Might be the guardian, don’t know if kurapika knows about that
Yes, it’s the Nen beast and Kurapika definitely doesn’t know about but he’s the only one who can see it.
Introductory chapter for the dark continent arc, it’ll only get better from here. I’m not sure what the last panel was about - did Kurapika sense an evil aura or something?
Kinda an introductory chapter. Not much interesting. See how it goes next episode. Someone is already going after the queen it looks like or at least plotting to put something next to her.
I disagree. This chapter was pretty interesting. This expedition is finally taking off. The way Togashi was stressing how much “greatness” this expedition will be, I can’t help but think that he’s talking about all the shit that’s about to go down during the trip to the continent let alone what’s gonna happen on the continent itself. The way he set it all up in the chapter is genius. I mean you got 14 princes together on a ship taking part in a battle royale along with their bodyguards which include Kurapika, Bisky, Hanzo, etc. He didn’t say who was the culprit of all the crimes on the lower decks Mizai was talking about, but you can assume it’s the PT and possibly Hisoka is there as well. I bet half the princes will survive by the time they reach the continent. It’s gonna be crazy.
Also, I think the baby reacted to the mother’s emotions and that’s when it’s Nen beast began to form. I have a feeling it’s gonna be the most powerful out of all the princes.
(I’m a bit annoyed the last part of the last chapter didn’t get clarified, but I didn’t expect it to really.)
Yeah, pretty sure Kurapika is sensing the Nen Beasts that all of the Princes should have. I don’t think anyone actually knows about them save for the King, even in the Princes themselves. Additionally, if they’re anything like…whatever it is going on with Alluka, Ai or not, then Kurapika and other people who use Nen might not even be able to actually see it, at least without using Gyo.
That said, the pseudo-confirmation that Woble has one “protecting” him might make him one of the most dangerous Princes of all, if only accidentally. If anything happens to his mother in his presence…yeah, not going to be pretty.
Anyway, just looking at the basic ship configuration and everything that we learned this chapter, I have ominous feeling that everyone or almost everyone below deck 2 is going to get fucked over en masse even though that’s thousands of people. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me to see Togashi kill them all off before we’re even mid-way through this through some big disaster or giant “new world” (sea) monster.
Nah. I thought the same thing initially, but Oito basically explained what happened: Kurapika did the dangerous thing of actually giving her hope. She was fully expecting her son and herself to die, likely horribly, without any outs whatsoever, which fits with why how resigned she’s seemed from the very beginning when Kurapika showed up as a bodyguard. The prospect that she and her son might actually survive now is, ironically, both frightening and making her more vulnerable since it’s stressing her out more than just waiting for death was.
Way to go, Mr. Kurta.
Who activated the Nen beast? Isn’t Woble too young to be aware of the situation?
Can’t remember if I saw it here or on 4chan, but
and
(Yes, Woble is.)
That said, we don’t really know these things actually work or, indeed, if any of the Kakin’s royal family is even actively aware of Nen. To me, I figured from the get-go that the power might be automatically activated to some degree like how Neon’s power was back in the York Shin arc before Chrollo stole it. After all, ever since we’ve introduced to Nen, we’ve been told that there are “geniuses” who exist who can use Nen abilities even though they don’t actually know what they’re doing.
The fact that the King’s guard duty assignments and general ship layout seems overkill in the face of visible assassination methods just make it seem even more likely really.
Chapter is up: http://readms.com/r/hunter_x_hunter/359/3487/1
If you look closely, Beyond has a can of Coca-Cola.
Spoiler
The person taking out the guards is either a new member of the Phantom Troup or Shizuku, the girl with the killer Vacuum cleaner… or most likely the Nen beast that no one can see.
(It’s the smallest thing, but it’s rather weird seeing Leorio without his glasses.)
Nice to have a chapter that effectively serves as an info-dump without relying on loads and loads of text and that still allows the plot to move along, though that only really works because Togashi is so good at drawing background characters and details, at least when his back isn’t killing him. We learned quite a few things this chapter:
- Kurapika is the only one of his group who seems to know about the Succession War, though it’s possible that Pariston does know of it and just chose not to tell any of his men because he’s a dick like that.
- Something has killed at least five of Kurapika’s fellow guards and at least three of his fellow guards are Hunters who actually know about Nen.
- Melody apparently seems to have shaved her hair off, which means she’s probably passing as a man given even Kurapika confused her for one back in York Shin.
- The “prince” that Melody is guarding, Kaa (?), is a “bitch in sheep’s clothing”, though I guess that’s not too surprising given how fucked up the royal family as a whole seemed to be.
- The Zodiac are indeed scattered all over the ship, which can doubtless lead only to Bad Things.
- We finally get confirmation that, yes, more people with Nen teleportation or transportation abilities than Knov’s broken self–now in more than one way–exist. Granted, I suppose we technically knew that given the heavy implication that at least one of them was involved with the creation of Greed Island, but this is the first time that we’ve had a named instance of another one.
- The random confirmation that Geru finds Tokyarine “cute”, though whether that means Geru is interested in women romantically or sexually is still up in the air.
- Confirmation that at least Knov and Morel will be showing up later.
- Confirmation that the “Dark Continent” that the Black Whale #1 is going to is indeed a fake, which makes the fact it’s essentially an upside-down Africa even more amusing, that’s been used to sate the random people on-board and make Kakin look good rather than taking them to slaughter, which is why that many people being on-board had been confusing me given how ridiculously deadly we’d been told that Dark Continent was.
- Confirmation that there’s some kind of “Keeper” to the real Dark Continent.
- Confirmation that the trip as a whole before the fake Dark Continent will take about two months.
