October 8th, 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 141
UQ Holder Chapter 141
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Karin is unhappy seeing an image of the happy Eva having married the middle-aged Nagi. Touta doesn’t have an answer to Dana’s question on whether this is the happy ending he’s looking for. Dana is going to continue giving them info via Chachazero, but they are tired, so Chamo suggests a break. Dana notices something is going on at the UQ Holder HQ, Senkyoukan.
At the Senkyoukan, Gengorou sees Yukihime off on their sailboat. With her departure, Cutlass decides to spring into action, reviewing data on Yukihime, Jinbee, and Gengorou. Cutlass figures she couldn’t beat Yukihime, but she’s not too worried about Jinbee and Gengorou. She’s not worried about the other demi-humans, youma, or other entities who work or reside at the Senkyoukan.
A couple of kids playing baseball accidentally send the ball her way. She seems as if she would attack, but instead, she returns the ball and rubs one boy on the head. Gengorou appears behind her, a hand gun at her head. Gengorou sends the boy Ponta away. Cutlass attacks as soon as the kids are gone. Gengorou battles with his gun and katana while Cutlass uses her two large blades.
Cutlass uses the pactio artifact Horaria Porticus to freeze time. She beheads Gengorou, then locks the body in a time freeze cube. She’s going to move the body, but she’s shocked to find a naked Gengorou with a gun at her head. He fires multiple shots, but her barrier saves her. Their battle resumes with Cutlass being angry over this turn of events. Gengorou gets an analysis of Cutlass’s power, but his attempts to talk to her anger her further.
The battle continues until eventually Gengorou sends his katana through Cutlass’s chest. She goes down, but as Gengorou attempts more analysis of her, she transforms. Not only does her power level increase exponentially, but she also grows four, dark, demon-like arms and a tail. She attacks, angry that he calls her an immortal, which she is not. She gets the better of him, but before she can land her blow, Jinbee uses his power to pull Gengorou to safety.
The two discuss the situation. Jinbee jokes, but angry Cutlass looks more like a transformed mazoku. Gengorou pulls out a rifle as Cutlass starts to attack.
Thoughts/Review:
Ugh. Figures that real life and a “repaired” PC that’s still broken would interfere with my enjoyment of UQ Holder chapter 141. However, I’ll struggle to write what I can and hope that I can finish this before the PC decides to power off/reboot.
Dana Info Dump — Denied or Just Delayed
Dana interrupted the original plan to get the info that Chachazero had stored from the current timeline. As such, we got to see what supposedly happened in the Negima! “Happy End” timeline. I for one enjoyed that flashback. And, for UQ Holder chapter 141, I enjoyed the aftermath with Karin all frustrated about Eva marrying a middle-aged guy (Nagi) and the other girls squealing in delight over that image.
When Dana gives them the option to learn the info they actually came for, suddenly the characters are all whining about getting more information. While Chamo suggests a break, the fact that Dana spotted the trouble at the Senkyoukan suggests that Touta and company will leave Kyoto and get back to UQH HQ as fast as possible to help against Cutlass. That way, Akamatsu-sensei doesn’t have to give us any information ’cause that’s how he almost always rolls. Providing information would box him in and not allow him to roam wherever he chooses at any given moment. *_*
I hope I’m wrong about this as I’d like to get more info on how Negi failed in this timeline.
Gengorou: About Time!
Once the action shifted to the Senkyoukan and Gengorou, UQ Holder chapter 141 became a very interesting and enjoyable chapter. For starters, it is nice that Gengorou (and to a lesser extent, Jinbee) gets screen time where he’s the star. This proved to me that UQ Holder doesn’t need to just center around Touta and his battle harem. Other UQ Holder characters can carry the torch when needed.
