AnimeSuki Forums

Kazu-kun · 2017-03-11, 08:28

Yeah, I don't remember how strong Eva was in Negima, but in UQ Holder I think Tota already surpassed her or is pretty close to do so. She didn't do shit in this fight. Kirie herself was a lot more useful.

SleepingTerror · 2017-03-11, 12:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Yeah, I don't remember how strong Eva was in Negima, but in UQ Holder I think Tota already surpassed her or is pretty close to do so. She didn't do shit in this fight. Kirie herself was a lot more useful.

And that bothers me so much >.>
Touta outclassing the other members of UQ.. A bit ridiculous, but I can overlook it.
Touta outclassing Eva? What? Negi's mentor?

Tenzen12 · 2017-03-11, 13:23

In UQ holder Eva fought like three times, twice of that she was in trouble because of Touta. Problem is she can't fight on same as Touta as she is still much stronger. Touta being protagonist can't have his kills stolen by his master all time.

SleepingTerror · 2017-03-11, 16:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

In UQ holder Eva fought like three times, twice of that she was in trouble because of Touta. Problem is she can't fight on same as Touta as she is still much stronger. Touta being protagonist can't have his kills stolen by his master all time.

This isn't training or some minor villain. Eva is actively trying to fight and win - except Touta and the rest of UQ are the ones actually doing the work. I want to believe Eva is still stronger, but this manga isn't doing a very good job at portraying that.

Homura7 · 2017-03-11, 18:11

Eva vs Fate, nuff said. And it wasn't even a serious fight.

n0m@n · 2017-03-11, 18:20

I read Negima till like v16 and stopped after that due to losing interest in the plot. Then just skimmed through the last volume of Negima when it came out.

Started reading UQ holder and even though Eva appeared, I still looked it as a different story as Negima. But then the old casts started popping up.... Sigh. Would liked it if they didn't . Pretty much a sequel of Negima now. Love Hina is Akamatsu's only series I don't have any negative opinion about now.

Hopefully the story becomes interesting from here with the end of that long one-sided battle.

NapoleonDeCheese · 2017-03-11, 19:47

That's the thing, though:

This isn't an actual sequel, no matter if Akamatsu calls it Negima 2 now, because it doesn't continue any of the plot threads left by Negima ('beat the Mage of the Beginning' doesn't count, because back then that was 'beat NAGI', not 'beat NEGI'), the overwhelming majority of the Negima cast is gone, and the leftover elements from that series form whole new threads to follow because none of them were an issue when Negima ended (mainly Negi being posessed).

But it doesn't stand well on its own anymore either because by this point knowledge of Negima is necessary to understand what's the reasoning behind this series' core arc.

So UQ Holder fails both at being a proper sequel and at being its own thing, precisely because it tried to be both at once.

Homura7 · 2017-03-11, 20:16

Pff, what a bunch of nonsense. UQ Holder isn't its own thing. IT IS AND IT HAS BEEN, FROM THE VERY BEGGINING, a Negima sequel, no matter how much you want to insist it isn't.

The story already started with Eva telling her life, making it clear she wasn't just going to make a cameo.

Shippuu · 2017-03-11, 20:43

I suppose it depends on how technical you want to be.

In the Negima timeline Asuna went back in time and Nagi was saved and the Lifemaker defeated only a few years after the climax.
In Holder she doesn't go back in time and Nagi is presumably dead and some 80 years later Negi is possessed.

In Negima magic was revealed a few years after the climax, while in Holder it was only made public some 70 years later.

There's a lot of strange things going on and unless Akamatsu has some space-time-bending twist or reset button in store this is not a sequel to Negima's plot, as it was already tied up, no matter how poorly it was done, and more along the lines of a alternate universe what-if spin-off.

NapoleonDeCheese · 2017-03-11, 21:53

To qualify as an actual sequel, something has to pick up actual plotlines from the previous series.

UQ Holder is something that happens 80 years after Negima, picking no actual plotline Negima left on, and using a mostly all new cast. It's a sequel in name, inasmuch Akamatsu dropped a 'Negima 2' on it to try and sell more, but I think of it as a spinoff rather than a sequel. It doesn't even seem to be set in the same timeline Negima ended at.

