Negima Magister Negi Magi / Tropes A to C

• Ability Mixing: This is one of the abilities granted by Magia Erebea. Among other things, Negi uses it to combine Thousand Thunderbolts (an extremely powerful lightning spell used for wiping out armies) and Lightning Javelin (a spell which shoots spears of condensed lightning with high penetration power) to create the original spell Thunder God Titanslayer Lance, which concentrates the power of Thousand Thunderbolts against a single target. The true power of Magia Erebea, however, is to perform ability mixing with yourself as one of the abilities, causing your body to become imbued with the properties of spells.
• Aborted Arc:
  • The Nightmare Circus, which might have finally given Zazie some character development, was cut due to the Chao arc taking more time than Akamatsu expected.
  • Toward the end, many plotlines had to be cut short due to the manga ending prematurely.
• Abridged Series: Look no further.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Setsuna slices a ball of iron in half with her sword and doesn't even notice.
• Academy of Adventure: Mahora. Not only does it have a library that is basically a maze with underground ruins, many of its teachers and students are secretly mages.
• Accidental Kiss: Nodoka's pactio kiss happens by accident when she falls over and her lips land on Negi's. Yue clearly tripped her to make the accident happen.
• Accidental Pervert: Happens often to Negi. A good example is chapter 251, where Negi accidentally destroys the clothes of all the girls in the area because he's too powerful.
• Action Girl: Too many to count. Basically - a good portion of Class 2/3-A and some non 2/3-A girls and many non-Mahora girls.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Has its own page.
• Adjective Noun Fred: Mahou Sensei Negi(ma) (Magical Teacher Negima). Although the protagonist's name is "Negi", not "Negima", the "ma" is there to make a pun regarding a dish involving green onions by the name of negimaki^note And yes, we know that the dish's name is suspiciously similar to a hypothetical Portmanteau Couple Name of the protagonist and a particular member of his harem..
• Adventure Rebuff: Negi often tries to keep his students from getting involved in his personal issues, feeling it would put them in danger. It never works.
• Aesop Amnesia: Setsuna has to learn over and over that it's okay for her to both want to be happy and to want to protect Konoka. She learns it at the end of the Kyoto arc, during the Mahorafest tournament, gets an Evil Counterpart that makes her angst about it again and post Magic World she still doesn't get it.
• Affectionate Nickname: Konoka calls Setsuna "Secchan". Setsuna calls her "Kono-chan" in return sometimes, but mostly sticks with ojou-sama, much to Konoka's chagrin.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: Happens on both sides of the spectrum, from the girls' frequently donning loli bodies and clothing to the Akemi-esque way Eva lounges around in outfits that are not suitable for a (seemingly) ten-year-old girl.
• Aggressive Negotiations: Negi and Fate almost invoke this, over whether or not tea or coffee is better. They end up fighting anyway.
• Air Jousting: A frequent element of the series' often high-flying magical battles. Mana vs. Kaede is a good example of this.
• Albinos Are Freaks: Setsuna Sakurazaki is half-Demon, and yet — being member of the Uzoku/crow tribe — somehow has white wings. She was ostracized and exiled from her home and family due to her features, which they saw as an ill omen, and Evangeline speculates that she hides her red eyes and white hair with contacts and hair dye because of it.
• Alchemy Is Magic: Alchemy has shown up in Negima — specifically, the back of volume 21 has about two pages of text describing the history of alchemy and its relationship to "ixir", as it's called in the Magical World.
• Alliance with an Abomination: Evangeline A.K. McDowell's membership in Ala Alba could be seen as this, especially given her status as a Noble Demon.
• All Part of the Show: The Mahora festival, when several thousand Muggles were roped into fighting an army of demon-powered robots and mechas under the pretence of a giant role-playing game. Of course, the weapons used were only harmful to modesty. Also, the fight at Cinema Village. The comment "Is this for a movie?" was commonly seen in the background. This was used in the Magic Worlds as well, especially during the fight with Fate's minions in Ostia. The comment "Are they doing a movie?" is often seen in the background, said by various demons, anthropomorphic animals, and other magical creatures.
• All There in the Manual: Supplementary Bonus chapters revealed as to how Haruna got the money to purchase the Great Paru-Sama: she got rich from selling Yaoi doujins in the Hellas Empire. And apparently, she became a wanted criminal there.
• Almost Kiss: Asuna wakes up from a dream remembering her real name, but gets distracted by Konoka and Setsuna about to kiss in the living room. It was for a Pactio! Really!
• Alternate Character Reading: Spell names are written in kanji, while their Latin/Greek/whatever pronunciation is shown in furigana. The later anime replicate this by usually having the characters say the Japanese reading while the foreign pronunciation is said simultaneously in an echoey and quieter back track.
• Alternative Calendar: The Magical World has a separate calendar, probably because it's Mars. Which does have a different orbit around the sun, after all.
• Always in Class One: They're in class 2-A, then move to class 3-A early on. Justified as Mahora Academy does not do class shuffling.
• Always Save the Girl: Nagi saved Arika from her execution, despite the fact that, as a scapegoat, her death would help mitigate the aftereffects of the great war.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Pactio artifacts, in addition to their individual capabilities.
