Mahou Sensei Negima/Tropes M-Z

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Made of Iron: Jack Rakan, one of the names people have given him is "That damn guy you can stab with swords all you like and it won't do a thing, dammit"
  • Magic Missile Massacre: a common spell, with Roboteching for good measure.
  • Magic A Is Magic A
  • A Magic Contract Comes with a Kiss: Pactio. It's implied that Blood Magic can be used if a kiss would be awkward or otherwise unwise, but since the one who taught them about the pactios is Chamo...
  • Magic Contract Romance: Negi notes that there is a trend where Mages are known to marry their Minister/Ministra Magi.
  • Magical Incantation: Typically in unfamiliar languages, such as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and archaic Japanese.
  • Magically-Binding Contract: Pactio is the most obvious, but least straight, example. A straighter invocation occurs when Fate and Godel each try to make Negi sign one which would have the power of a geas.)
  • Magic Land: This would be the near-literal translation of Mundus Magicus.
  • Magic Missile: The functionality of the light-elemental Sagitta Magica attack spell is very similar to your standard Magic Missile. Other-element variations have more varied effects.
  • Magic Wand: The Thousand Master's staff works this way, as does the ring Eva gives Negi. Straighter examples appear when Yue and the rest of Ala Alba learn beginners' magic.
  • Magitek: Chao's Deadly Upgrade and Powered Armor, as well as Chachamaru's very existence. Oh, and a magic gun. And then there's the Paru-sama[1]
  • The Magocracy: The Megalomesembrian Senate
  • Maid Corps: Evangeline's Robot Maids
  • Make It Look Like a Struggle: Amnesiac Yue tells Negi to attack her when they accidentally meet, all the while wondering what exactly is she doing and why.
  • Male Gaze: It's Ken Akamatsu.
  • Mana
    • 20 Points
  • Marilyn Maneuver: Every single eligible female on panel, every single time Negi sneezes.
  • Marshmallow Hell: trope namer
  • Masquerade: Mages are not supposed to reveal themselves to Muggles. Doing so puts them in danger of severe punishment, and Laser-Guided Amnesia for all involved if discovered.
  • Mass Teleportation: The portal to Mundus Magicus bears a strong resemblance to an airport.
  • Measuring Day
  • Medium Awareness: The characters comment several times on the images that appear in the back of the panel to illustrate one of their thoughts or a flashback
    • Konoka hastily readies the Relax-O-Vision card used some chapters back when Rakan's taunting of the Amazon Brigade that's trapped them edges too close to Hentai for comfort.
    • During Misora's hilarious attempt to attempt to deny her identity through Blatant Lies, big glowing letters appear above her head proclaiming her name. She frantically tries to wave it away.
  • Megaton Punch: Rakan For-the-Hell-of-It Right-hand Punch!!
  • Meido: A favorite of Evangeline and Fate, and apparently standard uniform for Magic World slaves.
  • Metafictional Device/Harsh Word Impact: Chisame gets stabbed with a speech bubble.
  • Mismatched Eyes
  • Misplaced Accent: In the English dub, Negi speaks like an American attempting the I Am Very British Received Pronunciation accent, not in anything like a Welsh accent.
  • Mobile Shrubbery
  • Modesty Towel: sometimes...
  • Monster Mash: Negi's associates include a ghost, a vampire, a half-bird demon, and a dog demon. On the other side, the REALLY monstrous-looking bounty hunters are later seen casually relaxing in the same baths as Negi and company.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • Negima!'s left-field ending; the gateport incident in Vol. 21.
    • A more minor one comes when Kurt Godel explains Negi's lineage and then gives Negi a We Can Rule Together offer. An otherwise serious moment is made funny with the inclusion of an RPG-style 'Yes/No' dialogue option.
  • More Magic Dakka: Sayo with a Sagitta Magica Gatling Gun.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Takane D. Goodman
  • Multiple Endings: See Adaptation Overdosed, a few screens above.
  • Mundane Utility: Noticeable in Negima! and early in the manga. As the focus shifts to combat, these uses become less frequent and tend to be implied rather than shown.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless
  • Mutually Exclusive Magic: Ki and magic are incompatible for the vast majority of people.
    • For those people that can use them together (only three so far have been shown), it becomes a Yin-Yang Bomb.
  • My Kung Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: Not only do the major characters spend almost all their time off-screen either training or sleeping (and have been doing so for years), the training itself is a frequent plot point on-screen -- especially if it's Training from Hell.
  • Mysterious Parent
  • Mysterious Protector: The manga shows Negi thinking of his father this way, even placing himself in danger hoping to get him to appear.
  • Myth Arc
  • Naked Apron: Setsuna's version of Cosmo Entelecheia involves Konoka dressed like that.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Alexander "Twilight" Zaytsev, fitting the criteria for Conquerors, Scary Nouns, Xtreme Kool Letterz, and Anything You Can't Pronounce On The First Try all at once. Nice nickname, Chiko-tan.
  • Naughty Tentacles: upon landing in Magicus Mundus, Chisame is attacked by a clothes-eating-octopus that seems to exist solely for putting in tentacle-rape-esque scenes
    • Not to mention Paio (of "Boobies!" fame), with sandworm familiars that used their tentacles to strip and almost sexually assault Nodoka.
    • Back in the Kyoto arc, Fate subdues Asuna by turning a bath into a bunch of watery hands that tickle her until she can't move. And this is after he accidentally destroys all her clothes.
  • Near Misses: stronger character vs. anyone using the time-warping bullets
  • Neck Lift: Negi's father does this to a demon in the flashback to the destruction of his village, and finishes it with a nice squeeze too.
  • Never Trust a Hair Tonic: A female variation, when short-haired Ako thinks she should grow her hair out to be more attractive. A (not so) helpful denizen of the magic world promptly gives her a magic hair-growth potion, which works perfectly for all of a minute before the hair begins to engulf her.
  • New Year, Same Class: Taken Up to Eleven. Negima's class doesn't change at all, despite there being around twenty other classes in the grade.
    • Hand-waved before it happened. It was stated that Mahora doesn't split up its classes.
  • Newspaper Dating: A short-term version.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: The attack on Negi's hometown was done by the Megalomesembrian Senate in a specific attempt to kill Toddler!Negi. It obviously failed, and now Negi knows, and boy is he pissed.
  • Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: Would fit right in besides the Welsh ten-year-old kung-fu wizard school teacher who's also technically a prince who is the protagonist. Never mind Chao Lingshen, the time-traveling Magitek-wielding Martian mad-scientist restaurant owner who is fittingly the protagionist's decendant and totally wasn't BSing about that Mars thing either. And that's just to start.
  • Nipple-and-Dimed
  • No Dialogue Chapter: Number 166, if you want to know
  • Non-Fatal Explosions
  • Non-Lethal Warfare
  • Noodle Incident: There're actually quite a few. One including "Chizuru and a large number of spring onions", and another about Chisame's "First time on the net".
    • We also have Negi's "troubles" during Christmas and Valentine's Day.
  • Nosebleed
  • Not Just a Tournament: There's a tournament whose hidden purpose is to gather evidence of the existence of magic and flood the media with it.
