January 9th, 2018 
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 144
UQ Holder Chapter 144
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta races up the tower and has to be grabbed by Gengorou before he passed the staging location. Gengorou is impressed that Touta made it up at all, let alone be the second person to the rendezvous site. As there are three minutes until the missile attack, Gengorou rewards Touta by agreeing to listen to anything Touta says.
Touta asks why Gengorou was so opposed to saving 10,000 people. Gengorou explains that if they do it once, then they’d have to do it all the time, even to save one person. Otherwise, this action is arrogant foolishness. Further, if UQ Holder starts doing this, then they are attempting to “save the world” like Negi-Ialda. To Gengorou’s surprise, Touta agrees he has a point. Gengorou remarks that before Touta joined UQ Holder, Yukihime and Kirie would never get involved in things like this.
Santa, Jinbee, Karin, and Kuroumaru arrive, so Gengorou puts the battle plan in action. Karin uses a Thousand Bolts magic app cylinder, which Touta absorbs. They are able to get to the missile, where Touta dispatches the enemy agent riding it. However, their enemy has the missile deploy its warheads. Jinbee uses his Switcheroo to bring the warheads to Kuroumaru, who slices them all before Santa uses his powers to to send the remaining warheads safely away.
Gengorou has the enemy agent bound in a magic and uses his powers to probe the enemy’s memories. Karin marvels at Touta’s conflict over Gengorou’s words, but she smiles at tells him that this time, Touta was right. The other members in the operation agree, sans Jinbee, who informs Gengorou that he’s on the losing end.
Gengorou discovers that their enemy apparently expected to fail and may have a nuke planted in the station as a fallback. This causes a lot of panic among the UQ Holder members, but Kirie reminds them that they can just reset and restart. However, she notices her save point has been destroyed, meaning they can’t go back.
Thoughts/Review:
In a weird way, Akamatsu-sensei uses UQ Holder chapter 144 to explore the notion of, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Just how far should you go to save the world?
Gengorou’s Issue
The whole reason Touta wanted to save these people is that the members of UQ Holder have the equivalent of superpowers. As such, his mind has held the notion that they have to use their powers for a greater good. And who can argue with saving 10,000 people?
However, Gengorou points out that the whole reason they don’t go back in time and save everyone is that it would never end. You couldn’t just pick and choose whom you’d save. You’d have to try to save everyone. In the end, they’d be no different than MotB, who’s trying to save all of humanity.
Plus, Gengorou makes an excellent point about Touta wanting to save these 10,000 people. In reality, had Touta not heard of the attack, he wouldn’t have done anything. But as the attack directly impacted him (the debris from the destroyed station crashing down all around the Senkyoukan), Touta and those influenced by him want to save these people. As such, only saving these 10,000 is an act of selfish arrogance.
In the end, I think that should the manga continue, we’ll see UQ Holder do time resets to save people when they feel they should. They may have a great responsibility, but they don’t have to save everyone.
Cutlass’s Trap
As expected, having UQ Holder go back in time to save the 10,000 people was a trap. What I didn’t expect was that this trap would take a long time to be sprung. Gengorou stated it would take about 30 minutes for him to get the information from their captive. So why wasn’t the backup explosive(s) triggered almost immediately after the missile attack failed?
That brings up the question of what Cutlass’s aim is? I thought she wanted to slay immortals. But if no secondary explosion was triggered immediately after the first one failed, then she has to have something else up her sleeve, right? Or maybe I’m overthinking this.
In addition, it is hard for me to believe that no one was prepared for this trap. After all, Cutlass was goading them on to do it. And they know Cutlass has a mastery of time and knows about Kirie’s powers. As such, I have to believe that at the very least, Eva was aware and somewhat prepared, though she didn’t act like it.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
You know the drill–I’m behind and so I need to wrap up my review of UQ Holder chapter 144.
- Kudos to Crunchyroll for doing a great job on the 2-page spreads. In the new reader, the artwork is seamless. In the old reader, there is a white line, but otherwise it is good. I suspect Kodansha sent CR the 2-page spreads without breaking them up, thus CR didn’t have to worry about putting them back together properly.
