#HxH407

[ragde890]

Hunter x Hunter 407 commentary and pseudoanalysis

It's ambiguous whether Morena has chosen Borksen because she is the specialist Dogman was looking for or because of her connection to Tserriednich (and she has a plan to kill him that needs her in particular or anyone within that group of friends).

The latter is much more likely, though. Remember that in chapter 394, Morena talks about ‘recruiting’ one of Tserri's personal guards. We don't know if she has already succeeded, but recruiting one of her childhood friends as well makes sense given that context.

In any case, Morena's request is, of course, that Borksen joins her and becomes part of Contagion (unless Borksen's last card is a ‘no’, in which case the request will simply be the opposite, so as to end with the same result), but it will certainly be deeper than that.

Borksen is like a ‘matching organ donor’, so either her nen type or her particular conditions will serve a hyper-specific niche that Morena needs for her plan (which we don't know in detail yet).

It is impossible to deny the subtext in the concept of the card game, which also aligns with that of Morena's abilities and backstory. Morena is Nasubi's bastard daughter, and it's clear that that is what has caused all the pain she has suffered since her conception, and has also shaped her role in life (she would not be leader of Heil-Ly otherwise, as the leaders of the three Kakin mafias are, by tradition, the king's bastard children). In the card game, there's a ‘parent’ role and a ‘child’ role, and they must face each other in a very specific way. Lines of dialogue such as these, which on a completely literal level allude exclusively to the game, are no coincidence either:

Her own Hatsu, Contagion, also has a certain parental aspect to it. After all, its use is to give skills to her followers and guide them through the process of growth.

The same can be said about the line "I am my own subject".

It's a grammatical clarification, the purpose of which -at face value- is to provide a consistent way of dealing with double negations during the game. However, it is also a statement of her intentions as a person. And this, again, is reflected in her Hatsu: Morena is a part of Contagion and levels up like everyone else, so she's literally her own subject.

Regarding the whole grammatical discussion, this resource I found on Reddit helps to understand why it was so important to establish a standardised type of response to negative questions (TLDR; how to answer them is more ambiguous in japanese than in other languages):

Another interaction that I find interesting is the one where Borksen thinks ‘What in the world is she so angry about?’, while Morena's expression is a smile, implying that Borksen is able to see through Morena's artificial facade and her feelings are transparent to her.

This is easily justified when rereading chapter 394, where Borksen has exactly the same habit of trying to camouflage her feelings with a fake smile (although she doesn't do it much, and she is, in fact, very expressive otherwise).

All of that aside, the idea of using a card game to ration exposition about Morena and her intentions while creating a tense situation, adding variety with something different to the fights we've been seeing and exploring the themes of the arc is simply superb. The very development of the showdown itself is guaranteed to have a level of mind games similar to what we've seen in battles like Chrollo VS Hisoka. Togashi will also be highly motivated to write it, as he himself has expressed before how much he enjoys creating card and board games:

He also made the ‘Hunter Exam Marathon Hell’ mini board game when Greed Island was published. And in the 2016 interview with Kishimoto, he said that one of his ideas after finishing Hunter x Hunter was to make a card fighting series (he also mentioned his admiration for Fukumoto, author of Kaiji).

As for what to expect future chapters, the room they are in is the same room Nobunaga and Hinrigh saw in chapter 399. This is evident if we compare this panel from chapter 407 (left) with the one from 399 (right):

Based on this, we can assume that Phinks and Feitan will eventually break into the room, although not necessarily during the game. This is possibly what Morena is alluding to when she reiterates that the longer the situation goes on, ‘the more dangerous it will be for both sides’:

Morena knows this because, as the previous chapter already established, Wang (Cha-R's underboss) is a traitor, and he must have been giving her information about the Spider's actions this whole time.

I hope that the next chapter will be the game itself. We've had several chapters now where each one is a change of scene rather than a direct continuation of the previous one (although they do expand situations presented in the previous chapter), but a scene change now would make me a bit sad. I'm very hyped for the card game, to be honest.

