January 13th, 2015 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review (Ch 64)
UQ Holder Chapter 64
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Mana explains the Mahora Martial Arts Tournament to Touta, Kuroumaru, and Ikkuu, showing images of past tournaments, including one where former Mahora students Ku Fei and Yue won. Mana further explains that the tournament will have 1-on-1, 2-on-2, and team battles. This excites Touta as Mana asks if he wants to participate. Touta expresses a concern over being an immortal, but since killing is forbidden, keeping his immortality a secret shouldn’t be too hard.
Mana says that since this is the first tournament held since the world learned about magic ten years ago, there’s no telling who might show up to participate. Further, demi-humans from “Inverse Mars” (the Magic World) will likely participate.
Touta’s excitement grows, but Kuroumaru cuts him off, expressing concerns over Mana’s motives for having Touta participate. Mana concedes the point and reveals that one of the applications received by mail was reportedly from Negi Springfield, Touta’s grandfather who’s reportedly dead, but whom Mana says is treated as a missing person. While there were fingerprints, DNA, and magic residue on the paper that were from Negi, it isn’t sure that this application was in fact sent by Negi. As such, Mana more options to deal with whatever this situation is, and Touta is perfect for that. Ikkuu and Kuroumaru are OK with Mana’s further reasons for wanting him and Touta signs an application form.
Touta, Kuroumaru, and Ikkuu meet with fellow UQ Holder members Karin, Kirie, and Santa. Karin is not happy that Touta agreed to participate in the tournament without consulting Yukihime first. Yukihime, as her normal persona of Eva, shows up in a Mahora school uniform and gives her permission, citing her reasons for dropping by being because their mission had been so much more than expected.
Eva wants to see the Negi application, which Mana loaned him, but she’s interrupted by Fate, who’s also shown up, wanting to see this applicaiton.
Thoughts/Review:
The good news — this was a great chapter. The bad news — this chapter’s greatness came from its very heavy Negima! connections.
I can’t say that I was ever a Yue fanboy, nor was I a Ku Fei fanboy. I did like both characters (Yue more than Ku Fei), and Yue proved she could carry a manga by herself, as revealed both in her adventure on the Magic World and with her solo adventure as a magic detective at the end of Negima! Had there been a Yue manga spinoff, I would have been on that big time because there’s an awesome element to Yue.
In that light, I loved seeing the montage where Ku Fei and Yue are a team in the tournament. Not only are they a team, but they win, which is awesome in and of itself. And, they take on the traditional role of melee fighter defending the ranged mage artillery. Assuming the pactio system was still in place then, I could see the two having a pactio, but I do note that Ku Fei fought without any weapons, suggesting there may not have been a pactio.
Akamatsu-sensei knows how to draw interest by having the alleged application from Negi in the mix with some supporting evidence that he might have sent it. I know people have done all kinds of speculation, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this really were Negi and that he’s doing this to draw out persons.
When the spoilers came out, ChaosProphet had asked me if I thought we’d get some arcs between now and the tournament, or would there be a few chapters followed by a time skip. I had speculated that it would probably be the latter, but now that I’ve read the chapter, I’m actually thinking we might get more than a few chapters. For starters, Mana is personally taking over Touta’s training. That’s an interesting choice of trainer since I doubt she’ll be teaching him gun techniques, save for maybe how to overcome them.
Secondly, there’s Eva showing up in her school uniform AND showing up as Eva, not Yukihime. When I saw the spoiler image, I had wondered about Eva being in the school uniform. To visit the school, Eva doesn’t need to appear as herself, and she certainly doesn’t need to wear a school uniform. While her official reason for being there was because of the Sayoko case, I think she was there because Mana had already told her about the Negi application and she wanted to investigate that herself. Thus, she was there to join them in their undercover activities.
Even if I’m wrong in that theory, I think Eva is here to stay for this next arc. She can easily pose as a student with her fellow UQ Holder members. Not only that, but she can help with Touta’s training, as can the others. Plus, Fate’s arrival is only added incentive for her to stick close to Touta. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see Fate showing up in his kid form to attend school.
Whether Fate shows up as a student or not, I do think he’d participate in the tournament if he really believed Negi was showing up. If Fate does that, then why not have the rest of his crew show up?
