September 3rd, 2014 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 48
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Santa has a memory-dream where a group of guys are bullying him, stuffing a towel in his mouth. When Santa wakes up, Touta has his foot in Santa’s mouth, irritating him, but Santa controls himself since he doesn’t want to blow his cover and decides he’ll deal with the immortals one on one.
In the morning, Touta makes breakfast, surprising Santa with how good it is. Touta tries to get Santa to go to school, but he’s not interested and doesn’t accept Touta’s assertion that there are friends worried about him. Touta doesn’t understand how Santa can stay in a dorm room and not go to school, so Santa says it is the forbidden dorm, so everyone stays away. Learning that Santa has no family, Santa reveals he makes money in online games. Touta is very impressed by this, and Santa is surprised that Touta even knows anything about the games. Santa is taken aback by Touta’s enthusiasm for his gameplay videos and gets talked into going out with Touta and Kuroumaru, the latter also being talked into skipping class.
The trio hit the town, eventually ending up in a game center (arcade), where Santa wins all the games against Touta. Touta catches himself being caught up in things, but before he can say anything, the discipline committee girls find them, wanting to take Touta into custody for his illegal duel and skipping class, and Kuroumaru into custody for skipping class. Touta grabs Santa and flees with Kuroumaru, ultimately leaping off a roof. Santa freaks since he may have to blow cover to save himself, but when Touta speaks of having friends, Santa slaps his hand away, forcing Touta to catch Santa.
Santa leaves, saying there’s nothing good about friends or the students at Academy City and leaves them. Kuroumaru notes the similarity in Santa’s build and their unknown assailant, but before Kuroumaru can put anything together, a girl approaches Kuroumaru. She wants Kuroumaru to help Santa-kun, who apparently doesn’t remember that he’s already dead.
Thoughts/Review:
Well now, well now. I guess my thoughts about Santa acting a lot like a ghost was actually the right path after all. I know blog reader Caroline mention Santa being more like a poltergeist. That could be true. I’m not sure how the Japanese separate ghosts from poltergeist. Most of what I’ve read is that poltergeist are invisible, which clearly, Santa is not. But Santa has feet, which Japanese ghost do not. But, he may have possessed his computers or the like, and thus is actually a computer projection entity along the lines of Forty and Thirty from A.I. Love You.
Anyway, after being depressed as all get-out by the bullying themes in A Silent Voice, Akamatsu-sensei delves into the issue of bullying by having Santa bullied when he was alive. I suspect that Santa’s bullies killed him, thus the reason Santa harbors such a massive grudge against people, thus the reason Santa attacks other bullies when he becomes aware of them. I wonder how deeply Sensei will explore the bullying theme with this current arc.
Since Sensei is obviously setting up Santa to be a new member of UQ Holder, the story is being set to show that Santa can get along with others. I believe he’ll also be given some kind of pass if he’s the real murderer that he seems to be. Then, he’ll fit in as UQ Holder’s intelligence person as he can hack into any system and phase though any place. Plus, he’s pretty powerful, so he could handle himself.
Oh, while I’m thinking of it, since the girl at the end referred to Santa as “Santa-kun,” and Santa was shown being bullied by a group of guys (wearing a male uniform), I decided to switch from a gender-neutral way of referring to Santa and will now use the masculine version. Still, at times, Santa does look very girlish. ^_^;
Speaking of the girl, I wonder how she knows about Santa, considering he’s been around for a while.
One last thing, I found it amusing that Touta talked Kuroumaru into ditching class and playing hooky.
So an interesting chapter here. We’ll see what happens with the story in the next chapter.
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I thought Santa was going to be a girl… I got fooled again by Akamatsu-sensei.
I mentioned a few weeks ago it was going be a trap… It a trap in a trap of a trap… I saw it and was like bet it a girl, long hair and I was like yes and now it turns out he a guy and I’m like darn u D<
*lol* Funny. ^_^
Ditto. 🙁
The more i read about santa, his powers and his backstory the more it sounds like he is a potergiest
Potergiest in Japan are somewhat different than they are in the West. My understanding of Western potergiest is that they are generally invisible.
I’m still leaning toward a technological explanation with roots in the A.I. Love You manga, only Santa possessed a reality module after death.
Now the theory Santa is a ghost is the most plausible. But I still have some doubts because Santa is visible, touch things around without problem even when sleeping, eat food, etc. But there may be a kind of ghost that can do that. We will see on the next chapters.
And yes, chances Santa is a male got even higher. That’s sad, he was really cute this chapter.
Looking forward to next weak color page.
Santa could be a ghost in the machine/shell kind of thing. ^_~
I’m really hoping for a link to A.I. Love You to explain Santa’s existence and immortality.
Yeah, at times, Santa did look very girlish. 🙁 Akamatsu-sensei must be loving tweaking folks since he’s known for the bevy of cute babes in his various manga titles to date.
