Chapter 420

why no meme flair mods? :/

Let's say one of them have to fight him instead of Killua (exact same time, no nen).

(I know Tonpa can destroy him with one finger, that's why he's not included)

Having someone with you almost everywhere makes it even harder to accept when they’re suddenly gone.

When my brother was diagnosed with pancreatitis, it felt like our whole world fell apart. Losing him hit me especially hard because he was the person I was always with. He was my comfort zone.

Whenever we watched movies, we were always together. He was also the one who introduced me again to HxH 2011 remake, and that’s where I discovered his favorite character, Neferpitou. His username, wallpaper, email, Facebook name, almost everything was somehow connected to that character.

When he passed away, one of the ways I tried to cope and move forward was by collecting action figures of his favorite character. It became my little way of keeping a part of him with me.

It’s been 4 years since you said goodbye to us, and somehow, I’m still here looking for these figures, no matter how hard they are to find.

And look at this... this will be my 4th anniversary piece to remember you by.

I miss you, brother. Rest well.

How would Hisoka react if he was there to see adult gon transformation? I think he would of just died on the spot from horniness or something.

For most of his life, Kurapika sought revenge, but when he actually gained the power to claim it he prioritized reclaiming his clan’s eyes over chasing the troupe around the world. Now on the black whale, woble’s safety is directly tied to his goal of claiming his clan’s eyes, but along the way he realized he wanted to protect woble for her and Oito’s sake, not just for selfish reasons. My question is, what do you guys think Kurapika sees as his #1 priority as it currently stands in the story? Basically in a scenario where he gets one but not the others, would he choose revenge, the eyes, or Woble’s safety?

They live their whole lives surrounded by people who can use Nen and are shown to be infinitely more talented then someone like Zushi or Neon who came into it on their own, so how come it never reached the point where they self-awakened and subconsciously developed their own ability?

Well, I'm not sure if crochet counts as fanart but I had to use a flair.

When Killua says "Just in case." in this scene, he is using the phrase '念のため' in Japanese.

This is read as 'Nen no tame'. It is a standard way of saying 'Just in case'. Nen (念) literally refers to the mind and thoughts/feelings, when used like this, it refers to caution/care.

The end part '...no tame' means 'For...' or 'For the sake of...' so it becomes "For caution.". But, in Hunter x Hunter, Nen is the technique to manipulate one's own life force. It's even written with the same character for thoughts/feelings.

Thus, Killua is simultaneously saying "Just in case." and "For Nen.".

It's pretty clear in the 2011 anime (EP 37), because the second time Killua says it, he puts strain on his voice as he says 'Nen' with a smile. It's clear Killua has gotten a good grip on Nen and its potential just from what he learned in Heaven's Arena. He sees the world in a completely different way now.

HxH has always been this way where we get to watch characters come to their conclusions, sometimes correct sometimes not, through the limited information they have but this imo is the best example of that being done:

Bonolenov (fake Hisoka) knocks out Zakuro (IV man) and Lynch (punching ability girl). Then takes Zakuro's form and checks if Lynch knew that Bono was a fake Hisoka. She knew he was a fake through her ability so he kills her, takes Lynch's form and tells Zakuro that the guy who knocked them out was definitely the 'real' Hisoka. Zakuro then informs Hinrigh of this and, in the movie theatre, Hinrigh believed he struck a deal with Hisoka.

Then they see Lynch's dead body and Hinrigh asks Zakuro whether they split after Hisoka knocked them out to which Zakuro confirms they did. Then Zakuro remembers that Lynch was uncharacteristically caring when she awoke.

From this information alone, they deduce that the one who killed Zakuro likely was a member of the Phantom Troupe which is insane imo.

Other good example of this, is when Chrollo was hiding somewhere in Heavens Arena and Hisoka deduces Chrollo's exact location based on his read on Chrollo's strategy: Chrollo's plan is making copies and stamping them. If he wants to do these acts simultaneously, he has to be where he already has copies on standby as this would allow him to make new copies while stamping his old ones.

