- Or it could be her true form is 10+ ft tall and covered in muscles, and more than double the size of her opponent. Heck, even Ubogvin probably wasn't that big.
- The giant flyers in this setting tend to mistake planes for their favored sources of prey. They don't make the same mistakes with blimps, so these are far safer in comparison.
- Explains the circumstances behind some of the more "unusual" Hunters.
- Practically Confirmed with the statement that most members of the Zodiac got body modification to more closely resemble the animals Netero assigned them.
- Put simply this is mostly just for fun, but they're so freaking similar I couldn't NOT think it.
- We know Hisoka convinced Bodoro to surrender in their fight during the Hunter Exam. Maybe after the fight, he and Illumi coordinated to hypnotize and disqualify Killua, using the old man as a sacrificial lamb. Perhaps the reason Hisoka marked Bodoro for death in particular is because he didn't see much potential in him, and he obviously didn't want to bloody his hands and disqualify himself.
- Problem: Gon should've inherited something from Biscuit genetically, yet the two don't have any traits - Biscuit is a blonde (brunette in the OVAs), while Gon has greenish black hair; Biscuit has either pink or blue eyes (depending on if you're going by the 2011 anime or the OVA), but Gon has brown eyes.
- Considering that they were the only kids on the island it isn't odd that they would be really close. Also it's pretty much hinted that Mito has never left the island. And Ging brought infant Gon back years later, long after since becoming a hunter.
- It wasn't 'just' that they were close, there were just a lot of odd subtleties to their interactions that seemed to indicate some sort of possible forbidden love, or the makings of one in the future. And as for Ging bringing Gon back, we only have Mito's word on that, she could easily have lied about it.
- Mito starts the series at 25 years old, meaning she would have had to have gotten pregnant at around age 12 to be Gon's biological mother. It's not impossible, but very improbable. Also, we know from the Greed Island arc (the presence of a name in Gon's book before he'd encountered another player) that, at the very least, Gon was somewhere besides Whale Island at some point in his early childhood.
- Also making it improbable: while we could assume that Gon got his eye color from his dad, his green highlights seem to come from his mom. If Mito was his mom, then he should have red or orange highlights, not green.
- That would make him a trans man, wouldn't it? It's not unlikely that he went off and did the business on his grand adventure without expecting to get pregnant with a child.
- The pregnancy stone works regardless of gender (likely meaning assigned gender, as well), so probably not. How the actual birth works out, though, is anyone's guess...
- It's strongly implied that Greed Island was created for the sole purpose of training Gon. If this is the case, the pregnancy stones would not have existed until Gon had been born, since they're an in-game item.
- He just tells him where she is. Straightforward and simple. Although being Ging, it's fair to doubt it.
- There's a hidden clue about her location. If Ging was going to give Gon an elaborate puzzle to find her, the only clues he could have left would be in the cassette itself or in Greed island, but Gon haven't figured it out yet.
- Gon's mom is dead. And Ging's warning was an attempt to stop him from knowing the truth.
- She's alive, but Ging doesn't want Gon to find her for whatever reason.
- She's alive, but Ging doesn't know where.
Think about what it means, that Kurapika's automatic first interpretation of the situation of Leorio (who is his friend, and someone he trusts) walking into his bedroom naked as being a sign that 1) Leorio intends to rape him, and 2) he must defend himself by punching Leorio in the face until this is no longer true. That is an extreme enough reaction to the situation that it's probably a learned behavior, meaning that, at some point in Kurapika's life, a man walking into his room naked did mean that he was about to get raped.
It also puts Kurapika's apparent preference for sleeping either in a hammock or sitting up with his back to something solid (even when there was a perfectly good couch available, as in when they were waiting in that room for 50 hours) in a disturbing new light: When sleeping sitting up like that or sleeping in a hammock, it's very difficult for someone to climb on top of you without waking you up first.
It's also stated elsewhere that they're the same colour as flames, but fire isn't really given any special significance re: beauty outside of that comparison, and if fire had the same visual appeal as the Scarlet Eyes, Kurapika's clan wouldn't have died. While it could be argued that looking at a fire isn't the same as looking at someone's eyes, that would be ignoring that, every time the beauty of the Scarlet Eyes comes up, it's always stated that it's the colour that's so attractive. Yet, there's no significant trade in other items of the same or similar colour, and the salamander charm Kurapika found in the filler ship test (which, admittedly, is of dubious canonical status) was a very similar colour to the Scarlet Eyes, but was not considered very valuable. If it was the colour itself that made the Scarlet Eyes so precious, so worth killing for, then any other object that same shade should evoke the same effect, but that's not what we see at all.
Therefore, I think the best conclusion is that there is something inherently preternatural about the Scarlet Eyes' beauty.
- Kurapika explicitly starts wearing colored contacts from the Yorkshin arc onward, which explains the different colors.
- Sounds like a He Who Fights Monsters moment.
- And his voice in the anime. That's not a guy's voice. Not even a guy with a female voice actor. That's a girl's voice and this troper will not be convinced otherwise.
