April 8th, 2015 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 75
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta, Kuroumaru, and Afro form Team UQ Afro and easily make it into the tournament as a result of winning points. Afro wonders if Touta should be doing this instead of training, but Touta wants to see how far he can go as well as getting a ticket into the tournament. Touta is worried about Hoodie, but Kuroumaru says that they’ve done all they can do by notifying the authorities and Basago at UQ Holder.
In the underground tournament, Touta goes solo and easily defeats the B-ranks, which causes him to be promoted to the A-rank. However, his first A-rank fight against the cat girl Karen sees him lose his first match as his use of Gravity Blade is not much help against Karen’s martial arts skills.
His next fight is against the “demon” (mazoku) Morborgran, who recognizes Negi’s moves in Touta, which confirms to him that Touta is Negi’s grandson. Morborgran grabs Touta and tells him that he needs a finishing move.
Thoughts/Review:
I was a bit wrong on the tournament aspect of this arc. I thought Touta would be the only one of the UQ people participating and that Touta’s only partner would be Afro.
Not that Kuroumaru had much to do here. Beyond the initial team match, Kuroumaru was like a girl wanting her senpai to notice her. I’m referring to the moment when Touta won his match to get him into the A-rank, Kuroumaru was there with a towel and cold beverage. *lol*
Akamatsu-sensei isn’t wasting time getting Touta into the underground tournament and into the A-rank category. I get the sense that he won’t waste a lot of time showing Touta training to learn a finishing move that Morborgran suggested he learn.
Speaking of Morborgran, I kinda got the feeling he’ll be the Jack Rakan of UQ Holder and take over Touta’s training. After all, he knows Negi and fought with Negi. He also seemed to know Touta ahead of time, unless Touta’s been blabbing it about, which I don’t think has happened.
As to the topic of finishing moves, NML brought up a point that in Negima, Jack was going to teach Negi one, but then the whole “finishing move” topic kinda petered out. Negi went with Magia Erebea and trained there as well as training to learn even more powerful spells. Since Negi was a battle mage, spells trumped finishing moves for him. So I agree with the notion that this is Akamatsu-sensei attempting to pick up that story element since Touta can’t use spells.
Kirie and Santa being the ones designated to sit on the sidelines and watch resulted in a couple of amusing moments. I chuckled when Santa told Kirie that he didn’t enter the tournament because he could beat everyone without touching them. Considering his rather unique psionic abilities of phasing, phasing others, and telekinesis, he probably could go quite far.
The other humorous moment was when Touta lost his first fight, which angered Kirie and caused Santa to discover that Kirie had been betting on the matches. Well, there is a reason she got rich. I’m surprised she doesn’t reset so she doesn’t lose.
Finally, Akamatsu-sensei swept the cloud of Hoodie under the rug with Kuroumaru’s throwaway lines regarding having notified the authorities and Basago. It is interesting that Eva is now in space, presumably with Fate. However, the message here seemed to be, “Yes, I introduced Hoodie and raised a lot of questions about it, which you want answered. I’m not going to answer them, so you can just put Hoodie aside for now.”
Oh, one more thing — did Touta lose an eye?
Well, we’ll see what happens in the next chapter.
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“t is interesting that Eva is now in space, presumably with Fate” I also interpreted it like that at first but it’s actually about Hoodie, not Eva. Hoodie is the one they want to do something about but there isn’t much they can do if she’s in space. And Kurou confirmed she is there last chapter.
Hopefully I will be around this week to translate or at least give a summary of the early spoilers.
Now that I reread it, I see where I went wrong. It made no sense to me, but I figured that maybe Eva was up in space for whatever reasons.
Sweet. ^_^ Hopefully, the spoilers come out by Saturday because I’m tied up most of Sunday.
I think the sentence Koroumaru said about the whole ”But she is in space so we can’t do anything about it” Is that he/she was actually referring the the Hoodle girl and not Eva.
The only thing about Eva mentioned is how since they contacted Basago, and how Eva will eventually find out about it.
Other than that your review is spot on.
If Ken decides to go further into the Finishing move element (ME was technically a finishing move and that absorption spell Negi used against Jack is considered a finishing move), Then we are more than likely going to see a build up for a fight with Karen again, if anything, She is the ”wall’ separating Touta from the likes of Morborgran (who we can say is hella lot stronger than Karen) so Touta will learn this finishing move and fight her again earning his right to be a real Rank A fighter. Since you know he went at it very half assed with the whole ”lets see how far i can get”’ thing.
