January 8th, 2022 
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 191
UQ Holder Chapter 191
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Negi and Touta prepare to battle Nagi and Eva (Yukihime) with a final strategy talk. The UQ Holder members find themselves thrown to the Senkyoukan. They are followed by Al, Jack, Setsuna, and Konoka. Kuroumaru thinks over the plan to deal with Negi’s old group.
Meanwhile, Negi battles his father Nagi while chatting with him. Touta battles Yukihime and thinks back to his life with her. Yukihime, as Ialda, and Touta talk. Touta tries to reach out to Yukihime and gets smashed as a result. However, this allows Karin to attack from above. At the same time, it allows Negi to tag his father with the Ala Alba pin.
Touta is joined by UQ Holder as well as Jack, Al, Setsuna, Konoka, Asuna, Chachamaru, Chisame, Yue, Nodoka, Zazie, Mana, Homura, Koyomi, and Shiori. Negi’s formerly trapped companions were freed, thanks to Negi having come up with a way to counter Ialda’s influence while he was part of her. The Eva part of Ialda is impressed. However, Ialda’s minions arrive to battle.
The fight begins, but eventually, Charon (?) explodes. Now there are 12 billion fragments of Ialda.
Thoughts/Review:
Because of the mad rush to end things, UQ Holder Chapter 191 has minimal impact on me beyond seeing old faces.
The Plan
Okay, so the plan Negi came up with originated while he was part of Ialda. I find Ialda’s control over the folks she’s “consumed” to be weird, or rather plot convenient. While retaining their identity, folks under Ialda’s control just do what she wants. However, when the plot needs it, they can chat a bit, even pause in their ways.
Certainly that was the case in UQ Holder Chapter 191. Negi, while absorbed by Ialda and under her control, was able to come up with a plan to free his companions. I guess hope springs eternal or something. Ialda absorbs folks and can recreate them at will. But not always, apparently. I think had Ialda been better explored, I wouldn’t have so much of an issue here. Plus, everything about the plan is done in the opposite way of “show don’t tell”.
Finally, Negi’s plan depended on luck. We don’t know when Negi came up with the plan, but let’s assume it was after Asuna came back for the first time. Everything depends on Touta making the correct choices. I don’t remember Touta getting briefed on any plan from Negi, therefore Touta’s choices had to luck into being the ones that would help Negi’s plan. I don’t like writing were things happen ’cause “plot”.
Show Don’t Tell
Earlier, I mentioned how Akamatsu-sensei is violating the “show don’t tell” principle of story telling. I realize that a lot of this is due to the need to just wrap things up in a short time. So something that might ordinarily take many weekly chapters get compressed to 40 pages.
As such, UQ Holder Chapter 191 doesn’t show up much. Realistically, we would have seen how UQ Holder overcame Jack, Al, Setsuna, and Konoka. But more to that, there’s the whole deal with Honoka and Isana. Setsuna and Konoka are apparently their grandparents (and since they are obvious clones, I guess 2nd generation clones). But we’ve never had an acknowledgement of anything here.
Another thing we aren’t shown is how Yue, Nodoka, Chisame, Homura, Koyomi, and Shiori were manifested in order to be saved. It is just that Akamatsu-sensei wanted them there, so they are there. “Don’t ask questions!” 😑 But I do ask questions. And frankly, I wish we could have seen how the Mage of the Beginning defeated them all when they were part of Negi’s crew. (Asuna we know about.)
Also, why only Homura, Koyomi, and Shiori? What about Shirabe and Tamaki? All five were part of Fate’s crew. And I think the two of them were part of Negi’s battle against Ialda however many years before.
Chachamaru, Zazie, and Mana
While I think it is appropriate to see Zazie, Mana, and Chachamaru in UQ Holder Chapter 191, I’m not a fan of them just showing up ’cause “reasons”. There is an implication that somehow, Ialda absorbed them as well. If so, when?
When we last saw Zazie, Mana, and Chachamaru, it was ages ago. Then Akamatsu-sensei kinda put them on the shelf, even though they could have been interesting allies for UQ Holder. In fact, they were set up as allies, but because UQ Holder has wandered to and fro as a series, they got lost in the shuffle.
To me, it makes no sense that Ialda was able to absorb them. In fact, I feel all three characters should have been with UQ Holder when they were going to initially assault Ialda to save Negi. Had that happened, then I might have been OK with how the girls returned in this chapter. As it is, this is Akamatsu-sensei going, “Oh yeah, those there. Well, here they are. Now STOP asking questions and vote for me in the upcoming election!”
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I’m taking a break from work to write this, so let me wrap up things here by adding some final thoughts.
