September 24th, 2014 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 51
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta still doesn’t want to believe that Santa is dead, but Santa’s cut off arm vaporizing and Kuroumaru’s explanation of what a revenant is forces him to concede the point. However, he refuses to accept that Santa is the killer. He gets into an angry argument with Ikkuu and has Santa flee. Santa does, but Ikkuu has Kuroumaru give pursuit. Ikkuu restrains Touta, so Touta uses a punch enhanced by Magia Erebea, ending that.
As Kuroumaru races to catch Santa, suddenly, Touta is in Kuroumaru’s path. After pinning Kuroumaru to the ground, Ikkuu arrives, so Touta reminds them that Santa died at the same time that the murders happened eight years before. As such, Touta reasons that there has to be someone else involved, even if Santa is also involved. Conceding the point, Ikkuu starts a search for Santa while Kuroumaru recalls the young girl she met.
Meanwhile, Sayoko meets up with Santa, who wonders why she’s there. He tells her that he’s been told that he’s dead. He wants her assurances since he got his powers from her. Sayoko moves to kiss Santa to give him more power, but he breaks away, unable to make sense of things. He says he hasn’t seen her since he got rid of UQ Holder the last time. She tells him that she’ sout of time and has come to say goodbye. She confesses that she caused UQ Holder to return and arranged for Kuroumaru and Touta to be Santa’s roommates. However, she’s not happy that they’ve treated him like a monster, considering that they are undying monsters.
Santa drops to his knees, so Sayoko tells him that he did die eight years ago. However, Sayoko is a necromancer who kept Santa alove. She asks him to take care of himself as she starts to leave.
Elsewhere, Kirie arrives, smelling blood.
Thoughts/Review:
Well, the rumors that were spot on with Kirie arriving and Sayoko being a necromancer.
I’m really not liking Akamatsu-sensei’s handling of Touta. I know, those of you who like the character will think I’m just bashing him, but everything in the book is done to make Touta the hero. If that means making everyone else in the room drop 1000 IQ points so that he can suddenly be the smartest person around.
Seriously, we had Karin going off and being dumb so that she could be removed from the story. Then, both Kuroumaru and Ikkuu don’t rationally think if anything while Touta doesn’t know why he thinks Santa is innocent, but he just does. It is later that he comes up with the shaky, “Santa died eight years ago” reasoning that gets things through.
Of course, Touta easily smokes Ikkuu and Kuroumaru to save Santa. Someone get our boy a cape with a big, red S on it already! ^_~
As to Sayoko, she’s supposed to be a wraith, but she’s also a necromancer. So, why’d she disappear on Santa after Santa got Karin to leave eight years earlier? Why is she suddenly out of time?
Sayoko may be insane, but I do believe she truly cares for Santa. I think that’s why she made him into a revenant and gave him his psionic powers. She wanted UQ Holder to take care of him now that she’s going. In a twisted way, it is rather sweet. And in that light, I think that the reason Sayoko is out of time is that she’s been sacrificing herself to keep Santa alive.
I do think she had a great point about UQ Holder. UQ Holder’s actions toward Santa have not been positive. There’s an irony in the fact that UQ Holder wants to help humanity, yet are hunted as monsters by others who see these immortals as a threat. Yet UQH hunts other undead or otherwise immortal beings and don’t seem to care whether they are innocent or guilty.
Finally, there’s Kirie’s unexpected arrival on the scene. With her remark on smelling blood, I couldn’t help but wonder how many times Karin, Touta, Kuroumaru, and Ikkuu have repeated things. I get the feeling this isn’t the first time through.
Despite my complaints about how Touta has to be made the star when he’s the weakest character in the manga, I still enjoyed the chapter. I’m looking forward to the next chapter.
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The more disturbing thing about this chapter is that our main hero might have Magia Erebia already mastered if judging what Ikkuu said =_=
As far as I was concerned, Touta mastered ME the moment he “put it back into the box” when it threatened to take him over in the fight with Nagumo.
I wouldn’t say he “mastered” ME just yet. He can use it for doping without it devouring his soul, but the fact that he’s a vampire of similar build to Evangeline might also just mean that he has a high affinity to it, since it was made for usage by vampires in the first place. Wasn’t its purpose to give Evangeline a big power boost back when she was super weak? All this does is prove that it fits its original function. Kudos to you Eva, your magic works. Anyway, he can’t absorb any spells or destroy barriers, so he’s currently way weaker than Negi before training to fight Rakan. He’d be around where Negi fought Fate after their coffee and tea argument, only less so since he can’t use combat magic and doesn’t know any real martial arts.
