August 6th, 2014 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 45
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta’s defeat of two elite students causes a big stir in Academy City and catches the attention of the hooded individual. Touta puts on shades and a breather mask to try to disguise himself as he, Karin, Ikkuu, and Kuroumaru begin their murder investigation.
At the first site, Ikkuu is able to virtually show them the murder scene, including the moments after the victim apparently fell from the sky. Although there is a high rise dorm nearby, it is impossible for the person to have jumped from there.
After saying a prayer, the group heads to the next site, which is a dorm bathroom. Ikkuu again gives a VR display, where they see a male student phased into the wall. Kuroumaru figures the murderer has to be someone with a unique ability, or an immortal, supernatural being. With Touta understanding why this would be a job of UQ Holder, Karin agrees, saying they can’t give any more immortal hunters or exorcists more excuses to go after immortals.
Kuroumaru and Touta are given a free dorm room on the 4th floor as the hooded individual monitors UQ Holder’s every move. The hooded person hacks into the UQ Holder network, finding detailed information about Karin, Ikkuu, Kuroumaru, and Touta, who’s listed as only four years old. The hooded figure vows to send them packing as happened when the hooded person sent Karin packing eight years earlier.
To the hooded figure’s surprise, Touta and Kuroumaru arrive at the door where the hooded person is residing. Although the door chain is in place, Touta simply breaks it, allowing him and Kuroumaru to enter. The hooded figure panics, causing the hood covering its head to drop, revealing a humanoid with long black hair. Touta doesn’t find anything wrong with this, and mindlessly greets this new roommate, who cautiously returns the greeting.
Thoughts/Review:
It is kind of amusing to me to see that Akamatsu-sensei is combining current technology elements (the security cameras on campus; “Tomoko’s” tower PCs with large, flat screen monitors, etc.) and future tech (Ikkuu’s VR ability to allow the others to see the crime scenes as they were after the murders, “Tomoko’s” VR monitors to display information on UQ Holder, etc.).
It is also amusing that Akamatsu-sensei pulled a big twist on the reveal of the hooded figure. I’ve never read or watched WataMote, but I am aware of it. I don’t know if Akamatsu-sensei is giving a nod to that series by having the mystery person resemble the main character Tomoko, but I couldn’t help but make that comparison.
As to Touta, I was amused by his being ill when seeing the first, gory scene. Yes, I would likely be the same, but it is Touta we are talking about, so seeing Wonder Boy have a weakness is nice. (I also enjoyed Ikkuu’s offer to show the body impacting in slow motion.)
Regardless, I like that the story is going into a murder mystery. While I’ve no doubt that things will eventually end up in some kind of battle, for now, I’d prefer having the story actually work on solving the mystery.
There’s still not a lot of information, but I figure that some immortal doing murders over the last 80 years has to have a specific purpose in mind. What that purpose is remains to be seen though.
As for “Tomoko”, since we’ve seen the hooded character as part of the UQ Holder manga promotional materials, I figure “Tomoko” will be part of UQ Holder when this arc is over.
Is “Tomoko” the murderer? That’s the obvious choice at this early stage, but I think that “Tomoko” is a loner, explaining their disdain for the idea of UQ Holder (a group), and “Tomoko” has been trying to solve the mystery solo. Sending Karin packing eight years ago could have been a way for “Tomoko” to remove the competition and do what they wanted without interference.
Transversely, “Tomoko” could be the murderer, but may have a reason to kill the folks that have been murdered over the years. They could have been entities like vampires and the like.
Of course, “Tomoko” may just kill everyone they feel is an enemy for whatever reasons. (“No matter how I look at it, it’s all you guys fault I’m this way.”)
Either way, now that Kuroumaru and Touta are in the same room as “Tomoko”, it will be interesting to see how things play out.
I’m sure there was something else I wanted to comment on, but I’m out of time. I like the way the chapter has taken this new arc and hope to see more mystery solving and less action for now.
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The thing that caught my attention was Touta’s age. What if he actually is Negi? Or if Touta somehow was “born”/created after Negi’s alleged death so that … something?
It is hard to say for sure. I do think Touta is a creation though, not a naturally born human.
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one reminded of Watamote’s Tomoko when the mystery figure was unmasked. Same baggy eyes, same NEET-ish air, but with Rapunzel hair and shark teeth. Of course, their gender is rather ambiguous. “Tomoko” seems to like Karin’s big boobs, so maybe it’s a male? We also know that he/she is the same age as Ikku and that he doesn’t seem to care for people who are happy and well-to-do, so maybe he/she had a tough life.
