July 9th, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 33 Chapter 295 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 295
Negima! Manga Vol 33 Ch 295
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Negi, Setsuna, Kaede, and Mana are stunned for a moment by the appearance of Zazie before something drives Mana to act, telling Negi that this has to be a trap and there’s no way Zazie can be there. She opens fire but Zazie stops all the bullets with a look. Mana, Kaede, and Setsuna use rapid movement so that Mana has Zazie’s arms pinned and a gun to her head while Setsuna and Kaede have their bladed weapons pointed at her from the front. A simple look from Zazie causes Mana’s weapon to be removed from her hand and Mana to be sent flying. While Mana is gripped by an unseen force in the air, Zazie sends Setsuna and Kaede flying away.
Negi readies himself for an attack but Zazie stops him, stating she has no intent on hurting them but simply wants to stop them, citing Negi and company as the dangerous force here. Zazie summons a massive amount of power as Zazie’s other classmates back on the ships are stunned to see her there. As Mana continues to hang in the air by the invisible force, she’s having difficulties believing this could be Zazie because of the sheer power and that it doesn’t feel like the Zazie she knew.
Suddenly, the scene changes and the group finds themselves on Earth at Mahora with students taking shots with their camera phones and remarking on the sudden appearance of the ship and people. Paru ponders if this is an illusion or phantasmagoria. Chachamaru indicates that they do appear to be on Earth, having only detected a massive amount of magical power.
Meanwhile, Zazie points out that their returning to Earth solves much of the group’s problem. Mana manages to break out of the hold on her with her coin-weapon ability and warns Negi to not to believe this since travel between worlds is impossible. Setsuna agrees with this assessment and advises caution as nothing makes sense.
Back on the Magic World, there is a great commotion over the appearance of this mysterious person and the subsequent disappearance of the girl and Ala Alba. Koyomi thinks that this must be Fate’s doing but he denies it, saying he doesn’t. Koyomi “calls” Dynamis, who has no answer and is annoyed at being contacted. Fate is troubled by this development, but the “chibi-mage” walks in and confirms summoning Zazie, as she is an old friend.
Back on Earth, Zazie points out that the road Negi was taking is going to lead to the future that Chao wanted to prevent. Negi says he figured this would be the case but is determined to follow his father’s footsteps. Upon hearing that, Zazie says she has no choice and pulls out an artifact card.
Thoughts/Review: Again, Akamatsu-sensei not only keeps us readers stunned, but pummels us repeatedly…in a good way of course.
“Hey Mana! How does it feel being on the other side this time?”
*lol*
Seriously, I felt a bit of déjà vu when Setsuna and Kaede as well as Mana surrounded Zazie and she effortlessly broke free. I couldn’t help but remember when Setsuna and Kaede came to Negi’s aid during the Mahora Festival when he faced Chao. Chao effortlessly handled both of them back then and Mana worked for Chao. Now, Mana’s with the battle harem known as Ala Alba and thus she finds herself on the receiving end of this kind of unnatural schooling. ^_^ Its just so…delicious. *lol*
I’m glad Akamatsu-sensei remembered Mana’s coin skills. Frankly, I’d forgotten about that skill, mainly because back during the Mahora Festival, I never considered it as anything serious but rather something more invented so that Mana could get into the tournament and be shown to be strong. Seeing how Mana used the skill in a serious situation, it is understandable why she learned to flick coins as a projectile weapon. It is hard seeing Mana ever being disarmed, but Zazie did it without even breaking a sweat. So, Mana bringing out the ¥500 coins (assuming she used the same denomination of coin she did in the festival) suddenly made that skill more practical.
And now to Zazie herself.
Chisame’s remarks on the subject made me laugh out loud, especially since it shows how aware Akamatsu-sensei is of the Japanese fans (as well as the rest of us) being stunned by Zazie’s sudden appearance. ^_^
Akamatsu-sensei is being rather cagey on whether or not this is actually Zazie, but I think it is. He had both Sayo and Mana make remarks on their their gut feelings that this isn’t Zazie, at least the one they’ve known. That could be an indicator that they know that things aren’t what they seem to be.
Zazie’s power is pretty amazing, if this really is her. When she disarmed Mana, held her by force in the air, and blew away Kaede and Setsuna without lifting a finger, was she using unincanted magic? Being she has an acrobat/circus background of sorts, does she have some natural telekinesis ability (“the force” as it were)? Maybe it is a combination of the two.
Now that Zazie has made this stunning entrance and I’ve had tons of time to think about it, I recall back when I first started reading Negima! and seeing the character of Zazie. Her facial markings reminded me of a clown (the tear on one side of her face and the line on the other side of her face). As time has gone on, we’ve seen elements to add to the clown aspect, but also a jester aspect, including in her unofficial pactio cards. I never paid attention to anything unofficial but seeing Zazie’s card now, I a thought suddenly struck me — Zazie is the “joker” in the deck of cards.
