March 3rd, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 31 Chapter 281 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 281
Negima! Manga Vol 31 Ch 281Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
As Yue is in shock over Emily’s death, she comes to realize the grave danger Collet is in and moves to protect her. Enraged, Yue and Bea launch into the enemy with incredible force, Collet noting with surprise that Bea’s magic still works. Mana arrives to provide cover and tells Yue to calm down while praising her strength. She passes Nodoka’s message about bringing back those who’ve been lost and Yue regains her memories of Nodoka. Mana asks for Yue’s help to clear an escape route for Shiori-Asuna and the others, so Yue and Bea assist in clearing that path.
In the sky, the Paru-sama attempts to flee the “Cthulhu” tentacles with Sayo blasting away with her chain gun. Paru and Chachamaru bring the ships cannons to bear to get through the tentacles, which are grabbing every ship and beast in the sky. “Cthulhu” even takes out the legendary guardian dragon Vrixho Nagasha with a single blow, causing it to dissolve into flakes. Theo is stunned by this and the fact that their ships weaponry has no effect on the beast.
Chamo advises they flee, but Haruna isn’t so sure since she apparently has plans on ruling the Magic World. Chachamaru sides with Paru, only for different reasons, and activates her pactio artifact — Type-2130 Chao Bao Zi Satellite Support System, Al-Iskandariya. Having Paru keep the ship at a safe distance, Chachamaru uses her “cat gun” to send a laser target for the now orbiting satellite weapon platform to lock on. The weapon completely destroys “Cthulhu” to the amazement of Theo, Ricardo, and Seras. Theo now believes Ala Alba to be worthy successors of Ala Rubra and feels they may have what it takes to save the world.
Thoughts/Review: So, a chapter dedicated to Yue and Chachamaru. ^_^ Let’s go to Yue first.
I think back to before Ala Alba made their trip to the Magic World when Yue and Nodoka were being pursued by Yuuna and company at the summer festival after Eva put out word that should someone take an Ala Alba badge, they would get to go on the trip to Wales. Who would have known that Nodoka’s use of her artifact and Yue’s use of magic would become what it is today?
Both girls are quick on their feet in a crisis situation (Nodoka using her artifact to obtain escape information for herself and Asakura in the previous chapter) with Yue quickly overcoming her grief to insure Collet didn’t get deleted. Yue’s ability to rapidly assess a situation and come up with a solution has been there for a long time and Akamatsu-sensei keeps that asset as a major part of Yue’s character while bringing her up as a strong mage-knight as well.
As many of you speculated, Yue did go off in rage, as did Bea, and as we’ve seen happen with Negi, the rage increases Yue’s power but at a cost of attention to details. Still, for a skilled warrior like Mana to give Yue the praise she did says a lot. To think that when they left Japan, Yue wouldn’t have even been a consideration as a fighter in Mana’s eyes. Now, Mana has Yue helping to take out enemy forces and doing it quite well. High praise indeed.
I’m glad Yue’s memories are back. While Mana may have been the final catalyst to Yue unlocking her memories, she’s had many smaller triggers along the way including her meeting Negi in volume 25 and then her running into Negi along with Nodoka, which I think was the big trigger (and time-wise, that only happened earlier that day or the day before?). Still, with Yue having her memories back (at least, I hope that means she has all of them back), I look forward to her eventual reunion with Nodoka. In the short term, I look forward to her kicking some more keester. ^_^
Taking a brief side-trip to Bea, now we know for sure that she’s human. Further, since it appears she’s grown up on the Magic World, it is a way for Akamatsu-sensei to show that some characters that looked human in fact weren’t but there are humans on Mars and Bea is one of them. Looking back, Akamatsu-sensei foreshadowed this by having Bea be the only human (besides Yue) at the Ariadne Academy.
We never got to learn much about Bea’s and Emily’s relationship, but I always wondered since Bea addresses Emily as “Ojousama,” which suggests she either serves Emily or is possibly in the service of Emily’s family. I don’t recall anyone else addressing Emily as “Ojousama.” It would be something interesting to explore and maybe we’ll get to a bit before the arc expires.