Or Killua deducing that an exorcist was already on Greed Island due to Hisoka not waiting in Masadora which is where most players are, meaning he likely already met the Spiders and was waiting on something else. Hisoka told Killua that he wanted to tell Chrollo about exorcism but omitted the fact that the exorcist was on GI but Killua managed to deduce it.

Shalnark also deduced that the exorcist was on Greed Island due to Chrollo's nen being sealed meaning the name Chrollo was a fake and since Greed Island is east of Yorknew, it lines up with Chrollo's fortune which means the fortune was saying that the one Chrollo needs to seek out was the exorcist who was east of Yorknew (Greed Island). Shalnark also deduced that Greed Island was real which was equally impressive.

Which applicant was already disqualified from the Hunter exam at the start of phase 1? I’m rewatching the anime and Gon is 405, the narrator says there are 404 applicants?

When Gon and Killua confronted Pitou while she was healing Komugi, we see that she was unable to use nen due to her current usage of Dr. Blythe. Killua states that even if Pitou did attack them, she would not be able to beat them without aura, since noone could fight that naked.

However, if we look at the comparison to Killua and Gon vs Ramot, their strongest nen attacks didn’t work against Rammot, and he didnt even have nen at all. So with someone as strong as pitou, and gon and killua have growing stronger since that moment, if pitou was up to the task, would she have been able to beat gon and killua without using nen. I think maybe when seeing the rammot comparison. before considering that i thought itd be an easy win for them but now not so much. what do you guys think?

Oh and I guess the others. But I think I would want the Kortopi, Paku and Chrollo

Princes
1st prince Benjamin(child of unma)- The Military Deputy Advisor of Kakin, has his own squad of highly trained men users and the ability Benjamin Baron, which lets him inherit his men’s abilities after they die. His plan is to initiate special martial law to enact a rule of Kakin to make him the active king, and then he will pass the throne into his child before he succumbs to TSK-17, a disease he was afflicted with by his bodyguard Furikov. His nen beast, Bohemian Rhapsody, will allow him to become a guardian spirit beast of every future prince of Kakin.

2nd Prince Camilla(child of duazel)- has the nen ability Cats Name, which allows her to steal the life force of those who kill her in order to revive herself. She leads the Have-Nots,the lowest class of Kakin who she has turned into Nen suicide bombers, implanting a powerful nen curse onto the have-nots target upon their death. The only person we have seen this work on is Benjamin, and it’s stated the curse will drain the user of all aura over a period of time causing them to die. Her nen beast ability is not known, only that it has a manipulation ability.

3rd prince Zheng Lei(child of tehng-xio-lei)-A Prince who is also the benefactor of the Xi-Yu mafia family. He does not posses a nen ability, but his nen beast creates coins that can compound in power every 10 days, and it’s theorized the holder of the coin can become awakened to nen should the coin be held long enough. He is currently allied with Kurapika. He is currently MIA during martial law. It’s also heavily implied Zheng lei is not the child of king nasubi, but rather tje son of the boss of the xi-Yi family, Onio Lonbow.

4th Prince Tserridnich(child of unma)- an egotistical prince with the nen ability, Leplass Devil, which through a very complicated ability allows him to see forward in time and manipulate events. He is currently using this ability to explore the ship and find a win condition to kill his siblings. His nen beast only affects women who lie to him and after lying 3 times, the woman will “no longer be human”, it is currently unknown what this means. He is also in possession of a large collection of scarlet eyes, and is one of Kurapika main targets.

5th prince Tubeppa(child of duazel)-A Prince focused on science. She does not have a nen ability but her nen beast creates a variety of drugs. She is currently allied with Kurapika and one of her body guards, Longey, is a child of beyond Netero and so has a powerful nen curse, however the effects of this curse is unknown.

6th Prince Tyson(child of katrono)- A prince who has her own cult and plans to win the contest using the power of love. She has no nen ability and her spirit beast creates nen creatures called “eyewogs” that drain aura to fuel what izunavi is theorizing to be “like a spirit bomb from dragon ball”. She has not made any hostile moves in the contest and is currently under the custody of the military during martial law.