A joker card is the wild card and thus can be anything you want during the course of play. To date, Zazie has been mostly “quiet,” both literally and figuratively. She’s been hugely mysterious, as pointed out by Chisame, starting with that early promotional image showing Zazie having hands that resemble claws (and prompting some speculation on if she is a bird youkai, especially since she used to have a bird with her at all times). After Sayo was “discovered” by the others, Akamatsu-sensei revealed that Zazie could see the invisible ghost. Further, Akamatsu-sensei had Zazie sometimes surrounded by blob critters. That added to the mystery, but also added to the notion that she could be a force to be reckoned with and fueled speculation on whether she’d be the final boss.
Thus, Zazie’s power, combined with the other elements makes me think of her as a joker card character. As the joker, she can have the power of the boss character (whomever that turns out to be) but is not the true boss character. After all, she is a ministra to some magister, which means she has submitted to serve another. Just whom has she pactio’d with? I’ve joked that it is Negi and it would be a laughter if that turned out to be true.
Another thing about Zazie’s arrival and referencing Chao made me think that Chao’s plan to change the past is still in progress. Chao being sent back had to be part of some organization in the future who came to the conclusion that the things Negi did needed to be thwarted. Chao being sent back to the past was part of that plan, but she arrived a bit early. Negi arrives and he’s just a genius kid with some magical abilities. Now, I think that Chao’s first attempt to stop Negi was Graf Herrman but I could be wrong there. Had the Graf succeeded, everything else would be moot.
Whether or not Chao was involved with that, we do know she made a slight plan change to involve Negi in her plans, thus insuring her history changed. That failed so it was onto the plan whereby she sent Negi forward in time. That failed when Negi traveled back in time and despite a tough battle, he managed to thwart her. Chao returns to the future in defeat and I’d say that her organization had not given up the notion of changing the past. After all, you don’t go through the trouble of sending one of Negi’s decedents back in time to stop Negi without having some backup plans.
Thus, we return to Zazie. Even though she was not involved with Chao’s scheme (that we were witness to at least), she is intimate to the details of the event(s) that Chao was attempting to thwart and Chao’s mission as well. As such, it seems to me that Zazie and the chibi-mage are also part of that organization that wanted to change the past. Chao failed and now we roll with the next plan, which means they aide CE much as Fate was lent out by CE to aid in the plot to kidnap Konoka.
So yeah, I think that the plan to stop Negi is still ongoing and I think Zazie is the joker card laid out to stop him.
Did Zazie actually take them to Earth? I think so. I know some have cited the World Tree not glowing, but that doesn’t mean that she couldn’t have taken them back in time to just before the tree’s glowing started. Time travel aside, she could be using the massive, magical energies within the World Tree to perform her “gating” ability. The chibi-mage is the one who force-teleported Ala Alba all over the surface of the Magic World. No one even blinked about chibi-mage doing that. If chibi-mage is the magister for Zazie, then why could she not learn a similar technique, only between worlds? Heck, if Zazie is youkai/demon/whatever, then she might be one of the rare few hinted at by Akamatsu-sensei who are powerful enough to traverse realms on their own.
As to the identity of chibi-mage, that’s impossible to say. Akamatsu-sensei has always made it a point of showing the character to be smaller in stature, but has been rather crafty in giving us a proper size perspective as chibi-mage is never shown standing on the same level as the others (at least, not that I recall). I think that’s why some folks might speculate on this being Chao. The Zect speculation I think comes from the remark in the manga about him being a youkai and his remarks before “dying,” but I think that unless CE brought him back, he was wiped out as a character just as Jack, Emily, Mama, and others have been. It wouldn’t make any sense for CE to bring back such an artificial person so I tend to discount this being Zect. Doesn’t mean it is Chao either.
Well, this took me much longer to get through than I’d planned. Oh well. A great chapter nonetheless, eh?
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Odds and ends…
I have to disagree with you on a couple of items regarding Chao’s plans. First, there’s mention somewhere by a member of CE (wish I could remember where) that indicates Graff Hermann provided them with some information obtained during his attack on the school. The implication is that CE was responsible for that particular incident. Also remember that one of Hermann’s goals was to test Asuna’s capabilities – something that CE would be very interested in. Chao on the other hand would seemingly have little interest in that.
Unless, of course, you want to argue that Chao is working for CE (but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms).
The second item is that I personally got the impression that Chao believed Negi’s victory over Chao meant that he could handle whatever would be coming his way and as a result the future would inevitably work out despite her failure. Remember that her last words to him were words of encouragement and not warning. If Chao still had a plan in progress, then I would have expected her to give some clues that would lead him to help her change the future for the better (perhaps inadvertantly). Instead, she left a message that encouraged Negi to follow his own destiny. If anything, I would argue that Chao may have focused on Negi because either way she “won”. If Chao beat Negi, then Chao obviously won. If Negi beat Chao, then he would be on the road to becoming strong enough to defeat CE in Magicus Mundus (Remember that much of the strength that he gains allowing him to defeat Chao is a direct result of Chao’s interference! Even travelling forward in time ends up helping Negi because it allows him to find out what Chao’s plan is.). Admittedly it’s largely circumstantial, but that’s what I came away from that arc with.
