March 11th, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 31 Chapter 282 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 282
Negima! Manga Vol 31 Ch 282 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
As the Great Paru-sama arrives, Negi starts to succumb to the Magia Erebea again and passes out. He comes to in a bunk on board the ship and thinks of Rakan when Chisame, now in her normal form, and Mana enter. Mana warns of the dangers if Negi isn’t treated soon. Chisame informs them that they still have Theo’s Diorama Sphere, with which they could buy some time for Negi at the very least. Negi is briefed on the current situation, including that they have everyone but they are on two ships instead of one and that Nodoka has found a way to bring everyone back, including Rakan.
Negi gets up and greets the people on Great Paru-sama before video conferencing with the people on the other ship. Negi starts to chastise himself, but stops himself and praises Nodoka. Nodoka then briefs everyone on what she learned about the Code of the Lifemaker, including that there are Master Keys, which the minions were using, seven Grand Master Keys, which Fate and Dynamis account for two, and the Great Grand Master Key. If they can get the big key, they should be able to undo everything and bring the people back.
Mana and the other girls praise Nodoka for her work and Asakura goes further by recounting Nodoka’s standing up to Dynamis, revealing she has a recording of the event. With everyone deciding they want to help in this matter, Negi agrees to this but cautions them to follow his instructions. He further tells them that he plans to enter the Diorama Sphere in order to get healed and properly plan out the rescue of Anya.
Haruna reports that it will take some time to get to the Ostia ruins where Anya is believed to be held and that this zone that had been devoid of magic is now filled with floating boulders, making navigation not a simple matter. Haruna lays out her drawing showing the breakdown of people on the two ships and the general plan to rescue Anya, get the Great Grand Master Key, get through Fate’s people, arrive at the Ostia ruins and escape back to Earth via the remaining gate.
Negi sees this and realizes the real Asuna might be with Anya as well. When Shiori-Asuna enters and inquires about Negi’s welfare, Negi remembers Rakan’s final words regarding Asuna. As such, Negi tells Shiori-Asuna that he’s about to enter the Diorama Sphere and he wants her to join him alone so he can talk about something with her in private.
Thoughts/Review: First, let me apologize if this review isn’t up to my normal standards. I’m very busy at the moment and having to squeeze this in. ^_^;;;
Second, I want to touch on the little minor things real quick. For starters, I was amused by Misora’s general negative attitude about being caught up in yet another adventure. I laughed when on the 13th page of the chapter, she’s the lone voice of dissent while everyone else is calling Negi’s name in various forms to show their support . She’ll end up being the reluctant hero again (remember when she saved Asuna and Setsuna from capture during the Mahora Festival arc?) but I’d love to get a bit more information about her and her relationship to Cocone.
Seeing Paru’s chart, I’d forgotten that Ala Alba don’t know about Shiori (though Negi appears to soon be introduced to her) and Homura. I chuckled at the image of an annoyed Anya ’cause she’ll be annoyed at having been held captive for so long.
I loved seeing the love Nodoka received from the others. Again, when the veteran Mana gives her praise and shows her admiration, it means a lot.
The big issue is Shiori-Asuna and the trip to the Diorama Sphere. There are a number of ways this could go.
- Negi confronts Shiori-Asuna, unmasks her, finds out more information, then gets her to join his cause.
- Same scenario as above, only Negi is forced to imprison Shiori.
- Negi goes in but Shiori gets the drop on him and makes herself Shiori-Negi.
- Negi goes in, has a Magia Erebea attack, Shiori-Asuna has to care for him and during that process she drops her guard and shows herself.
That’s the four ways I could see things going but we’ll see.
I look forward Asuna finally returning to Ala Alba (Anya as well). Having recently scored volume 25, it has been a very long time since she’s been in the story and I miss her a great deal. Removing Asuna was necessary to not only the main story, but to give other characters additional face time to shine. However, it is time to get Asuna back. I figure it will be at least a few months still before this finally happens though.
Finally, I wonder if Akamatsu-sensei has a story purpose to have everyone on two ships.