- Also the way he covers himself when he shares that room with Leorio. Then there's that Train scene on their way to the Zoledick mansion.
- Or at the very least female-assigned. The cover for the 14th volume of the manga shows Kurapika-from-the-hips-up, naked, and looking nothing like the way Togashi-sensei usally draws guys. There's no definition to the chest, and very womanly hips.
- Kurapika's mother is either completely flatchested or wearing the best binder in the world. Make of that what you will.
- Female-assigned is very possible - it certainly wouldn't be the first character Togashi created that was transgender.
The world of Hx H is very nasty just under the shiny surface, and it would be surprising if human trafficking wasn't an active and highly lucrative market, even if it's underground. A pair of their eyes preserved in jars are worth billions. Think how much a pair still in a living, emotive head would be. The reason there aren't more, enslaved Kurta around that weren't there during the massacre is probably because of how many generations they'd been in hiding, and how difficult it potentially is to subjugate someone who has access to Emperor Time (breaking them emotionally would risk them becoming too numb to activate the Scarlet Eyes anymore).
The Scarlet Eyes have always been seen as a commodity; Kuroro was just the first person to realise that slaughtering the Kurta the eyes are attached to is a lot less of a hassle.
- As chapters 340.5 and 340.6 reveal, this is surprisingly accurate, the Kurtas went into hiding and seclusion because their eyes and the power they grant led to them being horribly vilified as monsters, demons, spawns of Satan, and so forth, but it's also mentioned that they were occasionally hunted for their eyes.
- You've forgotten some things:
- Both Uvo and Feitan cop to it once their memory is refreshed about the Scarlet Eyes (they both specifically have an "Oh, right! Those guys were pretty strong" reaction), and Uvo at least had every opportunity to tell Kurapika what really happened if he was actually mistaken. He likes fighting avenger types because he looks down on them, and telling Kurapika that he's not even going after the right guys would be a nice verbal punch in the gut whether or not Kurapika believed it.
- They absolutely do go about murdering innocents by the hundreds, and they steal and kill on principle (see Feitan chiding Shizuku for trying to win that diamond legitimately). That's why they're The Dreaded in the first place. They didn't need to kill everyone at the auction, but they did it because that's what Uvo most likely would have wanted. If Machi's going rates and Shalnark's easy throwing cash at the Hunter website are anything to go by, they are filthy rich from their exploits and could just, for example, buy all of that beer, or even just steal it without killing the person tending the store (they're bulletproof; what could he or the cops he could have called have done to stop them?), but they didn't. They killed the guy and stole the beer, because killing and stealing is what they do. A one-off character whose thoughts we only were briefly made privy to in order to exposit about the Ryodan mindset (so, while he could, in theory, be an Unreliable Expositor, he has the Law of Conservation of Detail on his side) described at least Chrollo as being addicted to murder, and the characterisation of the majority of the ones we've seen is consistent with them being Blood Knights looking for a fix. They have their Pet the Dog moments, but their level of Moral Myopia is explicitly lampshaded. Even Shalnark, who is one of the most superficially normal-seeming of the lot, is more upset about not remembering all the violence he inflicts in his Autopilot mode than he is about the pain that mode leaves him in for days afterward. And due to how nen works? Not remembering how he brutally murdered whatever it was has to actually be a significant downside from his point of view in order to be useful. They're Chaotic Neutral around each other and other folks from Meteor City, but if you're not in either of those groups, you're nothing to them beyond maybe being their next murder fix.
- As for the note, however, that is less indicative of the Genei Ryodan specifically and more indicative of their hometown, Meteor City, in general, since the only other time we've seen a note like that didn't involve the Ryodan at all, and was just Meteor City dealing out its own incredibly lethal sense of justice to the outside world.
- You've forgotten some things:
- The powers he stole came with a curious side-effect. It forces him to experience the feelings of whoever he stole powers from. The feelings overload has caused him to be so numb, that he cannot experience joy or sadness or anger or love. Acquiring new powers imparts a small measure of satisfaction, which is why he persists in stealing new ones, but otherwise anything he feels is either very muted, or non-existent.
- That why is he has the Spiders act like they do. He hopes that that somehow he'll piss off someone strong enough to put him down.
- His relationship with the Spiders is that they used to be his friends, and any action he takes on their behalf is to honor the memories of what they once had.
- Where he's the player, and everyone else is not.
- Or it could be just a case of Beware the Superman.
- If the "Chrollo is Satan" WMG below is true, it's entirely possible that he can somehow reincarnate himself if killed.
- We also have evidence of there being a "Devil" of some kind in the HxHverse, who penned the sheet music for the Dark Sonata, which cursed Senritsu after having heard just one note/verse, and killed the man who played it.
- Speaking of said Dark Sonata, it's worth noting that Senritsu was completely freaked out by the sound of Chrollo's heartbeat.