AstroNerdBoy · 2017-03-12, 02:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by NapoleonDeCheese

To qualify as an actual sequel, something has to pick up actual plotlines from the previous series.

I think from early on, you can tell that this is exactly what Akamatsu-sensei planned to do with UQ Holder. I'm not sure if he planned to do things exactly as he's done them at preset, but I do believe he planned to have Touta become "Negi" (the rapid power up and use of powers that Negi had without training) and take up Negi's ultimate quest against MotB. That way, he could use UQH to resolve plot threads from Negima.

You are correct that UQ Holder is a spinoff, but only in part. It is a spinoff-sequel series. It is a spinoff in that it uses some new characters and a new setting. In this regard, UQ Holder had to establish itself first. It is a sequel in that from the first chapter, it is immediately hard-linked to Negima, mostly through Eva, but also through Touta.

I've long stated my belief that Akamatsu-sensei wanted UQ Holder to be more like Fairy Tail rather than Negima. By that, I mean that Akamatsu-sensei just wanted to write adventure stories and then touch the Negima plot threads from time to time. But, since most fans wanted the Negima plot threads resolved and weren't that interested in the random adventure stories (especially since Touta was such an unlikable main character on multiple fronts in those early days).

Now, Akamatsu-sensei has been forced to shift UQ Holder into Negima 2. I suspect that from here on, we will only deal with stories that advance plot threads left dangling from Negima, sans whatever harem hijinks stories get told. Whether they get to all of the dangling Negima plot threads or not will depend on how the anime and subsequent manga sales do.

NapoleonDeCheese · 2017-03-12, 08:58

What he originally did was trying to loosely rewrite Negima's dangling threads rather than following on them.

You can sense, had Negima actually continued, Evangeline would have brought Negi himself into the world of immortals, there they might have met Dana, Ikkuu's role would probably be played by a tagalong Chachamaru, and so on. All the while Negi's current role would still be played by Nagi.

That's another part of why UQ Holder feels so much like a patchwork job, one gets the idea it's largely brought from ideas that weren't applied on Negima in its due time rather than on things that flow naturally from the normal passage of time. Then again, it's hard to feature a believable flow of time where you skip eighty years. More often than not, big time skips that prevent us from seeing vital parts of the narrative hurt stories and come across as attempts to spare the writer dificult things to write (like most of the cast dying or retiring) and invoke shock value.

But if you didn't want to write something that hurts the audience's feelings, you shouldn't bring that into your story in the first place. The best example before UQ was the moment where Negi tells Asuna he was going to sacrifice her and her acceptance, which should have been THE key, most dramatic and important moment in their relationship, but was jumped over just because Akamatsu wants to show the consequences of drama after the fact, but not the dramatic moments themselves.

Ditto with Arika's fate and such. Akamatsu just takes the cowardly way out by trying to have his cake and eat it-- he implies of the bad things happening but doesn't have the courage to actually show them happening. And if you're doing that you should have stuck to doing happy go-lucky romantic comedy instead.

EDIT: So, um, Fairy Tail 526, which comes in the same magazine as the Negima Extra, is already out.

So...?

Crap, by now nobody cares enough as to scan and post it around, right?

AstroNerdBoy · 2017-03-13, 00:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by NapoleonDeCheese

You can sense, had Negima actually continued, Evangeline would have brought Negi himself into the world of immortals, there they might have met Dana, Ikkuu's role would probably be played by a tagalong Chachamaru, and so on. All the while Negi's current role would still be played by Nagi.

I don't disagree there. I'm not sure if Dana would have been there or not as she feels like a late addition to the manga. In Negima, Eva was the feared shinso vampire, but then in UQH, she becomes the faux shinso vampire and who's afraid of a fake? But I digress...

Quote:

That's another part of why UQ Holder feels so much like a patchwork job, one gets the idea it's largely brought from ideas that weren't applied on Negima in its due time rather than on things that flow naturally from the normal passage of time. Then again, it's hard to feature a believable flow of time where you skip eighty years. More often than not, big time skips that prevent us from seeing vital parts of the narrative hurt stories and come across as attempts to spare the writer dificult things to write (like most of the cast dying or retiring) and invoke shock value.

