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

[NapoleonDeCheese]

See, if Akamatsu wanted to have an Ala Rubra series he should have just done it. He clearly didn't, and thus he administered the Ala Rubra flashbacks in Negima wisely. That was okay, but by now more than half the time in UQ Holder the story isn't about UQ Holder as such, which is even more troubling for a monthly since the pace of the actual main plot moves like molasses.

Touta is not the most compelling lead character (he'd have made a damn fine supporing character with less of a powerwank, a la Kotaro) and he's a major downstep compared to the more unique and layered Negi, but shoving him out of the focus all the time now only makes the problem as bad as it was when the camera was constantly on him. There must be some balance, the likes of which Negima struck until the final arcs but UQ just can't seem to achieve.

[XFire]

Originally Posted by SilverGlavenus

Nice to see Jinbei in action in the flashbacks, though I'd like it to be a little bit longer.

Kinda disappointed with how easily Eva got destroyed by that Noble chick. She also seemed unstable, unlike Dana.

And I agree with @AstroNerd about Touta, his optimism is annoying, it removes all the tension from the story itself. He needs a push to the dark side, like Anakin Skywalker.

This still seems to be pretty early in Eva's history, before she was the Averruncus wrecking super mage from Negima.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

She has already trained under Dana, though, which poses the question how much of Eva's uberness comes from her. I kinda doubt she went back to her for more training after this, but everything is possible, I suppose.

[XFire]

Originally Posted by NapoleonDeCheese

She has already trained under Dana, though, which poses the question how much of Eva's uberness comes from her. I kinda doubt she went back to her for more training after this, but everything is possible, I suppose.

Dana taught her about being immortal, but her uberness came from her doll magic (which we see her get here) and Magia Erebia (which we haven't seen her use. After that it's just the passage of time and experience making her into a monster combat wise. She isnt the "Dark Evangel" yet.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Originally Posted by XFire

Dana taught her about being immortal, but her uberness came from her doll magic (which we see her get here) and Magia Erebia (which we haven't seen her use. After that it's just the passage of time and experience making her into a monster combat wise. She isnt the "Dark Evangel" yet.

But Eva is already infamous based on things Karin and Jinbee said. Jinbee called her The Apostle of the Dark Gospel, which is close to Dark Evangel. Ditto the Martian Mage Lord. Karin called her Demon Queen.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by AstroNerdBoy

But Eva is already infamous based on things Karin and Jinbee said. Jinbee called her The Apostle of the Dark Gospel, which is close to Dark Evangel. Ditto the Martian Mage Lord. Karin called her Demon Queen.

Being a little famous in a certain country doesn't mean she's yet achieved the heights we know she will. She proably still hasn't gotten that huge bounty yet, which is likely what makes her truly famous.

[SilverGlavenus]

Meh, even in Eva's peak, Dana still played around with her. Safe to assume that each Noble possesses the same amount of power, and Dana gained her moniker because she has been meddling more with the human world more often.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Have we seen Dana go up against Eva at her peak, though? Odds are almost complete Dana would still win easily, but so far I think we've only seen Dana interacting with Evangeline during the later's training and then after she's the powered down Yukihime, never during the Ala Rubra-Negima period that would be Eva at her best (when Infernus Scholasticus isn't hampering her anyway).

[AstroNerdBoy]

Originally Posted by Endscape

Being a little famous in a certain country doesn't mean she's yet achieved the heights we know she will. She proably still hasn't gotten that huge bounty yet, which is likely what makes her truly famous.

As to the bounty, I suspect she's about to get it. So I don't disagree that Eva's about to become notorious.

But Karin appears to have come after Eva due to her reputation. Jinbee is from Japan, but he knew Eva's rep. Ditto the Martian mage. I suspect that Eva's infamous in the European region.

[Shippuu]

I don't see how Dana could ever be beaten by anyone considering she's basically using the Second and Fifth Magic simultaneously.

I'm also interested in the fact that Evangeline compared a Noble's power to a Demon King's. Now normally I'd just ignore it as the usual video game language nonsense Japan is so fond of an I've always hated (please stop calling Ialda Last Boss for x's sake), but considering actual demon royalty exists in this setting one has to wonder powerful they are.

Oh, well. Only a matter of years until the Demon World arc.

