魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 34 Chapter 313 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 313
Negima! Manga Vol 34 Ch 313 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The various Fates have the different groups of Ala Alba in bad situations.  At Negi’s location, Sextum regenerates Dunamis (Dynamis) so that he is whole again.  Dunamis again promises that he won’t touch the group as promised but Sextum isn’t bound by that promise.  Ku Fei launches an attack at Sextum but is quickly enveloped in a cube of water and immediately frozen when Sextum turns it to ice.

At the same time, Quintum has defeated Kaede.  The injured Kotaro tells the survivors of his group to get away, wake Nodoka up, and then have her get them all to safety using the Great Grand Master Key.  Yue takes the unconscious Nodoka while Makie takes the unconscious Asuna to leave.  Natsumi doesn’t want to leave Kotaro by himself which angers him since she can’t do anything to help.  Asakura slaps Natsumi and grabs her as Yue and Makie take off with Nodoka and Asuna secured to their backs.  Quintum arrives and apparently immediately defeats Kotaro.

Asakura tells the others to go on, which they do while she hides behind some pillars to watch for them. Yue tells the worried Makie that Nodoka wasn’t killed by the lightning strike.  Further, Yue knows enough magic to perform a resuscitation spell on Nodoka.  They race a small distance away before hiding behind some giant pillars where they set down Nodoka and Asuna.  Makie tries to awaken Asuna while Yue examines Nodoka. As they do so, Quintum arrives at Asakura’s .  Asakura attempts to contact Chachamaru to have her blast Quintum with her artifact but gets no response and is taken out as a result.

Yue casts a spell on Nodoka that will revive her in one minute and leaves her in Natsumi’s care as she and Makie ready themselves to face Quintum.  As he slowly approaches, Makie nervously remarks on the unbelievability of her having come to the Magic World and now be facing a final boss character.  Yue states how she fit into this world pretty well and remarks on how rare it is for the two of them to have a conversation.  While Yue still has a six-month memory gap, Makie agrees that they haven’t talked much as their different clubs and activities have gotten in the way. However, Makie suggests that when this is all over, they throw a big party in Japan and that Yue’s new Magic World friends are invited.  Yue agrees and the two charge Quintum and lose.

Quintum arrives to find the frightened Natsumi with the still unconscious Nodoka.

Meanwhile, in a depressed Negi’s mindscape,  he is visited by Nagi who asks if there isn’t someplace Negi has to go.  This seems to confuse Negi, leading Nagi to bemusedly remark on how Negi has even forgotten what he had to do.  Negi replies that the blackness on his body and at his sides keeps him from moving and hurts him.  As such, he’s sure it will hurt others.  Nagi seems to go along with Negi’s conclusion because for a 10-year old kid, Negi did quite well.  Further, Nagi confirms that Negi would either die or become a monster at best and that Negi would likely hurt someone or break something.  So, its not worth moving.  However, Nagi asks Negi if it is OK to leave it like that.

Thoughts/Review: 

The destruction of Ala Alba continues.  I know I’ve read folks expressing great concern over this, not so much for the characters personally, but in terms of how Akamatsu-sensei is telling the story and how he’s “chumping” the characters.  My response to this line of thinking is to remind folks that Akamatsu-sensei is doing what he always does during major fights — reduce the number of folks in the fight to a manageable level for he and his staff to deal with.

Let’s go back to the Kyoto arc.  There, the entire class goes on a field trip.  Akamatsu-sensei needs to remove a great portion of the class so that he can bring Setsuna completely to the front and progress the plot of the first attempted kidnapping of Konoka.  To accomplish this, he has nearly the entire class get drunk save for Asuna, Negi, Setsuna, Konoka, and a few “sideline characters” (at least six with Kaede clearly being one but I suspect Mana and Ku Fei didn’t get drunk either).  That way, there’s no one at the baths so that Setsuna and Negi can have their little confrontation before the first kidnapping attempt.  Then, there’s still no one around when the second kidnapping attempt happens a little later that night so that Setsuna, Asuna, and Negi can rescue Konoka.