  • Not So Different: From Fate to Negi and most recently from Tsukuyomi to Setsuna.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You
  • Not What It Looks Like
  • The Nudifier: Negi essentially is The Nudifier. Also, just go read the Clothing Damage entry.
  • Numerological Motif: Each member of the class their seat number takes great importance they are referred to by number at the start of the series and are on their Pactio Cards.
    • Negi's Pactio card number is 496 The Perfect Number of his 31 students. (As in he wouldn't be who he is without each of his students)
    • Luna's Pactio card number is 32 as in the newest student to the class
    • Rakan and Albireo's Pactio's with Nagi [2] numbers are both 1001
  • Obake
  • Obfuscating Idiocy: Kotaro can hold a perfectly coherent and fairly intelligent conversation with Negi and Fate about the space program.
  • Occult Blue Eyes:
    • Fate fits as this: He is what Evangeline called a 'doll', being a magical creation of the Lifemaker, extremely proper and The Stoic early in the story, but prefers to drink coffee instead of tea.
    • Evangeline herself is a blue-eyed vampire who is Really 700 Years Old. It was recently discovered that she herself is also a creation of the Lifemaker; exactly what kind has not been revealed yet.
  • Ocular Gushers
  • Odango Hair
  • Oddly Visible Eyebrows
  • Of Corsets Sexy
  • Offhand Backhand: Setsuna, without even knowing that she was doing it... while worrying about getting weaker, no less.
    • Evangeline while contemplating new information about Negi's father. The poor guy never saw it coming.
  • Off-Model: Mostly fixed in Negima!'s DVD release.
    • Crops up again in the second Mou Hitotsu no Sekai OVD, the bit where Fate shatters stone!Asuna in Negi's dream. There's less Conspicuous CG, with better physics, in GaoGaiGar.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Seven years worth of moments with every member of class 3A's actions in the future and their work to help save Earth, Mars, defeat the Lifemaker and save Nagi.
  • Oh Crap: regular occurrence
    • And then there's Jack making shit puns before confronting Fate's minions during Godel's ball. He says he has to go take a dump, and then tells Fate that everyone has to wipe their own asses. Truly, the shit has hit the fan.
  • Old School Building: In the first anime this is the setting for the "kiss catch" game.
  • One-Hit Kill: Time-displacement bullets. (Interesting in that it's not a "kill" in the traditional sense, but tactically there's little difference.) Also, Code of the Lifemaker has this effect on natives of the Magical World.
  • 108: "We've managed to capture 108 of the frogs-aru..."
  • One-Sided Arm Wrestling: Negi vs Ku Fei
  • One-Winged Angel: Played straight with Inugami Kotarou-kun. Big Badass Wolf indeed.
    • Subverted later on; after Negi single-handedly wipes out a gang of bounty hunters, the leader starts muttering about revealing his true form. Negi gives him a mean look, and he goes back to cowering on the ground.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: In chapter 314, Fate is revealed to have survived, and is fighting Quintum to protect Negi's comrades. Because only he is allowed to defeat his rival.
  • Only Six Faces
  • Only Smart People May Pass
  • On the Money: Buying out slaves = one martial arts tournament.
    • Actually an inversion: It makes perfect sense for a martial arts tournament to have a round million as a reward, but not so much for that to be the exact price of the slaves' debt.
  • "On the Next..."
  • OOC Is Serious Business: When Kaede opens her eyes, something big is going down.
  • Opera Gloves: Some have noted that Negi's newest accessory from Chapter 282, a pair of long gloves accompanying his chinese-styled garb, seem to be almost a new form of Zettai Ryouiki. The fangirls love it, of course.
  • Orwellian Retcon: How old is Negi, chronologically? Well, the initial magazine releases said he was born in the summer of 1993, making him about 9 years old in the prologue. The bound volumes changed this to simply "1994", consistent with his earlier admission that he's only 10 if you use kazoe, and Word of God reportedly has him at about eight and a half at the start of the series.
  • Our Demons Are Different
  • Our Time Travel Is Different
  • Out-of-Clothes Experience: Everyone when they use magic to wander into the mind of another character
  • Over and Under the Top
  • Overdrawn At the Blood Bank
  • Overly Long Tongue: A Negi golem created by Haruna has a 23.5 cm tongue.
  • Overly Pre-Prepared Gag
  • Overnight Age-Up: Forward and reversed with the Age-disguising pills.
  • Panty Fighter: Lampshaded a bit during the Mahora Budokan, when Asuna and Setsuna change into their provided combat attire, they discover after they are already into the sexy lingerie just what they are putting on. They have no real choice, so they go into battle as combat maids.
  • Panty Shot: Hoo boy...
  • Paper Fan of Doom: The weaker form of Asuna's pactio artifact.
  • Parental Abandonment:
    • Beside the obvious examples of Negi and Asuna, both orphaned, nearly all the characters live alone in a boarding school with no parents in sight. The two dads that showed up were extremely plot relevant.
    • And then there's Kotarou -- apparently any half-Youkai where he's from will be abandoned at birth.
  • Parental Incest: No actual incest occurs, but Yuuna really loves her dad. She even says that she wouldn't mind giving a "deep, passionate kiss" to her dad, which elicits a squicked "No. Just... No" Reaction from Ako.
  • Party Scattering: The main cast is at a Gateport, having just arrived in the Magic World from Wales. The Bad Guys pick that moment to launch their attack on the Portal Network to cut the Magic World off from the real one. As the system explodes, there's all kinds of swirly craziness and the cast end up scattered in ones and twos across a surface area nearly a third that of Earth. It takes an interminable period to get everyone back together, but when they do, everyone has, as they say, taken a level in badass.
  • Pensieve Flashback:
  • Perpetual Molt: Not as bad as some others, but it still applies.
  • Personality Blood Types: Tons and for almost every character. Check here for the full list.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: If you hear someone starting an incantation with "To Sumbolaion Diakoneto Moi", RUN.
  • Perspective Flip: A flashback near the end of the final Negi/Fate fight shows us the Lifemaker observing Nagi and Ala Rubra twenty years ago. Rather than being dismissive of the foolish humans, he or she actually seems pleased and respecting of Nagi as an exemplar of humanity. This puts Nagi's final beatdown of the Lifemaker shown in Godel's flashbacks in an entirely different light.
  • Perverse Puppet: Chachazero has a bit more free will than a normal old puppet, but she is definitely psychotic. In the most adorable way possible.
  • Petal Power
  • Pillar of Light
  • Pillow Fight: During their Kyoto vacation/school field trip, several of the girls of 3-A had an epic pillow fight with their boy teacher's kiss as the prize. Despite what you may assume from the previous sentence, very little of it was used as Fetish Fuel. Also take note that the girls will indulge in the occasional pillow fight given the opportunity.
  • Pinball Projectile
  • Pixellation
  • Place of Power: Twelve of them, including Mahora itself
  • Playing with a Trope: One of the big reasons this series is so popular is because Akamatsu goes out of his way to toy with tropes common to the Shonen genre and winds up coming up with twists and turns that catch even his own long-time readers by surprise, to say nothing of the people who were expecting this series to be little more than "Dragonball Z meets Harry Potter / Love Hina". See Beam-O-War for one example among many.