- Okay, so, first, I'd like to say that this condition of hers is probably largely contributable to the fact that, if she grew up in Shooting Star City/Meteor City/whatever the hell you wish to call it, there's a good chance that she did not have access to a wide variety of safe-to-eat foods (since the whole place is, you know, a giant landfill), and various nutritional deficiencies are known to cause/contribute to cognitive impairment, especially if experienced in early life.
- Shizuku is probably best known for her tendency to irretrievably forget things, and slightly less well-known for her (distinctly child-like) straightforwardness/earnestness/sincerity/etc. in basically all she does. She has a tendency to take things at face-value, without noticing many of the subtleties, contingencies, and alternative courses of action that would — and do — occur and seem obvious to the other, more "adult" members of the team.
- She also chose a very specific restriction for her vacuum cleaner: it can't suck up anything that she perceives to be alive, but it can do things like drain blood out of a person from an open wound, which strikes me as the kind of restriction a little kid who likes animals would use for that ability, and the kind of work-around a kid might come up with, to make something be not alive anymore.
- Speaking of, let's look at Deme-chan, the vacuum cleaner in question:
- It has a cutesy name and an assigned gender (female, by the way, but I'll continue to use "it" here for consistency's sake).
- It has huge, googly eyes.
- It has a goofy grin and a long, comically-lolling tongue.
- It makes cute/funny nonsense noises when spoken to.
- Overall, it looks and acts like it came out of some demented children's cartoon.
- On top of all of this, Franklin seems to be acting as a caregiver/guardian for Shizuku, even though she's 19 and should, theoretically, be capable of taking care of herself at that age, without the need for a stand-in "parent".
- There's also the fact that she seems to be the only person who doesn't appear to notice at all the Aura of Molestation that Hisoka radiates, which tends to make everyone around him want to keep at least two arms' length away. In most group shots of the Ryodan hanging out in the York Shin arc, Shizuku is usually drawn sitting next to Hisoka, completely unbothered, and giving the book she's reading her full attention, but no one else will sit anywhere near him.
- About the Hisoka part, maybe she likes him, in a romantic sense; you know, 13 years olds can have such feeling, if that's her mental age.
- Actually, my estimates would have put her somewhere at the lower end of the the 6-9 range, probably 7. Kids start getting much craftier after 8.
- About the Hisoka part, maybe she likes him, in a romantic sense; you know, 13 years olds can have such feeling, if that's her mental age.
- I had the idea kicking around that her Nen ability is removing her memories. Rather, the stuff Deme-chan sucks up, where does it go? The object is turned into a memory and placed in her brain. This pushes out other memories, and the more she uses her ability, the more memory loss she has.
- I don't think Shizuku is retarded, just eccentric - in the same vein as other powerful Nen-users like Komugi and Alluka. It seems to be commonplace in Hunter-world, the more disjointed you are the more amazing your abilities.
It's also easy to posit that the general view on outsiders (soon-to-be-ex-outsiders nonwithstanding) is probably something along the lines of "They didn't care if we died; why should we care if they do?". . . which possibly gives the Ryodan members from Meteor City the mother of all Freudian Excuses.
As they've reiterated themselves many a time, "[They]'re thieves. [They] steal." The Ryodan lifestyle, by all appearances, seems to be that they steal everything they need in their day-to-day lives. Except for things like services that can't really be "stolen", they don't actually need money for anything, because they don't buy anything. So where does that money go? The creed of Meteor City dictates that they never give anything back to the outside world, and also supreme cooperation and kinship. Most of that money probably goes into getting fresh food and vital medicine for the less fortunate back home.
Disclaimer: Not intending to Draco in Leather Pants the Ryodan here, or to try to justify their (incredibly heinous) crimes. This is just my headcanon.
- Killua's grandmother was mentioned once in canon, but has never been shown, thus allowing WMG to occur.
- Zeno has round pupils. His son, Silva, has slitted, catlike pupils. Therefore, Silva's catlike pupils probably came from his mother.
- Killua will, in lighthearted scenes, sometimes spontaneously sprout cat ears on his head, a 3-shaped mouth, and his hands will turn into cat paws.
- In the anime, at least, during the scene during the Hunter's Exam where they're waiting fifty hours in that room, there's one of those bird-things that keeps tipping its beak into a glass of water, and Killua is shown watching it with an expression just like a cat watching birds from behind a window.
- Killua and Illumi both have what are functionally retractable claws.
- Don't Illumi's eyes remind you of those creepy cat clocks, except that they don't go back-and-forth all the time?
- Milluki is the premier cybercriminal of the Hunter x Hunter universe (from what we've seen, and among other things), and Ickshonpe is the premier white hat. Both use nen-enhanced computers. Both are reclusive and mysterious, and neither show their faces in public under any circumstance. Both are also quite famous for what they've done. It is almost certain that the two of them have run into each other online and tried to get rid of the other but are too evenly matched to inflict any permanent damage.
- Initially Illumi wanted his transgender sister Alluka dead because her powers could kill the entire Zoldyck family. When he figured out how to control Alluka's abilities, he became obsessed with controlling her.