• Amusing Injuries: Chamo tends to get beaten up, get broken bones and bleed out regularly. Doesn't seem to keep him down for long.
• Ancestral Weapon: Negi's staff was left to him by his father. He started by using it a lot in combat as a focus for his spells, but nowadays it's mostly used for airborne transportation, and to look cool while inexplicably sticking to his back.
• And I Must Scream: The fate of nearly all the "puppets" of the old Cosmo Entelechia. Since they keep regenerating and are protected by powerful barriers, Eva froze everything else around them which keeps them trapped but conscious for all eternity.
• Anger Born of Worry: Chisame is at first relieved when Negi wakes up okay from Magea Erebea training, then embarrassed that she was worried and then finally pissed at him.
• Another Dimension:
  • Mundus Magicus is technically an alternate plane of reality anchored to and templated on Mars.
  • Jack Rakan breaks out of an infinite trap dimension. When asked how, he replies he "just kinda went for it."
• Arc Number: Prime numbers seem to be very important to magic, especially when it comes to the "arrows of whatever." Those are usually cast as prime numbers (or 1). In particular 67^note how many million mages there are on earth and 31^note the number of students in Negi's class tend to pop up regularly.
• Arc Words: "I shall be your opponent," and "a little bit of courage" (referencing the page quote) to a lesser extent.
  • "You could... save the world" definitely takes on a new meaning between when it's first said and the end of the arc.
  • Variations on "Always keep moving forward" also tend to crop up in plot-important moments.
• Armed Females, Unarmed Males: The primary male and female leads qualify. The eponymous Negi is a mage who initially relies on weapons but discards them after receiving training in martial arts. Asuna fights with swords, Anti-Magic effects and Lightning Bruiser abilities.
• Arranged Marriage: Konoka's grandfather frequently tries to set her up with various older suitors, but she skips the meetings.
• Arrow Cam: In an early episode of Negima!, we have an Arrow Cam without an arrow as Negi mentally homes in on his lost wizard's staff.
• Arrow Catch: Kaede catches a shot from an arrow trap while in the Mahora Library.
• Art Evolution: To some extent within the series itself◊, but especially when compared with Love Hina.
  • The general effect makes everyone◊ look◊ older◊.
• Art Initiates Life: Haruna’s artifact lets her drawings come to life. The more detail she puts into it, including notes, the better they are. One percent of the damage taken by them is inflicted on her. Despite attempts to use it to fight she never comes up with anything that works.
• Art Shift: Humorous — Makie in the infirmary after her "vampire attack".
• Asleep in Class:
  • Evangeline usually dozes in class, though given that she's trapped in school thanks to Nagi's spell and is hundreds of years old, she's probably not going to learn much even if she was awake.
  • The start of Makie's A Day in the Limelight has her napping in class.
• Ass Shove: A Running Gag is Chizuru's attempts to test out a folk remedy for fevers, which involves shoving a spring onion up the sick person's ass^note as if having a fever wasn't bad enough already. Kotaro and Natsumi are understandably terrified of her. She finally gets to do it in chapter 348. This doubles as a Stealth Pun since a spring onion in Japanese is "Negi".
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Rakan has a tendency to do this, but unlike some characters who use this trope, he generally tends to get away with it sheerly due to his power. This is also how Fate's minions usually operate, and it hasn't gone too well.
• Attack Hello:
  • During the early magic world arc when Negi has a fever, Kotaro enters the scene with a smile and a punch to the face. This actually has a good reason for once, though, since he needed to make Negi use a lot of magic by fighting back to cure his fever, which was caused by too much mana in his body thanks to Konoka's recovery spell.
  • Haruna's another of the ones who seems fond of entering a scene by hitting Negi.
  • Nodoka intercepts Haruna with a book when she's making perverse copies of her.
• Author Appeal: Ken Akamatsu is really into Cosplay, and rarely passes up opportunities to dress the characters in various costumes.
• Author Avatar: Briefly, in the first anime.
• "Avoid This Area" Effect: There are spells specifically designed to keep normal people away from certain areas, but they can be lifted too when they're no longer necessary.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The pactio cards allow telepathy between users — but in addition to a limited range, it can be blocked very easily. As Negi puts it, "Isn't a cell phone easier?"
  • Chachamaru's pactio is perhaps the most powerful attack in the series, but since it's a Kill Sat it's hard to utilize effectively. Apart from the difficulty of using it in the middle of a fight, it also has a tremendous area of effect.
  "The power of this weapon is so great that I was worried it would be difficult to find any practical use for it... but this opponent should make a perfect trial target. ...Captain! Please maintain a safe distance from the enemy."
• Babies Ever After: As of chapter 355, Fuuka and Fumika were one of the first from Class 3-A to marry, having married twin boys, and both had one daughter each. Chizuru, running a day care herself, seems to love spoiling them.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Negi with Kotaro at first, then in Chapter 294 with Setsuna.
• Badass Boast: Nodoka delivers a big one during her first encounter with Dynamis, and after grabbing the latter's copy of the Code of the Lifemaker. What made it all the more impressive is the fact that she is one of the weakest members of the party, and yet pulled it off almost without a hitch.
