Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, Volume 17

SPOILER Summary:

As the battle against Chao’s robot army continues, Mana uses her special magic bullets to start sending some of the strongest mage teacher 3-hours into the future. Chao defeats both Asuna and Setsuna, but before she can have them sent 3-hours into the future, Misora rescues them and escapes. Chisame uses her new artifact to literally enter cyberspace, which is represented as being within an ocean, where Makie and Ayaka also enter and help, the later two being convinced this is some new VR game. There, Chisame’s presence is known to Chachamaru, who has no choice but to dispatch things like tuna, sharks, and jelly fish (representing various cyber attacks) at Chisame.

Meanwhile, Negi, Kaede, Ku Fei, Paru, Nodoka, and Yue try to make their way to where Chao will be. Paru and Ku Fei drop off to buy Negi time by fighting off some of Chao’s robot armies. Nodoka saves Negi from one of Mana’s bullets and gets sent 3-hours into the future for it. Kaede goes after Mana, managing to elude all of Mana’s incoming fire to get in close for hand-to-hand combat, something that Mana has been looking forward to.

Elsewhere, Chao’s giant robots are taking the key areas on the campus around the World Tree and only one remains free. Yuuna is leading the forces defending this final area and when all seems lost, Negi arrives and blasts the robot in half before taking off to Chao’s blimp, leaving Yue behind to watch with Chamo. Negi is blocked by Chao’s robots and some of Chachamaru’s sisters, but Kotaro, Setsuna, Asuna, Misora, and others are there to clear a path for him. Negi faces off against Chao, who understand her secret as she also has a Cassiopeia time device. During the pitched battle, he recalls his conversation with Yue before arriving to help Yuuna where he had doubts as to what to do, feeling that maybe Chao’s goal may be good even if her methods weren’t. Negi is ultimately able to disable Chao’s device, so she pulls out her trump card, using her battle suit as a means of casting spells despite the pain it causes her to do so. As the battle rages, both combatants cast powerful magic with Negi ultimately scoring a hit that nails Chao in the head, seemingly knocking her out.

Thoughts: I wish Del Rey would not “translate” the word “master” to “mistress.” Chachazero only refers to Eva with the English word “Master” so I don’t see why it needs to be changed.

As to the chapter itself, there is a lot of good stuff here. I liked how the headmaster and Eva “sat” in the air to watch the fight. Negi had his crisis of what to do but came through. The fight between Mana and Kaede — good stuff! Chao defeating Setsuna and Asuna together was cool but then they had no chance against someone who can move through time.

Oh, did anyone notice how Misora’s broom went nuts when Asuna landed on it? Goes back to volume 1 when Negi’s staff wouldn’t fly with Asuna on it. ^_^

Well, volume 18 will finally wrap up the long school festival arc. ^_^