I think people are seeing him as stronger than he is because they compare him to his comrades without realizing that Kuroumaru is way weaker than Setsuna, and Ikku is way weaker than Chachamaru. He’s stronger than the B-list samurai and robot, but compared to Ala Alba he’s not got much. Really, he’s just using ME as magic steroids and has a good combat sense since he was raised by Evangeline. I mean, way back in Chapter One we see he was lying in wait to ambush her and tried to fight her hand-to-hand, and it was implied that it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Maybe he’d be around Ku Fei’s strength without her using her artifact. I wish somebody had Rakan’s “power level” whiteboard and could edit in about where that would put him in the grand scheme of things.
Bingo ! +100^^
I have nothing to add! You said what I repeated to septic for months! ^^
And I would even add that Tota not -only does not seem overpowered but it seems even ridiculously weak for me, actually. Nothing against Fate (which has the largest has used only the half of his strength or even less than that!) He’s explosed Tota!
So far Tota has not win any fight import, it ended either draw or defeat for him either.
Astro : And for the Magia-Erebea: NO Astro, he did not mastered in the fiht with Kaito and Nagumo indeed. And I want to say that the fact that repels Tota magia-erebea is not without previous exemple! When Negi was left overwhelmed by hatred and attack Kurt Godel to-middle of an illusion of his village in flames, it only took him a remonstrance to Chisame and a vision of his father to push the magia -Erebea. Was more “What th fuck!” that will face Tota has made Nagumo and Kaito from my point of view ^^
And as tenkalion said, anyway, behind-the Magia erebea was not supposed to be a sort of immortality but a lot of “magic doping” for vampires and demons! (he s ‘whether biblical devils or other entities as mysterious Mazoku)
In Negima Eva had even said that Negi, a human, learn it was literally a heresy, a madness! And in fact, Tota is a vampire … So-magia erebea is a technique that is made for him! If we add that he probably possesses the gen of Negi … If we thought that way it would be absurd, that Tota would have difficulty to master it (or at least prevent it from turning into crazy berserker) precisely.
I think Touta has mastered ME and can use it at will. The fact that he was able to put it away with little effort would also seem to back that up. He may not understand it, but he knows he has it and can use it at will.
The funny thing about Kuroumaru and Setsuna is that Kuroumaru was not considered to be in training, at least, not as far as I can see. Kuroumaru was sent out on a mission, even if a suicide mission. Setsuna quietly took to watching over Konoka, but apparently did take some jobs with Mana from time to time. However, I believe that she considered herself to still be in training when she agreed to teach Asuna some things.
I wouldn’t care about Touta’s powers if he’d earned them. Being able to see something and then use it like a master in no time is not earning it, in my opinion. But that’s just me.
“Yet UQH hunts other undead or otherwise immortal beings and don’t seem to care whether they are innocent or guilty.”
They were after an immortal that already had killed quite a few people. And they were even sent with the possibility of recruiting the murderer. In Santa’s case, if he tried to talk with them instead of attacking before and now saying he was the culprit and attacking again things could go well.
So no, I don’t see UQH being wrong with that. The fact that they try to convince and in the worst cases seal or eliminate immortals who commit atrocities is just they acting like a police to their own kind.
You do have a point there. I guess I let my annoyance with Touta being the Brainiac here get the better of me.
Well, about this chapter, Has Touta control about the Magia Erebea? loool
Seriously? It can’t be… At least, slightly of suffering or something with it. Negi suffered a lot with the Magia Erebea and it was very difficult for Negi control it
I know that Negi was a human and Touta is a vampire here, but, even so, he could take some effort about control the Magia Erebea, it seems that is a magic that anyone can dominate easily (He didn’t even began to train)
At the end, Kirie appeared in this arc XD, and the poor Karin 1000 feet under,¿?
What will Sayoko do now? Does she also go to bury Touta and the others? lol
My thoughts exactly. And he even activated it only on one of his hand (at least, that’s what it looked like). What was that? Luffy’s gear 2nd post-timeskip?