Now, will anyone else from UQ Holder participate? I think Eva might for the same reasons as Fate. Kuroumaru would likely participate just to be in the 2-on-2 with Touta. The other UQ Holder undercover members could be part of the team competition, if nothing else.
So the tournament arc suddenly has the potential to be much more interesting than I thought. If Eva sticks around as her Eva self, I’ll be most happy indeed.
UPDATE! I totally forgot to mention this until I looked at the chapter again. On page 8 (technically page 7, but since Crunchyroll counts a blank page as page 1…), the person Yue is fighting I believe to be Tsukuyomi. For a start, there’s the two swords. Secondly, her partner has six arms (and we saw such a guy in Fate’s gang). Thirdly, I believe this is who Kuroumaru recognized. Everyone else is keying in on Yue, so when Kuroumaru expresses recognition, it is easy to shift that to Yue. But I think Kuroumaru was recognizing Tsukuy0mi based on her fighting style, which Kuroumaru knows well.
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[…] upcoming UQ Holder chapter 64, courtesy of MK. (My review of UQ Holder chapter 64 should come out Wednesday…or Tuesday, as it […]
Ok guys… I don’t know about the rest of you, but this time I can REALLY say that the hype for me is real, that I got tickets for the train and I don’t even care if it might end up crashing later on. There seems to be A LOT of potential in the following chapters and arcs until the tournament, and as a Fate and Eva fanboy, by the time I got to these last two pages I was almost saying “THERE IT IS!!! THERE IT IS!!! THERE IT IS!!! OH MY GOD!” LOL Okay, about the chapter… Seriously, It might have been my favorite so far. Not only we got some talk about the past, I pretty much liked everything here – the idea of Touta getting a master at Mana’s level feels way better to me than he just learning things by himself, instantly all the way.
Then we got the tournament. If the images are to be believed, it’s one on one in the preliminaries, team battles during the following matches(?) and two on two on the finals. It’s too bad Fate and Evangeline are not allies anymore, because I’d LOVE to see Touta’s face if they pulled something like Rakan – entering as a duo to meet him in/near the finals, leaving 0 chance of victory(?) to the guy. xD Honestly, I look forward to the tournament as a whole – yeah, I’m one of the battle maniacs who actually enjoy these arcs. Guess it has a lot of nostalgia value to me. ^_^ And I hope Eva and/or Fate decide to stick around, too.
I strongly suspect Eva will hang around. I’m 50-50 on Fate. His character is so fickle.
That seems weird to me. I think it’s shown like that because there is not enough space.. I think it’s just that there will be 3 kinds of tournament. But it could be interesting if they decide to randomly choose a category for each round, kinda like Fairy Tail’s Grand Magic Games.
That’s my thinking as well. I wouldn’t be surprised at all of the Fairy Tail model is used.
MY FRIEND, my heart beats in unison with yours. The potential of a tournament intérressais me from the start (although some may say ^^).
BUT NOW I am really excited ! This time it is the sauce really takes. I already loved enormously UQ Holder from the start, but then it becomes HUGE! Limit I have nothing to do with the identity of “Negi” now. The “hype” of Mana for describe the tournament (and the video of Yue and Ku-Fei !) worked on me without it ! lol
I mean, MY GOD! Unknow magics styles – for us – (arabian/persan magic ?, Shamanism ?) and unknown-martial arts, woaah!
Especially since it is likely that we discover more things about “20 unique abilities users.”
Especially since it is possible that one or two arcs take place before the tournament. We also have confirmation that will be the means by which Tota reach the Tower. He cans therefore peacefully explore the world and wait patientely the fateful date, no need to worry about his debt either lol.
And even if we have just a timeskip at least progression Tota will be justified by a year of training!
I would add that the story finally seems well and truly launched (and say you suspected this was wrong Astro lol).
In fact, I’m pretty sure that, regardless of the identity of “Negi” (Albireo or someone using the same artifact, a clone, a Negi of another timeline (the Negima’s epilogue timeline?, another unknow timeline?)) when Tota meet him this probably will start a chain of incredible events that will launch the true story. ^^ As in Negima to time. It was the meeting of Negi and Al which launched the adventure once and for all! Yes the story is about to get started!
