February 11th, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 31 Chapter 279 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 279
Negima! Manga Vol 31 Ch 279 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
With Jack Rakan’s departure, Negi uses Magia Erebea to prepare to attack Fate. Fate is ready for a fight but a fist from Jack on Negi’s head knocks the Magia Erebea out of him and Fate decides to leave.
Jack reappears in front of them, though mainly as a spirit. Seeing that they have Nodoka’s diary, Jack figures they now know the secret of the Magic World and cuts to the chase. He tells them that Fate likely has Asuna since he has access to the Lifemaker’s power. Further, Jack tells them that the Asuna in their group is likely an illusion. He leaves Negi in Chisame’s hands before leaving Negi with a final bit of advice to not go dark and dissolves again, leaving Chisame in tears and Negi screaming Rakan’s name.
Elsewhere, Nodoka is stunned over the loss of Craig and Aisha. Asakura still has no contact with Sayo and no way to communicate with anyone else. The hooded mage tells Nodoka that she will soon join her friends in the Endless Garden but that unlike them, she’ll leave a body behind. Asakura sees their situation is very desperate but to her surprise, Nodoka pulls herself together and using her ring, demands to know the name of the hooded mage.
Thoughts/Review: So, we now know for sure that Negi and company had no clue that Shiori-Asuna is a fake. Now it will all make sense to our characters and while it has seemed forever since we learned the truth, the last umpteen chapters have covered what? A day a tops? How long has it been since we’ve seen the Asuna? Over a year now? Been a LONG time. ^_^;
Anyway, it would seem that Fate cannot be defeated as things stand now. With the power of the Lifemaker at his beck-and-call, Fate can simply restore his physical form at will — the “god” cheat mode if you will. So, until that mode is canceled, there’s no point in a Negi-Fate showdown. Thus, Akamatsu-sensei provides another clever way of putting that confrontation off. I say “clever” because it doesn’t come off as some cheap trick seeing how the bigger picture is being painted. That’s what I like about Akamatsu-sensei’s writing style.
So, this begs the question — what will Negi do next? The obvious answer would seem to be the unmasking of Shiori-Asuna to find the real Asuna (and hopefully Anya). However, there is still the fighting going on all around them. Kurt has disappeared but while Takahata had him engaged, Kurt might give him the slip and show up to give Negi a hard time. There’s also Nodoka to consider since she may relay new information to her diary artifact and that could cause Negi to shift gears. I cannot even begin to predict where Akamatsu-sensei might go, but I’m REALLY hoping for a Asuna rescue.
I rather enjoyed Chisame’s tearful breakdown, not from a “ha!ha!” sense, but in terms of seeing a character who had started out despising the whole notion of fantasy characters now weeping over one. She’s come a long way as a character and this is just a nice thing to see in terms of her character. One thing that will be interesting is seeing how things go once Asuna returns and the two both consider themselves his guardian. ^_^
Speaking of character development, how can you not love Nodoka getting up and demanding to know the hooded mage’s name? ^_^
There’s lots of speculation on whether Nodoka could use her Comptina Daemonia as an offensive weapon. After all, since this artifact can obtain the target’s true name, it can give Nodoka complete access to their thoughts. However, in Japanese lore, oni (similar to ogres, but almost always with either a single or dual horn on their head) could be banished by speaking their name. CLAMP talks about the power of names at times in xxxHOLiC. Heck, even in the Doctor Who episode, The Shakespeare Code, names (and words) are shown to be a source of power. So knowing the mage’s name may give Nodoka a power over them, thus why Fate and company consider her to be so dangerous. Frankly, I love the idea of a Nodoka who can kick some tail in a different way than her comrades. ^_^
No Negima! 280 next week. I’ll put out a reminder and find some Negima! lovin’ to share. ^_^
Posted in 
Tags: 
I kinda figured Negi V Fate wouldn’t happen but i do hope some one else would have fought Fate in place of Negi, so far Fate is a main villain as if Negi killed Fate right now who much would be left, of course they could show a new one but still. As for Nodoka, i do like how she may not have much physical or magical ability (most advance spell she prolly can cast is magic arrow). I do think her treasure artifact will has some ability combined than just being able to buff her others how else will this go down. Sure Negi could run over there save her but yet again this is to typical plus we have yet to seen Nodoka “Battle” unlike almost everyone else in one way or another. So far KA showed her as mostly a support character that helps the others, but now we will she what she can really do when she has to fight without her friends at her back. Rakans last words were actually really touching to me and truthful if we dont see him again im going to be sad. So looks like Asuna and Anya are coming up to be rescued and Negi v Fate will happen there but not end also who are going to fight Fates lackeys, im almost more looking forward to them battles than Negi and Fate because im really curious on who is going to fight who there.
Fate seems to want Negi alive for some reason since even during the gateport attack (Chapter 187) Fate states that Negi’s death would be troubling. This could explain why he took the opportunity to withdraw when Jack caused Negi to calm down since Negi in his current state could easily die in battle due to Magia Erebia even if Fate aimed to subdue rather than kill him.
Its possible that this is due to him being Arika’s son and so possibly having access to her type of magic which could be needed by Fate later on. Or it could simply be Fate sees Negi as a rival and wants him to be at full strength before they finally have a decisive battle.
