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I have been having something I have noticed about Akamatsu's storytelling over the course I have read UQ Holder and Negima.
I would say Akamatsu can make cool and decent characters... But only on a short-term. I have the impression the good characters he makes are designed to work for a specific story arc. The prime examples are Setsuna, Santa and now Kuroumaru.
Setsuna's case wasn't that bad because after Kyoto, she did have good friendship moments with Negi and Asuna and some cute moments with Konoka that made Setsuna feel like she had a well-defined place in the main cast.
Santa and Kuroumaru are the only UQ Holder characters that have the merit of having short plotlines not tied to Negima or one of its characters. Unlike say, Karin who would be way more interesting if her characterization didn't sum up to Yukihime's fanatical worshipper and Touta's tsundere 2.0. Hell, even Karin's backstory with Yukihime is ignored in-universe because we saw latest chapter that everyone thinks Yukihime always worked alone with zero recognition to Karin and Jinbei. You would think a female Judas with holy magic and S ranked immortality would be more of the great Dark Evangel's equal, but no because that could knock Yukihime off that pedestal Akamatsu has made for her.
Santa and Kuroumaru have past connections to new characters to make them feel fresh (Sayoko for Santa and Kiroumaru for Kuroumaru). The basis of the relationships Santa and Kuroumaru have with Touta were also not forced compared to all the rest of his "harem" and immortal "friends". However, outside of their own arcs, Santa and Kuroumaru act like cardboard cutouts that only exist to hang around Touta while he goes off to become more OP via convenient new trainer or is being teased with either Yukihime or Kirie again.
As decent as their individual plotlines might be, Santa and Kuroumaru lack distinguished, interesting or funny personality traits that make them stand out on their own. Santa hasn't even mentioned Sayoko ever since she passed on and Kuroumaru never payed mind to Kiroumaru until now that he's being dropped into the plot in the middle of the finishing line. Therefore, the manga needs to temporarily diminish the importance of everyone else, force a situation that pushes them into the center stage (the zombie apocalypse and now the immortal hunters) and put all of Touta's attention on Santa and Kuroumaru to make them relevant.
Although, that's really a problem UQ Holder's cast has as a whole. They're only relevant depending on how much of Touta's attention they have at the time or how contrived their broken superpowers are for whatever the plot needs.
Cases like Asuna are just... weird. I really do think Akamatsu had a character arc in mind for her with the whole thing of the human weapon and Takamichi's mentor's death. But I guess he dropped Asuna's character development when the plot he came up with only needed her Magic Cancel and nothing else. That's the tragedy of Asuna. She stopped being treated like a character the moment the plot entered a setting that should have expanded her backstory and left it as an unresolved mystery.
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