VOL. 12
100 – Hidden Memory
You'd be pretty freaked out too if a mysterious hooded figure appeared behind you
The chapter begins on a flashback/memory of apparently
Asuna, hard to understand what is happening since it doesn't seem to make
sense. Surely, Asuna didn't mention it,
but could it be the ‘hidden’ memories that the title refers to? Confusing, to say the least; the chapter
focuses on the preparation before Asuna’s and Setsuna’s fight, and there’s a
lot of dialogue. The ending has the
hooded guy again, and Evangeline recognizes him.
101 – The Thing About Being All Brawn, No Brains
Now he's talking to Eva too
Finally we get to see the hooded guy (and I swear all hooded
guys look the same), Nagi’s (Negi’s father) friend, hmmmmm, whatever. The exchange between him (“Colonel Sanders”)
and Evangeline was hilarious though, and that was what kept this chapter
interesting. The fight of Asuna against
Setsuna wasn't bad, but it didn't seem anything special. However, Asuna gets these powers from
Sanders, what Takamichi used… I think that’s kinda unfair to Setsuna, and
she’ll probably lose because of it.
102 – Asuna Overflowing?!
Wha...what?!
The weird beginning scenes from Chapter 100 are explained
now; Asuna had her memories wiped… so she had encountered the magic world
before… Her background is still not
fully explained yet though. She’s fully
cheating now, with Sanders telling her what to do, although to be fair, she
doesn't want it to. It climaxes when
Asuna breaks through and summons her blade (the one of her Patio card) but
Setsuna still wins in the end (since blades are forbidden, and she was
stunned). So many mysteries let loose in
this chapter, it was engaging. Then
there’s Evangeline who completely snapped due to her bet with Sanders, when it
had seemed Setsuna was going to lose, that was very amusing.
In truth, Eva's still just a little kid
103 – The Ever-Deepening Mysteries of MahoraFest
Talk about exaggeration
If you were looking forward to another interesting fight,
then you’ll be in for a disappointment.
The last first round fight was Evangeline against a random guy, I guess
once you see random guy, you shouldn't have expected much. Well, one hit was all it took (which meant
one frame). At least the second round
looks promising.
104 – Promise with Negi
"Welcome to my world"
‘Sanders’ versus Kotaro, honestly, I never expected Sanders
to just completely wipe the floor with Kotaro.
Of course, losing, Kotaro gets a big shock but I was surprised at how
big the shock was, and how big an influence Negi was in his mind.
105 – The Scariest Thing in the World?! Chao’s Plan (Part I)
Nice use of a puppet
Most of the chapter focuses on Negi’s next fight, against
Takane, and apparently, she is fairly strong too (using a shadow puppet type of
thing). Anyway, what’s really the better
bit of this chapter is we find out Chao’s plan, to expose mages to the world,
don't know the reason yet, but I want to find out.
106 – Scariest Thing in the World?! Chao’s Plan (Part II)
Another falls under Negi's charm
Battle of Negi finishes here, he wins, no surprises there
(he’ll probably go to the final round to fight Sanders and something big gets
revealed). Chao’s plan was not
elaborated any further, so the title was not relevant to the plot that
much. Watching all these fight are
interesting.
107 – Eva, The Queen of Mean
didn't expect this either
Evangeline against Setsuna, and I had expected Setsuna to lose,
but didn't expect Eva to dish out all that verbal abuse that’s psychologically
affecting Setsuna. Eva’s pretty strong
without magic too, and as Negi has pointed out, she would have won easily if
she used this technique back in their initial fight in Volume 3. A few… suggestive positions in the chapter,
however.
only Asuna has the power to make Eva hesistate
108 – The Ultimate Choice
Ultimate battle, GO!
Eva transports both her and Setsuna into her resort where
there are no caps on their powers. I
don't really get all of Eva’s motives in forcing Setsuna to choose but I think
it ended in a good way. I don't think I
got the plot of this chapter and that stopped me from enjoying it to the
fullest extent.
109 – The Tale of the Bad Mage
This reminds me of those typical finishing moves you see...
I admit it, I was surprised that Setsuna won the battle and
Eva lost, that’s a shame, would have been nice to see Negi fight Eva
again. We get to hear some of Eva’s
past, not as great as you would expect, and very generic. There are still a lot of funny moments
though, but at least I understand the plot…
Eva tries to explain what she was doing in the previous chapter but I
don't think it really works; it feels like she just did it for the sake of
doing it and had no particular motive.
Overall
Another volume that is full with fighting. Maybe that’s why it seems so much more
interesting to read? I tend to find that
the humor is going along nice too, and it works a lot better (before it felt a
bit awkward and out of the way). I liked
reading this volume, especially as it neared the end, I couldn't stop reading.
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Credits: pictures taken from the scans made by "AquaStar Fansubs"