December 10th, 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 143
UQ Holder Chapter 143
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
(Part 1)
After Cutlass eggs Touta on to use Kirie’s reset power to stop the terrorist incident, Touta races off to join the others. Dana, Santa, Kirie, Karin, Kuroumaru, Shinobu, Mizore, Ikkuu, Honoka, and Isana are watching holographic screens with the news of the explosion. Karin briefs him that the attack was on the Japan L.E.O. Station, not the Asia Orbital Station nearly 36K KM above it. Karin estimates that 10,000 people died.
Debris from the station is now striking outside the Senkyoukan. This causes Kirie to decide they should stop this event. Everyone likes the idea of using Kirie’s Reset and Restart ability. Touta asks Dana if they do this, does this mean that there’s a universe/timeline where the tragedy still happens. Dana throws out the quantum theory on multi-verses and says Kirie’s ability allows her to rewrite time.
Kirie’s last save point is only 32 minutes before the explosion. Touta attempts to come up with ideas, but all are rejected as impractical. Yukihime arrives and states that the tower has an internal stairway that they will run up in 30 minutes. Since they have to run 300KM, that means 40 stories per second to make it. Further, she has intel showing someone riding the nuclear missile that destroyed the station, whom they’ll have to deal with.
Jinbee, Gengorou, Kuroumaru, Touta, Karin, and Santa are tasked with saving the station. Ikkuu, Shinobu, and Mizore are the Earth Observation team. Yukihime, Kirie, Isana, and Honoka are support, remaining at the Senkyoukan. Gengorou and Jinbee are against this whole plan for solid reasons, but Yukihime says this is a way for them to show the Government UQ Holder has value.
(Part 2)
With work assignments handed out, Kirie sends everyone back to 07:00. Mizore and Shinobu get on their air (speeder) bikes and take off with Ikkuu. Yukihime summons a six-armed doll, which slings Jinbee, Gengorou, Kuroumaru, Touta, Karin, and Santa to the tower. Kuroumaru uses sword skills to get them inside, where the race is on up the first 1.5KM straight stairs.
When they reach the staircase, Touta finds the others are more expertly using shundo to get ahead of him. Gengorou smirks has he passes Touta. Halfway up and 15 minutes later, Jinbee teases him. Touta then remembers his White of Mars and Black of Venus powers and stops thinking like a human. With that, Touta literally shundo-runs up the side of the staircase, passing front runners Karin and Kuroumaru.
With 3:50 minutes left, Shinobu, Mizore, and Ikkuu arrive to provide 3D positioning for Yukihime’s team. Meanwhile in Kirie’s room, Cutlass’s robot arm breaks in and approaches Kirie’s save point.
Thoughts/Review:
Crunchyroll’s QA department missed the boat big time as they didn’t post the final page of UQ Holder chapter 143. That aside, Akamatsu-sensei decided he wanted to clear some stuff up for us.
Missing Page
I don’t know when Crunchyroll is going to post the missing page, so I’m going to post one here.
Clearing Up Plot Devices
Akamatsu-sensei took the opportunity of UQ Holder chapter 143 to clear up some plot devices. For starters, he laid out the elements for Eva’s shadow-gate teleportation ability. Because Eva was close to Negi in Negima, she was able to gate into Kyoto using Negi’s shadow. If there’s a shadow within Eva’s eyesight, she can use it to teleport herself there. If it is the shadow of a marked item Eva is aware of, she can use its shadow as a teleportation gate. I had thought Eva could use any shadow as a gate, but I’m wrong.
The biggest item Akamatsu-sensei cleared up was Kirie’s rewrite ability. Because quantum theory states that for every action, there’s a universe/timeline that exists where another action is taken. Akamatsu-sensei decided to throw this actual theory out the door. Well, that’s not true. He’s thrown part of it out the door. Basically, it exists when he needs it to exist and it does not when he wants to “save everyone” and not have a timeline/universe where the Borg conquer the Federation. (A little Star Trek: The Next Generation reference there. Brownie points if you know the episode that’s from.)
I do appreciate that Akamatsu-sensei mocked his own “rewrite” of the quantum multi-verse theory. Having established that there are multiple timeline/universe, created in part by going back in time, Akamatsu-sensei knows that according to this quantum theory, Kirie is kicking off timelines left and right until she finds the right “winning” path. But Akamatsu-sensei apparently doesn’t want to deal with the idea of creating a universe where everyone is saved, but there’s still a universe where everyone dies.
Jinbee and Gengorou
I’m glad to see that Jinbee and Gengorou are being used in this mission. It would have been a shame for them to have left behind after giving them a couple of showcase chapters. Plus, this will be the first time that the two have worked with Team Touta. They came in once on an assist to prevent Touta from being taken by Fate’s hired team, but otherwise, nothing.