- Confirmation that the G-5 dude’s support staff already seems overly reliant upon him–I’m sure that won’t backfire horribly or anything.
- And last but not least, the confirmation that Coca-Cola exists even in Hunter x Hunter’s world for it is trans-dimensional scourge.
It would be darkly amusing if all of Kurapika’s guard group save for himself end up eliminated before the first day is even over, especially since part of me suspects the exsanguination deaths of the guards are being caused by Woble’s Nen Beast rather than an “outsider”. It doesn’t help that I’ve been trying to figure out what happens with the “leftover guards” that don’t get killed during this succession war as far as the limits of their mobility post-prince death. Are they going to imprisoned? Outright executed? Or something else?
I added the possibility that the culprit could be the Nen beast just before reading your post but on second thoughts even that doesn’t make sense because it’s killing the guards who were specifically put in place to protect Woble. This is hilarious because it means all the Princes are more of a threat to their own guards.
To answer 10. A magical creature guards the entrance to the dark continent.
i was expecting more down time than this, but almost immediately the bodies started stacking up.
its always refreshing to see a shounen character pull out a gun and cut straight through the bullshit. i could easily see someone like Kurapika going through with it as well.
Couldn’t be Shizuku. Shizuku could just eat the body and be done with it, also the holes are very large like puncture marks. So Nen beast seem the most likely answer. Whittling down the forces to make a go at the queen / baby probably or babies nen beast eating whatever is near?
Don’t really know much about the nen beasts.
(Oh right. Ging did mention something like that “guarding” the entrance, didn’t he? I’ll have to go back and look, but thanks.)
Yeah, Shizuku would have just sucked up the bodies, to say nothing of the fact that she would have outright literally crushed them when she attacked them given she did so to Baise and the male bodyguard whose name I can’t remember and both of those people were competent in Nen. The only reason she exsanguinated Pike was because he was too tough for her to physically crush with Demi-chan.
So at the very least, she’s disqualified since she may be dumb, but she’s not that dumb to leave evidence around, especially since if she’s on board the ship, then Franklin is too. He’s basically her guardian figure, meaning he’d not be leaving her alone, especially since Machi probably told the others what Hisoka said at this point and they probably know what happened to Kurotopi and possibly Shalnark.
True, it doesn’t make sense, but you have to keep in mind that Woble is a baby, which I suspect means that in a fucked up way, he’ll potentially be more dangerous than most of the other Princes since it’s entirely possible that he’s letting it out without knowing what it knowing what it’s actually doing. All it may know that is the people it’s attacking are close to his mother while not being his mother, so it possibly sees them as threats, especially in the mind of literal infant. It’s also potentially telling that so far the Hunters are the only ones who have been confirmed to have an audience with Queen Oito, meaning Woble would have seen them beforehand too, and that the holes look like they’re puncture marks, possibly made by probosces than anything with actual teeth. Remember how the King’s Nen Beast was shown to be made of breasts and insect parts? Yeah.
As for the Princes being more of threat to their own guards than other Princes, I’ve never doubted that given how psycho pretty much all of the ones we’ve seen have seemed so far. That said, I think it’s likely that it will only be Woble and maybe the one or two other princes who have shown to be children will be the only ones who can’t outright control it. If any of the Princes kill any of their guards, then it’s doubtless to be out of some type of malice or sociopathic boredom.
As it is, the Kakin royal family of this arc is basically sort of a dark mirror to the Mereum’s character development where he went from being a literally monstrous Ubersmench who was ready to kill his own kind for the merest defiance to someone whom genuinely, if still in a fucked up sort of way, wanted to protect humanity because he saw them as weak but having potential. The Royal family here, from what we’ve seen so far, doesn’t give a damn about anyone else, even among the royals whom they seem to internally despise even more, but keep the facade up in public. So they ironically came off as more monstrous than the “Ant” who was literally inhuman.
Anyway, getting back to the dark comedy of this situation, it wouldn’t surprise me if Kurapika or someone else will have to “mercy kill” Woble if he really can’t control his Nen Beast. I would literally be the cruelest thing you could do to Oito after Kurapika got her hopes up last chapter and it’s actually plausible too if I’m speculating about this screwed-up situation correctly, especially since Togashi has already shown he’s willing to kill off children in Hunter x Hunter unlike most other stories.
Supposedly the ‘gatekeepers’ have always given humanity a guide to escort them about the dark continent. They are the only reason humanity has had anyone return. The gatekeepers dislike ‘rude people’.
Just reread about 10 or so chapters to remind myself about stuff. They don’t have any real details of what or who the gatekeepers are though.
Yeah, my first thought was Pariston was plotting something, but withheld information from his men because he knows his replacement Zodiac (Kurapika) can filter out liars, but for what, even if he is a massive troll? Whatever the reason, it continues to show how lax/unorganised most of the staff is on the ship. And I’m not sure what Melody might be talking about when it comes to Kacho putting on an act (Kaa); is she an even nastier piece of work, is she genuinely nice, or is she really meek and afraid? As for the baby, adding that these Nen Beasts are apparently uncontrollable and act on the desires of their host, a baby, and that could explain the deaths. Plus it’s sketchy that we’re seeing all these deaths after dark aura started emitting from the baby.
(Well, Ging did essentially “join up” with Pariston to keep Pariston from getting people killed, even his own people, just because it amused Pariston. So “massive trolling” seems like it would actually be reason enough for Pariston to not tell them even if he actually knew.)
As for Prince Kacho, I think Melody was merely commenting on how quickly the “nice” facade that was using Kacho slipped off once she was “alone”, that’s all, especially since she heard the whispered conversation that the other guards didn’t hear. That said, Prince Kacho may well be even nastier than we’ve already seen, but I doubt either of the two other options are actually valid.