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fandomhigh_ooc2007-08-06 01:26 am
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Spotlight on Fandoms :: Mahou Sensei Negima!
Spotlight on Fandom? Spotlight on Mahou Sensei Negima!? *deep breath* Here goes.
Mahou Sensei Negima! (also sometimes called Magister Magi Negi) (and its various incarnations) has a simple enough premise: Negi Springfield, ten years old, has just graduated from his wizard school (and, yes, he sees your Harry Potter jokes coming from a mile away). He's a bit on the ball in graduating, really, but that happens when your the son of the Thousand Master, celebrated as one of the world's greatest wizards ever, and he's ready to receive his assignment for a job.
What is a little less typical is the job itself. Negi is being assigned to be a teacher. At a Japanese school. To an all-girl's class.
Oh, anime! In the true anime tradition, whacky hijinks, unabashed perversion, and gratuitous boob-and-panty shots abound. Don't believe me? Okay, let's consider the fact that Negi's magic is so powerful than when he sneezes, he accidentally blows off women's clothing (just women; how convenient!) and a chapter of the books and an episode of the first series involves a plot revolving around the 31 girls in Negi's class having a contest to see who's boobs are the biggest.
I'm not making this up.
However, despite all that, at the base of Negima still lies a simple story: Negi is a boy, in a completely different world. His father is a legend that he's never seen before; most say that he's dead. Negi just wants to be as great as his father supposedly was. But Negi is discovering that things aren't as simple as all that and the fairy tale of his father's greatness might not be true, and sending him off to Japan was not nearly as random as it first seemed.
There are three current different incarnations of Negima: the original, still on-going manga/comics series by Ken Akamatsu, the first, one-season anime series that Akamatsu was vaguely involved in, and the second, still on-going anime series in which Akamatsu had no direct affiliation with at all. There is also a stage/musical show called Mahorafest that involves the voice actors singing character related songs, dozens of drama and music CDs, and even talk of a new live action series (oh, dear Lord, the casting for had been fun!). All of the series have that main plot mentioned above the same. After that, they are very different, especially the last one, so we'll dissect the differences and then cover main characters.
Mahou Sensei Negima!: the books
The first. The most pure. The best written. And what I work with. There's a theory among fans about these books. Akamatsu earned his name in Japan with a manga series called Love Hina, which took the classic 'harem' style conventions of a male lead in a situation surrounded by females of potential love interest persuasion, ala Tenshi. Akamatsu's other series were like that, too. It was his expected niche. The first few books maintain that niche, but then, after that, they start to become much more story driven, action driven (there are three books in a row that are almost entirely action); the theory is that Akamatsu wanted to do a more action-based, magical story, but knew he could only get it published if he laced it with his usual, expected style.
It focuses heavily on Negi and his relationship to his father, and his father's complicated past, while being littered with plenty of the fanservice Akamatsu fans have come to expect.
Mahou Sensei Negima!: the first series.
In 2005, an anime was made from the books that, at first, started to stay very true to the books. But when the books started down a slightly different path, the anime series took its own path as well. The focus was not, as the episode got closer to the end, Negi at all, but Asuna, one of his students. Asuna, having a very big connection with Negi's father, is a very important character in the main book series, but the anime starts to focus on just her, rather than the book's focus on her and Negi and their connection. The anime starts to go down a direction that the books do not, changing the end of it significantly.
A popular theory is that they threw together a B.S. ending because the anime wasn't doing so well and they weren't going to give it as much as they originally planned.
Plus? The animation was atrocious.
Negima!?: the second series.
Negima!? surfaced in 2006; all the same characters, with slight design differences, completely different story. Jaw-droppingly gorgeous animation, complete fan crack. Gorgeous opening theme and amazing end credits. Oh, Setsuna!
Seriously. I have my own theory that the people who bought the rights to Negima to create this series (and are producing new books for it, too) were simply Negima fangirls who wanted to just go nuts with the characters. Which they did. This is where we get things like the Chupacabra obsession. Oh, dear Lord, the Chupacabra obsession....
We also have frequent stabs at anime in general in a playful manner.
The people who made Negima!? also made the two OVAs, which I like to call "Pure Gratutious Crack."