- I’m glad to see Santa finally involved in the action and using his (forgotten) powers.
- Looks like we’ll get another look at Kirie’s powers. Akamatsu-sensei does need to address the fact that Kirie didn’t need save points to do her resets as a young child. So how the heck did she learn how to do save points in the first place? Also, shouldn’t Kirie’s natural ability to reset time kick in if she doesn’t have an artificial save point?
- Even though we have Super Touta here, at least he’s part of the “Holder League” and not just doing everything on his own. Plus, he’s somewhat earned some of these abilities at this point. 😉 Also, Gengorou holding him in the “princess carry” was a hoot. 😀
In the end, I rather enjoyed UQ Holder chapter 144, mainly because it did look at the issue of saving folks and how far UQ Holder should go in that endeavor.
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If my theory is correct then if Kirie dies then time will reset to the last time she was asleep. However I feel like this will have some drawback to it like Kirie won’t have perfect memories of the events before her death. After all part of the conditions of her save points are that they bring back her mind and soul, yeah?
So let’s assume that if she dies now, she’ll wake up in bed and barely remember the current events. That could potentially be a huge drawback.
Ah! That could well be. She might not remember events, but as she experiences them, gain that sense of déjà vu. That would work.
Gengoro channeling his inner Archer with that speech.
Hahaha! Yes, that’s true. 😆
Today i bought vol 12 in Austria
I don’t remember what volume I’m up to. I need to go look.
I was wondering what would happen to Kirie’s save point, in the end Cutlass destroyed it and now they can’t go back (when you are about to face a strong boss and the next day you are going to play but someone deleted your game save) the talk of Touta and Makabe about saving people, it reminded me somehow of Shirou and Kiritsugu.
Another month to wait… xd By the way, where is Dana? She was with them but is no longer there now, did she return home? Maybe she appears in the next chapter and she helps them.
PS: I found these videos made by fans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hISiVFNtf4A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8V8qoXir4A
And this ‘chapter’
alaalba.weebly.com/uq-holder-proto-chapter.html
I figure Dana is there, just “somewhere” out of sight, indicating she’s not taking action. But then again, Akamatsu-sensei could have had her return off-screen.
Yeah, I wish we could get that translated into English. It seems a much more interesting chapter than what we got, but without the text, it is hard to know.
As to the videos, that second one reminded me of one of the Shakugan no Shana series OP songs.
The only way for UQ Holder to defeat Cutlass and her allies is another master of Time magic. Dana is refusing to help. Kirie needs time to set up time point. When Cutlass thinks that she has won, she is about to face another descendant of Negi Springfiend.
Well, with Touta at the tower and Kirie at UQH HQ, it would seem that their ability to stop time isn’t there. Unless they teleport Touta back, which I don’t think is likely.
This is certainly nice change of pace, with action pack arc.
I wonder if this event is almost a object lesson / test for the team. To finally go to this extreme seems out of step almost way events were going. I mean Negi / MoTB wanted Touta come up with something, that they had more time. Why did he have his crew start attacking in the first place if he was allotting him that time to consider a solution. It maybe their rushing the plot more, but Touta being on the tower alone is big shift in the plot since it was one of his goals.
Well, Touta isn’t at the top of the tower, his ultimate goal. ?
The thing that was nicest about this chapter is just the team effort here. It is just nice that it isn’t just Super Touta doing stuff. It is the entire team.
when i saw the Image of touta with Gengorou on this site i thought it was negi
When Gengorou was showing Touta the view?
This is the part that Chao will show up. Pretty sure at this point her skills with Time manipulation surpass every else with time abilities with the exception of Dana…
Question is when does she come into the picture? The timeline is the “Bad” Time line, but not same one she came from. At least as far it’s been established. Chaos came from the timeline that Mar’s magical environment collapsed. As far we know, the magical world’s real world mars was terraformed and has regular contact with Earth.