Of course, the real mystery isn’t who “Tomoko” is or who the murderer is. The real mystery is “Tomoko”‘s computer showing Touta as being born in 2082. Is it an error like “Tomoko” things, or is it something more?
I couldn’t help but think of Paio, the loli-looking six-armed girl from the magic world who lives for women’s breasts of all sizes. ^_^;
Considering it was a hack from UQH’s computers, I suspect it is something more.
tomoko jaja. i wish she·he is a she
I’d like the “she” route as well.
I’m going to guess the other thing you wanted to comment on was Touta’s age. Him being listed as four years old is either a hint, or a deliberate red herring.
Yeah, that was the other item I wanted to discuss. I think it is a hint, but we’ll see.
Not sure how many people will see this (and I am going to try to remember to mention this next chapter), but here goes.
I noticed that the files pulled by “Tomoko” gave class rankings to the different immortality levels. Karin was an “S” class, which in Japanese standards, is near the time. “SSS” I think is the highest ranking. Touta was listed as “A” class, which surprised me.
Hmmmm… I dont think its surprising, because:
1- Touta can still get injured;
2- No matter how fast he recovers, there is the “intact limb weakness” we already saw in UQH test;
Oh, and I think That person is a girl. Looks like it.
P.S. Now for a serious problem of mine! I am asking here, because even the site I posted for help no longer works! T_T
Around a week ago, lots of publicity started appearing in the websites I visit. On the low part of the screen, on the upper corners, even the manga pages “turn around” to show publicity!
That itself would be no problem, but since then my navigation became a nightmare!
1- All vídeo players in sites are malfunctioning! Even youtube is starting to fail now…ANY other player in ANY other site doesn’t work! At all!
2- Manga pages, fotos, ect. became “cut and rumbled”… you know, right part of the Picture is on the left, and the left “goes around” to show up on the right… color problems, or doesn’t show! All these can happen at once, in part of or in the entire page!
3- Several times I can’t open websites: all I see is a grey screen, with lots of strange characters (and square like ones, several of them).
Anyway, that’s my problem. I’ve tried Avast for viruses, got a spyware and nothing changed at all. Could it be internet plug-ins? It all started with that stupid publicity! Astro, or anyone who reads this, please, please help me! OTZ
It’s probably a program (or several) that install as an add-on to the web browsers. Go to the add-on list and see which ones it is and look online how to ride of it (some will need many steps for you to complete erase).
i had a similar problem turned out to be the flash player try updating your flash.
are you getting any messages about active x problems? is it just one browser. which browser you using? try looking for programs with faulty flash images running in the background. this has been known to cause this.
i had this problem myself and it took ages to find what was wrong. good luck
Oooooh, I see! Indeed, flash images from sites aren’t working properly! I’ll have a go at updating my Flash Player, thx!
Glad you got your problem resolved. ^_^
I agree, but Akamatsu-sensei may do the trap joke thing again.
You pretty much covered it, karin immortality is called a holy curse that prevents any harm to befall on her body.
Her limbs cannot be severed, she cannot bleed and cannot be wounded by human means, I believe she can only be killed by non human methods tho akatmatsu sensei needs to elaborate more on her immortality but so far karin has the most perfect immortality.
Only methods to defeats her is to seal her up, petrify her or do that warping technique that fate did…. Or alberio imma micro black hole technique… Even asuna magic cancel would not work on karin curse base immortality.
Touta immortality is the same as Eva and whilst it stronger and healing abilities are extremely high like karin… The weaknesses are to great so to say.
Karin body us 100% invulnerable to mutilation whilst touta and Eva has a standard Hunan body. Their limbs can be severed, destroyed, burned and wounded and they cannot regenerate a limb if said limb is still ‘alive’.
Sealing them, pertrification, slicing them up and atomising their entire body can destroy Eva and touta and since their immortality is magic base, once they lose their ability to use magic their immortality is significantly weaken for example Eva was reduce to a normal ten year old girl by nagi and suffered from a weak immunity system due to her immortality being the usual source in preventing her from getting sick. Drinking a negi blood had somewhat improved things but she was still cursed and limited on her resource of magic and area to move about in
Considering how Karin’s immortality works, I don’t think she can be petrified, that would be affecting her body after all (plus if that would work I would expect Fate to use that as an easier way to deal with her). I also don’t think she can be sealed if the seal affects her directly. Maybe if it’s something like Fate tried to do with Eva, enclosure her in stone so she can’t get out, seal the area around her and the like.
Things like petrification shouldn’t really kill Eva and Touta, disintegration of their whole body would probably not work too. You have a point that the Mahora seals / barrier were enable to make Eva lose her immortality. It may be just the lack of magic or something else used there in Mahora.