  Nodoka: "I am Miyazaki Nodoka, Treasure Hunter and member of Ala Alba. My counterattack starts here."
• Badass Crew:
  • The Ala Rubra. It did contain the World's Strongest Man and his rival.
  • Ala Alba qualifies as well, as evidenced during the governor's ball, among many other occasions.
• Badass Family: Negi, Nagi, Chao, Arika and Asuna. Some of them benefit from Royal Blood magic. If we really stretch, Chachamaru is also a part, given that she considers Chao to be her parent.
  • Also apparently Lifemaker. Which would make Fate also a member in a sense since the Lifemaker created him
• Bad Future: The Eight Days Later arc. Chao's future is likely another example, though Mana claims that the tragedy she's trying so hard to set right is no worse than any of the little tragedies that happen every day. Mana turns out to be totally wrong; the disaster is the complete collapse of the Magic World.
• Balanced Harem: Every girl that falls for Negi gets more or less equal spotlight, Ship Tease and Fanservice. Since Negi never shows romantic feelings for anyone, no one is in a particular lead.
• Balloon Belly: The result of Makie "helping" Negi prepare for Evangeline's training.
• Ballroom Blitz: When Cosmo Entelecheia crashes the Governor's Ball.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Nipples and other anatomical details are never shown. This is lampshaded in Volume 0.
• Bathtub Bonding:
  • One of the most intimate and familiar things Asuna does is noticing Negi hasn't taken a bath again and tossing him into the water to get clean. It's more big sister intimacy than anything sexual, though, since he's just a kid.
  • Negi gets to know Kaede better when he runs into her training in the forest and they take a bath together. She encourages him to back and face Evangeline.
• Battle Aura: Have started appearing around various characters since the Genre Shift.
• Battle Couple: This is what most Mage-Partner relationships turn into after forming a permanent contract. Unless it's between two guys, in which case you get Bash Brothers.
  • Negi's primary partner is in theory Asuna, but they very rarely get a chance to fight together. That said, their abilities complement each other perfectly and together they oneshot a projection from the Lifemaker.
  • Setsuna and Konoka move towards a Battle Couple at a glacial pace thanks to Setsuna's angst issues, but eventually they do form a pactio after Konoka asks Setsuna to work together with her as a magister magi.
• Battle Harem: Over 20 women, practically all of whom have become Little Miss Badasses.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: After tossing Setsuna around with string during the Mahorafest quarterfinals, Evangeline drags her into an illusory world where her powers aren't sealed and wipes the floor with her casually for a bit.
• Battle in the Rain: Negi vs. Wilhelm.
• Beach Episode: The Spring OVA.
• Beam-O-War:
  • Negi vs. Eva; later Negi vs. Chao as well.
  • Played with in the Negi vs Chao battle. One would expect the battle to be won by overwhelming power and Heroic Resolve, but here it's decided by superior battle experience. While Chao's spell was more powerful than the one Negi used, Negi's spell had a shorter incantation and covered about two-thirds of the distance between him and Chao before she was able to launch her attack, immediately putting her on the defensive and critically over-straining her artificial magical abilities.)
  • Subverted in Negi vs. Rakan: Negi pours all of his magical energy into one gigantic attack and taunts his opponent into doing the same for a contest of strength. Instead of launching his attack, Negi absorbs both his own spell and his opponent's blast and uses the assimilated power to wale on Rakan.
• Beam Spam:
  • Negi uses his Sagitta Magica in giant waves, which often act like a wave of missiles. By the end of the manga he has powerful spells like the thousand bolts, but still finds use with his arrows of light by simply attacking with thousands of them at once.
  • Eventually, Yue becomes rather good with magical arrows.
• Beary Friendly: Chief Mama one of the nicest people in Mundus Magicus... so long as you're on her good side.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: When Negi was little, he usually got himself in trouble so that his father would come save to him. When his village was attacked, he believed it was because he wished for really serious trouble.
• Bedmate Reveal: Negi crawls into Asuna's bed in his sleep, because that's what he did with his sister in Wales.
• Befriending the Enemy: The conclusion that Negi ultimately comes to in regards to Fate, deciding that he needs his help to save the Magic World from destruction.
• Belated Happy Ending: The manga's ending was highly rushed and left too many loose ends, including not revealing how the Big Bad was defeated and who Negi ended up with. Years later, Akamatsu finally answered those questions via the Stealth Sequel.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Flashbacks reveal that Nagi and Princess Arika had this type of relationship. He was an idiotic Jerk with a Heart of Gold who always complimented her boobs and she was a no-nonsense Tsundere who had no patience for stupidity. They loved each other even though they bickered whenever they were together.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Played with. Ku Fei made a rule for herself that she would only marry a man stronger than her; though she concedes to Negi's strength, his young age means she isn't comfortable with the idea. When they made a Pactio, Chamo picked that exact moment to wonder why Chao looked so Chinese with a Welsh great-grandfather.
