January 23rd, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 30 Chapter 276 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 276
Negima! Manga Vol 30 Ch 276 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Mana attempts to get Shiori-Asuna to safety but Shiori-Asuna protests since there are people that need help, citing the child Yue and her knight companions are protecting. Mana tells Shiori-Asuna that this isn’t in her contract so Shiori-Asuna says she’ll hire Mana. Mana decides that since she believes Shiori-Asuna may make it in life and be able to pay the bill, she agrees and takes out the summoned demons for a discount since they were easily taken out.
Meanwhile, Ku Fei helps Negi as they, Nodoka, Asakura, and Chisame leave. Communication with the others is poor but they are informed that Plan B has been activated. Nodoka is about to tell Negi the final secret of the Magic World when the elevated hallway they are in has a section destroyed right at their feet. Nodoka saves Asakura from falling, but loses her own grip and the two are saved by Craig and Aisha. Craig yells over to Negi that he’ll get Nodoka and Asakura to the meeting place.
An attack causes both sides to run away, Negi now having Nodoka’s artifact book. As Craig, Aisha, Nodoka, and Asakura run down the hall, they find a figure waiting for them, the key-staff hovering above the person. The figure says that it has been told that Nodoka is dangerous and so is going to remove her. Craig pulls out a sword to defend Nodoka, but the figure tells the “puppet” to shut up and says “Rewrite” (in English), causing Craig to begin to dissolve into petals to the horror of Nodoka.
Thoughts/Review:
We’ve seen cards used telepathically before, mainly between magister and minister/ministra. Chamo used Negi’s card to communicate with a specific girl before (I think) and in reverse to communicate with Negi, but I didn’t realize that the girls of Negi’s harem would be able to communicate telepathically with each other. Now that it has been shown to be another aspect of the pactio card, it makes sense that a magister with multiple ministers/ministras would be able to communicate with each other via the pactio cards as they would be networked via the magister.
Akamatsu-sensei does seem to be splitting the harem up. We’d seen some evidence of this earlier with Nodoka and Asakura being split from Negi, Ku Fei, and Chisame, it seems that Akamatsu-sensei is going to go this route. Now, IF in the end Akamatsu-sensei does this splitting up of the harem again before bringing them back together, I hope he uses the time to do some character stuff with the smaller groups.
Nodoka having lost her artifact is interesting as her ability to mind read is her main power. I’m not sure what her other non-pactio artifacts will do for her without her pactio artifact, but we’ll see if that matters.
I did like how Akamatsu-sensei showed that Nodoka has gotten physically stronger when she helped Asakura but she’s still no warrior. Then, Akamatsu-sensei set up Craig’s “death” quite nicely by starting with Craig and Aisha saving Nodoka and Asakura. That gives us a bit of time to remind the audience of how close Nodoka was to her treasure hunting comrades while she was separated from Negi and company. That makes Craig’s “death” have more impact in my opinion, expressed quite well in Akamatsu-sensei’s drawing of Nodoka’s reaction.
I wonder how many Mana fans had fangasms over her action sequence. ^_~ We’d already seen Mana in action during the Kyoto arc, so we know how good she is with the demon-youkai-mazoku which are summoned (and on a side note, where are they summoned from anyway?). We know how good she is as a sniper. So the new thing here is her interdimensional ammo dump she has, whereby she can reload on the fly and even summon her big guns. Since Akamatsu-sensei had an obsession with cleavage this chapter, I couldn’t help but wonder if his having Mana pull her rifle from between her breast is some sort of indication of a paizuri fetish on his part. *_*
Looks like we have one more secret of the magic world to be revealed and if history is a guide, that secret that Nodoka learned should still be on the pages of her pactio artifact for Negi to discover quite soon.
We’ll see what else the hooded “Lifemaker” figure (rather, the shadow mage I should say) does next chapter now that this person has “killed” Craig. I place the word “killed” in quotes because I think that Craig will be restored at some point. He may be a computer construct but if so, then providing there is a backup, there’s a recovery.
So a fun chapter showing a lot of action but ending with Craig being eliminated. Can’t wait to see what happens next.
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Huh, I completely missed that Nodoka lost her artifact. It’s things like this why I enjoy reading your reviews.
Anyway, couldn’t she just summon it again, using her Pactio Card?
One small correction. The hooded character is not Lifemaker, but the shadow-demon mage.