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: Right after Ala Alba gets spread out across the Magic World, Negi comes to and finds a bathing Chachamaru.
  • Plot-Relevant Age-Up: The pills everyone's favourite Ermine orders in. The author of the manga has a lot of fun playing with these.
  • Plucky Girl: Several, most notably Asuna, Anya, and later on, Yue. Even later on, Nodoka proves that she just tops them all in this regard.
  • Point That Somewhere Else: During their big fight, Negi has Setsuna's magic daggers hovering at Jack Rakan's throat. He decides to bite down on a couple, and the others get nervous.
  • Pool Scene
  • Poor Communication Kills: If Chao or Fate would have taken the time to explain their goals to Negi rather than opposing him from the beginning without explaining why, everybody could have saved a massive amount of time and effort. Chao was likely doing this intentionally; see Xanatos Gambit.
  • Porn Stash:
    • Subverted; it's merely used as a distraction.
    • Asakura's secret report on Negi's room makes a note on the lack of this in Negi's drawer since, y'know, he's 10.
  • Post Episode Trailer
  • Post-Kiss Catatonia: After Chachamaru gets her artifact in a ravishing Pactio kiss that goes on for four pages, and after Negi goes into Kiss Terminator mode on Asuna.
  • Power Dyes Your Hair: Negi's hair turns white during his Magia Erebea.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: Asuna powered the magic-cancelling defense system of Ostia while bound in chains as a child. Later she was used to power the magic-cancelling spell that would have destroyed the whole Magic World. Thanks to everyone's joint effort at containment, only the whole of Ostia was destroyed. The resulting mental trauma from being used as the power source to destroy a whole country was probably one of the reasons Nagi and party decided to wipe her memory.
  • Power Levels: In the manga's Magic World arc, Jack Rakan, with his own personal ranking chart, puts a major villain's power in context with an oddball list that includes: a cat (0.5), a normal human teen girl (1), a tank (200), a magic teacher (300), Negi (500), a dragon (650), an Aegis Battleship (1500), and the villain (3000). Meta Girl Chisame doesn't even know where to begin in pointing out all the problems with such an arbitrary list (which probably shouldn't be taken very seriously.
  • The Power of Blood
  • Power Perversion Potential: Some of the cast are more aware of this than others. Rakan uses his speed and power to flip girls skirts and take their panties off before they notice. His "secret ultimate technique" is Silent Flipping and Stripping, Combined with the Rakan Gentle Breeze Tempest Fist, oddly enough it actually works as a battle strategy.
  • Princess In The Mountain: Asuna's general situation until Nagi came and rescued her. Later, she goes back to the "mountain" for a hundred year sleep.
  • Psychic Link:
    • Any pair with a Pactio can communicate telepathically.
    • Later we see other people using this without a Pactio.
  • Psycho Lesbian:
  • Public Domain Artifact
  • Puppy Dog Eyes: Usually Negi.
  • Pure Magic Being: In some way, this could be said of the majority of the Magic World's denizens.
  • Put Them All Out of Their Misery: The Fatettes contain aspects of both type three and four, having been wronged (they're all war orphans or worse) and deciding they're going to fix society by completely redoing it. Whether they like it or not. As it's rather bluntly stated to Ala Alba, they at least don't even care what Negi's plan is or if it will work because they're more concerned with making a peaceful world than saving all the people. Having the people saved is a nice bonus to them.
  • Quivering Eyes: Negi again.
  • Radial Ass-Kicking: Asuna and Setsuna's battle against the demons in Kyoto played out like this. Once they began to realize that either girl could cut them down with a single stroke, they kept their distance and attacked more strategically in this fashion.
  • Rain Aura
  • Rain of (Magical) Arrows: There doesn't seem to be a limit to how many Magic Arrows you can shoot off, although it's usually a prime number.
  • Razor Wind: Wind-type spells, including Negi's old standby Jovis Tempestas Fulguriens, run on this trope. Griffins also have Razor Wind breath.)
  • Reality Ensues: In a flashback, Tsuruko (Motoko's sister from Love Hina) says that contrary to all shonen logic, someone who follows swordsmanship with no thought other than causing chaos and bloodshed really will become incredibly strong. While Setsuna will presumably win eventually, you can see that this is indeed true during the current fight where Setsuna is getting utterly stomped due to Tsukuyomi's powerups. One of those powerups, incidentally, is one that Akamatsu specifically noted as being one inherent to shinmeiryu swordsman and basically boils down to Tsukuyomi tapping into the dark side and shows up as her Black Eyes of Evil. Setsuna has never shown this powerup before even though other good characters like Touko have.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • Fate Averruncus tends to do this to Negi.
    • After Negi starts to crack after one of Fate's speeches, Asuna gives Negi her own The Reason You Suck Speech, the point being that he's an idiot for even considering what Fate is saying. The next time Fate attempts one of these, he gets a punch in the gut and a Shut Up Hannibal for his trouble.
    • Evangeline has a knack for these, against Setsuna, Asuna, Negi...
  • Reference Overdosed
  • The Red Planet: Went from what at first seemed like a joke from Chao to being the real location of Mundus Magicus. Sort of.
  • Red String of Fate: Lampshaded in one of the first two OVAs: Nodoka and Yue find a spell in Yue's Artifact that seems to indicate who the caster's tied to. Instead, it just ties things together with magical, glowing red string that can't be cut. Since Nodoka was thinking of Negi when she cast it... Hilarity Ensues.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Justified by the Masquerade. We hear several times in the beginning that mages try to help the world through NGOs, but 99% of what we see magic being used for is destroying the landscape during fights.
  • Relationship Voice Actor: Quite a few actually.
  • Rescue Arc: The school trip to Kyoto evolves into a Rescue Arc when Konoka is kidnapped.
  • Ridiculously-Fast Construction: 3-A's festival project is remarkably detailed for the amount of time they spent on it.
  • Robe and Wizard Hat: Most noticeable in Yue's Pactio outfit, which is practically the essence of this trope. Very noticeable when she summons her item while in a 1-piece swimsuit -- yes, 1-Piece Swimsuit, Cloak and a Wizard Hat.
  • Robot Maid: Evangeline's resorts are staffed by older (but younger-looking) versions of Chachamaru, usually referred to as Dash-Chachas or Chacha<number>s.
  • Roof Hopping: Chao, in the chase that sets up the plot of the Mahorafest mega-arc.
  • Rousseau Was Right:
    • All over the place, at least for the first few arcs. Once the Ala Alba head to the Mundus Magicus, however...
    • Even then it mostly holds up enough that Negi is extremely surprised when Tsukuyomi laughs her ass off when he notes that she's probably working for the bad guys for a noble cause like all the other villains and explains that she's really just playing along with Fate for the opportunity to hurt/rape/kill people. The only other example is the Megalomesembrian senate, who are probably, given the usual lightness of the series, not horrible individually(just selfish and arrogant) and are more just evil through mob mentality.
