April 12th, 2017 
AstroNerdBoy ユーキューホルダー! 魔法先生 ネギま！2 Manga Review
UQ Holder! Mahou Sensei Negima 2
UQ Holder!: Magister Negi Magi! 2 Chapter 135
UQ Holder Chapter 135
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Kirie has an erotic dream about herself and Touta. When she wakes, the experience has her flustered, causing her to attack Touta when he enters her room.
Life at Senkyoukan returns to normal as Karin and Touta greet the large influx of guests. Afro and Ray come by the inn for a visit and stay. Afro mentions that the MotB incident is being blamed on terrorists, so Karin warns him not to let it out that MotB was involved after the problems she caused 30 years earlier. Karin makes note that Kirie runs away when Touta attempts to talk to her.
Because of their work, Gengorou notifies Touta and company that Yukihime has given them two days off, which they spend on the new island facility, which has a pool. Santa and Kuroumaru lament their weakness in the latest battle, leading Karin to state that they just need to train harder. The discussion turns to Touta and Kirie apparently fighting. They, along with Yukihime in another location, observe Kirie flee from Touta when he tries to talk to her.
Touta is talking to Afro and Ray when Shinobu and Mizore show up. This causes Karin to get jealous, but she then decides that they have to do something to get Kirie and Touta together. Jinbee decides to join in the fun.
Touta briefs Mizore on everything that transpired. Mizore is honored by this and pleased that Touta considers her to be cute. She’s about to tell him her plan to save the world when Jinbee uses his “switcheroo” magic to cause a pantless Kirie to show up in Mizore’s place. Kirie attacks Touta as a result. Meanwhile, Touta moves on to Shinobu, briefing her on things. As Touta is complementing her, Jinbee causes Kirie to show up in Shinobu’s place. This results in Touta being attacked again.
Touta is talking with Ray and Afro as he gives Afro a massage. Jinbee causes a naked Kirie to switch places with Afro, leading to Kirie attacking Touta again. A frustrated Jinbee uses his magic to send both Touta and Kirie to a small, private sauna and places a powerful magical seal on it. Jinbee pushes this further by removing their swimsuits. Kirie freaks, then breaks down because Touta had called her chest size small and she knows they’ll never grow.
Jinbee puts their clothing back on as Kirie finally allows Touta to talk to her. However, she doesn’t think she can help Touta with the MotB issue. Touta compliments her, pleasing her, but then she passes out from the heat. Yukihime teleports in and uses her ice magic to cool Kirie down. Yukihime gets Touta to confess that he likes Kirie and that he’s always want to be there for her and protect her. Kirie is awake to hear this, so Yukihime teases her about this, then encourages the two to start dating. Yukihime’s continued teasing causes Kirie to go nuts, whereby she destroys the sauna.
Thoughts/Review:
Well, Akamatsu-sensei and Kodansha must be very desperate to increase the sales of UQ Holder. The ecchi factor certainly has been ramped in UQ Holder chapter 135. On the other hand, we did learn a few interesting things.
Working the Harem
I’ll talk about Kirie in a moment, but first, lets discuss Touta’s harem. You have Mizore, the self-proclaimed betrothed of Touta’s. She gets some work with Touta telling her everything that transpired with Negi-MotB. She’s not only pleased by this, but she’s very happy that the Touta that had been with her in the race and who’d subsequently gotten “killed” still remembered everything that happened. And of course, she’s delighted when Touta tells her she’s cute. Since Jinbee interrupted her, we’ll see what her response to saving the world it.
For Shinobu, she’s also glad to be briefed. She’s stunned that Touta thinks so highly of her. He loves her goal to be a crew member of the interstellar spaceship. While this flusters her, we don’t find out more because of Jinbee. Still, Touta affirmed his ties with Shinobu.
Then there’s Karin. She instigated all of the troubles for Touta and Kirie after getting jealous upon seeing Shinobu and Mizore with Touta. I really want Akamatsu-sensei to work on Karin and her role in the harem. Karin is merely using Kirie to hide her own feelings for Touta.
Kirie
I’m going to mostly skip over Kirie’s erotic dream because I don’t care about that. However, I will say that I got a chuckle out of Akamatsu-sensei’s breaking of the fourth wall in acknowledging wasting five pages on this.
Kirie is following a character trope by constantly denying her feelings for Touta. While I’d love for her to actually grow as a character and accept this, especially in light of what Eva told her, it seems clear to me that Akamatsu-sensei would rather use her as comedy fodder and someone who can be Naru from Love Hina, punching the MC into orbit.
Still, it is interesting to see how Touta has genuine feelings for Kirie. As Eva pointed out, they do have a mutual, romantic love, and it is certainly better established than the supposed mutual, romantic love in a certain other manga series that ended on April 11 in Japan. Touta’s feelings, combined with his actions with Shinobu and Mizore, give me the impression that Akamatsu-sensei is going for a harem end. Frankly, I’m OK with that.
Finally, there’s Kirie’s immortality. This chapter strongly implies that Kirie will never age nor grow beyond her current size. With her reset ability, her immortality has been in question. If she lives normally, but when she dies, she just goes back to a save point, then as she gets older, that’s going to have to suck massively. But Kirie’s words suggest she’ll remain in a child form. Further, Eva remarked that though Kirie looks like a kid, she’s an adult on the inside.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I wanted to have this done days ago. 🙁 I’m going to wrap this sucker with some final thoughts.
- I hated seeing that we are apparently going to get a tournament after all. When I saw that, I wanted to scream since Tournaments are just awful.
- Eva teasing as Yukihime made Yukihime finally seem like Eva, if that makes sense. Most of the time, Yukihime never feels like Eva to me, even though she is Eva. Yukihime feels like another character, separate from her true, Eva persona.
- I can’t remember if Jinbee has shown this “switcharoo” power or not. It does explain how they were able to get civilians to safety so quickly.
- The new facility is “new,” meaning retcon. Seriously, it has never been there before. Now all of the sudden, it is there. I’d love to speculate that this is a sign that we’ve switched timelines again, but I rather suspect it is just retconning and “don’t ask any questions.” After all, Akamatsu-sensei needed a new place to get his characters into swimsuits and less.
In the end, UQ Holder chapter 135 has WAY too much ecchi fanservice for my tastes. However, there were a few points of interest for me, so I’ll let it pass.
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Eva can use magic, and alter her appearence to the ‘older’ Yukihime. Kirie was able to disguise Kuromaru as a girl to fool even Tota. Its odd that Kirie can’t or won’t use the same kind of magic to make herself look older like Eva does (ie so her pair isn’t always tiny). She is a ‘wizard’ but we really haven’t seen much of her true ability. Maybe this is for a later time. I hope she has a re-match with Cutlass on her own terms and returns what Cutlass did to her, and also eventually take on and defeat Alberio.
Well is she is really desperate then Yukihime(Eva) will just give Kirie those Age Changing Pills that last until you disable the magic.
You know, those ones negi and co used in the Magic World Arc.
Sometimes, I think Akamatsu-sensei has a loli fetish. That said, I suppose he could have Kirie try to look older sometime in the future.
Yup. Imo, that was right up there with – no, well above – Love Hina. LH had a bad case of “made the rival TOO believable”, but this example is closer to “Because I Said So”.
I didn’t have a problem with the Love Hina romance on the whole, though there were a couple of stretches to make things fit the girl of destiny thing. But in terms of the romance, that was dealt with and developed nicely, if stretched quite a bit.
I think his switcheroo powers were shown when he stole Kuroumaru’s energy bar way~ in the beginning when he was introduced.
He also teleported Touta’s sword during the fight with the blind immortal hunter.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that as well. Thanks for the reminder.
Yeah, I’d forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder.
One more time I can think of also (chapter 9) – it wasn’t just the rations, when Kuromaru tried to defend Tota from Jinbei when Jinbei returns to help Tota (no arm since it was eaten) train/practice to be able to get out of the cavern, Kuromaru attacked Jinbei reaching to release his sword from the scabbard and it appeared in Jinbei’s hands with a ‘smack’. Leaving Kuromaru questioning how he did it, and then Kuromaru hits Jinbei with a kick.
I thought Jinbei was that ‘quick’ to steal it, but now we know its the switcheroo.
Also the same switcheroo is probably (but not sure) how in chapter 27-28 the UQ team (Gengoro, Ikuu, Jinbei, Eva) appeared and showed up all of a sudden to help Tota when Tota was pinned with stakes to a wall battling the wolf guy and the blind swordsman, and the private army.
I really think they should just make Kirie/Touta official. The other girls (even Eva) aren’t even trying anymore. I don’t mind these breather chapters but they work a lot less in a monthly series, especially with Cutlass set to do something….
