April 26th, 2016 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! Manga Review
UQ Holder Chapter 121
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta manages to get Shinobu’s swimsuit back on, so Mizore gets her Touta to take control of their speeder so that she can be rid of Shinobu once and for all. She leaps off the speeder and performs the Yukihiro School Undressing Technique on Shinobu, causing Shinobu’s clothing to vanish into Mizore’s hands. Mizore lands on her speeder bike, declaring victory, as Shinobu’s embarrassment and Touta’s failed attempts to cover her womanhood cause them to crash.
Touta gives Shinobu his shirt, after which Shinobu decides she’s going to get serious. With that, Shinobu shows her skills and to the surprise of Karin and company, Shinobu starts to catch back up to Mizore. Meanwhile, Shinobu tells the story of her uncle (or man she considers an uncle) and tells Touta that beyond her dream of going to the Tower, she wants to ride on the Mayflower III, which is an interstellar ship being built. This impresses Touta so much, he again confesses his love for her.
Shinobu catches up to Mizore, and to help Shinobu get her speeder up into the air and through the first loop gate, Touta does a shundou to meet her on the other side. Mizore’s Touta attempts to counter Shinobu’s Touta, but Shinobu’s Touta has a stored Flans Exarmatio spell, which he casts on Mizore, stripping her and causing her to crash.
Thoughts/Review:
Yay, more loli nakedness. 🙄 I guess Akamatsu-sensei is trying to make up for the long dearth of ecchiness in UQ Holder.
The sexual posing of the (naked and near naked) loli babes aside (and yeah, I know he did this in Negima too, but it just seems a bit more overt here), this was a Shinobu chapter and we did get a bit more info through here.
For starters, I suspect the man she calls “uncle” (whom she addresses as “Ojisan”) is likely not her real uncle. It is always difficult to tell with Japanese, but I get the feeling that he’s more of an older mentor rather than her real uncle. Regardless, it served as a reminder of Shinobu’s motivation. (Other than defeating Mizore, of course.)
Secondly, we learn that Earth is building an interstellar ship, known as the Mayflower 3. Since it has been introduced, I wonder if it will serve a more important role down the line. I kinda hope it does, allowing a greater melding of sci-fi and fantasy elements.
As to the race itself, I really don’t have anything to say. Shinobu’s Touta proved quick witted in storing that spell and in realizing that using a shundou to lighten the load on Shinobu’s speeder helps her. Yay.
Well, I guess I do like Touta’s being impressed with Shinobu and her dream. I suspect we’ll see Touta find a new goal too (beyond rescuing Negi).
In the end, the chapter is just more loli ecchi content with very little substance. Well, two weeks to wait before the loli ecchi stuff continues.
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I don’t mind these chapters but after the massive tease in 119 it’s a bit hard to take. To be teased with such a juicy piece of plot then back to this…. The harem antics are fine, but when coupled with intriguing plot it doesn’t work well. I hope this builds to something more than just Ken’s penchant for fanservice. Don’t need this manga turning into Fairy Tail!
On its own this was an amusing chapter although I felt the envelope was pushed pretty far here. I just kinda hope the race wraps up soon so we can get back to MahoraFest v2.0
I was expecting the chapter to have a cliffhanger ending with a shocking development, but then the spoilers came out and I realized that wasn’t going to happen.
I’ve been stating for a long while that I think Akamatsu-sensei wants to follow Mashima-sensei’s lead (amongst other manga-ka) and just do whatever stories that suit his fancy without worrying too much about a bigger story.
I’d personally prefer he follow Oda’s lead than Mashima but that’s just me. Then again it’s been years since I last read Fairy Tail so I don’t know how things have gone.
@Yue Ayase Oda’s method of storytelling are Stockholm syndrome and boring readers to death with overtly long arcs (100 chapters). While Mashima’s fairy tail is a shounen parody with nudity and serious character backstorys that tie it down.
