February 29th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 38 Chapter 353 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 353
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
As Negi and the others are sad by Asuna’s departure, Asuna appears behind them with Future-Eva and Chao. Negi, Konoka, Setsuna, and Ayaka quickly get over their shock and race to their friend.
During the official graduation ceremony, Sayo gets her diploma while Asuna recalls the explanations Chao and Eva gave them regarding alternate timelines, thus making the timeline they are now in a new one where the future is undecided. Chao has a device to allow jumping between dimensions, which Future-Eva plans to use to travel and possibly look for another Nagi. Her reasons for helping Asuna was a request from someone who couldn’t keep his promises. Asuna is brought back to reality when Misora makes her aware of the fact that its her turn to get a diploma.
The class has a graduation party, where Chao is convinced to hang around until they have their graduation trip. Asuna and Negi go off to the side to have a chat, where Asuna decides she must know whom it is that Negi likes. She guilt-trips him by reminding him that she worked hard for 130-years and she deserves a reward. Negi decides to tell her, so Asuna holds Chamo off to the side and he whispers it to her. The news surprises Asuna, but after some consideration, she decides Negi has to confess.
Word of a confession has the other girls coming to get in on a confession, leading Negi to sneeze the clothes off of them. The girls end up using their pactio cards to clothe themselves, save Eva, whom Chachamaru provides a new dress for. However, Some girls, led by Asuna, decide Negi needs some punishment for stripping them.
Thoughts/Review:
*sigh*
*heavy sigh*
There’s so much left untold, and yet, only two more chapters. As such, it is somewhat depressing reading this chapter, even though the possibility of some sort of sequel/spinoff could be there, with Akamatsu-sensei filling in the blanks.
As others have said, the alternate timeline was expected by many fans. So, as I see it, we have a paradox. No matter how you look at it, Asuna should be “plugged into the machine” in the Magic World, but due to the time traveling involved, Asuna is also back in the flesh, creating a new timeline. So, does that allow for the other Asuna persona to emerge from the machine in 100-years or so? (Well, assuming Akamatsu-sensei did bother with more story.)
The other paradox was the two Eva’s being there, and by gum, the opportunity for some awesome interactions between the two is passed over. *sigh* I would have loved for the two to have had words with each other, especially in regards to Future-Eva’s plans to look for another Nagi. However, I understand that there weren’t enough pages for that. If the blasted manga wasn’t on a warp 9 race to end, it could have been done, and it would have been sheer awesome. Instead, Eva just shuts up and disappears into the background while Future-Eva does all the talking. *sigh*
Speaking of Future-Eva, if she’s going to do a Sliders deal, traveling from alternate universe to alternate universe, then I guess her curse is lifted.
Negi’s telling Asuna whom he likes KILLS the theory of Negi ending up with Asuna. The fact that Asuna says she didn’t think of it seems to rule out people like Nodoka, or just about anyone else in the class for that matter. One could argue that it could be Eva, since Asuna says that Negi and the person he likes are the same kind of people, but I tend to discount that since Eva was one of those during the Sports Festival who got teased about being with Negi, thus it would be someone Asuna would have considered.
Considering that Asuna wants Negi immediately under a tree might suggest it is another girl, but that too seems unlikely since there are few girls outside of the class that he’s worked with or knows, and none of them he’s been with enough to warrant such a deep affection.
So, while I don’t think Akamatsu-sensei will ever tell (’cause harem writers rarely do, except in a case like Aoi Yori Aoshi, where the chosen pairing was established before the harem was), I’m still voting for his “oneechan,” Nekane. Despite those Peter David rewrites, it was “oneechan” whom Negi called out for while clutching Asuna (fixed in the omnibus version). Its always been “oneechan” as far as I can tell.
The ecchi sneeze of Negi at the end implies that the entire class may have pactiones with Negi, save for Eva (and one would presume, Natsumi as well). Fuka and Fumika are shown doing the “adeat” thing and changing into ninja garb. Sakurako changes into a cheerleader. Yuuna only has an overshirt for some reason. ^_^;
Finally, I was happy to see Sayo graduate with her class. Still, it is a shame that we didn’t learn more about her. ‘Twould have been lovely to see her backstory. *sigh*
So, two more chapters. I can’t even begin to imagine what’s in store.
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Pretty nice review and thoughts. I’m still voting for Asuna, I mean, c’mon… Negi still a kid, his feelings can change when he grew up a little bit more. Still, Asuna is his most precious person, so the probabilities of her becoming more than that are still high, because I doubt she will leave his side again.