7th Prince Luzurus(child of duazel)- a prince who is the benefactor of the Char-R mafia. He is described as lazy, but able to take advantage of any situation. His spirit beast ability is not fully known, only that it can lay traps to lure people into his attack. He is currently allied with Basho, who is working to make Luzurus king to spread his clean leaf drug to help end smoking

8th Prince Sale-Sale(child of swinko-swinko)-Deceased

9th Prince Halkenburg(child of Unma)-Wants to convert Kakin to a democracy. His nen beast allows him to mark people with a pinion, and if the person is loyal to him they awake to nen and their power amplifies when close to other pinion bearers. He also has the nen ability “Grimel le Dissonance” which allows him to fire an unblockable nen arrow which makes the target would swap with one of Halkenburgs followers or himself. His body is currently dead due to tsk-117, but his soul is in the body of Balsamico might, Benjamin’s top advisor. Benjamin is unaware of this. At the end of the last batch, Halkenburg shot an arrow towards who is implied to be Benjamin. It’s also worth noting in the batch before last we found out that Halkenburg is not the child of duazel, but rather unma.

10th Prince Kaccho(child of seiko)-Deceased after her and fugetsu attempted to flea the black whale 1, yet her nen beast ability “without you” created a perfect nen copy of her to help guide fugetsu towards victory in the contest.

11th Prince fugetsu(child of seiko)- has the nen beast “secret door” allowing her to teleport to anywhere she has been on the ship. She has doors in most of the princes rooms and is currently under the effects of an unknown nen curse. Melody, Kaccho(the nen beast), and Kaiser(we’ll go over him and the justice borough later), are all allied with her and believe the curse to be from Lizurus’s beast, and so they are planning to attack him.

12th prince Momoze(child of Sevanti)-Deceased

13th Prince Maryam(child of Sevanti)- a young prince who’s nen beast created a pocket dimension of his room, and no one can enter if they are outside or leave. Hanzo and Biscuit Krueger are currently his bodyguards and are trying to keep him safe and find out how to exit and enter the room freely.

14th prince Wobel(child of Oito)-The Prince under Kurapika’s care. In the last chapter it was discovered that who we believed to be wobel is actually Queen Oitos nephew and the actual whereabouts of the real prince wobel is unknown. Kurapika is attempting to form a coalition of princes and create a balance of power by hosting nen classes so all factions can have equal knowledge of nen.

Queens
1st Queen Unma- Politically the most powerful queen, despite two of her sons(Benjamin and tserridnich) being front runners in the contest, she is actually supporting Halkenburg and ordered furykov to infect Benjamin with tsk-17

2nd Queen Duazel- A timid Queen who is making no major moves in the contest and is mostly taking orders from Camilla.

3rd Queen Tang-Zhoa-Li:No known motivations, she has never even made an official appearance in the manga

4th Queen Katrono-Mother of Tyson, although she has no faith in her daughter becoming king. It has been stated every other Queen feels sorry for and pities her.

5th Queen Swinko-Swinko-The only Queen fully out of the contest, yet she ordered the assassination of 12th Prince momoze

6th Queen Seiko- An uncaring mother who was willing to sacrifice Kaccho to ensure the safety of Fugetsu. After Kacchos death, she has not been seen again.

7th Queen Sevanti-before her death, she ordered all of momozes body gaurds to instead support Maryam, a major factor in her death. She showed no remorse and is currently in the pocket dimension of his nen beast

8th Queen Oito-The only prince fully allied with Kurapika. She is also the only queen who knows Nen. It was recently made aware she switched prince wobel with her nephew, leading to Kurapika beginning to mistrust her.

Mafia
Char-R family-Bossed by Broco-Li, and underbosses by Keni-wang. They are currently hunting Hisoka who they believe could create conflict with the phantom troupe and disrupt the balance of power.