I don't disagree there. That certainly breaks the flow.

Quote:

Ditto with Arika's fate and such. Akamatsu just takes the cowardly way out by trying to have his cake and eat it-- he implies of the bad things happening but doesn't have the courage to actually show them happening. And if you're doing that you should have stuck to doing happy go-lucky romantic comedy instead.

This is going to feel self-serving in a way, but I've always thought that Arika is a retcon character. No one, including Negi, speaks of Negi's mother. Considering Arika's position and the fact that she married Nagi, she should have been talked about as much as Nagi. Instead, Arika is just suddenly introduced as Negi's mom. Negi is like, "Whoa! I have a mom. I never thought about her before. Cool." We get backstory, but then she's dropped like a hot potato. I personally think that she's dropped because she was retconned in, and to explore her more causes massive problems in the established narrative. [/quote]

Quote:

EDIT: So, um, Fairy Tail 526, which comes in the same magazine as the Negima Extra, is already out.

So...?

Crap, by now nobody cares enough as to scan and post it around, right?

I looked in places that I check for UQH spoilers, but I haven't seen anything yet. Kinda surprising.

Ultragunner · 2017-03-13, 03:46

I wonder if I'm one of the few who genuinely look forward to every new chapter of UQ?
For instance, I quite enjoy Touta as a protagonist, to me he's a better Naruto/Ichigo

Maybe I just don't have it in me to analyse stuffs or make connection to Negima every month.

Don't get me wrong, I just wish I could join you guys in such discusson

NAJ P. Jackson · 2017-03-13, 06:42

@Ultragunner
You're not alone. I like Tota as a protagonist either. And because I'm not attached to the characters of Negima that I can enjoy Akamatsu's new series. Some readers have difficultty accepting Tota because they are still attached to Negi as a protagonist and him suddenly becoming the Antagonist of the manga have thrown them for a loop.

Tenzen12 · 2017-03-13, 06:45

Yeah I genuinely like UQ holder myself. I am not even ashamed say, that in many aspects I consider it superior to Negima.

NapoleonDeCheese · 2017-03-13, 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ultragunner

to me he's a better Naruto/Ichigo

No offense intended, but that's not exactly a high bar.

Touta's not unlikable, you come to care about the kid and wish him well, it's just his progression as a protagonist figure is very badly handled and all over the place.

I actually find Touta somewhat more relatable than Endgame Negi, who had grown so dettached from the class and the rest of the world as this Messiah who was faster and smarter and stronger and overall better than everybody else he felt downright alien. Then again, the earlier Negi who was just an underdog struggling hard to live up to his father's legacy was a better handled protagonist.

Magia Erebea and his change from team player who needed a group around him to spotlight stealing standard uberpowered solo frontline fighter in the vein of Goku pretty much ruined, not only Negi as a character, but the whole dynamics of Ala Alba.

Touta's getting there in terms of power, and way faster than Negi did, but in terms of personality there's no denying he feels more down to earth and human than Post Magia Erebea achievement Negi.

That being said, Negi as the antagonist is a bad move because, not only is a rehash of the situation with Nagi, but Touta doesn't have the link with Negi Negi himself had developed with Nagi (through their very brief but extremely important contact) meaning their relationship suffers as a result in comparison. If the Lifemaker happened to become, let's say, a posessed Evangeline, THAT would be very meaningful to Touta and a powerful plot twist.

n0m@n · 2017-03-17, 01:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by NAJ P. Jackson

@Ultragunner
You're not alone. I like Tota as a protagonist either. And because I'm not attached to the characters of Negima that I can enjoy Akamatsu's new series. Some readers have difficultty accepting Tota because they are still attached to Negi as a protagonist and him suddenly becoming the Antagonist of the manga have thrown them for a loop.

I'm the type who roots for the new main character over old main character. Hence the reason why I wasn't even excited about old casts appearing

If Negi was a support character then it wouldn't have been bad or if he was like a role-model character for the protagonist or someone who influences the protagonist for his growth (like Quattro Bagina). Wonder if it will turn out like GSD where Kira eventually stole the show and shining moment from Shinn. So at the end Negi becomes the true MC of UQ holder lol (sarcasm).