[danchouforever]

child's cards: face down

yes: obv not good

no: also not good, bec morena can say something like "i will kill your entire family if you get no"

joker: player can choose to turn this into yes or no, therefore see above

x: best choice, will void the game, hence no consequence whatsoever

r: has the power to bring back any card; essentially an "x" card

----

parent's cards: face up (impt distinction)

purpose: explains morena's goals

ability: explains her ability

qa: answers any question by "yes" "no" or "yes and no" except questions relating to purpose and ability (no limit in number of questions)

qb: expounds on last question asked on qa

yes: answers what will happen if yes is the last child card

no: same as above but for no

deal: can get *any* card back (obv r/x will be chosen) but in exchange for a "small favor"

----

borksen gets to pick the order of both parent and child cards

parent order will be based on conscious choice (they're face up) while child order will be based on chance (face down)

[3dchoujinbag]

I was thinking the same thing, the parent/child dynamic feels really relevant to the “why are you so mad” question

The official translation is 10000 times better if you want to understand the actual game rule but I'm a bit sad that the whole parent/child aspect of the game was erased. I have no idea if the scanlations was wrong to go in this direction in the first place but I'm so sad that we lost this panel that felt super relevant to Morena's character

↓

[danchouforever]

togashi is just flexing at this point...

[danchouforever]

infinite possibilities. this is gonna be so good.

[danchouforever]

forgot to account for the "deal" card... 🤔

borksen should definitely choose "deal" as the fifth & last parent card to hedge her odds, unless only x or r remains in her deck

but the "small favor" bit is tricky. hard to imagine it will be anything but favorable to morena. one possibility is that she'll ask for a "kiss" to trigger her contagion ability. this which will not be cheating because she is giving borksen a chance to learn about it.

so to avoid getting trapped into this, borksen should definitely choose the "ability" card... maybe as her second pick

[danchouforever]

20% = sure yes (slave)

40% = sure void game (x/r)

borksen's success rate depends on what "no" (and joker) entail (40% chance)

the first card borksen should choose from morena's deck should be "no", which explains what happens with a "no" choice. that will not only define the probabilities and her strategy, but also force morena to decide early on and avoid a situation where morena changes the consequence of "no" to her advantage depending on the flow of the game

if "no" means another round, then the odds are very much in borksen's favor. probability is 33% yes, 67% void game

if "no" means borksen will suffer (be tortured/killed, her family or friends killed), but otherwise will not help morena's cause, then it's 20% yes, 80% no help (40% void game, 40% no help but suffer)

if "no" means borksen will not officially join them but otherwise will still be of help to morena's cause (e.g., they can put a tracker on her), then it's 60% help morena (20% yes, 40% not join but be of help in other ways), 40% void game

[danchouforever]

"i WiLl aLlOw tAleNTed hUMaNs tO liVe In a coNtAinMeNt zOnE"

[danchouforever]

how is this guy "best villain"??? he's a toddler spewing amateur hour "philosophies"

[danchouforever]

liar game on steroids

[danchouforever]

child's cards: face down

yes: obv not good

no: also not good, bec morena can say something like "i will kill your entire family if you get no"

joker: player can choose to turn this into yes or no, therefore see above

x: best choice, will void the game, hence no consequence whatsoever

r: has the power to bring back any card, including "x"

----

parent's cards: face up (impt distinction)

purpose: explains morena's goals

ability: explains her ability

qa: answers any question "yes" "no" or "yes and no" except questions relating to ability or power

qb: expounds on last question asked on qa

yes: answers what will happen if yes is borksen's last card

no: same as above but for no

deal: can get back any parent card but in exchange for a "small favor"

[danchouforever]

ok i'm all-in this card game. it's legit genius and has the potential to be unlike anything we've ever seen before.

the potential twists of the game's progress intertwined with morena's backstory will be absolute 🔥🔥🔥

arguably the most interesting development this batch outside of danchou/hisoka reveals

[danchouforever]

i don't think we ever learned of morena's motivations and backstory... we still don't know what her goal is except a vague "destroy the world" thing. which is why she's boring.

next chapters should change that, and i'm frankly stunned that togashi has been saving all those up (usually they're laid down pretty early on) so that they can be revealed in this game

[danchouforever]

it was never bad tbh but with manga chapters as scarce as it is, my standards on what should be put down on the pages are pretty high

[danchouforever]

subscribe

[danchouforever]

morena, boring character, waste of precious manga space, tseri needs to dust her and their sorry group asap