Back to the Vaults: Negima! Magister Negi Magi Review
魔法先生 ネギま！
Mahou Sensei Negima!

As a fan of AKAMATSU Ken-sensei’s Love Hina manga, it was only natural that I would then gravitate to his Negima! Magister Negi Magi manga series. Admittedly, the first two volumes of the manga are fluff, but by volume 3, things turn good. Indeed, I became such a fan, I eagerly sought out spoilers.

However, by September 8, 2013, it became clear to me that since spoiler images out of Japan didn’t stay up long, I wanted a place to save them for folks. Further, since I worked nights, it seemed logical for me to just put them up on the blog. I never thought it would take off as it did, but there you go. Good times.

Still, it has been a while since I last read the manga series. As such, I wondered how it holds up today.

–> Buy Negima! Magister Negi Magi Manga from Amazon.com!

The Story, in Brief

Negi Springfield is a precocious, nearly 10 year old boy from Wales, England. Officially, he is sent to Mahora Academy girls junior high school to teach English. Unofficially, he’s sent there to continue his training and evaluation as a mage. Due to his age, he’s forced to reside in the girls dorm with KAGURAZAKA Asuna and her roommate, KONOE Konoka.

Asuna soon discovers that Negi is a mage. Ultimately, she decides to keep his secret. However, when another of Negi’s students turns out to be the notorious, immortal vampire Evangeline A.K. McDowell, Asuna agrees to become Negi’s first partner, allowing her to fight at his side.

As time goes on, more and more of his students learn his secret. Many of them end up becoming a partner of Negi, each gaining a unique artifact as a result. Negi grows in power, but as an orphan, he looks to find info on his father. This results in a trip for him and his battle harem to the magic world. There, they discover the secret of the magic world and Asuna’s connection to it.

It Gets Good in Volume 3

While there’s nothing wrong with the first two volumes of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, they aren’t more than mere fluff and table setting. Indeed, as I reread these first two volumes, I was struck by how different many of the girls are here compared to when they get their own storyline, such as Eva in volume 3.

Speaking of that third volume, this is when the manga rises above some shouta harem comedy series to something more serious. This is when we get introduced to Evangeline A.K. McDowell and her partner, the android powered by magic and science, Chachamaru. It turns out that Negi’s father captured the notorious vampire, but rather than cash in on the reward, he put a curse on her to make her powerless on a magical front, yet also compelled to act as a guard of sorts for Mahora.

From there, the Kyoto arc was quite good, introducing us to reoccurring villain, Fate. We get a short arc where the demon Graf Wilheim challenges Negi. That’s followed by the VERY long School Festival arc, which includes the first tournament fight of the series. It also foreshadows events to come since the final day of the festival is a fight to prevent magic from getting revealed to the world.

Magic World Forward

By the time Negima! Magister Negi Magi reaches the Magic World arc (with its various sub-arcs, making it the longest arc in the manga), the series is at a high. Indeed, the events on the Magic World are quite interesting and entertaining. Unfortunately, this is where things start faltering a bit, which is more evident in hindsight rather than on an initial read-through.

For a start, after Negi’s party gets separated, Akamatsu-sensei only touches the stories of the other girls, and then, usually giving just enough information to indicate what they’ve been doing. But we never get to SEE this in action, which is unfortunate in my mind. The exception to this is Yue, who gets her own, detailed story arc on the Magic World since her memories were accidentally wiped for a time. Yue’s story is amazing, and I think watching getting to read the other girl’s adventures would have been amazing as well.

Next is Negi’s mother, Arika. Until well into the Magic World arc, Negi’s mother is never mentioned. His infamous, heroic father is all that’s talked about. Then out of the blue, we find out that Negi’s mother is just as famous as his father, if not more so in some regards. That leads to my first major problem of the manga (though it isn’t enough to kill my love of the series).

The Arika Problem

Up until well into the Magic World arc of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, the only parent talked about by Negi or others “in the know” around him was his father Nagi, the “Thousand Master.” I always found this odd, and it lead to my “Negi is Nagi” theory that I’ll talk about in a bit. That aside, it was pretty much out of the blue when suddenly, there was mention of Negi’s mother. Not only that, but she was just as famous as Negi’s dad. What?!

To be fair, on its own, I love the story of Nagi and Arika together, both when she was the royal leader of a doomed country, and afterward, when she’s officially an executed woman who travels with her husband’s group, Ala Rubra. Unfortunately, when this backstory is shoehorned into the Negima! storyline, it causes a major problem, namely Eva.

Early on, we learned that Eva knew and traveled with Nagi in her child form. She didn’t seem to reveal the truth of who she was. Then later, Eva is in her magically created adult form as the notorious “High Daylight Walker” vampire when she falls into Nagi’s trap and gets cursed, but NOT turned in for the bounty on her head.