In this case, I wonder if him being a construct (not confirmed yet) is enough for a reason..
As the other said, “jumpy” sounds like an appropriate word.. Thankfully, the latter half of this chapter is pretty interesting,.
Yeah, that pretty much describes it.
I agree. It is those elements that keep me interested in the manga as a whole.
Touta can do anything ’cause he’s Touta. What takes others years to accomplish, he does in a fraction of the time.
With Kirie being here, it is possible that Karin isn’t buried.
I agree with your point about Touta, ANB. I prefer seeing Touta portrayed as a somewhat ‘competent’ character (but then I will always prefer any character being competent over the alternative;)), but there is no use pretending that his competence seems in any way ‘earned’.
The deeper problem is that almost no single character, plot thread or development in this manga so far has been given the necessary space and time and care for me to feel that they are anything more than sketches of real , solid examples of their respective kinds.
This manga is so jumpy, haphazard, confused and unfinished that I have no confidence any kind of ‘brilliant’ explanation in a future chapter will be able to overcome and fix this. Compared to Negima this is just plain bad writing (on the structural level, at least) and feels as if Akamatsu-sensei is just goofing off, here. Which is a sad thing and something for which I can find no explanation.
It makes me feel that the level of scrutiny you are gifting this manga with must ultimately be wasted. You (and the rest of us, too) are looking for trends, developments, through-lines to comment on and feed our speculative appetites, yet this whole manga (at least so far) has been nothing but ‘and then another pretty pointless thing happened instead of any kind of contextualization for all the other pointless things that happened already, which is what makes them pretty pointless, after all’.
It doesn’t cost me a lot of time or energy to keep reading this thing (I’m not the one doing 2 blog posts per week on it, after all;)) but at this point its nothing but nicely drawn, mindless fluff with a slight patina of nostalgia for a way better manga that died long before its time.
With Negima, it was difficult to see any bigger picture until volume 3 (and that wasn’t helped by all of the rewrites in the early Del Rey releases), but after that, one could see a pretty tightly written and planned story.
With UQ Holder, Akamatsu-sensei seems to be following Mashima-sensei’s writing style — plan an arc or two, run with them, then see where it takes you, using plot threads from Negima as starting points.
I disagree with Negima having a clear picture at that point. Negi had an objective. save his father, but we didn’t know anything about it. Each arc had pieces of puzzle but that only became visible when they joined in the later arc. The festival arc for instance didn’t seems to be related at all with that theme. Just an exposition and development in characters that had yet to appear and some content like Al that for the arc was more like side story than anything. Only later we would learn it’s actually strongly tied to it, as the thing Chao wanted to stop is also the same problem Nagi faced that in the end resulted in him being stuck there.
It does seems to me Akamatsu is doing his usual, planning things quite ahead and releasing lots of hints along the way that only later we will piece together and say “aha, so that have been hinted since that far back”.
Like with Touta’s origins that we have been getting close to lately with the latest hint and as people pointed out there were hints as far back as chapter 1.
Maybe not a clear picture, but by the end of volume 3, it seemed like things were more focused and there was a direction the manga was ultimately heading. Looking back, it is clear that even in volume 1, there was foreshadowing (with a proper translation). That doesn’t mean everything was planned because I think Akamatsu-sensei has a problem with working Eva into hanging out with Ala Rubra.
That being said, I don’t sense any real focus in UQ Holder. It seems more like some tales set in an Akamatsu-verse with close ties to Negima. But I could be well wrong on my impressions.
Well I just took property otherwise. I get to have a clearer picture of the real scenario UQ-Holder’s when I should have been that of Negima if I had started from the beginning.
As I said it seem pretty clear for now that Akamatsu uses this principle mission to present the numbers.
Do not forget Shinobu! Tota said they would meet again and where does she go? In Space! And I think we will see her again when Tota will climb the tower!
Bingo! I too am perceived it. But there is a BIG difference with Fairy-tail.
Fairy-tail was intended in the principe” to be a maga “guild” not as Adventure like Rave. By cons for UQ I rather think that this formula is only a step until Akamatsu has presented the numbers or Tota repay his debt and go into the tower. After we return to the RPG-like Negima …on Mars^^.
