Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: UQ Holder! Magister Negi Magi! 2
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NapoleonDeCheese
Posts: 26 |
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Negi didn't intend to take anyone with himself at first, and by that point they already were training IIRC.
Kotaro, who always was up for a rumble, would have tried to dare Negi to a fight instead, and that would've only incensed Negi even more. Even if he tried to actually calm Negi down, he's brash enough his choice of words might have not been the best, to put it mildly. Tatsumiya just doesn't have much of an emotional connection with Negi for that to work, and neither does Haruna, who would have fared much like Asakura did. Yue was amnesiac at that point and IIRC still with the Ariadne Knights. Kaede would be the best choice from that list, but she's still enough of a born and bred fighter she'd likely have tried to fight Negi while talking to him (which, again, would only make things worse, although Kaede has more of a chance of avoiding that since she's smarter than Kotaro), instead of giving a hit and then using the right words for that kind of moment.
The thing with Satsuki is more of a combination of the character being mostly played for gentle humor and Evangeline actually being unable to harm her classmates seriously despite her boasts. Someone like Fate, in a serious situation, would just petrify her without a second thought if she got in his way. She'd be just as helpless there. Same with Chizuru, who no matter how she might have slapped the demon, still was easily taken down and imprisoned by him afterwards. Even after getting an Artifact she's no fighter at all either. At least Chisame's artifact can set defense barriers, and later tinker around with Chachamaru's own artifact. Hakase is a behind the scenes player and she's canonically the one with the least affinity towards Negi, she wouldn't have been interested on ever going in the first place. Especially since MM was less conventionally scientifically advanced than Earth. Chao... well, Chao leaving was sort of the point of her arc's resolution, if you're still keeping her afterwards you pretty much need changing the dynamics of the whole series. First, you'd have to justify why doesn't Chao tell the team all she knows about what's waiting for them if she's staying to change the course of history anyway.
By this point it's clear you just hate the character and want to rewrite the whole thing around her just so she gets kicked out, so whatever. You'll literally give passes to anyone but Chisame to be there in the situation she was put into, no matter how physically prepared or not, or thematically fit or not, so I'm by now assuming you'd have reacted the same towards whoever else had won instead of your favorite had things been different. Also, if we're going from what we've seen of UQ Holder's good timeline, and seeing how the original manga was truncated, looks like after Mundus Magicus we'd have gotten a more science oriented, outer space arc, where Chisame's talents should have been more relevant. In the big narrative scheme of things, that means by the time Akamatsu was including her in the Mundus Magicus arc he already was likely setting her up for a role in the final arc, other than her just being there for shipping. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Again, I was arguing CAPABILITY of the character, not what fits the situation since you state that NO ONE else would do it (aside from Asuna, who also is nowhere near Negi AT THE TIME)
Did you pay attention to Kaede at ALL? During Kyoto Negi tries to fight Kotaro instead of prioritizing Konoka, and Kaede shuts that down with a few words.
Satsuki flat out stares down all the school's fighters in a single scene (at the time, that's impressive in terms of combat prowess) and Chizuru has shown no fear previously INCLUDING when Kotarou is showing a small bit of his power (ie. is not human). But let's ignore that for a moment, let's accept at face value that either or both of them would be scared out of their brains by Fate. How is that ANY DIFFERENT from Chisame? Chisame literally has no REAL combat abilities (ie. OUTSIDE of the internet) at all and when she first arrives in Mundus Magicus becomes easy fodder for a tentacle porn joke.
I was unsurprised, but DISAPPOINTED that the final choice is Chisame because its EXACTLY THE SAME as all his other manga and I admit that no, I don't like that character archetype. So Negi ALSO ends up with Naru Narusegawa (I mean Chisame) and I'm sure Touta will ALSO end up with (chibi) Naru Narusegawa (I mean Kirie). I'm NOT trying to "rewrite the story" so that she is not in it. I'm simply refuting that she's the logical choice due to that section of the story. I'm saying that part was obviously just put in to make readers sympathize with the choice Akamatsu wanted all along. (and yes, I realize it was originally building to Naru-clone Mark I (Asuna) but then got changed to Naru-clone Mark II (Chisame), I actually would've preferred ANY other character rather than those 2, and honestly would've (VERY slightly) preferred Asuna because at LEAST then it'd have been consistent end-to-end, altho I admit I still would've rolled my eyes for sticking to the tsundere) |
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NapoleonDeCheese
Posts: 26 |
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Or moving the goalposts around, for that matter. At least by now it's what it looks from my perspective, although I freely admit I might be wrong, because by now I'm starting to lose track of your reasons at any given point beyond 'I don't like Chisame, so she must be written out'. Again, I suspect I might be misunderstanding you, but frankly the discussion is becoming kind of a headache over too little (since neither of us will change what there is on the actual paper and our respective grievances with it) for me to dwell too much on it.