For the next battle, Akamatsu-sensei conveniently has his major players in the same buddy group and uses an arcade shed everyone but Nagi, Asuna, and Nodoka (with “Mini-Setsuna” joining as well) so that the battle with Kotaro can happen.  At the same time, when Setsuna and Konoka are trapped in the movie village for the battle with Tsukuyomi and Chigusa, Akamatsu-sensei has Tsukuyomi toss out some minor youkai for the other girls to deal with so that the real fight could happen without obstruction.

When Negi and the attending girls end up at Konoka’s temple residence, Akamatsu-sensei again removes nearly everyone by having Fate stone them, including Konoka’s powerful father.  Only Yue escaped to bring in Ku Fei, Mana, and Kaede, whom it is clear now that Akamatsu-sensei wanted to be engaged in Negi’s battle harem since they are still with him.  ^_^  Regardless, Akamatsu-sensei had Asuna and Setsuna fight off the summoned hoards while Negi (with Chamo) went to rescue Konoka.  Then he has Mana, Ku, and Kaede replace Setsuna and Asuna so they can join Negi in his fight with Fate.  Even then, Akamatsu-sensei has Setsuna go off on her own to rescue Konoka while Asuna and Negi fight a losing battle with Fate.

I could continue cite how in ever non-tournament battle throughout the entire series, Akamatsu-sensei works the story so that the number of combatants is kept at a low number.  So as I see it, what Akamatsu-sensei is doing here is no different than any other story he’s done.  While it may be disappointing that the girls of Ala Alba are being taken out, lets face it, where would each of these girls be on Jack Rakan’s power chart?  Would they even be anywhere close to Negi’s level?  Of course not and I doubt that even combined, all of Negi’s battle harem couldn’t stop Negi.

So, while I’d hoped to see the girls of Ala Alba be the ones to bail out Negi, that didn’t happen.  As such, the way Akamatsu-sensei is operating is pretty much what he always does.  I don’t see the defeated girls as getting chumped as he is allowing them to all have heroic moments.  Plus, if the story continues beyond the Magic World arc (which is my hope but one never knows), the members of Ala Alba will have quite a lot of battle experience for the next fight.  ^_^

I wonder why Akamatsu-sensei is making Yue’s memory loss such a specific time period, namely from Negi’s arrival at Mahora.  Since Akamatsu-sensei doesn’t usually do things arbitrarily, there’s some greater purpose there but I don’t know what that could be.

I really liked Yue and Nodoka’s nervous conversation as they waited for the inevitable attack from Quintum-Fate.  There’s the acknowledgment on Makie’s part of never would have believed she’s where she’s at now.  There’s the acknowledgment that the two really aren’t close at all and yet are about to fight side-by-side.  There’s the unspoken acknowledgment that they probably aren’t going to make it, yet in discussing having a party in Japan when everything is over, they express a confidence that no matter what, everything will work out.

Still, if everyone does return home and the story continues, I wonder how Natsumi handles things. She’s been the one who’s had the toughest time dealing with everything and now she’s been left alone, having watched her comrades being taken out one by one, including her precious Kotaro.  Pretty scary situation for her to be in now that there’s a Fate about to remove her.

Finally, there’s Nagi.  I could be wrong here, but I think this was the most important part of the chapter, more so if my old theory is correct.  (For those new to the blog, I have a long standing theory that Nagi needed to go into hiding 10-years ago to continue the fight against CE and thus using memory suppression magic, age appearance altering magic, and magical glasses as an added measure of safety to reduce the chance of him being recognized as Nagi, Nagi then became Negi.)  Whether correct or not, I do think this was the real Nagi communicating with Negi.  If my theory isn’t true, then Nagi is someplace where he can communicate through dreams.  If my theory is true, then this is the Nagi personality speaking with the Negi personality, something we’ve already seen happen with Asuna.  ^_^

Why do I think this is the real Nagi?  Simply in the way Nagi speaks with Negi and his mannerisms.  So, wherever Nagi is at the moment, he’s trying to get Negi going again so that Negi can do what he has to do before moving on to see Nagi in the flesh for the first time.  We’ll see how the next chapter does things to see if this is indeed Nagi or not.

So, another good chapter as far as I’m concerned.  It is sad to see Ala Alba members being taken down like this but eventually, Akamatsu-sensei will get it down to the level he can manage and then move forward.