• Best Known for the Fanservice:
  • In-Universe example, played absolutely literally in the first chapter, which features Asuna getting stripped twice in front of Takahata. Despite the fact he's known her since she was a little child, in chapter 1 is the result when Asuna gets Negi to read his mind to see what he thinks about her.
  • Also, Takane's constant Clothing Damage has become a running joke. Everyone just says "Ohh...the stripper" when she introduces herself, and even she's started thinking of herself this way on chapter 165.
    • Chapter 304 Seems to be a Shadow Mage thing...
• Bested at Bowling: Long story short, through a series of misunderstandings, the class believes that Negi and Ku Fei are dating and they end up in a bowling alley with Ayaka, Makie, and Nodoka challenging Ku Fei for Negi. While Nodoka ends up getting a lot of gutters, and Ayaka topping Makie (just like Naru defeating Keitaro), first-timer Ku Fei wins with a perfect game. Unlike Mutsumi, she throws the ball with superhuman strength.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • After Rakan died, he came back to life through his fighting spirit. Then he did more or less the same thing again after he'd been killed a second time.
  • At least two of Negi's Pactios qualify as this:
    • First was with Chachamaru, proving that flesh and blood are not requisites for a soul — possibly by sheer force of will.
    • The other was with Ayaka, of all people, proving that Power of Love can cause a Pactio Backfire if left unchecked. Despite her lack of magic power, her love almost made her the dominant member of the contract.
• BFS:
  • Asuna's harisen eventually upgrades into a huge cleaver when she gains better control of her abilities.
  • Setsuna's second artifact takes the form of a sword of variable size. In its first appearance, she makes it several times longer than she is tall by having Konoka channel magic energy to it.
  • Rakan's pactio allows him to make all sorts of weaponry, including massive swords. Guess what the Battleship Slicing Sword does.
  • Relative to her size, Chachazero's butcher knife is gigantic.
  • Ariadne knights can summon massive swords along with their armor. Seeing the waifish Yue with one is perhaps less intimidating than it should be.
  • For a slight variation, Kaede has a shuriken larger than she is that has to be carried in pieces.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Magic World's wildlife is unusual, to say the least.
• Big Damn Heroes: Happened once in the Kyoto arc. Has happened many times in the Magic World.
  • Kotaro saving Negi's ass near the end of the Festival Arc.
  • Humorous variation: Negi getting saved by Nitta-Sensei when the class is trying to get him to cosplay in chapter 73.
  • Chapter 331: Albireo Imma, Eishun Konoe, the Principal, Takahata, Kurt Godel, and JACK RAKAN all show up alongside Eva for a High Noon style showdown with the Big Bad's minions.
  • Chapter 334: Asuna herself, rescuing Negi from the Lifemaker.
  • Chapter 342: Negi fights Evangeline, both using Magia Erebea. Negi's about to receive the final blow that will knock him straight out. Problem is, Asuna's fan kinda screws up Evangeline's plans.
• The Big Damn Kiss:
  • After the tournament fight with Rakan, Setsuna and Konoka go on a date. While they're out, they form a pactio right in the middle of the street. Chamo appears with a stopwatch and lets us know the length of the kiss was the longest in the story so far.
  • Chachamaru's pactio with Negi involves the latter saying screw you pactio system, give her a damn card already. His eyes were flaming at the time, which may or may not have been real, but was certainly very indicative of his will as he kissed her so hard and long that it took up four whole pages and broke the current pactio record set by Konoka and Setsuna.
  • The second Ala Rubra flashback concludes with Nagi and Arika kissing in front of the sun, while standing on his flying Magic Staff after he rescues her from a canyon full of monsters.
• Big Fancy House:
  • Ayaka, befitting her status as the rich girl.
  • Examples of Big Houses that are symbols of power rather than wealth: Konoka's temple complex, Eva's resort and castle, and Albireo's "house" in chapter 163.
• Bigger on the Inside: Kaede's cloak artifact is not for use in combat, though a way to use it as such is discovered. The actual point to it is that it contains a pocket dimension filled with supplies.
• Bishie Sparkle: When Negi is paying close attention to someone and being serious, it's not rare for the bishie sparkles to show up, especially when in his teenaged form.
• Biting the Handkerchief
• Black Comedy Rape: Typically subverted, i.e. when Setsuna and Negi are talking about avenging Asuna's honor when they find her naked and trembling. (She was actually tickled into submission after Fate's Petrification only worked on her clothing.)
• Black Magic: Magia Erebea draws power from negative emotions and is only usable by those who accept the entirety of their emotional spectrum, good and bad.
• Blade Brake: Asuna uses this when the wings Haruna drew for her don't last as long as she had hoped. Since Asuna has a BFS, she can stand on it.
• Bland-Name Product: Starbooks Coffee, among many others.
• Blank White Eyes: Find a chapter where this DOESN'T happen. Go ahead.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands:
  • There is a spell specifically designed to do this, roughly equivalent to Harry Potter's "Expelliarmus". However, it also blasts clothing off of their bodies, for obvious reasons.
  • When Negi accidentally overpowers it with black magic in the Magic World, it nudifies everyone in the vicinity.
• Blatant Lies:
  • It's all CGI. Honest.
