(L) UQ Holder (Ken Akamatsu's new series)

[Ultragunner]

Originally Posted by Sixth

It also ruined Eva's image. In Negima Eva is elegant, powerful and smart. Now, she is acting like a slut for Springfield bloodline.

maybe because Dana is right? That despite years of overcoming hardships and adversities with a tough attitude, Eva is still a lonely little girl inside.....


and yes, I agree that Touta is the heir apparent to the Springfield's bloodline

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Originally Posted by Endscape

This may shock you, but there are people who read this series and haven't read Negima. As an author, Akamatsu has to cater to them as well.

It's pointless to market a series as a sequel (even changing the title to reflect it further) if you're assuming people haven't followed the original. If he wanted something easily accesible to new readers he should have done an all new work, if he wanted a true sequel he shouldn't have jumped 80 years ahead and then badly filled the HUGE holes during that span while at the same time trying to tell a new story. You can't really have your cake and eat it without being more skilled than Akamatsu is.

that doesn't change that it's necessary for the overall story.

I don't think so. By now it feels like pandering and padding to something we already know the general strokes of.

Your preferences aren't Akamatsu's. Yes, maybe it would have been better too show the Good End last as a send off to the characters of Negima.

But as a part of UQ Holder's narrative, showing the Bad End last highlights the tragedy that enveloped the world, and created all the issues in this story.

Considering this story is inferior to the original, sacrificing the later's interests for the former's doesn't strike me as a good idea (and sales figures would seem to imply I'm not alone in this, so maybe it's not only MY preferences that aren't Akamatsu's, an excuse that could be used to bypass any deliberate narrative misstep an author does anyway. Lots of terrible things across all media have come to be because the authors wanted them to be that way, they're as flawed as any of us). But to each their own.

But why does the author want to push Eva x Negi/Nagi that far ?? The only reason I can see is that this will act as a plot device for Touta's growth. Although to be fair, pairing Eva with every of the Springfields does create unnecessary discord and awkwardness.

The problem is nothing of this NTR feeling nonsense would be happening if Akamatsu had done what he should have and kept Touta and Evangeline's relationship as that of a mother figure and her son. You know, the way it was in the beginning when Touta's reaction to seeing Eva naked was the same we'd have when seeing our mothers walk out of the shower with no towel on. And in turn, she thought of him as a boy under her care. The retcon where their relationship is a romantic one pretty much came out of nowhere and has done more damage than good for the series; it gets in the other ships' ways (and worse, in the way of narrative inner logic) for the sake of fetish and because Evangeline is popular and Akamatsu wants to pander to her fans.

[KPSJ]

Touta should just move on from eva there are much better girls for him to choose from.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by KPSJ

Touta should just move on from eva there are much better girls for him to choose from.

Problem is Akamatsu is pushing for Kirie and that's a pretty big downgrade from Eva.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

For all her flaws, Kirie at least is not his mother figure and isn't in love with anyone else.

Kuromaru would be the best option for him, though.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Touta should have a battle harem and choose them all, sans Eva.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by NapoleonDeCheese

For all her flaws, Kirie at least is not his mother figure and isn't in love with anyone else.

They only lived together for three years. That hardly makes her a mother figure. And it's not like they are related or anything. I honestly don't see the issue.

[Twi]

Years doesn't equate to whether or not he sees her as a mother figure, it's the experience. She's largely been his mother in all but name. And while I don't particularly care about that aspect, I will admit that that the messages are getting mixed from her perspective.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by NapoleonDeCheese

It's pointless to market a series as a sequel (even changing the title to reflect it further) if you're assuming people haven't followed the original. If he wanted something easily accesible to new readers he should have done an all new work, if he wanted a true sequel he shouldn't have jumped 80 years ahead and then badly filled the HUGE holes during that span while at the same time trying to tell a new story. You can't really have your cake and eat it without being more skilled than Akamatsu is.

This is a non argument. Whatever your views of Akamatsu's skills are or what he should or should not have done, the fact remains that as a writer, he has to write for people that may not have read Negima.

I don't think so. By now it feels like pandering and padding to something we already know the general strokes of.

Some things in a story can be brushed of as background info. This isn't one of them.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

They only lived together for three years. That hardly makes her a mother figure. And it's not like they are related or anything. I honestly don't see the issue.

She's the only mother he's ever known. The amount of time they spent together doesn't really factor into it.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Endscape

She's the only mother he's ever known.

Point is she's not his mother. At most he saw her as a big sister but that's about it. The potential for a romantic angle was always there from the start.

