UQ Holder!

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From what I can presume, UQ Holder is some sort of sequel to Negima, that ridiculous ecchi harem manga with lots of distasteful stripping and panty shots and all kinds of fanservice. Which made me avoid it even until now, because I couldn't stand supposedly great manga that can't help but ruin their stories with terrible ecchi.

Couple of weeks ago, I discovered UQ Holder, recommended to me (didn't know about that whole Negima relation thing for a time). It was pretty nice. I would rate it an 8/10 a couple of days ago. A tale of dreams, adventure, and friendship. A standard shounen and a ... pretty entertaining one at that. There were a few times of fanservice but it has even less than other standard shounens.

A few times there would be a couple of references to Negima which, while I couldn't relate to, I could tolerate because the story was fine even if you didn't read it.

Then when the manga was nearing the hundredth chapter, the author decided to just ruin all of that greatness and bring Negima to ruin this one. Before, there was practically no harem; only one, maybe two characters were being teased with the main character but just barely and not that much.

But no, suddenly, the author simply decides to take pretty much almost all of the female cast and make them suddenly attracted to him even when they showed little to zero feelings for him before, then give the readers a couple of characters who people have no attachment to because they weren't (or barely) in the story before and shove him into the shoddily made harem too just for the hell of it.

Oh, and made sure to have a lot of fanservice and nudity; I can tolerate some from time to time in other manga, but it becomes ridiculous when you get a reunion with this character in the early chapters and make her run around fully naked, and extremely ridiculous where characters are going around and fighting each other or their enemies while fully naked like the author doesn't care anymore. This kinds of situations are what triggers me when I read manga; this is the reason I dropped Fairy Tail and Tokyo ESP, seriously, which were both otherwise great shounen manga before they decided to go ridiculous with nudity and fanservice.

Well, aside from the forced sudden harem and the sudden surge of ridiculous fanservice, they also decide to bring Negima into the story by simply just shoving a lot of Negima characters into the story. Characters who only people who read the original manga will appreciate, leaving those who read this manga first in the dust. They simply keep introducing character after character who apparently is in the original series.

I read a couple of reviews for this manga that were submitted a few years ago, oh, and how wrong those people were. "This is not Negima 2.0", "This is an almost completely different manga". That was the case back then and I enjoyed it until we reach around a hundred chapters when the author decided to Negima-fy the manga. That would be a good thing for those who liked the original series, but not those who grew to love the normal and enjoyable adventure shounen that was UQ Holder.

This would have been a pretty high score before the storywreck a hundred chapters into the manga, so I'd simply just average it out and give it a 5. I'd probably still continue reading it because I have grew attached to a couple of characters to drop it at this point. But if you're someone who is interested in this manga and doesn't want fanservice, you probably shouldn't bother. You'd grow attached to the story and the main cast but the author will decide to ruin it a hundred chapters after. Likewise, if you're someone who wants hardcore fanservice shoved into an action shounen, you'd only get to have that a hundred chapters after because the manga barely had any of that beforehand.

This manga is one of the best I've read. The fact that Ken Akamatsu has made another great manga doesn't surprise me. I was sad when I read the last chapter of Negima, it left a empty hole in my heart. I cried silently when I finished it in a public place then when I got home I cried for literally 20 minutes, going back and forth to get tissues. When I heard of UQ Holder, that empty hole was once filled again. The fact that UQ Holder has more characters, returning characters, and it continues the story of Mahou Sensei Negima just makes me ... want to give Ken a big, giant hug! I would HIGHLY recommend picking up UQ Holder right now. You will never get sick of the weird jokes that always come up. I absolutely loved Mahou Sensei Negima, now I absolutely love UQ Holder. Good job Ken Akamatsu. You just took 100+ dollars out of my pocket once again.

Note: For the people that say this isn't a harem like Negima, true, the harem element is not as prevalent in UQ Holder as it was in Negima, but there definitely is still a harem in this manga. I can't tell you who likes Touta but I can tell you that he certainly gains a lot of... "followers."

I dont usually read manga so when a friend recommended uq holder, i was very hesitant to read it. But when I did read it, I regretted not reading this earlier.

The review is based on the first two arcs of the story, untill chapter 30.

STORY-8

Similar to fairy tail, uq holder is an organisation that helps those in need in exchange for money. I like such a plot because it can give a variety of different arcs; darker, sinister ones and light funny ones.However, uq holder also has a lot of unanswered questions such as Totua's parents death. Even though it apparently seems that the ... died in an accident, it seems highly suspicious to me.
The reason that I have not given the story any higher marks is because after the amazing first chapter, the story gradually became quite boring. But I kept on reading and after Chapter 10, I again gained interest in it.
I am certain that the story will become better over time so.

