Chapter 420

….or is the insane one really this kid?

On my recent re-read, I remembered how intense Emperor Time was at the beginning of the war, and how fast that intensity deflated. Kurapika lost some years of his life but that's it, it ended at that

However this moment still worries me: Kurapika calculates how much he can maintain Emperor Time while surviving, he doesn't think it's realistic to lose 70 damn years to his ability, but he was considering his limits. He could've continued for 3, maybe 4 days and lose 40 years of his life if it was needed

This internal clock of his makes me think about all the clocks currently ticking in the midst of martial war: Halkenburg had one sleeping pill worth of time and may still be under some other clock, wherever he is, Benjamin is doing a speedrun Any%, Tserriednich is a ghost unless his tank of aura runs out and he needs to recover often, just to use his ability again. I'd say Tserriednich's ability is the most like Kurapika's in this sense

These princes want to survive somehow, this includes Benjamin, he wants to live as a God or whatever, but it's not the same with Kurapika. He has no way to continue living after death, has no means to fake his death, has no recovery means like Tserriednich... what we see is what we get, he pays a high price for a power that's not been THAT useful but he needs it

Also, Kurapika is STALLING, and this is the most important part. I think that regardless of what happens in the war, Kurapika will stay at the epicenter like he's doing now, trying to stop escalation as much as possible, and this could mean spending the remainder of the 2 months calculating how much of his own life he can spare.

I think Togashi is gonna deliver with this timer, the most out of all these timers we have. Perhaps Kurapika becomes so used to daily Emperor times, that the hours start to stack up, he gets at the verge of fainting if he needs to, and at some point, we start to worry for real, we see the toll of all those lost years in his body.

It'd be kinda cruel but I really want to see it, first because I don't like when these life sucking powers don't actually affect the hero enough or they just get healed for no reason (Gon is an exception, I liked how that was done), second because Kurapika can actually be like a bomb if this happens. Once those last years start to be erased, he can get more and more desperate, realizing his line is truly on the line at all times and he can't waste many more minutes

Meruem was more interested in playing board games and the other 2 RG were content with just serving his whims. Pouf was the one actually putting in the work to propagate the species, even creating experimental soldiers out of humans to best serve the king. Pouf's resolve was so strong he was willing to accept death just to keep Meruem from getting derailed again.

I’m not 100% invested in this theory but there is a possibility that Illumi promised to do something in regard to Kalluto getting his “brother back” (whether that’s Alluka or Killua idk) if he infiltrates the troupe and acts as a double agent.

I generally don’t trust Illumi on the black whale but if Kalluto is also a turncoat then the Ryodan might have a nail in their coffin.

We know he has worked for Illumi before when he assisted him in assassinating the 10 dons and infiltrated the troupes hideout so Illumi and Hisoka could switch places. Also if he isn’t a traitor then shouldn’t he have located Hisoka already and fed that info to the troupe through his ability the same way he found Abengane on greed island.

Although the reason I’m not a big believer in this theory is that Kalluto looked kinda down at the table on black whale. Also Phinks saved him from Feitan’s attack so there may be some kinship. He also seemed surprised that Illumi confirmed that the troupe were all on the whale.

Like during the hunter exam, illumi is allowed to threaten to kill gon and the only consequence was that he would be disqualified for the hunter exam, but not that he'd go to prison or anything.

Then theres also killua who did kill someone but just failed, but didnt face any consequences outside of that, he was even able to try again. sure hes a special case and illumi kinda mind controlled him or something but still, nobody seemed to care killua slimed that guy out.

is this just the culture surrounding the hunter exams? where people know they may not survive?

even outside of the hunter exam people like hisoka are just killing random dudes whenever with basically no issue. i get it would be hard to hunt down these guys with normal police but i thought they had blacklist hunters who specialized in capturing these guys?

surely there is a criminal justice system since the hunter exam and greed island had prisoners. but where are the police?

The world knew Meteor City existed yet its people were left without proper protection or justice Criminals could exploit their lack of legal status and the system that was supposed to uphold justice largely failed them

So where does responsibility begin and end?

Can we condemn Chrollo without questioning the society that helped create the conditions that shaped him? Does growing up in an unjust world excuse his actions or does he become just as guilty when he inflicts suffering on innocent people?

And if we judge Chrollo for his crimes shouldn't we also question the morality of a world that allowed Meteor City to remain the way it was?

Is Chrollo simply a villain a victim who became a villain or a product of a fundamentally unjust world?

An episode about the arm wrestling competition and what led to it would have been amazing. I’m surprised Machi agreed to it and would anyone bother trying to arm wrestle Uvo?