  • RPG Episode:
    • The climax of Mahorafest, AKA Mahora vs. Mars.
    • The entire Magic World arc could count, as the plot is decidedly on the Final Fantasy end of the spectrum, and an enormous number of videogame terms are used to explain the mechanics of how magic works. Not to mention the fact that the Magic World is implied to be a massive artificial reality game, complete with a Game Breaker[3], and a Big Bad who can literally rewrite the "code" of the "game".
  • Rubber Face: Asuna does this a LOT to Negi.
  • Rule 63: An odd canonical example played for laughs or fanservice with Negi during the Mahorafest Arc as a joke by the class to bring in more customers. Played far more serious with the introduction of Sextum in the Magical World Arc, herself Rule 63 of Fate.
  • Rule of Cool: A good chunk of the manga runs on this and...
  • Rule of Funny: Anything that isn't totally logical or awesome is going to be this.
  • Running Gag: Many, including Setsuna's Cannot Spit It Out-ness and how Jack Rakan tends to ignore the laws of magic that don't suit him.)
    • People mistaking Rakan's attack techniques for terrorist bombings.
    • Takane getting stripped.
    • Chisame notes that Jack Rakan bleeding after he tries dark magic, for the first and only time, is becoming one. Every time he said that he was invincible he would start to bleed.
    • Several characters have noted that Negi really needs to get his ass kicked one of these days, for a variety of reasons (mostly his harem).
  • Saintly Church: Played with in Misora's focus chapter after Mahorafest. She pretends to be a kindly old priest in the confessional, but she is actually very mischievious and sometimes downright sneaky.
  • Sand in My Eyes: Used by both Konoka and Yue.
  • Sapient Cetaceans: Dolphin-men are one of the many denizens found in the Magic World. One of them works as a trucker who pilots an airship.
  • Say It with Hearts: Almost always used ironically; sometimes Konoka will fall into it, though.
  • Scenery Porn: Done with CG models of the environments, many of which are ridiculously detailed and have huge polygon counts.
  • Scooby-Dooby Doors
  • Schedule Slip:
    • "Negima will be taking a break next week" "Negima will be taking a break next week" "Shonen Magazine (which Negima is in) will not be sold next week" "Negima will be taking a break next week" Repeat ad infinitum.
    • The scanlations can be even worse given that the translators are unpaid, and tend to be students with exams and suchlike.
  • Schematized Prop: Logistifying Chiu's artifact.
  • School Festival: Quite possibly the largest one in fiction. It runs for about a week and takes in several million dollars.
  • Science Destroys Magic: Side material adds in the interesting fact that the ability to use magic is based on a certain way of thinking the world works, such as the four classical elements. As science advances and disproves these theories, the number of magic users dwindles.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Waking up a legendary demon was the motivation for the villains during the Kansai arc. Also, Eva technically qualifies; although she was sealed less for her evil (which was, if you believe her, considerable) and more because Nagi couldn't get her to leave him alone. Ironically, the protagonists defeat the first abovementioned Sealed Evil by temporarily breaking the seal on the other one.
  • Sensei-chan: Negi is a rare male version.
  • Serial Escalation: Negi vs. Rakan. Negi reveals that he isn't left-handed at least five times before the match is over, culminating in a spell that definitely deserves the name "Titan Slayer". And Rakan still stands up like nothing happened.
  • Serious Business: A tense meeting between Fate and Negi derails for one page into a heated argument over coffee and tea -- Negi is British, after all. Negi prefers milk tea and refers to coffee as "muddy water". Fate drinks seven cups of black coffee every day, and occasionally lemon tea.
  • Seiza Squirm: During the Claim Negi's Lips Tournament Asakura organizes in Kyoto, almost everyone gets caught and made to seiza by Nitta-sensei.
  • Sexy Secretary: In Chapter 337, Evangeline tells Chachamaru to become this to Negi as he's working himself to death (apparently enough to literally kill a normal human), even mentioning that she is the only one of the girls who can really help him this way. After confronting him directly about it and telling him that she truly wants to be there to help him, it looks like Chachamaru is in fact going to be Negi's new secretary.
    • Naturally there is also a hilarious daydream before that where Chachamaru envisioned herself working in this role starting with simple help, moving into what might be several years in the future where they've gotten quite familiar, and ending with Negi insisting on winding up Chachamaru to show his thanks for her help...right before Asakura and Negi himself walk up to her. Cue Did I Just Say That Out Loud?.
  • Sex Slave: Averted in the Magical World. Slaves may not have many rights but they are protected from being used as sex slaves.
  • Shipper on Deck:
    • Everyone Ships Konoka and Setsuna.
    • Jack Rakan ships Chisame/Negi.
    • The ENTIRE Ala Rubra ships Nagi/Arika.
    • Evangeline sometimes ships Negi/Chachamaru and derives endless amusement from poor Chachamaru's plight, though deep down she really is quite supportive.
  • Ship Sinking: Possibly the only real one in the series since Negi/Konoka and Negi/Setsuna; In Chapter 353, Negi tells Asuna, extra space just to mess with your head which girl he likes. Her reaction makes it clear that A, it's not her, and B, she has no problem with that.
    • Chapter 355 makes it a point to sink virtually every major ship involving Negi.
  • Ship Tease: So much that it is impossible make any truly definitive declarations as to which girl will "win" until one of them actually does.
  • Shirtless Scene: In-universe, on the poster advertising Negi's and Rakan's fight, and in the fight itself.
  • Shock Collar: Applied to the girls under slavery in the magical world.
  • Shoot the Medic First:
    • During the Gateport Incident, Fate uses the confusion caused by nailing Negi through the back with a stone spear to try to petrify Konoka.
    • A variation happens when Fate's subordinate Koyomi targets Ako over other low-tier fighters, although Ako is not a healer but a support-type.
  • Shotacon: Poor Negi is such a Chick Magnet that half of his fourteen-year-old class is outright discussing how to confess their love for him within days of his arrival. It's made somewhat less squicky by the fact that at least a few of them are more concerned with how badass he's going to be in a few years, but at least one girl is very happy to have herself a yummy little ten year old -- although to be fair it's less about sex and more about replacing a baby brother who died at birth.
  • Shout-Out: Has its own page
  • Showgirl Skirt
  • Shown Their Work: Shown mainly in the compiled volume extras and magazines, which give descriptions on both in-universe physics and real world data, such as the use of surprisingly good Latin... And Greek. And Sanskrit. Other examples are the Hakkyokuken, Negi and Ku-Fei's martial arts style and the physics behind Negi's Raisoku Shundo. And the geography of Mundus Magicus, which appears to be Mars with oceans -- which is finally pointed out by one of the characters in a July 2009 installment. And Chisame's battle against a TCP tuna swarm; she repels it setting up a bucket filter, even using the correct sentence to implement it in iptables!
  • Show Within a Show: Mahou Shojou Biblion, a Magical Girl Warrior series.
  • Shrines and Temples: Mana is ostensibly the Miko of Tatsumiya Shrine, near Mahora.
