“Troublesome”
The WSJ quotes from Togashi-sensei are growing ever-more grim, but the chapters keep on coming for now. Enjoy every sandwich.
It appears that Togashi intends to stick with the battle royale at Heaven’s Arena, at least for a while. Optimistically, perhaps this means we’ll get cutaways to Gon and/or Killua too – we’ll see. For now the orgy of plot fanservice continues, as Chrollo and Hisoka continue their epic showdown. Though in typical H x H fashion, this chapter was mostly Chrollo talking in great detail about how he’s going to kill Hisoka.
Make no mistake, there’s surely important stuff Spider #1 is neglecting to share, but what he does choose to tell Hisoka is impressive enough. It can only be taken as a sign of supreme confidence, I think, but it seems very possible that confidence could be Chrollo’s undoing. As Hisoka himself says, nothing gets him off like taking down a cocky opponent who asks “How could this have happened?” as Hisoka “shatters their knees”. On paper we certainly need to give the advantage to Chrollo based on what we know of respective Nen abilities. But I would still give Hisoka the check-mark in the “intangibles” box.
I think the most fascinating thing Chrollo revealed in his dissertation was that he retains some abilities in his book even after the original owner is dead – which loops us back (to what, “York Shin”?) to the discussion of Nen remaining and growing stronger even after its possessor has died. If Chrollo is telling the truth the scope of his power seems almost limitless – yet I still can’t shake the belief that he’s going to lose this match. And who’s to say, after all, that we’ve seen all the power that Hisoka has on offer? I think it’s likely no one has yet challenged him enough in a fight that mattered to get him to show his cards. And that, my friends, is a pretty scary thought – even scarier than Chrollo 2.0.
Jonny M
May 3, 2016 at 8:30 pmReally, the big issue with predicting anything here is that we really have no idea how strong Hisoka actually is – he’s never gone against anyone even close to Chrollo’s level onscreen. I still think Chrollo’s the more likely winner here. I mean, the seeming advantage he has is pretty crazy; he’s essentially crafted a scenario where Hisoka has to be in a constant state of vigilance, where any wrong step gets him killed – as crafty and clever as Hisoka is I really don’t see how he can deal with this onslaught of clones, living bombs and the ever-present threat of Black Voice. Conventional shounen rules dictate that the more confident someone is of their victory, the more likely they are to lose, but that’s never been how it’s worked in Hunter x Hunter.
At any rate, I love that even after all this time Togashi can write a rousing and unpredictable battle that keeps us guessing. It might not be around as often as we’d like, but there really isn’t any other manga out there like HxH.
Chrysostomus
May 4, 2016 at 8:20 amI’m inclined to think it will end with Hisoka thinking he killed Chrollo but WAIT it was one of those nen clones all along. Yet this is Togashi we’re talking about, the man has three doctorates in unpredictability so any predictions one might have are all null and void.
Morg
May 5, 2016 at 1:30 amWow looking at Hisoka’s character design post being introduced to JoJo it is impossible to miss the influence JoJo had on it. Look at all those glorious poses. Hisoka is the greatest and I can’t picture him losing to Chrollo.
Lilly M.
May 9, 2016 at 7:32 pmWHOA! I have just caught up to the most recent few chapters and I must say, goodness gracious I did not see that coming! When I began Ch. 351, I just started laughing because it was so unexpected. I read the first few panels wondering if perhaps someone was just having a dream, but after 2 chapters of this fight I don’t think that’s the case.
And if I’m honest when I first read 351 and 352, I didn’t really want this part of the story to be real. The main reason is, I am not prepared to say “Bye” to either of these two men yet. Chrollo was a really weird person, and I want to understand him better and see more if him. And of course Hisoka, I don’t want to say goodbye to him, and I wouldn’t mind him having another meeting with Gon :). But here we are suddenly with these two who have both agreed to a fight to the death. It was just so sudden! I don’t feel ready for it! So now I am mentally preparing myself to accept the possibility of one of their deaths. It is even possible both of them could die; Chrollo would be able to generate an explosion large enough. (If Z&W are still training here at the H.A., I hope they chose not to go watch this one live.)
When I reread the most recent chapters, I was less shocked and able to appreciate the excitement and all that more. And I must say, that poor referee! Those poor people! Now that the two fighters have entered the crowd, I hope the spectators have the sense to flee from the stadium. Though even if everyone is filing out right now, they probably won’t all be able to escape in time before more tragedies happen.
But dang, there really is so much about all this that we don’t understand, or don’t exactly know how it all played out. One thing that I was wondering was, “Where’s the lizard?” Is it true that the man who was found at Greed Island was the one who exorcised Chrollo? I thought that he would summon a monster (that I thought looked a little like a lizard) that would exorcise the nen inside/on your body but would then have to stay nearby you, unless you fulfilled the requirements for the original nen object to be removed. This does not seem to be the case with Chrollo, unless there is a small lizard hiding under his clothes. But I thought that Kurapika’s nen dagger would require a BIG lizard in order to remove it. I was also very surprised to see that Chrollo appears to have stolen Shalnark’s and Kortopi’s abilities. I think that they would have willingly relinquished their powers if that was necessary in order to defeat this current threat against the Spider. But where do they stand now? Must they retire from being legs if they no longer have powers useful to the troupe? Perhaps only temporarily, they can rejoin if they develop new ones? Or perhaps they have other skills that would still make them useful?
I was also kind of baffled by Chrollo’s statement that in a battle like this, style was so important, it was perhaps more important than victory or defeat. I thought that was weird. Though it’s true that a person who likes to steal things would probably want a time where he can show off all the cool powers that he stole.
I’m anxiously awaiting the next chapter!