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

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Not to mention doing the illusion trap thing AGAIN, even if this time it's not a pleasant one, smacks too much of desperate rehash, but then again, UQ Holder has been that shameless about just recycling older stuff already.

[Shippuu]

Well, Baal's Nightmare Circus (heh) sure wiped the floor with them. Win or lose it's always a one-sided battle in UQ Holder. I do hope most of the people who died, supposedly or actually, do stay dead. The story could do with some serious consequences for once. No Kirie, Dana, Chao or anything else please. Unfortunately aside from the fact that Baal was behind it there were few answers to be had.
Honestly this chapter had quite a bit of nonsense in it. That's not unusual for UQ Holder but from Gengoro's literal video-game abilities (the stupidity and absurdity of which will never not make me angry) to magical internet viruses to Touta having translation apps installed (installed where? since when is he using a phone?) because of course. It was a bit much in one chapter. At least the designs were cool. About the only thing Akamatsu seems consistent at.

But a thought remains... what is the purpose of this arc? Why drag it out when it was basically over? I hope there is more to it than just a last-minute diabolus ex machina. If dead people was the goal then that could have easily happened during the final battle. It almost feels like a soft reset that could lead to years of new arcs but I don't think that's the intention.

[TnAdct1]

Originally Posted by Shippuu

But a thought remains... what is the purpose of this arc? Why drag it out when it was basically over? I hope there is more to it than just a last-minute diabolus ex machina. If dead people was the goal then that could have easily happened during the final battle. It almost feels like a soft reset that could lead to years of new arcs but I don't think that's the intention.

Ken Akamatsu has definitely having this problem since Negima, as there's a lot of dumb roadblocks that either really didn't need to go out as long as they should or were completely unnecessary (the "Eight Days Later" arc, Zazie's sister, the Fate clones).

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Baal's face in the opener is so exaggerated it's not scary, it's just lame and Narm.

All in all this chapter just proved how tiresome Touta is on his own. If the rest of the cast is really finished by now, there's not much of a point on going on. Just finish the damn thing already.

Also, 40 years of having been victorious, and yet the villains still haven't achieved their end goals despite having wiped all opposition off. That's some incompetence.

[Shippuu]

Punished Touta's journey continues, but for every answer there is at least another question. I suppose this means that Baal and company only blew up the station but not the fleet if Evangeline somehow made it to Pluto in time. I suppose that's the kind of stupidity you would expect from Baal. It doesn't explain how Yukihime managed to hold Ialda off for 43 years. Has she been literally fighting Ialda for the past 43 years? Unlikely. How would she have the magical energy to do that and Negi-Ialda has already defeated her before. Instantly. Did she get absorbed into the ranks of Ialda's apostles, holding her back from within, and becomes another enemy for the gang to fight?

I must say I'm a bit baffled that the Pactio system suddenly got an explanation but it's nice to see anyway. Of course it doesn't explain where artifacts come from. Early on in Negima they seemed to materialize out of nothing according to the user's destiny and potential but later on implied they were actually copies and the originals are stored in some metaphysical vault of heroes that contained artifacts from the past and future. And who made the system anyway? Ialda seems the most likely candidate considering she already has teleportation circles all over the solar system and the apparent insistence of staying on their planet and not bothering with space was one of the reasons for the downfall of the people on Venus. Does Ialda have this kind of authority and could've just messed with Negi's pactios but didn't because she's stupid?

I don't dislike the concept of this arc but it feels like pointless padding when you know they're all going to come back anyway and only confirms that Touta is too bland to carry the story by himself, but I suppose there is an opportunity for development here when he's not constantly distracted by harem elements. And how will they return? If they are in some other dimension (I wish the story would explain these more as they don't really fit into the established worldbuilding if they are different from spirit worlds, but the story has been referring to them several times now) I wonder if they ended up at Dana's. But that would be so much interference even Dana couldn't pretend otherwise anymore.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

This is obviously an EEEEEEEDGE redo of Negima's own old 'In our way there, we got ambushed by sudden enemies and taken out like chumps, and now the lead's got to collect us back' plot that led into Mundus Magicus, but that had the luxury of unfolding in a weekly format where each page packed much more information and development (while this chapter is basically just a large fight scene with big panels).

Akamatsu keeps falling in the same habit of writing a monthly as if it were a weekly, where the plot he's trying to tell doesn't fit.

