#I’ve never colored manga panels before

[tachiharastanacc]

Guys he’s gonna come back soon trust

[randomyuu]

the way it follows you home, the stories i never told

My guy Vox once again graced us with lovely Goyuu fanfics, and the way it follows you home, the stories i never told, made me go FERAL.

Time travel? Two Gojou Satorus? Double affection for our sunshine Yuuji? Yuuji sandwich? What feels like possible continuation of (you'll whisper, serpent tongue) what you fear you have become???

FUCK.

I need to stop indulging my imagination too much. I should’ve been content with writing long-ass comments but noooooo, my brain goes “you gotta draw it”. DAMMIT VOX, YOU AND YOUR DELICIOUS WRITINGS HHHHHH

So… usually I should’ve picked a favourite scene that is within my drawing capability, but I just… love all three chapters??? So I made a questionable time investment? I can’t stop??? Help???

This is probably the most ambitious fanart project I’ve ever done so far. Fair enough, considering I might combust if I keep these welled-up emotions inside from reading Vox’s Goyuu fics. Fuck.

Fic info:

Title: the way it follows you home, the stories i never told

Author: @voxofthevoid

Pairing: YuuGoGo. Future!Yuuji, Future!Gojou, Teen!Gojou

(idk why I laugh writing YuuGoGo. I’m beyond help)

Currently, it is 3 chapters out of 8. And it’s gonna be NSFW chapter 4 onwards, so don’t forget to read the tags first, folks!

The drawings are under Read More, because I have lots of thoughts surrounding each chapter and drawings. It’ll be hella long if I didn’t hide it here. It was a mess down there. A combination of hours before, during, and after I read said fic. I’d say good luck finding the art among the sea of jumbled words but… you’ll find them easily. Don’t worry about it haha

SPOILERS FOR ALL 3 CHAPTERS! I highly recommend reading those first before diving into these drawings!

Also for the comics, read from right to left please!

From here on, I will be referring to the Future!Gojou as Gojou and the teenage one as Satoru.

Overall, drawing all these is fun! Really fun! This project pushed me quite hard, forcing me to test my limit (because I rarely draw this much back to back). Since this is a combination of drawings and comics, the coloring style will not be consistent. In a way, I want to try some brushes I never get to use, as well as try out my new graphic tablet. Drawing these got me giggling because I was finally able to let loose during line art. It's much easier to do so, and sometimes I just get to reread the fic and giggle to myself for the nth time.

CHAPTER 1:

Whooo. Whooooooooo—

Ok, ok, the premise is just that good. It intrigued me, fascinated me, and I just… oomph. I cannot refuse a Time Travel Yuuji Sandwich. Sign me up.

Honestly, there are two scenes that are just… a bit too clear in my mind when reading this chapter. That would be the one I drew above, and the other is when Yaga called Gojou to come outside of the class. I love, loooove how Vox wrote Satoru’s POV. And when Yuuji fucking giggles?

I lost it.

Can you imagine, drawing Yuuji grins, with shiny stuff, maybe some sunlight, just purely happy and indulging Gojou?

Help me, for I am drowning in my love and adoration for Yuuji.

Page 2 is an experiment on using harsh black as shading (kind of?). I really enjoyed colouring Yuuji, and drawing those buffalo skulls! I wish I can grasp the concept of contrast a bit better tho :v

CHAPTER 2:

This is probably the only chapter where I picture still images instead of comic panels. A bit like those cool chapter covers in mangas. The one I really, really want to draw is the scene with Satoru on the table. Can’t pass the opportunity to highlight Satoru being a brat, albeit a really cool brat.

Cool idea drawing always proves to be a challenge, because of course my artistic skill just so happens to be below the requirement. Thank you, Sketchfab, for the chair and desk’s perspective otherwise I’m screwed lmao

The second scene that I want to draw the most is this:

Gojou is one step away from climbing Yuuji. Also, I have a bit of a problem picturing a man pouting that makes him look crazy instead, so please have Gojou pouting adorably instead. Because, as Yuuji said (with love), Gojou is (also) a brat.

This is possibly my favorite art in this project, after Yuuji's in Chapter 1 page 2. It's clean because I don't have to draw background, and I was having a fun time drawing Yuuji. And Gojou's squishy cheek as well.

Oh, actually, there is a “manga” scene in this chapter. It’s when Yuuji said, “I love Satoru.”

I just—

AAAAAHHHHH YUUJIIIIIII YOU AND VOX ARE GONNA BE THE DEATH OF ME. That secure relationship between Yuuji and Gojou? Satoru’s description of how Yuuji’s smile could blot out the sun??? Not me screaming 💀 I also see bits of hints of possible co-dependency, though I could be reading those wrong, but either way I’m good. Secure and possessive relationships are fun to consume hhhhhh

But yeah. There are too many wholesome Yuuji smiles in this fic, and I… I am not confident enough to draw genuine happiness. It’s too much for me ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

For this chapter, another reason why I chose these two scenes is just because I want to try and draw cover-worthy pictures of Yuuji and Satoru, and Yuuji and Gojou (cough)

CHAPTER 3:

We start the chapter with Nanamin. Ah, Nanamin. I forgot what his teen self looked like and was surprised to see his design again lmao

I want to draw Yuuji and Nanami scene because… I just want to, I guess. I have never drawn him before (Yaga as well) so that's an interesting challenge. I got two ideas on how I want to draw it. One is a bit painting-esque, and the other one is like another chapter cover. In the end, I chose the cover one because I want to emphasise the difference between teen!Nanami and the Nanami from Yuuji’s original timeline, and how the watch feels like a connection between the same (yet not) person. It’s a bittersweet feeling? In a way?

