Mahou Sensei Negima/Tropes A-L


 * Aborted Arc: The Nightmare Circus, which might have finally given Zazie some character development, was cut due to the Chao arc taking more time than Akamatsu expected.
 * Also, there was apparently supposed to be a story during Christmas following the Magical World arc, where Fuuka and Fumika would meet two animals who turned out to be magic princes in disguise . The events did happen and are still mentioned, but were never actually shown.
 * Both of the above seem to be the result of Ken Akamatsu being in a rush to finish the manga for whatever reason.
 * Abridged Series: Look no further.
 * Absurdly Sharp Blade: Setsuna slices a ball of iron in half with her sword and doesn't even notice.
 * Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: While this doesn't occur much (likely due to the fact that Negi is only ten), in one story arc where Negi gets aged up to 15, he suffers a few smacks in the face. Anya, his best friend from home, is also able to beat him up as much as she wants since they're the same age.
 * Academy of Adventure: Mahora.
 * Accidental Pervert: Happens often to Negi. A good example is chapter 251, where Negi accidentally destroys the clothes of all the girls in the area because he's too powerful.
 * A Date with Rosie Palms: Chachamaru in chapter 337, by way of Fantastic Arousal.
 * Adaptation Dye Job: Has its own page.
 * Adaptation Overdosed: Negima!, Negima!?, Negima Neo, Negima!!, and assorted OVAs. Thanks to the constant Continuity Reboots, nothing but the OVAs have covered more than a small fraction of the manga.
 * Adjective Noun Fred: Mahou Sensei Negi(ma) (Magical Teacher Negima). Although the protagonist's name is "Negi", not "Negima", the "ma" is there to make a pun regarding a dish involving green onions by the name of negimaki ...
 * Age-Inappropriate Dress: Happens on both sides of the spectrum, from the girls' frequently donning loli bodies and clothing to the Akemi-esque way Eva lounges around in outfits that are not suitable for a (seemingly) ten-year-old girl.
 * Aggressive Negotiations: Negi and Fate almost invoke this, over whether or not tea or coffee is better. They end up fighting anyway.
 * Air Jousting: A frequent element of the series' often high-flying magical battles.
 * Air Whales: The standard aircraft of the Mundus Magicus, probably because blimps were too mundane. They also come in various other fish-like shapes.
 * Alchemy Is Magic: Alchemy has shown up in Negima -- specifically, the back of volume 21 has about two pages of text describing the history of alchemy and its relationship to "ixir", as it's called in the Magical World.
 * All Part of the Show: The Mahora festival, when several thousand Muggles were roped into fighting an army of demon-powered robots and mechas under the pretence of a giant role-playing game. Of course, the weapons used were only harmful to modesty. Also, the fight at Cinema Village. The comment "Is this for a movie?" was commonly seen in the background. This was used in the Magic Worlds as well, especially during the fight with Fate's minions in Ostia. The comment "Are they doing a movie?" is often seen in the background, said by various demons, anthropomorphic animals, and other magical creatures.
 * Alternate Character Reading: Spell names are written in kanji, while their Latin/Greek/whatever pronunciation is shown in furigana. The later anime replicate this by usually having the characters say the Japanese reading while the foreign pronunciation is said simultaneously in an echoey and quieter back track.
 * Alternate Continuity: Negima!!, Negima!?, and the Negima?! Neo manga.
 * Alternative Calendar: The Magical World has a separate calendar, probably because.
 * Amplifier Artifact: The Pactio artifacts, in addition to their individual capabilities.
 * Amusing Injuries: This is the guy who wrote Love Hina, after all, although it's a bit less prevalent here due to the vastly increased likelihood of not-so-amusing injuries post-Genre Shift.
 * And I Must Scream: The fate of.
 * Anticlimax Boss:
 * Another Dimension
 * Jack Rakan breaks out of an infinite trap dimension. When asked how, he replies he "just kinda went for it."
 * Arc Number: Prime numbers seem to be very important to magic, especially when it comes to the "arrows of whatever." Those are usually cast as prime numbers (or 1). In particular 67 and 31 tend to pop up regularly.
 * Arc Words: "I shall be your opponent," and "a little bit of courage" (referencing the page quote) to a lesser extent.