In addition, we got to learn a bit more about Gengorou’s fighting abilities and see his immortality in action. His battle with Cutlass shows that he’s no slouch, combining guns and blade fighting skills. He schooled her rather quickly, after she underestimated his immortality and abilities. Plus, there’s his humorous way of analyzing opponents in gaming terms. When Cutlass transformed, Gengorou’s analysis showing additional targets for the tail and additional arms reminded me of Fallout’s V.A.T.S system, whereby one can slow time to target different body parts of an opponent. Neat.
Also, I like how Gengorou and Jinbee worked as a team. We finally have a useful reason to use Jinbee’s target switch ability, thus saving Gengorou from being killed again.
Hopefully, Gengorou and Jinbee capture Cutlass without the need of Touta or Eva.
Cutlass, aka: Tena Vita
For Cutlass, we learned more about her in UQ Holder chapter 141. We got to see her real name (Tena Vita), her immortality experiment number, and a bit more. I laughed at the Dragonball Z joke about transformations. Certainly, Cutlass transformed twice in this chapter, each time growing more powerful. She claims to not be immortal, but she survived having an arm (even if artificial) cut off, and being stabbed through the heart with a katana. If she’s not immortal, she’s pretty tough.
Cutlass’s last transformation made her appear more mazoku in nature. It makes me wonder if Zazie’s people were involved in her creation.
Also, Cutlass is so full of rage. Rage-filled people make mistakes. In my mind, this is how she will be defeated. Hopefully, we can learn more about her and her creators.
One more item; I think Cutlass either has an artifact to use the real Horaria Porticus, or she has the ability to replicate it. I need to go back and see how she described her swords when she first fought Touta.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I’m stunned I made it this far without my PC losing power. But I need to wrap this up, get it posted (with images), then get this bloody machine gracefully shut down to get sent back to the shop. Before I do, some final thoughts.
- I don’t remember this being confirmed before, but now for sure, we know that Eva is French. I found that interesting.
- As far as I can remember, this is only the second manga series where I’ve seen the term “youma” used. The first was in the Sailor Moon and Sailor V manga titles (and subsequent Sailor Moon anime). I like seeing its usage and would like to see how youkai, mazoku, and youma relate or how they are different as creatures.
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will you make a Review about the anime
That’s the plan. With my main PC like crap, I may be delayed, but I’ll try to get my laptop back to being able to do videos.
ok
do you think there will be other siblings
Based on the numbering, yes. It is possible we’ve met two. 😉
Since Gengorō has a gamer-like stat display, my first thought of his immortality is re-spawn.
Basically, yes. If I remember correctly from the earliest chapters, he has a ‘life system’, exactly like in video games – i.e. “you have x lives remaining”.
I couldn’t recognize that… which chapter that was mentioned again? Thanks!
Chapter 6, page 16. It doesn’t say it outright, but it says “a stock of lives” while showing his picture. That plus his ‘game vision’ leads to this conclusion.
Whoa.. a single-digit chapter seems like a decade ago for me. Need to reread it again! I hope that Juzou guy is associated with the philosopher stone Eva mentioned.
And it could be an infinite stock of lives too; the ultimate cheat. 😉
Like in a game such as Star Wars Battlefront?
As I stated earlier, a very good chapter. I don’t know why Akamatsu waited so long to take the spotlight off Touta and friends (or just Touta and Kirie) when his character writing has always been a strength. I’m actually far more invested in the fight than whatever other Negima stuff they might show.
While there are many things that separate UQ and Negima, one of the things I’ve been thinking about lately was how Negima drew on many concepts from other franchises (especially video games) and UQ hasn’t really done that to any large degree besides Kirie’s save point ability. One of the best things about Negima was when you could instantly recognize a shout out to another series, no matter how small. Gengoro explores the concepts of video game stats and abilities as “real”. Like how Cutlass’ stats grew exponentially as she transformed and how he was able to analyze that she had three additional forms after the multi-armed one. What was simply a background character for 140 chapters has grown into one of my favourites already and I do hope there’s more to come, including his relationship with Jinbei.