So, a nice “breather” chapter for us before the Shiori-Asuna issue is dealt with.
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There are some things I like to say here…
-I think you mean “dissent”… I understand what you’re trying say. There’s a lot of homonyms out there.
-Aside from Shiori, I think it’s Homura (who I would “Flame-Eye”) that AA is not aware of. I’m pretty sure AA (particularly Haruna, Nodoka, and Chisame) is aware of Shirabe’s existence (the K.E. girl whose eyes are closed all the time and wields a deadly fiddle).
Based on the ‘get some rest’ comment, I suspect, after the Asuna issue, we’ll get some comedy before we jump back into the action.
I don’t get why having the diorama sphere would be a good thing vis a vis Negi’s Magica Erebia contamination… Wouldn’t time spent in the diorama accelerate the rate at which the corruption is spreading, reducing the time Negi has to get it treated by someone who knows how to do so, namely Eva? I mean, if one hour spent in the diorama sphere is equal to a day in real time, wouldn’t the corruption be fully spread by the time Negi gets out of the sphere? Or am I just misunderstanding something? Maybe he means to reverse the sphere, making time spent outside the sphere last longer than time inside (is that even possible)?
Anyway, good chapter, even if the watermarks on each page of the scanlation was annoying. I hope the scanlators get a better source of raws next week, this time without watermarks. Not to insult the group that got the raw this week, but did you really have to put watermarks all over them for every single major manga release this week? And did the scanlators really have no other source of raws that they they had to use the watermarked versions? Couldn’t they just wait for another non-watermarked version to make itself available? I guess doing so would break the speedscanning paradigm though. Whatever, I think I’m ranting now…
i think that shiori-asuna was not a good asuna… after all, she has not been very asuna-like in many aspects since the real one was kidnapped
Think about this: the real asuna would be worried about the side-effects of magica erebea (since negi shows that he is very distressed about the dark magic after using it… and where is the artifact… that giant sword-hairsen artifact?
Maybe it’s just me, but was anyone else struck by a big “Huh?” at the apparent incongruity of “Let’s stick Negi in a sphere that makes time pass faster for people inside”? It doesn’t seem to match up very well with Mana’s “If you are not treated for this immediately, your life will be in danger”.
I’m sure there’ll eventually be a logical explanation like “There’s an FF7 Eye Drop inside the sphere that they’ll use on him” or “Treatment is actually prolonged rest”, but it’s rare to see even an apparent slip on Akamatsu-sensei’s part.
Maybe the Diorama Sphere has a built-in status-cancelling Esuna field that will both heal Negi and unmask Shiori?
@Philip — yes, i did. When I’m really in a rush, I tend to make more of these kinds of errors. Thanks for the corrections…updating now.
@Anon — Its possible that we’ll get some comedy. However, based on how 283 came out, I don’t think 284 will be that chapter…well, not totally at least.
@Ghost — The only thing I can think of is that someone can perform some healing on him. Problem is that Konoka is on the other ship. Also, it may be that in the sphere, Negi can rest and recover. This is the old RPG strategy when you don’t have any healing potions or spells, you go off someplace quiet and rest to regenerate HP, howbeit more slowly than a spell or potion.
@Yakita — well, Akamatsu-sensei had to put a few flaws into Shiori-Asuna so that we’d see them but his characters could either excuse them or ignore them as meaningless (which is what has happened).
@arimareiji — I think “rest” is the likely option here since Konoka isn’t on board but we’ll see.
@ GhostStalker: I think the reasoning behind the diorama sphere is something like this: The healing process takes some time, but we need to get Negi healthy as fast as possible in case we run into trouble on our way to confront Fate. Therefore, we do the healing in the diorama, so even if it takes a week to heal, only a day or so will pass outside. It’s like when he tries to squeeze a lot of training into a short time; except now he’s just squeezing a lot of healing in instead.
It also seems like Mana knows a little about Negi’s problems, so she might have enough experience with this sort of thing to help cure him. If not, it probably wouldn’t be an enormous deal to stop the ships for a few minutes and have Konoka go to Negi’s ship.
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