That’s true her immortality works in a way that prevent any harm and mutilation kinda like she in a permanent fix state.
A restraint type seal can seal her movements and an enclosure type seal is possible like Evageline deep freezing type… But with her level of skill and ability the options are limited.
Evageline and touta immortality is entirely base of their magic, disintegrating them is a viable option because like cell from dragonball, it is likely they can likely only regenerate if their magical power still exist within a single cell.
But like karin, Evageline has a high level of skill and ability making that option not possible unless you curse her like nagi did, restrain her use of magic and handicap her or exhaust her in battle… Which isn’t an option is likely negi, fate, nagi, rakan and the Mage of beginning have that level of power to exhaust her in combat.
As for Pertrification it is possible on touta but not on Eva, it would be pertrification vs regen speed and magical resistance, even negi who became immortal via magia erebea can be petrify but can reverse the effect but recovering and feeding off the pertrification magic, for Eva her magical resistance would negate the effect and even if she is petrified her cells would need to recover faster than the petrified part
In Negima you do have souls though. So it’s possible that even disintegrated, their soul still exists and can boot the regeneration even without any cell left.
Providing they know how to do that. If they don’t, they end up like Sayo.
Ah I totally forgot about that! Not only that if souls exist it possible to summon an individual and resurrect them… Unless reincarnation exist
The barriers weren’t there for Eva’s sake, but rather to keep nasty things from being able to use magic within the barrier. That’s why the barrier had to be taken down in order for Chao’s plan to work.
As to Eva’s immortality, I don’t think the barriers affected that either. She was still an immortal shinso vampire. She just couldn’t use her magic and her doll abilities.
The scene of her falling on the river in the end of her arc did seems to imply she would die. Although maybe she would be just a corpse until the next time she would regain at least some of her power and her regeneration would kick in.
I hadn’t thought she was going to die (but I see where you are coming from now), but I did think that without her powers, she’d be hurt by the fall. That was because earlier in the arc, Eva tried to fly, fell down, and was injured as a result. And as she said during the Kyoto arc, regeneration is tough on her.
Nagi used a suppressive curse to limit her powers and that had a significant impact on her ability.
But having drank Negi blood on a regular basis in exchange for teaching him, Eva was more or less restored to a healthy and rather powerful level of ability.
As I understood Nagi’s curse, it prevented Eva from leaving the Mahora campus. That’s why during the Eva arc, even though she was back at full power, she still couldn’t go passed the bridge as that was the boundary of the campus grounds. During the Kyoto arc, the headmaster had to perform a nonstop ritual to overcome the curse to allow her to be in Kyoto, where again, she was at full power outside of the school’s barriers.
Drinking Negi’s blood does give her some benefits, but that would mostly be against the school’s barriers and not the curse holding her in place. Remember, she and Chachamaru only stumbled onto the fact that the barrier coming down would be the solution to their problem, and that was a technical solution, not a magical one.
S may be the highest. On the matter why Touta and Karin have different levels, it depends on the meaning of those levels. Does them just mean how hard is to kill that being, then maybe Karin and Touta would be on the same level. But if it means on the sense of how indestructible the immortal is, then it’s natural for Karin to be higher for not being able to be damaged at all even if in the end both don’t die regardless of how much you damage them. I hope Ken explains about the different levels of immortality to more detail later, maybe as extras on the tankoubon.
Talking about rankings, I would like some power rankings at some point. Preferable using a similar unit of measurement as Negima so we can compare. Like using those letters on the left side of Rakan’s rankings (which seems to be used around the world as Mei and Takane says on chapter 129 that Takamichi’s combat power is ranked as AA+). Asking for them to be in Chisames would be too much,
SSS could be the highest rank, as there are multiple titles were power rankings go that high.
As to the power rankings, I figure we probably will get that at some point.
I noticed that as well. I guess Karin’s S-class immortality is in keeping with the fact that she appears to be completely ageless and utterly indestructible. Meanwhile, Touta may be ageless and nigh-impossible to kill permanently, but he can be hurt. Kuro’s immortality may be similar to Touta’s, though not as strong. We know s/he can regenerate from mortal wounds, but we don’t know if s/he ages or not. There has to be some kind of limitation, and it may be possible to permanently kill him. Finally, Ikkuu’s robot body is ageless or at least capable of lasting a very long time, and he can move his consciousness to other robot bodies built for him, but he can be damaged and if the body he’s in is destroyed and he can’t transfer his mind to another one, that would probably kill him.