Given that this is the only thing that UQ Holder has going for it that sets it apart from other series (To some extent. It’ll never actually go anywhere when Akamatsu dumps it into Oblivion like Negima), turning Santa and Kuro into girls would leave a bad taste in my mouth. At least then Akamatsu doesn’t have to deal with the unfortunate implications that Kuro sucks because he’s feminine…oh wait, that was brought up before. Whatever, you get my point.
Except that UQ-Holder will no-doubt last Akamatsu manga so it is not likely to “send Into Oblivion” lol
And for heaven’s sake, stop your attachment to the 3-A was a stark immaturity. You think all fans of Negima is cared harem Negi? I do not! Some did not care passionately and had my case! The failure to review the 3-A leaves me neither lime nor cold. In fact I was hoping that if there was a sequel to Negima would in the distant future, but the 3-A In the case of UQ and I am glad (and I’m not the only one)
Yeah, I think this will be his last manga as well.
And this being his last series stops Akamatsu from burning this series to the ground later on is…what exactly? The man doesn’t have the integrity to at least give his longtime fans any sort of closure while throwing all of his characters under the bus.
Kuroumaru has no gender and can choose to become female or male in the near future, or will naturally settle into a gender role. I think Kuroumaru is being set up to be female.
As for Santa, presuming he is male like we believe, there’s nothing there to shift him to being female.
Dargor: “And this being his last series stops Akamatsu from burning this series to the ground later on is…what exactly? The man doesn’t have the integrity to at least give his longtime fans any sort of closure while throwing all of his characters under the bus.”
As I said :
“And for heaven’s sake, stop your attachment to the 3-A was a stark immaturity. You think all fans of Negima is cared harem Negi? I do not! Some did not care passionately and had my case! The failure to review the 3-A leaves me neither lime nor cold. In fact I was hoping that if there was a sequel to Negima would in the distant future, but the 3-A In the case of UQ and I am glad (and I’m not the only one)”
Why do not you understand that? The fact that some souentt satisfés UQ-Holder, not because they have low or because attantes would be playing away and taking moutnns as alleged over-master there some time but because is exactly the scenario that they hoped? I would have been pretty disappointed with all the potential of the univer Negima, if we had still had to suffer (yes I write well “SUFFER”) the presence of the 3-A.
I care less about who became the wife of Negi. However I hope to learn more about the life-maker, the Gravekeeper, filius zeckt, immortals, demons, averruncus ect. But the 3-A uh … Has the least of my worries! And I’m not alone in thinking that I am sure.
According to some rumors, Negima should have been a pure shonen originally was only on EDITORIAL STRESS that the harem was created. If this is true, then the 3-A would not exist due Jamis eh yeah! ^^
Finally, Negima not even represent the true project of its author and you luis affrenchir reproach to the harem in UQ-Holder while keeping the most interesting elements in its new Negima manga (life-maker, Negi, Fate. ..) I need regular.
Your immaturity is distressing. Mos to reassure me, you would not approve (if it happens) the exact behavior similar to that suffered the author of Kuroko no Basket (harassed and threatened with death by a hater for almost 1 year!) In against Akamatsu-sensei right? And I’m not asking this in order to be malicious, mocking or irrespectueu (I hope Astro-san understand that), I confess that your almost pathological affection for 3-A scares me a bit .. . sincerely!
2ch spoilers out, as usual they don’t come with any pics so they can be fake:
事件の真相(扉画:夏凛立ち絵 裸ニーソもあるよ)
九郎丸が少女に案内されたのは三太の墓
確かに、三太を触ってみれば九郎丸にも幽鬼(ﾚﾌﾞﾅﾝﾄ)だとわかる
だが、三太は刀太とずっと行動していた(※)というのに新たな犠牲者たちが
三太が犯人だ、分身にでもやらせたのだ、と決めてかかる夏凛は
“小夜子の呪い”と噂される女生徒(と同一かは不明)の死霊(ﾚｲｽ)に襲われ
My try at translating it (it’s hard to understand 2ch compressed spoilers so expect some errors):
The truth of the incident (Opening page (color?) Karin standing and naked with only knee socks?)
The girl guides Kuroumaru to Santa’s grave, when Kurou tries touching Santa he also notices he is a 幽鬼(レブナント) (Revenant?).
But Santa had been with Touta the whole time while new victims appeared. Karin thinks Santa is the murder and had prepared an alter ego or something to fool them. But then she (not sure if Karin here) is attacked by the rumored “Sayoko/Sayako’s curse” 死霊(ﾚｲｽ) (Wraith?) school girl.
Good chapter. Some hints at a backstory for Santa (bullies suck), and some quality bonding time between him, Touta, and Kuro. Usually, in shounen manga you’ll get a “defeat means friendship” scenario where an enemy becomes a friend after being beat, but this time Touta is trying to do it preemptively, albeit unwittingly so.
That’s a good point on the new take on an old shounen trope.
[…] Speaking of Santa, I had long thought that he been murdered. As I said in chapter 48. […]