Moving onto the Shadow Mage, given that the whole attack seems to be driven by the Shadow Mage’s shadow-demon-dolls alone, if Nodoka does have a way of defeating him then this attack could be over in the next chapter and given the strength of the Shadow Mage I doubt it will take long for him to kill her. The question is of course what can she do without her artifact and what is the Mages name (If he was created by the life maker as well then it is probably something discriptive like Tertium=Fate)
Now if Nodoka’s plan does requires her artifact which is currently with Chisame to be present then there are 2 ways around this. Firstly it may be that all she has to do is unsummon it and then resummon it which moves it from Chisami. The second possibility is that the glimpses we have seen of the diary in recent chapter IIRC have been without their customary “cartoons” at the top so she may have a second copy of the diary on her person (The smaller four copy version was text only) which she can still use. Another scenario though is that she can change the target of the diary even without it being present and uses it to alert Negi to the fact she and Asakura need rescuing and he then uses the Pactio card to teleport them to safety though I feel this would be a cop out especially as all she would need to do is change the diary to herself and think WE NEED HELP NOW
Personally though I favour her plan involving a secondary function of the Comptina Daemonia or a spell linked to knowing a true name that in either case allows you to kill or control the person whose true name you know. If this is the case then I anticipate it having a nasty side-effect which is why Nodoka did not try to use it against Fate (unless she only learnt of it recently), and if it is to kill the Shadow Mage then there really could be a Dark Nodoka in the next arc.
As for Asakura despite her fears I think she is probably not a target for the Shadow mage as she is from the “real world” and unlike Nodoka who Fate has viewed as dangerous ever since he found out about her artifact back from Kotaro in the Tokyo Arc, not a threat to the plans of Cosmo E. She may also have a role in defeating the mage given how Nodoka’s dialog is given in the translation
I just hope the next chapter does follow up on this straight away and we dont cut away to what is happening elsewhere for a few chapters
I was just thinking — what if Negi rescuing Asuna is the ultimate element that leads to the problem Chao attempted to thwart? That would be an interesting twist.
One thing I forgot to comment on was the mage’s words regarding killing Nodoka. Since he referred to her leaving a physical form, I got the impression that she would be petrified. However, he also mentioned Nodoka joining her friends, which I take as another clue that they’ll be back. I wonder if Akamatsu-sensei will explore this place.
2 little bits…
The hooded mage tells Nodoka that she will soon join her friends in the Endless Garden but that unlike them, she’ll leave a body behind.
I take the Endless Garden to be more of a heaven/hades/beyond the veil/Annwn type of idea, in otherwords the land of the dead. But I can be wrong, been there before.
And now the “real” name, actually most forms of mysticism, both East and West, have the concept, whether it’s called a real name, a true name, a soul name, or a secret name. Among the Apache for instance, the name given you by your parents was just a temporary name until you found what your true name was, usually after counting coup and/or a spirit walk, which meant that you were strong enough so no one could gain a hold over your spirit.
Then there were the Mage Names in Europe and the Middle East, which were to shirld the mage from possession when summoning not always friendly spirits.
I think there’ll be some “causulties” among the old world humans. I think it allow Ken Akamatsu to show this other (hades-like?) place which the hooded mage mentions. Though this would make it difficult for Negi to keep his sanity (maybe if the pactio doesn’t disappear — which means they aren’t “dead” –, he might be able to stay sane). I wonder if those “spirited away” will meet Nagi (I wonder if Nagi’s loss was the result of CE having tapped into Asuna’s power temporarily). Sorry about the wild (mass) guessing.
[I]Mister_Random said…
Personally though I favour her plan involving a secondary function of the Comptina Daemonia or a spell linked to knowing a true name that in either case allows you to kill or control the person whose true name you know. [B]If this is the case then I anticipate it having a nasty side-effect which is why Nodoka did not try to use it against Fate (unless she only learnt of it recently), and if it is to kill the Shadow Mage then there really could be a Dark Nodoka in the next arc.[/B][/I]
If Nodoka’s “Comptina Daemonia” does have an ability similar to what you say, then i can clearly see why she wouldn’t use it against anyone until now & that’s because she isn’t the type of person to harm people without any good reason (the same reason which Chamo said was the reason she got that dairy as her artifact).
I really wish I could draw worth two cents, ’cause I’d love to post a two-panel fanart “explaining” this week’s break.
First panel shows Akamatsu-sensei sitting at his table, asking Nodoka (background, back turned) how much longer it’ll be.
Second panel shows Nodoka from the front, telling him “Found it!” as she holds up a can opener and an economy-sized can labelled “Whupass”.
You always find these Negima chapters quicker than OM can post them. Where do you find them?
I’m not using scanlations. I simply read CNET’s translations (to aide my limited Japanese skills) and make my posts from them.
In the panel right before Negi hits fate, is that a black Titanoktonon he’s using? It sure looks like it. Does that mean he can cast the Thousand Bolts without incantation now, or is it a side effect of the berserk mode?
Not sure. Considering Negi’s skill for rapid advancement, he might be able to cast Thousand Bolts without an incantation.
As to what Nodoka’s going to do next, I’m fairly certain that the Comptina doesn’t have an offensive capability, but rather she’ll change the target of her Diarium to that mage and get the information played back to her like in the bounty hunter fight. (Note she still has her reader on in the top left corner of ANB’s first image.)
I’m guessing she’ll use the combined mind reading and Old World magic, which is shown to be the only effective weapon against those demons, to stall the mage and probably reveal whether or not it’s Asuna (I’d guess not, but who knows?)