Skullhead is just a convenient expodump plot tool to start pushing the derailed story back into the way to a direct confrontation, which makes him feel even more gratuitous than the over the top Grim and Gritty Nineties Image Comics look already did. And by God, Touta's a bore when he's not playing off someone more colorful and quirky than him. After all this shit, he'd better act properly shell shocked and retaining the trauma development he must've gotten here, rather than bouncing back to Stock Shounen Boy when interacting with the others.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by Shippuu

I must say I'm a bit baffled that the Pactio system suddenly got an explanation but it's nice to see anyway. Of course it doesn't explain where artifacts come from. Early on in Negima they seemed to materialize out of nothing according to the user's destiny and potential but later on implied they were actually copies and the originals are stored in some metaphysical vault of heroes that contained artifacts from the past and future. And who made the system anyway? Ialda seems the most likely candidate considering she already has teleportation circles all over the solar system and the apparent insistence of staying on their planet and not bothering with space was one of the reasons for the downfall of the people on Venus. Does Ialda have this kind of authority and could've just messed with Negi's pactios but didn't because she's stupid?

IIRC, wasn't it implied that Ialda created the Pactio system? Fate was able to ensure that Shiori got a specific artifact, though it could be something any mage could do, since Chao also did it...

Can't deny that not dealing with the Pactios during Negima is dumb, but it could well be a exploit they came up with afterwards.

[Shippuu]

Originally Posted by Endscape

IIRC, wasn't it implied that Ialda created the Pactio system? Fate was able to ensure that Shiori got a specific artifact, though it could be something any mage could do, since Chao also did it...

Can't deny that not dealing with the Pactios during Negima is dumb, but it could well be a exploit they came up with afterwards.

Yue mentions in chapter 270 that the Pactio system was based on/inspired by the statue of Ialda's daughter Amateru and her partner but that's about it.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Maybe the circumstances of Ialda's sealing during Negima prevented her from tampering with the Alliances, and none of her minions was in the capacity to do it themselves. Why they don't do it AFTER Negi faces Nagi at the climax of Mundus Magicus is another matter, but before that, I see no problem with it.

[Akira Theia]

I was surprised when I found that this series was apparently extending for a while longer than it seemed halfway through last year. Just to make clear, I haven't read a chapter since I said I was dropping it for good, but I checked some comments elsewhere that give me a general idea of what's going on. After spending some time away, I had some feelings sorted out that I wanted to let out.

Akamatsu probably realized UQ had so many OP players with Touta, sword god Kuroumaru, Juuzou, and Nikitis that he had to introduce last minute OP villains to create some tension, otherwise the final battle would have been only one chapter long.

I had very mixed feelings about hearing Kuroumaru suddenly is top-tier on the level of the concept-cutter and the High Daylight Walker. Long ago, I would have been glad about Kuroumaru getting to look badass, but now it just feels like Akamatsu pandering to the Japanese readers who only talk in forums about how hot Kuroumaru is and how much they want Touta to bang her. Regretting spending so much damn time on Yukihime and Kirie teasing now, huh? Making Kuroumaru one of the top OP characters now, through 45-year time skip on top of it, comes off as a way to give Touta a trophy wife that can compensate for not getting the hot blonde vampire head of the super immortal group. And the 16th birthday thing doesn't matter anymore after the plot jumped 45 years into the future, I guess. Akamatsu is probably saying "Meh, everyone already thinks of Kuroumaru as a girl, so to hell with the choice of gender identity. Kuroumaru always was a walking bag of sexist implications anyway." Even as someone who wanted to like Kuroumaru, there's really nothing I can say in defense of this at this point.

Gotta say, feeling too bad for Nikitis. He's the only character with some charisma and now he's being eclipsed by those like Kuroumaru of all people. Is the manga even pretending he's as powerful as the hyped Daylight Walkers should be? By now, he's like a less dignified version of Dana. He comes out of the blue to give Touta another upgrade and now he's just there to get sidelined in every damn fight. Dana only comes back when Akamatsu needs a plot device when Kirie's save point isn't available, but at least her ridiculous power level doesn't get downplayed. Maybe Akamatsu shouldn't even have included Nikitis so late if he was going to waste him like this...

I think what UQ Holder is right now is a super weird hybrid of Akamatsu's concepts for a series about UQ Holder and the unfinished Lifemaker plot. Ba'al and his mega demon minions sure feel like an individual group of bad guys that were meant to have their own arc, probably at a trip to Venus even, but now they're getting shoved in as some sort of a practice squad for the Lifemaker's forces with absolutely no setup. Well, at least these demons aren't getting curb stomped by a single punch from Touta in just one chapter like the immortal hunters did. That was just embarrassing.