The inside jokes for people who are fans of the series in these are incredible. Negima!?: Made by fangirls, for fangirls. Right down the tendency to use the crappy, terrible, oh-God-what-is-it? artwork by Yuu Kobayashi, Setsuna's voice actor, all based on a single event in a radio interview where she was asked to sketch her character... Good Lord, do us Negima fangirls love Kobayashi's terrible, terrible artwork. The Setsuna fanbook (yes, I have it, thanks to Ranma-mun) is just littered with it. Great one in there of what I think is Konoka fishing. Kind of hard to tell, though.
Okay, now you know about the different series. Let's get to the meat of it, the main characters. If there's one thing that Negima does not lack, it's characters. Akamatsu has attempted (and done a pretty decent job) of giving all 31 of Negi's students their own personalities and storylines, plus there are several other supporting characters that have important presences. Still, there are some that can easily be picked out as the main characters that you need to know about:
Negi Springfield: Ten year old Welsh wizard who's name mean 'onion' in Japanese, sent of to Mahora Academy to teach English to a middle high class of girls. Constantly living in his father's shadow; only wants to be strong and fight for good like his ol' supposedly dead dad.
Nagi Springfield: aka The Thousand Master (Southern Master in the first few English translations of the books, due to translation errors). Negi's father, gained his title for apparantly knowing Thousands of Spells. Rumoured to be dead. But since it's rumoured, you know it's not true.
Asuna Kagurazaka: Asuna is one of the first people Negi meets in Japan, one of his students, and the girl he is assigned to stay with while he's at Mahora. She is determined and responsible, taking an almost motherly position in Negi's life, and is the first of the students to create with Negi a Temporary Pactio. Which I'll explain later. But she becomes Negi's main defender, and has a few secrets of her own that she doesn't even realize, including a power to deflect any magic and a childhood with Negi's father. Her real name is Asuna Vesperina Theotanasia Entheofushia. Perhaps it's a good thing she never knew her parents.
Konoka Konoe: Konoka is Asuna's roommate and another of Negi's students, a very sweet natured girl who is the granddaughter of Mahora's headmaster. Her father, Eishun, is a very prominant magician in Kyoto, who, of course, knew Nagi way-back-when. Konoka herself has magical abilities that she didn't know she even had until an incident in Kyoto: her father tried to keep it a secret to help give her a normal life, but it turns out she could be one of the greatest magicians to ever come from the East.
Setsuna Sakurazaki: A half-demon albino kicked out of her tribe and left to die because white is a colour of bad luck, Setsuna was found by Eishun Konoe as a baby, and he took her to be raised by the Shinmei Ryuu school to be a guardian for his daughter Konoka, who was of the same age. The two girls were introduced at the age of five and became fast friends, both of them having very secluded lives and not really having them before. But Setsuna, raised as she was, refused to have delusions that her relationship with Konoka should be anything more than a protector and her protectee. One day, Konoka fell into a river and the little Setsuna failed to save her; she had to depend on an adult to rescue her charge from drowning. On that day, she made a pact that she would devote herself to becoming stronger and her training drew her away from Konoka, watching her from a distance and causing the other girl to think that Setsuna resented her.
Which was not the case at all. An incident in Kyoto forced Setsuna to take a more active role in Konoka's life...very active. Since then, the two have been inseperable, and there has even been talk of Setsuna becoming Konoka's Magistra (more on that later), but Setsuna still remains obsessed with becoming stronger to protect Konoka better...and obsessed with worry about getting too close.
Evangeline A.K. McDowell: Evangeline is one of Negi's stranger students. She appears to be just a ten year old girl, much too young for the rest of her fifteen-year-old class, and she's distinctly European, blonde hair, blue eyes. Unsettlingly quiet. Well, it turns out Evangeline's a vampire witch, cursed to be trapped in a ten year old body and forced to go to Mahora for all of eternity...or until she decides to stop being evil and start being good.
There's a catch, though. The man who put that curse on her was the Thousand Master; she could use the son of the Thousand Master to figure out a way to get rid of the curse; how convenient that he should show up at Mahora now...