Mana mentions the telepathic jamming being down and having received word from Nodoka (whether directly or through one of the others) of there being a way to bring people back. Now, this begs a few questions. Initially, telepathic communications were done through pactio cards. Even up into the Mahora Festival, pactio cards are used in telepathic communications. Now, since Mana has no pactio card, how did she get a message from Nodoka?
It is possible that Akamatsus-sensei has loosened the telepathic rules though. I recall at the gateport, Asuna was warned telepathically by someone (believed to be Kotaro based on how Asuna was addressed in the message) of an incoming attack. There have been other incidents of telepathy as well without the use of a pactio card. I would guess that Akamatsu-sensei might be being fluid here as well.
The Yue stuff is all good, but no less good is Chachamaru and her pactio artifact. Some sort of kitten gun seems…well, rather silly. Turning into a laser targeting device for an orbital weapons platform is completely unexpected. *lol* However, now that I’ve had time to think about it, giving Chachamaru such a weapon fits. While Chachamaru is a gentle soul, she’s also shown her skills with the big gun (in the “no-fight” with Ryoumen Sukuna no Kami for example). Based on how the pactio system has worked to date, Chachamaru is the one person who could be entrusted with such a weapon of mass destruction.
What I found most interesting is that her pactio artifact comes from the future (and a BIG thanks to cjones and Zefyris for the translation confirmations on this point). Whether Chao ever came back from the future or not, I’ve long thought that time travel would come back into the manga, and it has, though in an unexpected way.
One final note — I had to chuckle at Sayo blasting away with her mini-gun. Since there had been some Aliens joke references made from some of you about scenes from this chapter of the manga, I couldn’t help but hear Sayo (as Hudson) going, “Come on! Come on! Come and get it, baby! Come on! I don’t got all day! Come on! Come on! Come on you bastard! Come on, you too! Oh, you want some of this?,” as she blasted away. *lol*
So, a lot of good and interesting things here, though the fight appears to be winding down based on comments at the end of the chapter. How much longer to Anya and Asuna?
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What of Tsukiyomi? I wonder where she is…:O
I am glad I was not the only one who did not have a mental image of Sayo having a lot of fun shooting things during that scene.
A lot has been discussed already on the Spoiler thread but the Bea issue brings to mind something that I have been wondering about for a few chapters. Who makes up the 67 million “real” humans?
It has been assumed that the 67 million refers to the human inhabitants of Megalomesembria yet Kurts guards in the ballroom who I assume are from Megalomesembria as Ostia is now under its control and appear human were all erased by the COLM staff and their weapons did not work.
Then we have Bea who would appear to be from Ariadne as IIRC Emilys family the Sevensheep where a significant family from Ariadne according to Kurt and Bea knew her from a young age. Her magic appears to work and hence is probably immune to getting erased as well. Though a simple explanation is her family are originaly from MM. Another possibility is that there is a twist in who makes up the 67 million or there is a relatively small pool of Real Humans and Kurt only thinks its feasable to save the “fake” humans of MM on top of that.
On the telepathy issue we have seen that non Pactio use is quite common IIRC in the school festival the reason Misora ended up looking for Takamich was a weak Telepathic message asking for help. One scenario is that Mana was constantly trying to contact Setsuna or Kaede (probably Setsuna as they have a good working relationship) and filled them in on what just happened to Yue. Nodoka hears about this (or is part of the conversation) and asks Mana to pass on the message to Yue not to lose hope.
Changing topic again, is anyone else getting bad vibes off Haruna. First she tells everyone that they have to “deep kiss” Negi to get a Pactio (so much for supporting Nodoka and Yue!), and now it appears she has plans for World Domination! Has the true Big Bad has revealed themselves at last?! (lol)
well, there’s still that bit that Godel’s forces might resume their hunt for Negi and AA.
early this week
So does anyone know where I can get me one of those Cat sattelites?
