October 8th, 2009 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 29 Chapter 266 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 266
Negima! Manga Vol 29 Ch 266 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Having failed to get Negi to completely lose it with Magia Erebea, Gödel changes tactics and decides to tell the group through more conventional means, aided by his illusion projector. Gödel states that his enemies are the Megalomesembria Council, pure-blooded mages, the military, the Mage of the Beginning, Fate and his group, and even the Empire of Demihumans — Hellas. Via the Diarium Ejus, Nodoka confirms what Gödel is saying, including that he played no personal role in the destruction of Negi’s village.
Gödel replays the fight between Nagi and the Mage of the Beginning where even in defeat, the Mage promises that humanity will known the curtain of despair and that Nagi will learn of the eternity the Mage speaks of.
After apparently killing the Mage, Nagi briefly thinks of oshishou (master) when Arika approaches. She doesn’t look very happy but when Nagi asks for his staff and equipment back to be released from her service, she asks if he will stick around for a while as she embraces him from behind.
Thoughts/Review: I wonder how the Council is getting such detailed records of events.
Gödel comes off as a racial purist from this chapter. I thought about the subplot in the Harry Potter series of novels where there are pure blood mages who are not keen on “mud bloods” learning magic. Here, it seems different in that Gödel and a group of humans are opposed to pure-blood mages, non-human humanoids, and any other power that would block their path. So, Gödel seems to want the world reshaped in his image and Fate wants the world destroyed (and remade). That would leave Negi and company to fight everyone from the middle.
Still, even with Nodoka’s artifact, I still take lots of what Gödel says with a grain of salt.
The fight between Nagi and the Mage of the Beginning didn’t reveal what happened to Filius Zect, though Nagi’s expression would seem to indicate that Zect possibly sacrificed his life.
Next episode, it looks like we’ll have details held by the government showing the further relationship of Nagi and Arika. I am interested in seeing more about this and hopefully we’ll learn more.
I realize I haven’t much to say this chapter, but that’s because despite everything said, there’s not a great deal to remark on without further data.
Here’s hoping we get spoilers this Saturday. ^_~
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This chapter seems to make it more likely that Godel is going the Eva route, but it would be waaaaay too early for me to say any told-you-so’s. For starters, there are a few indications that he could be going the route of Pain from Naruto instead (kill-’em-all-to-save-’em-all).
He claims to know Nagi and Arika very well, and has recordings of some pretty personal moments. (Remember, Rakan’s recordings are presumably straight from his memories.) If they were friends, that puts a very different spin on his using epithets to describe Arika early in the conversation – and argues for the idea that he’s a consummate devil’s advocate (to the point of being a jerka–) rather than just a Big Bad who’s gloating.
It’s circumstantial, but his continuing pretense at being the one responsible for the attack on the village (until Nodoka spoke up) and his comment about his “sins” support something I’d said earlier – he may have locked onto the twisted notion that he deserves to die at Negi’s hand as punishment for not preventing the attack. With the new information, it’s also possible that he could be blaming himself if Nagi or Arika was killed by something the MS Senate did. Survivor’s guilt is a b***h.
However, for once I agree with Chisame – it’s more than a little disturbing that his “enemies list” is so extensive. If he just means the governments of these powers, that’s one thing. If he means every single citizen of those countries, he’s nucking futs.
Not to mention… exactly what is his plan to save everyone? Does he want to return all of MM’s inhabitants to Earth? That would explain why Fate (who destroyed the gateports) and Hellas (who might fear becoming a tiny minority – or who he might plan to leave behind to keep the migration unnoticed) would be his enemies. The devil will be in the details.
Remember that Chao was a normal herself, and came back to force normals to recognize magic. That could have been 1) to try to prevent a war of misunderstanding (my favorite), or 2) to give normals a better chance to defend themselves.
This quote might be important, or might be a red herring, depending on whether you think this is another one of her back-up plans.
Chao, just before returning: “Hakase, deal with the overtechnology of the future like we discussed. Regarding the battle data from before…”
Hakase: “Chao-san, I’ll take care of everything.”
Astronerdboy
I have to agree with you about there being a lot of information given but without much context to understand what is going on. While I strongly suspect the driving force behind all the factions actions is the imminent collapse of the created magical world I am nowhere near certain about anything else.
Annoyingly it also seems like we join the Nagi fight soon after the Mage of The Beginning did the Villian explains his motivations speech so we are still left in the dark.
As For Filius Zect if he is not dead then I would say he switched sides during the fight when he understood what was going on.
Hopefully the Nagi/Arika story will help fill in some of the missing pieces, though I would not be surprised if we get to a point where we think everything is going to be explained but the Fate/Rakan fight interferes in some way denying us and Negi the information.
