November 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 189
UQ Holder Chapter 189
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
UQ Holder and the forces working with Fate begin their attack on Ba’al’s forces. To that end, UQ Holder members open the path for the attack fighter squadrons. Touta ultimately arrives at the structure under the World Tree, where Ba’al is. He uses his Magia Erebea to smash Ba’al’s barrier. As such, Ba’al panics and opens up a magic channel to Pluto to tap into the Mage of the Beginning’s resources.
Dynamis shows up and puts an end to Ba’al. The roots of the World Tree glow as the members of Negi’s Ala Alba defeat UQ Holder. Ialda emerges, stopping Touta. She removes a key Eva planted in him. The others have the other keys Eva implanted in them. These keys were pieces of Eva’s soul, which prevented the Mage of the Beginning from fully assimilating Eva. Fate witnesses Ialda activate the perfected Cosmo Entelekheia.
Meanwhile, as Touta dies for the final time, he ponders the suffering of folks he knew in life. With Negi’s artifact, he considers bringing Eva back as Yukihime. However, his thoughts to go his friends from school, Afro, Mizore, and Shinobu. Ialda immediately senses it when Touta summons his grandfather, Negi Springfield. He tells Negi that it would be pointless to bring Yukihime back to a dead world. The only way to truly save it is by working with his grandfather.
Thoughts/Review:
Well, I’m not surprised to see Negi return in UQ Holder Chapter 189. After all, in order to have a proper good ending, not only does Negi and the members of Ala Alba need to be saved, but also Nagi.
The Final Fight
Other than evoke the final space battle in Star Wars (with the fighters approaching Charon) and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (entering the “tunnel” that lead to the structure under the world tree), there was nothing much to say about the initial attack in UQ Holder Chapter 189. OK, some of the core UQ Holder folks get a “I’m kicking arse” moment. Big deal. Why? Cause a moment is all that’s there.
After Touta easily takes down Ba’al’s barrier, suddenly, the Ala Alba folks are there with Ialda. Ba’al is gone. (Though as a shinso, is he truly dead?) All of the allied fighters are defeated. All of UQ Holder are all but dead. And Touta is given a fatal blow. As such, there’s no tension or anything. It is just things that happen.
Touta uses Negi’s artifact to restore Negi from Ialda. Still not sure how that works, or how Negi will end up being the one to save the world. I guess if Negi brought Eva back, as was his original plan, he’d just do the do with her and not save the world. Who knows.
Still, we longtime fans want there to be a way to save Negi and Nagi, as well as Eva and Ala Alba. As such, we have now saved Negi. Now to save the rest.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, UQ Holder Chapter 189 fast forwards to get us to the end quickly. The Mack Daddy, Negi Springfield, returns. We’ll see where things go from there. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to the chapter.
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Huh. Man this kills me, I love having negi back but I can’t help but feel… cheap.
This needs to have some continuity, or at least some logic and structure as to how magic works. Something negima and uq holder always drove me nuts with.
Can things be consistent for 5 seconds? Can I also say I hate that the pactio system was basically forgotten for 90% of uq holder, then out of nowhere, BAM pactio artifacts are the main plot point and savoir of the main characters.
I told myself back in 2014, ill keep reading this manga out of nostalgia for my favorite manga negima, no matter how bad it gets.
Reminds me of the show “supernatural” I love the basic structure, so it’s easy to consume without thinking, it was the only way I made it to that shows finale.
But man, uq holder is the first thing to bring me to my absolute limits. There are too many lore contradictions, and storylines thrown out the window, at first I was disappointed in the fact that there were only 4 chapters left, how could they properly finish the story?
Now I’m almost thanking God it’s being ended early, cant mess up a story you barley tried in the first place. I think maybe Ken Akamatsu just wants out of the manga industry, his passion dosnt seem to be there anymore, as sad as that makes me.
Also I will say this, the recent chapters have thankfully cut back on the fan service, I never understood the fights showing one of the girls getting punched and the only thing damaged was their clothes.
You never watched Ikki Tousen? All of the women wear clothing apparently made of tissue. A slight breeze causes their clothing to shred. 😂 That aside, I hear ya completely.
You kidding? The fanservice, plus the artwork in general and sunken costs fallacy over attachment to Negima, are the only things that have kept me reading.
