UQ Holder Episode 1: Not A Total Disaster

Overview:

In the decade since the world became aware of the existence of magic, the world has undergone massive upheaval. However, a boy named Tōta lives in seclusion in a rural town far removed from these changes. His ordinary life is highlighted by his magic-using female teacher and his supportive friends. When his tranquil daily life is disrupted, he embarks on a unique adventure.

– From AnimeLab

Review:

This show opens with a scene of a group of school girls greeting a male teacher. The male teacher sneezes and magically blows the girls clothes off. Then we see some other blonde girl acting all smug who starts a monologue about being a 700 year old vampire. Then we get an opening sequence before we meet an entirely different group of boys who are trying to defeat their teacher so that they can go to the capital.

Honestly, this introduction is a mess. I’m not exactly sure who that opening sequence was attempting to appeal to but it is just a confused mess of ambiguous, dull, or generic tropes and none of it really screamed keep watching me. As the episode progressed, things got better but Touta, the main character, is pretty much your stock standard shonen hero. He’s training to beat his teacher to achieve some nebulous goal that doesn’t seem well thought through, his parents are dead and he’s raised by his mentor, turns out he’s also lost his memory, and by the way, after nearly dying his mentor reveals that she turned him into an immortal to save his life.

The episode ends with teacher and boy heading off to the capital and from the opening and ending it looks like we’ll meet a whole new cast of characters so no reason to really care about anyone we’ve met so far.

This is not a great introduction to a series, but there’s been worse opening episodes. I’ll give this one a couple more to see if it can settle in to something that might eventually come up with an original idea (seriously, this show has an orbital elevator which they keep referring to as a tower that he wants to climb – how many other anime just flashed through your mind). Or even if this show can find a way to present a generic story in an interesting manner given it kind of failed completely at that in this first episode.

If you checked out the first episode, let me know your thoughts.

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Thanks,

Karandi James.