 * "You could... save the world" definitely takes on a new meaning between when it's first said and the end of the arc.
 * Variations on "Always keep moving forward" also tend to crop up in plot-important moments.
 * Arrow Cam: In an early episode of Negima!, we have an Arrow Cam without an arrow as Negi mentally homes in on his lost wizard's staff.
 * Art Evolution: To some extent within the series itself, but especially when compared with Love Hina.
 * The general effect makes everyone look older.
 * Art Shift: Humorous -- Makie in the infirmary after her "vampire attack".
 * Ass Shove: A Running Gag is Chizuru's attempts to test out a folk remedy for fevers, which involves shoving a spring onion up the sick person's ass . Kotaro and Natsumi are understandably terrified of her. This doubles as a Stealth Pun since a spring onion in Japanese is "Negi"
 * Attack! Attack! Attack!: Rakan has a tendency to do this, but unlike some characters who use this trope, he generally tends to get away with it sheerly due to his power. This is also how Fate's minions usually operate, and it hasn't gone too well.
 * Author Appeal: Ken Akamatsu is really into Cosplay, and rarely passes up opportunities to dress the characters in various costumes.
 * Author Avatar: Briefly, in the first anime.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The pactio cards allow telepathy between users -- but in addition to a limited range, it can be blocked very easily. As Negi puts it, "Isn't a cell phone easier?"
 * Badass Crew:
 * The Ala Rubra. It did contain the World's Strongest Man and his rival. Ala Alba also becomes one of these.
 * Ala Alba qualifies as well, as evidenced during the governor's ball, among many other occasions.
 * Badass Family: Negi, Nagi, . If we really stretch,
 * Also apparently . Which would make also a member in a sense since
 * Badass Normal: Surprisingly enough Nagi qualifies, saving Arika from a pit full of monsters without being able to use his magic.
 * The same can be said for Evangeline -- even at her weakest, without her magic and using only the strength of a ten year old girl, she can still toss around full grown fighters using pure martial skill perfected over a century.
 * Bad Future: The Eight Days Later arc. 's future is likely another example, though Mana claims that the tragedy she's trying so hard to set right is no worse than any of the little tragedies that happen every day..
 * Baka: The Baka Rangers, although only one of them truly fits the criteria, and the rest are generally Book Dumb or Brilliant but Lazy.
 * Balloon Belly: The result of Makie "helping" Negi prepare for Evangeline's training.
 * Ballroom Blitz: When Cosmo Entelecheia crashes the Governor's Ball.
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: Nipples an other anatomical details are never shown. This is lampshaded in Volume 0.
 * Battle Aura: Have started appearing around various characters since the Genre Shift.
 * Battle Couple: This is what most Mage-Partner relationships turn into after forming a permanent contract. Unless it's between two guys, in which case you get Bash Brothers.
 * Battle Harem: Over 20 women, practically all of whom have become Little Miss Badasses.
 * Battle in the Rain: Negi vs. Wilhelm.
 * Battle Royale With Cheese: After
 * Beach Episode: The Spring OVA.
 * Beam-O-War: Negi vs. Eva; later Negi vs. as well.
 * Played with in the Negi vs  battle. One would expect the battle to be won by overwhelming power and Heroic Resolve, but here it's decided by superior battle experience.
 * Subverted in Negi vs. : Negi pours all of his magical energy into one gigantic attack and taunts his opponent into doing the same for a contest of strength.
 * Berserk Button: Do not hurt or even talk about hurting Konoka in front of Setsuna, don't threaten any of Negi's students while he's around, and if Evangeline is around, just let Negi beat you because if you hurt him she WILL kick your ass.
 * Beyond the Impossible:
 * After died, he came back to life through his fighting spirit.
 * Negi's recent Pactio with
 * BFS: Asuna and Setsuna, but Rakan takes the title with his Battleship Slicing Sword. No prizes for guessing what he uses it for.
 * Less-straight examples of the trope: Kaede's Fuuma Shuriken, Chachazero's butcher knife (she's less than a foot tall, making the weapon-to-wielder ratio pretty high), and Ku Fei's . Also the bound swords used by Ariadne Valkyries, which are closer to spears.
 * Negi can throw Big Freakin Lightning Spears at people now.