I’m not really good at explaining my intention ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

I love Yuuji’s answer to Nanami's question.

AND FINALLY.

A Yuuji SandwichTM scene.

And oh B O I do I love it. Have I told you I like every chapter? I probably have. But this one? Satoru’s curiosity, Yuuji’s on-brand self-deprecation, and Gojou come strolling down to show more of Yuuji to his mini-self. I want to draw this whole scene, from Gojou finding them, feeding Yuuji snacks, bitch-slapping Satoru into the backroom, to Yuuji growling. Them trying to hide a boner from Yuuji’s growl got me cackling so hard I LOVE IT 😭

I love it all. Please love Yuuji in my stead, Satoru and Satonyan :3

Oh! Also! 40-finger Yuuji sounds really, really cool! I’ll be happy with whatever Vox will give us in future chapters, but 40-finger Yuuji… possible scene with this timeline’s Sukuna… my god. The action! The drama! The bloodshed! One can only hope.

However, as much as I love that whole scene, it’s still too much for me :”) I’m still not yet confident in delivering the humour and action. Also my already-long drawing plan had my brain groaning in protest so I can’t push my luck :'D

When Gojou said "He looks sweet, but he's a bit of a beast", I kept picturing Yuuji staring innocently, but there was an edge to his look. As if the moment Satoru looks away, he will pounce. But in the end I just stick with innocent-looking Yuuji because I accidentally drew his eyes that way and I want to keep it in lol

Since Satoru points out how soft and cuddly Yuuji is, I also want to draw soft Yuuji :v

And the last one… is the last scene. For some reason, I read that both Gojou and Satoru share Yuuji’s lap and was having a frustrating yet fun time figuring out how it’s… physically possible, without having their butts on the ground because they both are not small at all. As I lined the art, I reread it again and… perhaps I read it wrong? Satoru is beside Yuuji, and not on his lap? So yeah, this one might be the least accurate, but hey, at least you can view it as a crack drawing or something :v

AAAANNNDDD I HAVE EXCEEDED TODAY’S BRAIN CAPACITY OF FORMING WORDS

Have I told you I love this fic?

…I probably have.

Have an amazing week (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*

[crayonkant]

The space for light

George Saunders, my favorite teacher of writing, believes in our innate intelligence as readers to know when a story is interesting or not. The experience comes in understanding the why behind our reaction, and the craft in tweaking the story just the right way so that at the next reading it is more fun.

I might not have a lot of self-confidence in other areas of my life, but I do trust my intelligence as a reader. Saezuru is without a doubt an interesting story. For all its dark and heavy content, I’d like to argue that it is also a luminous story. It does not feel like the warm light of a sensual sunset, but like the bright cool light of an end of summer morning, concentrated on your desk in the spaces between the leaves’ shadows.

I’ve read other very good stories with a similar thematic that made me want to take a shower while watching cat videos. I’ve never had this reaction with Saezuru. I recognize the limitations of generalizing from an individual experience, but I’ll do it anyways…

I admire Yoneda Kou for the space she holds in the story for ‘the light’: humans’ positive qualities, humor, beauty, change, redemption. We see this light at the level of the plot - the bad guys tend to loose; the characters- they grow, become more beautiful or stronger, and they never loose their dignity even when they are abused and violated; the poetic dialogue; and the precise, elegant art.

I’ve recently become a fan of a mangaka whose work I’ve previously encountered and avoided because I had a visceral rejection of the art style. Because a manga story is composed in a visual medium, there is an instant emotional reaction to the art before we read the first word. The line work in Saezuru is detailed, precise and even. Sharp black/white contrast is used sparingly. Instead, grey tones soften the panels. There is white space on almost every page. I think that the elegance, geometric balance and color nuance of the art makes the heaviness of the story bearable. It lightens and cools.

Do you agree?

[earmo-imni]

Hello I did a thing

I’ve never colored a manga panel before and I also don’t really do digital art, but this is one of my favorite moments in the entire manga and I am forever sad that it didn’t get animated 🥲 So I decided to color it myself, and it turned out nice enough that I felt like sharing it!

[m1ckeyb3rry]

LMAO I just saw all the master lists on my feed and they look CLEAN im crying the Karasu one being filled is so funny but also talk about a blessing to Karasu nation

SHREK AND FIONA LMFAOOOOOO WAIT SO REAL I’ve also never watched shrek in its entirety I’ve only watched like clips of it in passing?? Never took the time to actively sit down and watch the whole movie oops that would actually be hilarious though and LMAOO SATOSUGU COSTUME wait nagi Lowk is perfect as Gojo though soooo

Manifesting we both return to normal too this is not fun LMAO it’s ok once the sickness goes away the inspiration will be back x10 stronger trust….

