July 15th, 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 185
UQ Holder Chapter 185
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Kirie happily reunites with Kuroumaru and Karin. Nanako (female Sept) decides to meet with the girls to find out how far they went with Touta. This leads to discussions on how often they had sex with Touta and where. Now that Kirie is no longer immortal, Karin asks her feelings on the matter. She’s still happy to be part of the harem, even as a mortal.
Kirie is given a tour of the giant ship that was previously owned by Negi Springfield. This allows Kirie to be reunited with the other members of UQ Holder, who’ve been doing research. Jinbee discovers Negi’s old artifact, hidden in a book.
They are interrupted by a transmission from Fate, who reports Cosmo Entelekheia (Csomo Entelecheia) has been started by Ialda, the Mage of the Beginning. As such, they only have a few days to stop her. Fate lays out a plan, which Touta and UQ Holder agree to. Nikitis instructs Touta to go to the rare book collection part of the ship, where the Great Paru-sama is docked.
Inside, Isana and Konoka are in cold sleep. The now somewhat older girls are awakened and ready to fight. Nanako, Santa, and Kirie are on Earth, looking for Negi’s secret weapon. Karin, Kuroumaru, Isana, Honoka, Jinbee, Gengorou, and Touta prepare to be launched to Pluto. During this time, Gengorou explains his immortality and past to Touta. They launch to Pluto’s orbit, but instead land on the planet. Meanwhile, Pluto’s moon Charon is now on a collision course with Earth.
Thoughts/Review:
UQ Holder Chapter 185 contained 42 pages this time, which is two more than normal. However, Akamatsu-sensei did put these pages to some interesting usage.
Girl Reunion
Akamatsu-sensei decided to use the first part of UQ Holder Chapter 185 to get a final bit of comedy in before getting into the action. As such, thanks to Nanako, we get the girls discussing the wheres, whens, and hows of their intimate moments with Touta.
However, we do get a bit of character stuff for Kirie, who reaffirmed her desire to remain in the harem, not just for Touta, but also for her friendship with Kuroumaru and Karin.
Gengorou Character Stuff
Speaking of character work, UQ Holder Chapter 185 also takes time to take a peek into Gengorou’s past. Apparently, Gengorou came from the world that Kirie ended up getting sent to. He got hit by a truck and sent to the alternate Earth in the future, in a scenario similar to a popular yakuza game. He also picked up the ability to see this world as if it were a video game, complete with stats and the like.
What Akamatsu-sensei doesn’t explain is how Gengorou got this ability nor his extra lives immortality. But we do learn that Gengorou apparently had a demi-human girlfriend (only seen from the back). Further, he has a reason to defend this new home of his.
So while ultra late in the game, no pun intended, at least we do get a bit on Gengorou.
Negima! Connections
The first Negima! connection in UQ Holder Chapter 185 is Negi’s artifact, which was hidden in a book. While it was cool to see, my thought was, “Why isn’t this a pactio card? Why would Negi leave his pactio artifact active? Further, what mage is powering the artifact? After all, Negi had to partner with Princess Theodora. I think she’s still alive (I can’t remember for sure since I don’t get a chance to reread UQ Holder), so she could still be powering it.
The second Negima! connection was the cameo appearance of Great Paru-sama. I do know that ship has appeared before in UQ Holder.
Finally, Isana and Honoka return. While they weren’t in Negima!, they do appear to be the clones of Konoka and Setsuna. Akamatsu-sensei’s method for having them around was interesting–keep them in cold sleep until needed, thus they’ve only aged a few years. And their reasons for agreeing to this made sense to. So yay.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I’m way behind on getting my review of UQ Holder Chapter 185 published, so let me wrap up with some final thoughts.
- You know, I have to call BS on space suits that are vaporized in route to Pluto for everyone BUT Gengorou, Isana, and Honoka, who’d of course die without them.
- Sending Pluto’s moon Charon to Earth smacks of the Negima! movie. Supposedly, the movie drew inspiration from an abandoned plot idea from Akamatsu-sensei. I guess he’s going to use that plot idea after all.
In the end, UQ Holder Chapter 185 was a pretty enjoyable chapter. Now it is time for the big shounen battle.
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It’s hard to believe we’re almost at the end. When it’s all said and done, UQ will have lasted about as long as Negima has, though that’s thanks to the monthly format. I’m already kinda hyped for the battle sequence that’s going to happen, and I’ll be interested to see who squares off with who. As for the chapter itself, not much to say other than that the girls are super dirty. This is definitely the calm before the storm. Can’t wait until next chapter when it all begins.
Yeah, that’s hard to believe, but you are right.
Okay, so Gengoro is an isekai protagonist. What does that add to the story, exactly?
And Isana and Honoka are there too. Whatever. Not like they’ll be helpful or anything.
So yeah, I’m not exactly hyped for this finale.
