December 29th, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 34 Chapter 312 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 312
Negima! Manga Vol 34 Ch 312 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Quartum-Fate is about to attack the girls on Great Paru-sama when his intentions are overridden by the protocol to not kill humans. Since Chachamaru is not human, he decides to impale her with a flaming spear since she is a considerable threat. Haruna sends a telepathic message to the group that she’s about to throw the ship into reverse and in doing so, Quartum-Fate is thrown off the ship as the massively damaged Chachamaru grabs Collet from being thrown off as well. Takane takes the flaming spear and removes it from Chachamaru as the Great Paru-sama continues to retreat in reverse. However, the ship cannot obtain full speed this way which allows Quartum-Fate to catch up.
Quartum-Fate launches a Apes Igniferae spell, which creates several giant bee-like creatures with a massive explosive punch. Takane uses her shadow guardian to defend the ship and explode the bees away from the ship. Quartum-Fate is impressed with their survival and summons a massive, flaming blade as part of his arm, which is large enough to slice Great Paru-sama along its entire length. Johnny-san races forward in his ship and takes the blow, allowing Great Paru-sama to escape damage though he disappears into petals as his ship crashes.
Quintum-Fate approaches Kaede and company and she knows that they are in dire straights with Kotaro seriously injured and Nodoka unconscious. Tossing her artifact cloak over the others where it disappears, Kaede charges Quintum-Fate, driving him well away from the group. She performs the best of her ninja techniques but it is not nearly enough. Quintum-Fate assumes lightning form like Negi does but Kaede keeps up the fight. Unfortunately, she’s no match for Quintum-Fate and soon begins taking a heavy beating. As she does, one of her shadow copy bodies brings the Great Grand Master Key back to the group. She hands them the key and tells the others that her real body is still back with Quintum-Fate as he prepares a lightning spear to end her with a bang.
Thoughts/Review:
Akamatsu-sensei continues to remove characters from the field and I don’t expect this trend to stop until he gets it down to what he considers a manageable level.
Chachamaru…man, that’s just horrible what is happening to her but it effectively shows the cruelty of Quartum-Fate in a way that could not be done to any human character (were this a seinen title, it would be a different story). Quartum-Fate is definitely a programmed entity as I see it because when he went for the group with murderous intent, that programming kicked in and stopped him, thus preventing him from killing the humans. It really would be sweet if the Fates all were somehow based on the technology from A.I. Love You.
Anyway, one more thing about Chachamaru — she got her other Aliens moment when she saved Collet’s life. Considering the tribute to Bishop from Aliens in the last chapter, I’m not surprised to see this final tribute and in fact, I rather like it. ^_^ Assuming the Aliens tribute continues, I would expect Chachamaru to be still in half when the group returns to Japan and her mind transferred to one of her other bodies.
Johnny-san was the next KIA. Considering the joke about him wearing Takane’s shadow armor, there had been some thought that he might get stripped. That didn’t happen and since he was a minor character, his departure is not unexpected.
Its funny how Paru can be such an immature troublemaker much of the time but here, she shows real leadership by making the best of a bad situation when throwing Great Paru-sama into reverse to throw off Quartum-Fate. She’s shown this kind of quality before but for some reason, it came off more strongly in this chapter.
Takane gets a chance to shine a little by risking her life to save Chachamaru from the fire spear and then using her shadow techniques to destroy Quartum-Fate’s bee bombs (for lack of a better, descriptive term). However, I don’t think she’ll be around much longer but that’s just a guess.
Speaking of Quartum-Fate’s giant bees (they looked more like wasps but whatever), I was reminded of the manga Inuyasha and the villain there, Naraku, who had some sort of bee-wasp youkai. Naturally, Quartum-Fate’s are different as his “bees” are a spell effect whereas Naraku’s were actually creatures but I was reminded nevertheless.
Finally, there was Kaede, who’s removal would be disappointing seeing as how she’s been a major player in Negi’s battle harem since Kyoto (starting of course with the Eva arc). However, she gets to go out with a bang and even steals the Great Grand Master Key back, assuming Nodoka ever recovers to use the bloody thing.
