10 Second Anime - UQ Holder! - Episode 1

Decades after Negi Springfield changed the magical world, Evangeline the Vampire and her ward Touta go on a new adventure. Season Premiere.

Episode 1 - "The Beauty and the Boy"

First Thoughts.

These aren't really first thoughts on the anime, but more like first thoughts on the manga when it first came out. I read the first few chapters, the ones that covered the first episode actually, and then I had to stop. I had finished reading the entire story of Negima! as it came out and was ready to see if Ken Akamatsu was going to write something different, like when he switched up from Love Hina to Negima!. Unfortunately, Negima!'s world was too fresh in my mind, and I couldn't stand reading about one character from it, Evangeline, without knowing about what happened to the others. I was just unable to care about the new characters and their own story.

This is the same reason why I have to let Boruto, the manga and the TV show, go. Naruto is still too fresh in my heart, and with those characters still in it, I skim through the pages until I see those old characters again. It's not fair to the new kids and it's really wasting my time. Imagine if you had read only the flashback stories of Jiraiya, Madara and Hashirama, or Kakashi, Obito, and Minato, and then had to wait hundreds of chapters to see them again while reading about this dumb blonde kid Naruto. This is exactly the position UQ Holder! put me in with Negima!.

Well, it's been four years and Negima! is finally fading from my memories. The anime adaptations faded much quicker, thankfully, because they were awful. The live-action show was the most faithful to the manga, but that had actual little girls in it, so I wasn't going to watch that. But! When that opening theme song came on... I was transported back to when the first anime captured the fun first days of Mahora Academy. I got that feeling again, and now I'm even more excited after seeing this first episode.

The mix of fun fanservice, anime comedy conventions, and Negima's unflinching depiction of blood and limbs flying brought me instantly back to the last parts of that manga's story. I will have to see if they keep up this level animation quality for the whole season, but it felt so nostalgic. They just don't make this kind of anime anymore.

Heh.

Quick flashback to Mahora Academy. If only the first anime had been in HD, wow!

With Chamo censorship! And martial arts moves with English translations!

But it's 80 years later. Evangeline even had to say goodbye to Chachazero. This is sad. This is also a perfect adaptation of the first manga chapter.

Evangeline's disguise is Ms. Yukihime, because of course she would be the Snow Princess.

Aw Yisss! The opening song is Happy Material from the first series! I'm dying!

Apparently Ms. Yukihime and these boys have a recurring event of ambushes and punishment. That's old-fashioned too, like the master telling his student he can't graduate until he defeats him even once.

Touta is the hero of this story and Evangeline is his foster parent.

His parents are named Konoe, like Konoka, Negi's roommate  Why is Negi buried here with Touta's parents? Is Touta the grandchild of Konoka and Negi, somehow? This is the stuff that drove me crazy four years ago, but is now just an extra bit of fervent curiosity for me.

Negi, and grown-up Negi looking like his dad Nagi, appear ghost-like. Yeah, this story is a pure sequel to Negima!.

80 years later and magic is not a secret anymore, but is still rare. Evangeline is still the magic teacher, though: "Even a little courage is what makes true magic." That's a clunky translation from one of the aphorisms at Mahora Academy - "Our magic is not omnipotent. A little bit of courage is the real magic." That appeared in the first chapter of Negima! and here it is in the first chapter of UQ Holder!.

Oh, just to note. UQ is yuukyuu (ゆうきゅう, 悠久), which means "eternity." You can also see it inside the letters of the title logo. This is a story about a vampire to start with, and all the other immortals she and Toura meet.

Ha! These magic apps look just like the training wands the girls from Class 2-A got to practice magic.

Ah. Bounty hunter. Lots of blood and limbs flying everywhere. Little kids getting grown-up violence. This is pure Negima!.

Brutal finishing move. That's pure Negima! too. There's no way a little kid could survive that, right? Wrong!

Negi Punch! More like Kuu Fei Punch! Aw man, the nostalgia is coming in waves over here.

It's not really clear from that flashback whether Evangeline discovered Touta's parents or she's the one that killed them. The shape of those magic swords is the big clue here, but I can't remember who made them like that.

Look! A flying police car. It's the future!

This capital city, New Tokyo, Amano-Mihashira is on Mars, right? The Tower is an orbital elevator.

After all that blood and flying body parts, this ending sequence sure is fluffy. It also has the names of all the other UQ Holders we'll meet.

Oh man. Hiro Mashima of Fairy Tail doing Ken Akamatsu a solid for the end card. Maybe he'll do the sequel to Love Hina...