As for Chibi-mage… the brief glimpse of his face reminds me of two people. The first person is Fate. Given that the current Fate is the third Fate, it’s possible that Chibi-mage is one of the earlier Fates, the potential fourth Fate, or even the proto-type for Fate.
He also reminds me of Kurt Godel’s rather young assistant… although the eyes aren’t quite right.
Of course, it’s also possible that Akamatsu just can’t draw enough faces to keep everyone distinct when the hair isn’t shown.
😛
I won’t say that Chao is working for CE as such per se, but rather was using them. Remember, she has history to look at. Graf Herrman wanted to not only test Asuna’s abilities and personally test Negi, but the slime mentioned that part of their mission was to keep Negi out of action for a while. Now, why would they (and subsequently the Graf) want to keep Negi out of action for a while? The only logical reason I can think of is to prevent him from entering the tournament. Chao was having it for purposes of helping reveal magic but once her plans were revealed, Negi was going to be a hindrance to those plans. Aside from Negi, whom I believe she worried about due to knowing the true extent of his powers from history, she was only concerned with the headmaster and Takahata. Thus, removing Negi from the playing field fits into Chao’s way of thinking as not having to deal with him makes her job easier.
So, I agree that the Graf was a CE send, but I think that Chao simply attached a rider to that.
As to the second point, that may have been Chao’s belief, but as we see, Negi had decided that even if his actions resulted in the future that Chao wanted to prevent, he was going to proceed down that path. Chao may have ended up simply completing a circle without realizing it. It is possible that they did not have complete records in the future and thus she didn’t realize she was doing what she’d always done and always would do. (Gotta love time travel paradoxes.)
I could see chibi-mage being another Fate. Akamatsu-sensei is certainly taking pains to not reveal whom it is which obviously makes us all suspect someone we know. If that’s true, there aren’t many suspects that would fit the apparent height requirement UNLESS chibi-mage is using an illusion.
something tell me that Chao was behind this,
the mysterious person said about zazie being his/her friend could be someone we know.
——————-
Graf Herrman wanted to not only test Asuna’s abilities and personally test Negi, but the slime mentioned that part of their mission was to keep Negi out of action for a while. Now, why would they (and subsequently the Graf) want to keep Negi out of action for a while? The only logical reason I can think of is to prevent him from entering the tournament.
——————
Note, however, that Graff only ever mentions testing and evaluating Negi’s capabilities (and Asuna’s as well, of course). It’s only the slimes that mention getting Negi “out of action”. And the way that they talk about it almost makes it sound as if the possibility is an “accidental” one (i.e. Graff isn’t going into the fight expecting to petrify Negi, but the slimes hope that an “accident” takes place and Negi ends up with a stone limb).
Additionally, CE apparently needs Asuna. No Asuna, no Code of the Lifemaker (or at least, that’s what Rakan very strongly hinted before he vanished for the last time). The biggest obstacle to just kidnapping Asuna out of Mahora is the 10 year old wundermage that’s constantly hanging around with her and is partnered with her. Slow him down and you make kidnapping Asuna much easier to pull off.
——————-
As to the second point, that may have been Chao’s belief, but as we see, Negi had decided that even if his actions resulted in the future that Chao wanted to prevent, he was going to proceed down that path. Chao may have ended up simply completing a circle without realizing it.
——————-
You’ve lost me here. All that Chao knows is that Negi has stopped her, and that he’s become very powerful. And so her parting note is to encourage him to continue down the same path. If she were going to try again, then I’d expect something slightly different from a note that basically amounts to, “Keep it up!” After all, you don’t want to encourage your opponents to confront you again in the future – particularly when they’ve already beaten you once…
It’s also worth noting that everything that the author of Chao’s defeat is ultimately Chao herself. After all…
– Chao gave Negi his Cassiopea. If she hadn’t, then not only would he have lost to her but he wouldn’t have even been able to fight against her (due to the time skip)
– Chao sponsered the fighting tournament. Negi learned new moves and tricks both while training for it and fighting in it, thus making it easier for him to beat Chao when their fight started.
– Chao pulled the dirty trick of trapping Negi in Eva’s resort for an extra week. But since Negi had the Cassiopea that Chao had given him at the start of the festival, the only thing that accomplished was to alert Negi to the exact method that Chao planned to use to show magic to the world.
– Chao challenged Negi to a duel on the night before the main event. The end result of this was that Negi realized that the Cassiopea could be used to dodge even attacks that had already landed.
The fighting tournament appears to have been a requirement for Chao no matter how you look at it – the rumors regarding magic that it generated were apparently necessary for her plans. But aside from that, every other time that the two interact Chao ends up handing Negi another tool with which to defeat her.
To sum up…
She gives him a tool both to beat her time jumps, and to travel back after the one week jump.
She gives him a reason to improve his fighting skills right before she starts her attack.
She gives him a demonstration of just what the Cassiopea can do in combat.
