Mahou Sensei Negima – You Can’t Stay Young Forever (unless you’re Eva)

…and now Negi, I guess.

You would have gotten it faster if not for all those "research breaks".

I’ve mentioned a few times when I thought a series was concluding or moving toward some sort of ending. Even though the only series I read with a definite finale set is Bokura ga Ita, I’m also reading a lot of manga that feel like they’re reaching their climax. I’ve said a few times that Deadman Wonderland should be finished before the year is up, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Rosario + Vampire was in its final arc as well. For quite some time I’ve wondered if Negima was going to be finishing soon. It certainly feels like the story only has one arc left to tell, but considering how long the previous arcs have been and how much we still have to resolve, it’s still difficult to tell how far away the last chapter is. Even so, I can already see that steps are being taken toward that eventual end, and nowhere has this been more obvious then here.

Midway through this chapter we ended up skipping forward five months. This is obviously not meant to function as a standard shonen timeskip, since the purpose is not about beginning new stories as much as finishing them. I was honestly very surprised to see Asuna being given her diploma all of a sudden. I assumed the story would end around the time the girls graduate, but to see it actually happening is much different from just believing it would. It’s one of the bigger signs that we’re approaching the climax of the series because we now have irrevocable proof that things are changing. Even the increased emphasis on Negi’s relationship issues wasn’t enough to show the progress of the series, since nothing permanent and definitive really happens in those scenes.

Now we have an actual statement by the series that shows how far things have come, and how little time there is left. Of course there’s still no way of knowing how far away that ending is, but I’m glad the series has set its intentions in stone. I can’t see any way it can back out of concluding now. With any luck, this means we should get some answers to the questions that have been in this manga since the beginning. I know it will be sad when things finally do end, but I’m still looking forward to what the rest of the series will be like.

—

Oh, and for those who didn’t hear, I’m trying something different with the discussion titles for now. Hopefully I won’t run out of good names in a week or two.