December 8th, 2015 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 105
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta is surprised that Mizore is stuck in midair, and her clothing won’t even move. Kirie suddenly realizes this could be bad and goes around the Senkyoukan, were they see everything is frozen in time, from waves on the shore to birds to the buttons popping off of Yukihime’s top. Touta now understands time is frozen and thinks this is awesome, believing that Kirie has unlocked a new power that would make her incredibly powerful.
As Touta lavishes on the praise, Kirie is forced to admit that this is likely a glitch in her powers since she tried to kill herself at the same time that Touta destroyed her save point. Touta becomes a little concerned, so they do some investigating. Sixteen hours later, Touta is doing some training when Kirie catches him and accuses him of playing. She’s worried that they may be stuck in this timeless world for all eternity. Touta thinks she’s wrong, so Kirie angrily responds that as immortals, they will be here forever.
Kirie races off and goes to the roof of the building where Santa is looking contemplatively. Touta arrives with the cake he’d bought earlier for her. He says he got it to thank her since without her time reset power, there were several times where they’d have been wiped out. She gets flustered, so he suggests a shower, citing how when they touch stuff, it can move for a while. As such, using small water tank with a pump, Kirie is able to take a shower. Touta is also able to take one, but when Kirie pulls a joke by lighting a fire under the tank, she gets an eye full of his junk.
They are outside eating when Touta remarks on how he can’t sleep if it is always light. So Kirie casts a spell to make it dark. Kirie is now in a yukata as Touta produces fireworks for them to play with. Later, Kirie decides that maybe Touta’s not so bad and that she should be nicer to him. As she walks through the building, she comes to Yukihime’s office, where he finds Touta standing before the frozen Yukihime.
Thoughts/Review:
Well, there’s really not a lot to say about this chapter, but I’ll try to come up with something.
The thing about time being frozen stories is that while it is easy to come up with a believable situation where people are stuck here and nothing can move, it becomes a bit more wobbly when said people have to interact with this world where time is frozen, at least for me.
I think back to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Timescape, where the writers came up with a plausible (within the rules of the Star Trek universe) means for some characters to not be frozen in time. There’s a moment when one of the characters turns a console to him and I immediately thought, “If time is frozen, how is that moving at all? Assuming that it somehow can move, with time being frozen, what kind of forces must be exerted on that console to have it “wrenched” from one position to another in 0.000000000000 seconds?” At least in that episode, the writers didn’t have the characters moving anything else or doing anything else that took me out of the episode.
That was my problem with UQ Holder chapter 105; I was constantly being taken out of the chapter. You have Mizore in midair, complete with hair flying and clothing flapping. Touta touches her clothing and it won’t move. So far, I’m good with this since this is how things should be in a time frozen world. Things don’t move, and you certainly don’t want to be touching or moving people because of the devastating affect that would have on the human body.
Sixteen hours later, Touta is interacting in this world through training. He’s doing something that causes the water off the beach to splash and steam, the waves of said water were specifically pointed out to be frozen in time. With time being frozen, there should be no splashing and certainly no steaming. Time has CEASED! At best, I could see Touta’s actions causing displacement in the water, the explosive effect of which would not be seen until time restarted, at which time the effect of actions taken while time stopped would seem to be far greater than normal.
Touta and Kirie having cake that had been frozen in time was something I probably would have passed on, had I not already been taken out of the chapter. But we have to have a moment for Kirie and Touta, which wasn’t bad for what it was (Touta thanking Kirie). However, we went to the “shower” scene, and again, I’m out of the chapter. I just rolled my eyes at the, “Oh. Yeah, we touch stuff and it can move for a bit, even though when we touched Mizore’s clothing, it didn’t move.” (Mizore should be thankful they didn’t touch her as they’d likely kill her if they moved her.)
The last straw for me was the fire lighting to pull a prank on Touta, then the fireworks. How lucky that time is frozen, except when we need for the characters to be able to do normal stuff, so time is unfrozen for that.