  • Single-Stroke Battle
  • Skilled but Naive:
    • Negi is an incredibly skilled mage, but he's still a ten-year-old.
    • In another light, Negi is an incredibly skilled (natural) Chick Magnet nicknamed the Thousand Pimpster by some of the fans, but he's still a ten-year-old.
  • Skinship Grope: Chichigami-sama is a serial groper to the point of Unfortunate Implications. See Psycho Lesbian above.
  • Sleep Cute:
    • Happened to Ako & Makie, Konoka & Setsuna, and Negi & Asuna. Kazumi & Ayaka, and Haruna & Yue were close...
    • The credits of Negima! (Awww...)
  • Smoke Shield
  • Sneezing: Negi used to be affected by frequent bouts of clothing shredding sneezes in the early volumes of the manga. The sneezing decreased when the story grew more serious, the Fan Service didn't: Notably, sneezing mostly occurs in the downtime between major, action-filled arcs.
  • Snot Bubble
  • Snow Means Death:
    • The destruction of Negi's village.
    • Nearly literal when Eva strands Asuna on a blizzard-wracked mountain as part of her training. Asuna freezes solid while sleeping, then wakes up dead. Ask any doctor. Being Asuna, however, this is not sufficient to keep her down. Evangeline later hits her with an insta-kill freeze spell; once again this is insufficient, although in this case her ability to cancel magic may have helped. She was still stuck in an ice crystal long enough to suffocate.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil
  • Sparkling Stream of Tears
  • Spell Construction
  • Spider Tank: Literally. Lampshaded to hell and back during Mahorafest, when Misora finds the Martian Army stashed in the sewers.
  • Spit Take
  • Spot of Tea: Negi takes tea with Fate, and each criticizes the other's tastes in a truly epic bout of passive-aggressiveness.
  • Spotting the Thread: Yue figuring out that Takahata was an illusion in Chapter 143.
  • Squeaky Eyes
  • Stable Time Loop: The three days of Mahorafest. Done inconsistently, though: Their week-long jump back does end up changing the past, but it ends up being stable due to it being consistent with Chao's timeline. Basically it's a sort of destiny thing, otherwise there would be like a huge paradox, and if they hadn't succeeded, Chao would never come back in time to do it.
  • Strip English Lesson
  • Summoning Ritual: Typically, these invoke Valkyries, Undines or Salamanders, or other types of spirits, for offensive spells.
  • Summon Magic
  • Super-Deformed: Infrequently, and usually only when characters are under stress. Except Misora. She does it more often.
  • Super-Powered Evil Side: What happens when Negi's Black Magic gets out of his control.
  • Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Chachamaru serves tea. She also has a BFG, Kung Fu skills, and transforming blade arms.
  • Superpower Lottery: Pactios act as this, giving a artifact with a different ability depending the individual's personality. Some are good for fighting, some are stuff outside of fighting. During Negi's fight with Rakan, he entered a pactio that allowed him to use the artifacts of anybody he entered a pactio with, which he canceled after the fight.
  • Super Speed: Raiten Taisou. Koyomi's artifact ability. Also one of the effects of Ako's artifact.
  • Supporting Harem: At least it started out as such, lately it's more of a Balanced Harem.
  • The Sweat Drop
  • Swirling Dust
  • Synchronization: Haruna's golems have a slight version of this since when one is used to defend from an actual attack, it gives her a Psychic Nosebleed and knocks her out but doesn't pass on the full damage from the attack.
  • Take a Third Option:
    • After the group realizes that the Asuna with the group might be a fake, Tatsumiya attempts to unmask the impostor using a magic bullet. Negi, however, doesn't want to see her hurt, impostor or not. Faced with the option of either allowing a spy to run free or hurting a real Asuna (despite assurances from Tatsumiya that the bullet would be harmless in this case), he instead forms a Pactio with the impostor, with the added side-effect of stripping away the disguise.
    • Both Cosmo Entelecheia (the secret society/terrorist group) and Zazie's sister believe that the inhabitants of Mundus Magicus must either be sealed in Cosmo Entelecheia (the Lotus Eater Machine) or die/end up in a desperate war with Earth when their home dimension inevitably collapses. Chao Lingshen tried (or claimed to be trying) to reveal magic to the inhabitants of Earth at large so as to make the latter option less disastrous, given that the former apparently didn't happen. Negi, on the other hand, has an idea to prevent the collapse.
  • Taken for Granite: Adds to the horror feel of the series, without too much Squick.
  • Taking the Bullet: Several times, including a 'defendee-tossing-would-be-defender-out-of-the-way-to-take-the-hit' subversion.
  • Talking in Your Sleep: "No way, lady, I can't smoke that..."
  • Talking to Himself: The American dubs.
  • Taste the Rainbow: Here's the class roster. And that's only the starting point.
  • Tele Frag
  • Telepathy
  • Teleporters and Transporters
  • Tempting Fate: Ayaka says that she has a bad feeling about going to the Magic World and Asuna claims that Ayaka's premonitions are usually wrong. Guess what happens to Ala Alba.
  • Terraform: Negi's ultimate plan to save the Magic World as revealed in Chapter 338. His theory: Magic/Mana is fueled by life, and because Mars as it is is a dead world, it's the main reason for the ultimate collapse of the Magic World. By Terraforming Mars and making it Earth-like, the Magic world can eventually thrive there without problems. The immense size and cost of this project is also why Ayaka and Chizuru are now sponsoring it. Also, given how long it would take (Negi estimates between 30 and 100 years), it explains how busy Negi's become and how it could be a "lifetime" project.
  • That Didn't Happen: Twice. Both times involve Forceful Kisses from Negi.
  • There Are No Therapists:
    • And Negi, from what Nodoka's diary showed us, needs one badly.
    • Subverted early on, however, when Negi gets cheered up by Satsuki during Mahorafest.
  • There Is Only One Bed: Weirdly inverted -- the girls understand and accept that no matter how many beds are present, Negi is likely to crawl into one a girl is already occupying. (Especially Asuna.) They even turn it into a game of Keep-Away on one occasion, fighting over who gets him. The one girl who doesn't want him there, of course. Of course, it's debatable whether she still doesn't...
  • Thirty Second Blackout
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: As of Chapter 285, this seems to be Fake Eva-chin's preferred method of dealing with Negi's Super-Powered Evil Side.
  • This Is Sparta:
  • Thundering Herd
  • Time and Relative Dimensions In Space
  • Timeline-Altering MacGuffin: Chao's "ultimate weapon."
  • Time Machine
  • Time Skip: In chapter 350, five months have passed from the "Get Negi to confess" to "Asuna's 'graduation'" seeing as she's going to be sealed again at Mars.
    • And then again in chapter 352, 130 years have passed, as Asuna wakes up late in a future world to find all of the plans succeeded... and to find that Negi has apparently somehow died, in addition to all of her old classmates with the exceptions of Chao and Eva, who bring Asuna back to the original timeline next chapter.
    • And once again in chapter 354, this time 7 years after the original timeline, by which all the girls of Class 3A have long graduated, as shown by Yue who now works as a private investigator involving magical cases. This also introduces a few new characters, such as Maki's younger brother Kagehisa, who by this time is in high school.