Further, members of Ala Rubra knew and trusted Eva. Takamachi-sensei told Negi he could seek out Eva for advice. Al enjoyed teasing her, as did Jack. Throughout it all, it was heavily implied that Eva spent a great deal of time with Ala Rubra. Yet she never saw Arika. Eva never knew Nagi was married to Arika. There’s really no way for Eva to travel around with Ala Rubra, become very friendly with them if Arika was in the picture. Indeed, Akamatsu-sensei tries to brush all of this off when Eva learns this information at Al’s tea party. Nevertheless, Eva and Arika cannot co-exist based on how the manga started vs. how it ended.

Negi is Nagi Theory

Although Negima! Magister Negi Magi went the route of Nagi getting possessed, I’m still not convinced that the original plan for Nagi was to disguise himself as Negi and claim to be his own son. Everything in the manga was set up to make this happen.

• Age altering magic was used, initially by Eva, but then via magical candies by many of the characters
• Magical affectation glasses were used by characters to prevent themselves from being exposed when they were in age-changed disguises. Negi wore affectation glasses, though they were never described as magical. But he didn’t use or need them.
• Further, alternate personality magic was a thing from the start, since Asuna’s personality was an implant to hide herself. Others used this magic in the manga as well.
• Since Nagi gave Negi his infamous staff after the attack on Negi’s village, it would require the use of time travel. And time travel via technology and magic was used heavily in the School Festival arc.

If Nagi turned himself into Negi in order to hide in plain sight, it would explain how Negi learned fighting skills and spells at such an unnaturally expedited rate–he already “knew” them as Nagi. Further, it would explain the attack on Negi’s village.

Assuming everyone bought that Negi was in fact the child of Nagi, then attacking the village would be a sure fire method for drawing Nagi out of hiding after he disappeared in Turkey (a plotline that sorta got forgotten). And if Nagi was Negi, then his return would be purposefully after the attack was over, so as not to change the timeline and close the circle.

Arika Replaced Eva?

After rereading Negima! Magister Negi Magi this time, I had a thought. Early in the manga, we learned that Eva had this massive bounty on her head. She was infamous and given a lot of negative titles like Apostle of Calamity, Dark Evangel, Queen of the Night, Girl Queen of Darkness, and more. What title was Arika given? Queen of Calamity. 🤔

The manga never tells us what specific event caused Eva to have her bounty. Indeed, what little we know, the deaths Eva caused were out of defense from those hunting her, or revenge on those who’d done something to her. I tend to suspect that initially, the story wouldn’t have been Arika sacrificing her homeland to stop CE.

Instead, Eva did something fending off foes, which resulted in a catastrophe, whereupon she was solely blamed. Eva would have done it in adult form, which was implied to be the form she gained notoriety in. As such, when Nagi saved the “child” Eva from falling off the cliff, he probably didn’t know who she was. After all, he found it amusing that the evil Evangal’s true form was that of a child.

It would also account for why Nagi just put a curse on Eva rather than turn her in for the bounty or the like. If she’d traveled a long time with Nagi’s party (where she fell in love with him), then Nagi would have understood her and just put her somewhere safe (Mahora), but also teach her the value of humanity, which she’d forgotten. But that’s just my speculation, which fits the facts.

The Rushed Ending

While I still enjoy rereading Negima! Magister Negi Magi, I’m not going to lie. The ending of the manga comes to an abrupt end. After the “reveal” that Nagi was possessed (which didn’t make sense if he were sealed up while possessed, since he couldn’t have traveled about to give his son a staff), the Magic World story just came to an immediate halt. That in and of itself was jarring, but I think most folks were okay with it as it allowed us readers to take a breather.

Unfortunately, after the return to Earth, the manga splits its time between harem hijinks and laying the groundwork for another arc that was not to be. As a result, there were a lot of plot threads left dangling.

• More information on Eva’s past.
• How did Chachazero become ensouled?
• What happened with the Eastern Mages vs. Western Mages plotline?
• How did Sayo get murdered? The final volume of the manga indicates this was under investigation. That would have made for an amazing story.
• What about Zazie? Why were mazoku (demons) from Venus interested in Earth, so much so that one of their own attends school there?
• And speaking of mazoku, there’s the half-mazoku, Mana. I would have loved a deeper arc about her story.
• Ditto Setsuna.

While it is true that UQ Holder did touch some of these things, that’s from an alternate timeline/universe, thus has no real bearing on Negima.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

I rambled on too long taking my look-back at Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Despite its many flaws, including being overly ecchi at times, it still remains one of my top ten manga titles at the very least. It is just a shame that the story got shifted as it did (by Akamatsu-sensei’s own admission), and that it got cut off like it did. UQ Holder just didn’t compare. But that’s another piece for the future.