魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 34 Chapter 305 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 305
Negima! Manga Vol 34 Ch 305 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Takamichi is helping the fleet hold off the hoards of demons since the fleet’s own weapons have no effect.  He checks in with Kurt and learns that they only have three hours until the end of the Magic World.  With so few actual humans to defend the fleet, Takamichi can’t go to where Negi is to help him though Kurt is assembling humans to go on the attack.

Inside the Gravekeeper’s Palace, Natsumi, Sayo, Kotaro, Yue, Asakura, and Bea remain concealed as Asakura’s camera golems scout the area.  They find the room but her scouts cannot pass through the multiple barriers there. Yue consults her artifact and discovers how to disarm all of the different barriers.  As Kotaro warns them to be careful and opens the door, Anya punches him in the face before launching her Anya Flame Buster.  Kotaro catches her leg and holds her upside-down and tells her to calm down.  When Anya sees Yue, she’s very happy to see her friend.  However, she has bad news — Fate has already taken Asuna, something that puzzles Natsumi.

Elsewhere, Kaede slices off the shadow arms of Dynamis and pierces him with her star shuriken.  Taking binding chains with explosive ofuda slips, Dynamis is trapped.  Negi slams him with a powerful spell at the same time that Kaede causes the ofuda to explode.  Kaede tells Negi to go on, so he summons his wand and gets ready to go with Chisame, Nodoka, and Shiori-Asuna.  Chisame wonders if they should have Nodoka pull the location for the Great Grand Master Key from Dynamis’s mind, but Negi feels he’ll have counter measures to prevent Nodoka from doing this.

As they fly off, an opening in the air appears and a detached arm shoots through.  Negi knows he could avoid the hit by turning into lightning, but that would leave his passengers in danger.  So Negi takes the blow, which pierces his body.  A smoldering Dynamis was responsible, having launched his arm and tells them to not underestimate him.  Shiro-Asuna helps Nodoka and Chisame land safely as Konoka races to Negi’s side. There is a lot of blood and Konoka readies her artifact card to repair him.  However, Negi stops them as the darkness begins to swirl around his body.

Thoughts/Review:

Yay!  Anya finally got rescued.  ^_^  She provided the humor of the chapter by punching Kotaro in the face and then launching her Flame Buster attack at him.  Well, there was also the humor of when an impressed Kotaro gets chastised by Yue for using his former nicknames for her and he switches to addressing her as “Yue-sensei.”  *lol*

Speaking of Yue, she shows her skills by finding the information to remove the multiple barriers that sealed Anya in.   I think that Yue is the one “multi-class” member of the battle harem in that her artifact allows her to be on the intel team and her skills in combat allow her to be on the combat team.  It wouldn’t surprise me if when this is all over, Yue remains behind to continue her mage training.  I’m not saying that’s what will happen, but if Akamatsu-sensei goes that way, I won’t be surprised.

As expected, with Fate having already left that area, Asuna was gone and so her rescue is long delayed again.  A part of me is hugely disappointed but not surprised.  I’d love for Asuna to be returned to the group but that won’t happen until the bitter end, assuming she returns at all.  I can actually envision a scenario whereby Negi and company win and save the magic world but with a great cost with Asuna being forced to remain behind and choosing to do so while sending Negi on with attempting to find Nagi.  Then, Shiori-Asuna hangs around to provide “Asuna” as a character.

Also as expected, Dynamis didn’t get hurt by that massive attack from Kaede and Negi.  Interesting that Akamatsu-sensei would go back to the “Negi gets stabbed by something large and loses a lot of blood” route.  How different it is this time when he refuses treatment and appears to be going for the Magia Erebea to take care of his injury.  That said, I can’t help but wonder if Dynamis might not want Negi to shift into his dark form.

So, not a great deal of moving forward but I know that when read as a whole, it will be fine.  ^_^  Spoiler watch has already started for chapter 306 but frankly I’m not holding my breath.