  • Time Stands Still
  • Time Travel: Stable Time Loop as Negi starts running into earlier versions of himself...
  • Timey-Wimey Ball:
    • ...until the part where he has to change the future after being sent ahead.
    • And the book Chao left which states Negi's wife is now blank.
    • It was fake.
  • Title Drop: The White Wing initially call themselves the Negima Club until the better name is suggested.
  • To Be a Master
  • To Be Lawful or Good: Negi gets this from time to time, having to choose when to break laws and when to let things slide, often while under threat. He's fairly flexible, coming down on both sides depending on the severity of the issue.
  • Token Girl: Sextum, the Averruncus of water and the only girl in the series.
  • Token Yuri Girls: Setsuna serves as Konoka's protector, and admits it precludes hooking up with anyone else. Naturally, other characters assume this is a complicated way of saying that they are a romantic couple, or will be. Konoka certainly has no problem being her (kissing-activated) partner in their magical contract. It's pretty much just Setsuna who isn't aware of this. Naturally, when Setsuna proved to be a popular character, the overtones became a lot more obvious in the Negima?! remake, with a more knowingly teasing Konoka and a more flusterable Setsuna, to the point of Setsuna stuck between embarrassment and ogling at Konoka in a swimsuit. Considering that in the early manga the way Setsuna acts around Konoka is exactly the same as someone with a really strong crush (complete with blushing and a loss of the ability to speak whenever she's around) makes the subtext already quite strong.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Pretty much automatic if someone gets an artifact. This includes Negi, though overshadowed by the fact that he had just gained about eight others. Maybe, his artifact could be a Game Breaker because he has so many attendants, he can use all their powers, granted, one at a time, but still it gives him a lot more options than almost anyone. Has been Put on a Bus for a while now.
    • Yue is arguably the queen of this trope, having done this no less than three times. See her character entry for details.
    • Yue's best friend Nodoka is the goddess of this trope.
  • Too Much Information: Asuna gets an earful from Makie during the shower scene: "Negi-kun's you-know-what is touching my you-know-where! ... His you-know-what's getting you-know-what-er!"
  • Torch the Franchise and Run: The series' rather abrupt ending is the result of Akamatsu dropping the series in protest against his publisher's attempt to take ownership and copyright of the series away from him.
  • Total Party Kill: Discussed a few times after they entered the magical world arc as with so many other game tropes, especially when they were separated.
  • Tournament Arc
  • Training from Hell:
    • Lampshaded with Ku Fei's martial arts training, as her trying to create a "quick-powerup" training regimen for Negi based on old manga and kung fu movies fails miserably. She then tries training him conventionally, which works, and teaches him so quickly that she gets depressed about it.
    • Played straight, however, with Evangeline's training methods, which actually seem to work.
  • Transformation Trinket: The pactio cards.
  • Translation Convention: Scenes that take place in Britain are spoken in Japanese. The girls, even the ordinary ones, also have no trouble in the magical world -- averted though, in that it was colonized from Earth (Mundus Vetus, "the Old World"), and two of its major languages are "Anglicum" and "Japonense." Interestingly, though, the writing dotted around the Mundus Magicus suggest that the lingua franca is actually Latin.
  • Translation Style Choices: Most fan translations fall into Category 2 or Category 3, while the former official translation was a solid Category 2.
  • Trapped in Another World: The entire plot of the Magic World arc.
  • Triang Relations
  • Troperiffic: Akamatsu seems to be on a quest to use every trope ever. He is disturbingly close to succeeding. Naturally, this leads to...
  • Truce Zone: Megalomesembria's public baths.
  • Truer to the Text: An interesting case. The recent OVA releases have been faithful to the manga, but they're so deep into a story that none of its multiple previous adaptations properly covered, that they won't make much sense to anyone who hasn't read the manga.
  • Two Roads Before You: Father's or the Master's?
  • Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Variation: just as Fate finishes explaining the secret of the Magical World to the captive Asuna and Anya, the next chapter begins with Shiori/Luna confirming the same explanation for Negi and company.

Fate:Those are his comrades. My prey... You have all just woken up...
Negi:These are my comrades...
Negi&Fate:I won't allow you to lay a finger on them!

  • Two-Teacher School: In the entire Elaborate University High, few teachers are shown other than Negi, Takamichi, Gandolfini, Nitta, Seruhiko, and Shizuna. Justified in that the manga focuses explicitly on the teachers who are also mages.
  • Unblockable Attack
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: When the girls are not attending class, and wearing the Mahora uniform, they each have fair amount of unique casual clothes. It's obvious reading the manga, that Akamatsu and company spent a lot of time coming up with fun looks for all of the girls.
  • The Unmasqued World: Negi and friends pay a brief visit to a "bad" future in which the current antagonist has recently succeeded in revealing the existence of magic, but aside from the excited attentions of some local girls and talk of all mages being recalled to the Magic World, we don't see much of the effects. Magic is revealed for good off-screen during the final timeskip, and more integration between the worlds (including black market trade) is discussed.
  • The Un-Reveal: 355 chapters and we never learn who Negi actually likes or ends up with. He does tell Asuna at one point, but the audience doesn't get to hear it, and her reaction doesn't make it clear who it is- except it doesn't seem to be her.
  • Unsound Effect: "Pettan" for Yue and Nodoka.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Chachamaru uses her booster jets to fetch a little girl's balloon at one point, and nobody comments on it except Asuna and Negi.
  • The Unwanted Harem: Double Subversion: the professor surrounded by 31 female students sure looks like a set up for one of these, but, while the students may find Negi cute, they don't want to go out with him. Except, of course, that several of them do develop romantic feelings for Negi, though nowhere near as much as the premise would lead you to believe.
    • Justified in that they develop romantic feelings for him after he shows how mature, badass or awesome he is, and most of them look at him and realize that the ten year old kid will turn into the epitome of sexy and badass in five years tops.
  • Upgrade Artifact: Literally.
  • Urban Fantasy: Though it's shifted to a more Final Fantasy feel as of the Entry to the Magic World arc.
  • Vampiric Draining: Evangeline uses type II.
  • Vancian Magic
  • Verbal Tic: Some of the girls show this from time to time, but Kaede is the most promanint in the manga with her saying "De Gozaru" in almost every sentence.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Lampshaded by Rakan.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment:
    • Mana prominently has one. In chapter 276, she pulls out an anti-tank rifle. It's lampshaded ("I mean... how the heck did you pull that thing out? From the "magical valley"?)
    • Earlier on, in chapter 35, Asakura stores Chamo in there. Bet he enjoyed it.
    • This rule isn't just limited to just big-breasted girls in Negima, as Nodoka, who is a bit of a Pettanko, is seen hiding one of the smaller versions of her Pactio item in her cleavage in chapter 280.
  • Villain Ball
  • Villainous Rescue: Evangeline saves the gang's collective ass in Kyoto, demonstrating her true power in the process by curb-stomping both a recently-summoned demon god and a later arc's Big Bad in quick succession.