NAJ P. Jackson · 2017-03-17, 02:03

^Shinn was a shitty MC so they had to bring Kira back to appease the viewers. I heard they were planning to kill off Kira at first but abandoned that iidea because it was so unpopular. GSD was poorly written that even Athrun's character got messed up. Bringing back Kira and the Archangel crew actually save the show imho.

Nah I don't think Negi will replace Tota as MC in this manga as tota is actually likeable unlike Shinn.

dmaxzero · 2017-03-17, 09:23

I like Touta more than Negi.
And I dislike the whole mix and match with the old cast of Negima to be honest. I think it wasnt needed.
I will drop this until it goes back at being Touta story again... If ever.

2017-03-11, 08:28	Link #5481
Kazu-kun Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2006	Yeah, I don't remember how strong Eva was in Negima, but in UQ Holder I think Tota already surpassed her or is pretty close to do so. She didn't do shit in this fight. Kirie herself was a lot more useful. __________________

2017-03-11, 13:23	Link #5483
Tenzen12 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2012	In UQ holder Eva fought like three times, twice of that she was in trouble because of Touta. Problem is she can't fight on same as Touta as she is still much stronger. Touta being protagonist can't have his kills stolen by his master all time. __________________ "I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it" (Charles R. Swindoll)

2017-03-11, 18:20	Link #5486
n0m@n C-Z Join Date: Jan 2011	I read Negima till like v16 and stopped after that due to losing interest in the plot. Then just skimmed through the last volume of Negima when it came out. Started reading UQ holder and even though Eva appeared, I still looked it as a different story as Negima. But then the old casts started popping up.... Sigh. Would liked it if they didn't . Pretty much a sequel of Negima now. Love Hina is Akamatsu's only series I don't have any negative opinion about now. Hopefully the story becomes interesting from here with the end of that long one-sided battle. __________________

2017-03-12, 08:58	Link #5492
NapoleonDeCheese Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2016	What he originally did was trying to loosely rewrite Negima's dangling threads rather than following on them. You can sense, had Negima actually continued, Evangeline would have brought Negi himself into the world of immortals, there they might have met Dana, Ikkuu's role would probably be played by a tagalong Chachamaru, and so on. All the while Negi's current role would still be played by Nagi. That's another part of why UQ Holder feels so much like a patchwork job, one gets the idea it's largely brought from ideas that weren't applied on Negima in its due time rather than on things that flow naturally from the normal passage of time. Then again, it's hard to feature a believable flow of time where you skip eighty years. More often than not, big time skips that prevent us from seeing vital parts of the narrative hurt stories and come across as attempts to spare the writer dificult things to write (like most of the cast dying or retiring) and invoke shock value. But if you didn't want to write something that hurts the audience's feelings, you shouldn't bring that into your story in the first place. The best example before UQ was the moment where Negi tells Asuna he was going to sacrifice her and her acceptance, which should have been THE key, most dramatic and important moment in their relationship, but was jumped over just because Akamatsu wants to show the consequences of drama after the fact, but not the dramatic moments themselves. Ditto with Arika's fate and such. Akamatsu just takes the cowardly way out by trying to have his cake and eat it-- he implies of the bad things happening but doesn't have the courage to actually show them happening. And if you're doing that you should have stuck to doing happy go-lucky romantic comedy instead. EDIT: So, um, Fairy Tail 526, which comes in the same magazine as the Negima Extra, is already out. So...? Crap, by now nobody cares enough as to scan and post it around, right? Last edited by NapoleonDeCheese; 2017-03-12 at 15:57.

2017-03-13, 03:46	Link #5494
Ultragunner Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2012	I wonder if I'm one of the few who genuinely look forward to every new chapter of UQ? For instance, I quite enjoy Touta as a protagonist, to me he's a better Naruto/Ichigo Maybe I just don't have it in me to analyse stuffs or make connection to Negima every month. Don't get me wrong, I just wish I could join you guys in such discusson __________________

2017-03-11, 18:11	Link #5485
Homura7 Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2009	Eva vs Fate, nuff said. And it wasn't even a serious fight.