  • During Misora's hilarious attempt to attempt to deny her identity, big glowing letters appear above her head proclaiming her name. In chapter 110, "Geh, what's with this caption!? Shush, shush!"
• Bloodless Carnage: The series generally adhered to this until the beginning of the Magic World arc. Negi gets impaled by a stone spear, complete with enormous blood loss and the obligatory Blood from the Mouth.
• Blood Oath: Implied^note Directly stated in Del Rey's English translation, but it's unknown if this is canon to be the preferred way of forming pactios when kissing would be...unpleasant.

• Boarding School: Most of the students of Mahora Academy reside in its dormitories.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine:
  • Asuna's personality is suited for smacking people, but she's rather dim and plays the opposite role about as much.
  • Once Setsuna loosens up a little, she starts smacking Chao when the latter is being ridiculous. She's embarrassed when the class sees her actually smack her with a fan.
• Boss Bonanza: With all the video game references Ken Akamatsu throws at us The Very Definitely Final Dungeon has one side people fighting the horde of monsters and the Boss Bonanza while the other team performs a Stealth-Based Mission. The diagram on the situation is to be seen on chapter 292. On the fighting side they face:
  • Recurring Boss Psycho Lesbian Tsukuyomi.
  • Time Stands Still Koyomi and Tamaki.
  • Musical Assassin Shirabe
  • Hot-Blooded Large Ham Dynamis.
  • Fate and clones.
  • Playing with Fire Homura.
• Boss Subtitles: Most of the characters get one in chapter 300, see trivia page
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the preview for episode 4:
  Asuna: Hey... what's going on in this preview... *gasp*... you perv! Turn it off!
• Break the Haughty: Several times — Eva/Nagi, Kotaro/Negi (first meeting), Fate/Negi&Eva (the fight on the dock), etc
• Breast Expansion: A breast inflation spell has been used twice — the results are hilarious.
• Breast Plate: Both played straight and interestingly subverted. While within the manga canon, Asuna is occasionally given armor that fits this trope, some of the side artwork includes her in very fetching, but still perfectly normal, armor.
• Breather Episode: The infamous "Chichigami-sama" Furo Scene in the magic world. They even say so in the first panel.
• Brick Break: Ku moved on to boulders once bricks didn't provide enough of a challenge. And when those stopped being a challenge, she moved on to mountains.
• Brick Joke:
  • Rakan creates the Eternal Negi Fever as a (ridiculously over-the-top) finishing move for Negi to use. Guess who ends up using it during their fight.
  • Also, Makie and her lack of worries.
  • Chamo's Ordered Equipment. Later, there is a scene in the background, where some magic knights talk about the missing equipment...
  • "If there is 4 or 5 like him, it would be horrible-aru." Indeed, Ku-fei, indeed!
  • The telephone punch. Fate was watching after all.
  • "I told you I'm a coffee person."
  • Chao Lingshen's Family History.
  • Konoka once made a joke that she can't heal someone when their head gets splattered. A few chapters later, Ala Alba is falling from the sky.
  • In chapter 145, Negi asks Setsuna if she could handle the dragon chasing them. A nervous Setsuna trails off that even with the right gear it would probably take a few days before booking it with everybody else. 18 chapters later, Setsuna is decked out in dragon-slaying equipment just in case.
• Bridal Carry:
  • Setsuna carries Konoka this way all the time, including on most promotional artwork.
  • When attacked by tanks in the Mahora Sports Festival, Negi carries Ayaka to safety like this. She has a nosebleed and claims to be able to die with no regrets.
  • Kaede carries Yue like this twice. However unlike the other examples, there's no romantic tension between the two.
  • Nagi often carried Princess Arika bridal style, as typical for a knight protecting his princess. It was especially awesome when he carried Arika like this while running away from deadly man-eating monsters.
• Brits Love Tea: The British-born Negi takes tea with Fate, and each criticizes the other's tastes in a truly epic bout of passive-aggressiveness.
• Brought Down to Badass
  • Caught in a pit filled with giant monsters where magic and ki do not work, Nagi still sprints on through evading every opponent and making superhuman leaps despite carrying an adult woman the whole time.
  • Evangeline's power is sealed, but even without it she's actually still tougher than almost everyone in the class despite being a little girl. With only enough magic to give her a normal middle schooler's physique she's even capable of fighting evenly with Setsuna.
• Bucket Booby-Trap: In the very first chapter of the manga.
• Bunnies for Cuteness
  • Negi Springfield wears a bunny costume during a part of the festival arc. While he is wearing the outfit, his normally serious behavior is replaced with childish enthusiasm, and other characters comment on how cute the outfit makes him.
  • Nodoka sometimes wears a bunny backpack as a cute accessory to her adventuring outfit.
• By the Power of Grayskull!:
  • The magic activation keys, as well as the artifact-summoning "adeat!"
