April 1st, 2009 
AstroNerdBoy Negima! Manga Vol 27 (Ch 246) *SPOILERS*
魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 27 Chapter 246 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 246
Summary/Synopsis:
Negi attempts to get up, recalling Ako and Tosaka but begins to vomit blood. Jack tells Negi to give it up since his whole purpose was to just test Negi. While he won’t say that Negi has reached “full manhood,” he will acknowledge that Negi made him get serious for a short time. Hearing this, Negi gets angry and despite severity of his injuries, he stands up before being counted out. He again remembers his conversation with Ako where he mentioned having doubt about beating Jack for a time until Tosaka’s beating set him straight. Ako reminded Negi of his words to her during the Mahora Festival about being the main character of his own story.
Back in the arena, an injured Kotaro joins Negi, asking whether Negi should use Konoka’s healing artifact. Negi refuses and asks about Kotaro’s injuries. Kotaro says that as soon as he transforms, he’ll be fine. As the two take a stance, Jack realizes that even though Negi had surprised him with the Raisoku Shundou technique, Negi has something more. Meanwhile, Negi asks Kotaro for 43-seconds to prepare for his next surprise. He apologizes for using Kotaro, but Kotaro reminds him that being in a supporting role is something he’s done before. With that, he attacks and Kagetarou launches a counter-attack to defend. However, Negi has given Kotaro his artifact and remote-activated it so that Asuna’s sword shield’s Kotaro from the attack, allowing Kotaro to make a full transformation to beast mode — Garyuu Inugamiryuu Juuka Ougi — “Kuon Eisou.”
With Kagetarou’s attack neutralized, Kotaro literally slams and pins Kagetarou to the wall with Asuna’s sword. Jack Rakan gets involved, so Kotaro launches a ranged attack to slow Jack down, followed up by charging Jack and slamming him. Kotaro uses long tendrils of fur to grab Jack and slam him to the arena floor and while down there, Kotaro goes up into the air to bombard Jack with another ranged attack. Jack counters it with his fists and grabbing the fur tendril, yanks Kotaro from the sky and punches him. Kotaro is amazed at the punch and how many of them Negi took.
Jack is impressed with what he’s seen from Kotaro, but reminds him that removing magical beasts is one of his specialties. With that, Jack activates his pactio card as Kotaro tries to survive for fifteen more seconds. At five seconds, Kotaro gets run through by one of Jack’s artifact blades. He hopes Negi can survive the last five seconds and Negi is almost ready with his preparations, saying “Duplex Complexio.”
Thoughts/Review:
Yay, Kotaro! He’d been sorely missed in the fight thus far and frankly has been underused throughout the entire manga after basically joining Negi’s battle harem (without being in the harem you understand). I remember back during the Mahora Festival that Al made a comment on how much tougher the battle would have been should Kotaro had pulled off a transformation. While Kotaro gets defeated here, his full beast mode is proof of just how powerful Kotaro can be. I’m guessing that Kotaro may not have pulled off the form he used in this chapter during the Mahora Festival since he likely has trained himself up to using this form. However, we saw earlier when he transformed his arm into his humanoid beast form that he was pretty powerful.
When I saw the spoilers for this chapter, I wasn’t sure I liked Kotaro being able to use Negi’s artifact. It seemed to cheapen the use of the artifact because then any old smeg head could use it, right? Ultimaniac reminded me that aspects of an artifact have been sharable (Kaede’s cloak to hide the scout team in for instance or Paru making wings for Asuna to fly with). However, using the benefits of an artifact is one thing to me — actually borrowing someone’s artifact and using its full abilities (even though remotely activated) is new (I don’t remember it being done before). Since Negi had to activate the artifact and thus give permission for its usage, I suppose that this artifact borrowing is not an unreasonable thing.
As others have pointed out, Ako looked pretty cute in the one flashback. I’d like to see Ako and Negi meet up after the fight. I’ve changed my mind and think that Negi will actually win this match.
Jack again teases with Negi’s mother. That’s the one weak point in my Negi=Nagi theory — does Negi have a mother? If Nagi became Negi, did he become “reborn?” If I can find some time to write that theory article, I will acknowledge this aspect as the weakness in the theory.
Can’t wait to see Negi’s third ace. ^_^ Hope to have spoilers up Friday or Saturday.
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I’ll just say, reading your posts on Negima, convinced me to give the manga a shot, and I caught up with it. It’s now one of my favorites.
I’m really hoping that Duplex Complexio will be awesome
duplex complexio basically means double envelopment
this was such a great chapter. Cute ako, bad ass fighting. I still hope Rakan wins but is killed by Fate.
Completely awesome chapter! Kotaro looks so bloody cool!
@Tekky99 — Glad you joined the Negima! crowd. ^_^
@Mastermack0 — Whoa! Fate kill Jack, eh? ^_^;;; We’ll see.
@Anon2 — With “bloody,” did you intend a pun? *lol*
Ok i want to say this for a long time now. I think that shadow user guy next to Ranka( for got the name srry) and Takane.D.Goodman from Mahora fest (sound like Monkey D. Luffy to me) have some kind of link between each other. I think he is her father but will that what i just gussing What u think AstroNerdBoy?
oh and I want to see Negi go berserk next chapter or maybe after fight or maybe after defeat fate.