FRRR wait also speaking of im just realizing they skipped over the entire fight scene between Rin and Shidou after the first match????? Not that I care THAT much abt those two but I WANTED TO SEE OTOYA AND KARASUS REACTIONS????? Maybe they cut it there and decided to add that extra scene in ep1 but I’m lowk not happy about that but it is what it is I guess….

KIDNEY BEANS LMFOAJS that’s too funny and now that you mention it I see the vision…but fr maybe they just said Barous special like that so he gets his own color LMAO

Anything next to Karasu bfb looks small LOLLL ok but the kiyora fic was fr so cute…the fact that you basically hit all his main personality traits before pwc and the egoist bible drop though is CRAZY

frrr you can really feel the quality over quantity with kyoani it’s just >>>> also FR also the reason why I basically never watch the isekai genre too (I also just don’t enjoy the one piece art style on top of the way the women are drawn like…)

LMAAOOAA no because it’s actually such an entertaining dynamic but it’s funny cause we see like Karasu and yuki like high giving or something mid match too like canonically we don’t see beef but the dynamic matches their characters so well but wait the subgroups you’re making are cooking omg imagine tabishoken….thats just my lineup of gentlemen like hello??? Also YEAH I am surprised we don’t see much interaction with yuki and Karasu or others in general tbh (maybe it had something to do with his one track mind mindset from the ln because of his eye issues?) wish we had more I need more filler eps honestly also otoya bachira Shidou would probably cause property damage they’d be so out of pocket and chaotic LMAOO

YUKI AGENDA FULLY IN MOTION he was just too beautiful I WAS JUST GONNA BRING UP IGAGURIS FANTASY BECAUSE I FORGOT TO LAST TIME LFMOAAOAAOOAOAIAHSIAOAOAA THAT WAS SO FUNNY FR LIKE WTF the way he imagined Rin smiling and standing all proud like igaguri was his right hand man had me SENDING Shidou as a wingman would be an experience itself like the lead up of prepping for the date would be insane (imagine rseu after oaeu jkjk unless….)

Mmm yuki fic…ok but wait that cast is kinda dangerous wdym Barou as a guard and Karasu taking over yutas role um….that looks like prime swerve material…/j LMAO wait I’m ngl I actually kinda forgot about hollyhock and peregrine while listing that out (clearly) SHDGSHSHS my bad but also wait your workload/plans are kinda insane

ME TOO no because I never would’ve imagined all of our twin moments either like this is insane…Karasu really bringing people together LMAO

- Karasu anon

HAHAHA OMG YAYY i’m glad you like them!! i didn’t want to do smth too complicated given how many characters i’ve written for and probably am still yet to write for…like i know for a fact i’ll need to make barou, yukimiya, and noel noa ones in the future so i didn’t want smth that would waste a ton of time but this is just a simple divider + recolored manga panel (plus unicode for the masterlist label) so it’s really easy to make while still looking nice!!

HAHAH no me too i feel like i generally know what happens in it because of pop culture but when i was younger i didn’t really watch a lot of movies or anything so i never actually watched it!! but omg i just think a shrek and fiona costume for miraeita would eat so hard he would definitely think it’s hilarious (bonus points if we make karasu come with us as the donkey) and HELP satosugu costume with nagi is actually too fire i fear he’s literally the same height as gojo too and he has the pale hair and he’d probably be chill with wearing the outfit becuase it’s just black clothes LMAOAOAO stroke of genius right there

we can only hope 😭🙏🏻 this weekend is halloween weekend so i know for a fact i will be offline because i will be #partyingitup…developing lore most likely 😩 if any guys bother me i’m telling them i have a boyfriend and showing them yukimiya though i am not in the mood after the last time i went out ended up being the basis for the kiyora oneshot 😓

yeahhh i noticed that too i wanted to see karasu being salty and otoya making fun of them…it does feel like they replaced it w the scene in episode one but also i feel like it does a disservice to shidou’s character?? because in the manga they get in a fight because they can’t agree on scoring goals whereas in the show shidou just randomly jumped rin for like no reason SDKFHJS

IT’S LITERALLY THE SAME SHADE AS UNCOOKED KIDNEY BEANS i can’t stop laughing sae slander is so funny but yeah ig barou is just that guy no one can top him or copy him or even that close 😤 speaking of barou i cannot wait for his goal in the u20 match they better put every single drop of their budget into that idc about isagi’s goal or the rin v sae showdown or shidou or whatever just give me five seconds of absolute glory from barou and do justice to the celebration with him nagi karasu (and ig isagi is there too but idc abt him) and i will be happy