Maybe I’m being too harsh, but when I lose the ability to suspend my disbelief, that’s pretty much it for me.
Outside of that, the stuff between Kirie and Touta didn’t quite go like I thought it might, meaning Kirie didn’t look at her feelings for Touta to build on the harem stuff. She was pretty much the same as she always was, which was understandable, considering how she felt she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.
I did like Karin’s shampooing Shinobu’s hair. It was a sweet moment since Karin has a smile and shows that she’s accepted Shinobu as part of the staff, even though she’s not immortal. I liked that.
As for Kuroumaru, well, her breasts are back, hence the taping scene there. How many times did we witness that kind of moment with Motoko in Love Hina? 😉
Considering how random Akamatsu-sensei is, there’s no way of knowing what will happen next. However, I would like to see Kirie’s observation of Touta’s looking at the frozen Eva to have her (1) explore her feelings and (2) get her to have Touta expound more on his for Eva. That would be interesting character work as far as I’m concerned.
That being said, Eva and the button thing might not be all it seems to be on the surface. Nah, I’m overthinking it.
In the end, I was taken out of this chapter a lot, so I really couldn’t get into it that much. I may be being overly harsh, but that’s just me.
Posted in 
Tags: 
[…] UQ Holder Chapter 105, courtesy of 2ch. (My review of UQ Holder Chapter 105 should come out late Tuesday night or Wednesday, U.S. time, depending on when Crunchyroll publishes the […]
Is Weekly Shonen Magazine on break next week?
Yeah, it always bothers me when characters interact with anything in “time-stop” stories. It seemed like Akamatsu was doing it right when they couldn’t move Mizore but then he changed the rules for fanservice -_-
The Jojo reference was nice. If Jojo was owned by Kodansha we’d probably see more overt references, like characters even reading Jojo.
I didn’t even know what Jojo was until I looked it up. I still don’t know what Jojo is, but I now know where the image reference came from. 🙂
You should check it Jojo, it starts as a so bad it’s good, 80s-type series and then just becomes legitimately great. The whole anime so far is on Crunchyroll.
I’ll add it to the list. ^_^
I looked at the raw and I believe that is the case. Unfortunately, that isn’t mentioned on Crunchyroll.
Jeez man you should know by now that when toutas around the laws of physics space time and whatever the hell sensei forgets about dont matter.
i hope the next chapter is a bit more engaging
Heh!heh!heh! I stand corrected.
If you think about time being frozen even further, how would they see or even move? All photons would be frozen in place and unable to be interacted with, so they shouldn’t be able to see. Also, air molecules would be frozen in space and presumably just as immovable as solids and liquids, thus rendering anyone trapped in a single instance of time just as immobile as anything else around them.
For weird timey-wimey stuff like this in sci-fi/fantasy titles, I think it’s best to just invoke the MST3K Mantra:
If you’re wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts, (la la la)
Then repeat to yourself “It’s just a show,
I should really just relax.”
Anywho, cute chapter with some bonding between Touta and Kirie, plus Eva being hot as usual. But that last panel, though. Touta seriously only has eyes for Eva, and I think that more than anything is anchoring all other ships.
Ha!ha! Awesome! That’s exactly right. I do give allowance for Kirie’s time manipulation powers to allow them to move in the environment, but you did remind me of something else I thought of way back in the day on the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Timescape.” They were able to move in time due to the old technobabble technology fix, so that didn’t bother me. I didn’t think about the air thing then, but I did think about the light thing. For me, it wasn’t “How could they see?” but rather, “Shouldn’t the lighting be constantly changing as they move around, thanks to light waves?”
On the light point, I let that pass back then because they are trying to tell a story, so I’ll give that one to them.