- Delusional Stalker: Illumi told Hisoka that he believed he was Killua's most beloved person instead of Gon, which Hisoka replied "I'm fucked up, but you're a piece of work, too."
- Simple Obsession Stalker/Intimate Partner Stalker: A relationship between people who know eachother well, a relationship revolving entirely around domination and intimidation. He won't let Killua have friends & sees Killua's relationship with Gon as a threat, threatening to kill Gon if Killua didn't leave him. The suicidal tendency; willing to die if it will "make Killua suffer, and he can live on forever in Killua's heart."
- Out of all his siblings, Killua is the only one that resembles the Zoldyck side of the family. Illumi, Milluki, Alluka, and Kalluto share their mother's dark hair and eyes. Killua, on the other hand, has the same white hair as both Silva and Zeno. So, even though Illumi and Kalluto developed their nen first, Killua gets to inherit leadership of the family.
- It may also be that Killua is the only one who inherited Silva's nen type - all of the other Zoldyck children are manipulators, except for Alluka whose type is unknown. Of course, how they would know Killua was a transmuter as a young child is more of a mystery, but certainly not impossible for a family like the Zoldycks.
- Maybe perhaps when a child is a certain age, they determine if he's the heir in a way similar to how the next Avatar is chosen - they give him a bunch of toys, and if he chooses at least a few that were favored by the previous heir, he's the next heir.
- It may also be that Killua is the only one who inherited Silva's nen type - all of the other Zoldyck children are manipulators, except for Alluka whose type is unknown. Of course, how they would know Killua was a transmuter as a young child is more of a mystery, but certainly not impossible for a family like the Zoldycks.
- Apparently Jossed?
- You know how they were in that tower, alone, and she was only wearing a nightgown when Zeno's dragon barrage hit?
- And you know how they mentioned way earlier that a Chimera Ant King can impregnate females of any species?
- And you know how it's been pretty obvious for a couple chapters that the Ant King is probably not going to survive this arc, despite having become a reasonably sympathetic character, in a Blue-and-Orange Morality sort of way?
- And you know how those two have been having subtext almost since she was introduced?
- And there's still time, by the looks of it.
- Looks like this one is officially Jossed now, since the last we saw of them they were dying together.
- That'd be horribly anticlimactic, if you ask me. I'm hoping that the rose thing does the job.
- Oh come on, every important fight Yoshihiro Togashi has ever written played out that way until the end. He'll pull it off.
- The rose did work.
Fast-forward a few hundred years. Society's rebuilt itself around the new wildness of the world, with those who can stand up to monsters - the Hunters - taking a position of power in the world government. And on isolated Whale Island, Yusuke Urameshi's decendent is born...
The "Other World" they refer to is the Human World. Oh, and Raizen was descended from Gon and Palm. Yuusuke's atavism made him look like his ancestor's ancestor, Gon Freecs.
- Many Hunter × Hunter characters can actually be descended from YuYu Hakusho characters due to their resemblance. But the most evident is Hiei and the Zoldycks and it's not just his resemblance with Killua. What is Hiei's hair color? Black with white streaks. The known Zoldycks had either naturally black or white hair.
Since, like With Toriko, the Human world of Hunter × Hunter covers only 30% of the planets surface.
- Look at Ging's face in Razor's expository flashback after the dodgeball game on Greed Island. That's Yuusuke's face; he's just got different hair.
- Didn't it say somewhere that Gon, while definitely of the Reinforcement nen, was aligned a little bit off-center in the Emission direction? Yuusuke's signature move was the Spirit Gun/Reigan, which would translate to being Emission-type in HxH, but that was a technique that Koenma taught him, and both Yuusuke and his youkai ancestor Raizen seem to be much more naturally suited for brawling than point-and-shoot. Nen-types tend to run in families, and Yuusuke would most probably fall between the Reinforcement and Emission types, more towards Reinforcement than Emission, if someone were to plot him on the nen alignment chart.
- As an extension of this, Gon's biological mother is probably Reinforcement type, too, which would slant Gon's nen alignment much more strongly towards Reinforcement, and also would probably be something Yuusuke would find attractive in a woman, considering how much of a "battle junkie" he is. They could beat each other up all day. ~w~
- This explains why Gon is so insanely prodigious; he's got the blood of a youkai battle god running through his veins.
- This also explains why Yuusuke/Ging was so 100% confident that sending Gon to Greed Island was a good idea, and why he told Razor to go all-out, even though he'd presumably never seen Gon since leaving the baby boy at Mito's place. He knew that there was no way Gon could ever turn out weak. This assumes that Yuusuke started to get his memories back at some point, which might have been the reason he decided to wander in the first place.
- Gon inherited his uncanny knack for coming up with serendipitous, out-of-the-box solutions from his father.
- An alternative theory is that because they're written by the same author, there were some unintentional similarities in abilities and character designs.
