Negima! Manga Volume 29 Review
魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 29

–> BUY FROM Amazon.com! ^_^

For detailed chapter summaries of Negima! Volume 29 with chapter reviews, look below.

• Chapter 259
• Chapter 260
• Chapter 261
• Chapter 262
• Chapter 263
• Chapter 264
• Chapter 265
• Chapter 266
• Chapter 267

Man, because of the delay in publishing Negima! volumes in the U.S., thanks to Kodansha Comics taking over from Del Rey, the events depicted in this volume seem like a lifetime ago (though this will improve somewhat as Kodansha Comics continues releasing volumes to get us a bit closer to the Japanese volumes).  At the same time, when seen in conjunction with the events of the current manga chapters, one can see just how little time has passed on the Magic World even though the chapters of this manga were started nearly two years ago.

Some highlights of this volume are,

• Jack’s battle with Fate’s Girls.
• The brief flashback showing how Fate first met Homura.
• The start of Jack’s battle with Fate.
• Kotaro’s pactio with Natsumi and her confession to him.
• Negi’s pactio with Ku Fei.
• Negi’s pactio with Chachamaru, meaning she has a soul.
• Al’s tea party with Eva, Chachazero, Chachamaru-Prime, and Eishun.
• Negi, Asakura, Nodoka, Sayo, and Chisame’s meeting with Kurt and the additional information learned about Nagi and Arika.

I still am not a fan of Kotaro suddenly being a Magister to give pactios.  That said, since a pactio is the best vehicle for Akamatsu-sensei to use in order to advance on a Natsumi-Kotaro romance (I can see them hooking up once Kotaro gets a bit older), I tend to give it a pass even if I’m still not a fan of Kotaro giving pactios.

That Chachamaru was given a pactio was a sweet moment.  Sayo-chan nearly steals the scene when Negi pats her on the head.  I loved that and hope that she too can get her pactio.  She and Chachazero are such awesome characters to me for very different reasons, boiling down to them both being potential scene stealers.  ^_^

Because my chapter reviews have already reviewed the story, I’m going to shift to the actual volume.  Fortunately, except for some minor, cosmetic spine changes, Kodansha Comics’ first volume of Negima! feels very much like Del Rey’s work.  Granted, I know that Random House is doing the printing here so it makes sense that the books would look and feel the same, but I wasn’t sure how much of a mark Kodansha Comics would want to stamp on their property.

Kodansha Comics is also retaining the honorifics policies from Del Rey which is VERY welcome news as far as I’m concerned.  The translator notes are still here, which is another VERY welcome item.

The “What and Why of Negima! Classmate Edition” is a nice extra here.  Akamatsu-sensei asked for questions to be submitted to him and he answered one for each of the girls in the class.  It isn’t mentioned if any of these were in English and I’m thinking that the English questions come in the next volume.  Hopefully, there will be some note pointing that out.

So, while it took a while between Del Rey’s release of volume 28 and Kodansha Comics’ release of volume 29, I’m glad to finally have this book in hand. Further, I’m glad to see that quality-wise, there doesn’t appear to be any difference between Del Rey’s releases and Kodansha Comics’ release.  I hope this continues as I look forward to continuing to support this manga.