  • Anya Cocolova: Fortis La Tius Lilith Lilioth
  • Chao Lingshen: Last Tale My Magic Skill Magister (it's possible that it's actually a deformation of Negi's, even an unintentional one)
  • Collet Farandole: Anet Ti Net Garnet
  • Emily Sevensheep: Tarot Carrot Charlotte
  • Evangeline Athanasia Katherine "Kitty" McDowell: Lic Lac La Lac Lilac
  • Fate Averruncus: Vishtal Rishtal Vangeit
  • Mei Sakura: Maple Naple á la Mode
  • Megumi "Nutmeg" Natsume: Rap Tjap La Tjap Ragpur
  • Negi Springfield: Ras Tel Ma Scir Magister
  • Yue Ayase: Vor So Kratika Socratica
  • Nagi "Thousand Master" Springfield: Man Man Terro Terro
• Calling Your Attacks:
  • Parodied by Rakan, including using an attack, named Eternal Negi Fever, on Negi. An attack which he originally developed as a finishing move for Negi and the "For the hell of it Right-Hand Punch".
  • Also of note in that many of the fighters use "silent incantations," so they aren't actually saying anything, but the name of the attack still appears so that the readers know what's going on.
  • There was also the fighter in the Mahora Tournament that specifically asked if this was okay.
  • On chapter 328, STUPID DAD PUNCH!!!
• The Cameo: The Mahora Budokai Arc has quite a few fighting game characters show up in the crowd, such as Athena Asamiya, Terry Bogard, Akuma, Yashiro Nanase, Chris, Hugo, and M. Bison
• Cannot Spit It Out: Everyone to Negi's "Is this my mother?" question. Until Rakan just tosses the answer out there with very little build up.
• Can't Bathe Without a Weapon:
  • When Kazumi is taking pictures of everyone at the end of the trip to Kyoto, she takes a picture of several of her classmates in the hot springs, including Mana Tatsumiya, which shows she was hiding a gun under a bucket and is seconds away from shooting Kazumi.
  • Earlier in that same arc, Negi personally discovers that yes, Setsuna does bathe with her demon-hunting sword.
  • The "Spring" OAV features a scene between Mana and Misora, the latter being shocked at Mana bringing a small arsenal into the tub with her. Mana assures her that they're perfectly safe to use underwater.
• Can't Catch Up:
  • At the beginning of the magic world arc Kotaro’s abilities were generally rated as being a bit higher than Negi's, but come the tournament and Magia Erebea and Kotaro was suddenly vastly outstripped. He didn't catch up by the end of the manga.
  • Anya comes to find Negi, intending to show off her progress. Naturally, he's way ahead of her.
• Cards of Power: The Pactio Cards provide the recipient with personality-based magical powers, which given the Magister's power, can actually be pretty powerful themselves. Anything from a Magical Computer to a giant weaponized paper fan to a mind-reading book are possible.
• Career Versus Man: A rare lesbian example. Setsuna constantly struggles with holding on to both woman (Happiness with Konoka) and career (Not letting happiness make her soft in her bodyguard duties to Konoka) but refuses to give up on either of them.
• Cassandra Truth: Chao's "joke". She even repeats it a few times.
  • Also, Negi's attempts to warn everyone of the impending Festival disaster.
• Cast Herd: Class 3-A is divided into several herds, usually by general interests and/or relevance to the story. As the series progresses the herds combine and mix into each other. For example, Asuna, Konoka, and Setsuna are the main heroines, but they're joined by Nodoka, Yue, and Chisame as the series progresses. Other herds include the sports girls (Makie, Ako, Yuuna, Akira), cheerleaders (Sakurako, Madoka, Misa), and geniuses (Chao, Hakase).
• Casual Danger Dialogue: While Yue's new classmates identify Negi as a criminal and are trying to beat him up, he dodges all their attacks and tries to reason with them "Erm, please could you..." Then he tosses them effortlessly while making them land on their feet and tries again. "If you could all just calm down, there's something I'd like to discuss". Negotiations fail and he blows off everyone else's clothes.
• Catapult Nightmare: Evangeline does this after she gets a fever dream about the Thousand Master.
  • Negi himself goes through this after his defeat and separation from his students at the hands of Fate which causes him to have nightmares of his students being murdered while he's separated.
• Catch a Falling Star: After Setsuna takes an arrow to the chest for Konoka, she falls down the roof of a building. Konoka instinctively jumps down and uses her magic unconsciously to both soften their fall and heal Setsuna's wound.
• Catching the Speedster: Negi Springfield trains and trains and eventually gains a form that allows him to essentially become lightning, along with all the speed that comes with it. In his fight against Rakan at the end of the Tournament Arc, Negi uses this form against him and seems to have the upper hand... Rakan realizes that because he's lightning, he's subtly foreshadowing where he's going to be (much like real lightning) and simply moves himself into position to counterattack, stunning Negi in the process. Later on, when Negi is fighting Fate using the same form, Fate counters in the exact same fashion, showing that Fate was watching the fight between Negi and Rakan.
• Catchphrase: When you have a magic book that lets you mindread anyone who's name you know, "What is your name?" becomes pretty badass.
• Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Luna/Shiori does this to Negi so that she can discuss Fate's plans.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: In chapter 337, Eva walks in on Chachamaru winding herself up while calling out Negi's name.
• Censor Steam: Occasionally used instead of Barbie Doll Anatomy.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Intentionally, as a Writer Revolt.