Srry for my poor language
just add few more thing look at the mask he wearing it look just the same as the Shadow army(i dont know how to call her spell) mask of Takane.D.Goodman that she use as her minion.
Oh lastly I just sing in google blogger just to post comment to ur blog easier
srry for my poor english
I like the idea of Takane and Kagetarou being related. Of course, he might be related somehow to another person with a teardrop on her face. ^_~
Takane is on the Magic World. Maybe she’ll turn up at tournament’s end and see Kagetaro.
Well, it was Negi who summoned the sword anyway, not Kotaro, even if Kotaro was the one holding it. So it’s not exactly Kotaro who used the card….
As for Rakan provoking Negi with his words (intentionally or not), what can one expect? Seems like he reverted to idiot mode that moment, but then again, since he knows how insecure about himself Negi can be, making such a blunder as that isn’t really so surprising. He might’ve thought he was actually praising Negi there (although “praising”, in Rakan terms is “insulting” for normal/lower-level people)
Lol Rakan being killed by Fate? I don’t wanna see that.
I’m kinda sad because it seems the story is coming to an end. Either the Magic World arc will be elongated FOREVAR or the series will end until the Fate threat is neutralized.
But if the Magic World arc is elongated FOREVAR, I’d be disappointed since you wouldn’t get to see any of the other chracters back in Japan anymore…
But if the Magic World arc does wrap up, I don’t see how Ken could continue the story since Negi beating Fate = Powerful as can be(Pretty much)
I really don’t think Takane and Kagetarou are related. Just because they use the same type of magic doesn’t mean they’re father and daughter. Going by that logic you would be able to say “Evangeline is related to Negi because they can both use dark magic now.”
Anyway, Two things about this chapter:
First, I loved how Kotaro finally got some good action in the fight. Trading blow for blow with Rakan really was something and his new transformation looks insanely cool.
Second, I HATED Rakan’s attitude at the beginning of the chapter. He got so cocky and arrogant treating Negi like he was a child (even though he really is, it still seems inappropriate for Negi). He basically told Negi that he didn’t have a chance from the beginning even though the whole time Negi was considering the match an equal duel. He was praising Negi but what he was really doing was stomping all over his pride.
I hope we see Rakan put in his place next chapter.
Also one more thing on the artifact sharing.
Maybe it depends on the physical form of the artifact. For example: I’m sure if someone else wrapped Kaede’s cloak around their neck, the others would still be able to enter it. But I don’t think anyone would be able to control Setsuna’s Knives or Asakura’s spy golems.
I too have wondered at times how the MW arc can wrap up and the group return to Japan without the manga being over. There are some ways though. For starters, there’s the classic “villain gets away” method in which Fate escapes. Since Fate was working for someone else, defeating Fate (which Nagi did on an earlier version of Fate) doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the story. At that point, you find the person behind the curtain, if you will.
I do think we’ll be on MW for some time still though.
@Ultimaniac — I was thinking about Asakura’s golems. Technically speaking, Sayo is using the artifact as one of them has been customized for her usage. That didn’t bother me because I saw it more as Sayo getting a pseudo pactio via Asakura since you could say that Sayo has “haunted” her. Thus, while Asakura controlled the artifact and card, Sayo gained control over a specialized golem that formed for her.
Now, it seems that Asakura may have simply modified one of the golems just so Sayo could use it. From that point of view, Akamatsu-sensei again would score as a writer in establishing artifact sharing in a unique way which then allows Negi to do the same much later on.
Artifact sharing has been happening a while in this manga. Remember Haruna drawing wings on Asuna in the training scene?
Yeah, but Paru never handed Asuna her card, remote activated, and then Asuna drew herself some wings. That’s what I’m getting at. ^_^
I have to say, this chapter was one of the best I’ve seen in a while. At first I thought that Negi spent the time in the Phantasmagoria (If I’m remembering the name wrong, I mean Eva’s scroll) learning how to use the various artifacts, but since it’s clear he didn’t mean to use any beyond Asuna’s and Setsuna’s (and tha was rather brief), what do you bet he learned: eiher two spells that he’ll combine, or a spell that would take away Raisouku Shundo’s weakness of telegraphing his moves. Also, I am rather pissed that Negi stood up when Rakan said “your internal organs are turning to pulp around now” and then flaunted the Springfield legacy of stupidity by refusing to heal himself with Konoka’s artifact, saying “this is a fight between men”. and then 4 friggin pages later he activates Asuna’s to help out Kotaro. So yeah, cool but aggravating chapter.
I still hope that they will finish
battle
in the next chapter
anyway this was an amazing chapter
Kotaro was amazing!
Sry for my poor eng.
I am only 13
Negi’s artefact looks like a walet. Those things get stolen anyway, why not share it? Lol
Negi’s refusal to use Konoka’s healing artifact made no sense to me either. I’m trying to remember if there were some sort of limitation on her artifact beyond the amount of time that had passed since the injury took place. I’d like to think that Akamatsu-sensei has a logical reason for doing this, but this may be a simple bone to toss to the boys about overcoming great hardships and “being cool.” ^_^;
I’m pretty sure there’s a 3 minute limitation on Konoka’s artifact. But I think Ken just wants Negi to act tough >_>;;