July 4th, 2009 
AstroNerdBoy Negima! 257 SPOILER Images
魔法先生 ネギま！Chapter 257 (Images)
Here’s what I know many of you have been waiting for — the original-sized, sneak-peek images for Mahou Sensei Negima! Chapter 257 SPOILER Images as brought to you buy anonymous Japanese fans (click pic to make bigger, y’all).
There were three batches of images with one repeat. Since I’m doing them as a single post, I didn’t post the repeat.
Looks like there’s a break next week so brace yourselves. ^_^;
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thank you
srry for my poor eng
You’re welcome.
Now time to get some more sleep. ^_^
Looks like there is more than one girl going to the ball. That and if the spoilers are to be believed, that sphere of destruction is actually MARS. Does this mean we will see Chao again?
Also looks like Nagi and Arika eloped, It also looks like either Arika was familiar with the slaves of Ostia or Tosaka and the others worked in the palace.
Well if the Magic World is indeed on Mars than the time they spent there would be halfed when they return to earth (because on Mars a year there means around roughly 687 days on earth). So that means as they have spent around over a month there, when the return to earth it would have been only 15 days. So that means they would return to the academy on the eve of its opening.
Seems like everyone’s in full ballroom attire… gotta say, Sayo in a kimono looks exquisite.
So Tosaka did have a past with Arika or something. A bit more light on the subject would be appreciated too.
Though, my Japanese isn’t good enough yet, isn’t that the planet Mercury in the last page? (kasei)
No, that planet is Mars. In the 5th picture, Natsumi states the similarity betwin that large map on the wall and the ones Chizuru, her room-mate and membet of the astronomy club, has.
In the 4th picture, Tosaka probably says something about not beliving that Arika destroyed her own country.
Concerning Mars being the Magic World, if this turns out to be true, then they will realise what will happen if Auveruncus succedes: magic will dissapear (probably absorbed by Asuna or the like) and as proof of that- Chao. If even the descendent of The Twousand master is unable to use magic, who can? Also, if the people who get their magic drained die, that would explain why Chao wanted magic exposed on Earth- making sure the Gateports remain open in order for them to escape. As for dieing from geting your magic drained, Chachamaru told Chisame during the School Festival that the depleation of magical power means the depleation of spiritual power. In other words, geting their soul sucked out of them. A momentary exposure wouldn’t be very harmfull (the Ala Rubra survived 20 years ago and they were nearthe core of it) but a long one should be deadly.
P.S.: Sorry for the long post, Astro.
It would seem that they found out that the magic world is Mars upside down.
there seems to be a 10-page gap between the 2nd and 4rd spoiler pics… I suppose the dance party is happening in that gap.
hope they’re not taking their eye off Yue…
@mastermack0: since I’m going to be technical about it, the map could be facing any direction, it’s just the cartographer’s perspective.
Also, is it just me, or does Shiori-Asuna have osteoporosis? look at this and see for yourself: http://www.onemanga.com/
Mahou_Sensei_Negima%21/256/09/
is that natural? has she always bent her back like that, under the cover of loose clothing?
If the magical world is Mars, then that makes everyone there… Aliens?
Then is what Chao said true?
Hmm….. Then if everyone is able to live on Mars in the future, wouldn’t the world know about magic?
Ahh.. So many questions, not enough releases..
Nooooo! Not another two-week break. You’re killin’ me, Akamatsu-sensei. :p
Well, if it wasn’t obvious before, this chapter pretty much clinches the Mundus Magicus=Mars thing. Leave it to Ms. “My roommate is in the Astronomy Club” Murakami to point it out to everyone. It might have been obvious to us the audience, but not to the cast. I wonder why Chachamaru hadn’t deduced that earlier. Didn’t she have a map? Maybe she’s never learned anything regarding Martian topography.
Also, I wonder if Akamatsu had this planned from the get-go when he had Chizuru be an astronomy buff? Or maybe making MM into Mars is something he though of later, and had Natsumi tag along to eventually explain things?