This manga could really be something special if Akamatsu let go of his inhibitions and didn’t constantly focus on Touta all the time (or the Negima stuff as of late). I realize that with the series becoming monthly it’s a lot harder to focus on certain characters without discrediting others but I can tell you that I didn’t miss Touta’s crew or the Negima flashback one bit with the latter portion of this chapter. It was that good.
UQH is, in essence, a schizophrenic series. On one hand we have the initial premise with the immortal stuff, and on the other hand there’s the Negima stuff that came in later. As it stands now, trying to do both leads the series to not be good at either aspect.
UQ’s biggest problem is improper utilization of its cast. There are many interesting characters (and some we haven’t even been introduced to yet) but for whatever reason Akamatsu has been scared to shift the focus off Touta and onto other cast members. Touta himself isn’t a strong enough character to carry a series like Negi before him or Luffy from One Piece. Pairing him up with Kirie for what feels like forever really didn’t do much for most fans either. It’s such a juxtapose from Negima, which had a larger cast and time for most of them to get their own day in the spotlight, without Negi being too in the way of things.
Touta doesn’t really separate himself all that much from your standard shonen MC, something that really, really hurts him in the long run. While he has some interesting attributes about him, he’s still a big cliche at this point.
It also doesn’t help that UQ is basically doing the opposite of what Negima did, starting off as an action series then shifting to harem antics, whereas Negima was the opposite. For whatever reason it just doesn’t work quite as well in that direction. I actually rather enjoyed the first few arcs before old habits settled in and Touta was basically made the apple of everyone’s eye when it was originally just Kuromaru.
Sometimes it just feels like Akamatsu changes lanes unnecessarily. The series is best suited as an action series with comedy elements and a bit of romance sprinkled in here and there.
He was trying to go Fairy Tail, which is all about the MC and the MC’s team. In Negima, Akamatsu-sensei didn’t shift things off Negi too often. That’s why (in part) we didn’t get to see Setsuna, Kaede, and company going through the ruins. But he did give Yue some love, which was much appreciated. I wish there had been more time for Nodoka as well as Asuna’s and Setsuna’s journey.
That’s true.
I don’t mind the Negima stuff as this is the only way to close out that story. But I do agree that we don’t need to see Touta all the time.
Fairy Tail largely succeeds because of its TnA. Every time I tried to give that series a second chance the only thing I got was a headache. While you are correct about Negima not shifting things off Negi too often, it was still mitigated by the relationships and interactions of the girls of class 3-A. UQ hardly has the numbers interact with each other for more than a page or two at a time and it’s nearly impossible to tell what the dynamics are and who is friends with who outside of basically everyone being in love with Touta. One of the best things this chapter did was establish the relationship between Jinbei and Gengoro, how the former defeated the latter and how they’ve been friends ever since.
And yeah, I love the Negima stuff too but it doesn’t need to go into overdrive.
I enjoyed Fairy Tail at the start. Too many characters killed that.
That’s true. That’s how supporting characters got screen time by doing something with Negi. And that has sadly been lacking in UQH. Supporting characters seem to exist mainly to show how awesome Touta is.
I agree. That’s why I’m REALLY hoping the Touta clan doesn’t show up to help save the day. Let Jinbee and Gengorou do it and establish their awesome credentials.
I enjoyed Fairy Tail for the first few arcs but it fell into clichés, excessive fanservice, asspulls, and shallow characters. And Lisanna being alive the whole time did it for me… What could’ve been a great series fell into heavy disarray. But enough of that.
The supporting characters of UQ need to have more interactions. I’d love to see Karin and Santa hang out or Ikkuu and Kuro have a talk. Something like that…
Totally agree there.
Not only that, but they should take the lead of the story more and NOT need Touta to save them. I was thinking about how Star Trek: The Next Generation shifted to character-focused stories in the 3rd season made that series become better. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine improved that by having story arcs and multiple episode stories. All the while, they still had strong character focus.
I think UQH would benefit from the DS9 approach. I think this is why Santa’s arc worked so well; we had action, adventure, but a focus on Santa as a character rather than Super Touta.