 * Big Bra to Fill: The live action adaptation didn't quite get some of the girls' proportions right.
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Magic World's wildlife is unusual, to say the least.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Happened once in the Kyoto arc. Has happened many times in the Magic World.
 * Kotaro saving Negi's ass near the end of the Festival Arc.
 * Humorous variation: Negi getting saved by Nitta-sensei when the class is trying to get him to cosplay.
 * Chapter 331:  for a High Noon style showdown with the Big Bad's minions.
 * Chapter 334:.
 * Chapter 342:
 * Big Fancy House: Ayaka/Iincho, befitting her status as the rich girl.
 * Examples of Big Houses that are symbols of power rather than wealth: Konoka's temple complex, Eva's resort and castle, and Albireo's "house".
 * Bishonen: Negi in his teenage form (used as a chapter title, even). Also a number of the members of Ala Rubra, including Nagi and Konoka's dad.
 * The one guy no one expected was  himself.
 * Biting the Handkerchief
 * Black Comedy Rape: Typically subverted, i.e. when Setsuna and Negi are talking about avenging 's honor when they find her naked and trembling. (She was actually tickled into submission after .)
 * Black Magic: There's a Deadly Upgrade explicitly called "black magic" in the manga, mostly because it's fueled by dark emotions. It's perfect for mopey worry wart Negi.
 * Bland-Name Product: Starbooks Coffee, among many others.
 * Blank White Eyes
 * Blasting It Out of Their Hands: There is a spell specifically designed to do this, roughly equivalent to Harry Potter's "Expelliarmus". However, it also blasts clothing off of their bodies, for obvious reasons.
 * When Negi accidentally overpowers it with black magic in the Magic World, it nudifies everyone in the vicinity.
 * Blatant Lies:
 * It's all CGI. Honest.
 * During Misora's hilarious attempt to attempt to deny her identity, big glowing letters appear above her head proclaiming her name. "Geh, what's with this caption!? Shush, shush!"
 * Bloodless Carnage: The series generally adhered to this until the beginning of the Magic World arc..
 * Blood Oath: Implied to be the preferred way of forming pactios when kissing would be...unpleasant.
 * Blue with Shock: Happens quite often.
 * Boarding School: Mahora.
 * Boss Subtitles: Most of the characters get one in chapter 300, see trivia page
 * Break the Haughty: Several times -- Eva/Nagi, Kotaro/Negi (first meeting), Fate/Negi& (the fight on the dock), etc
 * Breast Expansion: A breast inflation spell has been used twice -- the results are hilarious.
 * Breast Plate: Both played straight and interestingly subverted. While within the manga canon, Asuna is occasionally given armor that fits this trope, some of the side artwork includes her in very fetching, but still perfectly normal, armor.
 * Breather Episode: The infamous "Chichigami-sama" Furo Scene in the magic world. They even say so in the first panel.
 * Brick Joke: Rakan creates the Eternal Negi Fever as a (ridiculously over-the-top) finishing move for Negi to use. Guess who ends up using it during their fight.
 * Also, Makie and her lack of worries.
 * Chamo's Ordered Equipment. Later, there is a scene in the background, where some magic knights talk about the missing equipment...
 * "If there is 4 or 5 like him, it would be horrible-aru." Indeed, Ku-fei, indeed!
 * The telephone punch. Fate was watching after all.
 * "I told you I'm a coffee person."
 * Chao Lingshen's Family History.
 * Bucket Booby Trap: In the very first chapter of the manga.
 * By the Power of Greyskull: The magic activation keys, as well as the artifact-summoning "adeat!"
 * Anya Cocolova: Fortis La Tius Lilith Lilioth
 * Chao Lingshen: Last Tale My Magic Skill Magister (it's possible that it's actually a deformation of Negi's, even an unintentional one)
 * Collet Farandole: Anet Ti Net Garnet
 * Emily Sevensheep: Tarot Carrot Charlotte
 * Evangeline Athanasia Katherine "Kitty" McDowell: Lic Lac La Lac Lilac
 * Fate Averruncus: Vishtal Rishtal Vangeit
 * Mei Sakura: Maple Naple á la Mode
 * Megumi "Nutmeg" Natsume: Rap Tjap La Tjap Ragpur
 * Negi Springfield: Ras Tel Ma Scir Magister
 * Yue Ayase: Vor So Kratika Socratica
 * Nagi "Thousand Master" Springfield: Man Man Terro Terro
 * Cards of Power: The Pactio Cards provide the recipient with personality-based magical powers, which given the Magister's power, can actually be pretty powerful themselves. Anything from a Magical Computer to a giant weaponized paper fan to a mind-reading book are possible.
