UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 – 11 (Deus ex machina is dues ex machina.)

ユーキューホルダー! 魔法先生 ネギま!2 Anime Review
UQ Holder! Mahou Sensei Negima 2
UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 – 11
UQ Holder Episode 11

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: 

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11 As Team Touta squares off against Team Negi-MotB, Kirie tries to get Team Negi-MotB to talk. Nodoka reads her mind and knows it is a desception. However, they do provide some basic info. Touta isn’t buying it, so Al takes Touta into a phantasmagoria, where Touta can see bits of Eva’s life as she met Nagi, traveled with him, attended school, and trained Negi. Touta also sees that Eva loved Nagi and Negi. However, Eva sees and recognizes Touta as the real Eva (Yukihime) has been pulled in as well.

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11MotB rips Eva in half as Al multi-spears Touta. Touta rescues Eva, where she confesses she wants to be with him, recalling when she first took him in. Eva recovers and she and Touta prepare to attack. However, MotB takes on Nagi’s appearance, stopping Eva. Eva is still put off guard when MotB adopts Negi’s face. Eva is defeated and Touta is grabbed by his female companions from UQ Holder. They want him to join them as they pull him into some liquid and below its surface.

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11Asuna, Negi’s former partner, arrives, using her power to save them. Asuna reminds Touta that Yue mention that he was the creation of the combination of Negi and Asuna. Eva is stunned to see Asuna, since Asuna is on Inverse Mars. Eva could project herself into MotB’s phantasmagoria via Touta. Asuna holds off MotB and briefs UQ Holder on what they need to know. Touta needs 37 seconds for the power to defeat MotB to appear. With that, Asuna breaks them out of the phantasmagoria, where they start a successful attack on Team Negi-MotB.

Thoughts/Review:

Sheeze. UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 – 11 races to a finish, but in doing so, it leaves a mess in its wake.

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

What I Liked

Although it added nothing, I will admit that I liked getting glimpses of Eva stuff from Negima! Real shame that manga never received a proper adaptation.

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

I liked seeing Asuna, but only because of Negima!

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

What I Disliked

Although I don’t need to see Eva/Yukihime naked, the bloody Chamo censor is irritating as all get out.

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

Until now, the Eva x Touta crap did not exist, thanks to all of the Dana stuff being cut. However, for this episode, Eva suddenly decides she wants to boff Touta ’cause “reasons.” Yeah, one rescues orphan boys and girls so you can boink them repeatedly. 🙄

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

Although I liked seeing the Eva flashbacks and the dues ex machina Asuna, let’s face it, it wasn’t good in terms of storytelling. The Eva flashbacks are more for Negima! fans, but if you don’t know Negima!, you don’t get a whole lot from them other than Eva loved Nagi and Negi ’cause “reasons.”

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

As to Asuna, if you don’t know Negima!, she is 100% pure dues ex machina. She shows up ’cause “reasons,” then she beats back MotB ’cause “reasons,” then she’s able to give the UQ Holder team all the details they need to defeat Team Negi-MotB. And once everyone knows their job, she breaks them free to do their thing. Yay! 🙄

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Since I’m way behind, I’ll wrap up my review of UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 – 11. In the end, the episode suffers from all the material cut before it. Further, because there’s no time for anything, if you don’t know Negima!, you are pretty screwed.

UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 - 11

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26 Responses to “UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2 – 11 (Deus ex machina is dues ex machina.)”

  1. NullApostle says:

    Whoa. Looking at the screenshots, the art is really bad. Must’ve been animated on a shoestring budget.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      It is on a shoestring budget for sure.

      • OverMaster says:

        Xebec, come back, everything is forgiven.

        All jokes aside, if Xebec had given this the same treatment they gave to Motto To Love Ru and Darkness they’d have done a better work than this.

        My favorite part is related to the crowd in the audience, who short of a brief closeup remain all stiff on their seats. A few moments later they’re all clothed again… and still all just sitting there doing nothing, not even attempting to evacuate or stand up at least. Nerves of steel, those.

        Sooooo… how are they expected to last the 37 seconds here? In the manga they barely managed that through the skin of their teeth, and that was when they had a much more experienced and stronger Touta, plus Santa and Fate in their side. Here they run against the same number of enemies but UQ Holder are at an even bigger disadvantage, how aren’t they going to be stomped down immediately?

        • AstroNerdBoy says:

          Xebec, come back, everything is forgiven.

          Hahahahaha! 😆

          My favorite part is related to the crowd in the audience, who short of a brief closeup remain all stiff on their seats. A few moments later they’re all clothed again… and still all just sitting there doing nothing, not even attempting to evacuate or stand up at least. Nerves of steel, those.

          Heh! Boy, I totally spaced on them being clothed again. Man!

          Sooooo… how are they expected to last the 37 seconds here?

          I’m about to find out.

  2. Yue Ayase says:

    This is what happens when you try to stuff 140+ chapters into 12 episodes.

  3. Dargor says:

    Well, the animation is about as good as its source material, so its a pretty faithful adaptation I guess.

    I’m pretty sure Akamatsu must have pissed off some witch doctor or something in a past life, because goddamn, all of his adaptations seemed cursed.

    • OverMaster says:

      This time he’s part of the production committee, so part of the fault’s on him now.

      That being said, I’m sure he wasn’t given enough budget to pull the whole thing off. Coming from several former failed anime and a low-performing manga will do that to your reputation, and this isn’t going to improve it any. Who will give him a larger budget and episode count to work with after this?

      It’s sad, ultimately all of this downward spiral could have been avoided if only Xebec or Shaft had gotten Negima right. By now I think it’s too late to save Akamatsu’s career in what concerns to animation.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      Well, the animation is about as good as its source material, so its a pretty faithful adaptation I guess.

      Haha! Well, even with the problems I had with the manga, it is still better than the anime.

      I’m pretty sure Akamatsu must have pissed off some witch doctor or something in a past life, because goddamn, all of his adaptations seemed cursed.

      Or something. I think with Love Hina, the anime team just wanted to do their own thing and loosely base it on the source manga. I will admit that I loved the anime when I first saw it. Then I read the manga, and the anime became harder to watch.

  4. Flowerpot says:

    Cutlass doesn’t have her cybernetic arm, unlike the manga’s version.

  5. magine says:

    I liked seeing scenes of Negima, Ialda is better in the manga, there were scenes changed like when Ialda attacks Evangeline and she disappears and leaves Touta alone until Asuna rescues him, I seem to remember ‘Negi’ kisses Evangeline in the mouth not in the cheek in the manga.

    “Although I do not need to see Eva / Yukihime naked, the bloody Chamo censor is irritating as all get out.” In the picture, was not her hair enough to cover it? XD

    PS: I saw the episode 12 of Uq Holder. [spoiler] it was quite similar to manga, except for the appearance of all of the class (Is Touta in the anime the creation of each student? In the manga he is only Asuna and Negi creation, isn’t he?) the way that ended, I think there may be a 2 season in the future, I was surprised to see Dana at the end of the fight, would it mean anything?

    I thought that since the title was called “adeat” there would be some pactio XD[/spoiler]

    • Rob C. says:

      I saw episode 12 as well.
      [spoiler]
      I continue stick with train wreck description of the anime. It’s horrible. They COMPLETELY Stuck with manga’s original plot points. Heck i almost thought makes of the anime were FORCED to keep everything except for some minor stuff. How are they going sell this THING if they did such horrible adaption? YES they kept true (mostly) manga, but what cost? A extremely confusing storyline, that jumbled at best. Why would anyone want watch this again or by the Blurays if their that bad? It’s on level of forgettable. The appearance of the entire 3A Class was arguable worst attempt fan-service I’ve seen. Grant you, it’s not as bad as of ecchi nudity of the manga was putting out for doze chapters of the Touta’s potential love interests.

      One thing I think is interesting, Diana made appearance for moment at the end of episode. I wonder if their going to do a OVA special (missing 13th episode) that shows Touta and Kirie and the others training in her dimension, while Touta get’s to know Eva better when she was younger.
      [/spoiler]

      I hope they get what they were looking for out of this anime to advertise the manga. I don’t think this boost sales will be as big as they hoped with this sloppy mess of a storyline.

      Having read the manga, seeing it come out like this almost was unwatchable for me.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      In the picture, was not her hair enough to cover it? XD

      Haha! I guess not.

      Time for me to watch episode 12 now.

  6. Rob C. says:

    What a train wreck. Not only does the art work go terribly low quality, the adaption trying stick with manga’s plot and current story…despite it not fitting with what story they’re telling!

    You’d think they give up and try tell a story that MAKES SENSE.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      With only 12 episodes, there was no way the anime adaptation could win.

      • Rob C says:

        I believe they could have restructured the story to work with the limited time they had to tell the story. I think it could have been done better than how they executed it.

        • AstroNerdBoy says:

          I agree. However, I think Akamatsu-sensei wanted to make sure certain things were touched upon, like adding the harem elements and giving the Negima! stuff a strong weight. And that is what didn’t help.

          • Rob C says:

            Akamatsu-sensei should not have been allowed to call thw shots on this if he did have that kind of influence on it. The anime is bad and it makes him like George Lucas at his worst influence wise. I do like Akamatsu-sensei work in manga in the past but if he really rammed all these plot points that don’t work in anime. He should NOT be allowed to do alot but advice about story aspects.

          • AstroNerdBoy says:

            Funny thing is, I can see how Akamatsu-sensei felt he was trying to do the best with limited options. He chose to toss out something for manga fans. That’s not an unusual thing to happen in Japan. That said, this isn’t the option I would have chosen.

  7. OverMaster says:

    Hoo boy, do I have a lot to comment on Episode 12, but I’ll wait until Astro posts his review.

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