Am I the only one who thinks, that Zecht is a reference to Jecht, the antagonist in FFX?
>I wonder how the Council is getting such detailed records of events.
It’s not Council. At the time Godel was still a secondary member of Ala Rubra.
First, congrats for your blog. I’m following it weekly since a few months now. 🙂
Second, I don’t think Nodoka’s artifact is a truly reliable source.
Reading in people minds doesn’t mean knowing the truth.
Godel could be convincted that what’s he’s saying is true.
Or he could have used some hypnotic stuff on himself to hide the real truth.
We can also think about a fake (a person hypnotised to believe himself as Godel + illusionary spell).
All that we know is the person in front of Nodoka thinks that what he’s saying is true.
I expect some twists ahead if this (probably wrong) basis comes to light.
And as pointed in the blog, it is unlikely Godel was here during the fight or in the love scene.
Either it’s all fake, a tale built only to mess negi’s head (the mage of the begining is too overdramatic to be serious, with all his muhahas).
Or thoses memories comes from Nagi and/or Arika themselves. Which means MM found a way to “steal” those memories from one of them, maybe from their dead bodies.
BTW, I just remembered a funny thing from the previous chapter.
When Nodoka tried to stop Negi from going 9 tails, she said something (p12) very similar to what Yue said to him before the Chao final battle (“what about Nodoka … and everyone else … and me.” ).
Interesting to see that Nodoka seems to go through the same situations Yue had gone through an arc before. ^^
I don’t see how Gödel would have records of Nagi’s fight with the Mage of the Beginning because Gödel wasn’t there. So that leaves either taking the memories from Nagi, the Mage of the Beginning (who would then not be dead), or they have some other monitoring device.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Nagi gave up the memories, seeing nothing wrong with it. However, I can help but think that the Council has monitoring devices. After all, Asakura has them with her artifact and Chao had something similar (though it was discovered).
“Second, I don’t think Nodoka’s artifact is a truly reliable source.”
Her artifact is not a truth detector, but a thought detector. Thus, it can be fooled if the person who’s mind is being read knows it is being read. Thus far, everyone who’s mind has been read have been unaware of things, at least initially. Gödel could manipulate it.
“Am I the only one who thinks, that Zecht is a reference to Jecht, the antagonist in FFX?”
I haven’t seen FFX, but sometimes manga-ka do make little tributes to other works.
As to Nodoka, she’s come a long way. ^_^
I agree with ANB about Godel being able to influence the Diarium Ejus, because he strikes me as positively insane.
One thing that bugged me was where Godel got his number of people to be ‘saved’, until I remembered back in 105th period here:
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima%21/105/15/
where Chao said what the population of mages living in Mundus Vetus was. It was 67 million.
This puts an entirely new spin on what he’s doing, with his saving the world. My guess is that he’s going to overthrow all the powers of Mundus Magicus (except, apparently, Ariadne) to power some wide-scale ritual to prevent the destruction of Mundus Magicus.
About the destruction, though. I remember Negi mumbling something about Mundus Magicus losing it’s magic, or something like that. Perhaps that is why Godel considers Fate to be an enemy, because he wants to destroy MM, as opposed to Godel’s (assumed) revitalization of it?
I have to disagree with ANB and Orion on how easy it would be to fool/influence the Diarium Ejus at least when it comes to answering direct questions posed to people.
While one function of the Diarium Ejus is to moniter conscious thought, and I agree it may be possible for a controlled mind to mislead the diary though this is more difficult than it sounds. The problem is that the diary also seems to be able to access memory and unconscious thought as well. Ironically the best example of this is when Nodoka used the diary to find her desired solution to the love triangle with Yue only to find that it was Saishoudoukin! True this scene was meant to be humorous BUT I doubt Nodoka was thinking of this at the time and it also fits with the extremely detailed answers the diary gave Nodoka when she asked Kotaro, Mei and Fate direct questions. While Fate was able to manipulate the diary to some degree, he also views it a sufficient enough danger to try to permanently petrify Nodoka at this point and he also commented on how dangerous the diary was when he petrified most of the Konoe household in the Kyoto Arc.
So far the only things we have seen that renders the diary truly ineffective are robots and when Negi in the previous chapter was driven entirely by emotion. It may also be possible to flood your mind with pointless information rendering the diary useless but being driven by emotion or flooding your mind with garbage are not going to put you “on top of your game”.
Moving onto Godel and actions he could have taken to negate the diary. It needs to be remembered that as far as we are aware he is not allied with Fate and so is unlikely to be aware that Nodoka has the diary before this meeting. This is supported by his response when he is questioned by Nodoka in the chapter which is along the lines of “So That is The Diarium Ejus”. This infers that up to that point he did not know Nodoka had the diary, though he may have suspected especially after seeing her response to Negi’s rampage.
