UQ Holder

And I honestly don't remember Karin ever winning even a single fight, except the one against a couple of mooks at the beginning. Really, she's more useless than Sakura at this point.

And I speak as a Sakura fan.

Edited by JG98 on Mar 23rd 2021 at 1:23:19 AM

She beat that miniboss dude that was stalking her.

I get what you're trying what you're saying but Sakura wasn't actually useless since she was a healer...

Okay, I'll give Karin that one. But it was the exception that confirms the rule.

Just to be clear, I also think the ToutaxKuroumaru hook up is hella lame like this. If I could choose, I would have liked to read an arc about Kuroumaru's past with the immortal hunters just to have something where Kuroumaru is more than "Touta's babe". But hey, that's asking way too much from this series. Touta and Kuroumaru probably would have been done better if it wasn't for the goddamned harem getting on the way. Before that and the Kitty fanfic arc, Kuroumaru was the only potential love interest and I think Akamatsu's intention was keeping it that way until the sales forced him to go back to what he was popular for. Eh, I'm just relieved that if Touta had to do the deed with someone it wasn't with his adopted mom or a loli.

Looking at the current state of UQ Holder, the thing that really bothers me is that everything that is happening right now would be super interesting for me... If the manga had built up to it with a better pacing and not gotten detracted with the harem antics like the Pactio nobody is using anyway and Negima flashbacks. Touta's power level reflects a lot of my problems here. Akamatsu gave him a mega power-up so Touta could wipe the floor with Fate's faction and the immortal hunters in a single chapter each. When it's time to really start the endgame, Akamatsu nerfs Touta because Akamatsu suddenly wants other immortals to look useful before the end.

It's weird, really, if you ask me what we saw on that flashback of the new Offscreen Moment of Awesome would have been a good stopping point for the series if it wasn't for the Lifemaker still being a thing. Touta accomplishes his dream of going to the top of the tower, a big fight against super enemy terrorists, and it all ends with Touta pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to save the Earth. All that would have been left is the epilogue where he returns a la Asuna. But no, there's these obstacles in the form of super demons that came out of nowhere to prolong what little plot this has left and we still have to through some Rescue Arcs for the missing Numbers. I'm even thinking this might reach chapter 200 and keep going for more than a year.

UQ Holder is the sort of manga I was following to try and understand the author's original intentions for all those ideas. The point where the feeling to the manga completely changed was when Dana and Kitty showed up, no doubt. I was way more interested in what was setting up with Fate and Touta's evil sister before. If anything, I feel sorry that the series never really had a chance let the good elements found in Santa's arc grow on people because the audience was more interested in Negima and harem. That's all on Akamatsu and Kodansha expecting the readers to sit through anything placed on Negima's universe while forgiving them for not properly concluding the original story. Whatever, by now I only was curious of how far Akamatsu was going to take the ToutaxKuroumaru shipping after it started heading to be the canon and now I got my answer. I do wonder if Akamatsu will make Kuroumaru a Pregnant Badass while at it, but I can wait for the epilogue to find out.

I'm now caught up. Have to say, after doing a read through, it's been such a bumpy ride. Dear God. No regrets on dropping this a while back, since the grind would've been frustrating.

Agree to all of this. The fact that we haven't gotten to see the rest of UQ's Numbers till we're 160+ chapters in is really telling. All the time that could've been spent exploring the ensemble cast "ala the Santa arc" was wasted on pointless Harem fluff.

Wait, has the manga ended or will so pretty soon?

Harem ending confirmed this chapter. Kuroumaru got fucked underwater last month, Karin is getting fucked in space this month, next is Kirie. Even Yukihime isn't safe from Touta's dick anymore! The epilogue will probably be the same as The Testament Of Sister New Devil: an orgy of Touta's blood clones fucking his immortal girls at the same time.

It's official. UQ Holder just became a shitty fanfiction of itself written by a pervert that wants his self-insert Narustu fuck boy. I could have lived with a true ToutaxKuroumaru ending, but not this...

Look, I'm all for a Marry Them All ending if the series consistently builds towards it from early on. Very few examples come to mind now, but there are manga I loved that have pulled it off and make me feel happy for everyone in the harem.