Anyways, see ya!
Yeah, but throughout the manga, they’ve cared about each other, but they’ve never been interested in each other. (Love potions don’t count.)
It’s possible that Negi may be lying to Asuna about who the girl he loves is. It may still be Asuna herself. When Negi is finally alone with Asuna with no one watching he will confess his love to her. If Negi and Asuna really are relative that would explain why it might be someone else that he loves and not Asuna.
That’s a nice thought! Like it ;D
I doubt it, and I doubt that Asuna expected it to be her, since she referred to herself as “oneesan” when she asked him to tell her.
I think Negi probably fall for Theodora (the one he make the one time Pactio with)
Well, that’s a possibility, especially since we haven’t seen what all he’s done on the Magic World since the crisis ended. I tend to think that wouldn’t be the case though.
Why do they have pactios…
I know in Anime Final they…er, uh. Spoilers. But that’s just random.
I think the plan was to give everyone in the class a pactio card at some point or other. If you look back early on before the cards were established properly, Akamatsu-sensei drew an image of Negi with his weapons and pactio cards, though they don’t look like the cards we see today. That’s how I knew that Akamatsu-sensei wanted Makie to get a card ages ago. It just took him a lot longer than expected to get cards to some of the girls, and a character like Eva, it turned out to not be in the cards (pardon the pun). Had the manga continued on, I think we would have seen all the pactiones, and I think Akamatsu-sensei would have come up with a logical reason for Eva to take a pactio as ministra to Negi.
Even though I’m glad that a sad ending was averted, I’m still miffed that the manga is ending so soon with so much story left untold. What about Negi’s parents? Who does Negi like? How are he and Asuna related? What about Eva’s curse and her back story? What about the Lifemaker? Where’s Luna? How did Ako get her scar? There’s plenty of material to fill several more volumes. Here’s hoping that Akamatsu-sensei gives us a sequel series, even if it’s only after a hiatus of however long he wants/needs. I’d even be satisfied if it were a monthly series. But Negima has been my favorite manga for the last eight years, and I don’t want it to end entirely and so suddenly with so much potential left untapped.
Yeah, there’s tons of material, which is why the announcement of the manga coming to an end was such a shock to me. I’m still waiting to see how the final two chapters are done before saying much else though.
I’m hoping we’ll see something like “Negi and Friends will return in [sequel series’ name] this summer/fall/2013!” at the end of ch. 355.
I’m more hopeful now, after reading 354 and after a recent Akamatsu-sensei tweet.
Asuna wanting Negi to confess right then, and that she was able to make the evaluation she did basically says that it indeed was someone in the class. It just wasn’t one of the obvious front runners like Nodoka or Makie, or others in the class that everyone knows loves Negi, has confessed to him, etc. Which doesn’t eliminate everyone that would be a front runner among the fans speculation.
While you may well be right, the problem I see with that scenario is that Negi hasn’t given any indication of it. My reasons for saying “Nekane” are rooted in the fact that she’s the one he’s thinking of while sleeping with Asuna. She’s the one who often comes to his mind (not always mind you). I just can’t shake the feeling (and I’ve had it for a long time) that Nekane was just a little more than a sister-type figure to him.
However, if you are right, I’d bet on Kaede or Mana.
@ANB. Y’know, I can’t remember where because it was so long ago, but I was saying Kaede would be a great match with Negi after their chapter together in vol. 3. Granted, there hasn’t been a whole lot of Ship Tease between the two (pactio aside), but it would be nice if one of my old favorites was made official.
But whoever it is, I’m glad Akamatsu sank the Negi/Asuna ship. Not only would “First Girl Wins” be so cliche, but there’s the whole possibly-incest-of-some-kind thing. -_-;
Well, Kaede is a valid choice, and Negi does respect her.
About the curse on Eva, TECHNICALY speaking; if she is traversing time and universes, but still remaining in the same physical space (the school grounds), she is not in violation of the conditions of her curse. So… her curse could still very well be in place. Note that future-Eva (with Chao) found Asuna where the time capsule was buried (which I would assume is on school grounds).
I’m also really curious who Negi likes (I’m a Nodaka x Negi fan myself)
Been following this blog for years, sadly it took the ending of Negima! for me to actually post -_-
I think I’ll peruse some of the older posts for a new manga to read.
>About the curse on Eva, TECHNICALY speaking; if she is traversing time and universes, but still remaining in the same physical space (the school grounds), she is not in violation of the conditions of her curse. So… her curse could still very well be in place. Note that future-Eva (with Chao) found Asuna where the time capsule was buried (which I would assume is on school grounds).