[SilverGlavenus]

Inb4 Dana shows her true true form, which is absolutely stunning and becomes the new main heroine. She will help Touta defeat MotB in a blink of an eye and then we can finally move onto the high vampires arc.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Point is she's not his mother. At most he saw her as a big sister but that's about it. The potential for a romantic angle was always there from the start.

The Japanese fetish Akamatsu-sensei is tapping into is called inseki, since Eva and Touta aren't related. For those who don't know, inseki is similar to incest, only it is sexual relations between in-laws, step-family members, or adopted family members. There's still an incestuous vibe without it actually being incest.

Clearly, Akamatsu-sensei set up Eva as the MILF (if you'll pardon the term), who's now been given care of a young teen boy with no memories. She becomes the only mother figure he's ever known. I never got the feeling that Touta saw Eva (Yukihime) as an older sister. I think he did see her in a motherly way, especially back in the early days when he made negative comments about her "old" body.

I don't think that originally, Touta was supposed to fall for Eva. If anything, it seemed that Akamatsu-sensei was steering away from romance stuff, save maybe for Kuroumaru shifting to a lovely girl. But once Akamatsu-sensei got pulled back to the harem stuff and used Touta to do Eva's backstory, he had a ready inseki fetish established and ran with it.

Frankly, I want Touta to move on and just get his bloody battle harem.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Some things in a story can be brushed of as background info. This isn't one of them.

Let's just agree to disagree. I don't think this needs months and months of spinning in place in the past with grating Wangst any more than Ala Rubra would have needed months of detailing their breakup (I know Rakan's flashback lasted a few chapters, but they were shorter chapters in a WEEKLY series and were over with way faster than this).

he has to write for people that may not have read Negima.

He 'has to' because he stuck himself in a situation where he made a sequel that doesn't work as a sequel while still insisting it's a sequel except when it isn't, in the first place. Still bad writing and worse planning.

And yeah, like ANB said, Eva is the only figure Touta's ever known who fills the 'parent' role, and that's something all children need to have as a life reference in their lives. Deny it as much as you want, no matter how much anime fetishization has shaped us into accepting incest (and not all incestuous behavior is of the blood relation type, or justified if it isn't), this still steps past that line. YMMV on how 'right' or 'wrong' that becomes in a setting that by now barely clings on current real life parameters (everything in UQ Holder seems to run on Non Senseoleum to some degree or another).

That being said, I don't think 'battle harem' is a sensible route for this series either. Unlike with Negima, it'd be like slamming a square peg into a round hole. Touta's not the kind of man Negi was; Negi was, by virtue of wishy-washiness, the kind of guy who would allow other girls to keep gravitating around him even after he'd made his decision on romantic subjects. Touta is the kind who takes a decision early (as much as I think WHO that decision is makes no real sense, but the fact he decides quickly, in its own, is logical since he's very direct and straight to the point) and then sticks to it stubbornly while making it clear for everyone around him.

Touta's the typical Shounen Action Hero a la Ichigo or Naruto while Negi is a mixture of actual Harem Lead with Shounen Action Hero. What works for one doesn't have to work for the other. Touta is more of a platonic Nakama guy with his partners and in turn they work best when they reply in turn instead of forcing romance with him.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by NapoleonDeCheese

Let's just agree to disagree. I don't think this needs months and months of spinning in place in the past with grating Wangst any more than Ala Rubra would have needed months of detailing their breakup (I know Rakan's flashback lasted a few chapters, but they were shorter chapters in a WEEKLY series and were over with way faster than this).

Just because it takes a while does not diminsh the need for this story to be told, since it's kind of pivotal to the plot and the characters.

He 'has to' because he stuck himself in a situation where he made a sequel that doesn't work as a sequel while still insisting it's a sequel except when it isn't, in the first place. Still bad writing and worse planning.

Whether or not Akamatsu should have made UQ Holder a sequel is irrelevant. The fact is, he did, so he has to take into account people who didn't read Negima. He can't just write something that only Negima fans would get.

That would be the worst planning ever.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

it's kind of pivotal to the plot and the characters.

I stick to what I already said with the Ala Rubra comparison.

Whether or not Akamatsu should have made UQ Holder a sequel is irrelevant.

Au contraire, it's the whole root of the series' overall problem. Pretty much all of its major organization, narrative, priorities and structure issues steem from this key core problem.

The fact is, he did

Well, that's like saying "He built this bridge on faulty materials, but it's already built, so he might as well put fancy ornaments on it so people walk on a well decorated faulty structure".