So in other words, pitting Morborgran against touta this early is just… no. Thats also why i think they just went through the matches until Touta got his ass beat by a Girl, which then gets beat by a demon, who in turn teaches him about finishing moves, is why the matches went fast. ken wanted to get to the point of it now i think this will actually be slow and not fast pace like it looks like it’s going to be.
That means I think he’s going to show a ton of the training and Morborgran then ends up going into Space again and promises to fight Touta when he gets there or something.
Because i bet that after certain things Negi and Morborgran ended up being buddies since it is possible that Morborgran could have been involved with Touta and the whole clone thingy.
Anyway thats my two cents, will most likely not reply to any comments made to this so…yeah.
Oh right, I am betting that Karen is a user in chinese Kenpo, she may have been taught by someone who trained under Ku Fei.
You are correct.
So far in UQ Holder, Touta has gone warp 9 when it comes to leveling up. In fact, Akamatsu-sensei has seemed loathe to spend too much time showing things.
Even if she wasn’t trained by Ku, it did appear Karen knew Chinese martial arts.
We don not know much. But i have the feeling that we will have many mind blows.
Mmh could it be that touta is also from mars and negi greated and trained them and hoody is angry because she think touta do not want to help negi and do not know of his amesia. What do you think astro. (Sorry for my englisch. And i think jack is the s fighter
I haven’t thought about Touta being created on Mars. Maybe, or maybe he was created in space (the station at the end of the space elevator).
As to Hoodie, as you say, we don’t know much. All of our speculation on her is just that. I think that Hoodie has a bigger objective than Touta.
His hacked profile said ‘born in East Asia Station’, and I’ve always assumed he came from the space station because he was staring at it when Eva (gave?) him amnesia. It’ll give some nice creepy faded memories when he eventually gets there, I hope.
I’d missed that little detail for some reason. Thanks for letting me know. ^_^
Morbogran doesn’t seem to fit the mazoku archetype found in sensei’s art, he’s probably just straight up a Satanic-esque Ram demon.
still why would Eva leave for what I assume to be inverse Mars so soon? Unless the travel time is about 4 months.
Still leaves the question if the druid standing stones are being used to transport people or that there just a redundant dimensional gate or being used for birthing a century is nothing to magical beings in most fantasy settings.
We never learned why he has a bone appearance in Negima.
Well, I was mistaken about Eva being in space. That was referring to Hoodie.
Also the action in this chapter was best we’ve had so far, it looks as if sensei has managed to express the hand-to-hand combat more naturally, compared to the fate fights awkward flow where you would have to squint to follow it properly.
I hadn’t noticed, but that’s just me. ^_^;
It’s really random that the demon guy from Chiko-tan’s crew is Tota’s mentor now, but I like it. Although we don’t know if Morborgran will be his mentor, I would’ve thought he’d learn a finishing move from a sworduser since he can’t use magic techniques. It’d be cool if Morborgran introuduced Tota to the female sworduser from the UQ Holder colour spread.
Morborgran could have a connection to Zazie, and that might be how he knows about Tota being related to Negi.
I wonder if Kuroumaru will be Tota’s partner in the tournament, I thought he’d team up with a magic user or Afro using magic apps.
I’d really laugh if we found out Kirie made her fortune by using her reset ability to cheat at betting.
I wonder if we’ll see the girl from Chiko-tan’s crew, you know who I’m talking about :L
Also what does Akamatsu have against people related to Negi having more than one eye.
I think Touta will learn sword and unarmed stuff, in case he gets disarmed again in the future.
Afro is lagging behind, and Kuroumaru seemed to only be along for the ride despite participating in the one group event.
Ever since we learned of her ability to reset time, I’ve believed that is how she became rich. Find out the winning lottery numbers, die, reset the day, then make sure you pick those numbers, and viola — you’re rich. ^_^
Very possible to see a flashback of them.
Heh. Who knows. ^_^;
Wow, talk about power abuse. Killing yourself over and over to get rich. lol.
Great, after reading the title, that stupid Mortal Kombat theme is in my head like an earworm.
Also, Touta is a sword fighter. Why doesn’t he take some lessons from Kuroumaru? I suppose more than one Shinmeiryuu would be boring, but (beside a finishing move) he should really learn some ranged attacks like Zankuusen.
Mission accomplished. 😉 (I loved the techno versions of the song.)
I know that the Shinmeiryuu techniques were supposed to be restricted. That could be an element as to why Kuroumaru doesn’t teach Touta. Plus, Touta is a combo fighter. He can fight unarmed, but also with a sword.
I don’t think this is really an issue here. In fact, I believe Kuroumaru would be delighted, if he could teach Touta something. At least more tips about how Touta can utilize his ki better wouldn’t hurt, since he apparently cannot use magic.