Different situation. During Kyoto Negi was not a rampaging beast losing contact with his humanity. He could be reasoned with; Kaede is good at reasoning with people who can actually be reasoned with, but something like the Bestial Negi was different. Nodoka being a sympathetic but submissive to him figure begging at him didn't work, and neither did a rational person like Asakura asking him to stop while offering no actual resistence (since Asakura doesn't love Negi enough as to sacrifice herself to him. I'm not saying she should, she already was risking herself to a lesser degree by just trying to hold him back and the whole thing wasn't her fault). Chisame, I'd say, worked because she was someone with enough guts and abrassiveness to lash out at him, while vulnerable enough to make him pause, afraid of hurting her, while he regains his senses and listens to her. Chisame was literally the right person to be there, because Negi needed being harshly reminded of how mindless he was being, while also being reminded he couldn't just stomp the helpless down. The point wouldn't have worked as well with someone not so helpless, at least in the eyes of a berserker, like Kaede or Kotaro.
Irrelevant for the comparison purposes of going into Mundus Magicus, those guys would have been eaten alive there during the first few seconds of facing a real local fighter. Also, they were brought up near Satsuki and held previous respect and general public affection for her. Someone like Fate, well, nope.
Pretty much all of 3-A are fearless when chips are down, and even Misora, the resident coward, can find it in her to zoom by and steal Violin Fatette's artifact from her in the heat of battle. Again, Chisame herself is courageous enough to stand up to a bestial Negi who wasn't recognizing his friends, who could've snapped her like a twig, hitting him, and then not flinching as he gives her a cut in the face. Again, if we're going with that Chizuru is no small chips, but not terribly special among her classmates either.
Good to see in the end all boils down to bias. As I said before, in Love Hina I liked Mutsumi, Motoko, Kanako and even Kaolla all better than Naru, but I find Chisame to be a better character than Naru and I'm not going to hold it against her that someone who was kinda like her but worse won previously in another series that has pretty little to actually do with Negima. Anyway, to get back in track, although I have already watched Episode 12 I'll wait for the actual review to be out before writing on it here. |
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Wrangler
 Posts: 1346 |
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It's over...What a train wreck of a adaption....omg.
spoiler[Talking about stick with the plot points of the manga, no matter how jumbled it looks on the anime. Why heck did they bother? Were they forced to do this? Some of the things they showed in this final episode were so out of order, and things they cut out from the manga, were linked to ending parts of Episode 12. It made no bloody sense to keep them!! Essentially they leaving off where the manga is plot wise almost, in major story arch wise. So...pray there no sequel, this is worst adaption I've ever seen of the franchise. What's scary, i suspect their setting up for the ova/one-off special with Diana (the mysterious lady at end of episode 12 who randomly appeared.] |
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consignia
 Posts: 392 |
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I'm looking forward to the inevitable UQ Holder!?, where instead of an action story about immortals, it's an organisation dedicated to finding yetis.
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#844391
Posts: 517 |
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I'm still pissed about Negima!? Why would you make something like that? I have no idea who it was supposed to appeal to, it wasn't good enough to draw in people who hadn't read the manga and it pissed off the manga readers by completely ignoring it and going on some bad spinoff. I actually stopped reading UQ holder a few chapters in specifically because I heard it was getting an anime adaption and wanted to see it first, I regret that. at least I got a lot of chapters to go through now. |
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GhostD
Posts: 1001 |
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LOL if it wasnt obvious the moment they made a huge leap and gap in the story it became pretty damn clear that theyre going for a READ/BUY THE MANGA ending
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zztop
Posts: 646 |
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I recall source manga readers had complaints similar to this too, way before the anime was announced. They felt Akamatsu should've given UQ its own original identity, rather than him using it as a vehicle to address lingering plotlines and unfinished stuff from Negima. There's also theories the production committee insisted the anime cover up to the Negima-related stuff, putting the animation team in a no-win situation to rush to get to that stuff. |
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TnAdct1
Posts: 117 |
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Given how Akamatsu's own wife is very much like Chisame (in both being a cosplayer and her being an inspiration for a certain unlikable female in Love Hina). |
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NapoleonDeCheese
Posts: 26 |
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Episode 12: real good review with mostly good points, and I'd only really argue this part.