 * Cash Cow Franchise: With all the spin-offs and merchandise, this series is definitely heading this way.
 * Calling Your Attacks: Parodied by, including using an attack, named Eternal Negi Fever, on Negi. An attack which he originally developed as a finishing move for Negi and the "For the hell of it Right-Hand Punch".
 * Also of note in that many of the fighters use "silent incantations," so they aren't actually saying anything, but the name of the attack still appears so that the readers know what's going on.
 * There was also the fighter in the Mahora Tournament that specifically asked if this was okay.
 * Most recent one of note? STUPID DAD PUNCH!!!
 * Call on Me: Chisame's rescue from the clothes-eating monster.
 * The Cameo: The Mahora Budokai Arc has quite a few fighting game characters show up in the crowd, such as Athena Asamiya, Terry Bogard, Akuma, Yashiro Nanase, Chris, Hugo, and M. Bison
 * Also, take a look at this page. Top right panel, lower right corner, in front of the gorilla. Look familiar? Unfortunately the extreme right side of the page is cut off, so you'll have to check a print copy to see for yourself that the person next to Seta is actually Naru...
 * Cannot Spit It Out: Everyone to Negi's "Is this my mother?" question. Until Rakan just tosses the answer out there with very little build up.
 * Cassandra Truth: Chao's "joke". She even repeats it a few times.
 * Also, Negi's attempts to warn everyone of the impending Festival disaster.
 * Caught with Your Pants Down: In chapter 337, Eva walks in on Chachamaru winding herself up while calling out Negi's name.
 * Censor Steam: Occasionally used instead of Barbie Doll Anatomy.
 * Cerebus Syndrome: Intentionally, as a Writer Revolt.
 * Chain of Command: Slaver collars go "zap".
 * Character-Magnetic Team: At this point, more than half of the class is part of Negi's unofficial 'team'.
 * Chekhov's Armoury: The class roster. Both the the students' clubs (everything from News Club to Quantum Physics Research Society) and Takamichi's notes, such as the one that singles out Eva as a bigger problem than Negi may be able to handle on his own.
 * Cherry Blossoms: Even though it's not a cherry tree... similarly, rose blossom petals are used for a similar effect in an imaginary moment.
 * Chunky Updraft: Used regularly whenever a Battle Aura shows up.
 * Chunky Salsa Rule: Invoked by Konoka, who said that she can heal anything with her artifact so long as their heads doesn't get splattered "Like a tomato!"
 * Clark Kenting: Justified, as they use magic glasses.
 * Class Is in Room X-01: They're in class 2-A, then move to class 3-A early on.
 * Class Trip: Kyoto Arc.
 * Clear My Name: Magical World Arc.
 * Clothing Damage: Happens quite often.
 * One of the only two weapons used by the robot army after the Tournament arc is a laser that only destroys clothing.
 * The accompanying unsealed demons are bound by "scientific devices" that restrict their powers to the same.
 * A clothing eating octopus appears briefly to sexually harass the poor Meta Girl.
 * A spell exists solely for the purpose of this trope. Negi casts it by accident whenever he sneezes, and a magical all-girls school that features later uses it in an athletic broom contest. It's technical use is to disarm opponents, but it seems to have a very vague idea of what constitutes a "weapon".
 * When Fate attempts to petrify Asuna during the Kyoto arc, her magic cancel renders her immune to its effects. Her clothes, however, were not protected, and promptly shatter when she moves.
 * Asuna eventually becomes so used to being a victim of this trope she's built up an immunity to Defeat by Modesty.
 * In Chapter 277,
 * Combat Tentacles: Kagetarou
 * Coming of Age Story: It follows Negi as he starts to make the transition from boy to man.
 * Compressed Adaptation: Pretty much any of the adaptations that aren't alternate continuities.
