magic inherited by his father and mother, him being a genius technique builder, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. Typical action shonen stuff. As for slave TykeBombs, I think it's something about personal talent and ambition (which I think Rakan had). Really, it's clear this series is on the far idealistic side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, so I guess it's about who they are. Plus, I doubt EVERYONE in the Magical World are super-powerful. Otherwise our main heroes won't stand out much, neh?
 * Idealistic? Meh. What with Negi learning at the age of 10 (or 11) that you can never tell you're not the bad guy.
 * Judging by Asuna's quick learning (I don't mean the remembering old techniques, I mean the original training), it might have something to do with Royal Blood and all that. Throw in the above...
 * I believe Dynamis has summed it up very nicely in Chapter 306. And I quote "The blood of the final descendant of the line of Vespertatia... the magical force of your hero father... a sheer talent all your own... and finally, a technique descended from the works of my own great master..."
 * This series really got me thinking about the whole What Measure Is a Non Human thing. We're supposed to see the citizens Magic World citizens as real in the MSN world, and with inherent value, right? Even though they are just constructs of the Lifemaker, which is why they can be dissolved at will. So if fictional characters from the Magic World with personalities have a right to the "real" life of MSN... then do characters in fiction have the same rights to the real life of earth? Is abandoning them murder? Are we fictional characters in a story, to be killed because a higher entity does not think we have real life, all for the purpose of entertainment? (Ok, that last one is a bit tangential.)
 * Fictional characters lack true free will; they speak only when their Creator desires them to, and so on. Whereas, as Rakan's fighting of Fate shows, the inhabitants of the Magical World do have true free will and act independently of the mind of the Lifemaker, although he can override that will- but it still exists, unlike for fictional characters.
 * This argument about fictional characters (and its associated effects on tropes like Author Avatar, as in Bob and George) has always, always bugged me. Speaking as a writer, I can say with conviction that good writers do not have complete control over their characters. Sure, it's possible to forcibly exert that kind of control, but there's a name for that.
 * This analogy doesn't really work. In the Negima universe, Mundus Magicus is a real world in an Alternate Dimension. Sure, the world and its inhabitants are artificial (created by magic), but they are real because they truly exist. In Real Life, fictional characters are also artificial (created by man's imagination), but they are not real because they do not really exist outside of their source materials. It also helps that the inhabitants of Mundus Magicus all possess free will and sentience, 2 things that fictional characters don't possess.
 * It's implied that the inhabitants of Mundus Magicus don't normally exist in the Old World without some sort of complicated spell or whatever. That's why the senate was only trying to save the humans, and that might have something to do with Cocone's status as an "experimental immigration subject;" the Hellans were trying to see if there was a realistic way to move all the non-humans over to the Old World. It's unclear what the answer is.
 * Yes, but people from Mundus Verus can travel bodily to Magicus Mundus, which is a real world in terms of being composed of people living everyday lives with free will and sentience of their own, rather than authorial puppets consisting of faceless blobs and a few dozen named characters in a world we can only read about like in fiction.
 * But we're not sure if they can. We've seen Cocone, of course, but her subtitle makes it clear that she's in the minority. And Kurt Godel seemed to be implying that they were only trying to save the humans because they couldnt save the Hellans, which implies that getting them over to Mundus Verus is a little bit more difficult than just going to a gateport. Poyo states nearly states outright that when Mundus Magicus collapses, the non-humans will simply be erased from existence, while the humans will be stranded on Mars.
 * People from Magicus Mundus cannot go to Mundus Verus without ceasing to exist, correct, and I never disputed that. But people from Mundus Verus can go physically to Magicus Mundus (which is what I said), and find a complete world of genuine people rather than faceless minor characters and a protagonist or twelve. Its not a matter of the residents of Magicus Mundus being as real relative to Negi as Negi is to us, its a matter of the residents of Magicus Mundus being the magical equivalent of sapient AI- fully alive in their own complete-but-transient-and-constructed world, but largely unable to manifest in the world of the average human.