Further, we get a look at how jaded immortals have become through Jinbee and Gengorou raising objects to saving 10,000 human lives. I thought about Spider-man and the “with great power comes great responsibility.” The immortals have great power, but they aren’t exercising responsibility. After hundreds and hundreds of years of life, I can understand why the immortals don’t want to become involved in the affairs of mortals.
UQ Holder does do some things, such as when they protected the church and orphans, but that could be chalked up to Eva helping friends. The other missions have been regarding dealing with other immortals, like Santa. Even here, Eva’s motivation isn’t to help humanity, but to force the government to acknowledge UQ Holder as having value.
This is where Touta’s positive influence is helping the UQ Holder organization. Kirie was the one to suggest helping save those 10,000 people, but that was because she knew Touta would have suggested it.
Touta Earns It
Speaking of Touta, it is nice to see him doing something he’s actually earned rather than he can just master something ’cause “reasons.” Back when Touta learned shundo, he mastered it in relatively short order. However, it never felt like he earned the right to be able to shundo as well as he did.
For UQ Holder chapter 143, Touta is able to observe the others performing their shundo moves, which are better than Touta’s. And thanks to Jinbee ribbing him, Touta comes to understand that he’s thinking as a human, not as an immortal. So for him to pull his own powers, which he trained to do (though he always needed a hoop before), and stop thinking like a human, his solution to get to the top of the tower in the most efficient manner possible works for me. It now feels like Touta earned this moment.
Cutlass’s Plan
It was clear from the start that Cutlass baited Touta into doing something, using Kirie’s power. And from the missing page, we can see that Cutlass is using her detached, robotic hand to go after Kirie’s save point and destroy it. What does Cutlass gain by doing this?
Cutlass could have only put her “Plan B” into action immediately after being captured, otherwise none of it makes sense. That aside, by destroying Kirie’s save point, if Touta and company fail, we don’t know how far they’ll go back. Kirie didn’t have save points when she discovered her power, so she doesn’t actually need them. (And how she came to understand the need for a save point and its many functions is something I doubt Akamatsu-sensei has bothered to figure out.) We just don’t know how far back she’ll go.
It is possible that if Touta and company fail, Cutlass gets freed because they’d go back to a time before Cutlass attacked. Since Cutlass spent a great deal of time spying on UQ Holder, her Plan B might be that if she sees the UQ Holder people up in arms about failing their mission, Cutlass can escape unharmed (or do whatever else she intends to do).
If Touta and company succeed, it is possible that Cutlass has allies at the ready to kidnap Kirie. Then Cutlass and her allies can force Kirie to create a new save point, then slaughter Kirie at will until they get their desired outcome. They’d have to deal with Eva to kidnap Kirie, but I suspect it could be done.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I’ve got tons of work (which is why this is so delayed), so let me wrap up my review of UQ Holder chapter 143.
- I’m glad Akamatsu-sensei found a purpose for Mizore and Shinobu beyond being harem babes.
- Ditto Isana and Honoka.
- I would love for the missile rider to be someone we’ve previously seen in UQ Holder.
- It was hilarious seeing Eva use her doll ability to fling Touta and company to their destination.
4In the end, UQ Holder chapter 143 is a nice chapter to help setup what’s to come. Plus, I liked getting some character insight of Jinbee and Gengorou. And Touta earns a power-up in a logical fashion.
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I think this chapter works more in a weekly setting than a monthly one. Sure a lot of stuff is explained but not a lot of stuff happens. I sometimes think about how long Akamatsu wants this series to be and if he runs the risk of having to end it early for any reason (health, legal, etc). I wonder how close we are to the end of the series, seeing as how there aren’t really any “villains” left since the MotB has taken center stage.
But I do agree that it was nice to see actual roles given to the bit characters. Akamatsu has always been good at writing characters but UQH really has a bunch of wasted potential with the constant Touta focus. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the last two chapters were some of the best ones since the series moved to monthly.
Anyway, January is a long ways away. I’m interested to see who’s behind everything. I suspect it’s some of the other clones.
I think that’s on purpose to allow Akamatsu-sensei to end the series in short order if Kodansha decides to pull the plug. If Kodansha decides to let things ride, Sensei can introduce new threats. I kinda think that may be happening now.
It’s possible for sure. At times it feels like we’re close to the end and at others it feels very far away. Would like to see another “Side character”-centric chapter when this issue is resolved.
My money’s on other clones causing the trouble. Lord knows the MotB’s party wouldn’t do that.
Likewise.
That’s probably a safe bet. That company Cutlass mentioned may be involved as well.
As a KuroumaruxTouta shipper I love that Touta refers to him as “my Kuroumaru”. Super cute.
Heh. Now that you mention it, Kuroumaru did react to Touta saying that.
What, Touta got a power up? Where and how?
He used this Mars-Venus power without hoops.