 * Concept Art Gallery: A few pages at the end of each tankoubon.
 * Confessional: The girls and Negi spend two chapters going to a confessional, manned by a disguised Misora. They unload their anguish, from Genki Girl Makie's worry about having no worries to Negi's deep existential angst, in passing by Setsuna's questions about kissing girls (this is for her to have a pactio and not sexual in nature... probably.). None of it sounded like a true confessional session, of course.
 * Conservation of Ninjutsu: Both played straight and inverted.
 * Continuity Cameo: Chizuru's Apron in Natsu OVA.
 * Continuity Lock Out: The Ala Alba and Another World animated adaptations assume that viewers have read the first 23+ volumes of the manga, as they were released alongside them. Anyone watching just the anime would be quite confused.
 * Conveniently Coherent Thoughts: Averted with Nodoka - when she reads minds with her artifact she has to ask what she wants to know to cause them to think about it.
 * Conveniently Seated: Pretty much all the students in Negi's class.
 * Converting for Love: Given some recent developments involving, you can bet we'll be seeing more of this. Add the fact that her perfect disguise seems to drop only during times of intense emotion felt on her part, such as , and it's as good as done.
 * Cooking Duel: The pillow fight during the Kyoto Arc.
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment: The typical punishment for mages who break the masquerade? They turn them into ermines and make them spend a few years in the ermine camp.
 * Covert Pervert: Nodoka, a mousy Shrinking Violet who keeps surprising everyone in the cast with her boldness, both as an adventurer and in romance. For example, at one point she discovers that she's stuck in a Love Triangle with her teacher and her best friend Yue. The first solution she comes up with?
 * A more subtle example is Fate. Yes, THAT Fate. He will dress up his Amazon Brigade in Meido clothes whenever he can (and does the same to  at some point), and when he captures , he puts her in a really skimpy gown.
 * Oh, Setsuna Sakurazaki. Her "perfect world"  includes her crush and charge Konoka in a Naked Apron...
 * Also Kaede. Her pactio kiss involves a look that can best be described as predatory. Then she held that kiss for a few panels and giving Negi a rather deliberate Marshmallow Hell immediately afterward.
 * Coy Girlish Flirt Pose: Pops up all over the place.
 * Crack Pairing: The Where They Are Now epilogue very strongly implies that Hakase eventually marries
 * Cranial Eruption: Whenever someone gets a non-serious head injury.
 * Creepy Doll: Evangeline has quite a few stacked around in her house. And then there's Chachazero.
 * Cross Dresser: Negi at two points. Setsuna and Kaede at another.
 * Cross-Dressing Voices: Rina Satou in the Japanese version.
 * Cross-Popping Veins: Asuna's Expressive Hair forms into this at one point.
 * Crossover: References to Love Hina and AI Love You.
 * Crystal Ball: Anya uses one.
 * Cultural Cross-Reference: "Ku:nel Sanders"
 * Curb Stomp Battle:
 * Rakan vs. pretty much anyone. There was the gladiator match, where he took out two high-ranking fighters with a massive punch that left a giant indentation of his fist in the ground. And, most recently,
 * Kaede and Setsuna get curb stomped facing
 * Kaede, Setsuna, and Mana all get their butts kicked by.
 * And this seems to be the norm for Fate's minions, who, along with the aforementioned incident with Rakan,
 * Eva vs pretty much anyone. Unless she decided to go easy on you to let you stand a chance.
 * Colonel Sanders vs. Kotaro. Despite his best effort, Kotaro isn't able to inflict any damage to his opponent whatsoever.
 * Cute Kitten: Except when 1001 of them gang up on you.
 * Cuteness Proximity: Negi, to many, many people.
 * Cyberspace: Chisame's Artifact, anyone?
 * Cycle of Revenge:
 * Eva vs pretty much anyone. Unless she decided to go easy on you to let you stand a chance.
 * Colonel Sanders vs. Kotaro. Despite his best effort, Kotaro isn't able to inflict any damage to his opponent whatsoever.
 * Cute Kitten: Except when 1001 of them gang up on you.
 * Cuteness Proximity: Negi, to many, many people.
 * Cyberspace: Chisame's Artifact, anyone?
 * Cycle of Revenge:
 * Cycle of Revenge: