Pretty sure that happened while they were training with Biscuit on Greed Island. Gon said that he wanted a “special move” so he came up with one that was a stereotypical special move complete with pose and attack chant. It’s around the first time where Killu goes “BUT GON IF YOU TELEGRAPH IT THE OPPONENT WILL KNOW” and Gon’s all like “I’LL DO IT ANYWAY, SPECIAL MOVES ARE COOL.”
However, I am going off memory so I might not be remembering the exact wording correctly.
Personal top 3:
Netero vs King, which I think will be in everyone’s list
Kaito’s loss in NGL; for a guy that just came back to be punked hard like that got to me
Gon actually meeting Ging through happenstance haha - I thought they were going to put this off again
(I’ll have to think about the personal top 3 shocking moments for me. That said, thanks for correcting me about the Zodiac name thing, Sexperienced. I think I got confused because their names kept changing spelling in translations during that arc, though now they seem to have been decided finally.)
Haha at this latest chapter. Ging’s adeptness at analyzing Nen isn’t too surprising given how he’s been hyped up, but I’ll talk more about that below. What was actually the most interesting thing to me about this chapter was the ensuing talk Ging had with Dark Link Muhel, especially with regards to the Nowell Foundation and the resulting politics of that. I rather like world-building though, so this isn’t surprising.
That said, I honestly did laugh out loud at Ging making fun of how cliched he felt Muhel was being in his (bad) acting.
Oh, I definitely agree that what we just saw from Ging wasn’t his Hatsu or anything, especially since he said it was nothing special and he implied that it works most easily or possibly even only with strike-type Hatsu. If it was a Hatsu of his, then he probably wouldn’t have told Pariston even that much really. It does make me wonder if he knows Razer’s/Lazer’s demon technique though despite it being Emission given that’s at least partially strike-based arguably and he spent a lot of time as the guy’s jailer on Greed Island; I mean, Leorio’s is also Emission, so…
As for the money being part of some conditional set-up, it’s entirely possible. I don’t think it is, though, just because while Ging isn’t nearly as dumb as he can appear to be, he does honestly seem to do a bunch of shit on a whim without necessarily having back-up plans or thought things all the way through. He also doesn’t seem that manipulative. We’ll see though.
Nah, you’re mostly right. Reinforcement is just that: they can “only” reinforce existing attributes of themselves or others. That’s it. It’s rather basic, which is the main reason why I always thought it was the worst category for a while; I’d probably call Transmutation the worst nowadays. Its basic aspect makes it fitting that it’s opposite the category that just tells the rules to go fuck themselves, really.
That said, besides the other people already mentioned, Palm showed that reinforcement can be used for interesting things, like being able to enhance intangible aspects such as one’s sixth sense, which is how her crystal ball sensing seemed to work. Her Hatsu is also one of the ones that I like better even though it’s essentially just giving her hyper armor made of hair that let’s her focus solely on attacking and crushing your ass. Reinforcement users also seem like they naturally have the edge at Ken–surrounding and enhancing specific parts of your body or objects with nen–and hand-to-hand just given how they work.
The amount of Nen is strengthened by the condition of him stating that it’s Rock and openly declaring his attack, since they can be used an enhancing condition; it’s the same psychological factor that goes into Franklin’s–the Buddha Frankenstein-looking Phantom Troupe member–detachable finger-tips and his finger Emission blats. The amount of Nen Gon has for it generally at his age, however, is overall just due to him being absurdly talented. This even if he’s fallen behind the even more absurdly Killua and probably even genetics-lottery-winner Kurapika.
Off the top of my head, IIRC, yes, Nobunaga is Reinforcement. The only other (surviving) member of the “Phantom Troupe” that’s Reinforcement is Phinks, the guy that was wearing the pharoah headgear for half of the manga and is the closest thing Fei-tang has to a friend.
As far as Reinforcement goes for Kurapika healing himself in Emperor Time, I think it was just Reinforcement that was used and a merely demonstration of how broken Emperor Time actually is.
And, yeah, the “hadouken” was mainly Emission.