After thinking about it, I realized that my biggest problem with UQ Holder isn't the crappy writing for plot and characters. Lots of series get that and I don't get mad. Other manga that have turned out shitty failed while doing its own thing. UQ Holder didn't. Santa's arc worked to some extent so if the rest of the series had kept trying like it did with Santa, even if it failed, I could have respected that. But Akamatsu just gave in to what his reputation demanded and shoehorned the most boring, flavorless harem clichés done in the most dull way possible when he apply them better in Love Hina and Negima. Also, Touta's motives ended up revolving completely around cleaning up the mess left by Yukihime and Negi. I recall he said he was thinking about his clone siblings who died and wanted to speak more with Fate, but that'll hardly matter with how the endgame is setup. In short, I wanted Touta to find his own motive and purpose as a protagonist, but at best, that's gonna be left for an epilogue that says "the real adventure is getting started". Yeah right, have a happy retirement Akamatsu.

I still consider UQ Holder a disappointing shonen manga but that's nothing new, it's that the reasons why it turned out disappointing for me are quite unique and convoluted as it's not all the series' fault. The author's precendents had a lot of hand in it so what went wrong can't be fully understood by UQ Holder alone, like why it turned into badly written harem and Negima 2 halfway. To be truly sincere, I would have liked reading more arcs like Santa's in UQ Holder, i.e. arcs about the personal circumstances, growth and conflict of the UQ characters. I kept following because I wanted to believe it was still possible to have arcs resembling Santa's even after Dana and the Lifemaker's attack, but it didn't happen. Needed the mini arc with Kuroumaru's clan to turn out lame ass for me to get that. At least I'm glad I could figure out the reasons behind my feelings that get me stuck on this.

What this series ended up being for me is one of those works that can be dull to sit through wih its lackluster execution, but the events and reasons why the characters do what they do are so disjointed and nonsensical that it's way more entertaining to look back on the ridiculousness of it all. Still a shame for Negima and the UQ characters that got misused. Don't think I'll ever find this peculiar kind of trainwreck in manga again. I give it that.

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Chapter 180 just came out and the resolution of the conflict that had just been introduced and Santa's revival were pretty rushed. I'm not sure the 'extension' is for actually much longer.

Anyway, Attack on Titan is ending now so Ken probably didn't want to leave Bessatsu without another series so soon.

[TnAdct1]

Originally Posted by Akira Theia

I think what UQ Holder is right now is a super weird hybrid of Akamatsu's concepts for a series about UQ Holder and the unfinished Lifemaker plot. Ba'al and his mega demon minions sure feel like an individual group of bad guys that were meant to have their own arc, probably at a trip to Venus even, but now they're getting shoved in as some sort of a practice squad for the Lifemaker's forces with absolutely no setup. Well, at least these demons aren't getting curb stomped by a single punch from Touta in just one chapter like the immortal hunters did. That was just embarrassing.

After thinking about it, I realized that my biggest problem with UQ Holder isn't the crappy writing for plot and characters. Lots of series get that and I don't get mad. Other manga that have turned out shitty failed while doing its own thing. UQ Holder didn't. Santa's arc worked to some extent so if the rest of the series had kept trying like it did with Santa, even if it failed, I could have respected that. But Akamatsu just gave in to what his reputation demanded and shoehorned the most boring, flavorless harem clichés done in the most dull way possible when he apply them better in Love Hina and Negima. Also, Touta's motives ended up revolving completely around cleaning up the mess left by Yukihime and Negi. I recall he said he was thinking about his clone siblings who died and wanted to speak more with Fate, but that'll hardly matter with how the endgame is setup. In short, I wanted Touta to find his own motive and purpose as a protagonist, but at best, that's gonna be left for an epilogue that says "the real adventure is getting started". Yeah right, have a happy retirement Akamatsu.