She would have been one of Negi’s failed Clones if she was even remotely related to him.
I suspect this will probably be the case.
If Chao shows up, I’m going to be thinking the manga’s days are heavily numbered. But that’s just me.
How depressing. I wonder what Sensei will do with free time after that. I can’t imagine he will want have confidence to jump on the saddle again. He may have try something radically unremotely related to Negima to be able accomplish that. Heck taking alternate pen name maybe way clear decks for him. It’s like his typed caste now. He could on dare, have someone ELSE write Negima see how it flies. Negima!? seem to have reasonable run, but how much longer can you run on nostalgia?
I could always be wrong, but that was my thought on Chao. And after Negima! had its rapid end, I don’t trust anything. ?
I seem to remember reading one time that he wanted to be an editor.
Here i thought he was going want spend more time with his hot wife. I’ve seen that kinda alot when he was doing chapters by readers commenting as silly joke. ^_^
Well, in going to a monthly format, he should get to spend more time with his hot wife. ?
Wouldn’t Kirie go back to a earlier lit candle if the latest one was turned off and no longer effective? I can see the candles as stop points so she doesn’t go to the very beginning and she has to relive her whole life over. it just takes her longer to get back to the current time. But if she did it daily the hop isn’t that bad.
Sorry needed to change my input info. Changing phones and computer locations too.
To me, that’s how I’d see it. But then I thought about a game like the old Rogue, where when you saved a game, there was only one save file. (We’d “cheat” in DOS and make backup copies.) When that save file was loaded, the file was deleted. But that’s not a good example because Kirie’s save point is never destroyed. If it is, in my mind, she should go back to the last good save point unless creating a new one wipes out the old one.
I think her natural reset/rewrite abilities without the save point are now in play, but who knows how far back she’d go for that.
Not sure if last comment posted
If Kirie’s candle was wiped out wouldn’t it default to her earlier candle? It just would take longer to get back to real time ?
Ah. Another long time poster with a new name. Was that on purpose or did it just put in a new name on its own?
Does this bring up a new question. Would Kirie go to a further (older) save point if her more recent one wasn’t done or simply die? From my feeling it’s the later. Since the save point would need to remain intact for entire time. I kept thinking if she going back in time, she could end up going to a older save point.
It does go to make me wonder if she has more than one save point. When she got stuck in time with Touta, she was prepared to die because she lost her shares on the stock market. That would suggest she always has one prepared. Even off screen. Can she have more than one?
An! One of those we didn’t tell you till needed. Been done before to get out of impossible scenarios. Good possibility.
Hi ANB! Yeah changed jobs so all info has changed. It may change again when updating my phone.
Yeah, this went to spam initially, but it was pulled out and approved. Thanks for the update. 🙂
Is Cutlass more robot / transformer ? Any body part works remotely after the battle? I guess it’s better to see abilities than just being told about it. I would agree with Gengoro about shooting Her. Being saved means to me she is still needed,She obviously must be key to the story sometime in the future. I had thought Gengoro’s file would have a complete info on her. How isn’t revealed yet. It makes me wonder about security in Senkyokan if her hand can sneak around and break into Kirie’s room. Breaking a window to get in? Really.,,,it would set off any basic alarm. Moreso the importance of that reset point. Just anywhere and very vulnerable? How did Cutlass know where? How does Kirie know Her reset has been destroyed ( without killing herself first?)? “Inquiring minds want to know!” Oops showing my age with that quote.
She lost part her body, we saw her just about naked when he sneezed at the games. She a cyborg. I think that’s how she get’s around not having magic powers of her own. Touta suppose to be the only successful one of the clones.
I think her cyborg body has magical enhancements though, which is why she can transform.
She is apparently a magically enhanced cyborg, so the fact that she can remote control her detachable limbs makes sense to me.
And that’s still a mystery with chapter 145.
I suspect she spent a ton of time staking out the Senkyoukan and with her ability to manipulate time, who knows if she might have been able to sneak in.
