June 8th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy 魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 34
Negima! Manga Volume 34
–> BUY FROM RIGHTSTUF!
–> Purchase from BUY.COM
–> Purchase from BARNES & NOBLE
–> Purchase Japanese Regular tankoubon from YesAsia!
For detailed chapter summaries of Negima! Volume 34 with chapter reviews, look below.
- Chapter 305
- Chapter 306
- Chapter 307
- Chapter 308
- Chapter 309
- Chapter 310
- Chapter 311
- Chapter 312
- Chapter 313
- Chapter 314
Highlights of the story feature Negi briefly falling, the rescue attempt of Asuna as well as the capture of the Great Grand Master Key, the arrival of other Fate-type beings for other elements (fire, water, and air), the loss of several important characters, and then Negi making an expected comeback.
The story is pretty rapid in its pacing with the endgame afoot. With Negi removed from the action for a time, it allows other characters to have a chance to shine, which was nice. Akamatsu-sensei even manages to get a tribute to the movie Aliens, which was a doubly nice treat.
Overall, at this point, I was really digging the story, and things are rapidly pointing to a final conflict between Fate and Negi since both are up and on approach, but have to take time to take out the trash before they can get to each other. Reading this on a week-to-week basis felt like forever, but as usual, reading the chapters all at once makes one realize how fast things are happening within the confines of the story.
When this volume was released in Japan, it helped market the then forthcoming double feature movies for both Negima! and Hayate the Combat Butler (which is a franchise sadly overlooked in the US for some reason).
On the Kodansha Comics side of things, they again give fans the middle finger by REFUSING to include the cover art and notes from Akamatsu-sensei. GAH! This is REALLY getting me angry. There is absolutely NO REASON to not include these things that Del Rey always included. Akamatsu-sensei provides some interesting thoughts with this art, and I think Kodansha Comics are a bunch of to do what they are doing to fans who are SUPPORTING THE BLASTED MANGA!
I normally never pay attention to things outside of the actual contents and the extras of a manga, but Bryce noted in his review that the Table of Contents have the last two chapters out of order, and that the manga no longer has the honorific definitions that had been standard for Del Rey. Oh yeah, the quality is FLYING HIGH at the AWESOME Kodansha Comics. I’m SO FREAKING GLAD they kicked Del Rey to the curve for such awesomeness. *_*
Another thing that angered me was how Kodansha Comics, who can’t be bothered with decent quality control, who can’t be bothered with including the line art, and who could NEVER be bothered to put up the clean versions of BOTH covers from Japan as an extra found they could do a 2-page color ad for some crappy-looking manga I’ve never heard of. Guess what manga I WON’T be buying, Kodansha Comics? That manga plus a few other titles I had been purchasing (I’ll keep buying Fairy Tail for now).
There are three translator notes (don’t know if the Twins put in more or not) as well as an omake on the pactio cards and the class roster.
While the story content of the manga is good, Kodansha Comics pretty much treats the release like crap.
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It’s gotten to the point where I wish Kodansha would have some outlet for communication here.
They probably don’t have the staff for it. Kodansha Comics seems to be in business to cut their own costs. They should have let Del Rey run things and all would have been well, but as they did before, Kodansha seems bent of failing.
Apparently volume 35 is starting to look better… They printed the line art (surprise!) and to boot had some previous manga covers inside this volume. This gave me a mixed reaction. Whether it was worth volume 34 being crap is up to you. Also, they have their honorific page again… YAY!
Yeah, and thanks for the heads up on that. I’ll try to get a review up soon.
@Zeether: they probably do not care, considering that out of the three series I get from them, Negima! was the worst release this time around.
Thanks, AstroNerdBoy, for linking to my review.
Credit where credit is due. ^_^
*sigh* Well ain’t that disappointing… -_-
Yep.
I actually think this is the volume where the series jumps the shark. I mean, it’s when the Averrunci clones show up, right?
Yeah, but that wasn’t a shark jumping moment for me. After all, it was established a long time back that (1) there were more than one Fate and (2) Fate was of the element earth. Thus, the fact that there were other clones made sense to me, one for the other elements.
You know, I was really excited to get volume 31 since it had Asuna being on the back cover, whic meant Akamatsu character note extra’s! (Since they were one personal reason + favourite of mine to buy the manga’s)…..only to be dissapointed when KC ‘didn’t add it in.
Our only hope seems to be if they add the rest of the (from the pattern we’re getting) character notes that haven’t been shown, will instead be added in KC english edition volume 38. I just honestly don’t understand why they are doing this.
>I just honestly don’t understand why they are doing this.
Nor I, and it really has me angered.
Sigh, I wish Del Rey was still doing this. At first, I was happy Kodansha Comics take over cause we might get the specials stuff like the Pactio cards or the OAD. But, now we get less stuff. I will still support this title
Me too. Kodansha failed on their last attempt to run things in the U.S., and they look to be on their way to failure here except that Sailor Moon may keep them afloat for a while.
I do miss the extra stuff that used to be inside the Del Ray releases. Maybe they’ll put them back in the omnibuses or are they just going to be more about the translations and copypasta the extras that were already there?
Or is it just the fact that considering the manga series is over, they’re just going ahead and releasing the volumes as fast as possible to get it over with?
Well, Kodansha Comics have been ignoring these particular extras since before the manga ended in Japan.