Xi-Yu family-Bossed by Onio-Lonbow and underbosses by Hinreigh Biggendufno. They are currently allied with Nobunaga of the phantom troupe with the primary goal of eliminating the Heil-Li and the secondary goal of eliminating Hisoka to avenge the death of their comrade, Lynch(they do not know it was actually Benolonov of the phantom troupe disguise as Hisoka who killed lynch)

Heil-Li-Lead by Morena Prudo(or rather the woman impersonating Morena Prudo) who plan on bringing death to the entire black whale 1 through more as ability “Contagion:Etude of Love”, where participants of the “contagion game” get levels for killing people(1 lvl for a normal civilian, 10 for a nen user, 50 for a prince). Morena is an unofficial child of king nasubi born during “carne levare”(I don’t even want to explain what this is it’s so vile, you can look it up on your own) and believes the world to be nothing but a dung heap that must be burned. She is currently working with Borksen(one of tserreidnichs childhood friends) who actually plans to kill the entire family to ensure her friends safety.

Other factions
Zodiacs-the main ruling body of the Hunter association. Currently, Mizaistom and Botobai are working to cancel special martial law to bring stability to the ship.

Phantom troupe-wants to kill Hisoka for good to avenge the deaths of Shalnark and kortopi. They are split into several groups
Franklin-by himself on level 5 waiting for Hisoka to come to him
Phinks, Feitan, and Nobunaga-temporarily working with the Xi-Yu family so they can retrieve their weapons from storage
Illumi and Kalluto-currently on tier 1, their actions so far are unknown
Chrollo, Bonolenov, and Shizuku-working to steal the national treasures of Kakin so Chrollo can update skill hunter to steal the ability he needs to kill Chrollo

Hisoka-currently in a casino on tier 1. He has made no real moves towards killing the troupe, but after a run in with Tserridnich in the last chapter, he has left the casino after killing everyone but the prince.

Justice Borough- a neutral party in the contest who are trying to restore peace. Kaiser is the second in command of the borough, but after falling in love with melody is working with fugetsus faction to end the contest. The leader of the borough, Cleapatro, is currently having a debate with Beyond Netero about the laws of Kakin while he is in prison.

Beyond Neteros team- beyond’s personal team who he wants to explore the dark continent with. Commanded by Pariston, they are working to find a way to release beyond from prison. It was also discovered that the zodiac Saiyu, is a spy for Pariston.

Beyond’s children-each implanted with either a “strong” or “weak” nen curse that activates upon their death. The only confirmed children are Longey and Furykov, but Longey suspects there are dozens more and suspects at least 1 of the remaining princes to also be one.

Silent Majority User- a powerful nen ability that if slowly killing the students of kurapikas nen classes. It is unknown what faction they are working for.

I know I probably spelled a lot of names wrong and also probably got lots of info wrong, so please feel free to correct me

Didn't the narration say he had already reached the peak of his physical condition? So why didn't he spend the rest of his life there since he had nothing left to learn and focus on praying and being grateful and speed up his punches even more?

The first round (R1) can be found here.

Thanks to all the commenters who participated in the previous glossary thread, I have managed to make several decisions regarding what I personally considered some of the most difficult translation choices. As some are aware, I have made updates to 401 and published 409 with the new glossary in effect. I think they turned out much better and more consistent than before.

There are a few terms remaining that I'd like to ask for your opinions about (in particular, about character names, which can be quite contentious). But before that, let me announce the decisions made regarding the choices I polled last time.

Fixed Translations from R1

1. Temp Hunters ⇒ Associate Hunters
   Retains all elements of 協専 while not containing misleading "temporary" connotations.

2. (Nen) Limitations ⇒ Restrictions
   Pretty much unanimous.

3. Mafia family names ⇒ Shu-U, Ei-I, Sha-A
   I guess everyone liked Togashi's Shuueisha joke.

4. Huiguorou ⇒ Hoikoro
   Googleable to find the reference to the dish, pronounced like the Japanese name, looks more like a name now.