God knows I’d never read this for the story or worldbuilding.
It’s crazy to think we only have three chapters left of this series. Even if it’s been uneven it’s still been a fun ride and I’ll be sad when Akamatsu likely retires when it’s all said and done.
Yep. At least he says he is.
I’m thinking Akamatsu-sensei will be an advocate for more online manga/anime, and blocking censorship and demands from the West to change anime/manga.
Being an advocate doesn’t pay the bills, though.
If anything it only means that more executives and editors will hate your guts and block and boycott you at every chance.
And like I said elsewhere, if he didn’t make enough money to retire after Negima odds are he didn’t after the relative failure of UQ Holder either. He’s not a Togashi or Oda, compared to Hunter x Hunter or One Piece Negima and UQ Holder are niche with only a cult following anymore.
I know he talked about being a manga editor at one time (or at least, I think he did). So he may go that route. And it would allow him to do his advocacy stuff.
But that’s what I’m saying, getting a job as an editor isn’t just something that you give yourself on your own, unless you start your own company from scratch, which I don’t think Akamatsu can do (his J Comi initiative pretty much failed and nobody ever seems to use it).
The actual owners of the companies have to approve you in the job, and Akamatsu not only has already existing bad blood with Kodansha’s owners but he’s also known for voicing activist opinions that are ‘problematic’ for executives. The execs of, say Shueisha, for instance, are unlikely to pick that kind of outsider as their own editor, either.
Well, it will be interesting to see what he does. Maybe his wife has a secret stash of cash. 😅😂
I have this dreadful feeling that the next chapter(s?) will just kill Negi again for shock value and “Oh noes, everything is lost again!” so Touta can do everything AGAIN.
Akamatsu’s writing since the end of the Mundus Magicus arc follows a pattern; the bad guys pull a complete swerve PLOT TWEEEST! to steamroll all over the good guys, the good guys then asspull a Deus Ex Machina to save themselves, the next chapter has the bad guys countering with an even more broken Diabolus Ex Machina, but ah, then the good guys, out of nowhere… and so on, until Akamatsu looks at the clock, realizes it’s time to end the arc, and everything finishes with a whimper.
It’s just a succession of shock value asspulls; it doesn’t matter whether they make sense or not, the only thing that matters to him is to keep the (ever diminishing) readership on their toes. Then most often a timeskip happens so Akamatsu can solve things off panel, and he moves on. I predict this will be just the same, except because it’s the end so there’s no moving on.
Unlike most other fans, I actually don’t want him to retire. Not that I’m sure he could; if he wasn’t in a position to do so at the end of Negima he shouldn’t be able to do so now either, since compared to Love Hina and Negima UQ Holder was a bust. And Akamatsu has been too outspoken with polemic opinions and has bad blood with Kodansha already, I doubt they’d let him be an editor like he wants to.
I want him to actually fix the end of Negima now. Like Konoka told Rakan, “You’ve got to wipe your own ass”, and it’s about time he just owned up and did the conclusion of Negima correctly, like the author of Battle Angel Alita did, or the anime adaptation of Full Metal Alchemist did with Brotherhood
That would be neat. But I don’t think he wants to do something for a manga magazine. He could go the Pixiv route though, then get a tankoubon deal.
To be honest Touta character is a literal cheat and hack. So I’m not surprised Ialda was able to seal off his source of power.
I’m a little surprise about the whole key thing but saving Negi makes a huge amount of sense unless his Magia Erebea gets sealed.
My guess is that Touta will use his Magic Cancel along side Negi Black of Venus and perma kill Ilada or he uses his 9th spell or something.
However I’m not sure about bringing negi back because the final blow will most likely go to touta after negi does 99% of the work or this actually Negima 2.0
I suspect this is a Team up that Akamatsu wanted to do as nice way to have send off to the franchise he had build over last 20 years. The original beloved main character coming back for one last hurrah.
Tonta isn’t smartest, but he the craftiest. Definitely takes after his great great grandpa to me.
Well, am I surprise about this outcome? Not completely. Negi too important to have died off in background or hidden away.
Frankly, it must plain confusing to newcomers to the entire franchise.
I’m curious if this is really it for Akamatsu. I’ve never seen people completely retire from doing that they love unless their health is in grave dangerous.
He could start something new he can start fresh and not be as intense as Negi universe calls for.
