March 10th, 2019 
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 158
UQ Holder Chapter 158
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
UQ Holder #8, Nikitis Laps has just killed Fate. Nikitis attempts to play it off, but Touta realizes he was the target. Nikitis explains that humanity must not become immortal, thus the reason for Fate and Touta to be eliminated.
Three months earlier, Touta is with his pactiones partners to see some of their new artifacts. Later, Touta has Santa and Kuroumaru join him in the giant cavers under the Senkyoukan. He’s on a quest for knowledge and leads them to an underground entrance to Library Island, under Mahora Academy. Touta needs Kuroumaru’s skills to help navigate the library maze. He needs Santa’s phasing skills to pass through walls in case they need help.
The trio meet the librarian of the Akasha Book Labyrinth. He identifies himself as UQ Holder #8, Nikitis Laps. Nikitis took over the librarian job from Al. Nikitis tells them that he sealed Yukihime’s enemy, Ba’al. Touta is immediately ready to trust Nikitis, but has to be reminded by Kuroumaru not to be so trusting. Kuroumaru is suddenly drinking tea wiht the others and slightly disoriented.
Nikitis helps Touta find books, so he studies. He then has Santa and Kuroumaru help him with his theory to make better use of Magia Erebea and his immortal regeneration abilities. Nikitis is impressed with Touta’s reasoning skills and offers to assist. He tells them that he’s a shinso vampire who was born 12,000 years ago. Nikitis also talks about Touta’s powers. His reasoning for helping Touta is his dislike of Touta.
With that, Nikitis obliterates Touta. Touta regenerates into his ME form, causing Nikitis to use his monstrous form. Nearby, this is observed by Ba’al as well as UQ Holder #3 Sept and UQ Holder #5 Juuzou.
Thoughts/Review:
With UQ Holder chapter 158, Akamatsu-sensei rapidly races to end the manga by introducing the final three UQ Holder Numbers to the series, one for the second time.
Time Skip for What?
Last chapter, Akamatsu-sensei decided to skip over Touta’s training to have him jump ahead by three months. At the time, I felt that Sensei did this so that Touta could be the ultimate Mary Sue character who could do anything ’cause “I learned that during the time skip.”
Yet in UQ Holder chapter 158, after Nikitis introduction recap (replaying dramatic introduction at the end of the previous chapter with a bit more tacked on), we jump BACK the three months we had skipped. Why?I thought that maybe Sensei did it to have the shock introduction of Nikitis, but he could have done that without a flashback. Then I though Sensei did this to stay focused, but this too doesn’t make sense. It sounds like a case of being too clever by half.
Pactiones, Minus Two
We got to see the pactio artifacts of everyone save Karin and Kirie. I don’t know why Karin’s wasn’t shown or Kirie’s, but it annoyed me that they weren’t displayed.
Shinobu’s artifact being a pod racer makes sense, seeing as how this is her skill. And I can imagine it being juiced up with weapons or whatnot to make her useful in combat.
Ikkuu’s artifact is some sort of power armor that can make him as powerful as the others. Again, this makes sense.
As many suspected, Mizore’s artifact was the same as her grandmother Ayaka. I didn’t have a problem with this because Mizore is so much like her grandmother, only worse in some aspects (which I find charming, but that’s just me).
Santa’s artifact power makes sense, but not the artifact itself. When Chisame got the artifact, the power matched her Internet hacker stuff, but the artifact matched her cosplay fetish. Santa doesn’t have a cosplay fetish, so why is he getting an artifact for cosplay? In my mind, the artifact should match the personality of the person, both in power and in form.
Return to Library Island
In Negima!, the trip to Library Island was mostly a fluff thing with hints of something more. Negi and companions did return to the underground a few times, but I don’t think they ever returned to the library outside of a part of it during the Mahora Festival. (I think they were in the library.)
That said, I was glad to see the library again in UQ Holder chapter 158. We get to see it as a functioning library. I liked that.
UQ Holder #8, Nikitis Laps
There are a lot of things I noted about Nikitis, so I’ll do these as bullet points.
- Nikitis is a liar. He told Touta that he helped seal the shinso vampire Ba’al. However, considering Ba’al is observing Nikitis’s plan in action, clearly the sealing thing is a lie. Also, since Nikitis has some convoluted scheme to kill Touta, everything he does is basically a lie. That makes his info dumps suspect.
- Nikitis resembles Fate. Fans noted how Nikitis looked like Fate when Akamatsu-sensei teased the character early in the manga. With Touta noticing this, I wonder if it means something.
- Nikitis has rewrite-like powers. For Negima! fans, you probably spotted how Nikitis seemed to do to Kuroumaru what Fate did to Jack on the Magic World. Kuroumaru is warning Touta about trusting Nikitis, then Nikitis does something so that Kuroumaru is drinking tea and only slightly disoriented. Does this mean that MotB has some connection to the shinso?
So, assuming Nikitis is actually a member of UQ Holder, why’d Eva let him join in the first place? Why would Nikitis bother to train Touta if he only wanted to kill him?
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I have to wrap up my review of UQ Holder chapter 158 so I can get to bed and work again in a few hours. (No rest for the wicked during tax season. 😅)
- It seems that Ba’al and Nikitis are working together. Being immortal, are they just bored, which is why they don’t do anything for ages at a time?
- Why does Ba’al have Sept and Juuzou with him? Are they mind controlled? Why are they wearing coverings over their eyes?
In the end, UQ Holder chapter 158 is clearing rushing toward an ending. I’m puzzled by Akamatsu-sensei jumping forward three months, then jumping back three months. I can’t say this was a bad chapter, but for some reason, I’m not feeling it like I think I should.
