| |
|---|---|
| Mei Sakura | |
| Kanji |
佐倉愛衣 |
| Gender |
Female |
| Manga Debut |
Chapter 72 |
| Anime Debut |
Ala Alba OVA |
| Japanese Voice |
Mei Kadowaki (Games) |
Mei Sakura (佐倉愛衣, Sakura Mei) is kohai to her senpai, Takane whom she refers to as 'onee-sama'. She is deemed as a skilled Ministra Magi whose artifact is a broomstick. Mei is also a transfer student, sent to study from a North American mage academy before the Mahora Festival Arc. She is a 2nd year middle school student in Mahora Academy, making her a year younger than most of the 3-A student.
Part in the Story
Mahora Festival arc On the night before the festival, Mei, Takane and Gandolfini made up the group that arrested Chao, but released her on behalf of Negi. During the first day of the festival, she and Takane, realizing that Nodoka was at a high risk of doing something that would activate the World Tree's magic, tried to intervene during her date with Negi. Unfortunately, Negi came to Nodoka's aide, and as a result, Nodoka ended up trigger the World Tree's magic to turn Negi in a "Kiss Terminator" obsessed with giving her a deep kiss. When Mei and Takane tried to subdue Negi, he ended up giving them the first of many strippings.
On the second day of the festival, she took part in the Mahora Tournament, where she was swiftly defeated in one hit by Kotarou. Later on, after Takane and Asuna were also eliminated from the tournament, she and the other two noticed Misora and Cocone sneaking around and, upon realizing that they're there to investigate on Chao's plan, joined them in exploring the underground of Mahora.
In the timeline where Chao was successful in revealing magic to the public, the press constantly hounded Mei in the aftermath. She, along with Megumi, assist Takane in their mission to arrest Negi's group when they try to find a way to rescue Negi and return to the third day of the festival. While Mei's artifact was able to nullify the abilities of some of Negi's Ministra Magi, Asuna's "magic cancel" ability and Ku Fei's martial arts training resulted in Mei's group getting defeated and stripped bare. After Mei's group comes to (and given the Library Club's tour blazers as cover for their body), Nodoka used her Pactio artifact on Mei to find out where Negi has been held, and Asuna comforts Mei by promising her that they will return the world back to normal.
After Negi and his returned to the third day of the festival, Mei was shown along with Takane entering in the battle against Chao's robot army.
Magical World arc Just before Fate and his friends destroyed the portal linking the magical world to the real world, Mei along with Takane, Misora and Cocone went to the magical world for vacation, trapping them there along with Ala Alba. During the upcoming of the Ostia Festival, she and her group learned about Ala Alba in the magical world when she watched a news report.
During the fight against Cosmo Entelecheia, Mei aided Ala Alba in rescuing Anya, Asuna and the world during Fate's attempt of rewriting the magical world. After the Mage of the Beginning was defeated, she along with everyone from Mahora went home safely.
Abilities
Mei seems to have an elemental magic affinity for fire and is shown to be proficient enough to disarm Kaede and Setsuna at battle. Although in most fights, her true strengths were not demonstrated.
Pactio: Puella Genista (literally, "Broom Girl"): Her pactio artifact, the Favor Purgandi (Latin: Liking to Cleaning, Jap: Osōji Daisuki (お掃除大好き), "I love to clean" or "I love to sweep"), is a broom that she uses for combat as well as transportation, just as how Negi's does with his staff. It may be similar to the broom that Yue has. One possible power of the broom is to completely to disarm opponents with a stroke, but it is uncertain whether this is due to the broom, or Mei's own magical prowess.
Gallery
Other Appearances
Love Hina
- Main Article: Mei Narusegawa
Trivia
In the final chapters of Love Hina, Naru mentions that she has a step-sister named "Mei", according to her Naru's mother married Mei's father. As she calls home to contact her mother, her step-sister picks up the phone instead. At the wedding of Naru and Keitaro, Mei shows up in small appearances and is the exact same appearance as the Mei of Negima. Due to her identical given name and appearance to Naru Narusegawa's step-sister from Love Hina, Akamatsu's previous work, many fans theorize that they are the same person. While Naru's sister Mei was first introduced in the Love Hina anime (where she had an entirely different personality) and thus was not created by Akamatsu, she was eventually mentioned in the manga, and made small appearances in the final chapter.
Although that may seem like the proof is in fact, Mei is in both Negima and Love Hina, there is some big flaws in that :
- there are no mages that appear to exist in Love Hina ;
- her hair is light brown in the Love Hina anime, and pinkish red in the Negima manga ;
- she is most likely not the same age if she was from Love Hina, making her supposed to appear in the age range of 13-16, yet she is 12 in the manga ;
- her surname is Sakura in Negima, but in the animated version of Love Hina, her surname is Narusegawa.
To counter these points :
- according to a questions and answers session with Akamatsu, this is Tsuruko and Motoko who appear during Setsuna flashback during Kyoto trip. So Love Hina and Negima probably share a common universe ;
- Shinmei Ryuu (Motoko's sword style) is also used by Setsuna in Negima, and she makes references to the Aoyoma clan and its techniques while training with Jack Rakan. He attempts the cutting-evil strike and succeeds ;
- moreover, Urashima clan use ki based techniques and their old inn seems to be the entrance of an old temple on a hill in Tokyo, this is very similar to Kyoto magic association temple and Aoyama clan ;
- while Mei did appear in the anime (which was not created by Akamatsu), in the manga she does not have a hair color and appeared only during the wedding of Naru and Keitaro which take place in 2005, two years after Negima events ;
- Naru and Seta make a cameo appearence during Mei's pre-selection fight in Chao-bao-zi tournament[1] ;
- even so Naru presents her as her half-sister, according to Mei in episode 22 of Love Hina they are in facts step-sisters. Narusegawa is the name of Naru's father, not her step-father's or Mei's one which had never been said, so it could be Sakura.
References
- ↑ In the Weekly Shonen Magazine version only, in the tankobon version, Naru is out of the image and only Seta appears.