Looks like some more Nagi/Arika sweetness in this chapter, too.
Now to wait for Enigma to translate.
Happy 4th of July, everyone! Have fun and be careful celebrating America’s independence. Later.
Hmmm… So it seems as if your Mars theory was correct, Mr. NerdBoy. I thought it was just inspiration for the magic world, but thinking back with Chao…it may turn out to be a major plot point. This is pretty exciting, Akamatsu’s tying two seemingly unrelated story arcs together in a way I didn’t expect. Looking foreward to its release.
The Magic World/Mars connection wasn’t a great stretch. The thing is that Akamatsu-sensei has been establishing this for a long while. Initially, we had no clue where the Magic World was from, so it was easy to just assume it was some other dimension as happens in other titles.
When Chao claimed to be from Mars and a descendant of Negi, her being from the future made that seemingly possible — man could have colonized Mars.
Once the maps of MW came out and they could be mostly matched up with a topographical map of Mars, I never had any real doubts as to the truth that the MW and Mars were the same. ^_^
Akamatsu-sensei has a gift for planning out his stories quite well, laying out markers along the way to set the table for these revelations.
As to Chao, once the connection between MW and Mars was established in my mind, I’ve believed we’ll see her again before the manga ends.
Anonymous said…
“Well if the Magic World is indeed on Mars than the time they spent there would be halfed when they return to earth (because on Mars a year there means around roughly 687 days on earth). So that means as they have spent around over a month there, when the return to earth it would have been only 15 days. So that means they would return to the academy on the eve of its opening.”
Heh!heh! Witness the genius of Akamatsu-sensei. That assumes of course that not much more time passes on Mars before the return home.
meganeshounen said…
“Seems like everyone’s in full ballroom attire… gotta say, Sayo in a kimono looks exquisite.”
And now we have another reason for the golem Paru constructed for her. Again, there’s a reason for just about everything Akamatsu-sensei establishes. ^_^
Orion said…”Also, is it just me, or does Shiori-Asuna have osteoporosis”
*lol* I think that arched back is on purpose to give the audience a bit more service. ^_^;;;
Wait, so is it fine with we think Akamatsu’s going all “just as planned” right now? Or even a few weeks ago? lol
“Wait, so is it fine with we think Akamatsu’s going all “just as planned” right now? Or even a few weeks ago? lol”
I think that for the most part, Akamatsu-sensei is doing things as planned. That’s not to say that those plans haven’t been tweaked along the way. For example, I think that Akamatsu-sensei had plans for Makie to already be in Negi’s battle harem. I base this based on the fact that he designed a pactio card for her and that there were early indications in extra art that Negi would form a pactio with her.
That said, I do think that there are some things that Akamatsu-sensei planned out quite well. I think he’s always known where Nagi is and why he’s missing. I think he’s always known that Asuna came from the Magic World (sadly, many of those early clues in volume 1 were destroyed by rewrites).
@fg7: I’m not sure how much I agree with your specific points, but there’s one element I definitely think is interesting: What if Fate’s plan is exactly what Chao was trying to prevent (or at least mitigate)?
Of all the times she could have jumped to, why this one? Because of the yearly cycle, it could have been anything that happens in the next 22 years… but this seems like an interesting candidate.
Hmmm.. about Chao returning… it seems very likely that she will. You probably remember her last words to Negi where she says they’ll meet again.
Even though the word she used is a typical Japanese farewell, considering how well Akamatsu-sensei plans these things out it would be highly probable that if they said they’ll see each other again that it’ll happen.
Now with all these new revelations about Mars and the Magic World I’d expect her to show up before this arc concludes.
Now, as an astronomer, I think I must clarify a few things here concerning Mars as the Magic World and the passage of time.