What this means is that Godel probably did not have time to prepare any “countermeasures” to the diary such as erasing his memory or self hypnotism and though I agree the diary is only accurate regarding what you believe the truth is and cant access information you dont have we have no reason to believe at this point that Godel’s information is flawed.
To be honest though these ways of countering the diary are probably more trouble than they are worth. The best solution to the problem the Diarium Ejus poses is the one Fate takes; If you eliminate Nodoka you eliminate the problem.
@Mister Random: Thank you for bringing up the point of conscious versus unconscious thought, and the saishoudoukin episode (one of my favorites). In addition to the point you made, remember that when she’s confessing to “Priest” Misora right before that, she alludes to the fact that she’s afraid to look in the Diarium* and see the truth of what she feels. It doesn’t make sense that she would be afraid of knowing what she’s consciously thinking about.
I think Negi’s Magia Erebea episode plays along with this – even when he lost conscious control of his thoughts, prior to it blacking out it was recording subconscious thoughts so deep you could call them subrational. That argues even more strongly against the Diarium only reading thoughts under conscious control.
But I disagree on a couple of points – I think Godel knew ahead of time about the Diarium. He doesn’t call it “Diarium” in that line, he calls it an “enikki” (diary with illustrations) and appears to understand that it’s being used to read his mind. That’s quite a bit to know about its function for it to be the first time he’s aware of it.
But it’s still quite possible for the Diarium to read inaccurate information if the person being read genuinely believes something inaccurate – i.e. has misunderstood something, has been lied to, has lost their sanity, or in Shiori!Asuna’s case, has had their memories replaced. The third possibility might be the most likely in Godel’s case.
* – Sorry, I just can’t call it by the official title of Diarium Eius = His Diary. Weirds me out.
Man with this comments I do not know what to say.But I also think the Diarium Eius is not a truth detector, but a thought detector
I think Godel is less or more insane while Fate’s motivations are still unknown at this moment. I can’t wait for the next chapter also Shiori/Asuna subject what was her exact reason was she only suppose to take Asuna’s place ? Will she attack Negi ? or will she be on his side even if Fate returns her memories.?????
I for one am much more interested in the last two pannels. I suppect Megi is about to hear those words that scare all men. But we have to wait an see I guess.
@shadow_s_writer: “I’m pregnant”?
arimareiji said…
@shadow_s_writer: “I’m pregnant”?
Yes those are the words, unless you go along with ANB pet theorm of Negi=Nagi, an even then they still might be said.
One other alternaive I been think about is Arika=Big sister, which would explain her disapperance.
“ANB pet theorm of Negi=Nagi”
Heh! I admit that things aren’t looking so well on that theory but we’ll see how things play out. ^_^;
@shadow_s_writer: I’m really confused… who do you think Negi got pregnant? Or do you mean that in the flashback, Nagi is about to hear them?
(Megi’s kinda ambiguous, but I thought you meant Negi – which is why to me the thought of him hearing those words was kinda amusing.)
well Negi meet Nagi in the past how will you explain this to me ?
And Wouldn’t Evangeline be able to recognise him even if he had his memories sealed ?
Im still with my theory that Eva is Arika in disquise althought it also has some issue’s the next chapter is the most important one so are there any spoilers ?
The plot deepens. Godel has revealed his (completely insane) motivations — the guy’s an omnicidal maniac —, and now we’re getting some Nagi & Arika goodness. ^_^ In fact, ch. 267 is devoted entirely to the couple. Some interesting comments and appearances are in the new chapter as well, including a possible evil Zect and an ominous-looking Ricardo.
Mister Random makes some good points regarding Nodoka’s artifact.
As to how Godel is getting his information, that’s a good question, but it seems accurate. The hologram depicting the attack on Negi’s village is identical to how it was portrayed in vol. 8.
@arimareiji:
Do I sense the presence of a fellow Troper?
ANB said:
“Heh! I admit that things aren’t looking so well on that theory but we’ll see how things play out. ^_^;”
Yes. Feel the stranglehold tighten. Soon the last bit of life shall fade from the Negi=Nagi theory. Bwahahahaha!
Akamatsu-sensei has really gone out of his way in reinforcing the notion that Nagi and Arika are Negi’s parents. All that’s missing is for the current flashback to have Arika say “I’m pregnant.” Comment after comment, flashback after flashback further cements the notion that Negi is the product of a union between the Thousand Master and the Princess of Ostia. It seems highly improbable that Akamatsu would be wasting our time and his with an elaborate lie.