She provides him with a way of learning exactly what she plans to do during her attack.
Chao did everything but hand Negi a manual entitled, “How to Defeat Chao’s Plan”.
Hrn, Chibi-mage being one of the Fates makes sense in some way, but didn’t Tertium contain some of Secundum’s thoughts? (Chapter 229 Page 14) This points to the Fates sharing a common memory, even feelings. Now, if the Fates are able to exist separately, then this would somehow make them look like Agent Smiths, except, perhaps, with varying elemental alignments.
(Which leads to a side question of how Fate can teleport through water when he’s of the earth. Is it the ability of one of the previous Fates that he has gained, being, so to speak, the latest upgrade?)
I think chibi-mage referring to Zazie as an old friend, makes it more or less certain it is Chao.
I’m guessing Eva will come to the rescue once more. Since she is immortal she might even return from the future, who knows.
@Junior — The Graf clearly had a personal interest in taking the job and that was Negi. I don’t deny that. However, the slimes have been Graf Herrman’s partners before until they were all sealed together in the bottle. As such, it seems to me that it would make sense that they’d be in on the plan, which had multiple parts.
“Results of our research aside, we’ve been ordered to make sure Negi-kun stays out of action for a while.”
(Italics placed in by Del Rey’s version.)
So, that means that their primary mission was to investigate Asuna and for Herrman to check out Negi’s growth as a mage. There’s no reason for them to remove Negi from the playing field for a while unless you consider that this happened immediately before the Mahora Festival’s start. Making sure Negi was out of action for the whole festival would fit with Chao’s plans. What purpose would it aid CE, who were interested in both Asuna and Negi?
“Old Man Herrman’s petrification spell is pre-e-etty pow-w-werful…! They may even get an arm or a leg petrified permanently if he’s not careful. I include that Kotaro-brat.”
(Done as Del Rey printed it.)
What this tells me is that Herrman is having to be careful so as not to permanently petrify parts of Negi or Kotaro, suggesting that he held back (as I suspected). So they need to take out Negi for a while, but not permanently is how I’ve read this.
If she were going to try again, then I’d expect something slightly different from a note that basically amounts to, “Keep it up!” After all, you don’t want to encourage your opponents to confront you again in the future – particularly when they’ve already beaten you once…
Ah.
Junior: The second item is that I personally got the impression that Chao believed Negi’s victory over Chao meant that he could handle whatever would be coming his way and as a result the future would inevitably work out despite her failure.
ANB: As to the second point, that may have been Chao’s belief, but as we see, Negi had decided that even if his actions resulted in the future that Chao wanted to prevent, he was going to proceed down that path. Chao may have ended up simply completing a circle without realizing it.
What I was saying is that Chao may have believed that things would work out despite her failure, but it is my belief that she was simply completing a circle and thus playing a role in creating what she was attempting to prevent.
Now, when she left, I don’t think she was going to personally try again. Remember, she had to be part of some organization that wanted history changed. When she returned to the future and things did not change, she or someone within that organization may have been dispatched to make another attempt during the time stream.
(more in next post)
(Whew! Almost lost some of that.)
It’s also worth noting that everything that the author of Chao’s defeat is ultimately Chao herself.
Oh, I agree there. However, I don’t think that Chao did this to make sure she lost or even to try to give Negi a break.
– Chao gave Negi his Cassiopea. If she hadn’t, then not only would he have lost to her but he wouldn’t have even been able to fight against her (due to the time skip)
She wasn’t even sure it would work as it did, as I understand it. So Negi proved it worked for short jumps and thus safe for Chao to use later to escape the mages. While Setsuna was suspicious, the (trap) gift allowed Negi to do what he wouldn’t have been able to do by visiting his various students and thus makes him drop his guard somewhat.
– Chao sponsered the fighting tournament. Negi learned new moves and tricks both while training for it and fighting in it, thus making it easier for him to beat Chao when their fight started.
That was in the cards from the moment Chao realized her plans were moved up a year. I think that’s also why she decided to have Negi “taken out of action for a while.” Chao’s original plans were for this to go down the following year and she’d have time to work on Negi then. That didn’t happen and so the tournament was plan B.
Assuming Chao was behind the orders to Graf Herrman to keep Negi out of action for a while, the tournament still serves her purpose to reveal magic to the world. Negi surviving Herrman would not be a problem because as Chao did, she made sure Negi was enticed to join the tournament and thus more evidence of mages on Earth. It is just that Negi being gone meant that there was one less person to oppose her.
Negi learning new stuff may have been a calculated risk on Chao’s part but she did do it to herself, as you stated.
– Chao pulled the dirty trick of trapping Negi in Eva’s resort for an extra week. But since Negi had the Cassiopea that Chao had given him at the start of the festival, the only thing that accomplished was to alert Negi to the exact method that Chao planned to use to show magic to the world.