Speaking of Kaede, whom did she cover up with her artifact? Initially, I thought it was the entire group, but it appears that she may have only covered Kotaro, Asuna, and Asakura. That’s because the unconscious Nodoka as well as Yue and Makie were the only ones visibly seen when the copy-Kaede delivered the key. It is impossible to predict where Akamatsu-sensei will go, but we do have another opportunity for Yue to rise and do something special. I tend to suspect that won’t happen. I also tend to suspect that Kaede’s cloak will remain invisible, thus if Quintum-Fate takes out Nodoka and Makie along with Nodoka, he may assume that Asakura somehow escaped and leave a back door open for when Asuna recovers and decides to kick some arse.
Its sad to see the supporting cast taken down one character at a time but it isn’t unexpected. I think that once these chapters play out in volume form, they will be quite good and the downed characters won’t seem to have been down for as long as we weekly chapter readers feel they are down.
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;_;
… I’ll admit it. That’s the first time in a long while any manga has made me cry.
I know there’s no way Akamatsu-sensei would kill Kaede, but her sacrifice and farewell felt just like it. He did an incredible job with the end of the chapter, to convey that much believable emotional tenor in only a handful of pages.
Nin nin.
~
It’s enough to make me completely forgive the “Why does the battle harem even bother trying; Negi has to save the day AGAIN” direction the story seemed to be going in. And it’s looking a lot more uncertain that he’s going to keep going in that direction.
I honestly think they will not save the magic world on this go around but as for kaede she wont die or anything but im sure its a matter of time before Takamichi and Godel realize they need to be in there with them although i was very impressed with her ability to somewhat fight Wind-fate considering the amount of time shes had to train when helping control Negi. I really hope Nodoka wakes up and manages to at least do something with the key for now i think it would be probably pointless to bring back Rakan since they still can rewrite (as they did to Johnny) unless when no matter what magic world character dies that happens… But what ever happens next its near impossible to predict just because of how many turns we have had since they got here
The thing is, if they don’t save Magical World, they go down with it. They have no ways out, and no time to take them either. Unless the Mahora people can open a gate just in time, but it’s unlikely. So losing really isn’t an option.
Not to mention it’d be a horrible payoff to such a hideously long arc. 100+ chapters of preparation for a rematch with Fate… only to utterly fail because LOL, PLOT TWEEST. Ah-hah, and why should we bother to continue reading after that? To be trolled even harder next time?
Akamatsu has just lost it, IMHO. To quote TV Tropes on the list of Bad Writing tropes, “You shouldn’t put your protagonists in a situation where only a Deus Ex Machina can save them”. It’s just lazy and reeks of shock value.
Two things in particular caught my attention in this chapter. The first was the lightning form. Kaede recognized it as the same as what Negi uses, and even used the “recognized” counter to that form – i.e. an excorcism attack. And the attack actually appears to work, suggesting that this Fate’s lightning form is indeed identical to Negi’s. Second, we him summoning a very, very, very big spear. And the only other time that we saw a spear like that was during Negi’s arena match with Jack Rakan.
Is it possible that this Fate has somehow absorbed a part of Negi? Is *that* the real reason why Dynamis wanted to see what was going to happen next?
@Arimareiji — Can’t say I felt that way but I do understand where you are coming from. ^_^
As to the battle harem, even as Akamatsu-sensei removes them from the field of play, he lets them go out heroically. Bea and Sayo sacrifice themselves. Yuuna is able to protect a lot of the group before going down. Chachamaru got in a couple of massive blasts before going down. Nodoka had already stolen the key once and then was taken down. Johnny sacrifices himself to save Great Paru-sama. And so it goes.
So, even though I’m disappointed the battle harem doesn’t get to save the day, at least they get a moment of glory before being taken out, Kaede included.
@Nick — With the Fates coded to not kill humans, I agree that Kaede isn’t dead.
As to Nodoka, even if she doesn’t wake up, I was thinking that Yue may be able to perform the same function using her artifact to learn how the Great Grand Master Key works.