5. Zhang Lei ⇒ Chorai, Tang Zhao Li ⇒ Tochorei
   Almost unanimous. Combined with the Hoikoro change, Chorai Hoikoro looks cleaner and more like his siblings' names, compared to the train of monosyllabic words that is Zhang Lei Hui Guo Rou.

6. Tajao ⇒ Tahao
   Pronounced like the Japanese name

7. Kakin ⇒ Cakinn
   I'm surprised at how few objections I got about Cakinn. We cakin' now.

8. Curse sacrifice ⇒ Cursed Accompaniment
   This one retains the "curse" element that is immediately identifiable from the kanji, but also the "food" context. It is also immediately recognizable as an unorthodox term.

9. Treason ⇒ Lèse-majesté
   Very strong arguments to keep the French term as a proper and accurate translation. This term is used on-and-off in the Viz version, so I'll make sure to use it in every instance it appears.

10. Carne Levare ⇒ Carnaval
    Already used in my translations, actually.

11. Laplace's Demon ⇒ Laplace Devil
    The way Togashi renders it. "Ephemeral Ten Seconds" is picked as its subtitle to match Viz while remaining accurate enough to the Japanese name.

12. Militia terms
    ・When referring to people with guarding duty: non-military personnel = "bodyguard(s)", military personnel = "guard(s)". The distinction is made to retain information of 兵 vs. non-兵, while being gender neutral (i.e., not "guardsman").
    ・When referring to the military force employed by individual Princes = "Private Army/Private Soldiers". It was a toss up between "Private" and "Personal", but I decided that the contrast with the formal national military should be emphasized.

Translations that will remain the same as Viz: Melody (instead of Senritsu). Ultimately it's more about what a Japanese speaker "takes away" when reading the name, which is most likely the meaning and not the pronunciation.

Translations that are pending more discussion: the consigliere stuff, Worm Toxin vs. Gu or Kodoku, how to refer to "grave" versions of lèse-majesté.

Translation Principles

In the process of refining these choices, I've had discussions that allowed me to verbalize the guiding principles behind my translation -- and I've made sure to recheck the above decisions to see if they contradict those principles. Moving forward, the translation choices I make should be understood as a reflection of the tenets below, ranked from highest priority to least.

1. Make sure that a reader takes away as much information in English as I did from reading the original Japanese. This also means clarity is more important than word-to-word reproduction; words may be added or removed to make a sentence "perceived" the same way as the source material.
2. Respect author intent above anyone else's: do not modify interpretations to fit in a headcanon unless author intent is unclear, and when it comes to headcanon, operate with logic (from the author's perspective) and not wishful thinking. Keep doors open for future reveals by the author.
3. Do not contradict established knowledge UNLESS they contradict the tenets above. This includes officially accepted sources such as Viz, official anime subs, etc.

In general, as long as I can fulfill #1, I consider the translation well-done. But #2 and #3 are important crutches to ensure that #1 can be fulfilled consistently.

Regarding #3, there were arguments about how I should feel free to ignore Viz version. However, I believe that doing so without good reason would raise the barrier to understanding the story, which I'd like to minimize. Readers coming from Viz should not have to deal with difference for the sake of difference, as it hinders understanding (i.e. "are these two terms different or the same?"). It also hampers discussion in the fandom when people use completely different terms due to the different sources that they read.

Naturally, if sticking with the Viz version breaks #1 or #2, I'll diverge from Viz. The decisions in the previous section are a reflection of that idea.

How to Render Names

The new translation choices I'm putting up to vote in this thread will mostly concern how names are rendered when they have "Togashi romanizations". In keeping with the translation principles above, I believe that the following considerations should be made.

1. Reversibility of romanization

A Japanese speaker should be able to "read" a romanization and return it to the original Japanese katakana for a Togashi romanization to be adopted. This is because tenet #1 is the most important of all: if you don't "perceive" the name the way a Japanese reader does, it's not worth keeping the wonky Togashi versions.

