March 8th, 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 146
UQ Holder Chapter 146
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
After Yukihime kills Cutlass, Touta finds himself in a barren (phantasmagoria?) landscape. Cutlass is there and as she heads to a vertical line on the horizon, she laughs at his plight and makes mention that she’s glad she’s not an immortal. When Touta starts to respond, Cutlass has a look of sadness on her face as she gazes at him. Touta is brought back to reality when Gengorou yells at him.
Santa discovers the bomb in one of the cars and how it works. So he, Kuroumaru, Jinbee, Santa, and Karin come up with a plan, which they coordinate with Yukihime and Gengorou. They manage to get the car with the bomb in it evacuated with three minutes left. Kuroumaru cuts the car out, Jinbee teleports it to space, where Santa and Touta send it far away. Karin deploys a massive barrier around them to contain the explosion, but nothing happens.
Gengorou reports the bomb was a fake. Santa confirms this while Gengorou takes the cybernetic body of his captive, which contains a small nuclear bomb, out into space. He uses his 217 lives to minimize the nuclear detonation, allowing all of the humans on the space elevator to live.
Touta comes to on a beach after Karin slaps him and scolds him for passing out from reentry. Gengorou is in orbit, about to make reentry, and contacts Touta to let him know that Gengorou was about to die. However, he doesn’t want Touta to be bothered by this. He says farewell to Jinbee as well, then has final words for Touta before reentry. Karin attempts to comfort the distraught Touta.
Ikkuu reports that he has Gengorou and saved him. When everyone returns to the Senkyoukan, Ikkuu and Jinbee find it all very funny, explaining that Gengorou receives lives for every good deed he does. So he was saved once again. Later, Touta apologizes to Gengorou. Touta agrees that saving Cutlass means walking the same path as Negi-Ialda (MotB), but he doesn’t have an answer when Gengorou asks him what Touta means by saving the world. Gengorou is fine with that as a drunk Jinbee comes to lighten things up.
Thoughts/Review:
And so another story arc comes to a conclusion with the completion of UQ Holder Chapter 146. And I will admit that Akamatsu-sensei had me going for a bit there.
Cutlass
Cutlass may have only been in the first few pages of this chapter, but she did make an impact. All of her evil and seeming insanity makes her a prime candidate for a “I don’t care what happens to you” feeling. But seeing her on that mindscape (for lack of a better term) with her left arm cut off as well as her right leg, I couldn’t help but be reminded that Cutlass had suffered a lot at the hands of “whomever.” As such, she had transposed that rage onto Touta as a coping mechanism.
Now at the end, we see that Cutlass may actually regret her choices. It doesn’t make her choices any less evil, but it does show that there was still a nugget of humanity within her, despite everything that had been done to her.
So, the question becomes, “Is Cutlass really dead?”
I think Akamatsu-sensei has set things up to have it either way. If UQ Holder goes on for a while longer, he can bring Cutlass back in a new body. In the barren mindscape (which looked a lot like the place where Touta first met the Mage of the Beginning, along with Negi and Nagi), Cutlass is hopping toward what could be a space elevator in the distance. So her astral form with all of her memories and such could be returning somewhere to be reborn again in a new body.
If UQ Holder doesn’t go on, well, she’s said her farewell with a hint of regret.
Gengorou, the Hero of the Arc
I have to admit, Akamatsu-sensei had me going when it seemed like Gengorou was about to die. As I read Gengorou’s “final words,” I thought, “Wow. Killing Gengorou means UQ Holder really is almost over.” Haha. So score one to you, Akamatsu-sensei.
That aside, I’m glad that the true hero of this story arc is Gengorou. We learned a lot about Jinbee and him in this arc, which was nice. However, at the end of the day, it was Gengorou who saved everyone, not Touta. I liked that. I think that if UQ Holder is to have long-term success as a manga series, other members of the organization need to play important roles and have their star shine. Touta doesn’t need to be the hero all the time.
The Maturing Touta
Speaking of Touta, I’m glad to see that he’s maturing as a character. This has been going on for a while, but it really comes to a head here. I think back to the days when “Super Touta” irritated the heck out of me because of his mindless stupidity and ability to do anything. Touta would spout out nonsense and save the day when all was said and done. As long time readers of this blog know, I used to rant and rave about this.
