June 4th, 2009 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 28 Chapter 253 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 253
Negima! Manga Vol 28 Ch 253 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Natsumi is reflecting on Paru’s insistence that everyone has to deep kiss Negi and feels that as a side-character, she can’t do that. She considers Kotaro and then runs into him on Paru’s ship. This flusters her but she remembers Kazizaki’s “Reverse Hikaru Genji Strategy” about training the perfect boyfriend even if that boyfriend is several years younger.
Elsewhere, Ku Fei is on a floating rock and thinking about marrying a man stronger than herself and Negi is certainly stronger even if younger. She too thinks of Kazizaki’s words and wonders if she could kiss Negi. Natsumi comes up on a flying Segway and overhears Ku talking aloud, revealing her feelings about Negi.
Sayo (in doll form) and Chachamaru (in chibi form) are sitting together when Sayo remarks on wanting to try kissing but as a ghost, she feels she can’t make a pactio. Chachamaru corrects her, citing Eva’s remark that as long as one possesses a soul, a pactio can be made. Sayo realizes what this means as Haruna comes up, telling Sayo that as a ghost, she’s prime pactio material. Paru has created a “Life-Size Host Robot Body Sayo-chan” golem with a cockpit for the Sayo-doll to sit in and control the mecha unit. This body is well-armed and makes Sayo feel like Chachamaru.
Akira and Makie discuss the Nagi/Negi situation and Ako. Makie considers things on her own and so when she encounters Ako, she tells a confused and protesting Ako that she’ll give up Negi to Ako.
Yuuna talks about how kissing is no big deal and produces a picture of her kissing her father on the cheek. When she’s reminded that this is a deep kiss she has to perform, Yuuna says that if it were with her dad, she wouldn’t mind which is met with objections.
Chachamaru considers if she has a soul or not. Hakese’s words tell her that if Chachamaru thinks she has a soul, then she does. Eva’s words are to explore her feelings on this trip. She imagines kissing Negi.
Paru has created a special high-performance golem to practice kissing Negi with — “Nugi-kun DK-1.” It goes out of control and gets Akira, deep kissing her until it vanishes. As she tries to catch her breath and denies this happened, Asakura arrives and sets the record straight about the type of kiss required for a pactio.
Natsumi considers kissing a sleeping Kotaro when she’s busted by Paru, who tells Natsumi that they need Chamo before anything would happen.
Thoughts/Review:
This may be classified as a “filler” chapter, but for a filler chapter, there’s a lot of good stuff here. ^_^
“According to Master, as long as one possesses a soul, a contract can be formed.”
Another of my ideas has been proven correct — Chachazero is an ensouled creation, otherwise she could not make a pactio with Eva. Granted, I’ve not stated that much if at all in the blog, but I have done so in the past on message boards. That’s why when people came out and strongly stated that it may as well be considered canon that Chachamaru and Sayo-chan would never get pactios based on both of them stating why they didn’t presently have one, I rejected that argument and cited Chachazero. I was forced to concede the point that it has not been outright stated that Chachazero has a soul, but it seemed pretty clear to me. For starters, why pactio with a mere, inanimate doll?
fg7dragon mentioned the idea to me that Eva may have discarded part of her soul that was being consumed by the Magia Erebea. I liked the idea and it caused me to look at Chachazero again — what soul would be better to place into Chachazero than a piece of Eva’s own soul? After all, there’s no one better to trust than herself. ^_^ Man, I hope we can learn more about that down the road.
Back to the chapter, Akamatsu-sensei appears to have set the table for both Chachamaru and Sayo to obtain pactios as well as other girls. I’ve stated that Kotaro cannot be a Magister and form partnerships with anyone in that role so poor Natsumi is out of luck. Akamatsu-sensei may totally turn this on end, but as it stands now, no Kotaro-Natsumi pactio short of Kotaro or Natsumi becoming a mage. I do hope that somehow Natsumi and Kotaro can get together though. ^_^
Returning to Sayo-chan — heh!heh!heh! She’s just been given a “version up” with some abilities akin to Chachamaru. So while she won’t be a major fighter, she can now defend herself and I suspect we will see her engaged in the final fight of the MW arc.