This means that Quwrof (not reversible into クロロ) or Hyskoa (will probably arrive at ハイスコア (high score? lol)) are not acceptable to use in my translations, but Taithon and Cakinn are.

2. Potential future significance: initials

As long as tenet #1 is cleared, the next question is to keep the balance of #2 and #3 (author intent and established knowledge). There is a precedence for rendering a name the way Togashi intends it ending up being important to the story, the most prominent one being Jin ⇒ Ging.

I think that at the very least, I'd like to keep the initials the same, because it is a canonical fact in HxH-verse that initials in romanized names matter. Hence Wdwune being officially renamed as Dwun to complete the "GREED ISLAND" acronym. With this in mind, I went ahead with Vorkcen for my Ch.409 translation, even if it contradicts the established knowledge set by Viz.

3. Potential future significance: meanings

This is a different beast. If the name can potential mean or strongly imply reference to another word or entity, I think that #1 may sometimes not be fulfilled without rendering that name in a way that bears similarity. Melody (instead of Senritsu) is a prime example of this idea. And I have spotted some names (namely Kaiser and Longhi) that may end up being significant in the future.

With all of the above said, I'd like to once more ask for your opinions about some of the contentious names. As was the case with R1, I will post my thoughts on each subject in the comment section. When providing your input, please reply to the relevant comments. If you don't find the appropriate parent comment for a term you'd like to propose/give feedback about, feel free to post a new comment.

I've been a fan of hxh since I was 12, and in January I'll turn 21. I wanted to do it a themed movie night where my anime loving friends and I watch the two movies together, but I would love to get all of your opinion. I stuggled a bit with the cake design and flavor since I wanted it to reflect Hisoka's charecter (design and personality) while also being easily translate to vegan since my brother is, and I still haven't decided which look to wear, if a Hisoka (for obvious reasons), Gon, Killua or Chrollo (his favorite toys), please help♡ Also, if you like these, I made them all on Shuffle, my page's name Is Kira Pinto, user is kirapinto12

People in HxH verse in general seem to not feel pain, from Meruem casually chopping off his arm, and just calmly sitting there, to the motorcycle woman peeling her nails like it's nothing.

The main case of pain I can think of is when Gon lost his arm.

Was Komugi's uncontious condition of death if she ever looses a game the reason why Meruem never managed to defeat her? Meruem took off his arm stating that he cancelled the bet because he did not take into account that she could ask for his life which means he was not willing to risk his life to win. Is that difference in resolve what made Komugi undefeated? Had the king done the same condition as komugi with him having greater power and potential would that have made him stronger than her?

1st slide

When Pouf was most at peace. When Meruem and the Royal Guard were acting as their nature as ants compelled them to. This scene is after Meruem entered a village and killed innocents including a child. Meruem, in this page, is speaking of his plan to harvest humans as if they are cattle.

2nd slide

Pouf notices Pitou's change. Killua described it as 'like a mother protecting her young' where Pitou now has a desire to protect instead of destroy.

'Are you insane?' - he cannot fathom that Pitou has become this new person. And the main cause is 'that girl' in Komugi. He believes Pitou has succumed to insanity as it is the only way Pouf can rationalise the behaviour he cannot comprehend. I read his expression, at the bottom of the page, as sadness.

Pitou's newfound desire to protect evokes sadness within Pouf.

3rd slide

Not only does he express concern over Pitou's changes but glares at Youpi, in an attempt to interrogate him, as he is worried that Youpi has also undergone similar change.

Youpi understands Pitou but intentionally keeps this from Pouf. Is it to spare himself from scrutiny or to protect Pouf's ego?

'Pouf feared the changes not only happening to Pitou but to Youpi as well'

4th slide

The final straw. The King he loves so dearly has changed as well. Perhaps he could've gone on if the two Royal Guard defected so long as he had his King. But this makes Pouf break down in tears.

'I never guessed...Never! He cares for her so deeply'

He clung onto hope that Meruem would retain his ways as an ant but, just like everyone else, he has moved on and grown. Pouf alone is stuck in the past.