I think there will be a harem ending more so than just a Kirie/Touta. However, Kirie is a lot like Chisame and since Negi’s girl of choice was Chisame, I suppose it could be a Kirie x Touta ship. But I’m pulling for the harem end. 😉
I think we’ll be left with another non-conclusive open romantic ending again.
I’m pulling for the full on battle harem. 😀
The story seems to be getting muddled up. I have to agree that change of focus on the girls and touta seems to be another reach of trying to be stretch to keep manga alive by trying lure the older negi fans who just like the comedic antics come first vs drama that UQ Holder is and Negi wasn’t until much later in it’s run.
Japanese market must be tough right now if he has to keep zooming back and forth in formats. I wish it stayed way it started out. Not forced in-direct harem.
Anyways, Touta must be extremely good actor or very compartmental emotion type personality. It wasn’t till the end did he actually slip his actual feelings. He’s either been action hero/air-head/thoughtful person for but a moment kind of guy.
Yes, that’s quite true.
I think the lampshade hanging on the wasted pages only makes it worse– Akamatsu IS aware he’s just spent several pages on a gratuitous Lolicon exploitation sequence that doesn’t advance the plot or tells us anything we didn’t know already (Kirie has the hots for Touta) but he does it anyway.
It’s like Chisame lampshading Poyo’s random appearance, and then Poyo ends up being a random and irrelevant happening that only consumed a few pages without supplying anything worthwhile that couldn’t have been done by another character (the Cosmo Entelecheia visions could have been left to the badly underdeveloped Master of the Graves, for instance. Instead of getting one relevant character, we ended up with two irelevant ones). He admits the flaws in his plotting and writing… but he keeps pulling them in regardless! I’m not sure if that’s just an admission of incompetence or an insult to our collective intelligence.
Not to mention the ‘just because we’re monthly now…’ aside seems to imply the story now has the luxury of more pages to play with, when in truth now we actually get less pages a month than when the series was weekly. If anything, now we’ve got even less pages to waste on filler like this, not the other way around! And that’s also why still doing the Tournament is an awfully bad idea, because this pacing doesn’t fit the needs of a tournament arc, in addition to everything else this series has on the table to tie up. Unless the plan is, once again, just ending leaving most plot threads hanging, which would be a major slap on the readership’s face.
And why is Karin’s character so inconsistent now? She used to be better characterized than this. Why is she now a troll-type character like Asakura or Haruna, plotting around to ship people and mess with their love lives? She was supposed to be a stoic, straight laced character, more like a Mana-type. This should have been left mostly to Jinbei alone, since he at least fills the bill better. Karin is supposed to be more no-nonsense and professional than this.
All in all, this doesn’t even feel like a cast of immortals. For all intents and purposes they tend to act, out of the battlefield, just as immature and juvenile as the Negima cast, which was mostly made of schoolgirls, while most of these characters are allegedly hardened veterans.
If not more, and personally my money would be on more. 2-A showed flashes of maturity.
I hear ya. Still, I have recently noticed that a large number of monthly titles I read seem to waste a lot of pages on stupidity, fluff, or regular filler.
If it happens, instead of a tournament battle taking several weekly chapters, I can see it getting wrapped up in 1-2 chapters.
I don’t see her so much as inconsistent. She’s always had a negative thing when it comes to Touta. Touta’s actions in combat and her own poor showings have caused her to change her mind on him somewhat, but I see that as natural character growth. She does have some level of feelings for Touta, but doesn’t want to admit them. As I see it, Karin gets Jinbee to do her dirty work in getting Touta and Kirie together. Then Karin can continue to live in denial about her own feelings for Touta as well as removing Touta as a love interest for Eva.
I don’t know if this is common knowledge and I missed the discussions, or if this is only now reaching English-speaking shores, but apparently Akamatsu revealed who Negi chose at the end of Negima, in an extra booklet accompanying the UQ Holder vol. 12 release. For those that want to know, it’s translated here:
http://lion-sensei.tumblr.com/post/153558641930/yuushaninarenakattabakaraidaa-%EF%BD%95%EF%BD%91
Apology if everyone already knew this.
Wow. Thank you for the info, but yeah… I’m glad they kept it secret. On top of everything else at the end, there’s a good chance the perception of a raised middle finger to the fans would have gotten Sensei the nickname “Annomatsu”.