Which guy at what tower? Are you talking about during the Hunter Exams where Hisoka met that guy with the four flying knives that was an ex-proctor? Or, more likely, are you talking about Castro with his doppelganger powers at Heaven’s Tower or whatever it is called?
Good call man on Phinks, whose attack is amplified by the amount of rotations.
And yeah, I was thinking of Castro; Hisoka seemed to imply that if Castro had just focused everything on that one skill instead of using difficult techniques that weren’t suited for him, he would have had a better chance.
Basically, all I’m saying it while it “just” enhances yourself or something, as shown in the story so far, it’s not just boring upgrade ups. Different conditions help make it a fun ride, especially since it feels like almost everyone decent can OHKO; it’s become less a story of who has the stronger skill, but who can somehow apply their skill effectively, which I like.
(Oh, okay. I guessed as much; I just wanted to be sure since this manga has gone on for a while with all of hiatuses and it’s easy to forget about or otherwise confuse stuff.)
Yeah, Hisoka pointed out that, beyond the flaw in Castro being unable to imagine the doppleganger in any condition that didn’t reflect his last, probably clean visual image of himself, the doppleganger also made Castro lose focus on the type of Nen he was best at. The guy was supposed to be Reinforcement type, but was essentially trying to dip into three other categories–Emission, Manipulation and Conjuration–all at once just for that technique, which why is part of why it was so difficult and relatively short lived for him in the first place. Poor Castro should have just channeled Sagat and focused on Tigering it up through Reinforcement given that’s what he was taking Hisoka’s arms off with anyway before Machi had to sew them back on.
That said, I can understand how he could feel Reinforcement was limited, especially against Hisoka’s monstrous ass. If you don’t really think about it and take it only at a surface level, then Reinforcement is pretty goddamn boring and dead-end for the most part, even if there is a pragmatism about it.
Honestly, it’s a testament to Togashi’s still relatively simple system for Nen that Reinforcement users aren’t automatically outclassed by all the other crazy shit you can do with Nen in the other types of categories, especially if the Reinforcement users are smart enough with their tactics and/or conditions.
looks at Phinks’s condition just being the amount of times that he twirls his arm before he punches
Just noticed that Muhel looks just like a rat-fox.
My guesses for the most shocking scene to come are:
*The Phantom Troup Kill Gon.
*Beyond kills Pariston.
*Mizaistom or Cheadle conspire with the Phantom Troup to bait and kill Karupika.
*The Chimera Ant King being reborn somehow.
*Batobai kills Hisoka, or some other Zodiac.
(Good to see that I’m not the only who thinks that there’s a strong possibility that Mizaistom is “the” spy/also a spy, especially given that his “Ace Attorney” Hatsu seems like a complex one, which makes it easier to lie about. That said, I’ll admit that after him, Monkey King Zodiac Saiyuu seemed the the most likely since he volunteered to guard Beyond. Difficult to tell if this is a red herring, though that’s rather point of red herrings…)
So the Kakin prince subplot gets more complicated now that it’s revealed there’s at least seven of them and that they’re all be trying to kill each other while on the way to Dark Continent and also likely while there. Great. It doesn’t help that the main one who is apparently really good at making nightmare faces has a really unusual name. Sigh, why can’t Prince T just be named something easier to remember like “Benjamin” like his roided-out, PETA-hating brother? That poor lion…
Not much happened this chapter really, though it was at least informative. Still, this chapter made it seem even more likely that things won’t end well for Kurapika between Mizaistom still being suspect despite showing up “white” and the Kakin Prince that apparently has the eyes being an outright psychopath & probably sociopath as well, though that seems to run in the family.
Also, there’s another break next week but then after that we supposedly get a double chapter? That’s…probably not a good sign for anyone’s health either.