I know I wanted to write more, but as I write, I’m so tired that this may be full of mistakes. ^_^; Well, if I think of other stuff I wanted to say, I’ll write them in the comments. ^_^
No chapter 254 next week. So I’ll do my usual image reminder post and I may have something else as well. ^_^
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Yep, mistakes a plenty. I’m pretty sure Ku Fei doesn’t want to kill Negi. Nor do I know anyone namewd Payo in the story….I don’t really have a problem, but make sure you fix it as soon as possible. YOu may or may not be seeing me comment again, mainly because I don’t agree with most of your ideas. But that’s not something to get into here.
Thank you for the regular weekly chapter reveiw Mr.Astro. Is anyone else getting a little freaked out by how much Yuna loves her Dad? On to other important things, didn’t Kotaro, Negi, and Setsuna mention during the Kyoto arc that Kotaro was a mage, just a different kind of mage. So it may be possible for there to be a Kotaro/Natsumi pactio. Then again, I need to reread that arc to make sure.
you got the Arika and Akira thing mixed up again…
This time it’s Akira in this chapter.
Thanks for the corrections. I’ve had so little sleep lately, I can barely stay awake now. In fact, I’m about to go to bed…
I would love to see Akira’s pactio! I wonder what kind of power will she get? Some kind of water bending,perhaps??
Yeah, it was a fairly amusing filler chapter, though I was kinda hoping for some more stuff related to the last chapter, like what Setsuna’s pactio does and Negi’s reaction to Godel calling him Arica’s son. Oh well, I guess we’ll find out weekend after this.
Akamatsu-sensei seems to be pushing a KotaNatsu pairing during this arc. They’d make a cute couple, but I still like KotaChizu better. I wonder how Chizuru would react to them pairing up? Amusement? Jealousy? Maybe a love triangle is in store? Or maybe Kotaro gets his own mini-harem and it becomes a ChizuKotaNatsu trio?
Also, I LOLed at Yuuna’s scene in this chapter. Girl’s definitely got herself a daddy complex.
Finally, as to Chachazero, I couldn’t ever remember it being stated that she was Eva’s ministra, but then I saw that her sword had “Ministra Magi Chachazero” etched on it (obviously her pactio item). And as to Chachamaru, I’ve always wondered why Eva referred to her as her ministra when the two apparently don’t have a pactio.
ANB, when I said Eva discarded part of her soul that was consumed by the ME, I meant sealing that fragment in the scroll. I kinda doubt she placed it in Chachazero. True, there’s some resamblence in their atitude and they go way back, but that’s about it.
As for Chachamaru having a soul, that’s almost certain. When Hakase discovered Chachamaru had a crush on Negi, she wondered if that’s posible because Eva’s dolls absorb a living soul when they’re created.
So she definetly has a soul.
And regarding Sayo’s new “body”, it’s cute and cool, but wouldn’t it be better if she moved from the doll body in the new one? I mean a ghost inside a doll inside a robot. Kinda too many layers. I know that new body is made by Haruna’s artefact and it would disapear eventualy, but it would be easyer to manuver.
Next chapter, the action goes back to Negi.
@Theron — you can comment, even if you don’t agree with my ideas. ^_^ Thanks for the help on the blog.
@Mega-dark — yeah, Yuuna’s incestuous tilting is a bit freaky.
As to Kotaro, he like Setsuna can use ofuda (the strips with spells on them) and certainly he can use many powerful techniques. However, he’s always been a fighter as far as I knew. I’ll have to check again.
Anon said, “I would love to see Akira’s pactio! I wonder what kind of power will she get? Some kind of water bending,perhaps??”
Either that, or we’ll have some activity that requires an underwater presence and her artifact will fit that bill.
@ShadowOfTheVoid — As you stated, Chachazero’s artifact is all the proof needed to show she has a pactio. Since then, we’ve learned that Chachazero has been with Eva for a very, very long time — hundreds of years possibly. Before Eva became so powerful, she and Chachazero were in some pretty desperate fights (it appears from Jack’s stories).