Now, Touta doesn’t spout nonsense. Saving folks is a noble goal, so Touta espousing this is not a bad thing. When it seemed like Gengorou was dead, Touta realized that the one person really opposed to his plan was the one person who was going to ultimately pay for it. Even though Gengorou lived, this notion wasn’t lost on Touta, hence his deep-bow apology to Gengorou at the party.
Ultimately, Touta has won the respect of Gengorou after these events. Touta is no longer spouting his former nonsense. And Touta now understands that he can’t be obsessed with saving everyone ’cause that will just turn him into another MotB, looking to save the world by utterly controlling it. As such, I like where Touta has gone as a character.
Final Thoughts and Review
Well, I suppose I better get this review of UQ Holder Chapter 146 wrapped up.
- These space elevator cars are traveling vertically, so how come everyone is moving horizontally within these cars, as if they were on an actual train? Have they introduced artificial gravity to the Akamatsu-verse?
- Clearly, Akamatsu-sensei wanted to service Karin by having her clothing burn up on reentry (Touta’s as well), but it makes no sense that the subspace whatever where they keep spare clothing and weapons got burned up in reentry. How come Touta’s phone didn’t get burned up?
- It may have been a simple oversight, but I didn’t notice Eva at the celebration party. I noticed everyone else, including Chamo in humanoid form.
One final note on Crunchyroll. I was only able to read UQ Holder Chapter 146 on their website via the old reader. When they upload the chapter, the old reader will advance to it, even if Crunchyroll forgets to put links and such up. The new reader won’t. Kinda annoying that CR screws this up so often.
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Cutlass has quickly become a deep and interesting character. I kinda hope she’s not gone for good.
Oh and that naked hoodie Karin? I don’t think Akamatsu’s ever drawn anything hotter than that.
You are right
Haha. It is a combination of the girl in man’s t-shirt and the girl in a man’s button down shirt. 😉
When we see Inverse Mars spaceships such as in chapter 138, everyone is standing normally suggesting that artificial gravity (whether magical, technological or both) exists.
Ah. That’s a good point. Thanks!
Really good chapter 🙂 was hilarious when Gengoro didn’t actually died because the build up did work and lol the naughty Karin… it’s like Akatmatsu don’t want to put her out of the running just yet.
Aside from that… Cutlass death was definitely sad… and I was hoping for a redemption arc or something but guess we have enough girls right now.
True, there are plenty of girls in the harem. But unless the manga is ending, I think Cutlass will be back.
The whole scene with Cutlass made me wonder why she never used her time stop power at all than doing those transformations. I was expecting a better time battle with Kirie and Kirie’s ability now that she is supposed to be a wizard and control time. No such luck. It was getting interesting when the reset candle was destroyed but that was it. Or battling Gengoro as fast as he could spawn using time against him.
Ahh maybe to remove time stop ability from the MOTB. That makes sense.
That’s the tricky thing using time manipulation as a gimmick.
Very good chapter,, haven’t felt or seen such emotional work since Naru’s missed airplane departure.
It also, seems that sensei has become adapt with the monthly format. Makabe has gotten the most development/expansion in all of UQ Holder (still waiting on kuro) also he realised that that he could have his cake and eat it, due to Makbe’s immortality.
So 9.9/10, ten’s are reserved for Mizore, exclusively.
That reminds me, I should reread Love Hina for bedtime reading.
Yeah, he does seem to be doing better with the monthly format.
Touta has learn a vital lesson that he can’t save everyone. Touta must continue on his dream of traveling up to the top of the space elevator. He is half way there. Oddly, Touta’s dream is a metaphor for his journey to become a more mature adult. I didn’t want Cutlass to died. Yet, Negi may have other children whom Touta and rest of UQ Holder are not aware of.
For awhile, all I am expecting from UQ Holder is a visit by Touta’s maternal grandmother(s).
I’d like for there to be an exploration of the Konoes who took Touta in the first place.
One detail missing. The last time Karin was naked she had a tattoo that covered her whole back that had a large ’99’ on it. now it’s gone.
Its only visible when she uses Her white magic
Yeah. I never understood it in the manga, but in the anime, it makes sense since the “tattoo” is actually white energy.