• Character-Magnetic Team: By the end of the series, more than half of the class is part of Negi's unofficial 'team'.
• Chekhov's Armoury:
  • The class roster. Both the the students' clubs (everything from News Club to Quantum Physics Research Society) and Takamichi's notes, such as the one that singles out Eva as a bigger problem than Negi may be able to handle on his own.
  • The collage. Everyone is shown in the picture, and some of their depictions reveal something not in the class roster...
  • Asuna has a ton of them to herself.
    • She has a superhuman physique even without magic, presumably thanks to her heritage and her past, where it is implied she learned a little about fighting.
    • She possesses the rather rare antimagic ability. While not unique, it's actually a huge giveaway to her identity as an Ostian princess utilized as a weapon to those who know their history.
    • She has close connections to people like Takamichi and Konoka's father Eishun, who are known as legendary war heroes. She traveled with them for awhile.
    • Her pactio card has Mars as her symbol. Mars is the foundation of the Magic World, where she was a princess.
• Chekhov's Gag: Early on in the series, Negi's magic not affecting Asuna in the way it should seems to be a case of Inept Mage before you find out that her Magic Cancel is actually blocking his spells and he was never inept to begin with.
• Cherry Blossoms: Even though it's not a cherry tree... similarly, rose blossom petals are used for a similar effect in an imaginary moment.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Haruna’s only smiles seem to be Cheshire Cat grins. Whenever she's smiling, something bad will happen to someone.
• Childhood Friend Romance:
  • Konoka and Setsuna were childhood friends, though they grew apart after Konoka fell in the river and Setsuna blamed herself for it. After the Kyoto arc, they renew their friendship and begin edging towards a romance.
  • Anya has a rather obvious crush on Negi, but due to her minor character status it doesn't go anywhere.
• Childhood Friends: Asuna met Ayaka when she was a New Transfer Student right after her time with Ala Rubra came to an end and she was getting a fresh start. The two instantly began a vitriolic friendship that really helped Asuna loosen up and become the person she is in the present. Though she doesn't appear much, Ayaka is generally considered to be Asuna's best friend.
• Childish Pillow Fight: During their Kyoto vacation/school field trip, several of the girls of 3-A had an epic pillow fight with Negi's kiss as the prize. Also take note that the girls will indulge in the occasional pillow fight given the opportunity◊.
• Children Do the Housework: Yuuna Akashi makes breakfast for her father at home because her mother is dead and her father only knows how to make instant food.
• Chunky Updraft: Used regularly whenever a Battle Aura shows up.
• Chunky Salsa Rule: Invoked by Konoka, who said that she can heal anything with her artifact so long as their heads doesn't get splattered "Like a tomato!"
• Clark Kenting: Justified, as they use magic glasses.
• Class Trip: The Kyoto Arc centers around 3-A's trip to Kyoto.
• Clear My Name: After their arrival to the Magical World, the members of Ala Alba are attacked by Fate's group at the Gateport. Negi and his students are then framed as terrorists for the destruction of the Gateport.
• Climactic Battle Resurrection: After Negi and Asuna defeat the Lifemaker, Asuna uses the Code bring back everyone erased by Cosmo Entelecheia.
• Clothing Damage: Happens quite often.
  • One of the only two weapons used by the robot army after the Tournament arc is a laser that only destroys clothing.
  • The accompanying unsealed demons are bound by "scientific devices" that restrict their powers to the same.
  • A clothing eating octopus appears briefly to sexually harass the poor Meta Girl.
  • The Flans Exarmatio spell exists solely for this trope. Negi tends to cast it by accident whenever he sneezes, and a magical all-girls school that features later uses it in an athletic broom contest. Its technical use is to disarm opponents, but it seems to have a very vague idea of what constitutes a "weapon".
  • When Fate attempts to petrify Asuna during the Kyoto arc, her magic cancel renders her immune to its effects. Her clothes, however, were not protected, and promptly shatter when she moves.
  • Asuna eventually becomes so used to being a victim of this trope she's built up an immunity to Defeat by Modesty.
  • In Chapter 277, Yue gets her clothes damaged by a beam that pierced through her and Emily. Rather than treated as fanservice, this is treated as a plot point due to the fact that only Yue's clothes disintegrate while Emily herself disappears.
• Color Motif: The Pactio cards include a color to represent each character. To list:
  • Black - Setsuna, Yue, Chisame, Mana, Zazie and Rakan
  • Blue - Akira, Kaede, and Kazumi
  • Dark blue - Nodoka and Albireo
  • Gold - Negi, Ayaka, and Albireo
  • Green - Haruna and Satsuki
  • Hyacinth - Misora
  • Pink - Makie
  • Prism - Chao
  • Red - Negi, Asuna, Ako, and Natsumi
  • Silver - Mana and Satomi
  • Violet - Evangeline
  • White - Chachamaru, Konoka, and Sayo
  • Yellow - Ku Fei
• Combat Tentacles: Kagetarou
• Combination Attack: Negi and Asuna launch one during the Magic World finale by combining his dark magic with her antimagic sword, which destroys the Lifemaker's projection in a single hit.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: A source of both comedy and Fanservice.