HAHAH it’s funny because compared to most of my stories for other fandoms (anything from aot, pomegranate ink, hurricanes/hummingbirds, my one atla fic) karasu bfb is pretty short?? like back in the day i could’ve finished that in a week MAX LMAO i’m getting unproductive 😓 it’s the fall slump happens every year but trust once winter hits i’ll be hit with insane inspiration and write something soul crushing and life changing like pomegranate ink again

yeah the op art style is not for me idk how people simp for characters from it SDKLFJH on the whole i’m more picky about art styles than animation because that’s what matters to me more than the quality of the animation hence why i would rather watch smth like bllk than op even if the animation for op is technically better LMAOOO and yeah i have literally never watched an isekai anime all of my isekai knowledge for the aegislash arc/hollyhock rin is based on those korean villainess manhwas where i’m also really picky about the art style but there’s so many of them that it’s possible to do that

THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING like we have a lot of canon evidence of karasu messing with other guys (apparently he was yelling at bachira for being naked and making fun of tokimitsu for not being confident during the day before u20) i think yukimiya is like. the ONLY character we actually never see him slandering or saying anything mean to actually?? probably because there’s nothing TO make fun of SKJDHF but yeah so basically the beef is actually just entirely made up by me but it just always ends up making so much sense that i can’t stop adding it in

LMAO no because karasu barou yukimiya are like the responsible cool adults of bllk (barou = strict father that lowkey also spoils his kids, karasu = problematic fun uncle, yukimiya = role model rich uncle) they would get along so well meanwhile bachira shidou and otoya would be insanely problematic it would just be shidou and bachira randomly getting into beef with strangers and otoya cheering them or like it would otoya trying to teach shidou how to rizz people or smth and bachira critiquing even though he has ZERO experience with which to be critiquing KSLDJFH

SHIDOU IS LIKE AN ANTIWINGMAN TBH LMAOAOA like imagine him introducing a girl to karasu…karasu’s already like bro i am not hearing you out whoever you’ve brought for me is going to be insane if they willingly talk to you 😭 omg wait rseu where it’s the opposite of oaeu and shidou WANTS to set his teammates up with girls and be involved with their love lives but no one trusts him so they’re like “GO AWAY” and he’s like “NO SHE’S PERFECT FOR YOU HEAR ME OUT PLSPLSPLS” and somehow he’s actually right?? like he guess their perfect types every time but no one wants to admit it…wait and instead of aiku + niko we have charles as shidou’s sidekick and instead of being an unpaid intern charles actively makes things more difficult for shidou by ruining his reputation with the bllkers further and making them even less inclined to listen to him

THAT’S LOWKEY WHAT I WAS SAYING like as much as i love yukimiya having karasu and barou also being royal guards would have me SWERVING SO FAST for literally both of them 😭 like serious but gentle guard barou and sassy but talented guard karasu who likes to joke around to make reader feel better when she’s upset??? HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME NOT TO FALL FOR HIM i think atp if i’m writing for any other character i need to just not even include karasu or nagi in the stories because i WILL swerve for them 100% of the time…barou’s on thin ice i think if it’s just him though i could stay loyal to yukimiya 🤔 wait ykw maybe we should just make the side characters opps so there’s no chance of swerving SLDKJFH change of plans yuta’s role is now going to be isagi and barou is going to be gagamaru (not an OPP per se but irrelevant to the miraverse) /hj okay maybe barou can stay but karasu has got to GO alright wait and instead of otoya as inumaki i’m throwing hiori in because he kinda fits better tbh (he’s not QUITE as mischievous as inumaki but giving hiori a joking side is more believable than giving otoya a serious diplomatic side yk)

HELPP i haven’t even updated peregrine since june and hollyhock since july so i don’t blame you for forgetting abt them anyways yeah the workload is a bit crazy rn hence why i’m trying to not have too many new ideas 😭 also side note ever since posting my masterlists i’ve gotten so many new followers i guess because they probably showed up in the character x reader tags?? so all of my older one shots from the summer are getting revivals (ex fwtkac) which is kinda funny…yk what’s truly insane actually is how popular OTOYA’S bfb is?? i thought the karasu version would be the one that more people read but i think besides seabird the otoya version of bfb might be my bllk fic with the most notes (i’d have to go through and check for sure but yeah) lowkey insane but no complaints ig

REAL i still think it’s crazy how we’re always syncing up…anyways i know i sent you a bazillion tik tok links in the second ask i responded to yesterday (which actually i posted that right as you sent this so ig we were online at the same time LMAO) but here are a few more because the edits are going crazy atm

BAROU EDITTTT bro i feel like i NEVER talk about him outside of our convos but i love him sooo much he’s so fine i don’t understand how he doesn’t have so many more fans

this is fr the audio that plays in my mind when yukimiya comes on the screen LMAOO

THE WAY THEY MADE YUKI SMIRK AGHSHHDSJKSJDNDD thank you 8bit THANK YOU 8BIT 🤩🤩🤩

[sigmadolos]

@enshijou​​​​ said: !!! i hope that this is not too late ! the last that i have read or watched any bsd at all was, admittedly, back in 2017 (!), but your sigma is such a huge, huge joy to have on my dash ! i wholeheartedly adore the dear dynamic that we have been able to establish between our two tragic boys bound by all manner of fate / greek mythological themes and admire how much passion and great care you have in bringing sigma's character to life ! your colouring skills and intricate insights concerning his character are an immaculate accompaniment to your incredible portrayal ! you convey so many emotions for him through your beautiful writing and it is always such a pleasure to read through all that you have in mind for him ! overall, nothing but amazement ! ⭐

How’s my portrayal? Feedback is welcome!