Incidentally, if I analyze Negima I perceive that contrary to appearances the pattern was the same. Negi and his class went on a journey, fighting an enemy and then return (Chigusa) or, they stopped a threat for the school (Eva Chao). Has a very Fairy-tail-like pattern here too in my opinion. Was not until the magic-world arc that “Adventure” began. So in fact contrary to what was thought (myself included) not only UQ follows the pattern of fairy-tail at first but it mostly follows the same logic as Negima, arcs were just as “disjointed” in Fairy -tail or UQ early. Everything will take off when paira debt (and it will), the question is when. It took 20 volumes to leave the “cocoon” of Mahora, hopefully it will not take much to UQ-Holder. But given the speed of the story, I have a feeling it will be. In addition Fairy-tail is a local Gulde, so we were oblogé not move much in order to return to the guild after missions. But UQ-Holder, not only the hero dreams of going into space, which is my real-moin vague that “finding a dragon” geographically (and thus leave the area controlled by the officially organization) but UQ is a global organization! It involves much more than just a-“fairy-tail sauce Negima” for me! ^^
When Fairy Tail started, one of the initial elements put out was Natsu being an orphan, raised by a dragon to be a Dragon Slayer, and same dragon disappeared at a certain time, so Natsu has been looking for Igneel ever since. Occasionally, Mashima-sensei touches this story thread, but I’m convinced that he had no clue about what happened when he started. He just strings together tales, some more interesting than others, and tries to work things out to not have major discontinuity.
I just have that same feeling from UQ Holder, but that’s just me.
Well I just took property otherwise. I get to have a clearer picture of the real scenario UQ-Holder’s when I should have been that of Negima if I had started from the beginning.
As I said it seem pretty clear for now that Akamatsu uses this principle mission to present the numbers.
Do not forget Shinobu! Tota said they would meet again and where does she go? In Space! And I think we will see her again when Tota will climb the tower!.
+5 Chaosprophet !^^
As I said above, I think before dévelloper his characters Akamatsu attands to present them all.
And at the risk of repeating myself, the concept of “development” or “story structure” should NOT EVEN be addressed here, just because something is a subjective EXTREMELY that variety from one individual to another .
For example you find yourself developing Negima better than UQ, I was almost the opposite in fact (3A girls do reminds me of nothing more than romantic crushes a 10 year old up at Volume 12 (with notable exception of Setsuna, Konoka, Eva and Asuna) AFTER Volume 12, things start to Change. for UQ against by the charm operated immediately and regarding the development of kuromaru for exemple. We went to a fanatical immortal hunter to best friends of Tota in maximum 50 chapter, it is not nothing! You said that for now UQ-Holder does not want to give you speculate? if I been here time Negima I would probably say the same thing until the arc of the tournament mahora!
Who is right or wrong? NOBODY all is subjective.
Two things to finish:
1 STOP to base analysis Uqsur Negima, their service is not the same, gender is not the same and ESPECIALLY their cutting arc is not the same! Just as the term “story structure” is blurred, as the term “cutting the story” is pretty concrete.
Negima was composed of three or four large arches. So far UQ-Holder was cut into small bows. Although sowed theory, all their bows are like a “presentation of numbers”. If this theory is juse, we would maybe definitely cutting property in a great arc as Negima after all but mostly we would be at the end of the introduction! We do not develop alot in introduction huh?
2 So then I beg you, do not justify your disenchantment of a manga by “pseudo-literary arguments”! Or you like or not like it, is all. I must admit I do not understand what goes on hoeurs to dissect a manga or a novel and use “academic rules” to justify that they do not like it.
Following is just an opinion.
Drake12 & Magine : Instead of a tedious response in an English semi-understandable I’ll let one of my fellow French forum where I am registered, we share his sentiment. I want to clarify that even me who does not hate tota I expressed the same fears as you on Magia-Erebea. However the response of my friends (simple and complete at a time) convinced me. This place Nerothos or Nero for intimate^^:
“You forget one thing: Touta has magia Erebia in his body (and perhaps it was to genetically engineer especially for that) and thus his mastery is NECESSARLY larger and faster than Negi who has learn and assimilated.
After the shots for this is probably because Akamatsu does not want us remonstrate this mastery he spend training. If anything it is little compared to the rest.
It could even have been the shots either went without real control (although here it seems to master but is not certain). ”
I chord with him, it’s more like an unconscious use.