Chachamaru came around only in the last couple of years. In volume 3, Eva does refer to Chachamaru as her partner and I believe ministra as well. I was like everyone else in assuming that Chachamaru had a pactio but then things began to stand out. For starters, she never was seen with a pactio artifact and no other hint of her having a pactio was given. Then as I reflected on the curse that Nagi put on Eva, I realized that she couldn’t have made a pactio with Chachamaru because she likely wouldn’t have had the magical abilities to do so. Combine that with the “only one partner” rule (which I realize Nagi has broken and Negi may have as well) and it seemed very clear to me that Chachamaru did not have a pactio. But, people assumed otherwise and there was no convincing them that their assumptions were just that — assumptions.
“ANB, when I said Eva discarded part of her soul that was consumed by the ME, I meant sealing that fragment in the scroll. I kinda doubt she placed it in Chachazero. True, there’s some resamblence in their atitude and they go way back, but that’s about it.”
I didn’t mean to imply that this is what you said. My thought is that Eva may have learned to place a piece of her soul inside Chachazero, which in my mind would have come before her learning ME. It’s a wild grab mind you but if Eva knew how to discard a piece of her soul inside of a scroll, I would think she would have had to have learned it earlier in her life. Of course, all this is just sheer speculation, but an interesting concept nevertheless.
kotaro clearly said to Negi that he uses ki where Negi uses magic power. I think it was during the mahora festival , when he was teaching Negi the instant movement/ground contractor. So if that is true, a pactico should not be possible for him.
@SotV: Yeah, Yuuna’s comment about her dad wasn’t surprising. But it WAS funny.
Just as a matter of personal taste… Chizuru/Kotaro = ew. Too much of a mother-son vibe, even more than Asuna/Negi. And remember, Chizuru wanted to stick negi up Kotaro’s butt when she first met him. (I know, horrible pun.)
@fg7: Excellent point; it does seem weird for Sayo to not transfer. The only reason I can think of is that perhaps it’s because the doll is the only thing that lets her leave campus.
@anyone, a random thought: Who else thinks Anya’s going to pactio with Negi after they rescue her?
@fg7
Remember that the Asakura have fixed some voodoo (presumely with the help of libary gang and/or Eva) on the doll so Sayo can bind herself to it.
Yes, I’m aware Sayo can only leave Mahora because of that vodoo doll. What I meant was making that vodoo “part” of the new body, instead of controling the robot with it. Since that body is one of Haruna’s golems, it should be easy to do so, even if temporarily, since that golem will disapear eventualy.
Just like @Sian said, the vodoo is the esential part, not the cover, in this case the doll or the golem-robot.
@ANB — Why do you suppose Eva called Chachamaru her Ministra (ch. 17, p. 10) if they don’t have a pactio? Can there be a magister/ministra relation if there is no pactio? Or could it be just a rare slip on Akamatsu’s part?
@arimareiji — Yeah, Chizu-nee does have a demented side, but I always thought her and Kotaro’s interactions were sweet. She’s a nice person, not to mention she has an amazing rack (#1 in class). They’ve always seemed close to me. Natsumi’s only started getting sweet on Kota in recent volumes (post-Mahora festival). That’s not to say KotaNatsu wouldn’t be a cute couple, but I think a ChizuKotaNatsu trio would be good.
It might be a slip up on Akamatsu-sensei’s part, but I wonder. After all, even in volume 1, Akamatsu-sensei had the class roll with photos created (which Takahata gave to Negi) and Negi was instructed to seek out Eva if he had problems (or needed advice). Since Takahata would know Eva is both a vampire and a powerful mage, it would seem that Takahata trusted Eva to teach Negi things.
Indeed, while she went after Negi to a degree for her own selfish reason, she was also teaching him about the importance of having a partner and the importance of the pactio. So in that regard, I think Akamatsu-sensei used Eva to explain the pactio system and imply that Chachamaru was her pactio partner when in fact she was not.
Does that make sense?