We learned that in 145 via some visual monitor. But then as you said, a basic security system should have caught the break in.
I’m glad it’s not all and exclusive MOTB and Negima characters. Something new and a new villan is very refreshing and seeing all of the known UQ members working together. Even Cutlass is showing to be a formable opponent with her abilities not shown till now. If she is to later join Tota then Her and Kirie will make a good team and control time.
I swear I could hear ‘Thunderbirds Go’ as they rushed up the tower.
Hahahaha! Good one!
So according to Oricon and CD Japan, the UQ Holder jp bluray box made about £170K.
That’s way more, than UQ holder volumes have made in the past year. If it charts for 2 more weeks, a second anime could be forseable.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-02-06/japan-animation-blu-ray-disc-ranking-january-29-february-4/.127440
That’s crazy. The quality of the anime was checkered. I guess there could been large chunk of fans who didn’t follow what was going on with franchise. Or their just Negi -anime fans only and wanted SOMETHING.
The anime wasn’t the greatest (the ending in particular) but it was a step up from Akamatsu’s previous anime. Of course that’s not saying much, but still. If they do have a second season I’d like for them to go back and fill in the gaps (particularly Santa’s arc).
Also, chapter 145 is out on Amazon, I can’t read because my tablet is broken and I’m having to wait for the S4 to be announced, so I can get it on contract. (android tablet’s have a short availablity half-life, in the UK).
I’ve read Chapter 145. It’s whopper of a chapter.
That is was.
Thanks for the tip. I was able to backdoor into CR’s chapter.
Thanks for the info!
The first UQH OAD got fansubbed by some group named ‘Robin Hood’, if anyone is interested.
Kyaaa! Another one to get. So little free time. *sob*
I am a fan who believes that UQ Holder! is taking place in a parallel universe. The main difference is between the UQ-verse and the Negima-verse is when Magic was disclosed. It is starting to look like the UQ-verse is a lot like the mysterious first timeline before the second timeline when Asuna was asleep and the third timeline.
The timeline of UQ Holder is taking place close to the year when Chao was born. Since Negi was not able to have children by natural means, he had two choices of having children, adoption and a special from of cloning. Touta’s stepmother was adopted by Negi and his wife. In a way, Negi is Touta’s and Cutlass’s father. Yet, they are considered to be his grandchildren.
The second way for Negi to have children is by cloning. Touta’s stepparents have mix Asuna’s and Negi’s DNA together. If Negi was able to mix his own DNA with his wife’s, he was able to allow his wife to have a child. Since we know who became Negi’s wife to be Chisame, she had the ability to hide Negi’s and her child. So far, we can assumed that Touta’s stepmother was one of Chisame’s and Negi’s stepchildren. It will be easier for Negi and Chisame to hide the existence of their only child by adopting him. By adopting their only child, Chisame and Negi can protect him from their enemies. If Negi and Chisame do have one child, the child is likely a girl.
If Chao from the Negima-verse appears in the UQ-verse, her mission will focus on protecting one of the grandchildren of Negi’s and Chisame’s only child. That grandchild must be a girl. Since Chao had considered herself to be Chinese, her father was of Chinese heritage.
In the epilogue of the Negima manga series, Chao’s brief bio had stated that she has the ability to travel to other universes. Ken A. may be suggesting that UQ Holder is a prelude to the Negima series. For myself, I want Ken A. to treat UQ Holder! to be (sort of) a prelude to Negima while allowing it to follow to its own unigue ending.
I’ve always wanted to believe that the UQ Holder timeline is different from any in Negima. In my mind, it branched off sometime after Negima ended.
As to the cloning stuff, it wouldn’t surprise me if Negi’s DNA was mixed with a lot of other people’s DNA to create various people. I think Honoka and Isana are cloning experiments in the truest sense, but Touta isn’t so much cloning as it is creating a homunculus. Negi may have been cloned, but then adding other DNA material to the clone makes it a homunculus.
As to Chao, we’ll see what happens there. I believe she and Eva time some timeline hopping.