Unfortunately I don’t think the monthly format allows for too much time away from the lead. If the series were still weekly I think Ken could afford to take some chapters off like he used to do in Negima (Akira’s chapter comes to mind), but here we’re basically getting half the chapters per month than we used to get. It also depends on how much longer he wants to continue this manga. No telling how close or how far we are from the end.
I hear ya, but we’ve already had a departure of sorts. We had chapters dedicated to Negi and company. And now we’ve had a chapter mostly dedicated to Gengorou. I think as long as Touta and company aren’t totally “forgotten,” we should be able to explore other characters and allow them to take a lead role for a bit. But we’ll see.
So Karin didn’t know anything about the Thousand Master, a celebrity of the magical world, before? That only adds to the awkward situation where she is, plot-wise. What was she supposed to be doing around the whole time Negima was taking place? She obviously couldn’t be anywhere around Mundus Magicus or Vetus, at least not conscious, and not have heard anything at all about Nagi, or seen his figure if she ever was in Mars. And even so, didn’t she bother to get up to date on her knowledge of the important magical figures after joining UQ Holder? None of her superiors saw fit to inform this important field agent on the subject either? How does that work at all?
Hiro Mashima style worldbuilding, i.e. not putting in much thought and making it up as you go along.
Yeah, that’s true. Mashima-sensei gets away with it, but Akamatsu-sensei doesn’t. I’m guessing it is because of his previous works.
She’s always been in denial. 😉
Btw, as long as I’m here. What happened to that ghost guy? Is he actually doing anything, plot-wise?
Are you talking about Santa?
Yeah, I guess that was his name. Is he relevant at all?
Santa played an important role in one arc and he got a decent amount of character work. After that, he is just there to be there, which is unfortunate.
I know. At the beginning Kuroumaru was worried that he’d steal Touta away but he seems to spend way more time with Kuroumaru than Touta.
Santa has been tossed to the occasional cameo role, which is unfortunate.
Karin’s expression to see Evangeline married XD (I like to see how Karin looks every time someone tries to approach Evangeline)
And finally Cutlass went out of the bush (hiding place) for some purpose that she has in her mind! (I don’t know if what she wants is to attack UQ Holder and leave everything destroyed or find something important) and now Cutlass observes information of UQ Holder, it seems that they will have to put an antivirus or something to prevent people enter to see the information…
I think Jinbei and Makabe will be able to handle it, maybe they will capture Cutlass and will wait for Evangeline to come and see what they do with her, I’d be surprised if Cutlass joins UQ Holder. It could also be that Touta and the others will end up helping Jinbei and Makabe.
Makebe’s ability is very useful, I liked it.
As Makabe said, Cutlass’s past, it could have been hard (Maybe we’ll know something more from Cutlass’s past) lol Jinbei, I’m surprised Cutlass is level 97, then, what level Negi has? XD
And I thinking all this time that Evangeline was born in Scotland, it might be that she was born in France and her parents went with her to Scotland, I read in wikipedia:
‘In 1066, the Normans and their Breton allies invaded England from northern France and after its conquest, seized large parts of Wales, conquered much of Ireland and were invited to settle in Scotland, bringing to each country feudalism on the Northern French model and Norman-French culture.’
who want to know more about it, I leave the link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom
it is in the history section.
I said that Evangeline could be from Scotland because in Negima, she showed an image of a castle while she talked about her past:
https://mhcdn.secure.footprint.net/store/manga/71/12-109.0/compressed/_AQS_MSN_c109_14_15.jpg?token=0dadb3c4be621cbe7b1551f9f982a7eb6e70ba2c&ttl=1507676400
It has something similar, so I thought she could be from there.
https://cache-graphicslib.viator.com/graphicslib/thumbs674x446/5256/SITours/dagstur-till-isle-of-skye-fr-n-inverness-in-inverness-120188.jpg
About the anime, Chapter 2 is out.