ART-9

I cannot describe the art very nicely. For me it was very good. None of the characters have same type of faces with different hair (though some character's chins are very similar). The Fight scenes are wonderfully drawn and people can actually understand what is happening during the battle.

Character-8

the manga has many varieties of personalities. Their backgrounds are slowly being uncovered. However since this manga is still young, not much can be said about the characters...only time will tell how those characters evolve.

Enjoyment-8

As i said before through Chapter 5-10 the manga was becoming very boring for me, but I did not leave it because those long dialogues were important for the development story.Anyway it redeemed itself with an enjoyable next arc.

Overall-8

I really want to give it higher marks though.

It was my first review,so I hope I did no screw up a lot!!!

If you all haven't heard, Ken Akamatsu finally won a senate seat not too long ago. Akamatsu-sensei has been a part of my life since more than a decade back, and seeing that he was holding firm on this copyright thing even back then, it just opened my eyes to how passionate this guy has been about all of this all along. It also saddens me that Negima got axed early for this very reason, squashing what could've been an all-time great shonen before it ever had its time in the limelight. But if nothing else, we should all pay some respect to the fact ... that he was willing to abandon his lifetime work not once-but twice for his politics.

Okay, now, guess what manga ended months before the 2022 election? Yeah, no coincidence there. Well, I can’t exactly say I expected him to pioneer the mangaka to politician pipeline, but it was always evident that his heart was somewhere else for the entirety of UQ Holder’s serialization, and I guess this was it. And like, it was glaringly evident. Minor spoiler, but near the epilogue, the entire Negima cast pulled up out of absolutely nowhere. I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if the Love Hina girls came flying out of the battle bus next, because that’s how poorly the writing had developed by the end of this series.

UQ Holder took a serious nosedive at just around the halfway point, and then again in its last few years. Whatever good ideas were had were forgotten or turned into softcore hentai-I hate to say it, but that's not a joke. Its cast of generic-but-cute-enough girls more or less became Touta's Pokémon. Even the battles are ruined by characters repeatedly pulling out the newest rule-bending trick out of their asses, including (but not limited to) immortality, immortality cancellation, total magic nullification, spatial manipulation, several weapons that can destroy anything, concept "deletion", time travel, and a handy gadget that can literally brainwash anyone into fighting for Touta's team without any reason or character development whatsoever. With so many impossibly overpowered superhumans around, the story should have been long over before it started had they not been AFK for thousands of years.

If anyone who's finished this picked up the first chapter now, they would see that the original point of the series was completely forgotten somewhere along the way. The manga has now concluded with none of the central questions being answered, and major characters like Fate and Baal were still tossed to the side with little to no explanation. Despite having a similar amount of raw material to Negima after accounting for chapter length, it is astounding how little ground this series has managed to cover over its decade-long run.

UQ Holder holds very little of substance behind the visual spectacle of its battle scenes. Readers coming out of Negima will be disappointed at its treatment of beloved characters (read ch. 137-140 only, the canon Negima epilogue, if you must), and readers wanting the shonen experience must work through a good amount of seemingly aimless exposition only to be massively disappointed by the harem ending. Yes, it's a harem ending, and let's just say no one was surprised when Touta started dual-wielding in the final battle. Well, at least Negima came full circle, I guess.

UQ Holder- One thing I can say is it is a beautiful manga written.
To be honest, I would be happy if it stayed as a manga only because I don't want people who love ecchi fan service to down it for not having a lot of fan service.

The story is beautiful that to a comparison of other mangas that. I read, it being 80 years in the future to present day( as of when I've typed this). It is also brilliant to the ties between the characters and how the bond strengthens as the story plot moves on. The main character Touta Konoe, flows with ... all the characters as to being laid back and trying to be friends to everyone he meets.

The art is fantastic, moving along with the readers thoughts to the attacks done by the heroes UQ numbers and its enemies, throughout the story. One thing. I would like the artists of the manga series to make it a little more realistic (with features towards women, not being toward ecchi or hentai) because one thing about Touta, though he is not a pervert, does a wind attack that can break the fabric of clothes (just like Issei from HighSchool DxD series). Once again, I'm not a pervert, but this does not happen often, and when it does it is only done towards Karin. Though Karin, beats him up everytime in the end. :P

Like I said the characters are amazing, and there are a lot so I'm not gonna talk about them. Read the manga for yourself to find out about all the characters.

Overall, this manga is my "on the edge of my seat" type of manga, since I've been reading it since. Oct 2015. I have not done a comment on myanimelist because I do not get on frequently, and there are other manga I have read. I hope you'll enjoy my comment and go on ahead to read "UQ Holder" as I cry over waiting for the next part.