By this point the best he could do to savage the series is moving on ahead and away from the Negima stuff he should have issued somewhere else instead of just keeping on picking on the wound, which by now isn't bleeding anymore but filling with pus.

[dragon1412]

I think the issues was the fact that Akamatsu is trying to push the issues of Negima too deeply rather than being connected to Negima is an issue. Up until the Slum arc and Santa arc to an extent. The story work perfectly fine even without reading Negima. It is the involvement of Fate and Negi later make the story turn the way it is. The story was definitely ok before it and people considered more of a alternative timeline or same universe kind of stories. Which is work fairly well. What really the issues is : Ken trying to pull Ialda again as the last boss; which roused Negi's issues and the story is forced to connected to Negi again as why Ialda isn't finished. Which opened up entire Negi's storyline as requirement to even make sense of what happened that lead to the events of UQ holder.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by AstroNerdBoy

I don't think that originally, Touta was supposed to fall for Eva.

I disagree. I think it was clear he was going in that direction since Tota saw Eva in her true form for the first time which was pretty early (way before the Dana chapters).

Originally Posted by AstroNerdBoy

Frankly, I want Touta to move on and just get his bloody battle harem.

Harem ending is just a cop out so the author doesn't have to potentially piss off part of the fanbase. This kind of cowardly shit is cancer and should be avoided. Harem ending should only happen when the author sets things up from beginning (think High School DxD).

I'm not saying Touta has to end with Eva. But Akamatsu has to stop being a little shit and give him a true partner at the end, even if that ends up being Kirie (and I don't even like Kirie).

[XFire]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

I disagree. I think it was clear he was going in that direction since Tota saw Eva in her true form for the first time which was pretty early (way before the Dana chapters).



Harem ending is just a cop out so the author doesn't have to potentially piss off part of the fanbase. This kind of cowardly shit is cancer and should be avoided. Harem ending should only happen when the author sets things up from beginning (think High School DxD).

I'm not saying Touta has to end with Eva. But Akamatsu has to stop being a little shit and give him a true partner at the end, even if that ends up being Kirie (and I don't even like Kirie).

"Harems" that don't result in an actual harem ending are stupid in concept and generally execution since it only results in all but one of those characters effectively getting a bad end and leaving a bitter aftertaste in the readers mouth.

The entire concept leads to a fractured fanbase warring over who is best and why and then we get the Nisekoi thread and 100 pages of pure unfiltered venom.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by XFire

"Harems" that don't result in an actual harem ending are stupid in concept and generally execution since it only results in all but one of those characters effectively getting a bad end and leaving a bitter aftertaste in the readers mouth.

I agree, but only if they are true harems in concept. UQ Holder isn't. It added harem hijinks half way. And Akamatsu needs to grow the balls to have Tota end up with one of the girls, even if the one is Kirie.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

I think the main condition for harems choosing a single girl or all of them should be whether it wastes the girl's development or not.

Most often, adding girls just feels like setting them up for an eventual waste of their time and their shippers' by story's end. It's like authors have this chcklist of archetype characters they feel they have to cover no matter how badly, even when it's clear they're not getting anywhere. And that's the worst thing you can do with your characters, not taking them anywhere.

I mean, in Love Hina, even if Motoko and Shinobu lost, they at least felt like interaction with Keitaro made them grow into better adjusted people by the end, and Mutsumi, Kaolla and Mitsune were really kinda static characters from the start so their relative lack of development didn't feel like a big loss (and I say this as a major Mutsumi fan). Fair enough. That's one of the things Hina did better than most harems. But most often it just feels like the authors just set things up for a mass fall, whether by not solving the issue and leaving everyone dangling (To Love Ru, FREAKING TWICE!) or by just wrapping things up with one player and leaving the rest hanging.

Negima/UQ Holder kind of sits in the fence in that in one timeline one girl wins (but it's never correctly told HOW that came to be, robbing the resolution of the whole point) and in the other NOBODY wins. A flop and a disappointment either way, but because of different reasons. The former was the minor evil (as much of a Chisame fan as I am), but really, no girl in the cast would have deserved such a badly made, mostly off-panel, romantic resolution. Even so, by now what's done is done and it's better to move away from the freaking past already. Negima's own lack of closure is now threatening robbing UQ Holder of its own kind of closure, because time and effort and pages that could be used to set UQ's own resolutions up are being used on harping on Negima's loose ends that just can't be fixed satisfactorily so long after the actual fact, by a time when almost everyone those things mattered for are already dead or a mere revenant.