- Well, yes, but that's not nearly as fun an epileptic tree, now, is it? ;P
- An alternate alternate theory is that Ging is this world's star system equivalent of Yusuke. Which would make Gon's mother (most likely) the star system equivalent of Keiko.
It's pretty complicated, and involves Sensui's body being one of the components of the Ant King. But really, it'd be the ultimate in Togashi storyline Plans were it true. The whole theory (pictures included!)is here. (WARNING: SPOILERS for both Hunter × Hunter AND YuYu Hakusho)
- The similarities between Nen and Naruto Chakra might be enough, but the Hunters bear an uncanny similarity to ninja villages, if far more overt. The Zoldycks seem to be closer to Naruto-ninja, and very might well be immigrants. Naturally,
we only see portions of both worlds,so it's entirely possible that the explored portions of the Hunterx Hunter world do not contain the Ninja part, and vice-versa. One of the more difficult points is that nen is more limited in many ways than chakra; people learn very few moves that use nen, as opposed to ninja. Of course, ninja are taught from a very young age to manipulate chakra, but I think the differences can be explained by the presence of immense creatures made entirely out of nen — "radiant" nen (much like radiant body heat) could accumulate in their surroundings and affect the creatures that live there.- We're forgetting about Hanzo, who lives in a village that shares the theme naming with the Naruto world.
- How is Nen more than superficially similar to Chakra? They're both Rule Magic systems of Ki Manipulation, but the similarities end there. The rules — the defining characteristic of any Rule Magic system — are completely different for Chakra and Nen. And I'm not sure about the anime, but the manga of Hunter x Hunter does show a world map on at least one occasion.
- Nen and Chakra in fact don't even work in a similar narrative way: Chakra relies on New Powers as the Plot Demands, with new types of chakras, jutsus or hereditary capacities/mutations being frequently introduced. Nen relies on Magic A Is Magic A, being initially presented with 4 principles and 6 schools, and every single nen ability or power introduced after that point is constructed out of these basic elements. Another problem about having Naruto and Hunter × Hunter be in the same universe is that, in the Narutoverse, guns do not apparently exist, whereas they do in the Hunterverse (and when ordinary guns won't do, Nen-powered guns using Abnormal Ammo are used).
- It could be that Chakra-usage uses the same power source as Nen-usage, but uses less refined techniques to harness it. Or it could be that Naruto takes places before Netero trained in the mountains and setup his martial-art school. It would be the same difference as as D&D Ninja Wizards to Hunter Sorcerors. Applying the same energy in different ways.
- Except that chakra is first shaped within the body, stored within chakra coils, and distributed around the body by a series of small tubes. Nen is generated inside the body at a constant rate, and then pumped out of it at a constant pressure, unless one uses ren to accelerate that. There is no indication that nen production is centralised in any way, and you can't do anything with nen until it's exited the body through your shouko. You can put nen back into the body and have it do things (e.g. healing, Kurapika's Judgement Chain), but it has to come out first.
- TL;DR version: In order to use chakra, you first start with the energy inside you and bring it out. In order to use nen, you first start by keeping the energy outside of you from escaping into the air.
Up until now, Hisoka's role in Hunter has been pretty ambiguous - Being some kind of mentor to Gon more often than not. Knowing about the limitations Gon imposed on himself in order to defeat Neferpitou, how could it not be tempting for Hisoka to push Gon over the edge - giving Gon the highest possible level of resolve, making him into the perfect opponent?
While Nanika's ability is highly unusual in the first place, it seems too strange that Nanika can freely kill these people with its ability even if they are ignorant of it. It would be believable if the people made a contract with Nanika and fully understood what they were consenting to. It's completely unlike the similar type of imposed restriction ability we've seen (Kurapika's Judgment Chain) that requires the target understand what they must do to avoid the consequences.
That Killua can make Nanika do anything at no cost to himself is also strange. In what way could a close relationship balance the vast potential cost of a wish, or as Killua puts it, an "order"? It would seem Nanika doesn't need the requests to use its power.
If this is true, then perhaps Alluka, the one who actually makes requests, is just a sadist who enjoys tormenting people with her requests. Note she immediately makes a painful request of Tsubone after she scolded Killua, and seems to have a dark sense of humor - jokingly asking Killua to die for her.
- It's not actually stated that Kurapika's required to tell people what the conditions of the Judgement Chain are. It's plausible that he's only doing it as a formality/because he doesn't actually like killing people/because the times we've seen him use it he was doing so strategically in a context where it's better for the target to know the condition than not.
- Alluka is not making the requests - though it's easy to assume this is the case, Nanika's face only changes when she enters "wishmaking" mode or Killua asks for her (which primes her to grant a request). Killua states himself that "once a request is made", Alluka is asleep until a third request is granted and a wish is granted. Because people miss this fact, a lot of actions that are performed by Nanika during the election arc are mis-attributed to Alluka. (Additionally, Alluka's "die" request feels to me more like a kid going "bang you're dead!!!!" while playing - it's normal behavior for a child her age, especially given she's part of a family of assassins, and only the context of Nanika and her requests makes it anything else.)