Excellent point. I hadn’t considered that at all, but it works.
>Been following this blog for years, sadly it took the ending of Negima! for me to actually post -_-
Thanks for stopping by. ^_^
>I think I’ll peruse some of the older posts for a new manga to read.
Well, I’m about ready to move Fairy Tail and Hayate the Combat Butler to weekly status.
This is the worst thing Akamatsu-sensei could’ve done with the ending. We go through years, hundreds of chapters of a great story only to end up with this split timeline crap? It reminds me of a reviewers opinion of an old Star Trek episode that dealt with a split timeline scenario.
These are his words: “The fact that an incalculable amount of ‘yous’ are existing in other timelines, and that you’re not unique, and actually kind of disposable? Gosh, that’s like the most shocking and devastating thing you could ever discover. This episode is so sloppy and lazy that it makes me wanna vomit up sh*t.”
The whole series, we hear how legendary Nagi is, how nobody knows where he is or what happened to him, and how much Eva loved him. Now he’s reduced to: “Oh, I’ll just see if there’s any lying around somewhere not doing anything.”
We get such an emotional and meaningful parting of Asuna only to be told “yeah, here she is. She was gone over there and some stuff happened, now we can do it all again with her.”
This whole split timeline junk completely destroys the importance of anything that happened in the story until now. I have a feeling sensei just pulled this idea out of the toilet when he decided to do separate endings for the manga and movie. In his mind, the movie was probably just another timeline…..
Which Star Trek series and episode? Had you not said “Star Trek,” I would have thought you were talking about CLAMP. *lol*
Otherwise, I can’t say I disagree with you at all.
TNG episode called “Parallels.” Worf passes through some kind of space anomaly in a shuttle that makes him jump between parallel universes every couple of minutes.
If you want to see the review I was quoting go to about 23:40 on the first video on this page:
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-09/
This guy makes hilariously, brutally honest reviews of some of the Star Trek movies and the Star Wars prequels.
*lol* Ironically, I just watched that episode the other day.
‘Tis depressing to see how bad the story was trolling people (and I felt a bit depressed that Negi actually died in the storyline, just not this timeline).
Anyway, the universe phenomena is not actually all that new in Akamatsu’s works because MM is in a different dimension of Mars. I’m assuming that Negi either likes Chao (in a sense a paradox LMAO), Eva (Which was actually hinted from what I can see), or Nekane (Also hinted). I wonder if the last chapter is the confession chapter?
If that’s the case, would it be multiple confessions, or just Negi and his confession?
(Kotaro x ______), Konosetsu (Where Secchan confesses [again, if the pactio wasn’t a confession]), and so forth… (I’m really interested in Negi’s choice of which girl he wants, but there are too many variables to decide at the moment…)
Now that the story is pretty much wrapped up (with only 2 chapters remaining (if Negima has no epilogue to follow up), the millions of questions that fans have all over the world will still be floating in the air for an eternity… at least until the details are answered…
>Now that the story is pretty much wrapped up (with only 2 chapters remaining (if Negima has no epilogue to follow up), the millions of questions that fans have all over the world will still be floating in the air for an eternity… at least until the details are answered…
That’s true. I’m really hoping for some sort of continuation and side-story exploration.
After reading this chapter no less than 3 times I think there’s a real possibility that Asuna might’ve been teasing Negi after he whispered who he liked to her.
Still hoping for a NegixNodoka ending even if ATM NegixEva seems the most likely (her manga pactio card was bundled with Volume 36 LE after all).
Eva had a card with 36? I know there was on for 37.
Chapter Pro: Averted a sorrow filled ending. “Who’s the girl?”
Chapter Con: Not enough details, seems rushed and feels like you got trolled hard.
After feeling the heartfelt lost through the 100 year timeskip, it just feels like you got whacked hard by the fact that they decide to return her to the moment she left, rendering those moments somewhat moot. Why couldn’t Akamatsu give some breathing time by making it 3 days after she leaves (especially since its still a week/6 days before the school graduation when Asuna left). The answer is obvious, its ending, but I still cant help but feel…why?
Heck, so its reveal Negi did pass away, but no details, Future Eva (or should this be considered ‘original timeline Eva’? Head hurts) just says “dw about it”. It also sucked that both versions of Eva didn’t interact, since we’ve since character timeline versions interact during Mahora Festival. I also find it interesting that Asuna’s pactio card gets affected based on what timeline she’s on.
Finally: “Who’s the girl?” We can rule out a few characters now, but it seems its only going to be one which makes finding out who both exciting and nerve racking….AnB, have you about making a poll?