   No such thing as late here, especially not for memes or feedback!  The doors are eternally open. Oh wow, that is so long ago, I think I had just gotten into it if that at the time.  But that makes it such a great honor that you would bother to follow my blog and that you can enjoy him! ^-^ Following this blog inevitable means knowing the Sigma arc information if no other part of bsd 😂 But same! I love them, their complexity with thematics and fates and the way they’re so similar but also have the differences that are just, an absolutely delight to see. I genuinely think Sigma was the reason I learned to color manga panels because I don’t think I’d ever colored manga before that. (Maybe recolored but even that I’m not sure).  

   Aaaaaaa I’m really glad though that my writing can showcase emotions and scenes for people! I’ve mentioned it before, but I have Aphantasia so I can’t ‘imagine’ scenes or settings or daydream or anything, like i don’t see anything in my mind. So I never really know how it comes across to others, I just hope the emotions of the piece can be able to come across to people.

   Thank you so much for these sweet words, they truly mean a lot !!

[rav-inked]

Area D: an analysis

(These analysis are based of off personal perspective and should not deter readers from seeking out and forming their own opinions.)

Author: Kyōichi Nanatsuki

Artist: Yang Kyung-il

I chanced upon this manga recently when I was looking for pages to practice color with (which is a story for another time). It was one of maybe a dozen that I’d tagged for further consideration. I started looking at pages to see if they would work for what I was looking to do (they don’t) when I realized something.

I’d read this manga before.

Normally, I have a very good memory for stories, but I could not remember the plot or the characters for this one. I liked the style and the premise so I kept reading. (It’s a little like Boku no Hero Academia in terms of general world building, set in the time directly after the advent of powers.) I thought that maybe this one one that I had abandoned for some reason, or it had gone on hiatus and I never got around to finishing it. Nope. I’ve read it all the way through and the scenes are familiar but not memorable. Why is that?

Simply put, it lacks tension. The premise of the story is good, the plot and the characters both have potential, but the story isn’t told in a way that grabs the readers attention.

Uncertain Main Character: This is not saying that the MC’s objective is unclear. This is saying that for the first few chapters it’s unclear WHO the MC is. We are introduced to Satoru and given some of his backstory, but he’s a placeholder for the real MC, Jin. Given that the two characters have different objectives, the uncertainty of which story is being told makes the premise of the plot unclear. Are we following the story of Satoru who has thus far been afraid of his power? Is this a coming of age story of sorts? Or are we following Jin, a mysterious criminal? What was his crime and what is the extent of his powers?

Unclear objectives: This is saying that the MC’s objectives are unclear. It’s revealed that Jin is looking for his brother in the remote penal colony where the story takes place. OK. Simple enough. But the initial objective gets lost in the slew of obstacles the group faces. It’s like when you play a RPG but ignore the main story because you want to clear side quests to the point that you forget what the main story was. Fun, but easy to walk away from.

Character introduction and development: I’m hesitant to combine these, but they’re so closely intertwined it’s hard not to. Part of the issue with tension in Area D is the impermanence of characters. Characters are introduced, appear larger than life while in the scene they were created for, and then they vanish into the aether. Not an uncommon technique in writing, nor a bad one. The issue is that these introductions and disappearances, sometimes at the MC’s hand, seem to have little to no impact on his character development. Jin in the final chapters is largely the same as he was at the start of the story— overpowered, shy, and a bit innocent in his ideals.

Issues with pacing: Scenes with exposition were given enough pages to fully explain the situation, but battle scenes were sometimes over in the space of a couple of pages. Why is this a problem? In comics (whether eastern or western) pages in a chapter are equal to time. Writers and artists can control the pacing of a story by carefully allocating the number of panels each event gets. As a rule of thumb, important events are given more pages or larger panels, so if a battle scene is cut short it lessens the impact. The pacing of the story also ties into the character development aspect of things. If the MC is moving through obstacles too quickly and with little hindrance, were they even really obstacles? And if they weren’t obstacles was it worth including them as such?

Nanatsuki-san was a screenwriter prior to writing Area D, but writing for comics requires a different way of thinking. That coupled with the fast pace of the manga industry may have been a detriment to the final product. It’s hard to give layers of complexity when there’s only so much time to edit chapters before they’re up for publication. All in all, I enjoyed Area D despite my criticisms of it. Like I said previously the premise was interesting, but unfortunately it got lost in the minutiae and was not as strong as it could have been.

[pbchocmint]

[myakkun]

tokyo manji gang !

[shitpostingkats]

Crack Theory: Jaden Yuki is (at least partially) Atlantian

As usual, this is 100% my own connection making brain going crazy, I doubt this is what the writers intended, if they thought about it at all. Also, this essay is not free of infodumping or absurdity. 

