It’s a very odd experience watching this adaptation as a manga reader, because I find my mind wandering along two separate tracks at once.  There’s a definite “stages of grief” thing going on as it becomes increasingly clear just how much manga material is being axed (7 chapters covered in this episode – yoiks!).  But the adaptation itself is, I think, still rather good.  In it’s way it’s more faithful to the manga than almost all of the original Negima anime incarnations, though admittedly that’s as much a condemnation of them as an endorsement of UQ Holder. It’s just that it’s a heavily condensed version – which, I would argue, it better than a complete bastardization.

That’s as may be, but the fact remains that this arc is one of my favorites in the manga, and a very important one for a number of reasons, and it’s going to (likely) finish in two episodes when it really needs five or six to shine as it should.  Politics and social unrest are an important part of UQ Holder, and the introduction of the massive (2 million souls) slum that exists in what’s left of Japan is an introduction to that part of the story.  It’s also our first glimpse at UQ Holder as a kind of benevolent organization – social warriors of a sort.

In this event they’re standing up for a group of slum residents who’re under threat – including a group of urchins living at a Church orphanage.  This is to be Touta (who’s revealed to be the #7 ranker at UQ Holder) and Kuromaru’s first job, protecting these children – though it was originally Karin’s job, which means the two newbies are there more or less to support her.  And given how the only conflict at first is between Touta-kun and a bunch of UQ Holder zaku he mistakes for attackers, it seems as if it’s going to be a pretty easy one – for a while.

One thing that starts to become apparent about Touta by now – he’s good at a lot of things.  Really good, in fact – like cooking, for example.  And shundoujitsu – the instant movement skill referred to as “flash step” in the subs here.  Karin (helpful for once) recommends that Touta learn it as a means to improve in arm wrestling, where the girls she and Kuromaru are constantly destroying him.  As he’s practicing in the slums he’s observed by Kaito (Ishikawa Hideo), who introduces himself as a shundoujitsu master and has the moves to back it up.  He marvels at how good Touta is after only practicing for a her hours, and decides to teach the boy some moves.

Well – you’ll just have to take my word about how awesome this is in the manga, because Ken goes into almost Togashi-like levels of detail about the instant movement technique.  As is, we flash step through it pretty quickly to the crisis point of the arc – where a group of “immortal hunters” move in to eradicate the slum dwellers they consider a blight on society.  And Kaito is revealed to be one of them, a werewolf – though the leader is a blind swordsman called Nagumo Shion (Kuroda Takaya).  This is all pretty important stuff too, and again it’s uploaded way too fast – but the action is pretty good, apart from a ridiculous downpour of ermine censorship.  I have no idea how new viewers are taking all this, but for me it’s very much a mixed bag – I’m enjoying it but not as much as I should be, knowing what I’m not seeing.  I hope that feeling will diminish as we get further into the series, but I’d still much rather have this UQ Holder than none at all…