Shonen Beam

[scanlation by Animum Mutare]

Negi is still completely out of the action for now, so much so that he’s a hindrance to their plan. They’re going to have to get him capable of moving, or else even when they succeed, they’d have to drag him out of the place. The plot lends itself to some good comedy, and it’s nice to see Chamo still carrying the ranking list of who likes Negi the most. I’d like to point out that if girls who like Negi would help the healing, literally having all of the class excepting two or three girls would definitely speed things up.

That list grows exponentially

Yue has learned quite a lot during her stay in the magical world, and she’s become fairly capable. Her idea makes a lot of sense and is pretty creative, while solving what did seem like a major problem. That aside, I’m still not sure how I feel about the plan as a whole. Fate doesn’t seem like the kind of enemy that you can just sneak past, and that anti-magical field seems like it should extend more than far enough for him to have a healthy amount of time to trash everyone in the party. That is assuming, of course, that Negi stays comatose, which he won’t.

I’m not sure I like the idea of the whole “no one dies” thing. Sure, it is Negima, so I’m not expecting Fate to off a bunch of cute girls from the class. Do we need to be explicitly told that no one will die, they’ll just be sent to dream world? I don’t think so. It somewhat subtracts from the gravity of the situation. I guess it is enough to know that if they fail and are sent to the dream world, the erase of the magical world would be pretty much guaranteed, which means the failure of Negi’s plan, whatever it may have been.

Fate being literally face to face with the group is a very intense moment. True to his character, he must have sensed that something was up, because he randomly attacks the area our heroes are on. The frantic escape resulting from the attack, and the scale of the destruction caused by an offhand attack at nothing but a feeling, do a great job of showing off what a villain Fate is. There’s a very good reason all the battle-capable party members don’t just team up and fight him, and that reason is that they would very likely just be annihilated. Natsumi’s hat flying off her head as she collapses, and the resulting desperate grab by Kotarou, are just more examples of how well the tension of the moment is being done.

Tastes like haute couture

Natsumi’s resolve as she walks straight towards Fate is perhaps the best moment of courage we’ve seen in a while. For a series like Negima, which has so many super-powered fighters, it sure is ironic how the most heroic moments often result from the most normal characters. Nodoka, who was an introverted bookworm, stealing the staff of the lifemaker and using it against Dynamis. Chisame, a normal girl with no battle potential, being the driving force behind the magical hurricane of destruction that is Negi these days. Now Natsumi, who has no real way of protecting herself, leading the entire group directly into the reaches of the most powerful enemy they’ve faced. These “normal girls” are anything but, and the series would sorely miss them if they left.

Next week is the grand finale of the plan. How will it work for the main party? Hopefully we get the action-packed climax that we’ve been looking forward to for so many chapters.

Final Flash: A good chapter, but it still basically felt like setup. Hopefully we’ve gotten all the preparation out of the way, and next chapter can go straight into the meat of the climax.