History of Pactio Cards Part 9: The Pendulum Swings Back

So now that you've seen all the unofficial made up Pactio Cards, it's time we answered that burning question you've been asking...What about the REAL Pactio Cards?

For awhile, we only got to see minor images that were directly from the manga. For a long time, we didn't get to see a SINGLE Pactio Card get released to the public. Hell, when Negi got the Haruna card, it got censored by Akamatsu himself! Why? Because he never actually designed the damn thing!!

But then he gave a release of Negi's Pactio cards, and during that time he had seven: Asuna, Nodoka, Setsuna, Konoka, Yue, Haruna + Chisame. It was during this time that we not only got 6 Pactio Cards from the ORIGINAL CD PROMOS released, but a seventh new one we had been itching to see for YEARS!

About goddamn time Akamatsu!

But the surprises didn't end there. Despite being given a shitty anime (26 Eps), Pani Poni Dash 2 (26 Eps) AND a Live Action series (25 Eps +1), MAHOU SENSEI NEGIMA WAS STILL STILL STILL POPULAR (and yet not popular enough)

Akamatsu decided to finally take matters into his own hands and create an anime of his own...if he had the money. Unfortunately, mangaka don't make nearly as much money as you'd think. (The publishing companies actually make more, A LOT MORE on a manga than its actual creator!) Thus Negima was relegated to an OAD series: Negima: Ala Alba


The series was given to Shaft to be animated, because despite the goofy parody style, they actually did a good job with the art and animation. However, Negima: Ala Alba would only have three episodes, each based on the training arc before arriving at the Magic World.


OAD #1: Mainly based off Chapters 176+177, the Badge Stealing Battle
OAD #2: Mainly based off Chapters 178-180, Anya's arrival
OAD #3: Mainly based off Chapters 182, 183+175, Ala Alba's departure and the Days of Summer


Only three episodes...direct to DVD! If there's one thing that BOTHERED me about this it was that the one TRUE version of Negima, in its shining moments of glory would be relegated to a mere 3 episodes! But there was a silver lining at the end: These three would be sold along with Special Editions of Volumes 25, 26 + 27 and could only be ordered online. If it sold well, there would be a movie based off the Magic World arc, if it sold really well, there would be an entire animated series based off the Magic World arc. And each of these three volumes came with its own Pactio Card:



Needless to say, it WAS popular but not popular enough. And thus we would be getting another OAD series called Negima: Another World. This one would have FOUR episodes:


OAD #1: Based off chapters 184-188 where Ala Alba takes on Kosmos Entelechia
OAD #2: Based off chapters 189-192 where Negi + Chachamaru get Chisame + Kotaro
OAD #3: Based off chapters 198-202 where Negi takes on Kagetaro and then gets training from Jack Rakan
OAD #4: Not sure but I think it's based off chapters 211-213 where Yue takes the Broom Race

After that, would be that fabled Negima movie which would highlight the conclusion to the Magic World arc (keep in mind that the Magic World arc itself starts at chapter 186 and is still going (currently at chapter 294). Along the way, Negi has made a grand total of 15 Pactios with his students, as well as one where Negi himself is the partner! Among several releases of Volumes, several new Pactio Cards will be released such as the ones here!



It's really quite refreshing to see just how well these Pactio Cards are made. Not only that, their artifacts are cool AND Practical. For instance, Kaede's artifact in the Xebec Abortion was a giant shuriken...which damages enemies when thrown. The thing is, Kaede ALREADY HAS THIS, making the artifact very useless. In the manga, Kaede's got this special cloak which sends things into a pocket dimention allowing it to remain hidden. Very befitting of a ninja!

As I said, Negi has now scored a grand total of 15 Pactio Cards, but there's plenty more to be shown! Lemme list the one's Negi has so far!


Pimpmasta Negi's Bitches!
Asuna Kagurazaka
Nodoka Miyazaki
Setsuna Sakurazaki
Konoka Konoe
Yue Ayase
Haruna Saotome
Chisame Hasegawa
Kazumi Asakura
Kaede Nagase
Ku Fei
Chachamaru Karakuri
Luna Xxxxx(Shiori)
Ako Izumi
Yuna Akashi
Makie Sasaki

Other Bitches with Cards
Mana Arcana - Property of Kouga T. (deceased)
Misora Kasuga - Property of Cocone Rosa
Negi Springfield - Property of Queen Theodora (Temporary)
Setsuna Sakurazaki - Property of Konoka Konoe (Yes she gets two of them!)
Natsumi Murakami - Property of Kotaro Inugami


That's seventeen girls out of the 31 who now have Pactio cards! And if you count the ones with the early release...


