魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 37 Chapter 336 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 336

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Natsumi is woken by Kotaro threatening to come in on her, so she uses her pactio artifact to hide from him. When she punishes him for barging into her sleeping area, he has to remind her that doing such a thing reveals her location, thus he is able to see her in her night attire.

Ayaka scolds Natsumi and Kotaro for being so noisy with their comedy routine, even if they are getting along better these days.  At breakfast, Natsumi is emotional over eating a real, Japanese breakfast, something Kotaro finds dumb. Ayaka and Chizuru are skipping class as they have other activities to attend to, which Kotaro and Natsumi aren’t privy to.  Natsumi and Kotaro run to school and when they part ways, Kotaro promises to see her on the return trip home, leading Natsumi to realize that they’ve been doing this now for a bit and that means something.

At school, not only are Ayaka and Chizuru missing, but Negi and Asuna are out as well. Fate enters with Shizuna, which immediate provokes a defensive response from several of Negi’s pactio partners, who activate their artifacts with Setsuna taking the lead. Kaede and Mana realize he’s not their to fight, leading Eva to be amused by the the new events and for Shizuna to attempt to defuse the situation by asking why they are suddenly hosting a cosplay party.  Shizuna explains that Fate is going to be their new teacher while Negi is away with work and overseas trips.  This leads to a lot of shock from Negi’s class.

That afternoon, Natsumi buys a soft drink, completely enjoying it and stating that reality and Japan are the best. She remembers that the scary Fate is the one intrusion into her reality when she sees Yue walking with a giant stack of books. she goes up to the top of the river embankment along with Yue and Makie where they talk about how they are still adjusting to reality as well as Fate being their substitute teacher. They also discuss how Negi, Asuna, Ayaka, and Chizuru are out.

The discussion turns to Yue and how she hasn’t confessed to Negi yet. Yue protests, but Makie says that its only right since she had recently confessed to Negi.  Nodoka suddenly appears and is very much in favor of this plan since Yue still doesn’t have all of her memories restored.  Yue is all flustered by this when Fate approaches, asking the four girls not to bother Negi since Negi is going to be too busy saving the Magic World. Besides, as far as Fate is concerned, Negi belongs to him.

Negi flies in and apologizes to the girls for not being in class or having a chance to talk to them.  So, he invites them to tea, but Fate says that there’s a problem involving an elevator so the two go off.  The Natsumi is a bit amused as Yue, Nodoka, and Makie are in shock, Nodoka and Makie vowing not to lose to Fate as a rival.

Thoughts/Review:

Ah, a nice, fun, and amusing “day in the life of Natsumi” chapter, only without the ending showing her going home with Kotaro.  ^_^  After so long of being on the Magic World, it is nice being back on Earth, in Japan, at Mahora doing normal things.  ^_^

I liked how Akamatsu-sensei chose the most “normal” of the girls from which to tell the story of how the girls were adjusting to life after their adventures in the Magic World.  Many of the other girls, such as Mana, Setsuna, Kaede, and other long time members of Negi’s battle harem, wouldn’t experience the goodness of “reality” like Natsumi would, such as eating a traditional Japanese breakfast or drinking a soda.  Plus, it gave Akamatsu-sensei a chance to have some fun with the Natsumi-Kotaro romantic stuff.  ^_^

One thing that I’m a bit frustrated by this sudden “we’re back at Mahora” chapter is a lack of a proper aftermath to the Magic World arc.  Even in the Mahora Festival arc, there was a nice, proper aftermath, culminating with Chao’s return to the future. Here, there’s no goodbye scene for Yue and her knight buddies.  There’s no mention of Fate’s battle harem and what became of them.  Heck, Shiori was an important part of Ala Alba saving Asuna but she was dropped faster than someone with a severe case of diarrhea.  ^_^;;;  Frankly, I find that to be complete BS!  I suppose we COULD get something in the form of a flashback here or there, but I would have preferred it to be done naturally.  Instead, that blasted anime movie has apparently jacked things up completely.  *_*

Thus endeth the rant.

Going back to what I like, I loved the class image showing everyone back and emulating the 2003 image.  More to that, I really loved the reflexive, battle-hardened defensive stance that several of the more experienced members of Ala Alba took, even Chisame.  They’ve been through a lot of battles and as such, its nice to see their reflexes working.  I was amused at how Mana and Kaede were the only two to realizes he wasn’t there to fight.  Eva’s smirk made me wish that she’d become the troublemaker that Akamatsu-sensei seemed to have in mind for her when he first began coming up with the series.  After all, Fate got smacked by Eva during the Kyoto arc and I would rather enjoy seeing her give Fate a bit of a hard time.  ^_^

With Fate now the teacher, I guess my original tweet about “Mahou Sensei Fate,” taken from 2CH, was actually correct with the original poster basically misspelling Fate’s name in Katakana.  Its weird for him to be teaching, but based on his chat with the headmaster and Shizuna, Fate is attempting to learn the human mindset, something that cannot be installed into his matrix.  I’ll reserve judgement on Fate being a teacher, though as I said, if Eva gives him crap, that could be fun.

Finally, there’s Negi, Asuna, Ayaka, and Chizuru apparently working on the plan for the Magic World (or something like that).  With Chizuru now being revealed to be from a wealthy family like Ayaka, I would guess they are financing things.  Question is, what exactly are they doing? Will Takahata be involved?  I ask that because Shizuna’s “Negi will have to do some traveling overseas” was the excuse used for when Negi took over for Takahata.

Well, we’ll see where Akamatsu-sensei takes us.