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Yeah, I thought the same thing about the three months ago thing. I did laugh about the unexpectedness about it.
Over all I liked this chapter. I like that Santa actually has lines and is involved for once. Love seeing the library also. I do hope Nikitis isn’t /evil/ but just has his own agenda. I like where he played with Kuroumaru’s mind do get him to stop pressing him. I do hope to see more vampire mind tricks in the future.
Also, Kuroumaru is nickle and diming his backstory. Apparently he was sickly growing up. I played with this theory before. I thought it would be weird for Kuroumaru’s trive to choose him, a child, for a taboo experiment like that. I wonder if they chose him because he was sickly. Maybe? Guess we’ll find out… hopefully.
Oh, and thus may just be irl logic, but you’d think Touta would no at least the smallest thing about Kuroumaru. They share a room. You’d think they’d have late night discussions about these things.
Yeah, that is a big positive.
It rather seemed like Fate’s use of rewrite on the Magic World. That’s why I wonder if there’s actually a connection between the shinso vampires and MotB.
I doubt it will happen, but I want to have Touta and company visit Kuroumaru’s homeworld.
To date, Kuroumaru doesn’t speak of the past unless pressed on the issue. And even then, it is only a small amount. Also, based on Touta’s whimsical nature, it wouldn’t surprise me at all that the two never had these conversations. After all, Kuroumaru long kept secret the gender issue. And does Touta know that Kuroumaru may well turn female? Akamatsu-sensei’s recent art suggests that could happen.
It will be interesting how Akamatsu-sensei unfolds these plots within plots for his story.
Origami like i think. Or like Pup Fiction, but i don’t think so.
Looks like Nik is trying train him up so he can have entertaining fight. After 12,000 years, you get bored, want someone really fight. I do find it unusual that he’s a UQ Holder, along with others hanging out with Ba’al. She/he seems more sane than before.
Well, we know why we’ll never go to Venus, it’s bad news for any normal creature to go there. Unless the real world one being terraformed.
I don’t doubt that.
Nikitis may have been UQ Holder at one point, but then may have been kicked out. There’s a reason Nikitis did what he did to force Kuroumaru to drop the subject of trusting him and contacting Eva to find out if Nikitis was on the level.
I had thought that Mazoku like Mana or Zazie came from Venus, but I guess that may not be true if it is the home of the shinso.
Depends how Akamatsu-sensei how he’s trying to do this modification to the overall universe he made. He does have this bad habit throwing things up in the air. Now he telling us the Magical-World version of Venus is a global prison/ Phantom Zone (aka Superman franchise), verses a Kingdoms ruled by various demon kingdoms. Which is still possible that irl Venus may have thoses as well underground stuff. Demons are more like mutated humans / magical creatures.
That’s why I originally thought that youkai came from there as well as mazoku.
despite all that, I really love the multiple levels of beliefs, religions and mythology Ken has in this universe. I mean, he basically told us that the library is THE Akashic records.
True. But it is a shame we never really get to explore most of these concepts beyond a surface touch.
Is Ba’al a boy or girl? Its hard to tell now.
I believe Ba’al is supposed to be male.
I really like the way that Touta actually thought about his powers and from there, he actually develops his own powers. Instead of someone handing it to him, or having to go through something horrifying or emotionally breaking in order to unlock it.
He just thinks hard about it, and from there he works on an idea and a theory and develops it with tips from others. Being immortal, he can be as reckless as he wants. So I can accept the fact that he can gain a massive amount of power within a short period of time.
I mean it would be hypocritical to complain about his progress, when Negi’s power level shot up by more than 20 times in just one month after entering the magic world.
That said, the second events about the artifacts is actually kind of nice…though I feel like it could have been better if Mizore and Santa didn’t inherit Negi’s companion’s artifacts. It really feels like Ken couldn’t be bothered to think up equally powerful artifacts, but one that reflects their characters instead.
Overall, I really liked this chapter even Nike. (I’ll just call him that.)
But one thing that I was curious about. I thought those who became Vampires through artificial means like Eva being experimented on were considered fake. So why is he considered a pure vampire instead when he became one through research and hard work?
Likewise.
From the start, Negi had a focused goal to become powerful and was shown to study hard. Touta was a Mary Sue character for a long time, though Akamatsu-sensei has improved that situation. So yeah, I’m glad to see Touta studying and being serious.
Can’t disagree there.
Haha! Yeah, that is a puzzler for sure. 😅
I was reading some old reasons why Ken ended the original Negima!? because of the laws being pushed by the Minister of Art and Culture.
With the Olympics being used as excuse to push another wave of censorship, what is Ken going to do? Is he pulling the plug partially because of it and his repetitive bad health issues?
Personally I haven’t found many manga up to Ken’s caliber quality and plain likeability as far as comedy/scifi genre goes.
Well, he already is pulling the plug. 😅 The series is ending in 2-3 years (I’d bet on 2 years if he can squeeze it in that fast).
Yeah, I like Akamatsu-sensei’s stuff. I also like Hata-sensei’s stuff. Unfortunately, his only deep foray into sci-fi was Ad Adtra Per Aspera, which he wrote as a monthly series while writing Hayate the Combat Butler. He only did one volume of material, but indicated it would return. That’s what I expected to see when Hayate ended. But we got Tonikaku Cawaii instead, which is good, but I wanted Ad Astra Per Aspera continued.
I have one theory that the seal that Ba’al have may have been the same as Eva back in Negima but only beneath the Library Island. It’s as if Nikitis is all “buddy-buddy” with Ba’al since both are just staying there. 😅
That may well be possible.