Nodoka Miyazaki: A quiet librarian girl with nothing too remotely special about her, Nodoka is the second girl to make a Temporary Pactio with Negi and becomes a sort of romantic interest for him. Due to the nature of the genre, every girl is a "romantic interest," but Nodoka is quite possibly the most sincere attempt at it.
Albert Chamomile: Better known as Chamo-kun, he is a perverted, chain-smoking little ermine with a penchant for stealing underwear and falling "conveniently" into cleavage. He is often making rather inappropriate comments about his buddy Negi being surrounded by so many nubile young girls. He was turned into an ermine because he let people know that he could use magic, which, apparently, for the Welsh school Negi and Chamo attended, is a big deal, and gets you turned into an ermine (Negi is always fretting about it whenever he gets close to being caught using magic). He wants to look out for Negi; Negi saved him once, so he's very loyal, and is always encouraging Negi to make plenty of Temporary Pactios to help find his Magistra. Which, of course, has nothing to do with how they're made, reallllllly....
Kotaro Inugami: Kotoro is a manga-only character, which is unfortunate, because he serves an important part. They meet Kotaro in Kyoto, when he's working for the enemies that are trying to kidnap Konoka, a ten-year-old boy who is half-human, half dog-type demon (Setsuna is half crow-type). After a few misunderstanding regarding sides, Kotoro becomes Negi's best friend. I feel this is important because Negi's never had a friend his own age, his own gender, that he can relate to. He was raised by his older sister, and then is surrounded by older women mostly trying to mother him, and I think the friendship between Kotaro and Negi is something that really helps ground him and lets him still be just a kid, because he forgets to do that sometimes.
Takamichi T. Takahata: No, we don't know what the T is for. Takahata is a teacher at Mahora who helps Negi get on his feet and helps protect him, especially since, as it turns out, he used to be friends with the Thousand Master and ran around in the little group of magicians (The Crimson Wing) that he, Nagi, and Eishun Konoe were a part of back in the day. The same one that a young Asuna was also affilitated with. Which makes Asuna's unfaltering crush on the man all the more complex.
This? Is only scratching the surface. No mention of the crazy alien overlord from the future, or the pedophiliac class rep rich girl, or the ninjas or the gun-toting demon killer or the Baka Rangers or the Monkey Lady or World War Two ghost, or the robot Magistra to the vampire or the fangirly mangika or the track-star nun, or...
You get the point. It's a crazy series, with an underlying story of yummy magical/adventure goodness.
A few of the technicals about the world of Negima!:
Pactios: Pactios are a central part of Negima!'s action, especially in the second series. Simply put, a Pactio is a sort of magical contract made between a wizard and another a person that creates a magical bond between them. It's Latin, the action of making a "pactum" or agreement). The magic user is called a Magister and the partner is a Magistra. Their powers will strengthen when joined with the other. When a Pactio is called into use during a battle or training, the Magistra become stronger, which is why the Magistra is usually a fighter, while the wizard uses more distant magic to compliment it. When a Pactio, Temporary (temporary) or Permanent, is made, a card is created that can be pulled out and activated to initiate the power-up. In the manga, a Magistra gets a special magical item to aid them. For example, Asuna's Pactio with Negi gets her one of those giant fan things, Setsuna gets a wakazashi to compliment her nodachi. In the second series, three cards are created and which is used is random: it could be a regular Armor power up card, a Cosplay card (yay prettiness!), or a Suko card, in which the Magistra turns into a random chibi-fied animal (I refer you to Setsuna's werechicken icon. It's supposed to be a Japanese crane. I still insist werechicken). In the first series, Pactios don't end up having that much significance, and they smack you up with everyone's special powers in the final episode because they realized, lol, we don't have any time to do anything because our version sucked, so let's just unleash everyone's Pactios with Negi and shove them all into half an hour and not explain why anything is anything, la.
The most common way to establish a Pactio is through a kiss; a blood exchange has been hinted at in canon as another possibility. A special magical circle must be drawn around the participants to have it work; Chamo is very good at making sure that he's available whenever Negi needs to make a Temporary Pactio with any of the girls. And for the girls themselves when they get around to it, ahem. Negi creates Temporary Pactioss with many of the girls, but other Magisters and Ministras in the series. Evangeline has a Pactio with Chachamaru, the robot. Yes, robot. We think this is a case where a blood exchange happened, although I have read some interesting fanfic involving the two taking advantage of the fact that many Magistrers and Magistras end up together as more than just battle partners. Another student, Mana Tatsumiya, has revealed to have been a Magistra when she was younger, although her Magister has died, and therefor her card is inactive now. Konoka is trying to convince Setsuna to become her Magistra, but Setsuna's the world's biggest lesbian in denial right now and oh-so-flaily about the girlkissy. Which is why we love her.
