January 9th, 2021 
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 179
UQ Holder Chapter 179
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Gengorou opens a portal so that he, Jinbee, Kuroumaru, and Touta can escape. On the other side of the portal, Touta sees a town on the back of a giant, floating ship. Sept greets them as Jinbee explains they are in the World of the Rift, which is why Touta’s pactio cards ceased to work.
Nikitis comes out to greet Touta and to brag. He then takes Touta on a tour of the ship. Nikitis describes himself as Captain Curator, as he’s the ship’s captain as well as the curator of the massive libraries on board. Apparently, this ship had been Negi Springfield’s final workshop. After finishing the tour, Nikitis goes to bed while Touta is shown to his luxurious room.
Touta inquires as to the status of Kirie, Karin, Santa, and Ikku. Jinbee informs him that Ikku has joined the enemy, after being infected with the Internet virus. Further, Ba’al’s people created the virus by first evoking a lesser version of Cosmo Entelekheia (Entelecheia). This was fused with the necromancer Sayoko’s technology.
Jinbee states that Karin, Kirie, and Santa are gone. But he feels that with Touta, they might be able to undo everything. Kuroumaru says that they’ve sealed Santa in an Ojizou-san statue to save him. Touta is about to free Santa when the ship comes under attack. One of Ba’al’s minions, Fleurety, is there with a massive army.
Nikitis orders the ships engines activated, but Ikku shows up and takes over the ship. Ikku slices Nikitis and injects him with nanobots, which negates Nikitis’s regeneration. Ikku easily evades counterattacks and scolds immortals for scoffing at science. Juuzou slices off Ikku’s arm, causing Ikku to get serious.
Thoughts/Review:
Man, Akamatsu-sensei seems determined to prevent anyone from guessing what he’s going to do with UQ Holder. And UQ Holder Chapter 179 certainly continues that move.
The Same, but Different
For a while now, I’ve speculated that the UQ Holder members would hiding in the rift, specifically with Dana. However, with UQ Holder Chapter 179, it was shown that UQ Holder are in the Rift, but not with Dana. Further, they are on some battleship with a large town on top. So the concept is the same, just the location is different.
Further, they have a workshop on the ship, that belonged to Negi Springfield. Unlike other workshops we’ve seen, this was is insanely huge, almost like the place under the Mahora library, only without the weirdness. So again, the same, but different.
Immortals vs. Science
In a world of magic and immortals, it is interesting to see Akamatsu-sensei inject science into the fray. As such, even a true shinso vampire like Nikitis succumbs to the power of nanobots as they prevent him from regenerating.
Then we see Ikku easily defeating Gengorou in combat, and mostly eluding Juuzou’s attacks. Again, science is trumping the magical and the mystical.
As such, I wonder if science is what killed Kirie and Karin. Jinbee wouldn’t talk about how they supposedly died. Now that I think about it, the phrasing of things is a little to clever. They may not be dead, but they may be indisposed.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
It is 4:30am as I write this, and I’m falling asleep. So I need to wrap things up with some final thoughts on UQ Holder Chapter 179.
- With the removal of Karin and Kirie, all that remains is Kuroumaru. The Japanese have been “discussing” Kuroumaru as a lovely girl for weeks on end now. I suppose Akamatsu-sensei could decide to be rid of the harem stuff for good, and just have Touta and Kuroumaru (as a lovely girl) together.
- I liked how Sayoko was brought back into the story. It would be cool if she could come back somehow, but not as a villain.
- Akamatsu-sensei brought out the big, red, reset button in this chapter. Now it is a matter of pressing it.
In the end, UQ Holder Chapter 179 was interesting. But for some reason, didn’t feel satisfying. I think that’s in part to the loss of the harem girls.
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Karin and Kirie are basically being set as ‘the damsels to rescue’. In troping terms, it’s kind of sexist/creepy in hindsight that all three major female-female (as opposed to the more ambiguous Kuro) characters, Eva, Karin and Kirie, have been ‘stuffed in the fridge’ in some way or another for our male hero and his buds to rescue, but whachagonnado.