Time seems relative to stop only things not directly affecting the storyline. If it was absolute, as in nothing moving as in no physical potential and kinetic energy physics, even the air filled with oxygen and other molecules would be frozen and stiff or unmovable, and no air to breath for it should not be moving or reacting. Same as fire, since its a reaction of oxygen molecules. If it was in a vacuum there can be movement since air molecules are not there, but no combustion fire, so basically Tōta can be alive, but cannot move, encased by stiff molecules, and unable to breathe. Light would also not be there, it depends on it being a particle or wavelength, but require movement too, so the air would also have particles or wavelengths of non moving light. It becomes easy in a manga world that changes or is selective of the real life rules.
Ikkyyu’s shotgun blast is frozen, including the powder burning. But the two can burn exploding fireworks, have a fire, and moving water as mentioned. One solution used many years ago in american comics (and maybe other comics) when dealing with time travel, or stopping time, the MC people has a ‘field’ around them, or basically they are like ghosts, and cannot touch or change anything, but only observe and either walk or float around going through people, walls, or anything solid, and as ghosts they are not breathing.
I gave Touta and Kirie a pass on being able to move because of Kirie’s time manipulation powers. I hadn’t thought about the air stuff, but you are correct there. Had I thought about that, I would have chalked it up to Kirie’s powers taking them out of time, meaning they are between heartbeats (something I pulled from Doctor Who and Babylon 5) and thus don’t need to breath.
Had we not had the shower, fireworks, and Kirie changing clothing, I probably wouldn’t have said anything. It was the culmination of, “Hey! Mizore’s frozen in midair and her clothes are completely stiff, even as I touch them, they aren’t moving” to “Hey, we can move stuff we touch for a short time, so lets ignore everything from earlier ’cause ‘story'” that took me out of the chapter.
Kitty no oppai! Banzai!
Kurou no oppai! Banzai!
Can’t believe you didn’t mentioned this:
ザ・ワールド!
時よ止まれ！
Road Roller da!
WRYYYY!!!
MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!!!
Soshite, toki wa ugoki dasu!
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures? Sadly, other than the name of the title, I have no knowledge of it. 🙁 Because someone earlier mentioned Jojo, I looked into it and then found the image Touta was parodying.
Eva’s illusionpills are so good they have clothing damage.
I’ve always been of the opinion that age-changing magic isn’t a true “illusion” in the sense of an optical illusion or a hologram. There seems to be plenty of evidence in both Negima and UQH that it’s an actual physical change, i.e., shape-shifting magic. It’s only an “illusion” in the sense of being deceptive, using a transformation to alter one’s normal physical appearance.
That does appear to be the case, especially since some of the illusion magic affected clothing as well. (To say nothing on doctors operating on the “teenage” Negi to reattach his arm, even though that was an illusion.) The term “illusion” is what the problem is. Attaching the word “solid” to it would likely help. It would be like in Red Dwarf, where Rimmer is a hologram, and thus can be walked through and such. Later, he becomes a solid hologram, whereby he can interact with the world as normal.
I think Eva is wearing real clothing on her solid illusion body, hence why they pop off.
I don’t think she uses pills any more, but that’s beside the point. During the class with the immortal hunters that came after Touta, when Eva dropped her Yukihime illusion, her skirt fell off and her blouse became oversized for her young girl frame. So I think she’s wearing real clothing, not illusionary clothing.
Let alone Star Trek, there is a Donald Duck story written by Don Rosa which, at least to me, sounds more scientifically acceptable than this chapter. In that story, when the time stops, the characters can climb a group of floating birds and running on a field full of sharp grass feels the same as running on top of needles.
Heh! I should try to find that.
I was thinking of the ‘exceptions’ with stopped time in this chapter, and was thinking how things can move when time has stopped, considering laws of physics or static and dynamic actions yes, kinda different actions from what is drawn. One other plausible possibility, and probably not even considered in this story, is more advanced physics of relativity and how it appears is actually the opposite of what is occurring. What am I saying … opposite?
