UQ Holder!

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UQ Holder! (later titled UQ Holder!: Magister Negi Magi! 2) is a manga series by Ken Akamatsu. Set in the same universe of his previous work Mahou Sensei Negima, but over 70 years later, it follows the adventures of a young Touta Konoe, a boy who is transformed into a vampire and joins a secret society composed of immortal beings.

UQ (ユーキュー Yūkyū?) stands for 悠久 ("eternity"), the kanji that entwines inside the UQ logo, which alludes to the immortal nature of the characters.

The series is set in the year 2086, several decades after the events of Mahou Sensei Negima and ten years after magic is revealed to the world. Tōta Konoe is a young boy who is mortally wounded by a bounty hunter coming after his guardian Yukihime's life, who reveals herself as a vampire and saves him by transforming Tōta into one of her kind. Tōta discovers then that Yukihime is none other than the legendary vampire and magician Evangeline A.K. McDowell and joins her covenant of immortal beings, the secret society known as "UQ Holder".

Tropes used in UQ Holder! include:
  • Ambiguous Gender: Tokisaka Kuroumaru, who is pretty and strong. Claims to be male, while having these strange feelings of attraction towards Touta (of course). Is actually from a species that chooses a sex at adulthood, so it's still not clear where he's going to end up in the end.
  • Attractive Bent Gender: When Kuroumaru Cross Dresses, naturally he's super cute in a dress. Kyaaan~!
  • Anti-Hero: Fate Averruncus has graduated to the heroic side from his original Anti-Villain status, but he's still a total Jerkass.
  • Badass
  • Badass Crew: UQ Holder, by design, because they're all magical immortals. Of course, members of Ala Rubra and Ala Alba are still kicking around.
  • Battle Harem: The female members of UQ Holder, slowly but surely, move to orbit Touta.
  • Big Beautiful Woman: Dana Ananga Jagannatha, Witch of the Rift. She's been around long enough that big is still beautiful to her, though if she splits off a bit of her self, the clone turns in to Buxom Is Better, Lolicon, and Chibi forms.
  • Breast Expansion: Dana decides that Yukihime doesn't have large enough breasts, and magicks her breasts up to Gag Boobs proportions. This is important as a plot point, to show that Dana has enough power to force her magic against even Yukihime.
  • Buxom Is Better: As Yukihime, Evangeline spends most of her time in adult form these days with a decent rack—although Dana demonstrates that she can do even better.
  • Cloning Blues: Our protagonist, Touta goes through this when he finds out he's a clone for a few chapters, but he gets over it pretty quickly.
  • Chekhov MIA: Negi Springfield. We all knew he would show up eventually.
  • Death Is Cheap: Most of the characters are immortal. Characters like the vampires can "die", but they come back a few minute later. A whole training section from Dana focuses on making death even cheaper, so that characters can regenerate from being killed in a matter of seconds.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Yukihime, which of course literally means "ice princess", is still in the process of thawing, in spite of her progress in the first manga. Evangeline's still an ice magic user who isn't afraid to be a brutal task-mistress in training.
  • Fanservice: Hey guys, guess what? The clothes-stripping magic of Negima is back, baby!
  • Fantastic Time Management: With Kirië's Save Point ability, she can study up on anything quickly. Sure she has to kill herself to go back in time, but eh, you get used to it.
  • Generation Xerox: Honoka Konoe and Isana Konoe look like carbon copies of Konoka Konoe and Setsuna Sakurazaki. Isana has the same family name, but still refers to Honoka as Ojou-sama for some inexplicable reason. They refer to Touta Konoe as their brother, but he's a more literal form of Xerox, being some kind of clone of Negi.
    • Shinobu Yuuki is so similar to Shinobu Maehara of Love Hina that even The Other Wiki noticed. Putting this here rather than Expy, as Love Hina is presumably in the same universe due to the shared Shinmeiryuu martial arts style.
  • The Glomp: yup.
  • Harem Genre: Once again, Ken Akamatsu delivers us a manga that has several attractive females throwing themselves at a cute boy.
  • Haunted Technology: Santa is pretty good at hacking computers with his "psychic" powers.
  • Idiot Hero: Touta, who definitely didn't inherit the studious attitude from his Grandfather Negi.
  • I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Expressed by Kuroumaru, who eventually decides that they will be Better as Friends, even expressing it with Bishie Sparkle!
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: Not nearly as bad as Negima at first… but as the manga progressed, it seems to want to import all of Negima's cast plus their children.
  • Love Confession: Touta does this to Yukihime of all people (see Idiot Hero, above). He gets turned down pretty hard. A few chapters later, he eats a truth potion chocolate and goes around telling all of the characters he loves them.
  • Luminescent Blush: Most of the girls and some of the boys do this for Touta, but none so egregiously as Kirië, whose entire face lights up when thinking about a guy she is definitely not in love with, not at all!
  • Long Runner: If you include it as a part of Negima, definitely, but even this story is over 100 chapters.
  • Magic Kiss: Kirië's Accidental First Kiss with Touta unlocks a new power for her: Time Stands Still
  • Magic Missile Massacre: Touta can't cast spells due to his makeup, but people sure these cast spells on him. Complete with Roboteching, of course.
  • Marilyn Maneuver: How do you prove you can Time Stop? If you're Touta, you lift a skirt.
  • Marry Them All: Not proposed yet, but lurking in the background, both for Touta, and what happened to Negi.
  • Memetic Sex God: In the decades since Negima, Negi's status has risen such that he is said to make a woman fall in love with just a single look.
  • Metaphysical App: The story is set in an era where magic and technology have advanced to the point that people can use a program to perform magic without the need of either training or talent.
  • Mysterious Grandparent: Touta's Grandfather, Negi.
  • New Neo City: A single panel in chapter 111 offers up "Shin Tokyo", "Baru Jakarta", and "New Sydney".
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Different types even within the story. Touta is a vampire/clone/doll, Evangeline's vampirism came from a magical experiment, and Dana is one of the great old ones.
  • Sobriquet: The Mage of the Beginning is the Big Bad, though pretty much everyone from Negima now has a cool nickname, 80 years later.
  • Tournament Arc: The Mahora Martial Arts Tournament is billed as Touta's ticket to the top of the Space Elevator, but put on the back burner as he does a training arc, then a romance arc, and then a racing arc.
  • Trope Overdosed: Fill out the page, guys.
  • Tsundere: Kirië Sakurame, lolita subtype. She does a lot of blushing one moment and kicking Touta the next.
  • Save Point: This is Kirië's superpower — when she dies, she goes back the last time she created a point to save her progress through life, with memories of what happened in between. This is pretty abusable, she can simply kill herself to relive a period of time, helping her hobby of day trading or enabling rapid learning.
  • Space Elevator: A central feature of Shin Tokyo, a thin line that stretches to the sky. Touta's original goal is to reach the top of the elevator, but he keeps working up a big debt from property damage that he can't afford to do it.
  • Science Fantasy: A kitchen sink of tropes from fantasy and science fiction, with magic and high technology blending in the next century.
  • Wacky Racing: The flying speeder race, made even more wacky because there are three Touta clones competing. Clothing-removing magic is allowed, which is all somehow OK because future AIs can blur the naughty bits in real time on live broadcasts.
  • World Tree: The giant tree from Mahora Academy is still there.
  • Yandere: Sayoko, oh so much. The world laughs at us? Wait until they all die from my zombie bioterrorism! That will show them how much I love you.