Yeah, well… so can Shinmeiryuu. They are skilled in grappling and hand-to-hand combat, too, as Setsuna demonstrated several times.
Touta did defeat Kuroumaru early on, so maybe that’s a factor as well. I’m just grasping at straws here since I’m not sure what the story reason is to not have Kuroumaru train Touta.
Rather than discover, I think it was just Santa guessing the reason why Kirie was upset is because she was betting. Kirie betting still may be true though.
Btw, the last page confirms that Touta’s other eye is still there. lol.
Dude! You caught another apparent art error. He has a patch on his eye, then it is gone, then it is back.
Things are getting interesting, thank you for this.
It seems very likely that the catgirl is Koyomi herself. “Koyomi” means “calendar” and she was called “Karen Da” here.
Really? That’s interesting. I was wondering if “Da” is a common name.. That could explain Touta’s confusion about his reaction to Karen’s ‘speed’.
That’s an interest point. But I still think it’s unlikely to be her as their personalities seems quite different and I don’t think she was from a race that don’t age much and live that long. They may be related.
That is interesting. Hmmmm. I guess we’ll have to see.
i personally feel that whilst Negi never got a finishing move from Rakan (due to the very ridiculous moves like Eternal Negi Fever and Negi Straight or a laser eye beam…) the Magia Erebea that was pass on to him ultimately became his signature move and final move
raiten taishou, lightning shundo, the Titan Slaying Lightning Spear in particular I would think is negi finisher.
anyways about the chapter… Karen has become one of my favorites. as for who Touta learns a finsher… i dont know though gag wise it will be a recycling of Negima…
like a sword slash beam or I had my First Kiss with ojosama ni no tachi
True, but those are finishing spells, not finishing moves. Similar, but not quite the same in my opinion.
They passed quickly to the rank A
Touta wearing the eye-patch, he seemed a pirate, the only thing he needed was tell “All aboard!” XD
Kirie and her bets. lol
Evangeline and Fate must be lining up to sign up for in the tournament in the space… -_-
I’m looking forward to see the finishing move, Touta seems be very interested with it.
I misread that line about Eva and Fate being in space. It is Hoodie who’s in space.
That’s the sort of thing that only really works once, maybe a few times before people become suspicious of you repeatedly winning contests of chance when payout was relatively big. Knowing what stocks will go up and down for day trading on the other hand is the sort of thing no one will really question. After a certain point you just need to invest it in more stable stocks that pay dividends, and it becomes a fairly self sustaining source of wealth.
I was using the lottery thing as an example. A big lottery payoff gives you the seed money to do investments or the like.
[spoiler]Spoiler of next chapter on 2ch, post 355. The part between () together with Touta’s lines seems to be what eh is thinking while he says those.
昨日の敵は今日の師
Yesterday’s enemy is today’s teacher
その後も順調に(？)連敗を続ける刀太に、グランはネギと戦った話をする
刀太は俺も闇の力使って禁断の必殺技が……!!と希望を持つものの
ネギと違って魔法がまったく使えないためダメなのでしたorz
Later Gran tells Touta about his fight with Negi. Touta is excited because he can also use ME so he had hopes he could also use the same technique but didn’t work in the end as he can’t use magic at all.
そんな刀太がしょぼくれたまま町を歩くと運悪く雪姫と遭遇
Touta was feeling down and went to a walk on the city and and end up bumping into Eva.
いきなり引っ叩かれた上、雪姫はこの日もフェイトと共に行動
She suddenly slaps him. Today she was also with Fate.
刀太｢俺なんてのはいてもいなくてもどうでもいいようなモンだ！(違う…そうじゃねぇ！)
どうでもいいなら勝手にさせてくれ！ 俺は…(俺が聞きたいのは…)｣
Touta “So it don’t really matter if I’m around or not! (no… that’s not it!) If it doesn’t matter then let me do whatever I want! I… (What I actually want to ask is…)”
思わず心にもないことを叫び、また叩かれそうになる
He was saying thing he didn’t mean without thinking and Eva was about to slap him again…v
……が、雪姫の手はド派手に着飾ったデブ女(か女装男か不明)がさえぎる
but Eva’s hand is stopped by a chubby woman [may also be a transvestite] dressed up very flashy.
デブ女(？)・ダーナ｢なかなか面白いねぇこの子 気に入ったよ
私が預からせてもらうけどいいかいキテ
Chubby Woman[?] Donna “This kid is really interesting. I like him. Is it okay if i look after him, Kitty?”[/spoiler]
As always, thanks for the info!