Although the story has some ups and downs, it was a nice ride.
Art was always great, story was always full of surprises and it delivered a lot of good moments towards the end.
While it goes way apart from Negima to validate a new name, it's nice to see a lot of the previous series material be present in this one since it's in the same universe/storyline.

Of course, there are flaws, plot holes and such, but, in my opinion, not nearly as much to dim all the shining moments this manga has.

I'd not recommend it to those who are jumping directly into it, there a lot ... of Negima references that are crucial and won't be fully explained here. Also, not for those who finished Negima without thirsting for more. It's a clear expansion of Negima's universe.

In recent years, people have been saying "don't bother reading this unless you're a Negima fan", "the main characters hardly are supporting characters anymore", "it's all been overtaken by Negima". Well, I'm a long-term Negima fan and I had been avoiding UQ Holder because it didn't look interesting to me, but these reviews made me think that I could as well give it a try if it really was gonna be a Negima sequel, cause I sure would have liked to read some sort of epilogue to it, where I could see what happened to the cast after the end of the series.


This review is ... for people such as myself; Negima fans wondering if, and how they should read UQ Holder. Hop on. (Of course I'll spoil Negima).


-- VERIFICATION PRIOR TO MY COMMITMENT --
So, I started UQ Holder by skipping right ahead to chapter 129, which was named "Touta and Negi". Chapter 129, of course, is quite advanced in the story, but that's where I found the introduction of most of Negima's cast to this new series. Plus, there were descriptions starting the chapter stating that "it was now revealed that UQ Holder has been a sequel to Negima all along !". Seemed quite pulled out of someone's ass tbh, but reading along I found some scenes featuring the Negima characters that I would enjoy as an "epilogue". That's the only bit of slice of life sweetness motivated me to start from chapter 1.


-- WHY I LIKED NEGIMA, AND WHY I DON'T LIKE UQ HOLDER --
But as I thought, I could not bring myself to enjoy UQ Holder.

As I've stated before, I'm a long-term Negima fan; I've been reading it since the 5th volume barely was out. At that time, Negima still wasn't much of a shounen action series. The slice of life, school and harem tropes were much more present in it than the magic, much less the action ones. And that's why I enjoyed Negima so much, and that I kept enjoying it even 38 volumes down the line, enough to re-read it twice... It was all because Negima had started slow, and had built a strong basis before escalating any of the stakes. Negi was a teacher in a class of 31 girls, and nearly every one of them were given their time to shine. It wasn't about fights, it was about much more than that; protecting the characters we cared about and solving deep-rooted trauma trough bettering oneself and pursuing clear goals. Negi said himself that he didn't like to fight, and he was quite an intellectual. This made him highly atypical among shounen protagonists, imo.

But UQ Holder... it has no base.
It starts in Negima's future, when Earth and Mars have been linked by the elevator for quite a while. Somehow, Evangeline is now a teacher in a small country town (but we won't get to see any of that), and Touta, our new protagonist, is one of her students.

Well, this Touta guy is a stereotypical shounen protag if I've ever seen one. Absolutely dumb, wants to be friends with any stranger, his initial goal is to "travel to the tower and get to the top of it" as if no one cared to explain to him that it was an elevator... and who knows if anyone knows it's one, right ? The world-building is non-existent. We're supposed to care for this guy's school friends, but we barely see them for one chapter before he departs on his journey with Eva. And in ten more chapters, he'll be defying every one of his new senpai's expectations by pulling combat abilities we don't even get explained from sweet nowhere.

--EVANGELINE--

Speaking of Eva... I hardly recognize her. I know she could change a bunch in, how long has it been, 80 years ? But back in Negima, she was so cynical, so sadistic, such a tsundere, rightly prideful, and one of the most powerful mages to exist... And in UQ Holder, she's... some sort of doting mother figure; albeit a sloppy one... And why did she ever stop dressing in gothic lolita, she who liked it so much ? Now she wears the same bland outfit every day and I have trouble wrapping my head around that. Worst of all, now’s Evangeline gets UTTERLY DEFEATED by the first small enemy to come around, only to ask this idiot of a boy who's been playing with a sword as a hobby to save her ??? EVA BACK THEN WOULD’VE NEVER. WHEN HAS SHE GOTTEN SO SOFT AND DEFENSELESS ??

But it was a plot point to introduce the fact that she was a vampire and to make Touta join the ranks of this league of immortal people, which is this new series' gimmick. Well that prompts the question: why make this random boy immortal and not the countless other people she's liked and cared about up to this point ? I sure hope we can get an explanation down the line, as to why Eva has gotten this way in the last 80 years and why she makes this type of decisions now, cause I have to admit it's hard to respect this version of her as much as the old one. Maybe she's gotten happy; she told us herself that being happy made people boring...