    • Further along the line, parallel to another one of Negi's Big Damn Hero moments, Fate Tertium saves Nodoka and Natsumi from another Fate incarnation for he himself wanted to be the ONLY one to defeat Negi.
    • Chapter 330 shows Evangeline doing it again in the exact same manner when Negi and Fate are about to get fried by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generations of Cosmo Entelechia along with the Lifemaker.
  • Visible Silence
  • Wacky Homeroom: On Steroids and/or Crack
  • Walking on Water
  • Walk the Plank: Arika's execution in chapter 268.
  • Wall of Text: Played for Laughs with Hakase's incredibly long rant about AIs and love in an early chapter.
    • Also often played for laughs when Yue is in a pinch, showcasing her tendency to overanalyze everything.
  • Waterfall Shower: Done on several occasions, most notably during the descent into the Library in volume 3, and then again much later in the Magical World by Asuna and Setsuna. and the Crowning Moment of Funny when Rakan and Chisame catch each other doing it.
  • The Watson: Usually the normal or inexperienced girls. The trained warriors are usually the ones explaining.
  • Wave Motion Gun
  • Weapon, Jr.: Small wands are used for magic training and as emergency magical foci. Chamo even describes them as beginner wands.
  • Weapons That Suck
  • We Are as Mayflies
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Chao, Fate, and Kurt Godel all want to "save the world" through means that others think are going too far.
  • We Will Not Use Photoshock In The Future: Kosmo Entelekheia edits video of the fight at the Gateport to make it look like Negi's group had destroyed it instead of themselves, causing Negi's group to become wanted criminals. Although it probably doesn't help that there's a Government Conspiracy against them.
    • Chisame lampshades this early on, when Negi notices how much better she looks in her idol pictures but doesn't put two and two together.
  • Wham! Episode:
    • Chapter 277, in which the Big Bad's allies reveal they can simply erase people from existence, and do so to several minor-but-named characters.
    • Chapter 294: the reveal of Zazie as the group's next opponent. Fans shat bricks, and Chisame lampshaded it in the next chapter.
      • Note that she was shown on Earth at Mahora Academy after the gates were destroyed, making her appearance even more unlikely.
      • Her role may have been vaguely foreshadowed in the first chapter, but that's one hell of a delayed Chekhov's Gun if true. Small Version; Big Version [dead link].
      • And then, it's all undone by revealing that it's not, in fact, Zazie, but her older sister.
      • (Then again, there's a lot of misleading foreshadowing in that collage, starting with the fact that the size of most of the characters' pictures is inversely proportional to their later role in the story.)
    • Chapter 311 Quartum rips Chachamaru in half, Quintum steals back the Code of the Lifemaker, so now there are 4 averruncus' one of which is female.
    • Chapter 329 The return of the Lifemaker.
    • Chapter 330 The return of Primum, Secundum, Quartum, Quintum, Sextum, and all of the other KE members. Doubles as Oh Crap.
    • Chapter 331 features the arrival of all the former Ala Rubra members currently accounted for including none other than JACK Freaking RAKAN to join Eva in taking on KE, giving the impression that Akamatsu is out to either give his readers a concussion or just straight out split their skulls open.
    • Chapter 334 which ends up revealing the current Lifemaker to be Nagi.
    • Chapter 346 in which Negi reveals that he has feelings for one of the girls (doesn't so which one though)
    • Chapter 352 alone blows them all out of the water. Asuna wakes up in the future several years late and meets the descendants of several classmates. Furthermore, she finds Negi's grave (his actual fate remains unknown, however, as an article she read says he disappeared).
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: From the summer OVAs: Zazie. Chachamaru. PING-PONG.
    • And in Chapter 261, epic arm wrestling between Ku Fei and Negi. In formal attire.
    • Rakan's technique "Eternal Negi Fever" that he wants to teach Negi.
    • Rakan's Secret ultimate technique: Silent flipping and stripping. Also his Rakan Gentle breeze tempest fist. Made exclusively to use against female enemies.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Negi and Team Good fall squarely on the side of "has a mind, is a person". Kurt Godel seems to think only the human inhabitants of the Magical World are worth anything. Since it's been shown that only humans can survive the Lifemaker's "Rewrite" (meaning that the Rubber Forehead Aliens and Half Human Hybrids might be magical constructs) he has a reason. Not a valid one (they're still sentient, intelligent beings), but a reason nonetheless.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Numerous characters or plots are Left Hanging:
    • During the Where Are They Now? Epilogue, no mention is ever made of Anya or her fate. Interesting, as almost every other 'harem member' is addressed.
    • Shiori and the rest of Fate's girls who eventually Heel Face Turn are similarly absent from not only the 6-month time skip, but also during the Where Are They Now? Epilogue.
    • The whereabouts and activities of Graf Herman remain unclear, even though he survived his battle with Negi and promised that they would meet again. He suggested that he may know how to reverse the petrification cast on the inhabitants of Negi's village when he attacked it some time before the main story begins, but by the Where Are They Now? Epilogue, Konoka went ahead and cured them anyway and he vanishes completely.
    • Negi's mother, Queen Arika, despite being incredible important and surviving the events that destroyed her country, is never mentioned again. Her reasons for abandoning Negi, or her inability to help, for the less cynical, are never revealed.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Not quite so serious one in chapter 349: Yotsuba calls out the girls for trying to force Negi to say who he likes, if anyone in particular. Her rationale? He's only ten, they already know about his magic and parentage, several of them have pactios with him and he's trying to save the world. Is he really not allowed to have any secrets at all?
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer: Negi has a tendency to solve his problems with kissing; such as creating a soul for Chachamaru, and unmasking Fake!Asuna with a pactio.
  • Where Are They Now? Epilogue: The final chapter, 355, shows a few snippets of what became of Class 3-A seven years after graduation and beyond.
    • Negi has apparently rescued his father and defeated the Lifemaker.
    • Kazumi became a photojournalist through the period of upheaval caused by the Mars terraforming plan, with Sayo still by her side long after she was formally released by Mahora.
    • Yuuna follows her late mother's footsteps as an agent of Megalomesembria, apparently with Takane and Mei in tow.
    • Nodoka and Yue started working at the ISSDA; on occasion the former goes out to help her old archaeological comrades.
    • Haruna migrates to Megalomesembria where she became a bestselling author, with Chamo at her side.
    • Konoka went on to cure the petrified denizens of Negi's hometown, while Setsuna became a pioneer space traveler with a high-speed cruiser she bought for the two of them, while occasionally still clashing swords with Tsukuyomi. They are also strongly implied to have married.
    • Ku Fei set up a martial arts dojo at Mahora, and has since continued her winning streak at the Mahora Budokai. Kaede, her training partner, became a wandering space ninja.
    • Makie became the physical education teacher at Mahora boys' junior high.
    • Akira became an orbital elevator stewardess, while Ako was healed of her scar and has become a first-grade medic at Mars, while still secretly looking up to Konoka as her inspiration.
    • Fuuka and Fumika met two princes disguised as animals one Christmas. Their relationships deepen while accompanying Negi, and soon the two pairs got married and were blessed with two daughters.