2017-03-11, 19:47	Link #5487
NapoleonDeCheese Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2016	That's the thing, though: This isn't an actual sequel, no matter if Akamatsu calls it Negima 2 now, because it doesn't continue any of the plot threads left by Negima ('beat the Mage of the Beginning' doesn't count, because back then that was 'beat NAGI', not 'beat NEGI'), the overwhelming majority of the Negima cast is gone, and the leftover elements from that series form whole new threads to follow because none of them were an issue when Negima ended (mainly Negi being posessed). But it doesn't stand well on its own anymore either because by this point knowledge of Negima is necessary to understand what's the reasoning behind this series' core arc. So UQ Holder fails both at being a proper sequel and at being its own thing, precisely because it tried to be both at once.

2017-03-11, 20:16	Link #5488
Homura7 Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2009	Pff, what a bunch of nonsense. UQ Holder isn't its own thing. IT IS AND IT HAS BEEN, FROM THE VERY BEGGINING, a Negima sequel, no matter how much you want to insist it isn't. The story already started with Eva telling her life, making it clear she wasn't just going to make a cameo.

2017-03-11, 20:43	Link #5489
Shippuu ┐(-｡ｰ')┌ Join Date: Jan 2017	I suppose it depends on how technical you want to be. In the Negima timeline Asuna went back in time and Nagi was saved and the Lifemaker defeated only a few years after the climax. In Holder she doesn't go back in time and Nagi is presumably dead and some 80 years later Negi is possessed. In Negima magic was revealed a few years after the climax, while in Holder it was only made public some 70 years later. There's a lot of strange things going on and unless Akamatsu has some space-time-bending twist or reset button in store this is not a sequel to Negima's plot, as it was already tied up, no matter how poorly it was done, and more along the lines of a alternate universe what-if spin-off.

2017-03-11, 21:53	Link #5490
NapoleonDeCheese Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2016	To qualify as an actual sequel, something has to pick up actual plotlines from the previous series. UQ Holder is something that happens 80 years after Negima, picking no actual plotline Negima left on, and using a mostly all new cast. It's a sequel in name, inasmuch Akamatsu dropped a 'Negima 2' on it to try and sell more, but I think of it as a spinoff rather than a sequel. It doesn't even seem to be set in the same timeline Negima ended at.

2017-03-13, 06:42	Link #5495
NAJ P. Jackson Magus Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: In my House	@Ultragunner You're not alone. I like Tota as a protagonist either. And because I'm not attached to the characters of Negima that I can enjoy Akamatsu's new series. Some readers have difficultty accepting Tota because they are still attached to Negi as a protagonist and him suddenly becoming the Antagonist of the manga have thrown them for a loop. __________________ FGO JP: 149,376,696 IGN: James Starks "Thou art I... And I am thou... Thou hast established a genuine bond... The inner most power of the Awesome Arcana has been set free. We bestow upon thee NAJ P. Jackson, the ultimate form of the Awesome Arcana."

2017-03-13, 06:45	Link #5496
Tenzen12 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2012	Yeah I genuinely like UQ holder myself. I am not even ashamed say, that in many aspects I consider it superior to Negima. __________________ "I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it" (Charles R. Swindoll)

2017-03-17, 02:03	Link #5499
NAJ P. Jackson Magus Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: In my House	^Shinn was a shitty MC so they had to bring Kira back to appease the viewers. I heard they were planning to kill off Kira at first but abandoned that iidea because it was so unpopular. GSD was poorly written that even Athrun's character got messed up. Bringing back Kira and the Archangel crew actually save the show imho. Nah I don't think Negi will replace Tota as MC in this manga as tota is actually likeable unlike Shinn. __________________ FGO JP: 149,376,696 IGN: James Starks "Thou art I... And I am thou... Thou hast established a genuine bond... The inner most power of the Awesome Arcana has been set free. We bestow upon thee NAJ P. Jackson, the ultimate form of the Awesome Arcana." Last edited by NAJ P. Jackson; 2017-03-17 at 09:25.

2017-03-17, 09:23	Link #5500
dmaxzero Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2007	I like Touta more than Negi. And I dislike the whole mix and match with the old cast of Negima to be honest. I think it wasnt needed. I will drop this until it goes back at being Touta story again... If ever.