But around chapter 66, she goes back to her childish looks, gothic lolita and cold personality. I guess Akamatsu finally realized what she had become, and started feeling nostalgic for the old Eva too.

--THE CHARACTERS--

I loved the character designs in Negima, I really did. Negi taught a class of 31 girls, so you’d think some of them would blend together in terms of design or personality ? Absolutely not. They were all very fleshed out from each other, each with interesting and unique designs. I loved every single one of them; when I think about which character I love the most from Negima I always go : “this one ? No, this one. But what about this one ? Oh, and what about all these ones too”, you know ?

But I don’t like the character designs in UQ Holder. Starting from Touta, what a bland guy. They all feel expandable, replaceable, non-appealing. The shtick of multiple of the main cast is that they’re androgynous. Other than that, in terms of design I think that one is ugly and that the remaining two are boring.

In terms of characterization, don’t even get me started. I hate the main cast. I don’t care for them. Reading what they have to say, seeing how they interact doesn’t interest me. Touta sucks as a protagonist to have, because every time I see him my mood plummets. They’re not connected as Negi was connected to the girls. Hell, they’re not even connected at all, by any background at all. They feel so eclectic from each other. They suck. Random punks in the street are better designed than them. They suck so fucking hard. The quality of the art is still the same, it’s still really good. What’s drawn just sucks.

--THE LOCATIONS--

Mahora, as a campus, was such a great setting to Negima. It was big and intricate and detailed and mysterious… To say things as they are, reading Negima led me to choose to go to a similar school as I was so enamored with campus Mahora. And the other locations were gorgeous too, from Evangeline’s house and resort to Kyoto on their school trip and everything.

But UQ Holder has no particular setting. It happens anywhere, in a futuristic world I don’t like. They do go back to Mahora around chapter 40, and Mahora still exists as it did back then. But how could I bear seeing that gang of nobodies talking in the same staircase Negi and Asuna once became friends ? Bathing in the large bath the whole class once did, training in front of the World Tree as Negi once trained ? These scenes felt almost… blasphemous. As if they were dirtying the memories I had of people I loved.


--THE SETTING--

In early Negima, the fact that he was a magician was something that Negi had to hide at all costs, or he would be turned into an ermine and he would never be able to do magic anymore. That, coupled with the whole pactio thing that involved kissing and marriage, made magic feel like such a secretive thing that implied things that were almost taboo to think of as a child. As such, knowing that, as Negi grew closer to each of his students, it would become harder to hide his secret from more and more of them made the growing of a friendship between Negi and the girls terribly thrilling. To be real friends, he had to share his secret. If he revealed it to the wrong person, he may have become unable to ever pursue the goal of meeting his father again. But as a child, he needed people to confide in and these girls were the only people he knew in Japan. He had to form a connection with these girls, and that connection had to be genuine. That’s what was so interesting. It really drove the character development, this idea of real trust and the vulnerability that came with asking for help from another person. By the end, when they were all a big team surrounding Negi in the magic world, when Negi had his harem of 20 girls in a flying ship on Mars… it was more than a simple harem or a simple shounen battle, you could really see and feel what bonded all these characters together. You had been there every little step of the way, when every pactio was concluded individually, and you had seen the vulnerability the characters shared and the will they had to create a bond together. You could imagine what it would have felt like, to have been in place of that girl kissing Negi and having his magic go through your body for the first time. You could understand what bonded her to him, and you could see how hesitant Negi was to form such bonds. Every pactio was magnificent, and who cares if it made Negima a harem. It wasn’t cliché.

In UQ Holder though, magic is from the start something everyone in the world knows about and can do. It makes sense, as Negi saved the whole world with magic 80 years prior. But whatever happened to erasing people’s memories ? To time-traveling ? Negi could have had prevented a world where everyone knows about magic if he had wanted to. Guess he didn’t. Well, there goes the thrill of magic being a secret.

And pactio ? We don’t even talk about it anymore, in UQ Holder. Imagining the cards all the girls could gain through pactio : their designs, their powers, the clothes that would come with them ; that used to be one of my favorite things in Negima. And I enjoyed wondering about the setting the pactio would happen in, too. I thought pactio was such a great concept, that it really raised the stakes in both the romance and the magic department. But now it’s gone. Whoop di doop.

--IN CONCLUSION--

UQ Holder fails as a singular entity. It has to piggy-back off Negima to be a decent manga. However, compared to Negima, it is a poor manga. Hence, I would argue UQ Holder is not only a boring manga, but a bad one.