 * Was it ever actually stated that Poyo and Zazie are twins? Yes they look identical, obviously, but they're demons. There appearances aren't as limited as a humans. Plus Bizarre Alien Biology could be in play too; its possible that all females in their family look identical.
 * No, but it's the most logical conclusion until we get other information.
 * What was Fate's plan, anyway? Yes, take everyone into Cosmo Entelecchia to save them--but he needs Asuna for that. Except he was originally planning to sever the old world from the magic world while Asuna was still in the old world. I know its not a plot hole--Akamatsu doesn't do those--but I just can't wrap my head around it.
 * Well, he didn't completely sever the two worlds. He is currently sitting on top of the remaining gate, which(and I can't remember if this is fanon or canon, but I think the later) brings you out right in the Asuna's stomping ground.
 * It was later confirmed that there is a Gateport under The World Tree, so it's entirely possible that the Gateport could take him right there. Chances are that blowing up the other Gateports was to prevent Old World interference.
 * It was later confirmed that there is a Gateport under The World Tree, so it's entirely possible that the Gateport could take him right there. Chances are that blowing up the other Gateports was to prevent Old World interference.


 * Where's Shirabe/Brigitte (one of Fate's girls) during the battle? If I recall correctly, she's on monitor-duty. If so, why doesn't she join in?
 * She's overseeing the world-ending spell. Fate could probably do that himself, true, but he's expecting Negi to show up and try to stop him, and if that's the case, Shirabe doesn't have a prayer of defeating Negi. Therefore Fate gets guard duty while Shirabe handles the actual spellwork.
 * Minor issue, but still annoying: Asuna's eyes. Some works portray her left eye as being the green one, while others show it to be blue. Which one is "official"?
 * Asuna's supposed to officially have Mismatched Eyes (one green and one blue). It's probably meant to signify her Magic Cancel and  Studio Shaft decided to give her 2 blue eyes in the second anime and first OVA for reasons unknown.
 * The Averruncus Series. Specifically, Tertium's place in it. At first, I thought that the first Averruncus was the one Ala Rubra fought in the war, and the second Averruncus was the one that "struck down" Nagi ten years ago (the way Tertium phrased it made it sound like a mutual defeat), making Tertium the third, as his name indicates. However, Tertium acts like he's the one who fought Nagi, and the Averruncus that Ala Rubra fought used stone magic (in case anyone forgot, Tertium is identified as the "Averruncus of Earth"). Then Chapter 311 reveals So, my question is: were the Averrunci that Ala Rubra fought the first and second, with Tertium inheriting their memories (the spoilered bits above seem to contradict this)? Or was that all Tertium from the start, with him regenerating somehow after each fight, and the first and second Averrunci were killed off long before this story takes place in undisclosed circumstances (several lines by Rakan to Tertium seem to contradict this)?
 * In the same chapter of the above spoiler, Dynamis said it was he who Fate. So, yeah, I would assume it was Tertium all along. Make wonder what happened to 'Primum' and 'Secundum'
 * While it isn't quite clear whether or not Tertium really is the same Averruncus resurrected twice or not... to the above point about the Averruncus that Ala Rubra fought using stone magic; just because they are designated "Averruncus of *insert element*" doesn't necessarily mean they are limited to that element. After all, Tertium used a water-based spell back in Kyoto, and when the manga seems to portray wind and lightning as two elements.
 * I think what happened is that
 * Chapter 326 seems to answer this question:
 * Just how did the girls happen to be able to communicate in Mundus Magicus, where the official language is clearly some form of Latin? It is understandable for Negi and Anya to know it (they are mages after all), while people like Setsuna and Kotaro are most probably native to the world. We still have a huge group (the hitchhikers notwithstanding) for whom it would be gibberish.
 * According to Akamatsu, there's Translator Microbes magic in effect for them. He describes it as "extremely basic" magic, so it stands to reason most Magical citizens would know how to cast it (some of the girls might have even learned it themselves).