[silenceblade]

I wonder what the Mage of the beginning relationship with the nobles are. It is clear that she had the nobles' DNA blueprints. Perhaps, one them became her ally.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

4chan spoilers, taken verbatim.

Spoiler for New Chapter::

Seems the mages coming to earth is part of some plan by an inverse mars senator to set the stage for an invasion. The true ancestor shows up again, seems to be named Baal, and fights Eva. Jinbei and Karin are involved too, and Baal seems very interested in Karin's immortality. But Eva anticipated this and had created a new technique based on what she saw Touta do to Dana in her past, and turned the technique Baal planned to use on Karin against Baal, defeating the true ancestor. To protect Earth, Eva sends out a challenge to the mages of inverse Mars terrifying them, and earning her reputation (and presumably the price on her head) that we see later in Negima

[AstroNerdBoy]

Is anyone able to access the chapter on Crunchyroll? I'm fairly sure CR flubbed it up. Just love the countdown to nothing.

Update: Well, 24 hours later and still no chapter and no sign of one to come. I cut a ticket and complained to them on Twitter. Naturally, I was ignored 'cause "Paying customers should just shut up and be grateful for whatever we decide to give them." ��

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Akamatsu made an illustration for the Bakemonogatari manga. I wasn't aware of that.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Cool I'm not surprised Akamatsu-sensei did this. I know different manga-ka will sometimes do something like this for other titles. The only other time I'm aware of that Akamatsu-sensei did this was for Hayate the Combat Butler.

Meanwhile, 30 hours ago, CR responded to my problem ticket on chapter 154 being MIA. They said folks would be working to upload the chapter shortly. There is still no chapter. I figure that assuming CR can be bothered to upload the chapter at all, they'll make us wait until 5pm PST Monday evening 'cause "reasons."

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Akamatsu also seems to have drawn the UQ Holder characters for the penultimate double page spread of this jam piece (look for them in the picnic scene):

https://imgur.com/a/0NnMP#fCL1gmm

[AstroNerdBoy]

Yeah, that one looks like all of the mangaka did some contribution. Probably wouldn't take much to have everyone draw a little picnic scene for someone to piece together.

Also, wow -- so awesome that CR still hasn't posted the chapter.

[Shippuu]

I have to say I am a bit upset. It's not enough that Touta is the clone of two of the most powerful characters in the first series and inherits super ancient divine magic for free, that he gets a broken gravity blade for free, that he gets trained by Evangeline's literal God-Vampire master, or that he travels through time and already met Evangeline in the past, or that he gets the obligatory Springfield harem for probably even less effort than Negi, or that he learns Magia Erebea with little effort and can perform Raiten Taisou just by absorbing Lightning, even though it was stated to be a lot more complicated than that, or that he has super demon-vampire immortality second to only a few in the setting, or that he is basically the reason Evangeline falls in love with Nagi.
But now it turns out that Evangeline gets the inspiration for Magia Erebea, or at least that one attack (still no real mention whether she uses ME at this point even though she should), from Touta, too? What kind of awesome miracle will time-traveling clone Jesus perform next? Fuck you, Ken. At this point you'd be hard-pressed to find this kind of cock-sucking even in fan fiction. How does this even work in timelines where Touta (peace be upon him) never exists?

That said this chapter raises more questions and answers little. Ialda's demon snakes and scythes of darkness look almost exactly the same as the stuff Ba'al uses, minus the eyes.
Did Ken upgrade the previous designs or is there a reason Ba'al's look more detailed? Is Ialda a Noble or is she trying to become a Noble? Doesn't help that Ialdabaoth, Jagganatha and Baal are all deities from various belief systems. If she was one she wouldn't need to experiment on Evangeline. In fact she probably could've just bitten her and turned her into a vampire instead of transforming her with Magic.
Ba'al's arm of darkness also looks similar to the ones Dana used, unsurprisingly. but now that the chapter mentions Ba'al's other attacks to be blades of LIGHT I wonder if all Nobles have Light and Dark at their disposal.
Evangeline's monologue about Nobles was also rather illuminating, maybe. Their true form is apparently countless magical beasts and demons (Ken is really Type-Moon'ing it up in here. I got a lot of Nrvnqsr Chaos vibes) She calls them the most advanced species of humankind, but I got the impressions that Nobles are not human and never were.
Of course in Negima side materials it was explicitly stated that High-Daylight Walkers were humans who became vampires through secret esoterica now lost to time which is why even after Evangeline was revealed to have been made a Vampire by the Lifemaker the narration never calls her fake or an imposter. But that was before UQ Holder retconned it.