- Where is Zect in this mess? He supposedly defeated Ialda, so why wasn’t he around? I mean Nagi was brought back, so why not Zect? Unless Zect was never there and was actually always working with MotB.
- And in that vein, what happened to the others whom Ialda has possessed over the eons?
- And I predict that there will be no Chao.
In the end, UQ Holder Chapter 191 goes at warp speed to end the series with the next chapter. Unfortunately, this leaves for an unsatisfying journey and a lot of things are told to us instead of showing us. But I did like the return of old Negima! faces and Touta’s thoughts to the beginning of UQ Holder. And I liked Karin getting a moment when she attacked Yukihime. But I do NOT want him ending up with Eva/Yukihime.
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Well, there is only one chapter left, and after reading this chapter, I don’t know how to express it, it seems that Evangeline will die (I hope not, because after 191 chapters waiting to see if she chooses Negi or Touta and that it seems that everyone will be saved by the pin of the nakama power, the last straw would be that she was the only one who was not able to save herself) Apart from all the time that it was wanted that she was happy and that she would be saved. I don’t know how Negi was able to save everyone, nor if Asuna, Setsuna, etc, they are an illusion or are real, nor if the next chapter the battle will be over and this will have an epilogue of 40 pages or more. The manga is almost finished, several questions are left unresolved, well, as I said, I hope Evangeline does not die and see at least who she stays with, at least that.
PS: Happy new year!
Happy new year to you as well.
I didn’t state it in my review, but I can see Touta killing himself for Eva.
Oh, if anyone is guaranteed to survive this that’s Evangeline. She’s got one of the strongest immortalities, she ties into the end of Negima, and mostly, the protagonist’s goal is saving her. She’s 100% sure to survive.
Everyone else is kind of likely to be set for a heroic sacrifice or last stand, disappointing as that would be.
I’ve thought that at the end of this, we might get a big reset.
We did see how Ialda defeated Chisame, didn’t we? When she was killed traumatizing Negi?
Same thing for Nodoka and Yue.
Were they all killed again at the chapter’s end when Charon explodes? Right after being brought back, too?
We may have seen Chisame, Yue, and Nodoka “dying”. I can’t remember, and I haven’t reread UQ Holder in ages. But that’s less about UQ Holder and more about my insanely busy life.
As to whether they were killed again, I actually hadn’t thought about that. But you are right. They may all be dead and all that’s left is the immortals of UQ Holder.
Negi is immortal as well so killing all of his friends all over again right in front of him… well, that would be quite a dark way to leave him by the end of the series.
That, and they’d just been brought back. They didn’t even supply that much extra firepower combined to the monsters of UQ Holder, especially if they were just going to be treated as cannon fodder, so going out of the way to resurrect and kill them in a single chapter would seem gratuitous overkill.
https://anime.astronerdboy.com/2018/05/uq-holder-chapter-148-manga-review.html
Chapter 148, btw. I just searched for your review of it after thinking back of it myself.
Heh. Wow. How much I’ve forgotten. 😅 Thanks for uncovering this.
In the Negima! days, every time a new volume was released, I’d reread the whole series again, ending with the latest volume. With UQ Holder, I initially started that, but whatever volume is the last one here is the last one I read. I still buy them all, but they are on the massive pile of unread manga that I’ve bought but still haven’t read. Kinda sad really.
I think that when I go to do a full review of UQ Holder, I may go back and reread the whole thing.
Think nothing of it. Happy to help you.
Just to clear some things up…
Nodoka and Yue had achieved some form of immortality or at least cease aging by forming a formal contract with Negi.
Ku Nel and Jack Rakan are just broken and unexplainable, so just accept it. Alberio Imma 2as most likely an immortal whilst Jack Rakan I honestly don’t know how to explain his existence
These 4 didn’t die, but was corrupted and absorbed by Ialda.
Chisame died, unless the attack on her had her absorbed. The fate girls were absorbed… and given how they haven’t grown they might be immortal or artificial…
Nodoka and Setsuna are unexplainable… granted they had been cloned so I assume it was due to them not having kids. Personally I think they are replica made from Negi memory of them.
Zazie and Mana are immortal, Zazie being a demon folk ans Mana a half demon.
Chachamaru is a robot so technically, she should be around.
Technically everyone you see there is ‘immortal’ one way or another but remember the first chapter, immortal doesn’t mean unkillable, it can mean eternal youth, high speed healing, hard to kill or so forth
I don’t recall it being established that the Mazoku are immortal.
Back in negima, Negi was known for delay spells and thinking ahead… this is very typically Negi and as a result, it feels like the whole series is one big filler until Negi can execute it.
I wonder if the person being called in to help with the time freeze will be Chao Lingshen…
If not maybe Cutlass?