But what ever happens next its near impossible to predict just because of how many turns we have had since they got here
I agree. The only predictable thing here is that Akamatsu-sensei will continue to clear the playing field of characters until he gets it down to a few for the big fight that’s coming.
@OverMaster — The thing is, if they don’t save Magical World, they go down with it.
I think the gate would be opened on the MW side for the group to escape, even if MW is lost. The wildcard here is the Mahora side of the gate and the World Tree. Akamatsu-sensei set this up for a reason to let us know the crap is hitting the fan on Earth and they are preparing/prepared for it.
Not to mention it’d be a horrible payoff to such a hideously long arc.
Actually, I’m rather hoping for a failure of sorts because then there’s no paradox for Chao to come back to the past to try to stop Negi from doing what he’s doing. So, I’m hoping for a solution that isn’t great, brings back the MW people, but there’s a lot of hardship for years to come because of it.
As to “Deus Ex Machina,” Akamatsu-sensei has used this before. Negi wasn’t nearly powerful enough to defeat Fate during the Kyoto arc. Indeed, compared to what he is now, Negi was nothing and so Eva was brought in to save the day. That’s clearly Deus Ex Machina but it worked on two levels. For starters, it showed how far Negi still had to go and then is showed us just how powerful Eva truly is. Were the real Eva to show up on the MW in full power, I think the Fates would have great difficulties overcoming her, especially with her doll master abilities.
@Junior — Is it possible that this Fate has somehow absorbed a part of Negi? Is *that* the real reason why Dynamis wanted to see what was going to happen next?
I don’t think Fate has absorbed Negi. Remember during the tournament how Fate was greatly troubled when watching Negi’s fight? I think that this was when Dynamis decided to activate the other Fate units and incorporate the fight data from the tournament. So, the Wind Fate simply absorbs that data and can now perform the same abilities as Negi.
So for Negi, he will have to overcome all of this when fighting four elemental Fates. With Asuna using magic cancel (assuming she awakens again), it might work.
———————-
With Asuna using magic cancel (assuming she awakens again), it might work.
———————-
I would be very surprised and disappointed if she didn’t. Pre-Magic World, Akamatsu-san had Asuna always present as Negi’s companion – both in and out of battle. The Magic World arc changed things up by more or less ignoring her (she got barely any page time – with the only real exception being the very short period of time between when she rejoined Negi and when Luna replaced her), and replaced her with Chisame as Negi’s social partner and Kotaro as Negi’s battle partner. While on the surface this change “merely” mixed things up somewhat, it also meant that it wasn’t immediately obvious when Asuna was kidnapped. Luna would have been exposed immediately if Negi had been counting on Asuna in the arena instead of Kotaro. Now that Asuna has been recovered, there’s no reason for her not to resume her traditional place fighting alongside Negi (and of course alternately fighting *with* Negi…)
We already know that Kotaro’s not feeling up to fighting one Fate, let alone multiple Fates. Chisame can’t fight at all. And even the remotest suspension of disbelief will go out the window if Negi takes on multiple Fates simultaneously and wins. So Negi’s gonna need a partner, and the logical option is Asuna. Sure, she’s not exactly ready for a fight at the moment. But then again, neither is Negi… Plus, her anti-magic capabilities add unique options to the way that the fight plays out – options that aren’t available if Negi ends up with a more conventional partner like Kotaro (who is, ultimately, “just another battle mage”).
Also, Fate had better hope that Eva never finds out what he did to Chachamaru. Sure, Eva will insist that she doesn’t really care. But secretly I suspect that she’d hold a grudge toward anyone who tore her servant apart like that…
@ Junior Wind Fate actually used a Normal type thunder spear similar to the ones Negi used b4 fighting Rakan because Only with ME could he use magic synthesis , also i dont think Wind Fates lightning motion is same as Negis either, it might be a bit more like when Negi only uses 1 thousand bolt instead of the double.
@ OverMaster they can still fail to save the magic world this go around because theres still 9 years untill complete collapse and i doubt this will be the final Tetrium/Negi show down. If mahora gate opens lets hope we see Eishun, Alberio and the Dean fight full power (also curious to the main “Nuns” Magic power), with world tree if enemies manage to get into mahora Eva will be able to use some of her power probably.