Shinmei Ryuu:
Some may have noticed Setsuna mentioning this a few thousand times. The Shinmei Ryuu is a school of swordwork that specializes in wind and lightening attacks that is a part of the Akamatsuverse. Not only are there several characters in Negima! that have trained at this school, but it surfaces often in his other, previous series Love Hina as well. The techniques are also used as high powered and expert demon slaying and exorcising attacks...which puts our half-demon Setsuna in a very interesting spot as a demon-slayer. Fanon also suggests that the Shinmei Ryuu characters in Love Hina, the Aoyamas, were the family that took Setsuna in. The shaded figures of those who bring Setsuna to Konoka for the first time supports this idea, resembling them vaguely.
With the versatility of the Japanese language, Shinmei Ryuu literally means "Cry of the Gods," but can also be interpreted merely as "thunder."
Where Can I Find It?
The books volumes 1 through 14 are available through Del-Ray in English. I highly recommend them, especially past volume six, where it drops some of the typical harem animeness and gets into the main stories and action more. English DVDs of the first season are also available for purchase. The dub is horrible, naturally. I cringe every time I hear Negi's awful, awful, awful forced British accent (he's not even British, he's Welsh!).
There's also YouTube. Episodes aren't as easy to find as they used to be, but I don't understand most downloading stuff so, um...good luck?
I....really don't feel I'm doing the series justice right now. It's really something that just has to be experienced, really. It's incredible, although I am biased, but it's expansive enough that, hopefully, the departure of Setsuna will not necessarily bar me from bringing more Negima! crack to Fandom High.
Questions (please, please, please? Question make little Skylies happy!)? Coffee? Pie? arsenic? I'm all wibbly now for Setsuna leaving after this semester....Geeeez.
Mahou Sensei Negima! (also sometimes called Magister Magi Negi) (and its various incarnations) has a simple enough premise: Negi Springfield, ten years old, has just graduated from his wizard school (and, yes, he sees your Harry Potter jokes coming from a mile away). He's a bit on the ball in graduating, really, but that happens when your the son of the Thousand Master, celebrated as one of the world's greatest wizards ever, and he's ready to receive his assignment for a job.
What is a little less typical is the job itself. Negi is being assigned to be a teacher. At a Japanese school. To an all-girl's class.
Oh, anime! In the true anime tradition, whacky hijinks, unabashed perversion, and gratuitous boob-and-panty shots abound. Don't believe me? Okay, let's consider the fact that Negi's magic is so powerful than when he sneezes, he accidentally blows off women's clothing (just women; how convenient!) and a chapter of the books and an episode of the first series involves a plot revolving around the 31 girls in Negi's class having a contest to see who's boobs are the biggest.
I'm not making this up.
However, despite all that, at the base of Negima still lies a simple story: Negi is a boy, in a completely different world. His father is a legend that he's never seen before; most say that he's dead. Negi just wants to be as great as his father supposedly was. But Negi is discovering that things aren't as simple as all that and the fairy tale of his father's greatness might not be true, and sending him off to Japan was not nearly as random as it first seemed.
There are three current different incarnations of Negima: the original, still on-going manga/comics series by Ken Akamatsu, the first, one-season anime series that Akamatsu was vaguely involved in, and the second, still on-going anime series in which Akamatsu had no direct affiliation with at all. There is also a stage/musical show called Mahorafest that involves the voice actors singing character related songs, dozens of drama and music CDs, and even talk of a new live action series (oh, dear Lord, the casting for had been fun!). All of the series have that main plot mentioned above the same. After that, they are very different, especially the last one, so we'll dissect the differences and then cover main characters.