 * Also, it is mentioned somewhere that "Japonese" is another major language in Mundus Magicus. It makes some sense: Eastern-style magic (talismans and ki usage) is present in that world, and Eastern mages in Mundus Magicus could easily have selected Japanese as their lingua franca. Not to mention all the mages that have Japanese names for some odd reason (Nagi, Negi, and Nekane Springfield; Arika and Asuna; Tosaka, Shiori, etc).
 * I really hate pointing out Fridge Logic for Negima, but what happened to Anya? Kotaro's group rescued her, I know, but what happened to her afterward? She wasn't with them when they went to rescue Asuna and get the Great Grandmaster Key.
 * She's in Kaede's cloak so that Ala Alba won't risk losing her again; she's just been rescued, so she's probably not in the shape to fight (and she's likely not strong enough to face CE anyway).
 * I thought of that too, but Kaede wasn't with Kotaro's group when they rescued Anya, and Anya wasn't with Kotaro's group when Kaede showed up to meet with them.
 * Not only that, but she made no effort whatsoever when . Couldn't she even attempt to make a last stand with Yue and Makie? Would she really just sit aside while every one of her friends and rescuers are falling around her? Can we at least see her looks of distress within Kaede's cloak?
 * Looking again, she doesn't seem to be with Kotaro's group when they reach the altar, even before Kaede's arrival. I don't know how smart of a move that would be, but maybe she was left someplace behind to avoid getting her in danger again? They did know for sure the only enemies left were at the altar, and the important thing was to get her out of confinement; maybe Kotaro's group planned to make a quick stop using the GGMK to get her back (or heck, maybe Nodoka could even relocate her from wherever she is). Alternate theory: she's actually on a mission by herself to retrieve something only she knows of from the palace (due to living there for a while) and absolute Unspoken Plan Guarantee will let her succeed.


 * Kaede claims that, until she saw Negi flying on his staff, she didn't know that wizards and magic actually existed. If that's the case, how the hell did she create over a dozen shadow clones earlier in the chapter? If that's not magic, then I can't think of a good name for it. Or did she not even realize she was using magic and thought creating clones of yourself was a natural bodily function?
 * Ki. Especially as it's supposed to be an opposite of sorts of Magic (being able to wield both is a rare trait).
 * It appears to have been lampshaded since right after she says that she mentions that someone like her shouldn't be surprised.
 * She's a ninja, so she can do the split body technique (and some more). This does not mean mages have to exist, unless you think if ninjas then mages.


 * How does Quintum know lightning shundo? Think about it for a second: lightning shundo works by transforming yourself into lightning. The only known way to do that is by absorbing two "Thousand Thunderbolts" spells through Magia Erebea, binding the lightning spells to the user's body and soul. Negi also has to use some subtle wind magic to control himself in lightning form, so this is a fairly complex and advanced technique that not just anyone could pick up. On top of that, the only people who should know Magia Erebea are Evangeline (who invented it), Rakan (who is... well, Rakan), and Negi (who learned it from Eva's scroll). So... how the heck does Quintum know how to do it? Yeah, he's supposed to be the Lightning elemental Averruncus, but that ability should still be beyond him, as far as I can tell.
 * Dynamis stated Negi's Magia Erebea is actually one of his master's techniques (despite fake Eva stating she was the one who developed it, but this could either be false or they developed it independently from one another), which means Quintum could know how to use it. That, or he has another way we aren't aware of.
 * Also, maybe there is other was to archive the same/similar effect. He is the Averruncus of Lightning, after all. It is not strange for him to know a few overpowered lightning tricks.
 * Rakan mentioned that the reason he was able to beat Negi's lightning instant movement was because he fought the "ultimate incarnation of lightning" in the nocturns labyrinth. So this isn't a completely original move; other people have realized that turning into lightning would be a Game Breaker.
 * Or they could have looked at the recording of the Negi vs. Rakan battle, thought "hey, that looks really useful," and reverse engineered the spells for their own use.