@ AstroNerdBoy — Actually, I’m rather hoping for a failure of sorts because then there’s no paradox for Chao to come back to the past to try to stop Negi from doing what he’s doing. So, I’m hoping for a solution that isn’t great, brings back the MW people, but there’s a lot of hardship for years to come because of it.
Though there is a chance for that to happen here, but still it doesn’t feel to me like he would be going that way (unless he plans to extend the length of the manga more).
There are 2 reason for this based on my assumption,
1. the fact that there had been a few things in MSN which have been similar to “Dragon Ball series”, and we all know how the “Cell Saga” in that series was played out (with all the past, the future & the time-travelling things).
So, Ken using similar tactics from that saga in Chao’s case would be possible in here as well.
2. based on the story till now, Nagi had already failed once in saving the Magic World. So, Negi failing in here again wouldn’t feel right especially since it seems he has already found a way to counter the collapse of the magic world.
On the topic of Yue and the GGMK she may not even need her artifact to learn how it works as she is best friends with Nodoka and it would not be too suprising if Nodoka told Yue how to make it work offscreen when they were catching up.
On the topic of Eva if she does show up I think it is a virtual certainty that she will be paired up with the fire fate who has dismantled Chachamaru and would probably intervene saying something like “No-one gets to torture Chachamaru but me”.
I also wonder if Eva’s Doll contract with Chachamaru would allow her to use the Kill Sat Pactio artifact. She could also really screw up Dynamis as he may be unaware that she is affiliated with Ala Alba and so he attacks her thinking his “contract” does not apply only to find out that she is affiliated with them causing whatever repurcusions breaking a contract brings.
Given that we saw the Headmaster ask Eishun and Al for help I think it is very likely that they (and Eva) will play some role in the conclusion of this Arc the biggest question is how. Given the current situation the two most likely options I see are
1) Arrive sometime in the next few chapters and pair off against the new Fates
2) Take part in a battle at the gateport when Ala Alba eventually manage to escape the palace with Cosmo E in pursuit.
@Junior — I was thinking back about the earlier remark about Dues Ex Machina and essentially, Asuna could be considered such a character. She looked so freaking awesome when she came and bailed Kaede and Setsuna out of the fire. I feel fairly sure that this is the reason Akamatsu-sensei took her out of the equation ages ago to allow Negi to power up without having Asuna be there nullifying all incoming attacks.
Now, what does this mean for the current story?
Well, it seems to me that Asuna could literally cancel all of the Fates with her artifact as they are mere magical constructs. I honestly don’t see how many people could stand against her IF she has her artifact. I’d guess that she doesn’t have it though I’m sure there’s a way to get her a new card if that’s the case.
So in my mind, baring more Akamatsu-sensei twists, Asuna gets “lost” by the Fates thanks to Kaede’s cloak. The Fates continue to take out the battle harem until there are only a few left (I’m guessing Mana & Setsuna as their fights were taken off screen; Konoka possibly since she was the first target of CE; Chisame possibly acting as Negi’s continued guide of sorts; Makie just because; maybe one or two others). Negi has his internal struggle, comes out of it, begins battling all the Fates, has some initial success, takes a beating, then Asuna shows up and the two win but at a cost.
We’ll see if that happens or not.
Also, Fate had better hope that Eva never finds out what he did to Chachamaru. Sure, Eva will insist that she doesn’t really care. But secretly I suspect that she’d hold a grudge toward anyone who tore her servant apart like that…
I think you are right there.
@SL — I’m not versed in the Dragon Ball universe so enlighten me as to the Cell Saga.
As to item 2, Negi “failing” doesn’t mean the complete loss of the magic world IMO. For me, it simply means that things happen so that in the future, Chao the martian is sent back to the past to try to change it.
@Mister Random — Regarding Yue, that may be possible, but to date, Yue has shown to be able to instantly pull data from her artifact and use that knowledge to “do the needful” such as when she disarmed traps. Of course, she won’t have much time as they need to teleport to Negi’s location even though they don’t realize there’s another Fate down there.