I never liked the Marry Them All choice for UQ because the harem was awkwardly shoehorned in for pandering and Touta wasn't consistent about wanting a harem (or much of anything). He went from a bonafide Chaste Hero, to "Well Done, Son" Guy with an Oedipus Complex, to lolicon with Tsundere Meganekko fetish, to Kuroumaru-sexual, to "I'm gonna fuck every girl who confesses to me". If Akamatsu was gonna do a harem ending, he shouldn't have made a big deal out of Kuroumaru being Touta's favorite. But he's obviously drawing whatever will make his horny otaku readers cream their pants. Although, let me tell you several of the Japanese Kuroumaru simps aren't happy with this either...

Until now, I could sort of accept UQ's existence as a dumb Negima Alternate Timeline out of hundreds. After this chapter, the only ending I'll accept is this timeline being erased by having Chao use time travel to fix everything that went wrong from the moment Chisame got killed and Nodoka and Yue turned into mindless puppets. Sorry Touta, I don't give a shit if you aren't born anymore. There's nothing about your character I find tolerable at this point. The Cloning Blues was the only thing with even a small potential about you and that got tossed into the toilet for crappy fanfic level of harem writing. This fuck boy Narustu fic doesn't deserve to be a possible future of Negima.

I'm changing my final rating. This dumpster fire only deserves a 0/10. Would have been a merciful ending if we jumped to the Lifemaker final battle right after the immortal hunters. It would have been rushed and underwhelming, but at least we wouldn't have gotten chapters dedicated to the girls who could have been interesting characters in a better manga reduced to nymphos wanting nothing but getting in line for clone Jesus Narustu's dick! And we still have to deal with the loony vampire kid, his hyper mega demon minions, and rescuing Yukihime from Lifemaker in Pluto! Fuck this shit! Just get to the final battle already since you have time for useless sex chapters, Akamatsu! You have no dignity or integrity left as a writer!

Calm down there guy...

Anyways, quite a nice chapter I'd say. I really liked seeing Karin slowly going mad with despair as she floated through the cosmos.

After letting off steam, I can say this result doesn't surprise me. I kinda had a feeling something like this crap was gonna happen when Kuroumaru's mini-arc was immediately followed by that cringy chapter of the immortal girls washing and making out with an unconscious Touta, finishing with Touta promising to always be together.

Still, UQ just got even more creepily sexist by putting all of Touta's haremettes through emotional and mental torture beyond any human could tolerate all because Touta wasn't there for half a century to protect them and the moment they meet him again, they ask for sex because that's what any woman wants to reward her torturous struggle. The plot had Karin mentally break down to devolve into a moeblob because there was no way she in her sane mind would ever bend down to the generic shonen harem lead.

Again, all my negative feelings for this are due to UQ Holder never having a good direction and execution. After dropping Kirie as female lead, we get an arc that claims Kuroumaru is the one Touta likes the most and then they go "lol no Touta is having sex with all his chicks". Shows how often and easily Akamatsu changed his mind as he went with UQ. Wonder how much this has to do with the editorial and the need to keep readers interested in the magazine after Shingeki's ending, though...

All in all, how alright you are with a harem ending depends on how much you like the haremettes and their dynamics with MC. I never cared about Karin and Kirie nor thought they had any chemistry with Touta, so him fucking them is a massive whatever for me. I already recognized Kuroumaru wasn't really good as a love interest either. I liked the chemistry she had with Touta in the first ten chapters and her potential backstory with the immortal hunters called my attention, but Kuroumaru's character went downhill very soon. I was only holding on to see the whole thing play out with the immortal hunters and the aftermath to define my feelings. All of Touta's relationships with these girls are super meh, so go for the harem Akamatsu, I don't care anymore since Touta's relationship with Kuroumaru simply isn't what I wanted to see from it.

Akamatsu blew it big time when he ended Negima and tried to move to a male dominant generic shonen cast. Because of his reputation as a harem author, he would have needed to basically start a new fanbase from scratch to be successful and here are the consequences: all the boys including the only one with a decent character arc utterly sidelined while the MC kills all tension with his broken powers and goes around banging the three token girls lusting after his dick.

