ユーキューホルダー!/UQ Holder Chapter 11 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: 

Kuroumaru and Touta launch an attack on the monster seals. Kuroumaru’s Kenfuka Bakuenheki creates a massive wall of flame, which ends up killing one of the monster seals that ate Touta’s arm. They continue slaughtering the monsters and Jinbee encourages them, telling them that they have to kill all of the monster seals, giant spiders, and bats in order to escape.

Up at the UQ Holder HQ, Karin thinks about how Touta was living with Yukihime and she’s not pleased. Three girls (two beast girls and a human-looking girl) are playing with a ball, which gets away from them and rolls to Karin. They nervously approach her to get the ball back, but she absentmindedly destroys it. The trio flee crying to AMEYA Ikkuu, who scolds Karin for making the kids cry. He rapidly repairs their destroyed ball, then tells Karin that she should smile more. Karin says she has no such orders from Yukihime.

The sealed well leading to the underground labyrinth shows signs of activity, causing great alarm. Karin tells Ikkuu to inform Yukihime while she handles things here, should the magical monsters come forth. Touta and Kuroumaru emerge as Karin whacks Touta hard with her mallet. She’s surprised to discover her mistake. Touta recovers and goes off on Karin, who takes his words as a challenge.

The two charge each other as Kuroumaru tells Touta he shouldn’t fight girls. Touta says that in war, sex doesn’t matter, which is what Yukihime taught him. Touta increases the weight of Gravity Sword, surprising Karin a bit, though she acts like it is nothing. Gengorou breaks up the fight, citing that fighting between UQ Holder members is not allowed. Touta is amazed that Gengorou is holding him up in spite of the massive weight he’s now placed on Gravity Blade.

The commotion causes a lot of people to emerge from the buildings, but when they see Kuroumaru and Touta, they are surprised since only a month and a half had passed since they were dumped underground. Even Ikkuu took four months to escape. Jinbee emerges from the well and vouches for them, so everyone accepts the two, addressing Touta as “Konoe-aniki” and Kuroumaru as “Tokisaka-anesan”. Jinbee flees when Gengorou demands he get back to work after slacking off for two years.

Touta asks what UQ Holder does, amazing Ikkuu since they took the test to join without knowing anything about the group. The people who’d emerge all transform into youkai, surprising Touta and Kuroumaru. Ikkuu calls this group of general UQ Holder members as Hyakki Yakou, and says that UQ Holder is a group of otherworldly beings who help each other out and that they are protectors of that. Touta decides he’s going to take over the place, irritating the youkai, who ask Ikkuu if they can teach Touta a lesson.

Thoughts/Review:

This chapter turned out to be more interesting than I thought it would be, which is a pleasant surprise.

I’m glad that the somewhat tedious mini training arc is over. Although it makes Touta overpowered at the moment, I’d rather the story move to more interesting areas.

Touta still hasn’t learned a blasted thing from his time underground. He lost an arm, but the moment he got it back, everything else was forgotten. I really would love for all of those youkai to teach him a very painful lesson.

That brings me to the youkai. That was the big surprise here as it turns out that all of the yakuza-type folks are actually youkai. The one big dude does appear to be the same youkai that Asuna and Setsuna fought during the Kyoto arc. I hope it is.

The fact that youkai can have human form is not new to the Akamatsu-verse. After all, just prior to the Mahora Budokai arc in Negima!, Negi and Kotaro had to fight Count Herrman, the youkai that petrified Negi’s village. His transformation seemed more illusionary than the youkai in UQH, but maybe we’ll learn more down the road.

The three young girls were quite adorable. Looks like they are all beast girls, with one looking like Konoka (which I’m assuming is part of the Akamatsu-sensei curse of not having a lot of character designs).  It would be cool if they were related to the girls from Negima! on the Magic World.

As to Jinbee, I guess he was slacking off for two years since he could have escaped by cleaning up the place below on his own.

That does lead me to wonder how new recruits normally get through. If there’s no one down there, and the only way out is to defeat the magical monsters, how do they learn that without someone there. Jinbee really gave Touta and Kuroumaru a major leg up.

Finally, I did not Touta reflecting on the fact that even though he is a vampire, he still enjoyed the sun. It would be interesting to see if Akamatsu-sensei actually provides more information on vampires in his universe.

So, a better chapter than expected. I hope things continue to improve.