I think this chapter all in all was really good, we got to see Cha Chas new pactio, and the satellite obliterated that demon and she had some new Chao technology. Since Mana called that other girl a human and since that girls powers were working does that mean shes from the old world? Well I do hope coming up we get to see the show down from Takamichi and Godel since all of Fates Lackys are slowly retreating or being killed lol. I think we will see the Shori-Asuna get unmasked after Takamichis fight.
chachamaru’s neko-gun mkes me think of the hammer of dawn from the gears series thougth.
i was no way for real so funny
Weeeeeell…., the new artifact’s ability sure comes as a suprise.
Don’t be fooled by appearance sure comes te mind here.
I wonder how the artifacts are beiing chosen.
I hope that at some point it will be explained since Gödel can recognize, and name them on sight by some means.
@Leaf — a rematch is coming, I daresay. ^_^
@Mister Random — I look forward to some sort of explanation about Bea. She could be like Takane, whom I believe grew up in the Magic World. I am curious about Cocone though, who also grew up in the MW and doesn’t seem totally human.
I’d forgotten about the other telepathy during the Mahora Festival arc. I was remembering Setsuna’s mentor and the partner of the headmaster using her pactio card for apparent communications during the Mahora Festival.
@Philip — possible, but I rather suspect that after seeing them beat back the forces set against them, they may not be so interested in taking in Ala Alba. I might be very wrong though.
@Ku-Fei — *lol*
@Nick — I think all humans would technically be from Earth. Has it actually been established as to when the MW was populated? I’d have to go back an reread the old stuff to see but no actual year is popping into my head. Regardless, I’d think that the people who created the Magic World are in fact humans and over time, other real humans have come from Earth. It would be my belief that any human-human pairings on MW that produced offspring would still be human.
Now, it seems that in addition to creating “magical” races, the creators of MW also created non-human humans as well. Any illusionary human pairing with one of their own or a real human (almost certainly male, though I suppose that with magic, a human female could produce an illusionary child) that resulted in offspring would be subject to COLM.
@TTB — I’m not aware of that series but I’ll take your word for it. ^_^
@Neowulf — The actual choosing of artifacts hasn’t been explained (likely to keep things a bit fluid) other than they fit the personality of the minister/ministra.
Oh, Mister Random — now we know why Paru was given the artifact she was given — she can’t be trusted with something more substantial. *lol*
About the telepathy contact without pactio-card, it does exist since as long as the end of the kyôto arc actually.
Remember that Evangeline contacted both negi and asuna at the same time, asking them to try holding on for another minute and half.
Granted, she’s a shinso, but it was done probably with an impressive distance between them, since at this time, evangeline was probably more than several dozens kilometers away from them. Maybe even more than one hundred actually.
And we saw it again near the end of the 9th negima volume, when negi, setsuna and kotarô counter-attacked the “evil magicians” who were targeting chao lingshen. At this time, it was mentioned that their opponents were talking between them with telepathy, and Chamo jammed telepathy (so we even saw a telepathy jamming back then) to prevent them doing it any further. And I don’t think that Takane and that teacher had a pactio, right?
We also saw Albireo Imma using it during the tournament fight between Asuna and Setsuna, when he was helping Asuna.
And like Mister_Random said, there’s also the case between takamichi and kokone.
In fact, the last time we saw it done without an artifact, was the very same day than the ball, between Seras of the Ariadne knights and Negi, when she talked to him in the street, when he was facing Gödel. (and this time, telepathy wasn’t jammed, but it was intercepted by Gödel).
I do believe we also saw Seras talking to the class rep when they were trying to fight negi just a little before then.
Since, for exemple, takamichi can’t cast spell, we can say that it’s pretty sure thant it doesn’t need
-a pactio
– a casted spell.
So there’s at least another way to use it, for the non-mage without pactio like Mana and Takamichi.
So nothing new here^^.
yeah but the thing is, much of the MM military may be unaware of K.E.’s involvement in the attack and they might still think AA is behind the attack. Or it could also be the result of politicians keeping the blame on AA. There could also be that fear in MM that AA knows too much and could attempt to prevent their escape…
Most of them may not have noticed the weapon used to destroy the giant monster came from Chachamaru.
Heh!heh! This is why I’m glad I have help since my memory is terrible.