Yeah, he’s always been a Mary Sue character. It isn’t as annoying to me as it was, but yeah, it is still there.
We’ll see, but I’m betting on Negima 2.0. Either that or a total reset to where Asuna goes back in time in Negima.
It’s been a while since I picked up this series and to be honest, I actually enjoyed these stretch of chapters, and I do see where the criticisms come from. Then again, I did have the benefit of binging them in one go, rather than reading them month by month.
Since this is a monthly release, the story presented in the chapters, is basically the cliffnotes version of how the events are supposed go down if it were weekly. I gotta admit that I’m bummed out that there’s not gonna be a big 1 v 1 fightscene, but with the pages we’ve got left, big set pieces and curb stomps (specifically in this chapter’s case, Ambushes) are more feasible for the author’s workload.
Remember that this year, the Berserk author (Akamatsu’s personal friend & big Yue fan), Kentaro Miura passed away at 54, just 2 years older than Akamatsu. Manga authors working themselves to near death are commonplace, heck even Akamatsu went through this, considering the numerous breaks he’s had to take during Negima’s run. It’s likely a contributing factor to why the shift to monthly even happened to begin with.
Anyways, a transitional chapter, I ‘m interested to see the final battle unfold, not expecting it to be great, but I’ll be there to see it unfold.
Ah, yes, the great close friend of Akamatsu whom Akamatsu honored by having his favorite character killed in a humiliating way shortly after his passing.
I’m not sure I’d want friends like Akamatsu.
That helped when Negima seemed to drag. In the book format, the drag factor wasn’t there.
I hadn’t thought about it like that, but yeah, I can’t disagree.
I can’t believe we only have three chapters left of this series. It’s been a fun ride despite the ups and downs this series had, tough I think the biggest problems UQ Holder! faced was the shitty Anime adaptation and the monthy release.
I decided to wait 5 months and read those chapters in one go, instead of reading them month by month and I actually liked them, despite seeing where the criticisms come from.
Do you think Touta lost the source of Immortality forever or is this like what happened when he woke up after 43 years, where he had to separate his powers and reopen the “door” that connects him to Venus? I’m leaning more towards the latter, honestly.
Those may be factors, but the manga was in trouble long before that. In my opinion, Akamatsu-sensei wanted to break free of his normal stuff — harem hijinks and an overarching story. I’ve long felt Akamatsu-sensei wanted to do stories like Mashima-sensei did for Fairy Tail — just put out some random adventure and not worry about the big picture. However, fans wanted the big picture, since this was a spinoff-sequel of Negima.
Also, Touta was an irritating Mary Sue character for a long time at the start.
I can see Akamatsu-sensei doing this in order to give Touta a normal life.
If he does that , then I don’t see how Touta will be very useful in the fight against Ialda and Ala Alba with just the White of Mars. He’s the main character so I’m sure he play a big role in the final fight.
I don’t disagree that Touta will be critical to the final fight. But somehow, I think he ends up being mortal at the end of the day.
Do you think Touta lost the source of his immortality forever or is this like what happened to him after the 43 year time-skip? I’m leaning towards the latter, to be honest.
I think I answered this elsewhere. That said, I think Akamatsu-sensei may decide to give Touta a normal life. He’s already taken away Kirie’s immortality. And since I think Kirie is Akamatsu-sensei’s favorite, he can have Touta officially marry her as a mortal.
I’m not sure about that, He has been with multiple people.
True. I suppose Sensei could have Karin and Kuroumaru become mortal as well and then Touta can have his harem.
I’m still waiting for the scene where it is revealed that all UQ Holder is just a doujinshi performed by Haruna xd
Hahaha! That’s funny.
Is touta going to summon cutlass and do a soul Trinity fusion
Anything’s possible.
I wanna see touta and Karin’s date
Didn’t we see their date in space? 😉
Right know the fans are worried sick about their beloved protagonist especially because of the time skip what I think is that they should have given him the Yue treatment where he gets smarter and more skilled and amped up to an unknown degree during the dark future ark Even give him a nerfed magia erebia and a new sword or more accurately his own powerup unique to him combine it with his old magia erebia and we a new born god SIIIIIIIGGH the dark future should have been a complete revolution/rebirth/reboot then you have him going back to his old self with a new look