So, Atlantis has always been... kinda weird, in yugioh. Other than just the absolute wildness of it just. Canonically existing. The Waking the Dragons arc has some of the most far reaching lore implications for the franchise as a whole, introducing ideas like the spirit world, duel monsters appearing in history (outside of egypt lol), and some major afterlife magic. Things that yugioh will expand on in following series, and things that were, I reiterate, introduced in a throwaway filler arc of the anime because they had run out of manga to adapt. 

But one character in particular not just builds on the concepts introduced in DM’s Atlantis season, but shares some interesting similarities with the main villain of that season, Dartz.

Jaden Yuki.

The first thing that caught my attention was the eyes. While yugioh has an almost ridiculous number of characters with magical eyeballs, heterochromia with one turquoise, one orange/yellow? Incredibly specific. I can’t think of a single yugioh character whose weird eye horror even passingly resembles anothers, yet here Jaden and Dartz are. Even further, both of them spend time serving as a “king” with pure gold eyes, before coming into contact with a foreign entity and developing the bilateral asymmetry. 

But Jaden’s eyes are based on Yubels, and more thematically, the colors of the polymerization card art. And Dartz’s seem to be just a random anime villain power up. 

Let’s put a pin in this for now.

The next weird link between the two is in the strange flashback we see at the very end of GX season 3. Jaden sees one of his past lives, when Yubel pledged themselves to be his guardian. In this era, Jaden is the young prince of a vague and never named kingdom. When was this? Where? We don’t know.

But the few characters we see share some interesting design elements with the people of Atlantis.

The primary front skirt panel being this narrow rectangle ending in a point at the end. The gold crown featuring a solid band with a diamond shaped piece right over the forehead embedded with a bright red gem. These capes and the big round brooch thingies. Jaden’s father’s belt has this segmented gold design that looks quite a bit like the necklace of the Atlantian king. (His granddaughter, Kris, has a similar one, I was just running out of space for references.) In fact, both Jaden’s father and the Atlantian king use red gems as their primary design element.

And finally, the biggest detail I want to point out is this little gemstone on human!Yubel’s forehead. Crowns are a pretty universal thing, but a delicate little jewel right on the forehead? That’s an iconic piece of jewelry worn by one Dartz Yugioh. It’s also worth noting, Jaden supreme king armor has the same blue diamond on its forehead. 

Now, before I tie this all together, let me take a quick aside to reassure that yes, I am aware, this sounds like the furthest reach I could possibly make. Sure, the two kingdoms might share some design elements, if you squint. Yeah, Jaden and Yubel might each have one weird feature that Dartz also flaunts. But really, is that enough to posit a connection between the two?

I mean, absolutely, I’ve built fan theories on far less and I WILL DO IT AGAIN

But no. Here’s the plot twist of this post: 

I’m not trying to prove that past!Jaden was the prince of Atlantis.  

Past!Jaden was the prince of New Atlantis.

All right buckle up kids it’s time for me to pull out the thumbtacks and red string also yes this essay is only 50% crack theory and 50% me wanting to infodump about mythology and historical dress. 

Now, ygo Atlantis is based on the “real” Atlantis described by Plato in a trio of his allegorical dialogues, wherein he invents a fictitious evil island nation and then recounts how the ancient Athenians singlehandedly stopped them from invading the known world. And ygo Atlantis actually references parts of the texts and uses some neat Atlantis details that I never see anyone else get right. For one, the three dragons, Timaeus, Critias, and Hermos, are named after the three chapters of the dialogue. Though Hermos is shortened from Hermocrates, but it means someone on the writing team gave at least a passing glance to the source material. Secondly, the layout of the city uses the concentric ring design laid out by Plato.

“-dwelt into a palace and enclosed it with three circular moats of increasing width, varying from one to three stadia and separated by rings of land proportional in size. The Atlanteans then built bridges northward from the mountain, making a route to the rest of the island. They dug a great canal to the sea, and alongside the bridges carved tunnels into the rings of rock so that ships could pass into the city around the mountain”

 Thirdly, (and this is my favorite) Atlantis itself does not resemble grecian architecture. It is SO easy for writers using Atlantis as a cool fantasy location to just slap some marble pillars on it and call it a day. But while we are getting the dialogue from Plato, and the text states that they encountered hellenistic Greeks, doesn’t automatically make them one in the same. In fact, in the text itself, we are assured that all of the proper nouns are being translated from their original records. And where did these fictitious records come from, you might ask?

Egypt!

So yeah, props to the ygo writers for actually using a fantasy civilization that has legitimate ties to Egypt in their dm filler arc. And it would in fact make sense for Dartz to be in Egypt 5-3,000 years ago, since he would be the one of the only survivors of his kingdom and as such any records that survived would have to have come from him.

I’m getting distracted. Back to Jaden.

While Jaden’s kingdom shares some similarities with the Atlantians, there’s a much stronger historical inspiration at play here.

Greeks.

Specifically, some of the modern perceptions of Spartans. 

The Atlantian long robe retains the shape of the front panel, but it’s been cut short at the knee to form a sort of pteruges (that armored skirt made from strips of leather). They maintain the shape of the Atlantian cap sleeves, but instead of cloth they have been made into bronze pauldrons. The capes, in particular, have now taken on the form of a chalamys, the iconic cloak of ancient Greek military attire. 