--POINTERS ON HOW TO READ IF YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT NEGIMA--

Chapter 24 is when we first see what Negi has become
Fate appears in chapter 29
Visiting Mahora around chapter 40
Mana Tatsumiya appears in chapter 62
Start reading at 112 ish
125 Negi is back for real

--TL;DR--

Point is, UQ Holder is a typical shounen
It only cares about action, fights and looking cool (trainings aren't even shown)
The protag is uninteresting, has no dept (he's amnesic from the start)
You can't say it inherits much from Negima (Magic is hardly explained)
And the whole thing feels incredibly rushed (from the start)



--EDIT 04/09/2022 : WHY UQ HOLDER IS EXCUSABLE--

With Akamatsu abruptly ending this series, I gained a newfound interest in it and in why it was made. I learned that Akamatsu had hastily ended Negima in protest to a proposed copyright law he didn't want enacted. I learned he had started UQ Holder a year later, in 2013. I learned the proposed copyright law was dropped in 2015. And that got me thinking : maybe that's why UQ Holder starts in that convoluted, unclear way. Maybe that's why it took so long to reveal that Touta was a clone of Negi and that Negi was dormant. Maybe because it couldn't be revealed before, due to copyright.

This point of view really does change my enjoyment of UQ Holder. Because it, maybe, gives a reason to the wacky writing. Touta is excusable as a bland protagonist if we take into consideration that he only is a two year-old clone. Touta's relationship with Eva, and overpowered abilities are excusable if we take into consideration that he is a clone of Negi. Eva's personality change is excusable if we take into consideration that Akamatsu just wanted to finally write a good love story for one his dearest, saddest characters. The rush in the storyline is excusable if we take into consideration what point it wanted to get to.

And most of all,
I think I can get behind it if it ends in a "it's just one possible timeline" kind of way. UQ Holder's story is but an ellipse in Negima's timeline, as maybe it was to Akamatsu when writing it : he couldn't continue Negima, so he drew "a possible alternative to it". It was but an ellipse in his career, caused by copyright issues. Now, he is free to pick Negima back up just where he ended it before if he so desires. And knowing that UQ Holder means nothing more than that, "a story you can still enjoy while you can't enjoy Negima" brings peace to my heart. It sure is better than nothing.

I read this after reading Negima because they said it was a sequel (albeit a loose one) and I'm writing this review as I have just finished reading the last chapter.

As I read through, the first half of the entire story had fair pacing but direction was kinda not clear. Then during the second half it became a mess of timeskips, power level BS, deus ex machina, more plot holes which added to the already existing lots of them, asspulls, whatever. I swear, reading those chapters from the second half were not an entirely enjoyable experience because I need to imagine explanations on "Why and/or ... how this thing happened?" It really ruined the reading experience. It's saving grace were the art and those overpowered abilities those certain immortals have.

Speaking of art, I give credit where it's due. Akamatsu sensei really improved his art style. Those background art were simply stunning to look at.

For the characters, it's a shame that the likes of Baal were just thrown to the side like nothing happened after they served their purpose of showing their objectives and just how OP they were. For the main character, Touta, it's kinda nice to see him optimistic all the time and can still feel despair when things go wrong, which goes to show he's still human at heart. For his "harem" (Kuromaru, Kirie, Karin, and Eva), it's good to see them develop romantic feelings for Touta throughout the course of the plot.

Enjoyment on my part was so-so. Even though the story was lacking and full of plot holes, I can't deny I enjoyed the art, overpowered abilities, technological advancements in the story, and bits of trivia (mostly astronomy trivia).

If you came here after reading Negima for adding some information to the Negima lore, I'll just warn you that it'll be a double edged sword.

There is a difference between misdirection and plot holes. I am not sure if the author was trying for the former, or he forget what he wrote earlier. If I go in detail, if will spoil the story. One of the driving forces of the MC to fight against one of the antagonist loses its meaning after finding out about the MC's origins, but no one brings up this point. However, if you ignore the plot holes, the manga is actually good. The beginning had some small plot holes, but not enough to put me off, until much later.

Not a ... huge deal, but most of the main characters are immortal. Therefore, there is not much tension between fights, because no one will die, no matter how much they are injured. There are instances were they could kill immortals if they do this and that, but nothing comes out of it.

The romance between the MC and his teacher developed out of nowhere, and turns out there was a long history between them. It seems like the author wanted to have a mother and son relationship, but then he decided to change it and add history through some "events."

If you want a cool story set in the Negima universe but follows a different MC and group then THIS STORY IS FOR YOU up until all those character from Negima not only join this one but take over.

You know that main character Touta we started out with? The MC? Yeah, he because a side character. Or not even in it. Instead his not dad and not grandpa become the leads. YAY!

You know how this was all about a boy getting to the top of a tower because reasons while he traveled with a sexy vampire and a swords....person? NOPE! It's now about ... saving the universe and the new main characters fighting and immortal body snatcher. YAY!

