UQ Holder 106 Review

I haven't cared much for the last couple chapters. I like Kirie a lot, and I appreciate the characterization we got of her, but this whole time freeze thing seems like a completely wasted opportunity. 4 months pass in the span of two pages, and literally all that happens is that Touta trains nonstop while Kirie is holed up in her room all depressed. Maybe it was necessary to drive Kirie to the edge so that she would finally open up to Touta, but frankly I wasn't very interested in the recent harem building to begin with and just found it boring.

Yet again, despite being fresh with character development from the last arc, Touta just comes off as bland here. I guess I have to give props for him becoming less of a stereotypical shounen idiot hero, but this 'maturing' has just made him completely boring while still keeping most of his flaws. The only thing I found interesting about him now is his relationship with Yukihime, but even that is getting drowned out by the sudden harem (and, of course, he's completely clueless). Tie that with the fact that it doesn't seem likely to me that any of these numerous relationships are likely to go anywhere anytime soon, and honestly I have to say that I think I prefered the old Touta. He was cliche, yes, but at least he was still a little interesting.

I did like what we heard of Kirie's past, as brief as it was. Although it makes me wonder how she even got that unique power of hers considering how comparatively ordinary the household she was born into seemed to be. Maybe she was experimented on somehow? I always theorized that she might be related to Negima's Chisame in some way, but considering her terrible upbringing I've reconsidered that. Chisame was one of the more jerkish members of 3A, but there's no way she would  neglect a child to the point of death (or allow someone related to her to).

The way all of this time freeze stuff gets resolved is just too easy, and just reinforces my opinion that this was all meaningless. There's so much potential for a plot like this, and it all seems squandered in the way it played out. The method in which its resolved (a kiss) also seems out of left field, because there's never been any indication that her ability worked anything like that. At the very end Kirie shouts something like 'Forget It Ever Happened!', which sums up my opinion on how much this is going to matter in the long run. Well, maybe this is going to become a regular power of hers later on.