There some drawing imperfections or oddness in Super Touta look… I hate his feet, they should have kept his semi demon characteristics
Ultimately, absorbing Negi was Ialda’s downfall
Hahaha! You may be right about that last bit. And I don’t disagree that Negi was a planner. Its just that once absorbed people succumb to Ialda, they don’t seem to have a will of their own. And even if they did have their own thoughts, one would think that since Ialda has 100% control over them, she’d know it.
I don’t think we actually saw how Negi saved Nagi in the other timeline. But Negi is the common factor in Ialda’s downfall.
I think the main difference between the two timeline was Asuna and her Magic Cancel. Apparently by pairing his Royal Blood and Magia Erebea with her Magic Cancel is what ended Ialda for good and Release Nagi from possession and prevent Negi from being possessed just like the series original ending.
In UQ Holder, without Asuna… Negi was able to beat Nagi-Ialda, force her out but was able to kill her due to lacking Asuna and Magic Cancel. Therefore the cloning plan and having Touta created is to have someone with Magia Erebea and Magic Cancel
Not only that, kid teacher managed to resist possession, come up with contingencies upon contingencies with back up plans having its own back up plans and basically cheating his way to absolute victory. Therefore I am not surprised, given this is very classic Negi Springfield.
Upon full possession their was nothing he could do and I doubt Ialda is one who cares or think about much, so Negi pulling a reverse uno, stealing minions, freeing himself and others and going in for a final blows is very him…
Keep in mind he had 10 strategic strategy to deal with Jack Rakan and then even an emergency reserve that surprised even Jack when he thought Negi had no magic left (Jupiter Thunderstorm for a final power up and slug fest)
Maluku being immortal, I think UQ Holder plays on all kinds of immortality, as in you don’t have to be eternal, you can be long lived and be considered immortal. After all, they were with Negi and Eva when they fought Nagi Ilada when the immortal hunters had a flashback. Basically those two aren’t user immortal but they should still be immortal in a sense…
At this point, I do wonder if Akamatsu-sensei has all of the threads down.
It shouldn’t be Cutlass since Negi told Touta the person he’d be calling is someone Touta doesn’t know. Negi-Ialda was there when Cutlass fought Touta so he should know that Touta and Cutlass are familiar with each other.
Chao Lingshen most likely as she is yhe descendant of Negi Springfield
Chao won’t exist in this timeline. I think it was established that the cannon Negima timeline and the UQ Holder timeline were formed due to her interference.
Honestly, all I’m interested at this point is seeing is the person who surprised Fate at the end of the chapter is Arika, Negi’s mother. I can totally see Akamatsu pulling this off, saying that Ialda took Arika as a host after Filius Zect and then Nagi when he tried to save her. This would break the Nagi-Negi-Touta-Eva love square, giving Arika to Nagi, Chisame to Negi and Eva to Touta.
Hahaha! Well, I have my doubts about Arika, but you could be right. That would give Negi the ultimate good ending, getting both his parents back.
She has a Multi-dimensional device. One for Time Travel and Time Manipulation and another for mutli-dimensional crossing. It seems time manipulation was an important point bought up in the previous chapter so if it isn’t Chao, Cutlass, the cat girl in Fate’s group or even Kirie, then the only person that fits the bill is Dana
But it is someone he doesn’t know or at least learned about so it is most likely Chao unless it is a completely random character with random ability that we never knew about so Arika maybe but then she is unneccessary
Knowing Akamatsu, he could pull a new character out of nowhere and not even have them appear on-screen. Remember how we still don’t know who countered Kirie’s power back during the orbital tower attack by Ba’all?
I’m glad I checked out of this series years ago. I only recently started skimming through it again since it’s close to ending and more Negima is happening. It’s as bad as always. I’m glad to see Touta got to enjoy his harem. Not many harem protagonist get that, but the moment he sealed the deal with them, he lost an right to be with Eva. It would be the most insulting thing Akamatsu has ever written if he reduces Eva to the status of Touta’s 4th cumdump…
I’ll admit, I didn’t think Akamatsu-sensei would really go the full battle harem route. He seemed so keen on making the “megane girl” (Kirie) the one and only.
As to Touta x Eva, I’ve been opposed to that from the first time it was proposed.
Just one more chapter to end, I was really happy until it started with the harem . I thought Kuromaru will be the winner or at least that they would have a better part in the story, that they find a goal, an incredible battle, and that Touta will end with another girl after a good developing but no, harem route was easier. I’m really dissapointed. Thank you AstronerdBoy for your reviews of the chapters, so I can see how the story goes because I don’t read the manga anymore
You’re welcome. Always glad to help!