March 19th, 2014 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 27
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta wants to know if Karin has been killed or the like, so Nagumo assures him that she’s OK and currently on the moon. Has the most powerful class of immortal, he suspects that the worst she’ll experience is a shortness of breath.
With that, Nagumo goes to attack, so Touta flees, hoping to get back to where he left the Gravity Blade if he wants to fight. However, his injuries slow him so that Nagumo easily catches up to him. Nagumo is surprised when Touta asks what Magia Erebea is, since it is a technique that must be mastered. Nagumo suddenly has doubts about things, but as he ponders what he should do, a corporate military force arrives to take Touta into custody. Nagumo warns Touta that these are special ops forces who are prepared for magical warfare.
Touta decides not to go with the military unit, so he attacks. However, his shundo is deflected, causing him to impact the ground and upend APC vehicles nearby. True to Nagumo’s words, these forces are not slouches and it is all Touta can do to avoid being hit. As he longs for his sword, Touta counterattacks, but gets shot in the process. He continues to battle, but Nagumo steps in and shoots him repeatedly, telling him he’s no justice hero, nor human, just an immortal monster.
As the military unit reports that they have their target and are about to pull out, Yukihime steps on the top of a nearby poll.
Thoughts/Review:
I thought I’d use the quote from Tacitus as the title tag since it seemed to best describe what happened in this chapter.
One of my chief complaints (among several) about Touta as a character is his leaping into things without looking. Since he’s immortal, he thinks he can do anything, and because he can instantly be proficient at some technique he’s only observed others doing (with mastery shortly to follow), he’s arrogant and cocky and in desperate need of a beating to teach him some very important lessons.
With this chapter, I’m hoping that those lessons are being learned by Touta. For the first time that I can think of, Touta has shown some common sense when it comes to combat — he fled from Nagumo, knowing he was not in any condition to fight and that he didn’t want get angry again and enter Magia Erebea.
I did find Nagumo’s thoughts on Touta’s ignorance of Magia Erebea interesting. There continues to be this emphasis on the fact that Magia Erebea must be learned and mastered, yet Touta is already at that level, even though his activating it was subconscious. He did consciously retract the Magia Erebea and is now aware of it and knows it can activate if he gets angry.
Anyway, while Akamatsu-sensei teases about the possibility that Touta descends from Negi and Nagi, he doesn’t confirm that. As such, I still suspect that Touta picked up the technique on the sly, even if he is the descendant of Negi (and ultimately Nagi). Since Touta picks up everything in a flash, it wouldn’t surprise me if before his memory wipe, he’d picked up Magia Erebia as well.
I’m glad Akamatsu-sensei didn’t have the special forces unit just be cannon fodder. Special forces units should be well trained and very skilled.
Finally, Eva showing up at the end. I know some of you aren’t fans of that, but back in Negima during the Kyoto arc, I loved her dues ex machina moment against Fate. Then again, I loved it when she did the same against Secundum toward the end of the manga, where we finally got to see her somewhat unleashed. I just want to see Eva go “mama bear” (to borrow a term from another fan) on Nagumo and company. Even though she doesn’t need to use it, I wouldn’t mind Eva going Magia Erebea for Touta’s sake (and for my own fanboy sake).
What I really hope, on top of seeing Eva going on a Lina Inverse rampage, is that Eva tells Touta more about himself and the circumstances that came from her becoming his guardian. In that light, I want Eva’s character to be explored further too. There’s no reason for Akamatsu-sensei not to do it in my opinion.
In the end, not a bad chapter with Touta showing a glimmer of intelligence and common sense. I hope Touta continues down that path.
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“What I really hope, on top of seeing Eva going on a Lina Inverse rampage, is that Eva tells Touta more about himself and the circumstances that came from her becoming his guardian.”
That’s only one of the very few things I actually care about at this point.
“Since T0uta picks up everything in a flash…”
The way I see it, he’s not a quick learner. He’s probably more like Asuna. Just institutionally remember things he already knew.
*instinctively lol auto correct.
*lol* Yeah, gotta love when that happens. ^_^;
Which reminds me, I saw your quote for “T0uta”, so I go to fix it and see that in edit mode, it looks fine, but in preview, a zero is there. ^_^; Not sure how that was happening, but it has been fixed now.
That’s certainly a possibility. That’s kinda how I’m seeing him knowing Magia Erebea now, only I’m thinking he observed it in the past, absorbed it, then just did it.
I guess we’ll find out eventually.
Poor soldiers they will soon see the wrath of the ice queen
Heh!heh!heh! I hope so. ^_^
As I’m aware magia erebea was a technique that takes strength and weakness and accept everything as it is. Which forms the basis of the absorb, load and enhance mechanics to the technique.
The demon part was a side effect of over usage or when the user has been killed and the technique brings the body back to life (in negi case his ostian royal bloodline allowed him to transition from mortal to immortal monster).
For touta to already be at the demon stage… Means he must have gotten quite far in terms of corruption… Now this depends if his magia erebea is inherited or if it was learnt prior to memory lost and I’m just laughing at touta for not cherishing gravity blade more…
Yes, I meant to remark on that. This is one of the lessons he needs to learn and is one of the first things learned in the military regarding one’s weapon.
If touta wasn’t a martial arts prodigy… He would be so dead in a undead way (oh wait he pinned to a wall)
Heh. Well, as you said, he was taken out of commission.
I find it ironic Touta’s been beating down pretty much every named character this far, but got his ass handed to him by a group of faceless mooks 😀
Irony is good, isn’t it?
Heh!heh!heh!
Of course in fairness, Touta was pretty beat, but still…^_^
About Magia Erebea, I can’t help but think that it IS inherited and that it is connected to Chao Lingshen. If I remember right Chao’s magic activated only when she unsealed it and Negi was rather shocked and nonplussed when he witnessed it. My guess is that Chao’s magic was purposefully sealed in order to stop the Magia Erebea. It is possible that all of Negi’s descendants get it and if it’s not kept under control the ability goes berserk like with Touta.
It may well be inherited. At this point, I don’t think anything can really be discounted as a possibility.
“Teacher back, and your gona to be in trouble,
Hey now, hey now the teachers back….”
Well I sure Eva-sensei is going to “school” the mortals, in the end she will let most of the go, as she has a soft spot for mortals. The people I feel sorry for is Touta, Karin, and Kuroumaru . They failed to complete their mission without Eva sensei help, and that is never good for her students. Do you remember what she did when Negima failed, normally a kick to the sola plex.
What I real like to see is who else is she has tagging along.
I remember indeed.
New spoilers are out, so I won’t say anything more about that here. ^_~
[…] SPOILER image from the upcoming UQ Holder chapter 27, courtesy of the VERY gracious Southrop. (My review of the chapter should come out […]
With ‘Nagumo’ statement in this chapter, i am more sure to the fact that one aspect of UQH would be the racism the Immortals have to face in the society (even if they are good in heart and help people).
Based on his statement, its clear that ‘Nagumo’ believes that only Humans can be Heroes or fight for Justice and protect people. Whereas Immortal’s are just demons that have no rights to protect people and need to be destroyed (or chained) irrespective of what they have done until now. Though it also seems that he respects a persons strength and would only act when needed (or hired).
You know, if i am right about this, then i would find it really funny if it turns out that the person whom he works for is actually a Immortal (though he thought he was a Mortal).
I hadn’t thought about that, but you are right. Immortals aren’t part of the human race any more (like Eva and Touta), so they are a new race. Plus, mazoku and youkai are different races as well.
Now that I’ve thought about it, I think you may well be right on both accounts.
[…] those can be found by clicking the chapter numbers — 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and […]