Recall that in addition to this, Tota will already climbed completely (or at least partially) the Tower at that time! So it has fulfilled his original goal. AND after the tournament arc, he surely will find a new goal for him, which will influence him for the rest of the story and will surely be linked to what will happens during the tournament. ^^.
So in both cases, it will probably excellant!
Astro: Nice to even the “hype” has operated on you too ^^.
Throwing the Negi element does suggest this.
Heh! Well, I do have questions I want answered from Negima.
And I can almost imagine someone asking for some onion casually and Fate appearing out of nowhere: “DID YOU SAY NEGI!?” 😛
I just thought about this — how did Fate discover Negi’s entry?
Mana said they’re cooperating with the government of inverse mars. Maybe Fate himself is a member of that government?
To live at the top of the tower, he’s got a lot of power and influence for sure.
I’m guessing tatsumi ya contacted people who are interested in negi Springfield plus we don’t know under what circumstances he went missing in first place because he was still recorded as missing when asuna searched his profile.
Plus there was the war on Mars… For all we know negi could have changed.
Either way I would love to see fate and Eva join but this is beginning to pull back to negima
I’m thinking this was inevitable from the moment he set UQ Holder as an indirect sequel to Negima and made Eva (as Yukihime) a supporting character. My thinking is that Akamatsu-sensei knew he was losing his audience and so bring in the Negima stuff to draw old fans back in.
“how did Fate discover Negi’s entry?”
With his state-of-the-art Negi_Stalking_Magic app(limited edition) – developed by Fate himself. Anywhere in the solar system, if someone says anything about Negi, he WILL know what they said, where they said and when they said.
Fine Print: “Keep in mind that even if you buy one of those, Fate Averruncus is STILL the one who gets notified if someone starts talking about Negi. Not you.”
that reminds me of the Lord Voldemort curse XD… mere mention of his name and he knows where you are.
*lol* I’ll take that as an answer. 😉
If there is a like button for this post, I would definitely click it.
I would like to point out something that stuck out to me, on one of the pane;ls in Page 2, there is a character that looks really similar to Negi, and to top that off this person is a Girl. So.. relative?
I didn’t see a similarity, but that’s just me.
BTW, you did remind me of something I did want to say about the chapter and one of Yue’s opponents.
It’s mostly just because of how ‘her’ hair looked. It looked kind of like how Negi would be in the first form of his raiten taisou.(i think it’s spekked that way)
Yeah, I can see how you’d think that.
Could this be possibly a clue to who negi married because there is a connection with Ku-fei and touta’s fidghint skills and there is also possibly Yue since in one previous chapter it talked about who negi married and all the girls i see possibly fit is in there . my other top choices could be Chisame since she was also in the picture and there was a connection between them two and lets not forget the obvious nodoka since negi admiited to like her.
My top 4 would be 1.Chisame 2.Nodoka 3.Ku fei 4. Yue
We’ll have to wait and see how things pan out. I’m not so sure Akamatsu-sensei will ever reveal Negi’s love and wife, lest he anger fans of other girls.
Things are definitely starting to get interesting. While I like the Santa & Sayoko arc, I’ve been wanting the story to start connecting more with Negima to establish itself as more of a direct sequel. Negima ended with so many unanswered questions of its own, plus the events in the 80 years between the end of Negima and the beginning of UQ Holder are still largely just one big question mark hanging over the story.
Oh, and Yue and Ku Fei were the only Negima characters to cameo this chapter. Two of the guys from Canis Niger (the skeleton guy and the lizard guy) are a team in the old Mahora Tournament footage.
“I’ve been wanting the story to start connecting more with Negima to establish itself as more of a direct sequel”.
Yeah, me too, (lifemaker, gravekeeper ! When will tyou appear? Yeah !^^)
“Oh, and Yue and Ku Fei were the only Negima characters to cameo this chapter. Two of the guys from Canis Niger (the skeleton guy and the lizard guy) are a team in the old Mahora Tournament footage.”
Yeah! I also recognized Canis Niger! ^^
Well, since those other guys were in Negima, I consider them cameos as well.
