10 Second Anime - UQ Holder! - Episode 3

Touta and Kuromaru must pass a test of skill against another member to officially join UQ Holder.

Episode 3 - "Palace of the Immortals"

Hmm.

From the keening howls of the manga fans online, I can guess the anime adaptation is doing things a little differently with the story. It's their own fault. They didn't take seriously the tagline of this anime - "Negima! 2." From what I've seen reported about the later manga chapters, UQ Holder! became a continuation of Negi's story instead of a spin-off.  This means this adaptation is tailor-made for a fan like me.

I read Negima!, but didn't pick up UQ Holder! because I didn't want to read a different story set in Negi's universe. Hundreds of chapters later, surprise! It's still Negi's story. It's clear that the anime is short circuiting the UQ Holder parts of the story to get back to the story and characters we know from the previous story in a hurry. That's the reason we have all those flashbacks to Negi and the girls. Some of those scenes have never been animated, so it warms my heart to see them.

I've also read that Ken Akamatsu is heavily involved with the anime's story line. Well, this gives me a little pause, because he was heavily involved in the first Negima! adaptation, but they had to tack on an anime original conclusion to the last 6 episodes of the 24 because the manga hadn't gotten anywhere yet. The second adaptation was just a bizarre marketing ploy to get kids to buy the pactio cards by setting a story in the background art of each one. TV anime always was a weekly 30 minute commercial for other merchandise.

The reason I have some misgivings about Akamatsu's involvement here is that his instincts for storyboarding anime original elements have never been that great. We can see that in this episode how some of the manga story was mixed and matched with the anime only short circuit. Touta and Kuromaru had to meet Jinbei down in the basement, but how they got there was extremely lazy. Elided over too was Kurobo the talking sword. A whole bunch of things just got rushed over to get to introducing the UQ Holder members as quickly as possible and get to Touta meeting Negi.

Oh well. Like I say, the adaptation is running as fast as possible through the UQ Holder story to make this anime a real sequel to the Negima! I don't mind, since I never read the manga, but I can see the rough patches in the anime are from the rich world that was already built in the spin-off and being quickly introduced and discarded.

Meh.

These CG monsters looked terrible.

The lighting and detail didn't match the old-fashioned hand drawn style of the rest of the scenes. I think a compromise was met to handle the schedule of the animation, since hand-drawn monsters would have taken too much time. I have a bad feeling about what the other big monster set pieces are going to look like later on in the season.

Heh.

That was a nice throwaway joke to reveal the power of Touta's immortality. Karin better like him because with how strong their kinds of immortality are, they'll probably be the last two people on earth. Karin didn't want to hear that!

Karin is love. Karin is life.

Headquarters is called Fairyland Hall. I guess we won't get an explanation for that.

Ha! I remarked how all the SP made it look like Yukihime was a gangster princess, and now we have all of them crying about missing her (she was gone for two years watching over Touta), and calling "ane-san" (big sis).

These top tier UQ Holders have numbers, but we won't get an explanation on what that means either. Jinbei is number 2, which means 2nd strongest to Evangeline or first one she recruited? Who knows but the manga fans?

More mirroring to tie the old story with the new. Negi had to get one hit on Eva to become her pupil and now Touta and Kuromaru have to do the same to join up.

Evangeline explicitly said that Touta was Negi's grandson. I'm sure it's more complicated than that because that meant he or his children became involved with Konoka's family. I'll be looking forward to that explanation.

Shinobu, the normal human hotel staff, just gave us the "many things happened and now I'm here" excuse. More short circuiting.

Jinbei likes his sake. Actually, Evangeline's sake.

Oh, we just had to have a King Arthur moment. Except the sword just told Touta how to pick him up. Hey, talking sword! No introductions to Kurobo, though.

Jinbei knows what's what. A dude needs a weapon hanging from his belt to look cool. Truth.

Some of these UQ Holders have hotel jobs at the resort they run on that island. Jinbei wears an apron. Gengoro is dressed like a bartender or coffee shop master. Karin is dressed like she goes to Mahora Academy.

Kuromaru relied on regeneration and summoning to defeat Gengoro. Touta relied on the changing weight of Kurobo to get a lick on Karin.

I'm sure tons of manga readers wanted to press NO on that Continue question.

That Ikku guy said some of their immortals had extra lives like a video game, but he meant it literally in Gengoro's case.

Ho! Yukihime is the mistress of her domain. She knows exactly who made that hole in the cave that let the monsters they were originally supposed to kill up to the surface. And she knows that cave somehow had her stash of Okinawan sake. Trapdoors for Touta, Kuromaru, and Jinbei!

Karin features in the end card, but we haven't met the glasses wearing girl yet.