Astro: Yes the momet where I was just bugged this was when Tota say us his tirade on the “8 years”. I thought there. “Uh … wha the fu ** ?! You’ve been offline cerebrally for ANY INQUIRY and now you’re waking? Lool!”
Though actually I’m exaggerating, This was him, that at the beginning of the investigation suggests that victims have been cast from a vehicle. This wasn’t stupid at all! Maybe he gives us just proof that he has a good memory (he didn’t forgotten the date of the first series of murders). And besides it’s still logic records with his ability to learn extremely fast (which is not limited in battle since early the manga Tota shows off his cooking, singer, mechanics skills etc) so it is logical after all.
I wonder though why Akamatsu has spent in tota “heroic mode” is to be closer to Santa rather than a simple “is the hero, he should shine.” Finally is my opinion.
Anyway Astro-san I hope your passage in “critic mode” (lol) is not going to attract the haters, I said that to the tranquility of debate, not a reproach for you^^.
About Kirie, Nero was noticed that the mention of blood, he thought of a vampire. And I IMMEDIATELY thought the boy vampire of UQ, Kirie would not be there for the same reason that Tota and others. This makes me think that Akamatsu himself also had enough of the “prologue”. I think the story (equivalent for “post kyoto-arc in Negima) really begins when ALL the numbers are presented.^^
I need to start paying attention to Touta and his memory. Usually, dumb characters have bad memories. I can’t recall if Touta has been playing the “duh” card when it comes to remembering things or not.
I can accept your fellow’s opinion, but I think there’s still something missing. I’ll be more convinced if Touta didn’t realize that he activated ME in this chapter. If he really activated it at will, then it looks like he also got an IQ boost in this chapter..
I’m afraid it will be the IQ boost route.
Well so what? Do not you was one of those who complained about the alleged lack of intelligence of Tota and it did not look like enough to Negi the great strategist? (although from my point of view Tota was never silly, on the contrary, he is rather clever, he’s just naive). So you should be happy he got a “IQ boost.” It may be necessary to know what we want right?
As I think about it, about the stupid reaction kuro and Ikku. Astro how you react if your colleague who was part capture the suspect in a case of magics murders that you thought innocent … Disappeare and not answering the phone? You think calmly or you panic? Add to this the horrible eventually have defended the guilty feeling!
Their reaction is NORMAL!
To put it simply: out of character.
I don’t mind Touta being Touta, that is, being naive. It’s true I like Negi’s character more, but it’s too sudden, or “jumpy”. It feels to me that Touta needs more development before he reached this point.
It’s not his character or what he is that bothered me more, it’s his development.
I can accept someone, who’s usually composed, suddenly acting too rushed because of something unexpected. That’s indeed quite normal. But it’s less usual to see someone, who’s usually being naive, suddenly acting composed without enough development.
Touta needs a lot more development in my book. I keep wanting to see this come about.
This. What cold_menthol just said!
I would be completely ok with Touta being a Konoka-like airhead who actually has a fairly high IQ. The problem, as cold_menthol pointed out, is that his portrayal up to this point has been way to rushed and unclear for us to know if this is the case and consequently his smart turn in this chapter seems unearned.
That was also supposed to be the main point of my previous comment, when I compared UQ Holder with Negima in regard to structure. In Negima pretty much every single development (everything new that happened, from the beginning on out) was given the space and time to breath and stand on its own. Even if it was some event that only hinted at later developments. Every development that happened was given the treatment it needed to feel clear and consequential within the sub-unit of the story that it was introduced in, regardless of whether it was just some small school story, or some piece of the puzzel about Negi’s father. Almost all the developments in UQ Holder so far (all of those mini-arcs our good, if somewhat hard to understand, Seimei mentioned) have been things in serious need of further elaboration, context, breathing room, something! But instead we always just get the next meaningless thing.