Mahou Sensei Negima!: the books
The first. The most pure. The best written. And what I work with. There's a theory among fans about these books. Akamatsu earned his name in Japan with a manga series called Love Hina, which took the classic 'harem' style conventions of a male lead in a situation surrounded by females of potential love interest persuasion, ala Tenshi. Akamatsu's other series were like that, too. It was his expected niche. The first few books maintain that niche, but then, after that, they start to become much more story driven, action driven (there are three books in a row that are almost entirely action); the theory is that Akamatsu wanted to do a more action-based, magical story, but knew he could only get it published if he laced it with his usual, expected style.
It focuses heavily on Negi and his relationship to his father, and his father's complicated past, while being littered with plenty of the fanservice Akamatsu fans have come to expect.
Mahou Sensei Negima!: the first series.
In 2005, an anime was made from the books that, at first, started to stay very true to the books. But when the books started down a slightly different path, the anime series took its own path as well. The focus was not, as the episode got closer to the end, Negi at all, but Asuna, one of his students. Asuna, having a very big connection with Negi's father, is a very important character in the main book series, but the anime starts to focus on just her, rather than the book's focus on her and Negi and their connection. The anime starts to go down a direction that the books do not, changing the end of it significantly.
A popular theory is that they threw together a B.S. ending because the anime wasn't doing so well and they weren't going to give it as much as they originally planned.
Plus? The animation was atrocious.
Negima!?: the second series.
Negima!? surfaced in 2006; all the same characters, with slight design differences, completely different story. Jaw-droppingly gorgeous animation, complete fan crack. Gorgeous opening theme and amazing end credits. Oh, Setsuna!
Seriously. I have my own theory that the people who bought the rights to Negima to create this series (and are producing new books for it, too) were simply Negima fangirls who wanted to just go nuts with the characters. Which they did. This is where we get things like the Chupacabra obsession. Oh, dear Lord, the Chupacabra obsession....
We also have frequent stabs at anime in general in a playful manner.
The people who made Negima!? also made the two OVAs, which I like to call "Pure Gratutious Crack."
The inside jokes for people who are fans of the series in these are incredible. Negima!?: Made by fangirls, for fangirls. Right down the tendency to use the crappy, terrible, oh-God-what-is-it? artwork by Yuu Kobayashi, Setsuna's voice actor, all based on a single event in a radio interview where she was asked to sketch her character... Good Lord, do us Negima fangirls love Kobayashi's terrible, terrible artwork. The Setsuna fanbook (yes, I have it, thanks to Ranma-mun) is just littered with it. Great one in there of what I think is Konoka fishing. Kind of hard to tell, though.
Okay, now you know about the different series. Let's get to the meat of it, the main characters. If there's one thing that Negima does not lack, it's characters. Akamatsu has attempted (and done a pretty decent job) of giving all 31 of Negi's students their own personalities and storylines, plus there are several other supporting characters that have important presences. Still, there are some that can easily be picked out as the main characters that you need to know about:
Negi Springfield: Ten year old Welsh wizard who's name mean 'onion' in Japanese, sent of to Mahora Academy to teach English to a middle high class of girls. Constantly living in his father's shadow; only wants to be strong and fight for good like his ol' supposedly dead dad.
Nagi Springfield: aka The Thousand Master (Southern Master in the first few English translations of the books, due to translation errors). Negi's father, gained his title for apparantly knowing Thousands of Spells. Rumoured to be dead. But since it's rumoured, you know it's not true.
Asuna Kagurazaka: Asuna is one of the first people Negi meets in Japan, one of his students, and the girl he is assigned to stay with while he's at Mahora. She is determined and responsible, taking an almost motherly position in Negi's life, and is the first of the students to create with Negi a Temporary Pactio. Which I'll explain later. But she becomes Negi's main defender, and has a few secrets of her own that she doesn't even realize, including a power to deflect any magic and a childhood with Negi's father. Her real name is Asuna Vesperina Theotanasia Entheofushia. Perhaps it's a good thing she never knew her parents.
Konoka Konoe: Konoka is Asuna's roommate and another of Negi's students, a very sweet natured girl who is the granddaughter of Mahora's headmaster. Her father, Eishun, is a very prominant magician in Kyoto, who, of course, knew Nagi way-back-when. Konoka herself has magical abilities that she didn't know she even had until an incident in Kyoto: her father tried to keep it a secret to help give her a normal life, but it turns out she could be one of the greatest magicians to ever come from the East.