I think it would be interesting if the trauma Nodoka suffered at seeing Craig’s “death” would unleash some kind of latent power she has, whether natural or from her pactio card(it has several books in the background).
Don’t you mean Chisame instead Chachamaru from that separating the girls?
I dont believe this is a computer i think this is another dimestion. It is believe there are a toal of
9 dimensions. We are in one and i believe through magic the lifemaker made life in another like his name says. I believe the key staff is what made the life there for it can control it i believe it is like the Star Crystal in the 2nd version. That only vary powerful magi can control. Asuna being the most powerful to be born since the lifemaker and that the lifemaker was old and that why he needed her to first time. There for i believe at the end asuna will put every thing back to how it was and make the world stable there for saving it.
@Jose — unfortunately, her pactio card becomes her artifact as all pactio artifacts do. So Nodoka has no artifact and is cut off from Negi completely at the moment as there’s no telepathic ability without the card.
@Anon — Yeah…did I call it “Lifemaker?” I’ll have to go back and look and make a correction. Ah. I see that I put the name in quotes to reflect my own “this is not the actual Lifemaker but rather someone with access to the staff and that power.”
As to your second remark, I agree totally. Akamatsu-sensei has set it up so that this could be the case, starting with the remarks on “You’ve gotten stronger, Nodoka.”
@Philip — Man. I reread that several times and didn’t realize the mistake. ^_^; Thanks for the correction.
@Okyou — it could be another dimension, but I think there’s plenty of evidence to show that there is computer technology behind some of this. I say this because
(1) We learned during the Eva arc that her imprisonment is a combination of the spell Nagi cast as well as the electronic barrier which is controlled by some sort of computer technology. Remember, Chachamaru hacked the Mahora computer system to bring down the barrier during the Mahora Festival arc.
(2) Chisame’s artifact ended the illusion in Kurt’s office. Since her artifact allows her to basically literally go into cyberspace (something Akamatsu-sensei introduced in A.I. Love You) and do other things with computer technology, that tells me that there are computers at work on the magic world, possibly large ones.
Thus, my reasoning for the Key Staff being a control interface to that computer system, though I won’t discount the very real possibility that it also has magical aspects.
As to your thoughts about Asuna doing the restore, I can see that happening.
Correction to Astronerd’s observation: Nodoka actually has got her artifact back in working condition already. Negi chose her to accompany him to see Godel for precisely that reason. You can see her actively using the artifact when checking whether Godel lie. Furthermore, the secret of the magic world she found was also from Godel when she asked the question to Godel before they started fleeing. (see chapter 273, p. 18).
Hey everyone, I am new to the blog so bare with me if I make some mistakes ;-).
Since al the events in the recent chapters and comments I am wondering, what if the people of MM are “constructed” by a computer program and magic brought them to life. So the combination of the used computer program and the magic spells, needed to give life to something, forms the code of the lifemaker. So altough they are technicaly no longer computer programs they are still connected to it, and can be rewritten if needed.
Its a tought and I am probably wrong but hey, who knows?
speaking of other books
does anyone remember the scene where nodoka hit haruna with the books?
if you notice she’s holding her card as she runs to haruna….
@Anon — what I’m referring to is that Nodoka lost her artifact when the elevated passageway was partially destroyed. Negi now has her artifact, still in book form. So Nodoka knows the secret from having read it, but at present, she does not have her artifact with her. As such, she’s completely cut off from Negi unless Akamatsu-sensei has some other way for Negi to commune with her long-distance.
@Nneowulf — welcome to the blog. ^_^
Your theory is possible. I’m not sure if magic is required to make people though since it was not a requirement in A.I. Love You. Akamatsu-sensei seems to have fully brought over the artificial computer-person concept from his first manga and while he never really explained how these computer programs came to life and had physical form in our world (at least, I don’t remember a full explanation; more like “it was an accident” and then some sort of technology was invented to recreate the process).
Anyway, the A.I. programs had their own personalities and were independent, “living” beings. There is still a core program at the heart of each of the artificial people and based on events in A.I. Love You, Akamatsu-sensei can bring back ALL of the “puppets” if he has them being computer constructs by simply pulling up backup copies and restoring them. The key is to make sure the computers running things aren’t damaged in any way, causing permanent data loss.