 * So about that vending machine with all the strange drinks in the mid-levels of Library Island... did Yue have that put there for personal convenience, or was it always there, thus introducing her to the hobby?
 * Albireo's dragon has the same weird taste as Yue.
 * Now that Evangeline has brought it up herself, what exactly is hidden underneath The Mahora World Tree?
 * 1.A dragon. 2. Albireo's house. 3. A disused Gateport. 4.... uh, something else?
 * More importantly, why is she only asking this now when demons are marching towards it, after ten plus years of living next to the giant glowy arboreal energy nexus? Did it never occur to her that the abnormally large tree with unimaginably large quantities of magical power flowing through it might be indicative of something out of the ordinary?
 * Not necessarily. She knew the World Tree acts as a giant mana syphoon and that it releases its energy every once in a while. Only now that really weird things are going on because of it, plus the fact that the demons are going straight for it, are making her question what it could be hiding. Like the way she didn't even try to figure out the way the school's magical barrier works for 15 years until she had someone (Chachamaru) who could help her with it.
 * Chapter 325 revealed it:
 * I was looking over
 * It's magic, don't question it... okay, seriously:
 * As in chapter 329,
 * On the pactio cards we've seen, every character's given name has been in large letters. Fei, Asuna, Negi, etc. But why is Rakan written in large letters on Jack Rakan's card?
 * He's referred to as Rakan more often than Jack. Maybe he thinks of himself more as Rackan than Jack.
 * Okay, this is really nitpicky, but... if Quintum is/was the Averruncus of "Wind", why does he seem to rely entirely on lightning spells? After all, wind and lightning were established (or at least, implied) to be separate in chapter 204, when Negi mentions to Rakan that they've always been more his specialty. Given that Quintum seems capable of using perpetual lightning form (or something like it), it also seems kind of like a lost opportunity that we only see it used with lightning, as opposed to air (don't deny that wouldn't be cool). Maybe Averruncus of Wind was a translation error, or wind and lightning are the same after all?
 * Same goes for Secundum. I think wind just doesn't pack as much punch as lightning and that, while they have separate lines of spells, mastery of lightning still depends on mastery of wind (as is the case with Negi too).
 * Scratch my above post, I've got a much more rational explanation. Isn't he supposed to be the Averruncus of "air", rather than "wind"? You know, since the element is air. Wind and lightning are two lines of air spells, so they can still be air users without wind spells.
 * Im gonna go with lightning being a specialization of wind magic, during Negis fight with Rakan, Rakan points out that Negi's lightning movement ability relies on manipulating air, which leads me to believe that lightning spells revolve around a similar principal, with air manipulation creating the lightning, lightning is probably the more destructive line of air spells
 * I have been scratching my head for some time about the whole Master/Magia Erebea situation surrounding Dynamis. Not only recognized he Magia Erebea but also called it his master's technique. So does that make him a former student of Eva (I doubt Negi is the first, she's centurys old) or did the Lifemaker create Magie Erebea (too). It's even said that Dynamis magic is a mix between Shadow users and Doll masters (and Eva-chin is definitely the later). Does anybody know if the Japanese term was Master as in Shishou or something similar?
 * It's very recently been revealed that there is a connection between the Lifemaker and Evangeline (one that even she was unaware of), but I also doubt that he learned it from her. The Lifemaker is older and very likely more powerful than Eva. I think what happened is that Evangeline managed to develop Magia Erebea independently of the Lifemaker: he invented it first, but didn't pass it on to anyone but his own secret organization, while Evangeline's kept it to herself as well (Rakan only got the scroll because Eva lost a bet against him). Negi's the first person she's ever taught it to. After all, it was a kind of magic meant to be used by demons, not humans (hence the encroachment and demon transformations Negi's been suffering).
 * Okay, it's really stupid that I don't know this considering how long I've been into this series, but... how are Ku Fei and Chao Lingshen's names written? Like, are their first names "Ku" and "Chao", or "Fei" and "Lingshen"?