Setsuna Sakurazaki: A half-demon albino kicked out of her tribe and left to die because white is a colour of bad luck, Setsuna was found by Eishun Konoe as a baby, and he took her to be raised by the Shinmei Ryuu school to be a guardian for his daughter Konoka, who was of the same age. The two girls were introduced at the age of five and became fast friends, both of them having very secluded lives and not really having them before. But Setsuna, raised as she was, refused to have delusions that her relationship with Konoka should be anything more than a protector and her protectee. One day, Konoka fell into a river and the little Setsuna failed to save her; she had to depend on an adult to rescue her charge from drowning. On that day, she made a pact that she would devote herself to becoming stronger and her training drew her away from Konoka, watching her from a distance and causing the other girl to think that Setsuna resented her.
Which was not the case at all. An incident in Kyoto forced Setsuna to take a more active role in Konoka's life...very active. Since then, the two have been inseperable, and there has even been talk of Setsuna becoming Konoka's Magistra (more on that later), but Setsuna still remains obsessed with becoming stronger to protect Konoka better...and obsessed with worry about getting too close.
Evangeline A.K. McDowell: Evangeline is one of Negi's stranger students. She appears to be just a ten year old girl, much too young for the rest of her fifteen-year-old class, and she's distinctly European, blonde hair, blue eyes. Unsettlingly quiet. Well, it turns out Evangeline's a vampire witch, cursed to be trapped in a ten year old body and forced to go to Mahora for all of eternity...or until she decides to stop being evil and start being good.
There's a catch, though. The man who put that curse on her was the Thousand Master; she could use the son of the Thousand Master to figure out a way to get rid of the curse; how convenient that he should show up at Mahora now...
Nodoka Miyazaki: A quiet librarian girl with nothing too remotely special about her, Nodoka is the second girl to make a Temporary Pactio with Negi and becomes a sort of romantic interest for him. Due to the nature of the genre, every girl is a "romantic interest," but Nodoka is quite possibly the most sincere attempt at it.
Albert Chamomile: Better known as Chamo-kun, he is a perverted, chain-smoking little ermine with a penchant for stealing underwear and falling "conveniently" into cleavage. He is often making rather inappropriate comments about his buddy Negi being surrounded by so many nubile young girls. He was turned into an ermine because he let people know that he could use magic, which, apparently, for the Welsh school Negi and Chamo attended, is a big deal, and gets you turned into an ermine (Negi is always fretting about it whenever he gets close to being caught using magic). He wants to look out for Negi; Negi saved him once, so he's very loyal, and is always encouraging Negi to make plenty of Temporary Pactios to help find his Magistra. Which, of course, has nothing to do with how they're made, reallllllly....
Kotaro Inugami: Kotoro is a manga-only character, which is unfortunate, because he serves an important part. They meet Kotaro in Kyoto, when he's working for the enemies that are trying to kidnap Konoka, a ten-year-old boy who is half-human, half dog-type demon (Setsuna is half crow-type). After a few misunderstanding regarding sides, Kotoro becomes Negi's best friend. I feel this is important because Negi's never had a friend his own age, his own gender, that he can relate to. He was raised by his older sister, and then is surrounded by older women mostly trying to mother him, and I think the friendship between Kotaro and Negi is something that really helps ground him and lets him still be just a kid, because he forgets to do that sometimes.
Takamichi T. Takahata: No, we don't know what the T is for. Takahata is a teacher at Mahora who helps Negi get on his feet and helps protect him, especially since, as it turns out, he used to be friends with the Thousand Master and ran around in the little group of magicians (The Crimson Wing) that he, Nagi, and Eishun Konoe were a part of back in the day. The same one that a young Asuna was also affilitated with. Which makes Asuna's unfaltering crush on the man all the more complex.
This? Is only scratching the surface. No mention of the crazy alien overlord from the future, or the pedophiliac class rep rich girl, or the ninjas or the gun-toting demon killer or the Baka Rangers or the Monkey Lady or World War Two ghost, or the robot Magistra to the vampire or the fangirly mangika or the track-star nun, or...