I don’t like Ikkuu’s Face Heel Turn. It feels too contrived and forced, as most things in this manga.
Santa won’t stop suffering indignities. The statue thing was kind of goofy-funny but also kind of pathetic, and it doesn’t help that it’s info-dumped in a way as matter-of-factly as possible, as if just to get that plot point out of the way already.
The design for the newest villain is too busy and exaggerated, as it’s been the case with all post-Baal bad guys.
Nikitis’ choice of sleepwear is a cute touch. You can tell the character was to have more personality than the Holder average, but sadly he lacked too much setup and development time, and now he’s just another jobber.
Part of me thinks Akamatsu’s making up for lost time for Nikitis since he accidentally made Fate as Touta’s rival.
The fact that Nikitis became prominent once Fate got taken out (By Nikitis, no less), strongly suggests this.
It is in a way, but I gave it a pass due to the 40-year time jump. That said, I’ve never liked the “possession” stories, and since there was a virus at work, I think Ikku technically qualifies because he’s not himself, even if he’s not actually possessed.
Sadly, once the Sayoko arc was done, Santa was done as a character.
I need to see what he was wearing. 😅
This chapter was really unexpected for me .Glad for the Sayoko reference and for more explanations about the uq holder members gone . I would like have had a better explanation about how the other members faked their deaths with the demons . Like for example switching with eroo-switch and using Gengoroo clone/corpse when he died , for example . I thought the manga was ending but right now Akamatsu sensei introduce 12 new enemies. I hope they will be all well developed. By the way we see the 4 previously enemies and the shadows of the others for a total of 10 demons . I guess if the 2 missing demons are , for some reasons , zazie and her sister Poyo ,princesses of the demon realm. I’m sad for the character missing but happy at the same time because we already seen a lot Kirie, Santa and Karin ,now is time to the new holder‘s members to shine and be developed ( gengoroo , Nikitis , Sept and Juzo first ). Very unexpected to see Ikku between the enemies but glad to have more Ikku time and power up because lately he has been put aside .
Yeah, Sensei certainly seems to have put a brake on ending the manga right away. Its not the first time he’s done this in his career.
That is a good point.
Every time a major shift like this comes up I want to hold my head in frustration and ask Akamatsu why he didn’t just make this the setting of the manga from the beginning?
This Venusian ship idea and their whole civilization + the demons is all cool, but because it all comes up so late in the manga it feels forced when it should just be awesome and exciting.
I still like the manga and I want to see the future direction it will go, but I had to roll my eyes when Akamatsu introduced a group of twelve underlings for Ba’al. When we already have major characters in antagonistic roles like Colonel Sanders and Rakan, I have to ask why are we focusing on all these new demons when we could be getting more of the characters we’re familiar with?
My longstanding theory is that Akamatsu-sensei wanted to emulate Mashima-sensei (Fairy Tail, Edens Zero, etc.) when it came to doing a story. Mashima-sensei has some vague, overall plot. He then drafts adventure stories with no real plan for how this will fit into a larger tale. Early UQ Holder fit this model.
Because this style of story telling ended up failing, Sensei has been winging it, trying to find something that works. And he seems to have found motivation of late, which is why the manga seems to have been extended.
I think a lot of fans were interested in the mazoku on Venus. We were teased with Mana being half mazoku, then Poyo and Zazie being full mazoku. But I get your point for sure.
Al and Jack are part of the Mage of the Beginning, at least as I understand it. So I think we will see them again at the end.
Looks like Sensei is doing zigs then zags with the plot. Try keep things together so his fan base in Japan stays with him and keeps buying his stuff. Especially as he trying shut things down on high note.
I guess it makes sense. Doesn’t make it winning story.
UQ Holder has been all over the place. We’ll see if in the end, the story ends up being good.
Been a while since I dived into this series and I’m still suffering whiplash from the rapid status quo shifts.
I hoped that we’d get a breather before the attack happened, but oh well…
Had the library ship been revealed much earlier, I’d be more stoked, as things stand, I’m shrugging at it.