I'm going to say it, I don't think the UQ Holder manga ever really explored interesting and complex issues either, at least not of any actually relevant fashion. Beyond the fanservice and fights, Negima had two main core plot points to drive things: a son's quest to locate his father and a group of young women sorting out their feelings for a boy they like. Neither were radically deep, innovative or trascendent ideas, and they obviously were adorned with all sorts of strange quirky twists like the father being a legendary mage or the boy the girls like being a magical child, but they're still solid, functional plot hooks to build romance, adventure, humor and drama around. UQ Holder's main plot point, the thing that roots everything is... immortality? That's not only an issue that has no relevance or resonance in the real world, where nobody is immortal (while we can sympathize with basic motifs like finding a relative or winning at love), but it's a thing that, beyond the token faux philosophical gratuitous ruminations briefly given here and there in between onsen scenes, doesn't really mark the plot as much as it pretends it does. Replace the organization's premise with any sort of generic magic guild, Friendly Neighborhood Yakuza Syndicate, or society of monsters or troubleshooters who are tough to kill and/or protected by plot armor, the kind you see in any other action shounen, and things will barely change at all beyond cosmetic alterations. Then the core theme is... whatever the organization is supposed to be doing? The plots barely touch on that. Most of the time is spent chasing after Negi and his legacy with the spotlight centered tightly on Touta and his backstory, so the organization itself and their nebulous goals they werre supposed to chase around before Touta arrived feel like afterthoughts. You can't say they do what they do out of a sense of duty to mankind as the elder members are unsympathetically callous about normal human lives and whether they're lost or not (as the latest manga chapter stressed). You can't really say the immortals really need each other, most of them seemed to do fine on their own, and Yukihime at one point says immortals ultimately can't connect with each other while explaining their relations with each other and humans. These guys are supposed to be larger than life figures who do important things, and yet most of their time seems to be spent fooling around a hot springs inn and their leader wasted years in a hole because he was too apathetic to get out. It's hard to care about characters who don't seem to care a lot themselves, other than exceptions like Touta. Then the core driving motif is... Touta's goals? Which ones? Touta's motivations go from a gag about becoming a singer that never is followed on, then to trying to get in the pants of his mother figure (one of the most uncomfortable plot points of the manga, and easily beating Negima's proclivity to strip teenagers, as we see the chronologically two-years old, biologically fourteen years old boy romantically fixed on his centuries old putative mother), then to be shoved into a half baked repeat of Negi's goal (which doesn't work here because Negi cared much more about Nagi than Touta has any reason to connect with Negi. Let's not even mention how the murder of his parents, who weren't even his parents anyway and whom he never met, also completely failed and petered out of sight as a motivator), then to... a generic 'protect my friends' goal a la Kurosaki Ichigo (most of those friends, of course, being immortals who can look after themselves, further lowering the stakes. All but the lolis who are there only to provide creepy fanservice, that is. Touta's classmates? Not even a side note now). My point is, UQ Holder may at first look like it's saying something worth our time, but in the end it's saying nothing by saying too much at once. The setting's social issues rely on things as stupid as the world's governments agreeing to redistribute poverty among themselves (economy doesn't work that way) and lawless areas attacked by sci-fi magical Mad Max-Fist of the North Star goons burning orphanages right next to outer space olympics where people are stripped in public a lot (and of course, Earth being in turmoil after several disasters is no obstacle for doing those olympics plus a highly advanced space exploration at once. Are we in a crisis, yes or not?). The character beats don't really matter when they don't relate to Touta, Santa arc aside. Secondary characters are lucky when they get a brief explanation a couple pages long about their origins before the plot dives back into stolen Negima beats, but those rehashed loose plotlines, set decades after they stopped mattering for most long dead now characters, are necesary because the plot just doesn't supply any working long term development ideas of its own. |
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Chrono1000
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Well by the standards of Negima anime I thought UQ Holder was good but it is very much made for people who are already fans of the franchise. It has that Negima combination of action and light fanservice which I thought was entertaining. The show did feel a tad rushed and they obviously were trying to get to certain events in the manga but at least they can easily continue with a second season if it manages to do well.
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GhostD
Posts: 1001 |
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I honestly dont see it doing well. Like you said this was made for fans of the franchise mainly the manga so this left a lot of anime-only audience confused. It wasnt just a tad rushed. They skipped like...2-3 arcs and left out one character whos supposed to be part of Touta's main posse and as a result they made changes to accommodate this. If theres one thing that might help this adaptation even a little its to remove the censorship and show full nudity where the censors where heavy thus heightening the fanservice past the level of what Akamatsu normally does. If the rumors are true it will happen. Truth be told theres enough content for a season 2 even if they were to continue where this left off but all I can see happening is that itll damage the anime's reputation even more. In the end this just to promote the manga |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4379 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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which is what i was saying from the start when it got the green light. i called it! it was not only going to end in 12-13 eps, but have the traditional "read the source materials,kids!" type of ending. and considering that none of akamastu's anime adaptations ever end as the same as their manga counterparts, it was more or less a given this was going to get the filler like ending just like with its predecessor. its pretty certain that any new anime version of holder will be on oav packages that come with certain volumes of the manga which was similar to how the ala alba oav's were distributed. |
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GhostD
Posts: 1001 |
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Well theres nothing wrong with hoping that the curse would be broken with this but any hope for that was lost the moment they jumped to the UQ vs Ala Alba arc. The only thing I can say is that at the very least the ending scene was still following the manga and not really filler though it requires you to watch the previously aired OVA to make any sense of the ending scene. |
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jr240483
Posts: 4379 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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Which is their plan all along. their pretty much following the light novel trend which was to make this series more or less a glorified ad promo to the source materials. Besides, that hope was lost the minute they made tota into a clone to be honest. its more or less made things really redundant. but it did left with an uber surprise on who negi ended up with. i mean everyone more or less expected him to be with asuna at least, or even follow chamo's lead threesome with bookworm & yui or possibly eva, but HER OF ALL PEOPLE??? its definitely probably the biggest "WHAT THE HELL???" paring since bleach when people were more or less up in arms on who ichigo ended up with though i for one wasn't surprised at the slightest. |
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