Early Releases
Sakurako Shiina
Satomi Hakase
Evangeline A.K. McDowell
Fuka+Fumika Narutaki


...we get a whopping 22 Pactio Cards! I gotta say, we're in an interesting spot.

I personally think Negi's getting his Pactio Cards waaay too quickly, and that's usually a sign that it's close to the end (which I hope it isn't). Then again, we have been waiting for quite sometime for these cards to be released haven't we?


Well, this is about the time when we stop. I can't say it's finished, because we will be getting more Pactio Cards that's for sure. But this is right now our most current chapter. I'll probably be releasing the next Part of The History of Pactio Cards once the Magic World arc ends and the movie finally gets released...but that will be months from now.

But don't worry folks, there'll be PLENTY of other things I'll be posting here! Be sure to subscribe, follow, and comment because this blog will certainly be updating!

History of Pactio Cards Part 8: Neo Way to Rage...

Negima had several adaptations each with their own version of Pactio cards...This also included ANOTHER manga called Negima?! Neo, by Takuya Fujima.

The manga was roughly based off of the Negima?! anime, but with less stupid humor and a few nods to Akamatsu's Manga. Unlike the original manga, this one updated monthly instead of weekly. It also expanded itself after the Star Crystal storyline. Unfortunately, it spent too much time showing off the other girls. Furthermore, it only ran for 34 chapters (Akamatsu's Negima is almost at 300 chapters). Which pretty much means that all they had time for was...

Once again with feeling:

THAT'S IT?!

The Neo Pactio cards, generally follow the same rule as in the anime. With Negi drawing one of three cards randomly, only Fujima was too lazy to design 93 Pactio Cards and decided to only go with armor cards. At the height of the battle against Anya's final fairy, Negi suddenly discovers he is able to invoke a NEO Pactio with Asuna, giving her the SUPER Armor Card.

Super Armor Card - The ultimate Pactio Card! Stronger than a normal Armor Card! YAY!

Afterwords, Anya becomes Student #32 (BOO!), Kotaro joins (Kewl!), Filler ensues (Yawn), Tsukuyomi appears only to fuck with Setsuna + Konoka's date (Aww...) And then...Fate appears. Bishonen Fate.

He's here to take Asuna back to the Magic World where he has come to claim her as his bride. He instantly Pactio's with her and we get...this.

Oooooookaaaaay. And this does...what exactly?

This is the penultimate chapter by the way. One chapter later, Negi and his students storm the Magic World, crash the wedding, kick Bishonen Fate's ass and then...this happens.

Okay, that's it. This is just fucking stupid! Fuck you Fujima! FUCK YOU!!

Jesus wept! All this investment and THIS is how you end it?! Goddammit! This is Negima! This is LONG HAUL material. You cannot go through and develop 31+ characters in a mere 34 chapters! You could've made this the next Fullmetal Alchemist, instead you cop out and drop us at some random spot and call it an ending. GRRR!!

But while all of the spinoffs have ended, the Negima manga still continues...

Next time, the pendulum swings back to place!

History of Pactio Cards Part 7: The Pink Generation

Just when you thought that Negima was done with the television medium, out comes a LIVE ACTION series. A show which basically featured:

A class of 31 Middle School girls

A 12-year old Japanese Girl (And Asuna),

A badly toonshaded cartoon on a patch...inside Negi's jacket,

A monkey,

A Pornstar and of course, Takamichi

(Really, what is there to say about him?)

As through the usual formula, the plot revolved around the 31 girls rather than Negi trying to find his dad. And since this was live action and had to be realistic, all the Japanese girls couldn't have their anime hair colors (Chachamaru's a robot so she's cool). This also meant that most of the girls looked the same and were hard to discern from one another at times. For the minor characters like Zazie (clown), Satsuki (cook), Ako (nurse) etc. they'd have to wear funny hats or deviate from the school uniform just so you could tell who's who.

Another big thing about this show was their way of dealing with the minor characters...by making them disappear! Literally, they'd make them experience an emotion (Sakurako, Misa, Madoka = Sadness for instance) and then POOF! Gone from the show. About a third of the cast was already "clocked out" before this really became an issue within the show itself. You'll understand why this is important in a few minutes...in the meantime I'll show you what you came here for...the Pactio Cards!

Two words for you guys: That's IT?!

Yes it is. For a 25 episode series (26 if you count that concert at the very end). As you can see, the cards are exactly like Akamatsu's but with live action characters instead of manga characters. The differences mainly stem from the fact that this is a short series with not much time to delve into its powers.

ASUNA: Asuna's artifact is a fan. She uses it to fight Chachamaru during the iconic Negi vs. Evangeline episode. Then we never see it again. And no, she never uses the sword EVER.

NODOKA: It's a book. This one functions radically different...sorta. From what I see it can monitor someone off in the distance and reveal what they're doing at the time. This one gets used a lot for a short series.