MC loves one lady? Nope. HAREM TIME!. No wait.... wait.... IT'S NOT DADS' HAREM TIME! YAY!

Seriously. If you liked the "prequel" you'll probably like this because those characters take over. IF you started this or heard it was unrelated don't bother or stop when some dude named Fate shows up. Just assume everyone died.

2/10.

Manga started out well and then it went absolute downhill after the 100th chapter. Had a good plot but then when the harem thing came along, the story went deep into the trash bin. I initially shipped Touta and Kuroumaru but now other girls are liking him which made their relationship seem nonexistent. If I were the manga artist, I would throw away the other half of the manga and start out fresh again. My enjoyment was first a 9 in the first half but went to a 1 in the latter so I averaged this to about a 5. This would've been quite a ... masterpiece if the author executed this well. What a tragedy...

First time writing a review

Oh boy what a ride this has been. 140 whole chapters and nearly 6 years of reading this monthly. At first this manga was enjoyable and i'd come back every month to read the next chapter, however this has changed after 100 chapters.

What was fairly good character development was literally tossed into the bin just to have a harem. A couple of characters had actual development into a romantic relationship, that was good yes. However all of a sudden, we toss in a couple of chapters to have some fairly irrelevant characters at that point, to join a harem, ... and it wasn't just one character, it was numerous. The problem is also execution, after those chapters I couldn't give a single shit about these characters at all.

Then the story... What story?
I've re-read this manga 3 times, There are still some very important things unanswered and so confusing that I still can't understand why it needed to happen. Why is Negi and his crew back all of a sudden? and other important points that still boggles my mind.

The manga was fairly enjoyable until later on in the manga, the action scenes typically were average, some were fairly good. The only point I find good is the art. Everything is drawn nicely and it's pleasing to re-read them.

UQ Holder for me was something I enjoyed greatly and I always made sure to read it the moment it released. Now it's become something I see as "Oh yeah... This exists... I guess i'll catch up."

Unless something drastic changes, and I have a massive amount of time, I won't be catching up with the rest of the manga as there are other more enjoyable manga I still have yet to have the time to read

First and foremost, ignore any review before Chapter 175. Chapter 175 is a gamechanger, and for the worse. I'll go into why later.

First thing you need to know is that this is basically 3 different mangas, and they aren't connected very well. At the beginning, this is an action manga with hints of ecchi here and there. At the midpoint, this is Mahou Sensei Negima 2.0, in that it's all ecchi and harem. At the end, it turns into a dragonball-like manga. As far as stories go, the beginning is quite good all around. The middle is less story focused, but still well written. If ... you like ecchi harem, the stories adds to the experience rather than hurts it.

But the end... after chapter 175, the whole thing changes drastically for the worst. The author tries to pull a "plot twist", but that plot twist consists of utterly destroying everything they'd built up to up until that point. All the relationships, all the character development, all the romance... it's all down the drain. Heck, several of the powers they'd built up to are completely disregarded for the rest of the story, and some characters are all but eliminated entirely.

It's frankly one of the worst things I've ever had happen. I was invested in the story, in the characters. And for the sake of a "gotcha" moment, the author destroyed ALL of it. It was so bad I kept expecting a "but it was all an illusion" or "we will reset time" twist (which they had the means to do easily). But they didn't.

It didn't improve the story, it soured the entire experience. I was enjoying it up until that point. Afterwards, no matter how many Negima cameos or how good the action was, it was all dead to me, because my 175 chapters worth of reading was dead to the story. Prior to that, I would have given it a 7 for story, 8 for character, 8 for enjoyment, and 8 overall. After? 3 for all of those.

3/10, don't get invested, this is a trap of a manga.

A quick warning: If you haven't read Negima, do not read this. This is a direct sequel to Negima and the author will reference and mention the details and plot of Negima. Go and read Negima then come back later. Don't worry though, Negima is very good and easy to read (the infamous fan service is only the first part, the good part shall be there for you). It'll be done in a flash.

I just wanted to make a quick note since there are a lot of people having problem reading this, either understanding jack sh*t about the plot, or find them not very appealing.
That's ... fair though, since even though I've read Negima, I didn't really like the first few chap.
Fret naught my friends!! It's only for the mysterious atmostphere that this sequel tries to achieve! Nah, I'm just speaking for myself. Though one thing for sure, this one has a lot darker tone compare to Negima. If you've read Negima, you know what I'm talking about.

Other than that, I'm done for now. I don't think I'd write a full-fledge review, singing praises for this manga soon but take my word for it: This is good, and Negima is better

Okay, I don't give a macaroni about what you have in mind about the manga. The relationship happening between different girls like Kirie and Touta is amazing, no other mangaka that I know even take a lovey-dovey momentt till that point of where they standing at. let me count for you how many times they have surpass over the point of a normal love relationship: yes there are so many that I'm being lazy to even count now (go watch it yourself)!!!! Ok, I admit that beside that, this manga doesn't really that many bad things in it, watch it and if you complain (don't ... judge if I cut your head off, cause if I do you won't be able to complain either).