As to Eva, I don’t think the magister gets to use the minister/ministra’s artifact. Negi was an exception because even though he acts as magister to his battle harem, he was briefly minister to Theo and as such, had that rare artifact that allowed him to use their artifacts. So, I don’t think Eva would ever have access to Chachamaru’s artifact.
While I don’t expect Eva to show up on MW, she should play a role on Earth simply to save her own skin. Technically, she already has since she called Ayaka.
BTW, where’s Anya? I’m just asking is all. ^_~
@ AstroNerdBoy — @SL — I’m not versed in the Dragon Ball universe so enlighten me as to the Cell Saga.
Well it is a bit complicated to describe that whole Saga (which had many mini saga’s in it) in a small summary, with all the alternate timelines & future coming into the play. So it would be better if you read the plot in the wiki links below,
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Trunks_Saga
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Androids_Saga
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Imperfect_Cell_Saga
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Perfect_Cell_Saga
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Cell_Games_Saga
The wiki link above divides the whole arc in many parts, it basically starts from “Trunks Saga” and ends in “Cell Games Saga”. You would have to read it all to understand the whole saga.
Only my opinion, but “it would be hard for me to describe what I meant, so go read a megabyte or two of text” seems more than a little importunate. Just saying.
To all those saying that Negi and his party failing is ‘acceptsble’, I don’t think you quite grasp the issues that will arise, should Akamatsu decide to take the story in such a direction.
There’s the possible issue of ‘wangst’, on either side: Negi, because he failed to protect his students, or the students themselves, for failing to protect Negi and to do what Negi trusted them to do. This could go on for chapters, followed by another training arc, followed by -another- excursion, another trip to the goddamn magical world, and seeing as we’ve spent almost half the story in this place alone, the Alba failing their mission would be meaningless.
That will also hardly benefit them, and will likely do away with all of the development they’ve received for the sake of angst. We’ve already had people saying ‘Why ddi they bother trying?’; having another training arc and another mind-numbingly dull second Magical World arc would just add insult to injury.
And the main issue is time. Sure, in-universe, they have nine years, even though that’s assuming they escape with Asuna, but the author doesn’t have that much time. Akamatsu said that Negima would run for 400 chapters, at the absolute least, and doubted that it would ever reach 500. Compromising with, say, 450 chapters at the most, we have barely over 100. If it does end around 400 chapters in, we have less than 90. All of this gallivanting and retreading the same old paths can’t happen with such a limited amount of time left.
Am I the only one expecting Negi to wake up, try to fight Sextum, realize that coming back from the void between life and death after getting skewered probably means you’re not in a state to fight, talk Sextum and the rest of the Averruncus series into helping him with his plan to save the Magic World and end the arc in a way that does not scream deus ex machina. (It’s not unreasonable to think that a group of well intentioned anti villains would listen when a valid altenative to their plan is presented)
I am also hoping that Fate will come back and reign in Quartum before he kills poor Chachamaru:(
@Overmaster
There are more possibilities than just “They fail, world ends” and “They succeed, everyone’s alive, world saved.”
They can succeed in rescuing Asuna and stopping the ceremony, but fail to crush CE or revive the re-written people. In other words, an inconclusive battle where one side or the other is forced to disengage and retreat with only some of it’s objective accomplished.
For example, if CE was forced to retreat to the demon world, it could easily be used for a final arc that explains Poyo and Zazie, and answers the question of what became of Nagi and Arika.
@Astronerdboy
Assuming you haven’t had time to read the links, here’s the short version.
The Cell Saga in Dragonball involved time travel. Trunks, the son of the main character’s arch-rival Vegeta traveled back in time to warn the main character Goku that he was going to die of a rare heart disease. After his death, a pair of androids built by an otherwise vanquished old enemy of Goku’s would be activated, and with Goku who was inarguably the strongest at the time already dead, they would lay waste to the world, killing all that opposed them etc. To prevent this, Trunks brought along the cure to the disease.
