July 8th, 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 162
UQ Holder Chapter 162
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Ikkuu and Basago are battling the demonic hoards while remotely watching the fight between Jinbee and Juuzou. Jinbee flees, but still has massive attacks that Juuzou easily cuts through. Ikkuu questions how Jinbee obtained his “switcheroo” teleportation skill, since that couldn’t have come from consuming the flesh of a mermaid. Basago speculates that Jinbee may have formed a pact with a demon during World War II. Ikkuu is shocked to learn that Jinbee has participated in all of the major wars throughout human history.
Juuzou cannot understand how Jinbee seems so relaxed in the fight. Further, he cannot fathom how Jinbee is strong enough to hold him off when Jinbee is not the most powerful fighter. Jinbee scoffs at the question, causing Juuzou to think back to his long history with Jinbee. Juuzou comes to the conclusion that he’s never felt he could beat Jinbee. This causes Jinbee to challenge Juuzou’s true motivation for becoming the strongest. And even if Juuzou defeats Jinbee, what then?
This causes Juuzou to go for Jinbee’s face, where he separates his head from his body and causes the head to be diced up. However, this act causes Juuzou become frustrated, whereby he tears off the parasite mask partially controlling him. The parasite reforms from within Juuzou, demanding he forget about Jinbee and slay the other UQ Holder members. However, Jinbee’s body is gone, only to be reformed on Juuzou’s other side.
Juuzou goes to attack, but finds himself outside of his body. His astral form is with Juuzou’s astral form. Juuzou questions what is happening. Jinbee can’t explain, except to say it is part of his powers–the Board of Non- and Supreme Polarity.
Thoughts/Review:
Akamatsu-sensei uses UQ Holder Chapter 162 to begin exploring Jinbee’s powers and past. And I’m OK with that.
Jinbee’s Past
One thing I’m highly in favor of is character exploration. One of my frustrations in Negima! was a lack of character exploration. Akamatsu-sensei has done some character work with UQ Holder, so that we saw much of Eva’s history, Santa’s history, a bit of Kirie’s history, and some of Karin’s history (though a bit more could be done there). And we still need to explore Kuroumaru’s history.
Jinbee was never on the A-team for the UQ Holder manga. However, I’m glad to see that UQ Holder Chapter 162 is taking the time to explore a bit of Jinbee’s past. I like the notion that Jinbee fought in major wars throughout human history. And in World War II, he was apparently a Zero fighter pilot. To be honest, it would be kinda interesting seeing a spinoff manga with Jinbee during these different time periods.
The other element of Jinbee exploration is his teleportation power. We’ve only just touched on it, but it looks like the next chapter will explore this more. So I’m really interested in seeing more about it. I suspect Jinbee will be able to teleport the parasite out of Juuzou and thus free him.
Juuzou’s Parasite
We finally see why Juuzou had to wear a weird mask in UQ Holder Chapter 162. He has a sentient parasite living within him. The way it regenerated and held a single eye really reminded me of a similar parasite in the Babylon 5 series. Rather than be buried in the victim’s head, it was planted on the shoulder, but had tendrils running throughout the victim’s body. And if this “Keeper”was removed from the body, it simply regenerated.
The parasite on Juuzou and a Keeper operate in a very similar fashion. The victim still retains their memories and providing they don’t act against the interests of the parasite, they are free to do what they will. Those are always quite creepy. I hope we learn more about this parasite.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, UQ Holder Chapter 162 ended up being more enjoyable than I expected, mainly because we started exploring Jinbee’s past and abilities. And this chapter proves yet again that we don’t need Touta at the center of everything to make the manga a good one.
Posted in 
Tags: 
One word to describe this chapter. “Trash.”
Haha! Why do you feel it is trash? I’m genuinely curious to know.
its trash because these back story are forced in to validate the ridiculous strength these characters have… Oh and one more. Everybody is immortal…..
I suppose so. But in Negima! and in UQ Holder, characters had ridiculous strengths. In Negima!, Jack’s OP strength was done a lot for comedic affect. But I do admit that Juuzou’s powers are just stupid and take me out of things, even in a world of ridiculous OP things that I can suspend my disbelief for.
Still, I like backstories a great deal. Characters getting some fleshing out works for me and always has.
The immortal stuff doesn’t bother me. I do wish Akamatsu-sensei had gone the route of exploring what it actually meant to be immortal. But alas, UQ Holder was all over the place and never really had its own identity.
Not a bad chapter, but again, the monthly pace really does it and the scarce buzz left on the manga no favors at all. It’s been months already and we’re still stuck in the same set of fights.
I imagine this will read better in a collected format, but by then the damage to the public interest will be already done.
I don’t disagree. In Negima!, the Magic World arc seemed to take forever when reading week to week. But when reading in tankoubon form, it isn’t so bad. That’s how I see UQ Holder. When we read these in book form, we’ll have multiple chapters to get through at once, thus improving the pacing.
But, you may have a good point on the public interest, at least outside of Japan. Within Japan, it may not be as bad.
I don’t think it’s doing well in Japan either. The anime had horrible ratings and sales, there’s barely any fanart (and most of it dates from early into the series), and the manga sales still don’t seem to be what they were for Negima or Love Hina.
Yeah, it really didn’t help that Akamatsu-sensei tried to make UQ Holder something more akin to Fairy Tail (mindless adventure stories) with an MC that was so Mary Sue as to not even be funny. I really wish he would have done an exploration of being an immortal. Eva could have educated Touta on her own history (without him going back in time and being part of that), whereupon we could have gotten Eva’s backstory. And ditto when Kuroumaru joined. But maybe that wouldn’t have been interesting enough for the young teen male crowd.
It looks interesting, but is it up anywhere in English for free?
I haven’t checked Crunchyroll. If they put it out on time, it might be there (unless they have it behind the paywall).
They certainly have Chapter 162, but seems like no one else has it out there. I guess scanners aren’t translating it anymore.
I don’t think scanners have touched it in a long time. And I don’t think there’s been enough interest to have folks “rip” the pages from CR/comiXology and repost them.
The second concept chapter of UQ Holder has been scanned and uploaded.
https://alaalba.weebly.com/uq-holder-proto-chapter-2-7-samurais.html
Awesome! Thanks!
Looks like a post-apocalypse situation, where the UQ Holders are the Samurai trying protect the survivors/residents of a ruined world. The Tower is down, unlike the current setting where it’s gleaming beacon to the stars.
Certainly looks interesting, too bad Akamatsu-sensei didn’t go that direction or use it as alternate spin-off.
Yeah, I think Akamatsu-sensei failed to have UQH be what it could have been. Sad.
I wish he had appearance who could taken over for him. His creative juices and choice making capacities have…diminished over time.
I presume you mean “apprentice” and not “appearance.” (I hate when I do things like that.)
I still believe that Akamatsu-sensei wanted to do a series like Fairy Tail and not worry about big story arcs, but just individual adventure stories. But that’s not what the audience wanted from Akamatsu-sensei. Since then, I think everything done with the manga has been to try to improve its ratings. And now, it is just trying to tie up all the loose ends.
I’ve yet be able read stupid chapter…
Still not up on CR? Ugh. They are the worst and that’s why I’m dropping them.