- The use of "nanika" is likely coincidental, seeing as despite being used as a name for the character Nanika the word is literally Japanese for "something". It being in quotes isn't even necessarily the case either - the Japanese equivalent to quotation marks are a kind of bracket, but they're also used the way English uses italics and it's up to context to figure out which applies. In this case, it seems more like the brackets are being used to accentuate the word, not to give an implication of something else.
That's the one and only real continent not shown on the HXH world map. Adding to this concept, Antarctica was shrouded in mystery for centuries similar to the Outside.
It was said that other types of humans do indeed live there. The first guess that comes to mind is... Pariston. It was already foreshadowed that he's not someone from normal society, and now it's been revealed he's part of a team planning to go to the Outside.
- Kurapika's clan could also be from the Outside. No other people in the series have eyes quite like Kurapika's people, and he showed a scary powerful Nen with his "Emperor Time", matching and exceeding a Genei Ryodan member even though he only had around six months to develop and perfect his Nen ability.
- Part of this is confirmed by extras from volume 33 - as suspected by many, Nanika is from the Dark Continent.
Given the fact he was seen in Beyond Netero's group, it means he knew about him long before anyone else. The entire election could have just been away for him to get out of the Twelve Zodiacs, so he could join Beyond's expedition, taking the Chimera Ants with him as an army to conquer the Outside, due to being naturally proficient in using Nen.
He may have come in contact with it during his trip to the Dark Continent. It would explain why he lived so long and remained so powerful up to the point of his death.
Which then reincarnated itself in each following generation of the Zoldyck family. Its latest host is Alluka and currently goes by the name "Nanika".
- Essentially confirmed by volume 33 extras stating Nanika is from the Dark Continent. Her being an Ai is heavily implied but not outright stated.
Ging became a Hunter because he wanted to find Don, just like how his own son Gon became a Hunter so he could find Ging. The reasons he spent years doing other things were because 1) it was fun, 2) training for his inevitable expedition to the Dark Continent, and 3) he was biding his time until other people decided to launch an expedition (again for fun).
Being versatile and having control of your aura flow has proven to be the most basic, most difficult, and most useful side of Nen fights. More often than not it's not the exact ability, but how it's used, that decides the outcome of a battle. This is the case with Gon and his Ja Jan Ken, firstly thought to be mundane to use. Ging must have come to this conclusion a long time ago, and has decided to focus only on perfecting his aura flow for basic use. As long as he doesn't set on one ability, he is not limiting himself to only one side of Nen use. Proof: the useless trick game of moving your aura like bubbles is not an interludium - it's foreshadowing his superb control. He also admits that "as long as he's hit with a Nen strike, he can pretty much imitate it". The rest of his formidability is just his wit, intelligence, and care-free character.
Tserriednich's Establishing Character Moment showed him having attractive women sent to his apartment, then (after killing them) complaining about how ignorant and superficial (which he despises more than anything) they were. In his quest to make an "inspiring piece of art", he's looking for women who are highly cultured and knowledgeable, traits that Kurapika (the "walking encyclopedia", as he has been called in this very wiki) clearly has. Kurapika could easily get advantage of this; it's not the first or second time he has used crossdressing as a tactic, after all. The tricky part would be surviving the ordeal.
Throwing this here after seeing it suggested by the Mangahere community (the Pairo part, that is). Going by pure resemblance, the head, while blurred, looks similar to both him and Kurapika himself (who looks a lot like his mother). After all, it's stated during the Yorkshin arc that the Scarlet Eyes have more value with the head attached. The Genei Ryodan could have managed to preserve one head, which seems to be harder to do than just the eyes.They managed this possibly by taking one of the Kurta as a prisoner (maybe one who wasn't as able to fight back as the others) to behead them later in better conditions. Pairo could have remained hidden or wandering obliviously somewhere in the forest during the massacre, only to return and get caught during or right after that by the Ryodan. So, taking in account Pairo's condition...
This also means that Kurapika will inevitably find it. This could lead to some combination of the following situations:
- Kurapika having a massive breakdown, leaving him unable to go on during or after his mission and possibly leaving him vulnerable to the Fourth Prince or other enemies, or
- Kurapika completely losing it causing him to become extremely reckless and murderous (even more than usual), possibly endangering himself and others, as well as the mission. Worst case scenario, Kurapika might even attempt to betray his own oath by trying to use Chain Jail on the Fourth Prince.
Put here because it centers exclusively around the Special Chapters:
News of the massacre spread six weeks after Kurapika's departure. It's far from unlikely that the incident with Kurapika (which probably hadn't left people's minds at the time) brought attention and made people spread the word, information that would inevitably get to the Genei Ryodan. How exactly did they find the village, though?