With the way UQ Holder turned out, it's the sort of series I would have normally never bothered with, like The Irregular At Magic High School and In Another World With My Smartphone. It's all stupid Wish-Fulfillment at its rawest form with no substance. What made UQ Holder so hard for me to drop it's that those two series I mentioned make clear what kind of crap to expect from them since the start. UQ Holder did try to set up some stuff I was interested in, namely seeing another arc like Santa's and it's a tragedy we never got that when there's characters that could be interesting like Nikitis around because it became all about Touta and his boring, horny harem.

Not gonna lie, following this manga to this point was a Bile Fascination experience for me, only keeping at it out of habit and curiosity. Also, didn't feel I could completely move on until I saw everything that was gonna be done with Kuroumaru and get confirmation if it wouldn't be a solo ending for her. After what we got this month, I think I'm traumatized. Never gonna be stubborn to keep following a manga when I notice it's going down in flames again. If I'm ever feeling curious about a series like this again, I'll better wait until it's over so I don't get expectations that'll only be crushed to hell.

Edited by Alice_Luna on Apr 8th 2021 at 8:56:27 AM

See you next month.

Alright...

So, Kirie got sent to a world without magic where a new virus was running rampant and ended up having lots of adventures we're never going to see, but we're assured that it would take five manga volumes to narrate them all.

She was able to find Dana and get back to her world, except that Dana wants Kirie to give up her immortality because reasons.

She meets Touta once again, cheesy dialogue and Coitus Ensues.

Lifemaker-posssessed Negi gets offscreened by Evangeline. Who then get possessed herself.

Girls waste time babbling about how many times they did it with Touta.

Honoka and Isana are still alive and just a few years older because cold sleep. Whatever. Not like they'll amount to much anyway.

Gengoro turns out to be an isekai protagonist with 65k extra lives. Akamatsu sure loves stacking the deck in the good guys' favor, doesn't he?

Final battle begins with Lifemaker blindsiding the team. Heck, why should I feel tension over this final battle? If Touta and his team lose, Dana can always step in and curb stomp the Lifemaker.

What. Freaking. Ever.

Edited by JG98 on Jul 13th 2021 at 5:20:50 AM

To play Devil's Advocate, but if Dana tried to solo the Lifemaker, she's be taken over and the universe would be fucked.

Unless Dana is somehow immune or they've found a way to prevent the Lifemaker from bodysufing.

But I haven't been looking at the series except the occasional posts made here.

Dana is Story-Breaker Power incarnate. Even Evangeline and Ba'al are wimps compared to her. I wouldn't be surprised if she could defeat the Lifemaker on her own and somehow be immune to possession.

Edited by JG98 on Jul 13th 2021 at 8:17:44 AM

I went to read the newest chapter because I thought you guys were kidding with the Coitus Ensues thing.

I...I can't believe Akamatsu got away with that, like it's very explicit what those two are doing.

It's in a monthly magazine now, so likely it's less strict about what can be shown.

Alright.

UQ Holder is attacked by Ialdabaoth's minions, who turn out to be Asuna and the other Negima protagonists (sans Negi). UQ gets slaughtered because Ala Alba has anti-immortality weapons or some shit like that.

I have to admit, I actually liked that part, absurd as it was.

Touta, Gengoro and Juuzou end up in Gengoro's original world and cook up a plan to negate anti-immortality because Gengoro still has status screens that allow him to analyze what happened.

Magi Babble about the fact that Gengoro's world and the UQ Holder world are both real, but to each other they're fictional and so Gengoro can rewrite certain things because he's still in his original world... So apparently they can go back and retcon away Asuna's anti-immortal attack.

Either that, or Juuzou could simply cut Asuna's anti-immortality attack and erase it, but they need Gengoro to edit reality in order to go back to the UQ world.

Yeah, it's just as much of an Ass Pull as it sounds.

