UQ Holder Manga Chapter 14 Review (Give a girl a mallet, a sword, and a hard heeled shoe to kick butt with.)

ユーキューホルダー!/UQ Holder Chapter 14 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: 

Touta is impressed with how Karin dispatched Wrecking Ball, then frets about her cutting him in half. She assures Touta the man isn't dead, and sure enough, Wrecking Ball reveals he's a cyborg, firing a laser beam from his eye. Karin is unharmed, so Wrecking Ball assumes she's using magic apps, specifically a barrier app. He uses a barrier nullifying kick app as his bottom and top halves attack. Wrecking Ball then uses a weapon storage app, where he has nine High Frequency Green Dragon Crescent Blades summoned from, which launch at her.

Karin appears to be pierced and Wrecking Ball is starting to gloat, but he's shocked when he discovers that all he did was destroy Karin's clothing. Showing no shame, Karin moves in slowly, then quickly takes out the cyborg's bottom half before dropping a foot down on the back of his head, taking out Wrecking Ball's top half.

Touta is impressed again as Kuroumaru gives Karin her jacket to cover up with. The kids begin to emerge from the church, as do people from the slums, all clapping for the trio. Karin is given a hat, which she gives to an impressed little girl. Karin explains to Touta and Kuroumaru that her immortality is different from theirs, in that she she cannot be harmed, much less die. The little girl, seeing Karin's face, tells her to not be sad since everyone is happy. Karin smiles, which Touta notices and remarks on, leading to his punishment.

In the city, a werewolf (?) and a man are getting a briefing on the situation from a worried person on a monitor. The two aren't worried about immortals defending the church since the two of them hunt immortals.

Thoughts/Review:

Another good chapter with Karin getting the spotlight. Oh, no spotlight on Touta. Well, no wonder it was good. ^_~

At this point, Karin is like Setsuna at the start of the Kyoto arc. She's pretty much all business.  She doesn't waste time, nor does she worry if she gets stripped.  If she has an opponent that needs to be dispatched, then nothing is going to stop her from dispatching said opponent.

Karin's immortality is rather interesting. Assuming she went through the UQ Holder initiation rites, then her time underground wouldn't have been much of a problem, other than killing the monsters. After all, there's apparently no way any of them can harm her.

That does beg the question though -- if Karin's immortality is that she can't be harmed nor killed, then why did she bother with a barrier?

Other unanswered questions -- why would Eva get angry if Karin literally shredded Wrecking Ball? Why would an apparent government organization want to move in on the slums (PMSC)?

Wrecking Ball's sword summoning looked a lot like something Archer would do from Fate/Zero as well as Fate/stay night.  Just saying. ^_~

Thinking about Karin again, she's got a sword, and for some reason, what I jokingly refer to as a croquet mallet. I keep wondering about the mallet.  When I saw all of the swords from Wrecking Ball, I couldn't help but have a flash thought about the pactio system from Negima! and how that would probably carry over into UQ Holder. With Karin being as attached to Eva as she is, I wonder if Eva has made a pactio with Karin.  That would be something interesting.

So far, this "slum arc" (for lack of a better name) is turning out to be pretty interesting, mainly because Karin is getting more face time while Touta takes a back seat.  I really hope Akamatsu-sensei can work on improving his character.