 * Fei and Lingshen
 * Yeah, that's due to their Chinese motif.
 * The ending to Chapter 331. . One very, teeny, tiny question: HOW!? I did not catch an explanation to this.
 * Pure force of will plus Asuna-based realityhax, made possible by Asuna still being hooked up to the spell matrix and having been awoken by Ala Alba.
 * If your asking HOW rakan does what he does, you clearly havent learned from his previous exploits
 * Original Poster: Memetic Badass-ness aside, his return more or less absorbed all tension from the story by bringing the dead back/reality warped to life.
 * Bringing the dead/reality warped back to life. You mean that thing Nodoka said they could do literally the chapter after it happened to Craig and Aisha?
 * YES! An idea that took out almost all the tension in the story!
 * Why is Chamo so partial toward human girls? Shouldn't he be more attracted to female ermines?
 * Chamo has the ermine equivalent of a bestiality fetish.
 * Or it's further evidence toward the "Chamo is a transformed human" theory.
 * Fate and his co. stated that the collapse of the Magical World would begin in 10 years time. Negi proposed a plan that would stop the collapse. But he says in  that the plan would come into effect in  . What.
 * The collapse would take place in ten years if nothing was done about it. Since Negi's plan involves
 * A minor one. What is Negi's age now as of ?
 * 12 at the oldest. More likely 11.
 * Between 12 and 13 really. It's been about 1 year since the start of the story in real terms, plus the extended time in the magic world [as the synchornization broke], plus all the training in Year Inside Hour Outside places.
 * Chacharmaru has been going around in an upgraded body with no visible joints since before the Magic World arc. So why is it that by Chapter 337 her body is all puppet-like again? And I don't remember her having that little headband thing going from one ear to the other around the back of the head, nor the little mic thingy attached to it.
 * Her upgraded body got trashed by Quartum. She's probably switched to an older model while the upgraded one is being repaired.
 * What was up with  disappearing in  ?
 * Pre-emptive rebuttal: Fate didn't do it (or at least, that's what he says). Also Professors Takahata and Akashi have disappeared in the same manner.
 * Negi theorize it's a cooperation of Kaede and Natsumi.
 * Negi turns out to be correct.
 * This one's been nagging me far more than it should. Since Chachamaru's realistic skin upgrade, SHE HAS BOOBS LOL. Do these serve any functional purpose or are they just decorative? Okay, fine, the odds are that they are almost certainly just to make her look human (or more attractive to Negi, since Chachamaru's secret got out to her creator), but if they are functional, what possible purpose could they have? Coolant tanks? Battery cells? Airbags?
 * Storage space.
 * Poyo Rainyday and Tamaki both have "artifacts" that take effect the moment they say "Adeat!" Is there an actual item involved, or do their cards automatically turn into  and Tamaki's pocket dimension? What about Homura and her fire spirit abilities? Is that connected to an artifact as well? Not only that, but Ayaka doesn't even have a visible artifact in her card, unless it's the dress or the flowers. However, considering her ability seems to be some sort of teleportation(?) it might just be the dress.
 * Ever since it's been revealed in chapter 343, most of the drama is focused on the fact that . But wait...
 * That's a possibility, but remember that outliving everyone is only part of the problem..
 * That's a possibility, but remember that outliving everyone is only part of the problem..


 * a Real Life headscratcher related to the series: There have been several attempts to do an anime series, but none have made it past one season, usually due to how much the anime diverts from the original manga. As of March 2012, the manga will end, so things like needing filler will no longer be an issue. So why doesn't an anime studio just do a straight-up adaption of the manga?!
 * Maybe they will. But things are a little complicated because the OVA's are good adaptations of the manga, so there's some stuff that's already been animated. Personally, I think the series will end with "Also, we're getting another anime."


 * Okay, now that the series has ended... there's still a few questions in my mind:
 * As for.