First, as we all know from the images from Hubble and the two robot rovers, Mars is uninhabited today and I think Akamatsu-san is perfectly aware of this and has found a way around it: Either the Mars the Negi team are visiting right now are in the far future, where a separate colony has developed into a distinct world, with terraforming and all (this could also explain why the inhabitants of Mundus Magicus calls earth the “old world”) or it is in an entirely different dimension. I believe, right now, that the first is the case. That would make the magic portals between the worlds not only portals in space, but also in time. With Mars having formed into such an advanced society, I think it would be safe to say that we are thousands of years into the future. To counter this theory, Chao specifically stated that timetravel with magic was impossible! But does this hold true for the ancient portals? Who knows how they work?
It could also be, that Akamatsu-san has simply decided to use Mars as the Magical World and simply decided to forget everything about the hard facts, but I don’t think so!
Then we have the clues from Chao’s advanced technology. It seems the Mundus Magicus Negi now visits is not so technologically advanced as Chao’s future is. We have seen some pretty amazing things, but most of it seemed to work thanks to magic, while Chao’s inventions were clearly based on advanced technology, Chachamaru, for example. We haven’t seen anything resembling her yet. I believe Chao is from a even more distant future than the one Negi is (presumably) visiting now. The trouble with her being directly related by blood to Negi, well, there’s simply too many options for timetravel here. We simply know so little about her, that all speculations about her heritage and how many generations she is removed from Negi is fruitless.
And about the passage of time. While it is true that a year on Mars is 687 earth days or 669 Mars days (Mars’s day is a little bit longer than a day on earth), the passage of time is the same. You get old just as fast there as you do on earth! I believe Akamatsu-san is going to work around this by letting the portal in the ruins send them back to earth around two weeks after they left, or maybe just in time to make it back to school, so they won’t have to be embarrassed by coming back in the middle of a school semester.
Astrojensen
@Astrojensen: personally, I just thought The wizards of the Old World would just alert Mundus Magicus whenever mundanes would launch a probe to Mars, and just fooled it by maintaining a complex illusion around the rover, making it look like Mars is an uninhabited desert.
Ditto for the telescopes, The wizards of Mundus Magicus just tapped into the land’s magic energy to maintain a thin illusion around the atmosphere. It wouldn’t need to be as solid, because it’s just being viewed from Earth.
That’s my idea, anyway.
and @ANB: that is some strange fanservice, then.
If Mundus Magicus is Mars, does that mean my idea for a Negima/TransformersFilmSeries crossover is kaput? Considering that the first film had a (brief) video shot of Mars as the dead wasteland it is in our (real) world.
Also, I’ve been askin’ ’round: IF Negi and Arika were to meet, do you think she would accept and love him as her son? Or reject him?
Ah, I can see it now: Negi & Arika, standing there talking all seriously, but then we see that they’re both holding back tears, and then they just give up, rush in, and hug each other. <3 Whatcha think?
Man, this is why I hate that some of my friends aren’t as big Negima fans as me. I have some friends that have read of couple of my volumes of Negima just cause it seemed a little interesting to them, they won’t read it online. Now I’m just gonna get funny looks from them when I say “The magic world is actually on Mars!” o.0
@anon- It ain’t happening.
yeah … the Wizards of Mundus Magicus is very likely ‘just’ maintaining a illusion of the red barren wasteland … (just as the settlement on Selunes Tears in Forgotten Realms does) …
also @anon: Considering there is a 99% chance Arika is Negi’s mother (I’ll leave a bit a leeway for your theory, ANB) I don’t know why she would reject him. Sure, she might get pissed Negi’s using ME, but I don’t think it would matter all that much.
Also, a Negima/Transformers crossover would be the most badass sci-fi vs. fantasy battle ever. Links plz if it’s a fanfic.
Raw is out on MH ~
Well, this time, spoilers were so blur than 4/5 of the sentences were just unreadable…
Anyway, even after reading it now, there’s not a lot of news in this chapter. A lot of pages are about farewells..