Yes, but Chao couldn’t have sent Negi and company into the future without Cassiopeia. Chao calculated that there wouldn’t be enough magic in the World Tree to get them back. Her plan was fine except for one thing — Negi (and possibly Konoka). Remember, their plan was to make slow jumps back in time until they reached their objective. Instead, they not only jumped the entire amount back in time with one jump, they also moved in space as well, something that should not have happened. So I can’t blame Chao there because Negi pulled off the impossible with only limited support from the World Tree.
– Chao challenged Negi to a duel on the night before the main event. The end result of this was that Negi realized that the Cassiopea could be used to dodge even attacks that had already landed.
Yeah, but again, I think she planned to remove Negi as an obstacle when she challenged him. It is just that other things got in the way and she ended up bowing out.
So, I agree that Chao did this to herself, but not on purpose.
@hurin — I think chibi-mage referring to Zazie as an old friend, makes it more or less certain it is Chao.
That does seem to be a strong item in favor of chibi-mage being Chao.
I’m guessing Eva will come to the rescue once more. Since she is immortal she might even return from the future, who knows.
Heh. Don’t count on it. ^_~ Assuming they really are on Earth, Eva is still cursed and thus powerless. Now, if the World Tree starts glowing again at full power, Eva will regain most, if not all her powers (though she’ll still be cursed to the confines of the Mahora grounds).
Still, as powerful as Eva is, at this point, Zazie is still a joker card in my mind and thus the superior to Eva. That’s not to say that Eva is a slouch, but she can be defeated as evidenced by her being trapped and cursed by the Thousand Master. Eva is to be feared, so if Zazie is even more powerful, well…^_^
@elenrod — Which leads to a side question of how Fate can teleport through water when he’s of the earth. Is it the ability of one of the previous Fates that he has gained, being, so to speak, the latest upgrade?
I think the water is not really water in the traditional sense. in A.I. Love You, “water” is the representation of cyberspace. So while the A.I. constructs had physical form, they could use computers to traverse from point to point via cyberspace, which was always an ocean.
Also in A.I. Love You, I think we have a type of Fate in the form of the character Spider-Zero. He looks and acts similar to Fate.
So, I’ve theorized that Fate is part of that Spider-Zero technology somehow and that his “water” transportation is actually him traveling via cyberspace, only he doesn’t need a computer interface to do it.
Eva sensed Fate was artificial somehow, especially in his method of teleportation (or at least that’s how I read it). Now, she’s a teleporter as well, but she used shadow gates and not water — water, that I should point out, does not exist until Fate goes to teleport. If he was using regular water as a gate, he’d need a body of water to gate through, even if it were simply a glass of water. (At least, that’s how I see it.)
Now, if I’m right and Fate traverses through cyberspace, how is that possible without a computer interface? Simple. Wireless. ^_~
After reading this chapter and happenning to read through Volume 19 (which has Zazie-Sayo interaction) I am not so sure if this is Mahora Zazie though given this Zazie’s knowledge their is almost certainly a connection of some sort.
There are two main reasons I say this, the first is the reaction of all the characters in the chapter that this Zazie is nothing like the one they know. The second reason is that the characters are right!, the little we have seen of Zazie interacting with people is nothing at all like how this Zazie is acting. Now while this could just be Ken trying to make people doubt this is Zazie it could also be him laying the groundwork for an “I told you so moment” later on (one way would be if Mahora send people including Mahora Zazie to Mundus Magicus using the Ostia-Mahora Gateport).
The main evidence supporting this character being Mahora Zazie is the Pactio card, however given the power CE have at their disposal I would not put it past them to be able to create “false” Pactio cards in some fashion. In addition Asuna’s Pactio card has her “assumed name” opposed to her real name so a similar thing could be occuring here.
Onto the Hermann Chao question I think there is not any connection as it is made clear that Hermann worked for CE whiel Chao did not. As for taking Negi out of action, given his heritage and his families proven ability to thwart CE I would think getting him out the way early fits well with CE actions given that they do not want to kill real humans.
Moving onto Chibimage’s identity I am starting to think that it will be a new character though there will be a connection of some sort to Negi or Asuna. With Filius Zecht being almost too obvious at this point.
Onto the are they on Earth issue, again I have to disagree with ANB especially since Zazie tells them “I will return you at once to this place”. This is not something you say if you have brought people to the real place.
Anyway I am really looking foward to the next chapter, its just a pity it is a break weak.
@ AND’s thoughts in the review.
So far there is nothing to support the notion that Chao was working with an organization from the future. And from her and Mana’s dialog it is explained that Chao is trying to avert a personal tragedy, not something that affects the entire world. Granted she could have lied about this, but I don’t see why when with such information she could have convinced Negi to back down. And we do not know what exactly Chao was trying to avert, so far we only have speculation.
There is one problem with Graf being an agent of Chao. A discussion in chapter 174 between Yunna’s dad and Donnet reveals that there was no connection found between Chao and Graf,
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/174/10/
I have my own theory, Fate aided Chigusa in the Kyoto incident in return for something else, that something else I believe was either the bottle that contained Graf or info on where it was located.