At the end of the day, this just doesn't feel like a Negima sequel. Yea it's got Negi and crew in it (eventually), but Negima was a ecchi comedy with some action later in series. UQ Holder is an attempt at action... with nothing else.

The store feels like Touta was created just to be able to make a sequel without Negi being the main character. I feel like Ken's thought process went something like this, "I want to finish Negi's story, but I can't because of licensing issues. So I need to make another character that will encounter Negi and then finish his story." Which ... wouldn't necessarily be an issue, except Touta (the main character) doesn't feel like a main character which makes the whole story hard to get into. It ends up being just waiting for Negi to come back so the store would start again.

Without ecchi, Ken's art is actually just normal. It's not bad, but there isn't anything defining about it. It's just Meh

The character are by far the best part of this manga. Decent variety with some cool ability's. Although I do feel like the characters are all on the 'safe' side. Nothing offensive, nothing controversial, just some decent bland characters with cool ability's

When it comes to enjoyment the whole thing takes a nose dive. Putting Decent characters in a bad story with mediocre art isn't really an enjoyable experience. I forced myself to get to chapter 150 because somebody on the internet insisted that it got better, but it was a total waste of my time. I usually read manga at night before bed, and this just kept putting me to sleep.

Overall it's a 5, Mediocre. I really feel like that describes this manga. There are things that I feel are bad, but there are things I feel are good as well, and they balance each other out into a mediocre experience.

I knew what I was getting myself into, and still decided to start reading it. I only have myself to blame.

This is a manga about fan service, loli characters with frail clothes, and an MC that flops between being an idiot, and being an experienced gigolo. Oh, they also talk about magic and immortals, which feels to be more of an afterthought when they wrote the story.

It starts out ok, but it quickly goes down the drain as you can see that the adventure/magic storyline takes a back seat to the whole love/harem scenario. There are even parts adventure/magic story that feel like they were ... written just to force a specific love/harem/ecchi outcome.

If you like stories about magic and battles, I would suggest looking elsewhere, as I feel this manga is not worth anyone’s time.

Spoiler-free (but this review is very long(but I put all my heart in it))

All of it began when I was 7 years old, my grand-mother for some reasons, ended up buying the first volume of Love Hina for my sister. And even now, we both ended up loving the manga. We loved it so much that we even had all the CDs of the anime. Love hina was the first manga that introduced me to the manga world as well as the anime world, even before naruto. And this fresh air from the generic looking cartoons I had back there, it was the first time ... I was enjoying at maximum something. His artsyle was really good for a romcom and the warm feeling you get from reading it is one of the best feeling I've ever had. The comedy was all I asked for at the time, it cheered me up so many times that I don't even remember and just looking back at it some times just reminds me of how beautiful it was. Thus, you can't even think how sad I felt when Love Hina came to an end. There was this huge whole I had and not seeing whole the cute faces of the girls in the manga just felt unbearable (I swear it was true despair xD). So at some point I got into naruto and loved it as much, but it never could have reached how good Love Hina was so when some day my mother came back with Negima! from the same mangaka, you can't just imagine how happy I was just discovering a whole new world once again but with the same vibe and warm feeling. And once again, it came to an end, it was once again painful. And thus, I thought I could never found something better than that. But oh boy how foolish I was. I don't know why(maybe because I'm stupid) but I've never wondered if Ken Akamtsu did other stuff after Negima. Until last year's summer. I was at the beach and I found a library that sells mangas, I thought it was surprising and just picked some random mangas. And I swear I almost cried in front of everybody.

I FOUND UQ HOLDER (aka Negima 2)

After this story comes the shit you were waiting for.

Story: Ken Akamatsu made a name of himself as the final boss of harem mangas, and this one is better than anyothers he has created thus far. What stroke me in negima was the harem side with action that felt right. You didn't really think it was wrong for a teacher to be hanging around with hot high school whom wants his banana. The action fights felt really good as well. And you find everything back but better. He managed to find something refreshing of all his work so far and you can see that the story is developping from what negima left.

Art: That's where Ken Akamatsu truly shines in my opinion. The fact that it's a romcom (yes it is) but with action is already good enough, but his art style is just made for it, I probably laughed at lout a lot but most of the time I was just smiling. The art express just how much fun and love he is giving in every panels. And I'm getting to the fights, OHHHHHH the fights. If you are a shounen tard, you'll get everything you want. You've read my hero academia yet? You thought the fights scenes were epic? Damn you're not prepared for this. The amount of details there are in the fight scenes is hallucinating, I always found myself on the edge of my seat even for the smallest fights to tell you the truth. By the way, he was one of the most emblematic user of tip-ex for drawing the thunder spells, just letting you know who the hell he is.