Thanks for the link. ^_^
UQ Holder volume 13, did slightly better than the previous two volumes. But it should be noted that the sales on that list are lower than they should be.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-04-12/japanese-comic-ranking-april-3-9/.114717
I would love to know why Akamatsu-Sensei is pushing for Kirie, when a submissive flustered L-I is uninteresting. Which Wakaki of TWGOK, never did it. And why Yui was my favorite girl. Compared to Mizore, who has things as interesting say as Al, as well as being pro active in her goals. Like, trying marrying Touta so that he doesn’t entrance more girl’s. It isn’t particularly logical, but she doesn’t just flounder like everything else.
Generally, in manga and anime the proactive girls always lose. It’s always either the quiet and shy girl who remains unable to voice her feelings until the end or the tsundere in violent denial. Personally I think that’s a horrible message to send youth, that the best way to reach romantic fulfillment is to never chase said feelings until they fall on your lap, but what can we do about it?
If Akamatsu-sensei is doing the harem route, then Kirie is one of the tsundere characters that need to be cracked. Otherwise, Kirie is the Chisame character (of sorts) in UQ Holder. Thus Akamatsu-sensei could tell the Negi x Chisame ship tale through Kirie x Touta ship.
There is a way of living in Japan called ‘hikikomori’. A easy definition for a recluse. So I’m wondering if this is part of the draw for readers, as it appears to be part of many of the characters in UQ.
This seems to be the way of living for immortals on a secluded island resort, or living in a remote small village. Its like just staying one one’s apartment or at home and never going out of the house. I remember watching a few shows on cable about this, but it was more dealing with living in a big city like Tokyo or Kyoto.
The definition is: “Someone who has withdrawn from all real-life social interaction”. On the island and in the remote village, there was very limited social interaction, more so for Eva with a price on her by bounty hunters.
At first I thought of Santa, where he initially fit this with his dorm/apt with computers, and Kirie and her shy privacy issues and her own room at Senkyokan. But Kirie does do stock trades and is quite rich and likes to get more money. Then I thought it also includes Kuromaru being on a quest straight out of a highly disciplined martial arts school, Ikuu as a robot, and Karin with her history of being hunted by society, and all of them also on island, and even Jinbei that just got out of the underground ‘cave’ that Eva sent him. In some ways even Mizore because of her status can be limited in her social interactions with the public.
Notice the Konoe ‘twins’ have also disappeared completely?
So far even Cutlass appears to be a ‘loner’ that also fits this theme.
Now we see the influence of Chisame on Negi who also was a recluse to herself. Yeah, similar to Kirie.
The others Negima characters seem to be now more socially adjusted as in Fate, Eva, Mana, and Zazie.
So, no notable improvement for 13’s 2nd Week. But it could go on, to do the same numbers for 4 Weeks.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-04-19/japanese-comic-ranking-april-10-16/.115025
Thanks for the link.
New record, UQ Holder disappeared on the top 50, thus failing to make it to week 3, which it oftern does. Typically however, its in the low ten’s.
The bottom 5 all did 20K ish. So volume 13, could’ve sold 13k or so. And made it, under normal circumstances.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-04-26/japanese-comic-ranking-april-17-23/.115332
Thanks for the info.
I totally agree with you about Yukihime feeling like Eva in this chapter. I can’t believe it took 135 chapters to FINALLY make Yukihime feel like she actually Eva. (To me at least…and to you apparently lol) The whole teasing just made me feel nostalgic of how she treated Negi.
Also a side note, Idk if it’s just me but, I feel like the Yukihime persona is weaker than the Evangeline persona. I hope that makes sense. For example, when she was battling Nagi Ialda I feel like she SHOULD be stronger than she was. I mean, she IS the one who created Magia Erebea, AND she’s the one who trained Negi as her disciple, she’s also had A LOT more fighting experience than most of the immortals. Super lightning Negi killing Fate and Yukihime in a godly manner within 0.02-0.03 seconds is just…overkill. Like DBZ overkill. Also, she expresses more emotions than actual Eva persona. Which I sort of find unfitting for Eva. lol Idk it just kinda frustrates me of how weak and soft her character has become. I always viewed her as one of the top few strongest characters in Negima. Sometimes I forget that Akamatsu-sensei is the author and artist because the writing and art-style quality both decreased drastically.
Yep, that’s it exactly. This is where the Eva element came out strongly. And as you say, it is about time.
Yukihime has always felt like she is weaker than Eva in Negima. Based on everything we know about age-illusion magic, that should have no impact on powers. I’ve long suspected that Akamatsu-sensei weakened Eva in UQ Holder because otherwise, she becomes a deus ex machina element if she remains active in the story.
