November 25th, 2014 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 59
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta thanks Shinji for getting him to where the action is, then battles Kuroumaru, instructing Santa to go on. Shinji and Santa chat, coming to an understanding of how much alike they really are. He saves Shinji from being consumed by a giant worm-tentacle before racing to get to Sayoko.
Eight years in the past, Santa is with Sayoko on top of the blimp, where she explains that he didn’t commit suicide, but was murdered by his bullies. The parents of the ones who killed Santa pulled strings to have the police off the case against their kids. This frustrates Sayoko, who insists they must pay. Santa sees bodies hanging behind Sayoko and asks about them. They are still alive, though bleeding, and Sayoko pulls out a drill, offering Santa’s bullies to him to take vengeance on. She drills into one, who screams in pain.
The sight of this causes Santa to flee to the bathroom he’d cleaned up with Sayoko. She follows him, crying and apologizing, saying she thought it would make him happy and promising to never do it again. Santa is freaked out and wants to be erased. A desperate Sayoko doesn’t want that, since she only has eight years left. Instead, she decides to make him forget that he died.
As Santa gets close to Sayoko, he realizes he and the others that Sayoko took upon her caused her to be in her current condition. He has no interest in revenge and blasts away the skeletons and mass that surrounded Sayoko. Taking her now naked body and embracing her as she wakes, Santa says he’ll die with her and take a tour of hell with her.
Thoughts/Review:
Heh! Some of you chastised me (and rightly so) about my jabs at the “real hero” Touta showing up. I found it humorous that Akamatsu-sensei acknowledged what I was saying by starting the chapter with “The hero shows up in the nick of time!!” But I will refrain from saying more. ^_~
I was glad to see more flashback material regarding Santa. Of all the characters introduced, he’s been given the best character development. I’m glad for it, but it is a shame that no other character has received the same.
One one hand, the flashback was hard to read because we know that Sayoko was torturing the ones who’d murdered Santa. On the other hand, there was a beauty in it because it is clear that Sayoko truly loved and cared for Santa. I really, REALLY hope that we can get a reset, followed by a redemption for Sayoko, whereupon she and Santa can have the one and true romance within UQ Holder.
Speaking of Santa, I had long thought that he been murdered. As I said in chapter 48.
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.
With subsequent chapters seeming to point to him committing suicide, I thought I was on the wrong path, but when the flashback revealed that Santa had been murdered, it made sense to me. In fact, I think the scene from chapter 48 is when Santa was murdered by suffocation.
The touching scene with him and Sayoko at the end really does make me want Sayoko to be redeemed, as I said earlier. I’m curious to see how it all goes.
Then there’s Shinji. Now that he and Santa have come to an understanding, I’d like to see him taken back on a reset as well. With his memories intact, Shinji starts working to stop the bullying that’s going on.
Finally, after the recent Aliens reference, I think the worms (tentacles) Akamatsu-sensei are a nod to Dune. I certainly had that feeling when they attacked.
We’ll see how things play out next week. Beyond that, the chapter was a good one, allowing Santa to continue to shine.
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Regarding Shinji, I also felt like it would be a pity if he doesn’t go with the reset. He would have wasted all his development now and probably went back to being garbage.
I wonder if they will rush to reset ignoring the big monsters (is it still active now that Sayoko was freed?) or if some reinforcements will come, like Eva or maybe Juuzou as it may have been a hint his mention early on the arc.
Also looking forward to the color page and extra pages next chapter.
Ditto.
Reading Hata’s post on AQS, the end of year magazine breaks are soon upon us.
Hard to believe it is that time of year again. ^_^;
Oh my gods!
1- That torture scene was more than I expected! A drill! A DRILL! Truly a nice picture, but too strong for Santa, Sayoko-chan.
2- Don’t know about references, but these worms seemed reaaaally out of place to me…
3- “I’ll die with you”…awwww. Too bad Sayoko won’t allow it. From the narration by the end, it’s quite clear to me she is going alone…
4- Long chapter next week, nice!
In the novel (and movie/mini-series adaptations) of Dune, the sand worms look very similar to the tentacle worms shown here. If I had the ability to make a gif, I’d show you how.
Santa turned out as a better main character than touta and says a lot…
Yeah, Santa is interesting, but then he’s had the most character development of any character in the manga.
Astro : I’m not being a hater, I’m not sure that I would enjoy a reset. It would remove all the tension of the bow and it would, as they say (rightly, for once) haters on the forum UQ holder Tv-troops (I complained haters on this blog, that is nothing compared to there lol, I’ve never seen so many bashing and siffisance pretentious on this forum!) this could prevent rookis to mature and realize their mistakes.
With Fate was consistent since had related to the mission in court. Here it would really Deus ex machina quite misplaced. In addition the different persons recover for reset are in different locations. It seems to me hard to gather all people as well. And then I have the intuition that Akamatsu will grant weaknesses for kirie power. Situations in which her power is ineffective
That said, if there is a reset I did not make a scadal unlike haters ^^.