@elenrod
What I gathered is that when Fate is destroyed he is reborn as a new version, whether the new version is different power wise form the previous is unknown. We do know that personality wise there are differences.
@ ANB
According to CanonRap Chibi-mage speaks different from Chao or Zecht.
http://vetus.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/295-lets-get-dangerous-poyo/
My bet is that he is a member of KE shown in Rakan’s movie.
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/232/10/
The one on the bottom left. We know from a Q&A that the Water-user and Fire-user were “killed”.
Water teleportation is probably just a spell. Even Graf could do it.
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/68/15/
Chamo also states that it was water teleportation. They were in a bathhouse, there was plenty of water.
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/46/13/
@ AND’s thoughts in the review.
So far there is nothing to support the notion that Chao was working with an organization from the future. And from her and Mana’s dialog it is explained that Chao is trying to avert a personal tragedy, not something that affects the entire world. Granted she could have lied about this, but I don’t see why when with such information she could have convinced Negi to back down. And we do not know what exactly Chao was trying to avert, so far we only have speculation.
There is one problem with Graf being an agent of Chao. A discussion in chapter 174 between Yunna’s dad and Donnet reveals that there was no connection found between Chao and Graf,
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/174/10/
I have my own theory, Fate aided Chigusa in the Kyoto incident in return for something else, that something else I believe was either the bottle that contained Graf or info on where it was located.
@elenrod
What I gathered is that when Fate is destroyed he is reborn as a new version, whether the new version is different power-wise form the previous is unknown. We do know that personality wise there are differences.
@ ANB
According to CanonRap Chibi-mage speaks different from Chao or Zecht.
http://vetus.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/295-lets-get-dangerous-poyo/
My bet is that he is a member of KE shown in Rakan’s movie.
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/232/10/
The one on the bottom left. We know from a Q&A that the Water-user and Fire-user were “killed”.
Water teleportation is probably just a spell. Even Graf could do it.
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/68/15/
Chamo also states that it was water teleportation. They were in a bathhouse, there was plenty of water.
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/46/13/
A couple of items –
Fate and Water – I was originally going to suggest that Fate was merely using the water’s reflective surface to teleport, which is a common enough trick in fantasy fiction. Then I remembered that he attacked Asuna with a bunch of watery hands. So he evidently does have some ability to manipulate water, although we don’t know how much.
Chibi-mage and Chao – The pose is right (Chao was often seen in just that pose during the Mahora Festival), and the thing on Chibi-mage’s back could be some sort of high-tech gadget (the bit visible in the picture this chapter looks somewhat similar to the ends of wings that you might see on a high-tech flight back-pack). And Chao’s cheek markings would be in the shadowed area. But there are three reasons that I disagree.
First, the bits of hair that we can see along the jawline don’t seem to be quite right. Admittedly this is a minor issue. But given that hair tends to be one of the principle ways of identifying a character (due to the “only five faces” trope), it’s worth nothing. Second, the visible eye doesn’t look right for Chao.
Third and most importantly, look at Chibi-mage’s mouth. His/her expression is completely flat. In comparison, Chao smiled nearly all the time. After pulling this particular stunt – i.e. surprising the heck out of Negi’s group with what appears to be Zazie, I have a hard time seeing the Chao from the Festival arc not giving off one of her serenely superior smiles.
In fact, Chibi-mage’s completely flat expression is one of the biggest reasons that this guy reminds me of Fate.
@hurin — I think chibi-mage referring to Zazie as an old friend, makes it more or less certain it is Chao.
That does seem to be a strong item in favor of chibi-mage being Chao.
I’m guessing Eva will come to the rescue once more. Since she is immortal she might even return from the future, who knows.
Heh. Don’t count on it. ^_~ Assuming they really are on Earth, Eva is still cursed and thus powerless. Now, if the World Tree starts glowing again at full power, Eva will regain most, if not all her powers (though she’ll still be cursed to the confines of the Mahora grounds).
——–
Not if they drop the school barrier, she’ll still be confined but she’ll be at full power again. Like when the power outage happened.
I think in a pure slug fest Eva would win, but as we see, Zazie doesn’t play that way. I doubt Zazie could defeat Eva, but she could make it nearly impossible to attack.
—-
I think the water is not really water in the traditional sense. in A.I. Love You, “water” is the representation of cyberspace. So while the A.I. constructs had physical form, they could use computers to traverse from point to point via cyberspace, which was always an ocean.
Also in A.I. Love You, I think we have a type of Fate in the form of the character Spider-Zero. He looks and acts similar to Fate.
So, I’ve theorized that Fate is part of that Spider-Zero technology somehow and that his “water” transportation is actually him traveling via cyberspace, only he doesn’t need a computer interface to do it.
Eva sensed Fate was artificial somehow, especially in his method of teleportation (or at least that’s how I read it). Now, she’s a teleporter as well, but she used shadow gates and not water — water, that I should point out, does not exist until Fate goes to teleport. If he was using regular water as a gate, he’d need a body of water to gate through, even if it were simply a glass of water. (At least, that’s how I see it.)