Right before Kurapika left, Pairo promised him that he'd take the test to go to the outside in the former's absence. Considering that Pairo had studied and learned the outsider's language together with Kurapika, it wouldn't be strange if sometime in between he had managed to pass every phase of the test to the point of being sent again to test his self-control. However, after the incident, it was easier for him to attract attention, no matter how well he behaved. People's attitude towards him would help the Genei Ryodan identify him as a Kurta, using Pairo to find the hidden village either by following him or by something much worse.
She either came back to meet Kurapika and Pairo (before finding the village's remains, anyway) or she was found and kidnapped by the Genei Ryodan, giving an entire new meaning to her farewell note.
This definitely comes off as He's Just Hiding, but it's not impossible (though this is mainly to get this theory out of the way). Whether Pairo was used to find the village or not, Pairo could have been outside of the village (either in his test or having met Sheila again) while the Phantom Troupe attacked. Maybe that's how Sheila found the massacred village despite not actually being there before; Pairo found the village destroyed, called her, and she spread the news while hiding his Kurta descent from the world to protect him, but with no means to contact Kurapika or know where he was (and if he was alive in the first place).
We already know that Togashi uses Gon as a Deconstruction of typical "live by their own code", super energetic, "win them over by talking" shounen main characters like Naruto. The manga shows in great depth how actually being that kind of character is far stranger than most shounen like to make it seem and ultimately suggests that someone like that is a person to be afraid of because of their high unpredictable. However, the Chimera Ant arc made it brutally clear that a character like this is destined to be their own demise. Gon, like many shounen leads, has a lot of potential and gets stronger by fighting people that are stronger than him. Typically this leads to a power upgrade of some sort in battle which allows the main character to defeat their adversary. However, in the Hunter X Hunter universe, that does not work. Gon wins his major "fight" with Hanzo only because Hanzo forfeits. When it actually comes to fighting people who are significantly stronger than him, Gon would most likely lose due to his lack of experience and training. The one time Gon wins in a true fight, Ging later explains that it was because Gon, in a rage, unknowingly made a Nen conditional that allowed him to fully tap into his potential at the cost of almost his life and all of his Nen capabilities. Therefore Gon's heroic rage and blind desire to get stronger regardless of the consequences is just that: blind and ultimately a one way ticket to getting good and dead at an accelerated rate.
Kurapika, on the other hand, is far more shrewd than Gon and while he does have a sense of justice, he does not have the same Blueand Orange Morality that Gon does, which allows him to better assess situations and make less decisions that are purely based off of emotion. And it is Kurapika who has actually taken down two of the Phantom Troupe members: one by outright killing him and the other by making him incapable of using Nen. It has been noted that Kurapika's story is almost a waste since it could stand alone as its own manga and be equally as compelling. But that's the Fridge Brilliance of it. Togashi intentionally put Killua on a bus and depowered Gon because Gon's story is finished as he was never truly the main protagonist. Kurapika will now take up the mantle as being the true protagonist and the story will focus more on him.
Togashi deconstructs the archetypal shounen hero by playing it straight and showing what kind of person you'd need to be to act in the typical "heroic" way. He therefore is trying to make the argument that the best hero for the shounen genre is not the archetypal hero as we have come to identify. The best hero is the more antihero like Kurapika.
Rather than kill in anger, I find it more in line with his character to kill in excitement and anticipation. He is ecstatic that Chrollo could turn out to be better than he could ever imagine. This is actually very important and more complex than it first appears, for as a chronic manipulator Hisoka prides himself as a master in reading people, and as one can deduce from past events, rated the spider organization as a whole as beneath The Zodiacs (think: why didn't he pursue anyone else in the spider after Chrollo has been disabled and instead turned his attention to the Zodiacs in the election arc?) excluding Chrollo (and maybe Machi).
This view could stem from two reasons: first, as an egotist himself, he feels that the family/friendly dynamics of the Spider makes for weak individuals. Some members of the Spider are relatively weak if working solo, reliance on backup and complementary powers makes them inflexible when someone gets the drop on them (this is proven with Machi's quick defeat along with Shalnark and Kortopi's quick demise), and thus uninteresting as opponents for duels; second, the Spider as a whole lacks something that almost all strong people in this world have in common "want", and the will to achieve them in "life", although seemingly hedonistic, their core belief was still derivative of their Meteor City origin, while they expanded their ideology from being "pariahs" who only retaliate to "bandits" who take what they can from others. Their will is still reactive rather than a primary urge to "want" (they want what was taken from them, rather than what they don't have), evidence being that they usually steal things on a whim and then get bored with them soon later, and that everyone, including the leadership, place no value on their very lives and were ready to die anytime without regret.
They as a group have gotten so far on resentments of those outsider their group and massive talents of their leadership and members, but they will always be at a disadvantage when fighting someone with pure intent like a true Hunter like Ging (the first rule of being a pro Hunter is that a Hunter must "Hunt" something) or Hisoka himself (anyone who read JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run will know this as the concept of "dark will"). Chrollo, by all intents and purposes, should fit in to the mold of this lesser tier, so it makes sense for Hisoka's early interest in fighting him as he believed back then Chrollo is already the strongest he can be due to him having seemingly no drive to get stronger. However, after fighting and losing to Chrollo's new and improved abilities first hand, something clicked in Hisoka's mind. He would simply have to force a reason out of Chrollo to make him give the fight of a lifetime, by pressing his berserk button through killing his true companions. Being the father to his men he is, Chrollo will advance his abilities beyond Hisoka's wildest dreams, with the bonus that every time one is dead the next one will advance accordingly in power due to hatred stacking.