I think what triggered a response about telepathy this time is that in most of the previous cases mentioned, I assumed the person in question had a natural or magical telepathic ability. Pactio cards were hard established early on as being a means of doing this, but with Eva, I assumed her being a shinso was the reason. With Takahata, I assumed that he learned this ability to compensate for not being able to cast spells. For Al, I assumed that since he was such a powerful mage, he could just do it without a card OR since I still have that “Negi = Nagi” theory lurking in my mind, the his pactio card and Asuna’s were networked and thus communications were allowed.
So, for Nodoka to broadcast a message telepathically (which granted could have been relayed but that was not the impression I was left with), suddenly I started questioning the whole telepathy system.
@Philip — very true.
Well I was thinking, Since it’s a magic world and all, that they have items to make pactio, to find name, and other stuff… Maybe they just have also an item granting telepathy ability then. This wouldn’t be strange, right.
And Nodoka is already a mind reader, and collected items helping her with that mind reading job.
If I were her, I would also collect an artifact allowing me to talk without a pactio card. That would mean that I can transmit directly in my friend’s mind (and not only in other partner’s minds) what I discovered with my artifact in the enemy’s mind.
Somewhat, I think it does make sense.
Still, we don’t know if she didn’t just used the pactio card to tell others partners not in the same place than her, and that it was thenrelayed by someone else (Setsuna like you said, maybe?)to those without one.
There’s indeed something that we don’t know here, I wonder if we’ll come to know more after this about the way she used.
But then again, if it was really her who transmitted the message directly, why not transmitting it directly to her best friend rather than talking to mana ?
Yue’s pactio card was used this same day by nagi in order to talk by telepathy. So it’s still working, even if she lost her memories, right?
It doesn’t make a lot of sense that Nodoka was the one to do it. So this “someone” who transmitted those words must be closer to Mana than to Yue, or using a specific telepathy device.
So yeah, probably Takamichi or Setsuna, then.
Assuming I am interpreting this scene (http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/127/11/) correctly Nodoka (and Yue) have known how to perform telepathy for quite some time, as this is back in Chapter 127 (Where Nodoka finds out about Yue’s feelings). This implies telepathy is one of the easier magical skills to learn. As other people have pointed out it could easily be that Nodoka passed a message on to Mana’s contact or Mana is slightly expanding on what she was told i.e. Mana was told that Nodoka claims that people can be brought back and Mana expands on this to make as much impact as possible on Yue.
Changing topic to Cocone, after watching the Ala Alba OADs I was struck by just how similar her design is to Mana’s. They both have similar colour skin and eyes, and both have apparantly been involved with magic from a young age given Mana’s dead card. This makes me wonder if they are both from the same region of Mundus Magicus (I dont think they are related though due to lack of interaction between them.) As for Mana herself I think there is a very good chance given some of her comments that “she is in on the secret of the magic world”.
Finally on Neowulf’s question about Pactio artifacts, I think that it has been established though not definitively stated in the manga that artifacts are given to people based on their skills and personality, so the book lovers Yue and Nodoka both get booked based artifacts, the artist Haruna gets a Golem sketch pad, in a slight retcon Konoka who wants to be a healer gets a healing artifact, Misora “the coward” gets shoes to let her run away, while the warrior types get weapons.
As for people recognising artifacts it has also been established that some of the artifacts are duplicates of, if not the original famous magical item.
Depending on how its interpreted Emilys comments about “an artifact card given only to a chosen few” may be referring to the artifact rather than the card itself. Jack Rakan’s comments about Negi’s artifact being a “super rare” type and his artifact being a “legendary artifact” also suggests there may be “tiers” of artifacts, with some being a lot more special and or powerful than others. Though what determines the “level” of artifact a person receives has yet to be established
Love Yue, love Chachamaru, but I have never felt so close to any character as I did to Haruna in this chapter. I imagine I would react the same way if I ever witness a real kaiju battle. I also wanna be able to say “FIRE MAIN CANNON” and have it mean something 😛
Yue’s still my favorite >_<
@Mister_Random: I thought it was pretty unambiguous that Nodoka just overheard Yue and Haruna talking about that.