I wonder what rank the other known members of UQ Holder are. Eva has to be at least A-rank. Jinbei doesn’t age and may be immune to most or all diseases, but he can be hurt or killed through physical damage just as easily as a mortal man, so I’d say his is D-rank. Kirie’s is harder to peg. She can be “killed” just as easily as a normal person, but she just resets. Theoretically, if you somehow managed to get her to pull you back when she dies and goes back to her last save point, you could kill her before she can create a new save point. Then again, that may not work. Would she go back to a previous checkpoint she set, or does creating a new checkpoint erase the old one, and you only get one “continue” per checkpoint?
Oh, and where does “S-rank” come from in Japanese parlance? You see it a lot in anime and apparently some schools have an “S-A-B-C-D-F” grading scheme.
Regarding Kirie, I’ve been wondering if she has an auto-save feature that wouldn’t need for her to create a save point (many older games had one specific auto save slot). Otherwise it would be too risky for her to do things like her plan to get Fate where she kills herself if there is the possibility something could easily disrupt her save so she isn’t able to come back. The auto-save could have some limitations like her not remembering anything, or incapable of bringing others with her, etc.
I wish we knew more about her abilities.
Not necessarily. In the modern Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons downloaded at “death”. Akamatsu-sensei could be following a similar route, which would allow Ikkuu to transfer right at death or right before death, thus being reborn in a new body but retaining all of the memories and experiences.
As to Kirie, you make a good point because we still don’t know everything about her power.
I remember looking this up many years ago when I first watched Yu Yu Hakusho. I seem to remember that the “S” ranking (and subsequent “SS” and “SSS” rankings, which weren’t part of Yu Yu Hakusho) was just to indicate something so rare, it went above and beyond the first letter of the alphabet. I think subsequent mangaka and anime writers just follow suit, modifying it as needed.
Well each ranking can use different letters for everything. The power level Ranking in Negima had:D<C<B<A<AA<AAA<SA with also possible – and + (like AA+), The reason I think S may be the highest for the immortality ranking is because what can you have stronger than reality warping powers that make someone complete invulnerability to damage?
Now that I’ve had time to ponder it, the MotB might be SSS ranking on immortality. ^_~
Based on which theory? If based on the one of taking other bodies, that doesn’t seems to be particularly stronger than Karin. Both would be unable to die but Karin still would have the advantage of not even being able to be damaged.
Apparently, the MotB can be defeated, but upon defeat, simply takes over a body and is back in business without injury, but doesn’t continue the fight for whatever reason. That’s some pretty awesome immortality in my opinion.
So main mystery is touta age that was revealed in this episode
I just saw people commenting that FT that usually is scanlated the Friday of the week before the magazine release, is sometimes released on Monday of the week before the magazine release in weeks with a break like this. Now that likely means that they usually print the magazine on the Friday and on the Monday when there is a break. Whoever scanlates FT have access to it. The person who write the Manga Kansou UQ Holder spoilers is likely the same.
So basically what I mean is, we may get the next chapter spoilers earlier than usual.
If you see something, do let me know. ^_^
So that’s y fairy tail not out QwQ
Summer break in Japan.
I haven’t check for raws but fairy tail is out on mangastream
So no early spoiler in the end. Well, it’s already Friday in Japan. We will likely get the next chapter spoiler in the next 12 hours.
Heh! Turned out to be longer than that — nearly 24 hours.
In a moment, Touta got become famous…
“And how you can ever think to compare them to Yukihime-sama”
Yeah, it is an affront XD
The scenes of the crime lol Who can do those things? the boy in the bathroom ._.”
Touta seems that dislikes the gory
Now, Is the hooded a girl o boy? I find it confusing
I thought that he/she would end up to break the keyboard with the knocks XD
I was suprised that Touta has only 4 years old!
Will Evangeline know only about it? I wonder about the reaction of Touta when he knows it.
If the hooded is a girl… Maybe she loves Touta by seeing that he is different
If the hooded is a boy… Karin will do that he gets a girlfriend and in this way he doesn’t have any relation with Evangeline, the same as Touta XD
Is there this week chapter?
Considering his line of bloody work, that’s almost surprising, but I’m glad to see it (which I shouldn’t be).
There is indeed. ^_^
I see a immortal NEET character right here.
There is a possibility that this person is not the killer, since it looks like his/her ability is mostly technical like Chisame’s ability.
I guess we will find out. btw, way think this one is a girl going by the attitude ‘she’ had towards Ikkuu. Since he was flirting with female students. Maybe. And as for the comment on Karin’s boobs, it may be because she is jealous. Or keeps profiles on everyone inluding breast sizes.
I guess we will find out at some point.
No doubt, but I wonder if Akamatsu-sensei teases us for a while on this.