I still consider UQ Holder a disappointing shonen manga but that's nothing new, it's that the reasons why it turned out disappointing for me are quite unique and convoluted as it's not all the series' fault. The author's precendents had a lot of hand in it so what went wrong can't be fully understood by UQ Holder alone, like why it turned into badly written harem and Negima 2 halfway. To be truly sincere, I would have liked reading more arcs like Santa's in UQ Holder, i.e. arcs about the personal circumstances, growth and conflict of the UQ characters. I kept following because I wanted to believe it was still possible to have arcs resembling Santa's even after Dana and the Lifemaker's attack, but it didn't happen. Needed the mini arc with Kuroumaru's clan to turn out lame ass for me to get that. At least I'm glad I could figure out the reasons behind my feelings that get me stuck on this.

I think you hit the biggest issue that I have with UQ Holder (and one of the big reasons I stopped caring about it). While the Negima elements were still there, it does feel like Ken Akamatsu had originally planned to make UQ Holder its own unique story, with him turning it into Negima Part 2 when the story didn't turn out to be as popular as he had hoped.

If I wanted a proper sequel to Negima, I would take one that properly continues the adventures of that manga (preferably one that retcons the last two volumes). I don't want a manga that decides to turn itself into Negima Part 2 (and brings back popular characters as antagonists) just as a desperate attempt to get the interest of readers.

[Malicre]

Originally Posted by TnAdct1

I think you hit the biggest issue that I have with UQ Holder (and one of the big reasons I stopped caring about it). While the Negima elements were still there, it does feel like Ken Akamatsu had originally planned to make UQ Holder its own unique story, with him turning it into Negima Part 2 when the story didn't turn out to be as popular as he had hoped.

If I wanted a proper sequel to Negima, I would take one that properly continues the adventures of that manga (preferably one that retcons the last two volumes). I don't want a manga that decides to turn itself into Negima Part 2 (and brings back popular characters as antagonists) just as a desperate attempt to get the interest of readers.

That's exactly the problem, it's like he was trying to please two different fanbases and neither one liked what he was doing. He should of left UQ Holder as its own thing and then made a Negima 2 later on down the line.

[Twi]

I dropped out a long time ago, but I think that I liked it better when it explored the class disparity and how the immortals were there helping out. Did they ever get back to that?

[NapoleonDeCheese]

Originally Posted by Twi

I dropped out a long time ago, but I think that I liked it better when it explored the class disparity and how the immortals were there helping out. Did they ever get back to that?

No, it became all about Touta, about flashy fights intersped with naked people, about edgy looking demons being cut down, and about even more out of control power escalation.

[amtro]

Spoiler for completely out of the blue:

Touta has sex with Kuromaru.

[TnAdct1]

Originally Posted by amtro

Spoiler for completely out of the blue:

Touta has sex with Kuromaru.

Spoiler for completely out of the blue:

Just when a better manga goes that route as well.

[Malicre]

Originally Posted by Akira Theia

I had very mixed feelings about hearing Kuroumaru suddenly is top-tier on the level of the concept-cutter and the High Daylight Walker. Long ago, I would have been glad about Kuroumaru getting to look badass, but now it just feels like Akamatsu pandering to the Japanese readers who only talk in forums about how hot Kuroumaru is and how much they want Touta to bang her. Regretting spending so much damn time on Yukihime and Kirie teasing now, huh? Making Kuroumaru one of the top OP characters now, through 45-year time skip on top of it, comes off as a way to give Touta a trophy wife that can compensate for not getting the hot blonde vampire head of the super immortal group. And the 16th birthday thing doesn't matter anymore after the plot jumped 45 years into the future, I guess. Akamatsu is probably saying "Meh, everyone already thinks of Kuroumaru as a girl, so to hell with the choice of gender identity. Kuroumaru always was a walking bag of sexist implications anyway." Even as someone who wanted to like Kuroumaru, there's really nothing I can say in defense of this at this point.

This is exactly what happened, he lured a lot of readers in with the Yukihime baiting but never wanted her to actually be the love interest so what hes going to do is compensate everyone by giving touta the true harem ending that negi should have had (minus yukihime obviously).

I quit reading UQ Holder a long time ago when i realized it was negima 2.0 and not its own series so i already expected all of this to happen. Wouldn't shock me if we see a 3rd continuation with Yukihime being the main female lead yet again.

[amtro]

Out on crunchyroll. I was afraid CR would censor and make the event more unclear. Instead they removed all ambiguity and made it official.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Malicre

Wouldn't shock me if we see a 3rd continuation with Yukihime being the main female lead yet again.

Not interested. Call me when he has the balls to make Yukihime the protagonist. I'm done with generic boy nº 9000 as protagonist. I want a girl as the lead, and I want Eva to be it.

Never gonna happen of course.