The part set in Gengoro's world was actually nice, and at least it made sure that Gengoro's brand of immortality actually had a plot point. But there's no way Akamatsu can write a decent final battle in just 6 chapters.

So yeah... some good parts, but not nearly enough to counter this manga's problems.

The Asuna and Al team up was easily the best part. If only they weren't evil and it stuck. Other then that, god, what a weird way to kill the tension. Like I know UQ Holder is all over the place in regards to...everything, but this is just jarring. It should've happened a looooong time ago at this point.

Chapter 187...

Asuna and the rest of Ala Alba get fodderized in a single page because Touta and the others altered reality so that Asuna never had her anti-immortality attack in the first place. Or something like that, it wasn't very clear.

Random white Humongous Mecha that give me an End Of Evangelion vibe arrive on Earth and begin slaughtering the population. Of course, who could be behind it if not Ba'al, who begins to babble about how much he loves humans, and therefore he will forcibly put all of them in the Cosmo Entelecheia spell and kill all those he deems "weak".

Lifemaker apostles keep being slaughtered in droves by our God-Mode Sue heroes - we don't even get to see Rakan and Albireo being defeated. Hell, even Karen, Isana and Honoka somehow manage to easily blow the villains away.

Fate attempts to teleport Touta and the others to where Ba'al is, but the teleportation technology gets taken over by Ikkyu. And Ialdabaoth Archon, that is, the Lifemaker-possessed Evangeline, gets to the battlefield to further complicate things... or it would, save that Touta can somehow counter her pressure and try to attack her.

So the Lifemaker decides to just Mind Rape Touta by making him experience Evangeline's life. Yeah, yeah, we know, Eva has had it so hard, no need to remind us of that every half a chance you get, Akamatsu.

It turns out that Ikkyu's real body is that of a dying old man. Most of him is on the Internet, but his immortality is dependant on computers, which makes it unreliable. So he wants to make his immortality complete, and that's why he sided with Ba'al. Fate blunders once again and get the entire UQ Holder fleet overtaken... except that Santa comes in a Big Damn Heroes moment, gives Ikkyu a "The Reason You Suck" Speech and begins fighting him...

So yeah, it seems to me that Akamatsu is trying to wow the reader with epic battles and high stakes. But he just manages to make it boring AF.

Edited by JG98 on Sep 15th 2021 at 12:23:11 PM

Chapter 188...

Oh yeah, Ikkuu dies and Santa becomes useful for once. Whatever.

Chapter 189...

The final attack on Ba'al and his forces has some definite Star Wars vibe to me.

After so much buildup, Ba'al gets Madara'd and taken out like a chump. What a loser.

And somehow, both Gengoro and Karin the Eternal Jobber are now capable of curb stomping the Mass Produced Evangelions... I mean, the White Titans.

Huh. So Rakan wasn't offscreened after all. Where was he, then?

Ialdabaoth and her minions get some sort of keys from Touta and his harem members, which prevented Ialdabaoth from fully assimilating Eva. The perfected Cosmo Entelekheia is activated because of course it is.

And just when all seems lost, Touta somehow summons Negi.

To quote someone I read online...

Akamatsu's writing since the end of the Mundus Magicus arc follows a pattern; the bad guys pull a complete swerve PLOT TWEEEST! to steamroll all over the good guys, the good guys then asspull a Deus ex Machina to save themselves, the next chapter has the bad guys countering with an even more broken Diabolus ex Machina, but ah, then the good guys, out of nowhere… and so on, until Akamatsu looks at the clock, realizes it's time to end the arc, and everything finishes with a whimper.

It's just a succession of shock value asspulls; it doesn't matter whether they make sense or not, the only thing that matters to him is to keep the (ever diminishing) readership on their toes. Then most often a timeskip happens so Akamatsu can solve things off panel, and he moves on.

And I can't say I disagree on that.

Isn't it sad when a writer becomes a parody of themselves?

So, UQ Holder ended.

The ending was shit, just as I thought.

At least there's no Sequel Hook .

Any summary on how this thing ended?

Kinda strange it just ended with a whimper....

I guess even Akamatsu couldn't be bothered to give a damn about this series anymore to write a good ending.