Whoops. Meant to say “weren’t the only ones,” not “were.”
It almost felt like i was reading Negima instead of UQ Holder!. It’s not really a complaint btw. 😀
Aside from Yue – Ku Fei and the Canis Niger pair, I think I also saw a pair of fighters who attended Mahora Tournament and Mahora fest final event. That black-haired and white-haired (or whatever its actual color is) pair. I forget what their names are, if Akamatsu-sensei gave them any.
But, about the one Kuroumaru recognized, I tend to think it was another Shinmeiryuu user rather than Tsukuyomi.
To me, it looked as though Kuroumaru recognized the guy who fought like Asura Tu. You know, that one with six-arms and swords, no shoes. The blades also look similar. If it weren’t for the different hair colors, I would even risk saying that it was Asura himself.
That too. I think the different hair colors is to put the readers slightly off. Also, the different hair color could have been an attempt at partial disguise. But I do think that was Asura and Tsukuyomi in the video montage.
Yeah, I think you are right.
On your theory for next arc is interesting. Another possibility is that we may get an arc with Eva and some of the other members of UQ Holder (like the ones we have yet to meet or know little of) while Touta stay on Mahora training.
If Eva were to participate on the tournament, considering she is know by some of her enemies on her loli form and now maybe even on her Yukihime form, maybe we will see her in disguise or using the pills to look a different age (15 years old for instance).
That’s certainly true, especially since some of them may join the tournament because of the Negi angle.
Damn im more interested in Setsuna appearing!
awaiting to see another Shinmeiryuu intensive fight coming!!!
Being hanyou, Setsuna could be alive. It depends on how long the Crow Tribe lives.
Damn…. Akamatsu sensei know how to make an excitement chapter,
Hope the next week is 2morrow.. LOL.
Well it is interesting, if fate enter the tournament in “Child” appearance.
so the final in this tournament will be 2 vs 2 right ?
I’m betting 1 on 1, but we’ll see how things pan out.
That brown hair shinmei-ryu user that Yue was fighting, has my interest. she had to use a lower caliber version of negi’s thunder god lance to win! But you’re not aloud to kill, so how strong was that user?
That six-armed demi-human, could be a relative of kuro’s, since he wore an identical version of the bid mask all his clan were wearing, but he’s not a crow demon, so perhaps; kuro was raised in a hierarchical convent that practiced exoticism.
The six-arm guy I’m speculating is TU Asura and the Shinmeiryuu user I’m speculating is Tsukuyomi.
wow, the chapter has been fast this time here.
I take a deep breath, EVANGELINE!! She finally appeared!!
About the chapter, the Martial Arts Tournament will be very interesting it will be worth. I felt nostalgia to see Yue and Gu Fei, they were first in the podium.
I wonder of Fate and Evangeline will participate in the tournament, I would like to see Touta and Kuroumaru VS Evangeline and Fate.
Touta wants to participate in the tournament, but Mana told him that if he doesn’t win to her, he won’t be able to past the preliminaries. Lol He will have that going through a training infernal for get it. Will Evangeline still have her resort for the training of Touta?
About Negi, I think that he maybe is Albireo lol I imagine Albireo telling that it was only for attract to them. He would feel all the fury of Fate XD
Or he maybe is Negi, but, another Negi that with the help of Chao, he appeared with the cassiopeia
I liked that Evangeline appeared in Mahora, Kain hit almost with the paper to Evangeline in the face. It is a opportunity for introduce to Santa
“Any sign of Negi and Fate is there, his obsession knows no bounds” Lol He has a radar ._.
That could happen, but I don’t see how Kuroumaru and Touta would win at this point. Still, at the moment, only Touta is in the tournament, though Kuroumaru could join later.
It’s probably nothing but what if the footage Mana was showing is something more than just fan service for the readers? Out of all the tournament footage to show Touta, she shows the one featuring Yue and Ku Fei which leads to Touta giving a reaction as their faces are zoomed in on. Perhaps he recognizes them in some way.
I don’t think so, not yet at least. Maybe later Touta will see a picture of Negi’s class and recognize Yue and Ku Fei as participants in that footage.
That’s possible. At the moment, I don’t see how Touta recognizes anyone from Negi’s time.