I want to make very clear, here, that my complaint is not about me being frustrated because I can’t stand waiting for the grand reveal that will make everything make sense. I am saying that such a reveal could not fix the problem I am talking about. The missing context here is not about plot twists or secrets. It is about the fact that the rushed presentation of events – always action, never any background, any resonance – means that none of the events or characters introduced can have any real meaning. It doesn’t matter what just happened because in 5 seconds something completely different and equally unconnected and weightless will come along! It’s like punchline after punchline with almost no setup in between and no breathing space for individual moments. That is a problem that has nothing to do with the fact that this might still be early days for UQ Holder! Even in the so-called early days of Negima, with the school chapters, we always had enough context for even the smallest things, so things didn’t feel rushed. In fact, that was one of the greatest marvels about Negima for me: That Akamatsu had this huuuuge roster of characters (plus with the time travel! absolutely unbeliveable!!!) – and he still managed to service every single one of them so you would know exactly who they were and what they wanted, from moment to moment, and why you should care for them! The context of events and the things that give them meaning, not just pointless action.
I can’t find the words to put it more clearly, so will have to do for now. Aren’t you guys lucky!;)
Oh reassure yourself, I fully understand you. By cons, it seems that was you who did not understand me. I think I’ve seen almost supplis to stop using pseudo-academic arguments that mean nothing to most people.
The characters in UQ-Holders without background or development? Lool! They got a background that the most accomplished than 3-A instead! Each character in 3-A was a black hole for background. You said that we knew perfectly quieless were? Not me,! I did not see in them that schoolgirls uninteresting until Volume 21, with notable exceptions (Eva, Konoka, Asuna, Setsuna, Kaede, ku-fai, mana). Chao gets a background (and again! Very small) that from the Mahora tournament!
And I can not seem to believe that there are still people to defend the 4 (or even 12) first volumes of Negima. Aside from the attack on Eva, the first three volumes have NO interest! You think the action is going too fast UQ Holder? For me in Negima was the opposite! Too inutil blah-blah, too much school-life! Too many silly love stories (that you consider “development” ahem) and not enough action to start!
I repeat it AGAIN, Akamatsu wants to introduce EDGE all “numbers” before to develope them individually (and to begin the real story), this is nevertheless clear. There also is an exception, Santa, which gets its development DURING his introduction … For if there is a difference between UQ and Negima, Negima in ALL the main characters were present from chapter 1.
The backgund and development of a character is revealed gradually, not in one fell swoop when it appears! And is exactly what Sensei did with Tota and kuro! Example: in the arc initiation UQ-Holder when kuro and Tota meeting Jinbei, kuro says he is immortal for 4 years. In the arc we learn that Santa Tota was born there 4 years … Oh coincidentally! Could they have been part of the same project of magical experimentation on immortality ??? Hmmm.
You’re so focused on the fact scrutinize the supposed manga over Negima defects that you do not even see that just Akamatsu develops his characters! And I wonder how many Nekketsu you read? If you had read a lot you would not think Akamatsu mismanaging its history.
ps: you should read or watch Yuyu-hakusho (Astro could tell you, he knows this manga). The narrative is about the same as in UQ (small arcs apparently unrelated but are all connected). The background of some characters (especially Hiei and kurama) is really developed … ONLY in the last arc of the manga !!! This does not preclude this manga to be excellent
I never read the manga, but I did watch the anime. 🙂
Very true, which is why I find Negima to be better written than UQ Holder.
In MSN, that kind of development is understandable, because its sub-genre included ecchi, school-life, even harem. And some of the girls are supposed to be normal person with normal background.
I’m not going to comment on character’s background in UQH because it’s still relatively early. There are even character who’s not properly appeared yet.
You said yourself that character’s development is supposed to be done gradually, one step at a time. That’s true. However, some of us saw that Touta’s development is being done not one step at a time, nor zero step, but two (or even more) steps at a time instead. Hence, “jumpy”.
Well, I hope that’s only because UQH is an ongoing manga..
Well, I guess we can always hope! 😉
And, Seimei, you and I will just have to agree to disagree. No harm, no foul.
Touta getting an arbitrary IQ boost just to make him the hero isn’t what I want. Now, if Touta gets there because of hard work and such, then that’s fine.
As to your questions, UQ Holder is supposed to be a group of professionals, not panicking amateurs. As such, I think they should have acting with more reason, not wait for Touta to remind them of the blatant obvious (its actually 80 years, not 8 as stated in the chapter by mistake from the translators).
uh IQ does not increase (or little) with work and training I think. And sorry but Tota NOT IDIOT, it is naive, it’s not the same, Negi was like when you look back. He was also very naive sometimes. If for you not to be like Negi and do not have the intelligence to Enstain at 10 years is stupid so we are all stupid here knowing that we all have between 15 and 25 years old here I think ^^.