Assuming the MW is run by computers of course. ^_^
In a self-contained system, there would be no outside operators tweaking with the AI programs that make up the people of the Magic World. As true AI beings, they would be modifying their own programs as needed in the same way a human would make changes to themselves (if this makes sense). Having the key staff (a “master key” if you will) apparently gives the user Admin-level rights to the computer programs and they can delete or modify said programs as they see fit.
The magical elements can be a bit of a wildcard though. I look forward to seeing this all explored further.
@Ku_Fei — I don’t have the manga in front of me but I do remember the scene you are referring to. IIRC, she has her card, turns it into the book, then smacks Paru with it. ^_^
I know that this is stretching a bit back and is not related to the current chapter discussion, but i need professional (fan^^) opinion on whether Chao’s drawing on her body is a form of Magia Erebia.
Btw could Akamatsu sensei be also dividing up the harem in more ways than just physically. I mean Nodoka and Craig, Ako and Tosaka??
There is speculation that Chao did have Magia Erebia on her body.
As to point two, that is an interesting take I’d not considered.
Is it possible that Craig and others are actually NOT puppets? I mean like, maybe the lifemaker is using the word “puppet” in a figurative manner in the sense that all are helpless before him and he has the ability to control them
Maybe, but I recently watched an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where one of the characters had been taken to the holosuite and remarked on how she didn’t like the experience because the hologram characters were puppets, not real people. I mention this because until this current sub-arc of the Magic World arc, I had not paid attention to the use of the term “puppet” in Star Trek. It struck me that while not puppets in the traditional sense, if artificially constructed people like the holograms in Star Trek could be called “puppets,” then there’s not reason the term could not apply on the Magic World.
However, if the term “puppet” is being used figuratively, then that puts a completely different twist on things as it also means Ala Alba can be erased as well.
Not sure if any of this makes sense as I’m falling asleep as I write (VERY long day and night).
@ANB:The only logical problem is with this theory that it theorizes that the Magical World was created only a 20-30 years ago. Which is in itself seems ridiculous as Rakkan is much older than that. Perhaps as he’s just a construct his memories might be just fabrications and in a way using a powerful spell the Mage of the Beginning might’ve altered the memories of everyone like Chao used that “magic-recognition spell” in a world-wide scale.
I believe MW is simply an illusion magic without any kind of computer backups. There can be a demon or any kind of creature which acts as it’s core. Maybe that certain creature wants to escape or anything. Anyways, errors started to occur. It’s possible that later the mages backed up this by computers to fix the errors, but I seriously doubt they used a computer at first as they should’ve created this magical world much earlier before the computers became reliable or even being invented.
The Code of the Lifemaker SHOULD use Asuna’s magic as component for sure, but being a computer interface with some system is also possible in addition. For starters Yue shouldn’t be able to get even a single clue about the staff if it’s only a computer tool without any magic properties.
To mention something else I imagine two kind of fates for Nodoka after the encounter with the shadow-user:
-Being kidnapped and taken to Fate. While Asuna and Anya is kidnapped we herar nothing about them since 40+ chapters. I think Nodoka being taken there would serve a great chance for the author to show us what’s happening there.
-OR being saved and suffering the heroic BSOD at full hit. She decides to complete her magic training because she shouldn’t rely solely on her articraft. Nodoka getting some fighting power.
There can be other options, but I think that two are the best.
The only reason I keep thinking “computers” as part of the element at play here is looking to Akamatsu-sensei’s earlier works. A.I. Love You is set in then modern times, yet a computer was used to create artificial lifeforms that obviously we couldn’t begin to create today if we tried.
The second reason is that Mahora has far more advanced computer technology than is currently available in modern times (and remember, the manga is still stuck many years behind current times). In the Mahora Festival arc (volume 16 if my memory serves), Chachamaru hacked the school’s computer system. They were using some sort of holographic displays, not monitors. That’s well beyond our current tech today, much less in 2003 (which I believe is the year the manga is set in).
To add to that, there’s Chachamaru, who’s a combination of advanced computer technology and magic.
Then, as I stated, Chisame used her computer-based artifact to bring down Kurt’s illusion in his office.
Don’t get me wrong, the Magic World and the inhabitants created for it may all be pure illusions with no computer technology behind it. Your theories may well prove to be the right ones. I just can’t help but think that we may have computers as part of the problem and solution to things here.
Just to be clear, I do believe that magic is at least 50% of the Magic World, but I also believe that there’s computer technology behind the other 50%. It is the combination that’s at work here.