Tōta and Kirie could also actually be speeding ahead through time, where everything around them appears to be stopped or frozen. Tōta and Kirie are moving at a very extreme fast pace. What takes normal time — for example, say it takes 1 sec in the real world of Kuro and Karin to take one step may take a equivilant of week’s time watching them do that one step in the ‘relative’ time for Tōta and Kirie.
Water, fire, and air and fire can move and be used, based on the much higher speed of the molecules, speed of traveling light, and chemical reactions of fire, so they have light or dark, but they can pick out pellets from fired shotgun. But to Tōta and Kirie from their perspective, thinks they are in ‘normal’ time, it appears to them that time has stopped for everyone else.
Too much brainiac and too deep thinking on this…. Since we had example of a Star Trek TNG episode, This theory was on the Original series with Kirk and Spock in a episode titled ‘Wink of an Eye’. Kirk drinks the Scalosian water on Scalos that was put in his coffee and away he goes and speeds up to see who was messing with his ship.
Oh yeah, I remember that TOS episode. And that does remind me that the TNG episode I mentioned stated that time wasn’t 100% stopped, but that was to provide a point of drama to force the characters to act.
Good love hina comedy vibes in the chapter, it would appearthat Sensei is progressing.
Yes I believe you’re recollection of the Star trek episode is correct they could move objects caught in the ‘timestop’ but not alter/activate/or otherwise use devises, and also decided trying to move people could be dangerous without further research… whereas here it got inconsistent very quickly ((clearly Ken is not used to writing sci-fi on that level)) 😀
Well, I think it got inconsistent quickly because Akamatsu-sensei wanted Kirie and Touta to have some time alone together doing fun stuff, so he had to trash the time rules he established initially to allow his story to be told. Unfortunately, it just took me right out of the story.
The whole chapter makes me think that their in a pocket universe of sort more than a sliver of time that never can move. The Day that Never Comes….Metallica song.
Good chapter to build up a repour between the characters. This is all character building, with fun frozen world for the fans laugh at and talk about.
As side note. Kirie is not unlike Kitty in the sense she can’t get any older physically. WHY the heck can’t she get her hands on Kitty’s age transformation candy? She can make herself into adult form temporarily if she really wanted to. Or she feel like Washu from Tenchi Muyo and doesn’t want deal with adult world’s rules etc.
I want character building stories. It is just that the way this one was told, I was taken out of the story, which is unfortunate.
Now that you mention this, I think you are onto something. The implication is that before Touta’s arrival, Kirie didn’t do much or even leave the island. So just keeping her young girl form suited her, and as we saw at her introduction, she was apparently pampered.
Now that Touta is there and Kirie has become more active, even leaving the island, we may see her opt for an age transformation illusion, more so since Eva does this and Touta seems into her for now.
No news about spoil? is this a pause period this week?
Yeah. Next chapter will also be a double issue, meaning that there will be a break after that. December 23 and then Jan 6 will be the next two chapter publication days in Japan (a day earlier, in the evening, in the U.S.).
The normal publication will return jan 6 in this case?
Meaning no more breaks until Spring, yes. We’ll get a chapter on December 23, then the next one will be the 6th.
I’m sure we will see a ‘older’ Kirie, if anything, the fan service it will provide. Don’t forget Dana who earlier appeared in different ages and sizes during the training. This chapter was good for me in showing more about Kirie, which is her talent or art or ability is making money, and its her passion and love. Having the reset time ability, she knows the future so she can change any financial mistakes she made earlier to one that makes millions – sorta what happened in Back to the Future 2, and why she wanted to kill herself to undo the loss of 3 million yen.
At least this time of year we have other things to take our attention as in the upcoming holidays, and not just waiting for in the next chapters to be created. We can focus on thankful of many things, friends, and food, and hopefully fun.
Thank you Astro for providing this forum to discuss, keeping things on track with the updates and synopsis of the new chapters for many mangas, and the time to moderate and comment too!
Hoping everyone for a fun and safe Holidays — its right around the corner!
You’re welcome. 😀