    • Satsuki continued her culinary studies in China and France before reopening Chao Bao Zi, which went on to become the first interstellar restaurant chain, while her friends still visit the streetcar restaurant where it all started.
    • Misora became a guardian of Mahora, with Cocone still by her side.
    • Chisame seemingly became a full-time hikikomori, but she has since become a special advisor to the ISSDA.
    • Satomi's theory of integration of science and magic became crucial in terraforming Mars and creating the orbital elevator, and has since married a governor, while Chachamaru worked for many years as Negi's secretary and became the prototype for all androids needed to perform the harsh task of developing the solar system.
    • Mana has become a wandering gunner quelling conflict wherever she goes, never losing her faith on Negi's goal, and was said to have fought in a 22nd-century revolution which caused Asuna to oversleep for 30 more years.
    • Evangeline was finally freed from Mahora after Nagi's rescue, although she remains in touch with Negi.
    • Zazie rejoins Poyo, and has since become a goodwill ambassador from their realm.
    • Misa has become a station hotel concierge, Madoka became an elevator customs official (while still pining for anyone black-haired and dog-eared, a remnant of her past affection for Kotaro), and Sakurako uses her keen intuition at work at a securities firm.
    • Chizuru became a proxy representative at Naba Industries, working together with Ayaka to help realize Negi's dream. Once their mission is done, she settles down as a nursery teacher, where she took a liking to the Narutakis' daughters.
    • Kotaro ran off for some training, with Natsumi quickly following her (under the pretense of a graduation trip), and after years of sexual tension, they finally got married in 2015.
    • Asuna becomes a living symbol of harmony between Earth and Mars, and has since worked to restore Ostia to its former glory (and presumably resuming her post as its legitimate queen), while Ayaka joined her side after completing Project Blue Mars with Chizuru's cooperation.
    • Finally, Chao still desires peace for her own timeline in her own way.
  • Whip It Good: Ayaka's weapon in Rare form.
  • White Magic
  • Who Would Want to Watch Us?: Asakura mentions that Negi would make a great main character, although Negi himself disagrees.
  • Wife Husbandry: The rationale of at least one of Negi's "admirers".
  • Who Writes This Crap?: Chisame is vocally annoyed by the lack of foreshadowing for Zazie's appearance in the Magic World.
  • Wingding Eyes: More "wingding speech" than eyes. Negi, being ten years old, doesn't get the connotations of "winding up" Chachamaru, and does it pretty vigorously. Even with she clamps her hand over her mouth, her speech bubbles fill with wingding characters.
  • Witch Species
  • Wizard Duel
  • Wizarding School
  • The Worf Effect:
    • Takane, the girl with the shadow puppets. She's supposed to be at least reasonably competent, but has a tendency to go up against stronger enemies (that is, Negi and friends), get her ass handed to her, and have all her clothes blown off.
    • Any dragons that appear are likely going to be defeated in a spectacular manner.
  • The World Is Not Ready
  • World of Badass
  • The World Tree
  • Writer Revolt:
    • Akamatsu wanted to do an action series all along.
    • Also, the series' seemingly abrupt ending could be attributed to this, as Akamatsu ended the series early in protest to a proposed Japanese law giving publishers greater control and ownership over writers' work. This would also be a guarantee that he keeps the rights to his own work if the law passes.
  • Wrong-Context Magic: Negi can break the rules by kissing hard enough.
    • In the situation of Negi and Jack Rakan, whenever they break a seeming rule, it is brought to our attention, such as Chisame calling Rakan the man with infinite cheats, the one time he doesn't break a rule.
  • Wuxia: Euro-centric magic and fantastic setting aside, the manga is increasingly gravitating towards this genre. Ku Fei's, and therefore by extension Negi's fighting style is emblematic of those found in the Classic Shaw Brothers Kung Fu films and Jet Li films of the 1990s.
  • Xanatos Gambit / Crazy Prepared: If the fandom's theories are correct, Chao Lingshen defines this trope. Basically, she's trying to avert some disaster in the future. The best way to do this is to reveal magic to the world. But if Negi is able to stop her, then that means he will also be able to avert the future disaster... well done, my dear. Well done.
    • Never mind the theories. How about the frickin' Kill Sat that she apparently reached back in time to hand off to Chachamaru? What the hell else would that thing have been lying around for?
    • It goes even further. Turns out that the entire "Martian Invasion" event was meant to simulate the Cosmo Entelechia attack on the World Tree and prepare the school for it. Dear gods girl.
      • Note that there is no proof for any of this.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Eva's "resort-in-a-bottle" (24:1 ratio), Theodora's similar training ground (10:1), and Eva's scroll (max of 72:1, though it can only be used for mental training, not physical).
  • Years Too Early
  • Yin-Yang Bomb: Kanka.
    • Magia Erebea also counts, given that Negi uses the darkest of magic with the light based lightning spells he's most proficient at.
      • Magia Erebea itself is not dark, and lightning spells are just lightning spells. Magia Erebea is 'dark' because of how badly it screws around with the person using it. Magia Erebea actually counts for Yin-Yang Bomb out of technicality, but would really be better called an 'Everything Bomb'. Which is how it works: Magia Erebea accepts all facets of magic equally, light and dark.
  • You Are Not Alone: The last two episodes of Negima! (the first anime) revolve around this on multiple levels.
  • You Can Leave Your Hat On
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Both straight and subverted, for the same event. Not to be confused with the character named Fate, although fights against him have been Unwinnable more often than not.
    • Jack Rakan vs Fate played this straight as can be. He stood 0% chance of winning, but was so Badass in his refusal to go down quietly into the night that he even made Fate question his motives. And he ultimately subverts it. Even after being rewritten out of reality (twice) he proves that Fate can be fought.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair
  • Youkai
  • Younger Than They Look: Most of the girls. Lampshaded when two of them try to get discount tickets to a movie, but the ticket saleslady refuses to believe that they're middle school students.
    • Later, Mana gets a hold of a de-aging candy and is able to buy an elementary student ticket. After having a big laugh about beating the system, she realizes that, with the cost of the candy, she actually lost money overall, making it something of a Pyrrhic victory. Then Kaede shows up in a child's body, but tells Mana that it's due to one of her ninjutsu techniques, so it's free.
  • Your Door Was Open: Negi wanders into Chisame's apartment while she's dressed as her alter-ego "Chiu-chan".
  • You Remind Me of X: Everyone tells Negi about how he reminds them of his father.
  • Your Vampires Suck
  • You Shall Not Pass: Kaede, Kotarou, Asakura, Makie and Yue all attempt to stop Quintum from reaching Natsumi, Nodoka and Great Grandmaster's Key. They don't succeed, but manage to stall him long enough for Tertium's Villainous Rescue.
  • You Wanna Get Sued?
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Lots, but notably both Asuna and Anya have achieved Grade S, although sadly it isn't a consistent thing.
  1. A Goldfish-Style Aerofish with a high-propulsion-pentagram-18-prayer-spirit engine and anti-pirate military-grade armaments
  2. The Thousand Master
  3. and is referred to as such by the characters themselves