However, the “tiers of artifacts” is a theory that I’ve thought of too. It would explain for the sheer discrepancies in the power of the various artifacts. (like Asuna’s vs. Setsuna’s)
Personally, I got the idea from the beginning that artifacts are replicas of original magical items from way back in Kyoto when Chamo names Asuna’s harisen “Hama no Tsurugi” though it’s not engraved anywhere on the artifact and only saw what it did once, tops.
I’d also agree that a ministra’s artifact is based on their personality, which could be an explanation of why Setsuna’s initial artifact was so generic and plain.
Later, after mountains of character development, she receives a new artifact due to her vastly different persona, while Al has at least 10 identical pactios and never changed at all.
Also, something bugged me about how people of the Old World have effective magic. It’s clear that magic, opposed to chi, is created by gathering it from the world around you and unleashing it.
Wouldn’t the magic of MM be “illusory”, and render all magic ineffective? It’s possible that by passing through a non-illusory body, it becomes “real” again, but then what of the magical focus?
The wands Yue and Bea are undoubtedly made in MM, so is it just being within a real person that satisfies the conditions for being real, at least until the effects of the spell end?
If there any ideas to this, I’d like to understand how that would work.
I may be wrong but i think there are a few differences between normal telepathy and telepathy using pactio cards.
For one i think pactio cards require the sender of the message(or the initiator of the conversation) to hold the card to his forehead.
Also i think maybe pactio telepathy is encrypted compared to normal telepathy which can be intercepted.
I’m not sure about jamming but i think no telepathy is immune to jamming.
Just my speculation.
I think it would be a great idea for Akamatsu to release a booklet on how the magic system in Negima works
just found this about pactio telepathy:
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/235/11/
I have another idea. Maybe Nodoka was the sender but Yue could not receive the message because of her amnesia/rage?
Orion
I should have made myself a bit clearer as I only mentioned Nodoka finding out to put into context how long ago it was. The scene itself is when Yue and Nodoka are sitting next to Negi when Nodoka confesses to Yue she overheard but the dialog with Yue immediately prior to that occurs in thought bubbles rather than speech bubbles suggesting Yue and Nodoka are talking telepathically.
“I think that it has been established though not definitively stated in the manga that artifacts are given to people based on their skills and personality ”
Yes, it has. They even said that Nodoka got a mind reading ability because she was simply unable do harm others IIRC.
“As for people recognising artifacts it has also been established that some of the artifacts are duplicates of, if not the original famous magical item.“
Indeed, and as soon as the kytô arc again. Nodoka’s artifact has a page talking about its own origin.
We can see it in the 5th volume, page 70 (in the Japanese version , I don’t know if the pages number change in other language, they shouldn’t though)
here it is (it’s incomplete, since we can’t see everything))
The first part is about the rules to use this book. After this we have :
-世界パクティオ-協会蔵書16784638
-当書は、1469魔導士シャントトによって[…]
-マスターピースであり魔法使いと契約を[…]
-アーティファクトとしても使用できます[…]
-尚、濫用を考える者の手元には、召喚[…]
This is actually one of the best piece of info about artifacts.
1) Artifact may be registered with an identification number or something like, in the ‘世界パクティオ協会?
The first line mean book collection of the organization “sekai pactio” (pactios of the world), followed by an huge number.
So it looks like there is an organization managing pactio .
2) artifacts given by Pactio are real items which were created, in this case, by a mage named shantoto (or something like this) in 1469.
3) Those sentences are incomplete, but it’s probably saying something like it was made a pactio card after, so that you can get it while doing a pactio with a mage.
4)(last line)Again incomplete, but I think we can say that the artifact choose his holder somewhat, depending on their personality. “furthermore, in the hand of someone thinking of a misuse/abuse, (one only word: “summon”).
So maybe the last word would be “されません” : you can’t summon it if you’re thinking of an evil use with it or something?
It make sense since it was said that nodoka got this artifact because she was unable to harm others…
It’s rather easy to understand how Nodoka could send telephathic messages without a Pactio card.
She was a trainee mage before coming to MM and then she spent months with the treasure hunters and we know from ch 280 she asked Aisha to teach her magic. Aisha is capable of telepathy and I guess Nodoka learned it from her.