The new villains aren’t that interesting beyond their designs. Not a fan of Ikku’s heel turn either..
On a side note, since BSM’s flagship series, Attack on Titan, is ending in a few months, one expects the readership of the magazine to drop significantly once that series ends, which spells bad news for UQ in courting new readers.
Hahaha! I hear ya.
Ditto. But since Sensei has shelved Kirie, Karin, and Santa, I guess an attack was the only way to keep the facts behind what happened to them a mystery.
Hmmmm…I wonder if that’s the reason why Akamatsu-sensei decided to not end his series so soon.
If Kirie and Karin are ‘dead’ in the same way Santa is, in other words sealed or indisposed, then we’ll probably see them back within 5 chapters, tops. Frankly, with how Ikku mentioned that UQ Holder’s cyber security went down after they lost Santa, we can expect Santa back to debug Ikku within the next chapter.
On the other hand, I wonder why it took so long for Sept to be turned to Baal’s side again. I mean, as Baal’s creation Sept was forced to obey him when UQ Holder HQ was attacked, so why did it take 40 years and Ikku’s hacking for that to happen again?
As for the Demon World thing… what are Zazie and Poyo doing? I can see Poyo working with Baal since she worked with Nagi-Ialda before, but Zazie? Or could she be sealed as well?
“On the other hand, I wonder why it took so long for Sept to be turned to Baal’s side again. I mean, as Baal’s creation Sept was forced to obey him when UQ Holder HQ was attacked, so why did it take 40 years and Ikku’s hacking for that to happen again?”
As ANB would put it, ‘Because reasons’.
Hahaha! That’s true too.
I think you are correct.
They were hiding in the rift, thus Ba’al couldn’t access Sept to force the switch. But once Ba’al’s folks got in, then making Sept switch was easy.
That’s a good question. With Venus and the realm of the mazoku getting mention like this, I thought for sure Mana and Zazie would show up again.
I liked a lot this chapter! Finally Touta returned with some of the group. It is a little confused what is happening and fast but it is entertaining. And the main thing for me is that Kuromaru now is alone with Touta. I like the other girls but Kuromaru is my fav girl/boy so I want that she/he stays with Touta and be happy togather, I hope Akamatsu-sensei make them canon they are so lovely together! I don’t mind if Kuromaru decides be a girl/boy or stay like now but that she/he be happy with their loved Touta.
In order to reproduce with Touta, Kuroumaru would have to be a girl. And that is how their species works with the gender swapping aspects when they are young. That’s why Kuroumaru automatically started becoming female, due to Kuroumaru’s attraction to the male Touta. Had Touta never come into Kuroumaru’s life, Kuroumaru would have become male. But then Akamatsu-sensei could end up doing anything.
That aside, I kinda wanted a harem ending. 😅
Yeah, be female is the more possible option, and in that case I would love to see Kuromaru in a wedding dress if she decides that but at the end I just want author give her/him a happy ending ❤
I think a good ending is highly likely. Otherwise, there would be a lot of angry people.
Well, if Akamatsu is really going to retire after this, what’s he got to lose by making a bad ending? Will they fire him when he’s already quitting the game?
And even if he doesn’t, if Negima’s ending didn’t do him, odds are this one won’t either.
Hahaha! I hear ya. Still, the Japanese are big on not losing face. I think Sensei would lose face by giving things a purposeful bad end.
I have to laugh at he would “big on not losing face. “. Gundam’s creator Yoshiyuki Tomino did MULTIPLE Bad endings. So did Neon Genesis Evangelion by Hideaki Anno. They still exist to this day. Perhaps not directly controled by their originators.
I don’t think either of those two creators purposefully did bad endings. As a writer, sometimes someone can write something that they think is fine, but ends up being rubbish.
Sensei did a nice throwback tweet yesterday. Have you seen it, yet?
If not, here it is.
https://twitter.com/KenAkamatsu/status/1356209104595767304
I did briefly glimpse it. Thanks for the link though.