Character: I'm repeating myself but this guy is a beast in this category as well. Just how hard is it for a normal manga with like 5 character to develop them. Now think when it is a harem. That's the first thing we say about harems; it's the fact that the character development sucks. And I can't safelty say that this manga won't let you down. Every character has his personnality and his past, they all have a different personnality as well and the relations they hold betwenn all the characters will fill you with warm. It's like you are part of this big "family" (well they are just friends/acquitenances but it feels like they have really deeps bonds for some reasons, just shut up and lemme suck this manga please)

(Ill just do a category Enjoyment/Overall)

So what can I say about it in the end. Well first, you defntily have to read the first Negima to read this one or you'll understand nothing so check it out, it's high quality content, one of the best mangas ever in my opinion. Then, about the real shit, personnally I hadent touch a Ken Akamatsu mangafor like more than 5 years so you can imagine how nostalgic I was when I read it and my reaction when they were some familiar faces in it (as well as his unique art-style). It's definilty a must-read for every manga fan and a classic as well. You feel refreshed and good when you read it, it's like ecstasy you know. So here it is, 10/10 for sure. You should definnetly check Love Hina as well. You know when I made the comparaison with the fight scenes in My Hero Academia? It was to lead to now, you remmeber when the first season of my hero academia (I'm talking about the anime yes) first came out? Everybody saying "back to the routs of shounen", "It doesn't revolutionyze the genre but it's good" and stuff? Like it was the product of every shounen this far?Well you see, Ken Akamatsu is an own genre of it's own and this guy was able to imrpove his genre during all his work so far and you can clearly see how masterfully Uq Holder is made. Everything he has done leads to what it is now, one of the most entertaining manga to read and it's so damn good.

PS: Sorry for this long ass review hoped you read it this far and I'm glad if you did and just did not skip to the end (if you're reading this and you feel guilty read it :(< ), this review was really close to my heart because Ken Akamatsu is truly a part of my identity as a human being. I'm talking about it now because it fits what I wanna talk so here it goes., just telling you that this manga was my light of hope when I was in a 10 years span of despair for me and my gamily as a whole and all his work realyl did save me. It was the only one that could touch my heart at the time and just ritting this review fills me with nostalgia. So here it ends. Finnally for you ^^ Still hope you liked it even though it was long xD
Also sorry if my grammar was quirky and almost burned your eyes I'm not a nattive speaker ^^' Hope you held on to ;)

Huh. Well, it was enjoyable in the beginning.

Negima is one of my favorite manga. Why? For me, it's how shounen should be: decent plot, good characters with some development, simple but beautiful art, and of course fights! Akamatsu drawing a really great action with excellent choreography, which excite me for my entire core. And yeah, ecchi there is fine.

News about some sort of sequel was pleased. And it was good. Not that great, but after some chapters, we'll find about entire group of immortals, and it became really interesting. Fights were worse than in original, but still pleased, characters more or less on ... the same level as Negima characters, and story is typical, but pretty solid shounen.

But, in some bad day, Akamatsu presented to us Dana, in that time probably almighty character, that break entire balance of power in Negima. Even though Dana is fun, for me it was like alarm bell. And soon after, all things, except art, what i love in Negima, was ruined: fights became competition of Mary Sue's cheat abilitys, plot became incoherent and burdensome, UQ Holder character development has stalled and old Negima characters behaved like dummies.
Eva's romantic relationship with Touta was unnecessary and forced. All the way, she looked at him as little brother or disciple, gotten pretty good story with Negi, and after that... we got, what we got.

In conclusion, best, most exciting arcs here - miniarcs about how actuallu Negima ended, and alternative Negima route, where Asuna not going back in time.
Well, arcs like story about Necromancer, was good, that's why I give it 6. And echhi became more wild, it's good), but sadly resembles another good but gone bad at finals manga, whom they tried to save with boobs

to be honest this was my very first manga i have read, when i picked this book up i was like, 'time to dive into this story' but after reading the first couple of pages, seeing all the action and blood and gore, i started to like it! when i got to the spa scenes i enjoyed it even more, and the fact that there are immortals, scary creatures and new characters, i haven't read or seen Negima, but i can that Evangeline, Fate, Negima and others from it are great characters. i can also relate to a couple characters, like evangeline, no i didn't ... turn into an immortal, and i didn't kill anyone, but i did have an unhappy childhood and im still growing.
anyway ken is a great author, i love UQ Holder! may the anime be better!
I CANT WAIT!