Evangeline's parents being killed by Mars people is probably a retcon too, but I don't really mind it. It fits into the story well enough and it might be the most we will ever got on Eva's backstory at this point, but who knows.
It's a bit funny that Evangeline basically outs herself as the enforcer of her archnemesis. The spell she uses here is the same one she used at the Gravekeeper's Palace, which I think is another retcon as in Negima it sounded like it was a pretty new spell made solely to counter Ialda's puppets.

Karin's Gate of Babylon now firing literal swords was amusing but apparently her so-called Holy powers are not particularly effective against Nobles. Even though her God supposedly doesn't like them.

Considering Ba'al taking a hand in the invasion plan Dana's paper-thin excuse of Nobles not interfering in human affairs to prevent her from steamrolling the plot might as well but non-existent at this point. Not that it ever mattered because she herself was interfering at every turn and make a definite impact on the story, but who cares, right Ken?

The non-aggression towards humans, or at least people from Earth, was already an element in Negima and Ialda's puppets are forbidden from killing them, but one has to wonder whether there is a deeper reason for this almost uncharacteristic kindness. Though you'd have to wonder why Ialda is not enforcing it and seemingly would've done nothing if not for Evangeline putting a stop to it.

Well, at least the wait for the next chapter has been shortened due to CR's incompetence, unless of course the same mess happens again next time. Sadly it looks like we're going back to the boring, boring present. Not a bad thing by itself but Ken tends to waste a lot of time. Hopefully he finally gets the story moving.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Originally Posted by Shippuu

How does this even work in timelines where Touta (peace be upon him) never exists?

LOL!!! Well, he is Super Touta after all.

Of course in Negima side materials it was explicitly stated that High-Daylight Walkers were humans who became vampires through secret esoterica now lost to time which is why even after Evangeline was revealed to have been made a Vampire by the Lifemaker the narration never calls her fake or an imposter. But that was before UQ Holder retconned it.

I do admit, one of my pet peeves of UQ Holder is the dismantling of Eva from an actual shinso High Daylight Walker to a faux one. In Negima, Eva was THE High Daylight Walker, and second only in terms of power to MotB herself. Of course she's been heavily neutered in UQH (and yeah, I understand that someone as powerful as Eva won't make for a good support character in a story). I felt that Akamatsu-sensei wanted to show Eva in UQH was as powerful as we knew her in Negima. Now we have to get an explanation as to why she's no longer that boss-level character.

Evangeline's parents being killed by Mars people is probably a retcon too, but I don't really mind it. It fits into the story well enough and it might be the most we will ever got on Eva's backstory at this point, but who knows.
It's a bit funny that Evangeline basically outs herself as the enforcer of her archnemesis. The spell she uses here is the same one she used at the Gravekeeper's Palace, which I think is another retcon as in Negima it sounded like it was a pretty new spell made solely to counter Ialda's puppets.

These are retcons, but Akamatsu-sensei is using the, "Well, I never said the spell was new" or "I never said Eva's parent's weren't killed by Martian mages" as the out. In this case, neither of these hit my trigger button.

Karin's Gate of Babylon now firing literal swords was amusing but apparently her so-called Holy powers are not particularly effective against Nobles. Even though her God supposedly doesn't like them.

This was the part of the chapter that frustrated me the most. I wanted Ba'al to actually take some damage and that combined with Karin's immortality cause him to become concerned. But Karin just got to look cool, yet be worthless.

Well, at least the wait for the next chapter has been shortened due to CR's incompetence, unless of course the same mess happens again next time. Sadly it looks like we're going back to the boring, boring present. Not a bad thing by itself but Ken tends to waste a lot of time. Hopefully he finally gets the story moving.

And it STILL isn't up on CR. I guess someone bought if from comiXology (Amazon) and shared it from there.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Didn't Touta meet Kitty in Dana's palace, which exists out of time itself? That would explain why they meet regardless of the timeline. It's not an explanation I like, but I guess it makes sense... other than leaving one wondering if all timelines' Evas go to the same palace, but I guess there's no divergence point that far into the past when Eva was brought there from the 'real world', so by then there's a single one of her?