You can increase your IQ. ^_^
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/03/07/you-can-increase-your-intelligence-5-ways-to-maximize-your-cognitive-potential/
I board said “I do not think” not “I’m sure” lol. ^^
However, I have NEVER seen in any RPG or shonen character increase his IQ by training (well Naruto… after 300 chapters lol) usually in a manga character remains a idiot, semi-smart / semi-idiot (Tota for me in this category, as Yusuke Urameshi example), smart, or a genius, or even a super-genius (aizen in bleach) throughout the manga or RPG. Which often changes by cons, it’s his vision, his ideals or his relationship with the other characters (friend or ennemies).
Negi became smarter from all the stuff he learned, which would equate to a higher IQ. And in RPG’s I’ve played, IQ (ie: intelligence) is raised through reading tomes and such.
Have you ever seen ONE story about geniuses? The REAL geniuses Astro? How they learn (yes LEARN) is in some cases (not all eh!) Exactly the same as Tota. They see a ONE TIME thing and they are able to reproduce! Tota is not an aberration, his type of character exist in real life, just like the type of character Negi (the “moderate genius”). Example: In the show “Stan Lee and the superhumans” they showed the case of a young man capable of reproducing ALL MELODY he heard ONE-TIME, and it may matter what kind music. And I think even remember WITHOUT USING THE SCORE!
See? Tota is not a cosmic aberration lol
And I’m sure the real super-genius WOULD LIKE hear you say to them “they learn nothings” lol.
I know some here consider Tota is cliche because he learns everything very quickly (and it is quite possible he ends soon undergo a hard entreînement). However when you think about it was the opposite in fact. Tota is not cliche PRECISELY because he learns everything easily! In almost all Nekketsu the basic cliche is that the worker hero who, from scratch and by training hard becomes super strong. If it finds it, Akamatsu built Tota PRECISELY out cliches. If this is just so sad it is that people only understood his intentions lol.
Again, it is possible that Tota eventually undergo “entreînement of Death” (lol) but personally even if it is not, it will not hinder me.
ps: By the way, speaking of training, I just thought of something. It may have occurred DURING THE ONE MONTH’S ELIPSE between the discussion of Tota and Eva and the beginning of the mission (yes, really check it out if you doubt it, the time between these two moments is 1 month !) AND during their discussion, Eva recommended Juzo to Tota to be his master. Who says Tota could not have training with Juzo during the ellipse???? So start controlling the M-E? I did not think about myself!!!!!
No one like Touta exist in real life. ^_~ Even the most skilled (gifted) athlete still has to train hard to be the best of the best.
And what made you think it’s more likely that Touta actually trained with Juzo in that 1-month time skip? We were only shown Touta asked for training a few chapters back, which Eva refused. And then Touta get to use ME better and move faster in chapter 51.
Kuroumaru, Kirie, etc got to have their own introductory pages or something like that when they first properly appeared/play a part in the story. Why didn’t Juzo get one even though Eva considered him the strongest (besides herself) among the numbers? If Juzo, who’s also a number holder of UQH, really appeared, why didn’t anyone mention anything in the manga?
In short, There’s not enough foreshadowing for that, I think.
Besides, Eva also said that Touta still has to work to the bone to repay his debt. So I think it’s more likely that the reason there’s nothing shown in those 1 month is because it’s mainly about Touta doing his usual cleaning job.
“I know some here consider Tota is cliche because he learns everything very quickly”.
For me, what you just said is wrong. To be precise, cliche should be replaced with unreasonable. And btw, cliche isn’t actually unreasonable for a shounen manga. (Btw Astro, how can I use blockquote?)
I also wanted to add something about those “IQ boost”, because apparently, you took it too literally, but my post is already quite long.. :p
Certainly! ^^ Juzo was not introduced BUT, what prevents akamatsu to introduce and show us a flashback showing him to entreîner Tota? Nothing at all, it may very well do that. I am not told that this was going to happen, I propose an idea. ^^
Also I agree with what you said about that for now, there is nothing really unreasonable. I’m the first here to denounce the “hunt cliches” which some here have practiced. I said this on Tota and that it was perhaps NOT cliche precisely to think these people;
Place the word “blockquote” between a < and a > symbol. To close the blockquote, make sure you have a slash (“/blockquote”).