It turned out that Trunks’ time travel did not change the future, it merely created a parallel timeline, and he returned to the past again to find a way to defeat the androids so he could defeat them in his own time.
While battling the androids, Goku, Trunks and the group encountered Cell, the genetically engineered last creation of the scientist that had created the androids. He was created to be complete after absorbing the androids, but did not awaken until just after Trunks had destroyed the androids in his timeline. So he ambushed Trunks as he prepared to go tell everyone his timeline was saved, stole his time machine, and returned to a time where the androids still existed.
The upshot of all this was that time travel resulted in three separate timelines. One in which the world was in ruins, the androids and Trunks were dead, and Cell had departed to the past. A second in which the world was in ruins, the androids were dead, and Trunks killed Cell when he attempted to steal the time machine. And the third timeline which was the main series, in which the androids were stopped, Cell was destroyed as a larve, and Cell from the future was also destroyed.
@Overmaster
There are more possibilities than just “They fail, world ends” and “They succeed, everyone’s alive, world saved.”
They can succeed in rescuing Asuna and stopping the ceremony, but fail to crush CE or revive the re-written people. In other words, an inconclusive battle where one side or the other is forced to disengage and retreat with only some of it’s objective accomplished.
For example, if CE was forced to retreat to the demon world, it could easily be used for a final arc that explains Poyo and Zazie, and answers the question of what became of Nagi and Arika.
@Astronerdboy
Assuming you haven’t had time to read the links, here’s the short version.
The Cell Saga in Dragonball involved time travel. Trunks, the son of the main character’s arch-rival Vegeta traveled back in time to warn the main character Goku that he was going to die of a rare heart disease. After his death, a pair of androids built by an otherwise vanquished old enemy of Goku’s would be activated, and with Goku who was inarguably the strongest at the time already dead, they would lay waste to the world, killing all that opposed them etc. To prevent this, Trunks brought along the cure to the disease.
It turned out that Trunks’ time travel did not change the future, it merely created a parallel timeline, and he returned to the past again to find a way to defeat the androids so he could defeat them in his own time.
While battling the androids, Goku, Trunks and the group encountered Cell, the genetically engineered last creation of the scientist that had created the androids. He was created to be complete after absorbing the androids, but did not awaken until just after Trunks had destroyed the androids in his timeline. So he ambushed Trunks as he prepared to go tell everyone his timeline was saved, stole his time machine, and returned to a time where the androids still existed.
The upshot of all this was that time travel resulted in three separate timelines. One in which the world was in ruins, the androids and Trunks were dead, and Cell had departed to the past. A second in which the world was in ruins, the androids were dead, and Trunks killed Cell when he attempted to steal the time machine. And the third timeline which was the main series, in which the androids were stopped, Cell was destroyed as a larve, and Cell from the future was also destroyed.
@Overmaster
There are more possibilities than just “They fail, world ends” and “They succeed, everyone’s alive, world saved.”
They can succeed in rescuing Asuna and stopping the ceremony, but fail to crush CE or revive the re-written people. In other words, an inconclusive battle where one side or the other is forced to disengage and retreat with only some of it’s objective accomplished.
For example, if CE was forced to retreat to the demon world, it could easily be used for a final arc that explains Poyo and Zazie, and answers the question of what became of Nagi and Arika.
@Astronerdboy
Assuming you haven’t had time to read the links, here’s the short version.
The Cell Saga in Dragonball involved time travel. Trunks, the son of the main character’s arch-rival Vegeta traveled back in time to warn the main character Goku that he was going to die of a rare heart disease. After his death, a pair of androids built by an otherwise vanquished old enemy of Goku’s would be activated, and with Goku who was inarguably the strongest at the time already dead, they would lay waste to the world, killing all that opposed them etc. To prevent this, Trunks brought along the cure to the disease.
It turned out that Trunks’ time travel did not change the future, it merely created a parallel timeline, and he returned to the past again to find a way to defeat the androids so he could defeat them in his own time.
While battling the androids, Goku, Trunks and the group encountered Cell, the genetically engineered last creation of the scientist that had created the androids. He was created to be complete after absorbing the androids, but did not awaken until just after Trunks had destroyed the androids in his timeline. So he ambushed Trunks as he prepared to go tell everyone his timeline was saved, stole his time machine, and returned to a time where the androids still existed.