Actually, the anime provided an explanation to Karin’s “tattoo,” assuming that’s what it is. In the anime, it only showed up when Karin used her special powers. In the manga, her tattoo is mostly not there, and I never understood why. Now I do.
I really love your review. I really want to read manga of UQ Holder. It takes me back to Sensei Negima, lol.
Thanks!
Chapter seemed to be okay, but I liked how an attack from the DB universe came up in the end.
I wonder if Akametsu loves Dragon Ball.
Probably does. I’m not really versed in DB, so what about the end was like an attack from DB universe?
So Gengoro is back. I can see his stock of lives increasing saving the 10,000 people in the tower but is it only one life for the whole event which he is now using or each individual life he saved which means he has now 10,000 extra lives. It’s really not clear to me?
I don’t think he has a lot of extra lives since he was worried about Jinbee play-attacking him.
This chapter actually made me go and reread negima again… took three days but damn… I actually started to cry a couple times, got worse when i started geting to the end…
God has it really been 6 years since then? Oh \shit it’s been 6 years since negima ended.
Wow time flies…
anyway….. I dont think the series is ending. I might think of this as something of a Festival arc aside from the somewhat bitter death(or maybe not) of Cutlass.
I am still waiting for Chao Lingshen to appear.
Hard to believe how fast time flies by.
I hope you are correct.
We’ll see if she shows up or not.
I didn’t think a candidate for the Otoyomegatrai anime existed, but vinland saga is on some Berserk level complexity.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-03-19/vinland-saga-manga-gets-tv-anime-by-wit-studio/.129196
So uq Holder is holding its 33K numbers, I suspect that Sensei/Kodansha are making more money via the single chapters Via Amazon or its ilk. I’d be very interested, in how that money reaches them; does it get paid monthly, weekly or the same prearranged schedule, it may make alot of new manga instantly profitable, not an anime will increase sales, but a niche manga that wraps up and the Manga-Ka can pen his real money spinner.
After all, opinions and economics are divergent (look at Michael Bay, Transformers)
Poor Killing bites, fantastic high grade animation (A top title of the season) nobody cares, upside the Western licensing should be ‘cheap’ as need to break even gathers in force.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-03-14/japanese-comic-ranking-march-5-11/.128992
Look at Otoyomegatari, doing UQ Holder Numbers, in its last week in the Top 50.
I wonder if it could reach prison school numbers of 18 Million (which is love hina numbers, in a mini golden age circulation, and just before the big 3)
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-03-07/japanese-comic-ranking-february-26-march-4/.128676
Thanks for the info!
It’s scenes like this that actually kind of show cases just how much potential UQ is squandering.
Chapters like this show that sensei still has the ability to deliver proper characterization and world building, however he has foregone most of such things simply for the sake of action and story progression. Most of the characters barring Touta and Kirie hasn’t gotten much time to shine.
Gengorou has quickly become one of the more liked characters for his maturity in the story, and how despite having only a small amount of screen time, has helped contribute to Touta’s growth.
Actually that’s one beef I have with the other characters. Most of them aren’t properly dived into, it’s like their there mostly for manpower and nothing more. Gengorou has helped Touta’s development and maturity more than most of the cast barring Miss almighty witch of time and space and past Eva. There are so many characters, but Sensei doesn’t do anything with them. He doesn’t develop their characters, or even their relationships or growth as characters.
If he slowed down and actually gave most of the cast time of their own so that we can grow to like and care for them, we’ll likely be more invested in the story and their adventures.
On a side note, I do agree with you. I like how far Touta has come as a character compared to before. If only the rest could do the same.
Absolutely. I don’t disagree there at all. As much as I like Negima (until its abrupt end), one of the things that always frustrated me was that we didn’t explore Eva’s past, Setsuna’s past, or any of the other interesting character’s past, beyond brief hints and glimpses. I always had the suspicion that Akamatsu-sensei avoided exploring side characters too much, lest he establish something in the canon that he would regret later in the story.
Its the same for UQH. I would LOVE to see Karin’s history explored. I would LOVE for UQH folks to head to Kuroumaru’s home country and learn more about the people there, including more of Kuroumaru’s past.
It would be interesting if Setsuna is a elderly sensei of that school Kuro came from and have taught Kuro at some time. Or speculating more is Kuro related to Setsuna?
I’d like to think that Kuroumaru and Setsuna are kin at some level.