We even see some ancient Greeks in capsule monsters, further cementing that Jaden’s people are very much similar, but not quite. They’ve still got some Atlantian flourishes that set them apart. 

And see those capes I can’t shut up about? 

The Atlantians fastened theirs with two big round gemstones, one on each shoulder.

Historically, and in yugioh, Greek military fastened theirs at the right shoulder, using what archeologists like to call a fibula brooch.

And Jaden’s people fasten their cloaks on the left, using that ancient Atlantian gem. 

Do we have enough evidence to even begin to guess what happened to the citizens after Atlantis sank into the ocean? No. But here’s my theory.

Atlantis, an enormous empire, crumbles. Its people were decimated by war and tragedy. A surviving group slowly migrates to Greece, either willingly or through the Athenian conquest. They take refuge with another famous enemy of the Athenians, the Spartans. They slowly assimilate with the city state, blending the two cultures together, but the Atlantian citizens still delineate themselves in small ways through fashion and political influence. These people know of duel monsters, but are hesitant to share that knowledge, fresh on the heels of the spirit war. Orichalcos is rare, coveted, and nowhere near as pure as the stones once used all throughout their city. But it still exists. And some learned few still know how to use it.

Remember Dartz’s forehead jewel? It’s not just a fashion statement, it’s actually a chunk of orichalcos. And remember who else I said had one?

I mean, we’ve seen from flashbacks what overexposure to this stone when paired with the right magicks can do, right? It turns people into monsters.

And it’s not like we have a magic artifact that is literally called the eye of orichalcum. Or even that both these stories strongly feature a mysterious red rock falling from the sky and heralding the forthcoming evil.

Huh. 

This leads to my final piece of evidence:

Anyways, yugioh fanworks should use that fact that Atlantis 100% existed in the ygo world, as well as has been apparently rebuilt/succeeded into a major city, more often. Also, from now on I will be headcanoning Jaden as half Atlantian. Because I can. <3

[aokuro-san]

Some thoughts on TokRev and Ken Wakui (before reading the ending)

I want to clarify that this is my point of view and that if you have a different one, that's fine (even if you don't agree)! So let's move on.

Let's see, although everyone has a fairly well-argued point about why they don't like the ending, I think that the fact of saying: "these are not my characters" is as true as it is uncertain. I mean, there are things that WILL happen anyway and shape our characters as we know them...

...except for a few incidents that did traumatize them for life (like this: Draken never got over Emma's death and in all futures he lived extremely DEPRESSED; that is, he lived just to live. In fact, I've always had a theory that just like Ash Lynx, in Banana Fish, Draken allowed himself to die protecting Takemichi knowing what would happen to him, and at least now they both have a chance).

For example:

Kazutora will continue to have to survive the mistreatment of her father and the bullying and blackmail of her classmates until he runs into Baji, which is most likely, or another character, and he will have to start to evolve as a person from there (as we saw in several of the extras).

Emma and Draken will continue to be abandoned by their mothers. In fact, when Takemichi arrives in the past, Emma is already with the Sano and, finally, has had to "overcome" that abandonment (I put it in quotes because it doesn't seem like the right word, but now I can't think of another).

In addition, Draken will continue to live in "the massage room" and will see how the girls are prostituted and discarded. That is, he will have to learn to live in that environment and the "little" slavery he suffered from older gang members before becoming Mikey's friend.

Mitsuya and Shiba will meet in the same way and will live exactly the same. However, I want to take a little break here, because NO, I don't think Shiba family life is as good as some people think. In fact, in the color panel of the wedding you can see that Taiju is still quite far from his two little brothers. We will have to read the chapter to draw a little more conclusions, but I think that Taiju will never be able to completely redeem himself from what he did as we saw in the manga.

Izana will continue to be abandoned by all the adults around him, which will mold him as a person until Shinichiro finds him. I think this is the most difficult character to read because of the kind of life he has led, but we will have to wait for the little explanation.

Kakucho will also lose his parents in a car accident (see the scar) and the Sano will lose their father in another, and their mother due to an "illness" (which could be a hidden depression in the play, from my point of view).

And etc etc etc.

I mean, of course, Takemichi and Mikey STILL THE SAME (they are the same characters from the beginning, I mean) and it seems that thanks to that knowledge of the facts they have been able to help the vast majority of the characters (if not all, hahahaha), but they will not be able to control all the incidents in the lives of the characters. Probably, they will have spent many battles with Taiju and Izana, before achieving their objective, which, after all, WAS THE OBJECTIVE OF THEM BOTH. Especially Takemichi, our protagonist.

Actually, this ending can be as counterproductive (because of the rush, more than anything, I have already said it on another occasion), as it is appropriate for what Tokyo Revengers is, since it closes the two conflicts that arose from the beginning: "the loneliness" and "save them all" (and the penultimate chapter finally makes sense of the title and makes the best revenge of all: THE REVENGE OF TRYING TO BE HAPPY!). However, he has done it at the cost of MANY UNSOLVED THINGS (and leaving Shinichiro like the unsalted bread he has been from the beginning, haha). However, this seems to me the least serious of all. Let me explain: AN AUTHOR DOES NOT OWE YOU AN EXPLANATION OF EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. Especially IF EVEN THE MAIN CHARACTERS DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW TIME TRAVEL WORKS OR THEY DOESN'T REALIZE THE THINGS THAT, MAYBE, THE SPECTATOR DOES REALIZE.