Perhaps grandmother 😉 lol
Heh!heh!
I don’t think that Touta recognized anyone. He was caught up in the “cool” factor as he’s always admired strong people. That video showed him a ton of strong people, so he knew he’d meet similar strong people (or stronger) by participating in the tournament.
I can see and easily agree with that
Actually, I do wonder if the person that kuromaru asked “is that?” was someonelse from negima and that the monitors display changed off screen a 1st time before we saw yue onscreen.
Perhaps it may be referencd later upon kuromaru’s 16th.
I thought it was Tsukuyomi that Kuroumaru recognized, but as others mentioned, Kuroumaru may have recognized Asura since they’ve battled before.
Hmmm… just a few reminders:
1- Like someone told me some time ago about Mana: “part of several centuries is still a few centuries”… or something like that, explaining her youth. That was right on the Money;
2- Someone else told me “I dont think there will be pacts in UQH” or something…but really! We had a few teasings already! Right at the start, Kouta makes a “pact of best friends” (on paper lol) with Kuroumaru, then later calls her “partner” (and she knows p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y what this means, be her reaction LOL) ;
3- I suppose there’ll be 2 arcs before the tournament proper, so I am in no hurry.
P.S. That’s true! I recognized that sword style, but didnt think it would be Tsukuyomi in desguise! She was even with that 6 armed guy! I also saw Kaede with her cape, and a few negima mobs.
Regarding pactiones, the tournament is the place to introduce the pactio system, if it is ever to be introduced. The fact that it hasn’t been introduced yet suggests to me that it won’t be. I say this because selling pactio cards made a lot of money for Kodansha. Heck, I even bought the LE manga volume where the entire deck was being sold along with the movie.
I saw that too, but I wasn’t sold it was Kaede.
Astro, I think the trees aren’t letting you see the forest. The Negima content in this chapter is mere cheap bait, and hardly helps fixing any of that series’ problems, or this one’s for this matter.
At first glance, Yue and Ku Fei’s token thrown bones (more like scraps) may look good, and hey, we even get a cameo from Kaoru the Pompadour Guy… but it’s too little, too late. Have you heard of the term ‘Faux Action Girl’? When the plot wants us to buy a female character is really tough and able, but she still fails at every actually important plot point, so the males have to step in and do things for them? Sometimes, to make us believe otherwise, the series will throw a few quick victories over cannon fodder opponents, like they are doing here, but when it comes to any important or semi-important fight, the Faux Action Girl will invariably fail (see- Ku Fei being insta-frozen by Sextum, Yue being molested by Paio and being saved by Negi in a single strike. Notice both instances are the last times each one fights an actual enemy in their series proper. That is how Akamatsu wanted them to go).
These like four panels against unnamed opponents with no importance in the big scheme of things are just that, Faux Action Girl credits. They don’t really matter, because in the larger scheme, only Negi, the immortal Messiah who is 100 times stronger than Mana, the one Fate obsess over, the one who walks on water and is oh so mysterious with his loooooooong mystery outright stolen from Nagi’s disppearance, really matters at all.
Mana being here? This isn’t about her being her in the slightest, that’s only fan bait; her real purpose here is not to have more about her revealed, it’s about helping Touta, the series’ alpha male, the center of the universe when that center isn’t Negi’s shadow, grow stronger. Anything we might end up learning about her would be just a side product of her just revealed function as yet another plot tool to hype Touta and convince us he’s really sweet and neat and strong, why aren’t we loving Touta yet? That’s it. She’s just yet another enabler for Touta, who is the Second Greatest Thing Ever, Soon to Surpass the Greatest Thing Ever! Wheeeee!
So please, please, Astro, try looking harder under the appearances. Analyze things from previous experience patterns. Don’t let hype blind you like this. You are better than that.