You get the point. It's a crazy series, with an underlying story of yummy magical/adventure goodness.
A few of the technicals about the world of Negima!:
Pactios: Pactios are a central part of Negima!'s action, especially in the second series. Simply put, a Pactio is a sort of magical contract made between a wizard and another a person that creates a magical bond between them. It's Latin, the action of making a "pactum" or agreement). The magic user is called a Magister and the partner is a Magistra. Their powers will strengthen when joined with the other. When a Pactio is called into use during a battle or training, the Magistra become stronger, which is why the Magistra is usually a fighter, while the wizard uses more distant magic to compliment it. When a Pactio, Temporary (temporary) or Permanent, is made, a card is created that can be pulled out and activated to initiate the power-up. In the manga, a Magistra gets a special magical item to aid them. For example, Asuna's Pactio with Negi gets her one of those giant fan things, Setsuna gets a wakazashi to compliment her nodachi. In the second series, three cards are created and which is used is random: it could be a regular Armor power up card, a Cosplay card (yay prettiness!), or a Suko card, in which the Magistra turns into a random chibi-fied animal (I refer you to Setsuna's werechicken icon. It's supposed to be a Japanese crane. I still insist werechicken). In the first series, Pactios don't end up having that much significance, and they smack you up with everyone's special powers in the final episode because they realized, lol, we don't have any time to do anything because our version sucked, so let's just unleash everyone's Pactios with Negi and shove them all into half an hour and not explain why anything is anything, la.
The most common way to establish a Pactio is through a kiss; a blood exchange has been hinted at in canon as another possibility. A special magical circle must be drawn around the participants to have it work; Chamo is very good at making sure that he's available whenever Negi needs to make a Temporary Pactio with any of the girls. And for the girls themselves when they get around to it, ahem. Negi creates Temporary Pactioss with many of the girls, but other Magisters and Ministras in the series. Evangeline has a Pactio with Chachamaru, the robot. Yes, robot. We think this is a case where a blood exchange happened, although I have read some interesting fanfic involving the two taking advantage of the fact that many Magistrers and Magistras end up together as more than just battle partners. Another student, Mana Tatsumiya, has revealed to have been a Magistra when she was younger, although her Magister has died, and therefor her card is inactive now. Konoka is trying to convince Setsuna to become her Magistra, but Setsuna's the world's biggest lesbian in denial right now and oh-so-flaily about the girlkissy. Which is why we love her.
Shinmei Ryuu:
Some may have noticed Setsuna mentioning this a few thousand times. The Shinmei Ryuu is a school of swordwork that specializes in wind and lightening attacks that is a part of the Akamatsuverse. Not only are there several characters in Negima! that have trained at this school, but it surfaces often in his other, previous series Love Hina as well. The techniques are also used as high powered and expert demon slaying and exorcising attacks...which puts our half-demon Setsuna in a very interesting spot as a demon-slayer. Fanon also suggests that the Shinmei Ryuu characters in Love Hina, the Aoyamas, were the family that took Setsuna in. The shaded figures of those who bring Setsuna to Konoka for the first time supports this idea, resembling them vaguely.
With the versatility of the Japanese language, Shinmei Ryuu literally means "Cry of the Gods," but can also be interpreted merely as "thunder."
Where Can I Find It?
The books volumes 1 through 14 are available through Del-Ray in English. I highly recommend them, especially past volume six, where it drops some of the typical harem animeness and gets into the main stories and action more. English DVDs of the first season are also available for purchase. The dub is horrible, naturally. I cringe every time I hear Negi's awful, awful, awful forced British accent (he's not even British, he's Welsh!).
There's also YouTube. Episodes aren't as easy to find as they used to be, but I don't understand most downloading stuff so, um...good luck?
I....really don't feel I'm doing the series justice right now. It's really something that just has to be experienced, really. It's incredible, although I am biased, but it's expansive enough that, hopefully, the departure of Setsuna will not necessarily bar me from bringing more Negima! crack to Fandom High.
Questions (please, please, please? Question make little Skylies happy!)? Coffee? Pie? arsenic? I'm all wibbly now for Setsuna leaving after this semester....Geeeez.
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*bounces*
And also let me add that when
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