I certainly won’t deny that OP’s arcs get a little long sometimes, but as Negima fans that’s never really stopped us (the magic world arc was ~170 chapters). Mashima’s writing pretty much boils down to “Shout about friendship and make up a winning move on the spot”. While the fanservice is nice it actually gets to be too much at times, and that’s saying a lot.
Again, it’s been years since I last read FT so maybe Mashima has improved but I always found his storytelling to be lackluster and serious moments often ruined by strange inversions. I remember reading Negima and FT alongside each other and preferring the former to the latter by leaps and bounds, and Negi to be a far superior and deeper protagonist to Natsu.
Anyway, ANB probably doesn’t want us filling up his comment section about unrelated works.
Fairy Tail is pretty much the same — lots of action, heroics, and such.
Well, given what I seen here, none of the girls is going to win. I bet on Claus and Lavie winning with Dio beening DQ for cheating again (lol).
Actual, these bike are almost copies of Last Exile’s Van ships, infact I expect that Akamatsu-sensei someway has permission to use the Van ship design because they are that close.
😆 Score one for you!
Now that you mention it, the speeders are similar. However, the Van ships were more like planes without wings whereas the speeders here are more like bikes.
Mizore in the water at the end, vowing for revenge. Almost as what Asuna would say too if it was her in the water. The way Mizore also wears the ribbons in her hair, almost like how Asuna wore hers. Negima had Ayaka and Asuna competing against each other. I think UQ now has Mizore and Shinobu. Almost redux backgrounds, one rich and one poor and orphan.
One thing I’m hoping to see is that Kirie in this water race battle uses the time-freeze. It would mean that a lesser or weaker Tota can still invoke a time stop, which may help in his plan against the MotB by being in more places at one time, distracting other combatants and always be near Kirie, to beat Cutlass with her time freeze.
Last chapter Tota and girls montage frame had three different sayings on each of the three Tota’s shirt, Salty (Kirie), Worcheshire (Mizore), and I think Soy Sauce (Shinobu). I’ve been trying to figure out the connection or meaning if any, and that is only seen in those frames, and just a white shirt elsewhere. All I’ve come up with is the three are condiments that add/compliment seasoning (goes well with or gives enhanced flavor to) a main dish (girl). So its a way of Tota complimenting his team partner, or is it reflective of the girl’s personality? or something else or its nothing. But most artist add things like this to give some hidden meaning. I just don’t see this one. I can see Kirie as salty too.
Tota is a typical guy and is still making promises to the girls, which he may not be able to keep and fulfill.
As the MC, Touta will be able to do it. 😉
I’m liking Shinobu getting some development.
I’m pretty sure when we saw Shinobu’s “uncle” in chapter 2, she said he was a guy passing by her hometown or something.
This chapter would look great animated. Although I say that about a lot chapters.
I need to go back to chapter 2.
I’m extremely grateful that the pun in the spoiler (about the results of Chouta groping Shinobu) was there for humor only. Her trembling pose afterward was unquestionably because the water was cold, and it’s just a coincidence that it resembles Chachamaru at the bottom of MSN 190:18. I’m quite sure of it. (⌣_⌣)
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But after this many years of seeing it and getting no farther away from “Oh, come on…” every time it happens – I think I can safely say that I will not understand the shounen cliche of “Okay, now I’m gonna get serious!” during this lifetime. If it’s the one true thing that gives your life meaning, why weren’t you… ah, I give up. \(-_-)尸
(The only goofier cliche I can think of is the hero who falls flat on their butt at a sports event where fractions of a second make the difference between 1st and 7th place. Then after lying there in despair for a while, they have an extended flashback that inspires them to run at double the speed of the world record holder until they break the tape, inches ahead of their dastardly opponent.)
