December 9th, 2020 
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 178
UQ Holder Chapter 178
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Touta has a memory dream that takes place after his core battle harem spent the night with him. He wakes in Baru Jakarta and takes a job to clear a sewer of magical beasts. Touta is angry with himself for being useless as he slays the monsters. After finishing the task, Touta gets a call from someone he recognizes, telling him to meet them at a rendezvous point.
Touta arrives and sees Ikkuu on a monitor, greeting him. Touta realizes it is a trap, but despite summoning Kurobo, Touta is pinned to the ground. Agali Arept and his three companions appear, where they plan to slice Touta up and seal his pieces in containers. Then they will deposit them in a cauldron with the other slain immortals, allowing the Mage of the Beginning to be freed to do her thing.
The three-eyed girl companion slices Touta and tells him things to break his spirit. However, a gun blows her head as Kuroumaru, Gengorou, Jinbee, and Juuzou dispatch Agali and company. The still pinned Touta apologizes to them for making them wait forty years. Gengorou frees Touta as Jinbee assures Touta that this is nothing to an immortal. Juuzou encourages Kuroumaru to see the regenerating Touta. They have a tearful hug reunion.
Thoughts/Review:
Well, I gotta say that things didn’t as I expected in UQ Holder Chapter 178. But my theory could still be correct.
False Start
I hate to say this, but part of me believes that Akamatsu-sensei did the “false start” of UQ Holder Chapter 178 to save time and fill space. I’m too tired to look it up at the moment (it is after 11pm as I write and I’ve had little sleep), but it does seem pretty much the same. I could be wrong.
That said, I was certainly confused enough to have to stop and make sure I hadn’t made some tired mistake and opened the wrong chapter in my library. Then I started to wonder if comiXology screwed up. But as it turns out, it was a dream sequence.
Just in Time Rescue
I have no idea where Kuroumaru, Gengorou, Jinbee, and Juuzou came from in UQ Holder Chapter 178. I still think there’s a very high chance that they were whisked to Dana’s realm. And I think the only reason Dana would help that much is because of Ba’al being one of her kind.
Whether that’s true or not, it did allow for Jinbee, Gengorou, and Juuzou to have some hero time. I suppose we’ll get an explanation as to why the 3-eyed girl thought she’d slain Jinbee. She also claims to have slain Karin. Further, she claims that all of Touta’s friends are boiling in a cauldron of some kind. She could have been lying about that, I suppose. But she did seem surprised to see Jinbee.
Still, that does beg the question of where Karin, Kirie, and Santa are. I suspect Eva is with Negi, Nagi, and Asuna within Ialda. Maybe the others are just waiting to make an appearance. I suppose we’ll find out in the next chapter.
Finally, I did enjoy the reunion of Kuroumaru and Touta. It was very sweet (and fillery 😉)
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, UQ Holder Chapter 178 was fine for what it was. It did feel like the chapter had a lot of filler. But at least some of the UQ Holder gang is back.
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Good chapter and hopefully we’re drawing this arc to a close. Now how they’re going to fix things is anyone’s guess. And yeah that Kuromaru/Touta reunion shook me a little bit.
Also while it’s nothing new in the grand scheme of manga, Akamatsu is really going off the rails in terms of character design. Remember when Negima started and most of the girls looked reasonably normal?
So you like where Akamatsu-sensei is going with character designs or you don’t?
I do like them. He played it pretty safe in Negima until the MW arc but he’s clearly having some fun here with weird designs. Not like Eiichiro Oda weird but still weird for his own brand.
Ah. I see what you mean.
The past two chapters were not as rushed as the ones before, which is nice to see. Compared to Santa’s arc it still seems fast, but I can live with this.
Other than that though, I’m hyped. I’m an absolute sucker for sweet and sick scenes like these, and more Kuromaru is always a plus.
I’m wondering how(or even if) Kiromaru and his clan will be incorporated into the final arc. 40 years has elapsed and Kiromaru doesn’t have immortality, but he should still be alive, and it would be pretty strange to see the entire allied clan from the previous arc left out.
Well, Kiroumaru should be mazoku, and we know they have long lives. Mana is half mazoku, and she’s still alive (and looking in her 20s). So Kiromaru and company should easily still be around.
The thing is, I’d like to see Mana and Zazie for the final battle, since both should still be alive. I suspect Akamatsu-sensei may have forgotten about them.
If they do come, they should be re-introduced soon. Of course, unless he completely excludes them. The last I can remember seeing either of them was right before the (awful) boat race arc, so I don’t give them high chances of returning.
Reunited and it feels so good! Glad to see most of UQH still alive and kicking, and I just loved seeing my favorite ship in the series (Touta/Kuromaru) getting all touchy-feely emotional with each other. I figured they were made of stern stuff and weren’t that easy to bump off, what with being elite-level immortals. I just wonder what the hell happened to them during the time skip, and what took them so long to find Touta. Hopefully they find the rest of the crew. And things really are seeming like an actual time skip, and not just a Cosmo Entelechiea illusion.
Heh. Yeah, that was a nice moment.
Good questions. I suppose they may not have known where Touta was going to fall to earth at. But if they were in Dana’s realm, that might account for the delay, seeing how time passes differently there.
I agree.