How can Tota ‘impress’ Eva as her ‘protector’ if he’s always saved by Eva. There has to be something Tota must be able do to show improvement in his abilities and gain confidence in himself, and Eva may just hold back and let him mature and gain more confidence and get stronger and allow Tota to save her. I would include trying to get Tota to look at other girls as he is looking at Eva, like she is doing with Kirie, to make Tota aware of other girls interested in him, since at times Tota is a total block-head or head stuck in the mud. I think I watched too many martial arts movies where the master intentionally is weaker to strengthen their prime student to excel. I’ve only seen the ‘Ice Princess’ once in UQ, and may not see her again.
Or Touta could be just mature about the situation and realize he doesn’t have to prove being stronger than everybody else, Eva included, to earn someone’s respect.
There is something I find deeply disturbing and wrong about a female having to be rescued by the male lead so he can ‘earn’ her love. Especially when said love interest actually started as his mother figure.
That being said, this is a typical shounen manga where ultimately all that matters is proving the main character will eventually become stronger than everyone else.
Well, she did do that once in her true form, then she let the others come in and save. However, I think it is clear that Akamatsu-sensei has made her weaker because otherwise, she’d be too over powered. That’s why Akamatsu-sensei kept her out of most of Negima, even though she was an ally to Negi. With UQH, Akamatsu-sensei wants to use her more as a character without having her being aloof, thus the reason I feel she’s been weakened. It would be nice if there were a story reason for Eva’s apparent weakening.
Thought i can see where some ppl are come from, but im happy to see Akamatsu-sensei “tackle” adult content to some extend. The only thing which bothers me by it is “the age” of the girls ^^; It feels a bit… weird tbh…
Also to add to this, i loved Evas statement: The body of a child but the mind of a century old girl XD
Also Karin reminded me so much in this chapter at Chisame (During the School Festival arc to the Magic Tournament Arc with Rakan) Their reaction/actions are so simular
While we don’t know how old Kirie really is, obviously Mizore and Shinobu would be minors. If Kirie is over 18, then technically, she’s not a kid even if she looks like one. However, that doesn’t negate the creepy factor of appearance.
Interesting. I hadn’t noticed.
It’s somewhat sad to see UQ Holder’s secondary members discussing how useless they’ve been this time and how they’ll need to train, because we’ve been there over and over in similar manga, and this is the point where the secondary cast become cannon fodder, jobbers, Worfs, Krillins, Chads, and ultimately cheerleaders for the primary character.
Ikkuu’s excuse of ‘well, you were fighting the strongest in the Solar System’ makes it sadder because, well, narratively, of course they’re going to be fighting only the strongest people around. You just don’t make a manga out of going around defeating people you can easily beat up, especially not after a fight with the Lifemaker him/herself. Gotta keep those stakes high.
Unfortunately, I have a very hard time believing the current format will allow them to actually improve beyond token, informed ‘wow, they’re so much stronger now!’ signs that only will mean they can act as stronger benchmarks for the strenght of the villain who will pummel them down so Touta can show off. Like with Ala Alba, who ultimately only ended up achieving something that was immediately undone by Plot Fiat, and then only could me mowed down to never win a single on panel fight ever again.
This is my problem with a series like UQH. For Touta to be “Super Touta,” everyone else has to suck, even though folks like Karin would normally be top notch. Plus, in Karin’s case, she’s been schooled enough to where taking fights seriously should be second nature to her. I know there was a throw away reference a long while back about immortals getting cocky ’cause they can’t die, but one would think that by now, that cockiness would be gone. Sadly, it can’t be gone ’cause then that would diminish Touta as the MC.
You’re right, it will be difficult to do based on the current format.
It also appears nothing affects them very much. I can see some time for R&R but add some meaningful conversations and possible strategies or plans than just obvious comments and hijinks. But hijinks seems to be the way of learning about the minor characters, in this case we learned something of Jinbei, and it gave some understanding to what he did in earlier chapters. We still don’t know much about UQ as a organization, while they almost destroyed a church orphanage in a battle to stop Tota from being taken, and then again with the damage to the space tower by Negi-MotB to stop him also taking Tota. Add to that time to built and open and staff a extension to their island resort.
Which is unfortunate.
Kajishima-senseiAkamatsu-sensei could do this, but I suspect we’ll soon be back to the mega-action where Karin and company can look like fools while Touta gets to shine.You are calling Akamatsu ‘Kajishima’. Again.
Gah! My brain and my fingers don’t always work in harmony. Thanks for the alert!