Its been a theme well used. I remember watching old movies late at night, japanese samurai/ninja (Toshiro Mifune, Sonny Chiba) and chinese martial arts (Shaw brothers?) movies and its a similar theme too. Hello getting beaten close to death, then something inspires them (a.k.a. getting ‘serious’) and they get up off the floor and go beat their opponent with some awesome power within themselves that wasn’t there before. The bad is in most chinese films, the hero does this and dies at the end. Same for the older samurai movies. Instead of saying getting ‘serious’, the phrase then was “get a hold of yourself!”.
So its one of those asian cultural social norms being reinforced and shown in manga as examples of what a good person does in the asian culture when faced with possible defeat or loss to more powerful or evil or bad guys or gals.
oops spelling checker fail. I meant hero and not ‘Hello’ – sorry about that, didn’t see it during the edit mode before posting.
Ha!ha! I hear ya.
Given Honoka’s level of magic proficiency, (being able to make solid doppelgangers of Touta even at 1/3 of the strength of the original, who is an ethereal vampire with the Royal magic cancel variant, who himself is quite strong. Is quite a feat.)
How likely does everyone think that Honoka has high mastery of the 4 or so high ancient Greek incantations?
She would be a perfect proxy by Akamatsu for serial power escalation.
If remembering correctly, she’s only used paper magic in her battle with Isana against Tota and splitting him into three (as she also did to Isana (8?) earlier). So she hasn’t shown using any verbal incantation magic as say Eva/Yukihime or Fate.
If her mom is the mage Konoka – we haven’t seen any of the ‘healing’ magic side of her as yet too, but assumed she’s learned/inherited that kind of magic from her mom. That magic would be the important part to keep Negi from dying after the MotB leaves him. Also to heal any others that may get injured in fighting in the future. But… since she hasn’t used it, she may not have that kind of magic. A option would be to seal him up using a paper magic seal on him to keep him alive till later, which Honoka can already perform. We need to wait and see what other magic she can do.
We haven’t seen the Konoe sisters involved with this race as yet too. Seems Tota and the other UQ members are not following them either. It might be their time too, where Mizore, Shinobu and Kirie are so focused and occupied on fighting each other out of the race, the Konoe sisters win the race.
ughh – its that time of year when there isn’t new chapters. No choice but to have to wait for a few weeks. I never thought I would get this way…. first it was anime, then korean dramas, and now manga. Time to do focus on other needed things to be done… sigh….
That would be Western magic. So far, all we’ve seen her use is Eastern magic.
@Astronerdboy True, but the issue remains for Akamatsu that he made eastern magic shown only to be creation and constructs, which is inefficient in regards to drawing. Compared to an out of focused character with a speech bubble, with the next page showing an impact crater.
Mizore’s flashback: Mizore watched footage about the tale of Negi and was deeply moved
from Chachamaru she hears news that a grandchild of Negi exists
with Ayaka’s official recognition Mizore wants to make the blood relative of Negi her husband and thus leaves the household
flashback until here
Mizore (who was recovering from being undress by Touta previously) wears a Y-shirt and
she makes us of an addition engine, which needs Touta’s power, and makes a hot chase
the nether region is somehow concelead by the shirttail of the {はだY}
// google is your friend
at that time, Kiriwe shoots down four aircraft infront and jumps to the top position
from behind Shinobu, Mizore are pursueing
■ The hearts/feelings/wishes(思い) of the three are dueling/clashing!! Towards the climax in the next issue!! continuing in issue 25
Spoiler addition:
About Mizore’s beloved one!(←I forgot to write the subtitle)
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btw: How many syllables does Kirie’s name have? If you now the answer you know why Kirie’s name is written that ‘strange’ way.
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Pony!
edit: it doesn’t want to work :,(
Thanks!
Image linking does work, but you have to link to an actual image and use HTML code. 🙂
I’m doing that, but it doesn’t want to work *sad*
and I tested it on a test page *double sad*
no pinkie pie *triple sad*
Not sure why it isn’t working for you. Every test I’ve done works fine. It is possible that you are trying to link to an image from a site that doesn’t allow hotlinking. But the comments HTML is set up to allow embedded images, bold text, italics, links, lists, and a bit more.