Oh my god, a desperate hater trying to prevent a “believer” to leave the “right way”? ^^ Was hilarious. It’s true, it would certainly not that more people are starting to love what you hate. ^^ lool
You are correct, it is cheap bait. However, since I know that going into this forest, I’m going to enjoy it for what it is. 🙂
I don’t disagree with your remarks. This chapter was clearly done to draw in people. As I said,
So I acknowledge that it is only the Negima bait that made this so enjoyable. Besides, I liked knowing that Yue continued to grow as a mage, and I didn’t mind that Ku Fei was her partner. I like the notion that Ku Fei has also grown as a warrior. 🙂
BTW, if you think I’m going to just go soft on this because of the Negima bait, you are wrong. I’ve enjoyed all previous chumming of the water with Negima
When i first saw the fighting part of Yui and Ku i remembered what Eishun and Rakan remarked at the meeting of Ala Alba and Ala Rubra, that Yues fighting style is close to Negis. Seeing her using that lightning spear is simular to what Negi did in the MW tournmanet. If you think on you will notice that both Ku and Yue act like Negi and Koutaru did back there. Ken surly knows how to spoil °-°
Also in the backflashes you will find some familuar faces. At the double page, 2-3, you will see on the right side (second lowest) 2 familuar faces from Mahoas Fighting tournament who later took part in the 2 big events too (forgot about their names x.x). Also i can be wrong, but same page, top left, and page 8 where Mana invites him to join the trounament, you can see 1 when not 2 member of Canis Niger, the bounty hunters from the MW which Ala Alba faced. (Add: i could be wrong, but page 8 middle panel of the backflash, the 2 males fighting are looking familuar to the 2 streetfighters which were showen during the MW tournament arc in the city as the girls scrolled arround)
As to Fate and Eva i can only agree to that what you said. I still hope to see either Poyo or Zazie arround °-° (total fanboy)
And that makes since since they were companions and partners of Negi’s, and they both admired him — Yue admired him as a mage and Ku Fei admired him as a warrior.
With Mana showing up, I expect to see one or both of them.
And maybe some info on the Makai too! ^^
That would be nice.
2ch spoilers for ch 65:
ネギ・スプリングフィールド
フェイトを前に殺気立つ刀太に対し、エヴァは
今ここで刀太がフェイトとやりあっても敗死するだけと留め、書類を見せる
書類の筆跡は間違いなくネギのものだとエヴァもフェイトも確認
UQとフェイトは敵対していたはずだろ！と
刀太とキリヱが説明を求め詰め寄ると
エヴァは返事の前にネギのサインに手を触れる
しかし、それが別のトリガーとなった
突然荒涼の大地に転移された一同はネギ＆ナギと遭遇
そして何者かが地の底から現れ、ネギ親子をからめ捕ると
ほぉう そうか 貴様が… 近衛刀太か… なるほどなるほど…
状況は一変した
隠し通さなければならない相手に刀太を見られたエヴァは
武道会には自分とフェイトの二人で出る、今日のことは忘れろと
刀太の参加を辞退させた上でキリヱたちにも刀太への助力を禁じる
はっきり言わねばわからんか？ お前は不要だと言ったんだ刀太
Negi Springfield
Touta in anger stay in front of Fate but Eva says that if he were to fight Fate now he wouldn’t stand a chance so show him the documents. Fate and Eva confirm the handwriting is Negi’s.
Kirie and Touta complain saying UQH and Fate are supposed to be hostile to each other. Before Eva answers she touch the sign on the letter which triggers something. Suddenly everyone is transferred to a desolate place with Negi and Nagi. Then someone comes from the ground and cover the two and says “So you are… Konoe Touta. I see.”
The situation changed because Touta was seen by the one who they had to hid him from. Eva and Fate will enter the tournament. Eva tells them to forget about today, she don’t let Touta participate anymore and prohibits the other UQ members from helping him. Eva: “You won’t understand if I won’t say clearly? You’re to withdraw, Touta”.
Well, that person is very likely the LM. So the theory he end up getting Negi’s body seems to be true. I’m guessing Touta and the others will try to participate anyway. Maybe Mana will help them?
You are awesome, as always. ^_^
I wasn’t sure if that was Ayase Yue in that scene, but this review made it more clear <3. I was so stoked to see Yue performing in a Martial Arts tournament. I know she was a magical knight at one point bit for her to fight along side a power house champion like Ku Fei leaves me with all sorts of feels. I love the nostalgia of UQ Holder.
It was nice seeing Yue get to be awesome. ^_^