Now, if I’m right and Fate traverses through cyberspace, how is that possible without a computer interface? Simple. Wireless. ^_~
July 10, 2010 1:18 AM
——–
I’m sure as many have pointed out,
there has been plenty of parallels between the Magic world and the Matrix.
And Fate himself has acted “Agent Smith” like repeatedly. His attitude is almost the same as well. Jack said so.
What I wonder if Zazie is a similar entity. ONce the portal connection was restablished it wouldn’t need an open portal for the data to get through.
—
As for Chao herself,
Chao has removed herself from the game, but this doesn’t mean she hasn’t already set the game so that no matter what move both sides make, she’s already countered it.
———————-
water, that I should point out, does not exist until Fate goes to teleport.
———————-
Huh?
When Fate has teleported, he’s been in an area in which one would expect to find puddles of water all over the place – bath house, dock, etc… It would be stranger to NOT find loose puddles all over the place in those locations, and there’s not really much point in the artist drawing them (they’d clutter up the frame) until Fate actually needs them.
Also, you ignored the other ability that he’s demonstrated with water – namely, using it to form a large number of hands with which to pin down and tickle Asuna during the Kyoto arc.
The heavy LampshadeHanging about verbal tics made me LOL a few times, especially the copyright-issues joke about Ponyo. Sometimes I’d swear Akamatsu-sensei is on a personal quest to deconstruct every single trope on the TV Tropes website. (^_~)
I could be wrong, but I don’t think sensei plans to leave us hanging for very long wrt Zazie and who’s pulling her strings: page 11, panel 3 shows Nodoka rolling a 1 on initiative.
My personal guess, with nothing logical to support it: Chibi-Mage is Eva, and she’s found a way around the Attendance Perdition Curse using the World Tree.
FWIW, when I asked Cnet’s opinion for who Chibi-Mage is (based on what seems to be a very distinctive speech pattern), his response was that he’s pretty sure it has to be Zect.
My favorite theory is still that it’s Eva, because that would take away the suspense of when she’ll eventually reveal herself to be the final boss. Zect does seem like the more logical choice, though.
Hiya!
Well, I have to agree that there are some points in there that I have to consider but even though (no matter HOW hard I laughed at the thought of Zazie having a patio with Negi/Nagi?) I think that after studying the card a bit that it couldn’t possibly be negi (or was that supposed to be nagi?)
1) because the number on the card is XI (which actually kind of supports the joker theory)
2) 13 isn’t Zazie’s seat number! It’s 31 XD
3) ( in case I read it wrong) 13 isn’t close to 1001….
4) 13 also is THE unlucky number too yea? Does that have something to do with her?
I also think that the bit about the Mahora tree glowing thing AFTER they teleported is false.
1) In like… Ch 187 the dean called Yuuna’s father and tells him to round up all the magical teachers in Mahora he jumps on his broom and flies to a place close to the world tree JUST as it starts to glow. Now don’t tell me it’s just a flash or something because they had a perfect view of if negi & etc were there (although we don’t *DANMIT*). And then he rounds up all of the magical teachers in Mahora. Therefore, I what I propose, is that she either…
1) Brought Ala Alba to the past BEFORE Negi was gonna be a teacher there, because then they would have to restart everything and tamper with time.
2) Brought them to something like what 2 of fate’s girls did to capture Rakan and ultimately get their panties stolen =P
2) She teleported the whole landscape with them, and now how was that possible with their law of magic and physics? I don’t really know about this one, I just thought it might be of some importance maybe.
3) Wouldn’t teleporting them to MAHORA of all places a bit TOO risky? Afterall, the world tree is starting to glow which means, *shivers* 1) EVA gets a power upgrade 2) She could just kill Zazie if they were really in Mahora!
“The main evidence supporting this character being Mahora Zazie is the Pactio card, however given the power CE have at their disposal I would not put it past them to be able to create “false” Pactio cards in some fashion. In addition Asuna’s Pactio card has her “assumed name” opposed to her real name so a similar thing could be occuring here.”
A contradiction to this is when they did the mind reading thingy on ummmm what was her name? The girl disguised as Asuna you know, Asuna was memory wiped and had no memory of the past, therefore could it be that Pactio cards are based on memory? Even when the fate girl was disguised she was fighting between the two personalities and had the memories of the real body therefore when the pactio was made, it was based on her real body’s memories. Maybe that’s why Asuna’s card is written with her alias?
This arc is really interesting; it never ceases to amaze me at how structured it is! XD Well, that’s all my points so far, I guess it still leaves us guessing though!
(continued…)
I also think that the bit about the Mahora tree glowing thing AFTER they teleported is false.
1) In like… Ch 187 the dean called Yuuna’s father and tells him to round up all the magical teachers in Mahora he jumps on his broom and flies to a place close to the world tree JUST as it starts to glow. Now don’t tell me it’s just a flash or something because they had a perfect view of if negi & etc were there (although we don’t *DANMIT*). And then he rounds up all of the magical teachers in Mahora. Therefore, I what I propose, is that she either…
1) Brought Ala Alba to the past BEFORE Negi was gonna be a teacher there, because then they would have to restart everything and tamper with time.
