After 355 chapters, Japanese writer and illustrator Ken Akamatsu shocked fans in 2012 by confirming that his highly successful manga ‘Negima! Magister Negi Magi’ would be concluding. With an abrupt conclusion that abandoned what could have been a promising final arc, there was every indication that Akamatsu would be moving on from the universe of school, swords and magic that he had spent an entire decade crafting. This was not entirely the case.
UQ Holder! Has been designed as a successor to Akamatsu’s previous work rather than a standalone franchise, taking place seventy years in the future. To alleviate any immediate concerns, it is only beneficial to have knowledge of events that had previously taken place, with no need to have read the prequel to fully understand or appreciate what is taking place. Therefore if purchasing 38 volumes of manga sounds excessive, this may be a fantastic entry point.
The story begins in a small rural village ten years after the existence of magic had been made public to the world. In this village resides 14-year-old Touta Konoe, the grandson of highly acclaimed mage Negi Springfield. Following the death of his parents in a car crash, he now finds himself raised by Yukihime, the woman who was purportedly responsible for the accident. Desiring a life in the capital city, Touta and his friends train to take down Yukihime in order to gain permission to leave the village, a feat none had come close to accomplishing. The reason why Yukihime is unbeatable comes to light when she is exposed as the infamous vampire Evangeline A.K. McDowell, and their near death at the hands of a bounty hunter leaves Touta as an immortal vampire also. Indirectly granting his wish, the two vampires are forced to leave town for their protection and make their way towards the capital, meeting others in similar predicaments along the way.
With only six chapters in the first volume, it is far too soon to tell what direction the storyline will take. The issue with this volume is that it is far too light on purposeful detail and really needed more of a hook to convince newcomers that it is worth their time and money to read further. Instead, this volume is predominantly about introducing the setting and core characters, while integrating plenty of action and what came across as “filler content” into the mix.
With regard to the characters, the currently unveiled main cast were well targeted towards the shounen reader demographic, and have been appropriately utilized by Akamatsu. Touta fills the shoes of a cliché hyperactive and optimistic protagonist, who isn’t the brightest tool in the shed, but has an infectious personality that allows him to befriend anyone easily. As the protagonist he can be slightly over-the-top, but given this is an action-adventure manga, characters with this temperament tend to provide writers with a lot more flexibility as their story progresses. Yukihime / Evangeline on the other hand has softened over the past seventy years, serving as a motherly figure to the young boy yet doesn’t entirely lose her snarky and sadistic personality. Akamatsu’s previous work has tended to involve dozens of main characters, so it was refreshing to see him take the time to develop these two individually.
Akamatsu’s approach to art hasn’t changed over the years, and this is a good thing. He has managed to produce some well-designed characters and backgrounds, with detailed action scenes throughout. However it would have been nice for publisher Kondansha Comics USA to include the first pages in colour rather than monochrome, as this ruined perfectly good artwork with a noticeable blur.
Ultimately, the only indicator of what UQ Holder! will be about comes from the opening pages narrated by Evangeline: “Living forever isn’t as great as you think. It’s pretty tough, you know. [..] This is the story of those who for whatever reason got stuck in this sucky experience”. While it is clear that the story will have some relationship to immortal beings, 200 pages in and that is pretty much all I could discover about the overarching plot. But at the very least this does not seem to be a series designed to simply appease fans by having old characters pop up every so often. Going from these chapters alone, UQ Holder! does hold the potential to be strong on its own, and as an extension to an acclaimed franchise. Time will tell if this series meets the standard set by its predecessor.