The upshot of all this was that time travel resulted in three separate timelines. One in which the world was in ruins, the androids and Trunks were dead, and Cell had departed to the past. A second in which the world was in ruins, the androids were dead, and Trunks killed Cell when he attempted to steal the time machine. And the third timeline which was the main series, in which the androids were stopped, Cell was destroyed as a larve, and Cell from the future was also destroyed.
@Astronerdboy
Assuming you haven’t had time to read the links, here’s the short version.
The Cell Saga in Dragonball involved time travel. Trunks, the son of the main character’s arch-rival Vegeta traveled back in time to warn the main character Goku that he was going to die of a rare heart disease. After his death, a pair of androids built by an otherwise vanquished old enemy of Goku’s would be activated, and with Goku who was inarguably the strongest at the time already dead, they would lay waste to the world, killing all that opposed them etc. To prevent this, Trunks brought along the cure to the disease.
It turned out that Trunks’ time travel did not change the future, it merely created a parallel timeline, and he returned to the past again to find a way to defeat the androids so he could defeat them in his own time.
While battling the androids, Goku, Trunks and the group encountered Cell, the genetically engineered last creation of the scientist that had created the androids. He was created to be complete after absorbing the androids, but did not awaken until just after Trunks had destroyed the androids in his timeline. So he ambushed Trunks as he prepared to go tell everyone his timeline was saved, stole his time machine, and returned to a time where the androids still existed.
The upshot of all this was that time travel resulted in three separate timelines. One in which the world was in ruins, the androids and Trunks were dead, and Cell had departed to the past. A second in which the world was in ruins, the androids were dead, and Trunks killed Cell when he attempted to steal the time machine. And the third timeline which was the main series, in which the androids were stopped, Cell was destroyed as a larve, and Cell from the future was also destroyed.
The Anonymnous two posts babove mine nailed it. Akamatsu is becoming slower as he gets older, and trying to draw the situation that much longer would be a horrible mistake. He just can’t follow that long drawn pace anymore, and it’s clear the general storyline would stall to hideous levels because of it.
ANB- The proper payoff for all of Ala Alba’s efforts would be exactly PREVENTING the bad future Chao hails from. If they fail at it, pretty much the overall general point of the series is shattered. And hoping for it to happen is just cruel.
And the problem with all the heroic sacrifices so far is they’ve proved to be rather useless. Sayo sacrifices herself to save Nodoka, then Nodoka is taken down regardless, and so on. Kaede sacrifices herself to give the Key to Yue, but Yue can’t outrace an Averruncus before he catches her up. Heck, even if Natsumi shows up to chide her, Quintum can just bombard the whole area at random until he hits them. It’s just a series of pointless efforts one after another.
And you’re really hoping for a repeat of Kyoto? Where Eva has to save them AGAIN? What happened to character progression? At which point Ala Alba’s going to be able to fend off by themselves? Aren’t we already well enough into the story for it? The Deus Ex Machina that logically worked near the story’s beginning becomes just insulting if used again here.
Complete Raw for this chapter is out in the usual place.
What is the usual place?
I think Natsumi is hidden too?
For my opinion on comparisons to Bleach, I haven’t gotten bored of this as quickly , I did lose interest in Bleach quite quickly. Although if Akamatsu-sensei loses reader interest, he should be accused of making a bad weekly story (which is a problem because it is in a weekly magazine), I think that Negima! as a story should be judged at its end. From what I understand Akamatsu-sensei wanted to write a shounen battle series. The main ways in which he distinguishes himself are:
-text-heavy stories
-humour
-tributes (sometimes even parody)
-fanservice
It’s possible that in between the Aliens tribute and a whole bunch that I’ve probably missed (I wouldn’t be surprised if the bomb bees are a tribute to Inuyasha or to a video game—Secret of Mana?), there is a Bleach tribute as well.
Happy New Year!
@Curious Fan — visit the AQS forums. They always post the links there.