By againist cons Astrot. Forget Sayako, she will not be joining UQ holder, she was not on the promotional poster.
Maki: (sigh) You know that some are very happy with Tota? You should have a look at the forum “my animelist.net” (and Astro should also in my opinion, even if he is not a hater it would allow him (ad you in the process) to understand that for some people (and I do not in this case. Moreover, in general I rarely fans main characters of a story, I give more credit to the secondary characters and ESPECIALLY antagonnistes ^^))
yes for these people Tota is a perfect hero for this manga. What I mean, what I want to express for a lot of months, is that there in reality, is no right or wrong writing, or good and bad characters. Everything is a matter of personal feeling and sensitivity anything ^^):
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?mangaid=57765
The people there, from what I’ve seen, does not heat up the brain for nothing (it’s a manga not a book that can change the face of the world lol!) And they are like months. Most loved Negima especially for its epic adventure and his impressive fighting than for his harem or romance.
And they find what they liked in UQ holder again, precisely because it is becoming more and more epic. I understand that we can not all love a manga (which is impossible) but frenchement my passage on TV troopes I had an overdose of bashing. I know you’re not nearly as aggressive as Dargor or Over-master in your criticisms but again I had an overdose of bashing. ^^ Sorry lol.
I understand people will complain about the likely reset, but they at least can’t say it was unexpected. The moment Kirie joined the arc and we got tons of people becoming zombies and dying that became a given.
Kirie herself is a zombie now and doesn’t seems like it has a cure.
I was thinking Sayoko would release Kirie and Kuroumaru, but in the end, we see things panned out a bit differently (according to the info).
I think the reason there has to be a reset is the shounen manga format. Were this a seinen title, I think Akamatsu-sensei would get away with slaughtering so many people. With this being a shounen manga, having everyone back to life and happy is his “get out of jail free” card, allowing him to do dark, gory stories that at the end of the day, ended up killing few to none.
And you were right. I was still hopeful though. I do think that Sensei will give himself wiggle room to bring her back, should he so desire.
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/KenAkamatsu/20141127/p1
An interesting future service (? seems like it was temporary but will become a regular service in the future because it was popular). You choose a panel in a manga on j-comi and a T-shirt is printed with it. The cost is 2600 yens where half goes as royalties to the author of the manga.
Man, a pity Negima isn’t there. There are many panels on it that would be great for a t-shirt.
Very true. ^_^
Oooh, nice way to end the battle! And if you ever read this comment, Seimei, I’ll take back my words this time. In this arc(And this arc only), Touta had a very nice participation up ’till now. But… Am I the only one who kinda wonders if some future villain will show up at this point to mess things up again, and for that reason Sayoko will end up dying for real instead of being saved? I was hoping she would get to join UQ Holder, as well, but I don’t know If Akamatsu sensei is feeling that merciful.
AND STILL. WHERE THE **** IS KARIN!? Man, I almost forgot about her. Astro, I’m starting to think that you were right when you said she was getting hot and bored by Touta’s “awesomeness”. Poor thing, doesn’t get even one or two pages.
*lol* Well, it is a favorite theory or mine. ^_~
2chan’s spoilers.
http://hello.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/wcomic/1411155854/770
Color page is Santa and Touta.
It all ends
Kuroumaru that was fighting Touta regains his sanity. That means Sayoko has vanished. On Santa’s hand there is cherry blossom petals (fragments of Sayoko’s soul). Against Karin’s objections, Touta tells Santa to hold the petals while they use Kirie reset with all the UQH members (Ikkuu now on his adult body).
As Karin feared, the evil spirits also came with them, but they soon vanished. Sayoko entrust Santa to Touta and once again scatter away. Touta “If you don’t mind, wanna come with us?”
Well … it seems that finally kirie power worked well (some haters will still scream here or on TV tropes, I feel here!). Well it is not as amazing as I hoped but I see nothing embarrassing.
No, personnaly, my real disappointment is elsewhere, and that is it seems that finally (unless we learn in future arcs) Sayako was not manipulated by the life-maker (which would have yet been able to explain the use the same magic circle that him (and his followers)), or by an other black mage.
Thanks for the info!
[…] Here is a SPOILER image for the upcoming UQ Holder chapter 59, courtesy of Manga Kansou. (My review of UQ Holder chapter 59 should come out Wednesday.) […]
In this arc, Santa has been the protagonist instead of Touta XD
I would like that Sayoko and Santa were together… well, at least Santa will be his salvation
“Let’s go take a tour of hell together” lol
when Kuroumaru will know that he attacked to Touta, he will be to apologize until they arrive to UQ Holder XD
PS: The next chapter a color page and longer chapter 🙂
True. ^_^