And why she couldn’t send it directly to Yue? Because Yue blocked the connection intentionally. Telepathy is like a telephone without any kind of device. If the receiver decides to ignore it then they can’t communicate. Yue wouldn’t pick up a telepathic connection from a stranger that’s why she ignored it.
I think Telephaty is like a limited range network connection. You can invite anyone you know in the area but they have the freedom to refuse it.
So, in the next chapter we would probably see everyone getting united & Fake Asuna being revealed or else we would see the fight between Godel & Takamichi.
Guess, Bea will join Ala Alba and Mahora Academy ;D
Bit OT:
where can I download chapters 280/281?
can’t find a download link :S
Whew! I’m late to the party, but I finally got around to reading the chapter.
Two things I never thought I’d see here: 1) Mana and Yue fighting side-by-side (Go Yue!), and 2) the cutest WMD ever made! The fact the artifact is from Chao makes it even more special. (And more bizzare. How the heck did she get something from the future?) The pactio system sure is mysterious…
That just leaves Natsumi to reveal her artifact’s abilities. I still can’t come up with a satisfying theory on how it will tie into her acting talents, given most of the other girls have artifacts that are conducive to their special abilities. Plus, it’s been almost 20 chapters since the pactio was made, so the suspense is killing me. Kotaro was right, just activate the darn thing already!
I don’t know about you guys, but I was under the impression that Mana received the message through one of Asakura’s artifact golem thingies… They were seen being used as telephones by Kotaro and someone else way back in chapter 210 or something, were they not? I was thinking one golem was left in the ballroom for Yue and Takane’s groups, so Nodoka contacted them using the golem with Asakura and Mana was the one who noticed the golem and accepted the message.
Also in chapter 279, Asakura thoughts stated that the telelpathic jamming made it impossible for her to call for help. How else would she call for aid besides using her golems?
My assumption is that once the jamming cleared, Nodoka contacted everyone with one of Asakura’s golems and told them not to lose hope, etc.
@Mister random: The thing is, there are differences between comic formats from western to eastern. While the thought bubbles connecting to a speech bubble represents thought in western comics, it shows that what’s being said is in a whisper in eastern comics.
example
@Zefyris: Well that was amazingly helpful, I had completely forgotten that. That would certainly change some things. Thanks for the translation!
Whew. I get busy and lots of discussion happens. *lol* Interesting reads all around here. I really appreciate the discussions on artifacts and telepathy because there are things I’m reminded of and somethings I hadn’t considered.
@Epicman:
Indeed it is possible Nodoka used Asakuras golems to send the message.
Also she may not be able to summon her artifact because:
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/280/10/
However, the ministra/minister always caries only a copy of the pactio card, the original remains at the magister/magistra, in this case Negi. So theoretically it should be possible to make a new copy of it.
here is another interesting thing:
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/276/09/
This is confirmation that pactio telepathy can be jammed too. It is also interesting that it allowed communication between 2 ministra. I think that at the time we concluded that it is because they somehow sent the message through the magister.
This really is becoming more and more like real networks. The only thing remaining is for Chisame to use TCP/PP (Transmission Control Protocol / Pactio Protocol) with her pactio card.
Wonder what OS she uses, hmm?
Am I the only one who’s actually read the original Battle Angel Alita series? Chao’s orbital weapons platform is a kittified ringer for a gadget Alita used when she was working for the GIB (Ground Inspection Bureau). Moreover, in her latest Last Order Alita often wears a bionic cat’s tail.
Oh, Alita’s a Martian, remember? Like Chao? And notice how much Chao’s fighting costume looks like some of Alita’s.
I haven’t read Battle Angel Alita so I’m at a disadvantage there, but I’ll take your word for it. Now, the pactio artifact sounds like a homage.
Now that someone brought up Battle Angel Alita, I’d like to second the recommendation. It’s an amazing manga, and it absolutely does not show its age. The artwork is incredibly detailed, and the story… well, the story is kind of depressing, but it’s a good sort of depressing.
Truly a classic.