Having thought about it a bit, I’m still not really decided, but I’ve narrowed things down a bit. We’ll say that this is in ascending order:
The reveal of who Bomber was and the subsequent double-cross he did in killing everyone in that gaming group but the African guy - Though Genthuru and his two flunkies didn’t really kill anyone we actually knew or “cared” about, for the sake of winning a mostly self-contained game, Genthuru revealed himself to be arguably more ruthless than Phantom Troupe often is or, at least, far more two-faced. For all the Phantom Troupe’s other flaws, they’re pretty upfront and don’t absolutely kill everyone even when they could. Given how long he had been deceiving people and given how many people he killed off-screen as Bomber, he’s pretty much the only person who isn’t an assassin or Hisoka that we know of could rival their kill count, though this main Kakin prince is probably up there too…
The resolution of the mystery behind Killua’s long unknown sibling, Alluka, and just how fucked up the situation regarding him her is - Even with all the crazy shit that happens in Hunter x Hunter’s already fucked-up world, if you had told me before the “Heal Gon” arc that Killua’s last sibling with a transgender girl whose Hatsu was a seemingly innate ability to grant wishes with a horrible & fatal cost to the next person who asked and potentially anyone close to them… Well, the only part of that I would have believed was the transgender part since Killua’s mother basically dresses Karuto up as a girl anyway. That they essentially kept her locked away for most of her life and were afraid of her when they’ve yet to show real fear about anything else only made it even more “shocking”. That Alluka’s power seems to give you access to unlimited full-healing with no repercussion is also pretty “shocking”, especially since some acts of healing could definitely be viewed as “selfish” or “greedy”.
The revelation that humanity lives on only a small bit of the isolated part of the world and that the Dark Continent takes up at least the majority of the planet, if not most of it - I mean, geez, as if Hunter x Hunter’s world wasn’t already fucked-up and horrible in a lot of respects. Even before all the “Risk” jargon came up, if the Chimera Ant Incident as a whole, including the King, potentially counts only as a B, then I really don’t want to know what an A situation looks like. In hindsight, had I not been under the impression that the particular Chimera Ant we saw who would become queen was just some bio-weapon gone horribly right, then this would probably less shocking.
Netero dying actually doesn’t break top three for me. It’s definitely up there, but it seemed pretty obvious he was going to die. The same goes for Kite given his fight with Nef started off with Kite being utterly…short-handed. [/horrible pun]
If anything, then the only really shocking things about Netero’s death is that a) it happened via self-nuke and b) that it still managed to kill the King after he seemed to get full-healed in Hunter x Hunter’s literally gayest chapter. That nukes exist in Hunter x Hunter’s shitty world wasn’t surprising, especially since the Chimera Ant arc as a whole was heavily influenced by political commentary given the country it took place in was a thinly veiled stand-in for North Korea.
I’d say the “runner-up” to the above is the fact that Gon’s already accomplished his goal as a “Hunter Hunter” of meeting his father already and rather anti-climatically at that since Ging just happened to be there after Alluka healed Gon. It being an anti-climax, “shockingly”, didn’t really disappoint me though; maybe because I read through all of 8-Bit Theater as it was on-going.
Anyway, I think why there’s breaks are not health problems. It’s because the story is so complex that even Togashi is taking time to make each chapter, and every chapter since HxH returned has been pure quality.
So I’m not scared of a week break if we are getting a double chapter after the week break. Also next week’s Naruto (Aug 4th) will have something special, maybe that’s the other reason of the break.
I thought he spent the last 2 years on Hiatus creating the chapters for this arc. I’d honestly be shocked if he was drawing the next few chapters for this arc right now.
That girl getting Tatoo’d in the Kakin prince’s room looked like she had a Phantom Troupe Tattoo on her back… something makes me think it might be Kalluto
(Oh, good. I wasn’t the only one who thought that the possibly-tattoo artist was doing looked like a spider.)
It’s possible, especially since it’s rather nebulous how much time has passed since the last time we saw Kalluto, but I kinda doubt it, if only because the Phantom Troupe has never seemed outright affiliated with anyone else before. I just thought it was something Prince T having someone mutilate a corpse or a woman for his pleasure since he seems fucked up like that.
Still, the Phantom Troupe being in Kakin and associated with one of the princes for whatever reason would be a way to include them in this arc, which just makes Kurapika’s chances of surviving this arc look even slimmer really…
super nipple monster, looks straight out of a hentai