[spoiler]
Well, I liked it, even though some things were skipped or things changed, I would have liked that the part when Touta asks Evangeline if he will have to go to school and if he would end up being bald, or when Touta looks in the pants of Kuroumaru to know if is boy or girl and Evangeline hits to Touta saying ‘sorry about that, he’s not been properly educated’ it had been shown in the chapter, that part was fun.
Karin also appeared in the car instead of waiting in UQ Holder (I don’t think that affect that Karin has appeared before)
Also, Evangleine appeared in her form of child in the hot springs because the chapter where Shinobu appears, it has been changed.
I noticed that when Touta says about other immortals, Santa appears with the hood and also the others that have not yet appeared in the manga… Maybe this is a good sign and they will appear in the anime and they will show up at the opening.
Although this chapter, it’s been good, I feel like it has gone a little quick, I mean, in the manga this is like 3 chapters. [/spoiler]
Finally I leave this image:
http://imgsrc.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/11c56cf33a87e950ce879a161b385343faf2b47a.jpg
Something whale-like. 😉
Yeah, so was I.
*sigh* I’ve got to get my laptop going for videos.
I finally saw episode 2. I’ll try to get a review up soon.
Cutlas is Level 97. What a Level has touta
50? 😉 (No clue, in all seriousness.)
Claymore was another really popular series that used the word Youma.
Really glad to see the rest of the immortal crew fleshed out. Don’t get me wrong, I am SO happy to finally get closure for Negima, but the initial premise for UQ Holder was pretty interesting as a stand alone. Also, all these references to Immortal Hunters makes me wish Immortal Hounds characters could get a shout out or cameo, though being a different publisher makes that unlikely.
Sucks to hear you have PC issues, patiently waiting to hear your thoughts on the anime.
I’m aware of Claymore, but haven’t watched/read it.
Different magazine, but still Kodansha. So it shouldn’t be a problem if Akamatsu-sensei wanted to show them.
I’ve had to go to the gym to work out my rage energy over my PC issues. I’ve had PC problems before, but never when the PC isn’t even a year old.
I like how people reacted to the latest chapter. They were all saying before that “I want a proper ending of Negima” or “I want a full sequenced battle scene during the final battle of Ala Alba”.
Later in the latest chapter, now they are saying “I like this chapter” and “Yay for the supporting characters”. I was expecting that they will comment “I want to know the history of the current timeline NOW!”.
Did KA did this on purpose? If it is, I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m enjoying it. ^^;
The one thing everyone agrees on is that Akamatsu flopped doing anything his cast in regards to anyone not in Touta’s circle. That they finally have some panel time is naturally going to make people happy.
Probably. I wouldn’t be surprised if his editors played a role in influencing this decision.
At least their getting to more or less action chapter or one with less fan service. I guess I’m wishfully wanting them to have a balance. Maybe this is a sign or maybe not.
I’m bit more disturbed that our cold member of the Number, Gengorou, is a freakin Gamer from another universe. He almost totally out of character in this chapter.
I wish Sensei actually had a plan, one he STUCK WITH, perhaps things won’t have de-generated as he trying to please too many people who have completely different interests.
Yes, that would be a nice approach.
I know what you are saying. However, we’ve seen so little of him, it is hard to know what his character actually is. This is who he is, especially when challenged. And I like it. 🙂
Yeah, I think you’ve nailed it here.
I gotta ask and the chapter has been out…Who is the girl on the chapter cover? i first thought Karin but Karin’s hair is different and her weapon of choice is that hammer before sword, and Shinobu, then Shinobu doesn’t go/too young to the high school patterned skirt.
Minor difference – checked the mahga in chpt 6 vs the anime. The anime has Eva freezing the bath water on Tota, and manga has the ice spears from Eva was at Tota after he came up the cliff, not while in the bath as it froze.
It’s Karin’s VA.
Yue answered that. Karin’s seiyuu did cosplay as Karin, then Akamatsu-sensei drew that. Here’s a Twitter post showing that cosplay.
https://twitter.com/_seki_1225_/status/916537237017264128