Incidentally, the aforementioned flashback showing the destruction of Negi’s village is probably the biggest strike against the Negi=Nagi theory (aside from the constant reinforcement of “Nagi & Arika are Negi’s parents” as well as other facts that require convoluted handwaving to explain away) in that it would involve an ontological paradox — a concept I’m sure that Akamatsu and his eye for details and penchant for research is well aware of — if they were the same person. A future Negi/Nagi would have to time travel back to save himself and give himself the staff, thus resulting in the paradox. The events portrayed in the flashback are only workable if Negi and Nagi are different people.
Regarding our exchange in the comments thread for ch. 265, you just basically wing it when reading the raws, too, huh? I usually let the scanlators do the translating for me, but I sometimes like to make out what I can from the raws. Not that I’m all that successful, but it’s fun anyway. It’s helped out quite a bit in learning more Japanese (I still couldn’t carry on a conversation in the language, though ^_^;).
We already have a time paradox in the manga. There’s Chao’s return to the past in order to attempt to change history. She failed but in doing so, she would appear to have fulfilled her part in completing the circle.
During one of his time trips, Negi encountered himself — a paradox. The Ako-aspect of the paradox was just played off as “oh, I was dreaming” or something like that.
Anyway, Nagi traveling back and giving himself (as Negi) the staff would simply complete the circle of what has already happened — a predestination paradox if you will.
The suspicious part to me was always how Negi never asked or even seemed to care about his mother. He only ever bleated on about his father. It is only recently that Negi has even shown an interest in his mother.
There’s also the question of timing. Al is trapped at Mahora just before Nagi disappears. Nagi has a message for his son, who hasn’t been born yet. Then Nagi disappears and Negi is born, only no mother is ever talked about.
Finally, the best place to hide is in plain sight. Since with Asuna, we’ve been shown how a person can be given a completely new personality, if Nagi took on a new personality (and the spell could have been cast by Arika, thus making her the “mother” of Negi) combined with an undetectable child-illusion spell whereby he actually ages (and timing spells have been established as well, so this too could be accomplished), the “son of Nagi” is born and when a mind reader scans the child, all that’s there is the new personality. Thus Nagi would hide in plain sight until the time was right for him to act.
We’ll see what Akamatsu-sensei does though.
Negi meeting himself isn’t necessarily a paradox in and of itself (though Doc Brown would say differently, he isn’t an authority on time travel, and BttF, especially the second one, plays fast and loose with time travel “rules”). Wikipedia defines a temporal paradox as a “situation in which a time traveler causes, through actions in the past, the exclusion of the possibility of the time travel that allowed those actions to be taken.” It’s uncertain if of any kind of contradictions in the timeline were created by Negi meeting himself, and thus a temporal paradox cannot be clearly established, nor can any other time travel-related paradox.
Now, Negi going back in time to save himself and give himself the staff is a paradox. If Negi was killed by the demon, he wouldn’t have been able to go back and save himself. Going back in time to save yourself from death is a clear impossibility, as you would’ve been unable to have ever engaged in time travel to begin with. It’d be similar to the whole situation regarding John Connor and Kyle Reese, where we’re simply expected to accept the impossibility of John sending his own father back to impregnate his mother.
The handing over of the staff is specifically an ontological paradox as it involved the transmission of a physical object through time (an O.P. involves information and objects). An object is brought back in time, and it becomes the object that was initially brought back in time in the first place. According to the Wikipedia article on ontological paradoxes, this “not only creates a loop, but a situation where these items have no discernible origin. Physical items are even more problematic than pieces of information, since they should ordinarily age and increase in entropy according to the Second law of thermodynamics. But if they age by any nonzero amount at each cycle, they cannot be the same item to be sent back in time.” If that was a future Negi handing his younger self the staff, then said staff would not only have to be of infinite age, it would have no ultimate origin.
These paradoxes negate the possibility of the “Nagi” that rescued young Negi being a time-travelling future Negi, which is something required to make the “Nagi=Negi” theory to work. While several necessary elements for the theory do exist — time travel, age-changing magic, and memory alteration magic (As for personality-altering magic, was it ever stated that Asuna’s personality magically altered? She did have the same dour personality as a kid when she met Ayaka, after all.) — getting them to work properly is difficult if not impossible, with the time travel parts being the most problematic. Besides, identical descendants isn’t exactly an uncommon trope in shonen manga & anime (ex. Bardock>Goku>Goten), and IIRC Negi’s extreme physical similarity is what sparked off this particular Epileptic Tree in the fan community to begin with.
Of course, Akamatsu could be playing fast and loose with time travel like most other sci-fi that involves it (you basically have to ignore all that sloppiness to enjoy the rest of the story), and there could be paradoxes which we’re expected to accept despite their impossibility, but I’d like to think he wouldn’t do something like that considering his impeccable writing skills. Furthermore, like I said in my last reply, I seriously doubt Akamatsu would be wasting our times building up the whole Nagi & Arika being Negi’s parents thing just for it to all be part of an elaborate hoax.