“ShadowOfTheVoid & Ultimaniac” posts: QfT. Damn the fact that Negima is ending prematurely.
>Chapter Pro: Averted a sorrow filled ending. “Who’s the girl?”
>Chapter Con: Not enough details, seems rushed and feels like you got trolled hard.
I agree.
Considering that Asuna wants Negi immediately under a tree might suggest it is another girl, but that too seems unlikely…
Great review that hit all the points I’d have wanted to make…
But when I first read this, I put the emphasis on the wrong words and wondered whether you had a Negi/Kotaro ending in mind. And scarily enough, that would fit Asuna’s wording almost perfectly… ^_~
*lol* No, I didn’t, but thanks for putting it there.
guessing on who Asuna would have never thought of
1 Akira – everyone overlooks the silent types
2 Chizuru – is Negi a boobman
3 Kotaru – is Negi gay
seriously i got no clue except its not Ayaka. Asuna would have freaked.
*lol* A second vote for Kotaro. However, now that this is in my mind, that “episode 0” manga showed that the number one person on Negi’s mind, after his father, is Fate. ^_~
Sorry…it’s Jack Rakan, THEN Fate, then Kotaro. ^_^;;;;
WOW THE NAME OS THIS MANGA SHOULD BE CRAPIMA.AKAMATSU YOU SUCK
Who was the one that couldn’t keep the promise? Was it Negi?
It could apply to Negi or Nagi, when it comes to Eva (and removing the curse).
Chapter 354 spoiler images are out, check the AQS forums for them.
I’ll only truly comment about ‘Who Negi Likes’, since the time paradox thingie is something everybody knows it was kind of… lame and predictable. It totally shows this manga is being rushed to end as soons as possible, which is really sad.
About Negi’s love interest, certainly Asuna cannot be, and I’m glad because I really liked them having a brotherly like relationship.
If it’s supposed to be someone SIMILAR to Negi, then I’m not sure who could it be. I find that only clue to be quite vague. Yet, I made my own guess by ‘eliminating’ all the non possibilities.
First, is totally impossible for Negi to be gay, since Asuna clearly asks Negi which girl she likes (ffs, all the time they are asking for which GIRL he likes). It would have been fun and unexpected that he liked Fate (they are alike) or even Kotarou, though XD
I ‘accept’ the idea of Negi liking someone who DIDN’T confess to him, it seems logical (This makes couples like NegixChisame to be a close guess) But ultimately, after reading hundreds of times the part of Negi telling Asuna, I can see she is really happy to hear who he likes, which indicates is someone Asuna ‘approves’ and also someone who DID confess to him. It makes the guessing difficult, once again.
About him liking Nekane. Just no, and my main reason is because it doesn’t match up at all with the ‘rush to the world tree and confess’ thingie. If it was Nekane, he wouldn’t be able to do that. That also goes for Anya as well. I really think it’s someone from the class. (Poor Anya though, she did make a good couple with him). Ayaka is not either, Asuna would have had another reaction if it was her. I don’t think is Makie either, because of chapter 354. Kagehisa, the boy, is Makie’s brother, and if he doesn’t know ‘the boy in the photo with Yue’, then it means Makie didn’t end with Negi either.
So lastly, my votes go for Nodoka and Yue. Whichever of those would make me happy. I’m strongly voting for Yue, though. I ended up liking her more than Nodoka. I think she also had a better story development, and it would be too predictable and cliche for Negi to like Nodoka. Also, I’ll pinpoint Yue was the LAST one to confess, while Nodoka was the FIRST one (How ironic) And I could go on and on about reasons why I think it would be Yue.
Chapter 354 seems like a side-story, but I admit I loved Magic Detective Yue XD I’m just too curious to see if it’s Negi who came to rescue/save her. Maybe it indicates the last chapter might be a confession one!? AWWWWWWWW Now I’m just wishing too much xD
Of course (to end this LONG comment xD) he is just a kid. His feelings might change or just be false (meaning he doesn’t truly love that person), so we could expect so many things…
I’ll hope chapter 355 has some sort of way to tell us with whom Negi ends. I would be ‘happy’ to just know that, because certainly in just 15 pages or so we can’t get all those ‘forever unanswered questions’
P.D: I too wanted and hoped for the two Evas to interact with each other… would have been awesome.
Real-time, magical communication with Nekane should be possible. ^_~
>I too wanted and hoped for the two Evas to interact with each other… would have been awesome.
Yes, indeed. ^_^