KONOKA: When Konoka discovers she's got magic in her, she forms a Pactio with Negi. She receives the two fans which allow her to...CAST a healing spell and save Fumika from dying. Like Asuna's artifact, it's only used once.

But the true purpose of the Pactios in this show lie not with the artifacts...What the Pactios are REALLY used for is THIS:

Ah the sweet taste of Evangeline's lips!

That's right...it's so Asuna can kiss EACH AND EVERY ONE of the 2-A girls in this show (except Sayo, cuz she's a ghost and Chao because she's an evil venomcunt). This is how it works: eventually everyone in the school gets clocked out and crystalized in stasis...it looks EXACTLY like the Opening of the show which makes it very very creepy. And since Anya and her Star Crystal went on vacation this time, it's Chao Lingshen's turn to be the main villain. Chao isn't able to get Asuna because she has a memory equally painful to hers. Asuna then discovers that Chao didn't get Sayo either (Screw the rules, Imma ghost!). Basically Sayo tells Asuna that she can use her magic to unfreeze everyone in the class. Where did Asuna GET this magic from? Her Pactio with Negi of course! And how is she supposed to use it? By kissing everyone on the lips...starting with Evangeline.

So yeah...Pactios...Cool, huh?

But even that doesn't make the tip of the iceberg. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING that will make me rage harder...than what they did in Negima?! Neo

DUN dun DUUUUUN

And now...Robot Boobs! Clang! Clang!

Enjoy it, it's the only boobs you'll see in THIS series.

History of Pactio Cards Part 5: Who cares! They're still cool!

In this chapter of Pactio Card history we're going to discuss cards that are NOT Pactio Cards.

At around 2006, an official series of character encyclopedias were released, discussing everything about that particular character. It was loaded with inside info that would be every fan boy's wet dream...mine too if there had been any translation, but at least we had pictures to go by.

Thing is, each book came with its own card, which I call a NegiPa Card. No it isn't featured in NegiMA, nor does it actually do anything, but it is extra artwork by Akamatsu himself and thus is given extra coolness in that regard. Behold, the Pa Cards!



It's all basic stuff. You're given a name in English, the horoscope (for some reason Negi's birthday is never revealed nor is Sayo's or Evangeline's) a PA number and a roman numeral. Not much but it's a collector's item. Nothing more.

Next time, I'll show you how other series manhandle the Pactio Card system.

History of Pactio Cards Part 4: The OTHER Anime Pactio Cards

Most who have seen the Negima anime can agree that it was an abortion...however there was one problem...Negima was still popular! Thus, Akamatsu decided to give it another college try with the anime. Thus instead of Xebec, he turned to Shaft.

PANI PONI DASH PART 2: NEGIMA!?

Shaft is well known for making another school anime called Pani Poni Dash, and with its stylistic changes and radically different artstyle, the new anime, Negima?! (Seriously how the fuck can you pronnounce that properly without sounding like a total jackass) essentially became Pani Poni Dash 2.



One of these changes of course involved the Pactio Cards. At this time, Negi still hadn't made out with all the girls yet...and so rather than try to wing it and make up powers like the Xebec counterpart, they decided to give the whole Pacio Card system a complete overhaul! Here's how it works:

After Negi kisses a girl and forms a Pactio with them, he can then grant them powers by activating their Pactio Cards...and yes it's cards plural. Negi will randomly draw one of three cards, each girl has an Armor Card, a Cosplay Card or a Suka Card.

ARMOR CARD: A Rare Card! Grants the user a very powerful artifact and badass costume. It's much more powerful than a cosplay card.
COSPLAY CARD: A Standard Card. Grants the user a magic artifact just like a normal Pactio Card. But it also comes with a cool costume.
SUKA CARD: A Bad Card. This card is like Negima's Dud card but much worse. The user becomes chibi, hyper and extremely useless. Draw this card and you're fucked.

This is actually a pretty interesting system. And it wasn't bad in concept. There's only one problem...IT'S ONLY 26 EPISODES! (again). That pretty much means that there wasn't really enough time to really cover all the cards and their powers...although the Suka cards are an exception since they ALL DO THE EXACT SAME THING.

So with 31 girls and 3 cards per Pactio, what is the purpose of having 93 cards? It's all about exploitation of collector mentality. Each card came with a promotion of some sort. A DVD here, a Drama CD there, an event elsewhere. These cards were extremely hard to get and the only way you could get access to these cards was to buy, buy, buy all sorts of shit.



So for the sake of all your wallets, here's all the Pactio Cards right here, armor, cosplay and suka alike. Enjoy!

Oy...Uploading alla these pics was pure hell...But at least you've got a complete collection!