Quantum Theory does not “state” anything of the sort about there being a multiverse or alternate timelines, so I’m not sure what you were talking about there. There is an interpretation of one of the aspects of Quantum Theory that leaves it possible that there is a such thing, but there is literally no evidence for (or against) it, nor any known way of finding evidence applicable to it. It’s also a lot more complicated than “different decisions cause splits”. Akamatsu isn’t throwing anything out if he doesn’t subscribe to an esoteric hypothesis.
Also, if Kirie’s save point is destroyed, I’m pretty sure that’s it; she can’t go back in time until she creates another one. Just because she didn’t purposefully create a standard save point when she discovered her powers doesn’t mean that she didn’t have one.
On an unrelated topic, whenever I tried posting a comment using my usual browser, I got an “Invalid Security Token” error, and have no idea how to fix that (other than temporarily switching browsers, which worked).
My point was that he used the theory when he needed to create new timeline/universes, but then he tosses it when he doesn’t want to deal with that issue. I think that’s why he had everyone saying that they didn’t understand what Dana was talking about.
She does have one — two days ago. If Kirie’s save points are based on the video game model, then if I accidentally delete my current save, I go back to the one before that.
Which browser was it broken on and which did it work on? The certs on the site should all be good.
(I’m not sure of the quote syntax, so apologies if this is harder to read than it needs to be).
The Quantum hypothesis of many worlds/multiverse is a completely different concept from the fiction time travel alternate universe/timeline system, with the former not having anything to do with time travel. As to the time travel options, Negima already used the two other methods using a single device (the Cassiopeia did both “stable time loop” time travel with Negi running around the festival multiple times at once, and “alternate timeline” time travel with using it to go back from the bad future), so it’s not really surprising that Kirie’s is the third type, and that’s how I’ve been assuming it was since she explained that it’s based on resets.
I’ve always gotten the impression that Kirie only has one save point active at a time, with each one replacing the previous, like certain more unforgiving video games. We’ll have to see.
I got the error on Microsoft Edge, and it worked on Internet Explorer.
I’m guessing you are right for a specific save point. But in my mind, whatever mechanism existed to allow the automatic resets for Kirie has to still exist, which is what makes her an immortal. Kirie just found a way to return to a specific time.
Still, this shows the problems when dealing with time travel, even more when the rules are made up as one goes.
Weird. I never use MS products, but I’ll have to check why Edge might be complaining. My site is Google complaint when it comes to the security certs. Some of my older posts have to have the images converted to https, but otherwise, everything should be fine.
Kirie’s save points are only active as long as they are burning, aren’t they? So her save points from two days and longer ago won’t work.
True, but if you go two days back in time, then what save point is burning? 😉
Kirie’s power is the most convoluted power out there. Still, Kirie is an immortal because when she dies, she goes back in time. I figure whatever mechanism was in place before she learned to do specific save points is still there. Thus if she dies, she has to go back in time. How far back remains a mystery.
I’m going to assume it’ll go back to when she last woke up.
When they describe her powers being active when the Earth is exploding during the Dana training arc, they kept showing repeated images of her waking up in bed and reliving the same moment again and again.
Plus she described her initial experiences with her power as prophetic dreams without understanding their true nature. So she’d only be realizing that she died after she woke up (without any save points of course).
That’s a possible solution to her reset — when she last woke up.
So the series is coming to end then. Sad
Why i said that is events seem to be accelerating. If Kirie not careful, she could end up dying if she thinks the safepoint was setup.
I am under the opinion that she will either go to her previous save point, or whatever existed before she created specific save points will come into play. I don’t think she’ll die permanently. The save points just give her a convenient restart point.
Nothing has been announced that I’m aware of. I think that if anything, the manga is being structured so that if needed, it could end quickly, or if allowed, it could continue.
After rereading the series, someone very important as a time traveler is going to make an appearance. On the last page, I have seen someone wearing gloves.. At the moment, I don’t know about her true intentions. Since the timeline of UQ Holder is set very close to the year of birth for a particular time traveler, the time traveler must be careful. If the unseen time traveler messes up, the result will be a paradox which may be a dangerous one for the UQ-verse.
So you think Chao is coming soon?
The black glove is only a clue to the person in the last scene being Chao. Chao wears black gloves as part of her uniform. The person with the black glove may be one of Cutlass allies. In the Negima epilogue’s brief of Chao, Chao has the powers to travel to other dimensions. If the person turns out to be Chao, we will find out why she is interested in the events of the UQ-verse. Chao’s interests are either focus on observing the events or planning when to get involved. If Chao is planning to get involved, she needs to be very careful since UQ Holder is set close to the year of the UQ-verse’s own Chao.
That arm was Cutlass’s arm/hand that was cut off in her earlier fight.
I think of Star Trek TNG movie when the borg go back in time to stop the initial Vulcan meeting. The sphere was better vehicle than the usual cube. I would have taken it apart to find more Borg weakness that they didn’t do. Then again that ‘gas’ solution is easy enough. Data looked better too
The only decent TNG movie. ?