• Coming of Age Story: It follows Negi as he starts to make the transition from boy to man. At the ripe old age of ten.
• Compressed Adaptation: Pretty much any of the adaptations that aren't alternate continuities.
• Concept Art Gallery: A few pages at the end of each tankoubon.
• Confessional: The girls and Negi spend two chapters going to a confessional, manned by a disguised Misora. They unload their anguish, from Genki Girl Makie's worry about having no worries to Negi's deep existential angst, in passing by Setsuna's questions about kissing girls (this is for her to have a pactio and not sexual in nature... probably.). None of it sounded like a true confessional session, of course.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Both played straight and inverted.
• Contagious Powers: Negi's normal students start picking up magic or pactios over time.
• Continuity Cameo: Chizuru's Apron in Natsu OVA.
• Continuity Lockout: The Ala Alba and Another World animated adaptations assume that viewers have read the first 23+ volumes of the manga, as they were released alongside them. Anyone watching just the anime would be quite confused.
• Conveniently Coherent Thoughts: Averted with Nodoka - when she reads minds with her artifact she has to ask what she wants to know to cause them to think about it.
• Conveniently Seated: All the students in Negi's class.
• Cooking Duel: The pillow fight during the Kyoto Arc.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment:
  • The typical punishment for mages who break the masquerade? They turn them into ermines and make them spend a few years in the ermine camp.
  • Evangeline usually punishes Chachamaru by winding her up. Given what we learn not long afterward, this has a fairly sexual slant to it.
• Cooldown Hug: Negi receives one after he goes berserk on Godel, but it took slightly more to get him back to his senses.
• Cosmic Motifs: The Pactio cards assign a cosmic symbol to each character. To list them:
  • Sun - Setsuna, Sakurako
  • Moon - Ako, Makie, Rakan
  • Mercury - Nodoka, Yue, Kaede, Misora
  • Venus - Chachamaru, Ayaka, Misa
  • Earth - Satsuki
  • Mars - Asuna, Ku Fei, Yuuna, Madoka, the Narutaki twins
  • Jupiter - Negi, Konoka
  • Saturn - Chisame
  • Uranus - Mana, Satomi
  • Neptune - Haruna, Kazumi, Natsumi, Akira
  • Pluto - Sayo, Evangeline, Zazie
  • Ceres - Chizuru
  • Starry sky - Chao
• Covert Pervert:
  • Nodoka, a mousy Shrinking Violet who keeps surprising everyone in the cast with her boldness, both as an adventurer and in romance. For example, at one point she discovers that she's stuck in a Love Triangle with her teacher and her best friend Yue. The first solution she comes up with? Have a threesome.
  • A more subtle example is Fate. Yes, THAT Fate. He will dress up his Amazon Brigade in Meido clothes whenever he can (and does the same to Anya at some point), and when he captures Asuna, he puts her in a really skimpy gown.
  • Oh, Setsuna Sakurazaki. Her "perfect world" as described by then Rainyday sisters's Lotus-Eater Machine includes her crush and charge in a Naked Apron...
  • Also Kaede. Her pactio kiss involves a look that can best be described as predatory. Then she held that kiss for a few panels and giving Negi a rather deliberate Marshmallow Hell immediately afterward.
• Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: Pops up all over the place.
• Cranial Eruption: Whenever someone gets a non-serious head injury.
• Creepy Doll: Evangeline has quite a few stacked around in her house. And then there's Chachazero.
• Crossdresser: Negi at two points. Setsuna and Kaede at another.
• Cross-Popping Veins: Asuna's Expressive Hair forms into this at one point.
• Crossover: References to Love Hina and A.I. Love You.
• Crystal Ball: Anya uses one for fortune-telling.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: "Ku:nel Sanders"
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Rakan and Negi flatten all their opponents on their way to face each other in the finals. Later, Rakan fights Fate's ministras all at once, there's a 'five minutes later' message and the next panel is all of them completely beaten.
  • The Code of the Lifemaker is the absolute advantage against the magically based Magic World residents, who cannot even really fight back. The best we see is Rakan managing to draw out the fight and needing multiple hits to go down, but even then he had no chance of actually beating Fate.
  • When Quartum and Quintum interfere during the attack on Cosmo Entelechia, Negi rushes in and tears Quartum in half while Fate has a more even fight with Quintum but still oneshots him once it comes to close quarters combat.
  • Around chapter 330, Fate and Negi make peace and agree to work together, but then all the dead CE constructs revive and flatten them, necessitating the intervention of Ala Rubra, Konoemon and Evangeline, who is dead serious for once and returns the curb stomping.
  • Colonel Sanders vs. Kotaro. Despite his best effort, Kotaro isn't able to inflict any damage to his opponent whatsoever due to the former's intangibility. He was still going easy on him too.
  • Every Ku morning she gets challengers. Every morning she stomps them.
• Cute Kitten: Except when 1001 of them gang up on you.
• Cuteness Proximity: Negi, to many, many people.
• Cyberspace: Chisame's Artifact gives her the power to physically bring herself into the internet.
• Cycle of Revenge: The motivation for most of the villains in the series and for Negi to a degree as well.

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