2) Brought them to something like what 2 of fate’s girls did to capture Rakan and ultimately get their panties stolen =P
2) She teleported the whole landscape with them, and now how was that possible with their law of magic and physics? I don’t really know about this one, I just thought it might be of some importance maybe.
3) Wouldn’t teleporting them to MAHORA of all places a bit TOO risky? Afterall, the world tree is starting to glow which means, *shivers* 1) EVA gets a power upgrade 2) She could just kill Zazie if they were really in Mahora!
“The main evidence supporting this character being Mahora Zazie is the Pactio card, however given the power CE have at their disposal I would not put it past them to be able to create “false” Pactio cards in some fashion. In addition Asuna’s Pactio card has her “assumed name” opposed to her real name so a similar thing could be occuring here.”
A contradiction to this is when they did the mind reading thingy on ummmm what was her name? The girl disguised as Asuna you know, Asuna was memory wiped and had no memory of the past, therefore could it be that Pactio cards are based on memory? Even when the fate girl was disguised she was fighting between the two personalities and had the memories of the real body therefore when the pactio was made, it was based on her real body’s memories. Maybe that’s why Asuna’s card is written with her alias?
This arc is really interesting; it never ceases to amaze me at how structured it is! XD Well, that’s all my points so far, I guess it still leaves us guessing though!
I also think that the bit about the Mahora tree glowing thing AFTER they teleported is false.
1) In like… Ch 187 the dean called Yuuna’s father and tells him to round up all the magical teachers in Mahora he jumps on his broom and flies to a place close to the world tree JUST as it starts to glow. Now don’t tell me it’s just a flash or something because they had a perfect view of if negi & etc were there (although we don’t *DANMIT*). And then he rounds up all of the magical teachers in Mahora. Therefore, I what I propose, is that she either…
1) Brought Ala Alba to the past BEFORE Negi was gonna be a teacher there, because then they would have to restart everything and tamper with time.
2) Brought them to something like what 2 of fate’s girls did to capture Rakan and ultimately get their panties stolen =P
2) She teleported the whole landscape with them, and now how was that possible with their law of magic and physics? I don’t really know about this one, I just thought it might be of some importance maybe.
3) Wouldn’t teleporting them to MAHORA of all places a bit TOO risky? Afterall, the world tree is starting to glow which means, *shivers* 1) EVA gets a power upgrade 2) She could just kill Zazie if they were really in Mahora!
“The main evidence supporting this character being Mahora Zazie is the Pactio card, however given the power CE have at their disposal I would not put it past them to be able to create “false” Pactio cards in some fashion. In addition Asuna’s Pactio card has her “assumed name” opposed to her real name so a similar thing could be occuring here.”
A contradiction to this is when they did the mind reading thingy on ummmm what was her name? The girl disguised as Asuna you know, Asuna was memory wiped and had no memory of the past, therefore could it be that Pactio cards are based on memory? Even when the fate girl was disguised she was fighting between the two personalities and had the memories of the real body therefore when the pactio was made, it was based on her real body’s memories. Maybe that’s why Asuna’s card is written with her alias?
Well, that’s all my points so far, I guess it still leaves us guessing though!
@Anonymous
Look again at Zazie’s card, the number is 31. Here is an enlarged version from AQS
http://i32.tinypic.com/jrcvo7.png
Erg… The double posts are getting rather annoying.
>.< At this point we’re either dealing with all sorts of illusions, or Zazie has apparently transported everyone to Mahora (albeit a Mahora that doesn’t seem quite the way that we the readers know it should be). If it’s an illusion, then it’s probably based off of the sub-conscious perceptions of the intended audience (i.e. Negi and the students) which would explain why the tree isn’t glowing – Negi and the students don’t expect it to be glowing. If it really is Zazie and she really did transport everyone to Mahora, then all bets are off. The ability to do such a thing is so far beyond what we have been led to believe magic is capable of that Zazie is comparable to Jack Rakan in sheer “this makes no sense logically but it happened anyway because I’m a boss that uses cheat codes”-ness. As a result, I’m not getting hung up over trying to figure it out. If it’s real, then there will be an explanation in some form at the appropriate time.
Okay, I had an idea…
What if Zazie was an agent in the world working for Chao and Chao knew that Negi could possibly ally with Fate? Would that not make any sense to you? Basically, the Mahora Festival Arc was about Chao stopping Negi, and after the Mahora Festival, Negi pursued his father, but “ran into Fate” (Yes, that was intended!) If Negi works with Fate (again, excuse me for the intended pun), then he would probably cause Chao’s future world to be in a mess. Here’s the other thing… Why has Ken not shown a single future scene about Chao… even if it’s a background story)? I mean what’s up with that idea? is he trying to convey the readers the idea that Chao is completely out of the picture when Chao depends on the future?