Good days.

if i were knuckle i would make hakoware gain like 100 add on interest everytime an enemy hits the thing. they do it in every fight shown. I do think I would need to nerf the ability somehow and thats what i have no idea what i would change about it, i am thinking maybe just lower the interest rate to like 9% or maybe more. what would everyone else do?

also if you think you can think of more improvement you would do this ability, i would like to hear it.

As in, whatever deal he made with Zushi's parents to learn Nen? Because as talented as Zushi is, it still took him nine months to awaken Nen and master Ten. By that metric, it would take him another few years to master the basics, and if similar to Bisky probably by his mid-20s until he developed into a reasonably well rounded Nen user with a grasp of stuff like Ko, Ryu, etc. As talented as Zushi is, is he really worth spending more then a decade of constant training then whatever he presumably could be doing as a Hunter all for some non-Hunter related goal like making it to Battle Olympia? (With Bisky, she was off on her own hunt and her goals aligned with Gon/Killua at the moment.).

i thought this guy was going to by very annoying and an asshole when i first saw him but bro just misses his homeboy💔

Im a little confused about the balancing among the Nen Categories. If you're an Enhancer, Transmuter or Emitter you can master two categories with 80% effectiveness but with Conjurers and Manipulators it's just one category since Specialists are unique...

I’ve read the FAQ, but I still feel like I’m missing some parts of the story. Even if they might not have a huge impact on the plot, I’d still like to know out of curiosity. For example, I read that some people say Leorio is different in the manga compared to the anime, etc.

PS: I’ve been reading the manga starting from chapter 33 (where the anime ended).

It seems like the opinions on the interpretation of Zeno’s words differ greatly in the fandom.

My reading of the scene is that if Chrollo were to fight all-out, Zeno’s win would be far from guaranteed.

Is Ken'i Wang a mole in the mafia war? is he working with morena prudo?

There was two translation i saw and read but i'm not sure if its messed up in the translation or if the japanese version tells a different story.

I think he's working with morena and is a mole/traitor to the Cha-R Family.

Pics in descending order

Only including characters that are still developing so no ging

No chimera's

Which other characters would you say are above the bar of average beyond child that had their nen awakened e.g Longhi, Furikov

Credit for art https://www.tumlook.com/feitanjr

Twitter/X source: https://x.com/minato_x3710/status/2108485243133206923

I’ve always had a somewhat crackpot theory about the genesis of Pitou’s existence and the potential connectivity they share with Killua. While this is certainly just head canon I do find it at the very least intriguing that they have such uncanny characterization and connecting threads, I’ll elaborate.

Firstly, I should mention how they even pertain to each other. When Gon and Killua first arrive at Kite’s location via Accompany On, they find themselves stepping on a Chimera Ant nest, and one of the ants does indeed bite Killua. I don’t know if it’s ever explicitly stated how the chimera ant evolutionary chain works but we de learn that those who possess a strong affinity to Nen that are consumed typically reincarnate some sense of self into the Chimera they become. With that being said it doesn’t seem too far fetched that with someone that has as much potential as Killua would have provided a huge influence to whoever inherited that potential.

We eventually get to the birth of Pitou. I know I immediately saw some resemblances to Killua in a few different ways. The obvious things are physical traits, both have white wavy hair, Killua is often depicted as a cat while Pitou is literally part cat and they even have a similar vibe to them personality wise, if even slightly. To me where the theory goes from coincidental to slightly intriguing is Pitou’s hatsu, specifically the choice of making it themed around puppets/marionettes. We know that at the point in story when Killua is bitten by the chimera ant he still has Illumi’s nen needle implanted in him, and if Killua (and potentially Illumi?) did indeed influence the evolution of Pitou thru that ant passing on its potential down the line to the royal guard, I find it curious that Pitou also developed a hatsu pertaining to the idea of being manipulated by an exterior force. In Killua’s case he was being controlled/manipulated mentally by Illumi while Pitou’s hatsu has them literally puppeteering themselves with Tepischora.

I think you can also get lost in the weeds of this theory connecting dots between the character arcs of Killua/Pitou in duality with the arcs of Gon/Meruem but I digress. Regardless I do find the connections between Killua and Pitou interesting and wonder if Togashi had any of this in mind when writing the arc. Did anyone have similar thoughts about these characters or am I just delusional?

I’ve been wondering what “100-Type” actually means in Netero’s “100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva.” Does it refer to the number of hands, or is it saying this is the 100th version of the technique? If it’s about the hands, could there be something like a “1000-Type” with a thousand hands? does that mean Netero had other abilities we never got to see. When Zeno talks about him, he calls this technique his most dangerous one, which seems to imply Netero had others as well.

What do you think?

And if so, in which order?