Only interesting part is about what happened to arika, and what ostia’s civilian think about her…
And also murakami finding about magic world=Mars, I guess.
looks like that theory about Arika using asuna’s cancel magic ability to stop the final attack is becoming more and more plausible…
And arika was a really great queen, tosaka is just adoring her :p.
He’s just too happy to know that her execution 18 year ago was a lie, and that she managed to escape and to live happily until having a child.
“damn it, I want to let other know about this”…
So much adoration ;p
Concerning Chao, Time Travel, and Unintended Effects.
Consider Timeline A: The attack at Magic Tree doesnt happen. Negi stay in Japan in the summer vacation (50% chance to happen) or give his sister a short visit. The chance that he visit MW while he’s there is very small (1%) since he has no reason to do so. The attack at all gateports happen without interference. Isolation Time happen on MW. When Martians return to earth it might be as an invasion force to escape the desolate place that Mars has become (possible due to Magic-Science fusion). Chao’s timeline continue till she return to Japan.
Timeline B(our time): Chao return but her attack is defeated. Unintended effect No 1 is that Negi meet Colonel Sanders and receive clue about his father’s whereabout (chance of this happen in timeline A is quite small due to the various martial tournaments stay separate, not M&A into a single tournament, so that flakey guy got distracted. DOnt forget that he didnt meet Eva for all those years). When Negi’s group stay trapped in MW, they provide Fate’s group a juicy target: Asuna’s Magic Cancel ability.
Consider this: whether Negi’s group return to Earth or not the Timeline B is clearly different from A. Unless our mangaka using the Multi-World model, timeline A now is vanished. I guess Chao is in suspensed somewhere and may get restored in future.
So now it totally depend on our mangaka’shoice of science. Heh.
I think Negi would have met Al, regardless. I say this because Nagi recorded a message for the son he had never seen and gave it to Al 10-years ago. Al seems very much trapped at the school like Eva.
Colonel is trapped. He can only send an image of himself every year when the Mahora Festival comes around.
Chapter 257 is up on Mangafox (but they accidentally removed 256)! No news on Asuna. The reactions from Setsuna and Konoka aren’t shown, so we’ll have to wait at least another 2 weeks. Hopefully, by then, we’ll get back to young-Asuna and modern-Asuna.
So the magical world is actually Mars! Not that that it wasn’t predictable.
I really support that illusion idea of Mars. If Chao Lingshen is from future mars, and a great war/calamity will be avoided by the mundane world knowing about the magic world’s existence, then I’d like to pose this theory (sorry if it’s already been said, I came to it independently)
Imagine in the future the mundane world sends ships to colonize Mars. The magic world is unable to stop them from landing, and when the ships do land, the illusion fails and suddenly they find the magic world. In a panic to prevent news from being relayed back to earth, the astronauts are accidentally killed, but before the live broadcast is cut off. Chaos ensues. World leaders are unable to soothe public outrage, religious organizations condemn these witches and warlocks. Tension escalates, and eventually, war breaks out.
Sound plausible?
It sounds plausible.
The key is that Al MUST meet Negi in the festival, for it to be in time. Now consider Al and Eva never met in all those years Eva was trapped in the school and ask yourself how small a chance that was.
Al may meet Negi later on, but that wont have done any good since the Magicus Mundus was cut off already.
As to the Earth-Mars war, dont worry about it. Most importantly is that the logistic to supply such an war is bloody impossible, the distance is too far. the killings of a few persons never is the cause of an war, however the media would want to make it so. there must be an underlying force to drive that war. Timeline A’s Mars may have sent such force to conquer Earth to escape the isolate madness result from the Chaos but the effort would bankrupt, destroy them economically.
One last thing: the time in MW is the same as time in earth. And they has just spent one month in MW. I suspect they will return in time for the new semester.
Well once the existence of the gates between the magic world (Mars) and earth becomes known, the distance is no longer an issue. Also, it’s possible earth could’ve invented a way to travel via wormholes (That may even be what the gates are)