Just to make it clear, I didn’t say/imply that there’s nothing unreasonable.. There is something unreasonable. And for me, that unreasonable thing is Touta’s development in this chapter.
Well, Touta’s training with a person that’s considered to be one of the strongest in UQH should be considered quite an important/interesting part, so at least the beginning of the training should not be shown as a flashback (Like when Negi started training with Eva). Not to mention, the trainer is a “new” character.
I agree that It is not impossible, but I will find it weird if it’s really the case here. And that’s why I am (or should I say: we are?) a bit disappointed.
I don’t know if this is just the translator’s doing, but it seems that Sayoko think of Undying (immortal?) as different from the dead. Maybe she (or maybe even Akamatsu-sensei) defines undying as “a living being who can’t die”?
I think it comes down to the different Japanese terms being used. I think you are correct in your assessment though. Karin, Kirie, etc. are probably considered alive but undying. Santa is (un)dead, so has a different status.
That being said, it still doesn’t reconcile with the fact that Touta and Eva should be among the ranks of the undead since they are vampires.
If anything, it seemed like to that Touta still was not that smart. He only drew the obvious conclusion that Santa could not be responsible because he died when the events first occurred.
How often has an evil doer faked their death to commit a crime again? I do not know, but I do know that Agatha Christie had a book where somebody faked their death and committed the perfect crime.
I just hope this arc was not a waste of time.
And to make it more interesting, apparently, Touta said 80 years, no 8 years, as the Crunchyroll translation states.
Still, everyone else had to lose any form of logic or common sense so that Touta could shine.
So if Santa memories are wrong (is Sayoko the one that was born in 2001?) and the grave is right, then he may be Makie’s relative. More likely Kagehisa’s descendent (Makie’s younger brother).
I agree.
On Kirie, with her power she scvould already have experienced it many times but I’m guessing this is the first time she is coming (original timeline she never went there and was told later what happened by the UQ members -> loaded her last save and is coming now trying to change the outcome).
From previous arc, I get the feeling that her power has some kind of time limit. Like, if the fire burns out, she won’t be able to load, and she needs to create a new one (create a new save point). Well, we don’t even know if the fire really burns out, it’s never shown yet, IIRC.
I hope we also get a bit more explanation on her complicated power in this arc.
I saw somewhere a speculation that stated the belief that Kirie probably sets new save points up every day because one never knows what’s going to happen in a given day.
Maybe. I just get the feeling she’s been here before.
i believe that sayoko would be best to join the uqh too! i really liked her..
i think the ending with be bitterful, it’s likely Sayoko will die (as she said so
I agree 100% — I think Sayoko will sacrifice herself for Santa.
I agree, but I think she’ll sacrifice herself so that Santa can “live”.
i dont think Touta is unfairly strong if compare to his grandfather
Negi used to train under Eva in almost half the time Touta used , ofcouse , Eva were more serious with Negi than Touta but if compare something like the time they need to mastering Instant movement we can see cleanly that Touta is fast learner when Negi is in Godlike level (1 day to perfect his own instant movement and use it in real battle)
and since Touta is a fast learner , he is not dummy main char ,Touta is likely airhead like Konoka (who were pretty smart)
About this chapter , well , i think Sensei wants to show this idea : one sets their mind straigh unable to see outside their mind (something like this showed in Negima too)
Karin , Kuroumaru and Ikkuu thought that Santa is the crime , they blinded their own eyes
Negi trained, and “cheated” on that by doing it in the diorama. Thus he could get a full day’s training and do all his other stuff. Negi’s rapid power up was due to a strong ambition whereby he did whatever it took to get that power.
With Touta, there’s no effort, and no real training (other than some exercising with a blade while living with Eva).
I dunno why , But I thought that Sayoko and Santa was going to do a pactio.
That’s actually a pretty interesting thought. My first impression was she was gonna give Santa more power by sorta “fusing” with him since her time was up anyways. But the attempt to kiss him which obviously took him off guard and promise of more power doesn’t rule out patio.
But a pactio is based on magic coming from the master. If Sayoko is about to vanish, then it seems her ability to fuel a pactio card/artifact would not be there, resulting in a dead card (like Mana had).
*lol* Because you’ve seen that pose with a lot of pactio moments in Negima. 😉