It may be relevant before all is said and done. That said, I appreciate looking at characters and their histories. Gengorou’s backstory was relegated to just a few pages, but at least we have it. I think he was the last of the original UQ Holder characters to get a backstory.
The implication is that they are better than it may appear. They have been brought out of stasis from time to time to help with battles. Isana is another sword-babe, and Honoka can heal and such. I suspect we’ll get to see them shine, even if only for a short time.
Yeah, “hyped” is a strong word. I obviously make more of an effort to review UQ Holder, despite my lack of free time these days. But then it is harder for me to get hyped about a lot of things any more. 😅
Hey!
I came back to your blog after 9 years now that UQ Holder is coming to end. I did not follow the sequel closely after Negima! finished. Still glad you are writing these reviews!
I was taken aback by hentai-style scenes in UQ Holder (compared to simple ecchi moments in Negima!). I guess I am no loner a target audience anymore lol.
But UQ Holder now is more fun then when I tried to read its beginning right after Negima’s ending.
I am looking forward to see what will happen next, although pretty sure the ending should still be happy as always. Curious how every Ala Rubra under MoB control can be saved and rescued from “inner world” of MoB.
Let’s count down to the next 7-8 chapters together 🙂
Hey!
I came back to your blog after 9 years now that UQ Holder is coming to end. I did not follow the sequel closely after Negima! finished. Still glad you are writing these reviews!
I was taken aback by hentai-style scenes in UQ Holder (compared to simple ecchi moments in Negima!). I guess I am no loner a target audience anymore lol.
But UQ Holder now is more fun then when I tried to read its beginning right after Negima’s ending.
I am looking forward to see what will happen next, although pretty sure the ending should still be happy as always. Curious how every Ala Rubra under MoB control can be saved and rescued from “inner world” of MoB.
Let’s count down to the next 7-8 chapters together 🙂
I noticed something similar in Negima. During the magic world arc, it seemed like things were just dragging. But when read in book form, meaning back to back chapters, the pacing wasn’t bad at all. The weekly format made it seem to be not so good.
So yeah, I agree that UQ Holder is better when read in bulk.
Likewise.
And, welcome back!
Despite the MW arc being absurdly long, I don’t ever remember feeling like “Okay I want this arc to end”. Probably because it was broken up into smaller, mini-arcs to keep the pacing decent. As someone who still reads One Piece, there’s a series with tremendous pacing issues.
As I recall things, it was the rescue of Asuna where I felt things kept being put off. When I read the volumes as a whole, it works. But when I was reading a chapter a week, it felt like it was taking forever.
I think that’s just a pitfall of manga as a whole. I read OP week to week and it definitely feels a lot slower than if read in one sitting.
I agree, the magic world arc seemed forever when I followed it week-by-week especially with many side mini-stories like the fight tournament to get $ (which totally makes sense when I finish reading the whole thing in batch). But I guess it is one of Negima’s charms- that these side mini-stories actually add up values and dimensions to different characters (and of course with many little hidden info that would be super important later on :)).
I hope the ending can explain MoB skills a bit more clearly, as I personally still didn’t feel like I understand what she can and cannot do. I mean, she was said to be super powerful with many out-of-world skills like possession and making other mages puppets, so I have been wondering how she could be defeated especially now the perhaps strongest of strongest mages from Ala Rubra are under her possession… I was re-reading battle scenes with MoB, and it just seemed to me like many victories of human were explained as “miracle”… Maybe MoB’s skill has some weaknesses that didn’t get explained yet.
I am anticipating Asuna to take part in this final fight in some ways, although I have no idea how it will happen. From a few chapters back, she showed up to save Eva who is now stuck inside MoB. How can she do that while still in sleep?
Perhaps I am missing something, but ultimately it seemed like the world just had 2 options:
(1) Asuna doesn’t go into sleep, and the Mars world just vanished [assuming no Chao’s time machine cheating]; or (2) Asuna goes into sleep, and the Mars people would still disappear because no one is here to protect them from MoB.
In option (2), this is where Touta comes into equation as another cheating machine. And the immortals.
And also in that chapter, MoB’s remark to the Ala Rubra that the good memory they gave to Eva is no different from Cosmo Entelechia totally strike me. It is funny because it is true!
Sorry for the delay…I didn’t get notified. 😅
She should for sure.
Anyway, sorry I haven’t written more in response. Insanely busy. Bu thanks for writing!
I thought it was amusing that Gengorou was sent via Truck-san to world of UQ Holder. Which was actually funny to me since i followed the genre.
Weirdly to me, i didn’t read Gengorou mentioning he had girl friend, it was like he was avoiding mentioning who it was. (Maybe a guy?) Needless to say, maybe he will do side story on him or one the other characters. It would be interesting to me.
Well, at least he going somewhere with this. Stupid space suit denigration thing was stupid fan service. However, there always since Negima original run fan service. Its Sensei’ style.
We can hope if he does any one-shots or something that he can do it without need for it.
You may be right.
Emphasis on stupid. 😅