Next, we analyze how he plans to do it: remember that there is a risk that for every member he kills, he is actually limiting Chrollo's options as it may render the ability Chrollo borrowed lost forever, which I can't imagine Hisoka will be pleased by. However, there is always the exciting possibility of it getting more powerful after the death of the original, so I think there is an element of gambling on Hisoka's part, but hey, desperation is a great motivator in and of itself so Hisoka can't lose either way.
Machi is safe for now as a witness (they need to know whom to direct their anger at) and great potential for growth (due to possible hidden feelings for Chrollo). Kortopi goes first because his ability is not suited for combat by itself. He will always be the first choice because his Nen is only useful in combat when combined with Chrollo's other powers. Next is Shalnark because his ability is useless in a meaningful duel. By his own explanation any one on one fight is over once he sticks an antenna into his opponent, not to mention his natural speed without using his ability on himself is never going to be able to catch a high level nen user off guard to stick it in their body in the first place. Also worth considering is that Hisoka may not even be aware of this ability to self buff, so all in all, he is going to be on top of Hisoka's hit list.
At the end there is probably a meta reason as well. People get killed because their narrative potential is exhausted. The introduction of the Dark Continent sees a potential for an overwhelming increase of narrative scope in character number and power level, so it makes sense for some much needed house cleaning. Those who don't make the cut are going to fall wholesale from this point on.
Now for a last prediction, these are just for fun guesses by me using what we know so far: the next to go is most likely Shizuku (weakest), follow by Franklin (bland overall), Nobunaga (loss of purpose after Uvogin's death), Bonolenov (versatile ability yet still bland background), Phinks (basic ability, but connected with Feitan), Feitan (versatile, similarity to Hiei), Machi (versatile, hidden drive connected to Chrollo), Chrollo (versatile, great characterization, yet lacking a connection to the Dark Continent makes him temporarily important at best for now. Of course, there is the possibility of him linking to the grand narrative through Hisoka's actions: maybe simply for revenge or searching for something outside to revive his dead companions). Kalluto will probably survive due to being too young to reach maximum potential, not to mention his connection to the Zoldycks makes the storyline too entangled for narrative purpose.
- My impression is that Hisoka seeked out Kortopi and Shalnark simply because they were in Zetsu due to Chrollo acquiring their abilities and thus were easy targets. (Though it IS possible they had their curses removed via Abengane's powers.)
What if their goal is to make humanity strong, experienced, and evolved enough to conquer the dark continentAnd to do this they could arrange a world war using their influence to turn nations against each other and thereby tearing them apart from the inside out.
All the conflict Beyond Netero and King Nasubi could cause would lead to the deaths of millions but those that survive during such times will be deemed experienced and worthy enough to survive the dark continentA sorta mix between misery builds character and Social DarwinismAnd the succession war is to determine which prince will become the ruler of the new evolved humanityAnd to prevent the Hunter Association from figuring out and ruining their plans Beyond gathers a group of nen prodigies who he personally trains so they could rival the zodiacs in terms of nen and combat experiencesAnd their code names would be based on the Greek zodiacs as a way to counter the Chinese zodiacs of the Hunter Association and would possibly recruit Tserriednich and train him to be part of this group.
And eventually Gyro will join in on the action as his goal is to spread as much evil in the world as possible and could do this by taking over meteor city so he could turn it into his own nation and convince the people there to get revenge on the world that abandoned and rejected them. He would team up with Beyond and Nasubi making them the big three leaders of this alliance.
And this could have an important role in Gons return to the story later on as it was foreshadowed that they would meet one day.
- Kortopi -> Cousin It
- Geru -> Morticia
- Franklin -> Lurch note
- Shoot's floating hands -> Thing
- Palm -> Wednesday
- Chrollo has since used the second antennae. Presumably if Chrollo's Skill Hunter technique was removed from Shalnark via nen exorcism, Chrollo would not be able to access the technique as it would have been returned to Shalnark. The nature of Skill Hunter being taking and not copying means that the ability is not being duplicated. As for why Chrollo would do such a thing (stealing from the rest of the Troupe)? How do we know he actually stole the powers? The Troupe is loyal to him. It's likely that Chrollo's "theft" was actual consensual and the members of the Troupe whose powers Chrollo has used in his fight against Hisoka (Shalnark, Kortopi) willingly offered them to him to use against Hisoka.
- It's designation "Type-100" suggests there are other "types" of numbers for his bodhisattva to achieve . . . In conjuction, this also sets-up a crossover into the Psycho Mob 100 universe. not Reigen. don't @ me.
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