Also, Takemichi is our main narrator most of the time, and I already said that he's not a smart enough person to notice this "nonsense", or give it due importance, which makes it much easier for the author leave those "loose ends" without endangering the coherence of the work, or the main character.

It is true that doing something like this is a risk and that ignorance works much better in horror works. I also would have liked it to fix some specific points (like, who was spying on Takemichi in the Bonten arc?), but if not, I DON'T DIE EITHER, TRUTH. Because, if you think about it, what the author has done with this part of the story is to make sure that people like me CHECK THE MANGA INFINITELY, hahaha. It's a great tactic, no doubt.

Or those are my conclusions, before reading the ending, of course.

PS: I see a lot of people saying that that wasn't the ending that Wakui wanted to do or that TokRev should have been a seinen... I honestly have no idea how the manga industry works in Japan. I only know that the publisher itself asked Wakui for a story and he created Tokyo Revengers from there. The first shônen of him. There is nothing wrong with TokRev being shônen, in fact, it is thanks to this work and the genre that Wakui has become known worldwide and if you want to read something about gang members and seinen, you can read Shinjuku Swan, one of his earlier works. I don't see a problem with that, really.

What I would worry about is that Wakui hadn't made the ending he wanted. I guess we'll see that over time. But if he really has made the ending he wanted (and had in mind since Bloody Halloween, as he said in an interview), THEN THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN SAY TO HIM IN THAT SENSE (Not that you can't criticize the ending, but insult him, try to convince him day and night to change the ending, send him pictures of them burning his manga for the ending, and generally harass him for the ending he finished picking out. I'm not surprised by this attitude, unfortunately, but it's still CRAZY and a huge lack of respect for the artist). Because, as John Katzenbach said in an interview:

"Do what you want to do. The story you tell should be YOUR STORY. Because a lot of people will come to you and say: You know, if you turn this 16-year-old boy into a 20-year-old girl, the story will be much better. ... No. Tell the story you want to tell and have faith in that. It may or may not work... But you'll be happy in the long run, if you stay true to your own vision."

[recurring-polynya]

Rukia's drawings are known to consistently resemble bunnies, Byakuya is known to draw the seaweed ambassador, which other characters are known to have distinctive art styles and what do they look like that make them so distinctive?

I strongly encourage you to obtain a copy of Color Bleach, a publication which is tremendous for any number of reasons, including the fact that it contains the worst recruitment brochure you’ve ever seen, featuring art by many of our assorted regulars. You can also see these drawings on the Bleach wiki, under the entries for the individual squads. I don’t usually mind posting some manga panels to make a particular point, but I didn’t want to wholesale repost a big section of a book, and it’s really worth every penny, but I will give my  impressions of the art that appears there.

I would not have pegged Yamamoto as that dude in your fifth grade class who loves to draw big muscle-y guys, and yet what is it I see here?

Omaeda actually has some decent art skills?? My man even has what approaches some style. Probably part of his noble upbringing included art lessons, and I feel like he was into making his own comics at some point. 

Soi Fon’s art is very stylized, but I kinda dig it. Does she draw things that are not black cats? Doubtful, but there’s something to be said for doing one thing and doing it well. 

Unohana appears to be skilled in the classical sumi-e style, which tracks. 

Momo is a very talented artist, and “drawing” is listed as her special skill elsewhere in the databook. The picture she has here is, um, a very shoujo version of Aizen. I like to think that in addition to drawing at a level where she could conceivably draw her own manga if she had the time and inclination, but I think she’s probably talented in a more realistic style, as well, and probably also does some painting, etc. 

Oh Renji, my Renji. He doesn’t have a lot of skill, but he’s got both style and enthusiasm. I think he’s a decently talented doodler who specializes primarily in Zabimarus. Imagine being a Squad Sixer and getting some paper returned to you with a little Zabimaru at the top screaming “GREAT JOB!!!” I would simply die.

Komamura. Komamura, my beloved. Okay, I can’t help it, this thing just has to be seen to be believed:

(the top one is Komamura’s, the bottom is Iba’s). I mean. He’s a dog. What do you expect? 

Iba, on the other hand has some real style going there. It reminds me a little of, like, WWII nosecone art. I’ve made a lot of jokes about Iba’s mom being into painting (namely big, Georgia O’Keefe style flowers) so she probably made him take art classes as a kid. He’s probably super-embarrassed about how good he is, but I bet the hit rate on his Squad 11 Recruitment Brawl posters was a lot better than Yachiru’s. 

Hisagi is also a pretty good artist?? I’ve said before that I think Hisagi picks up a lot of hobbies and never gets terribly serious about any of them, but since drawing is sort of a foundational skill for a lot of other stuff and he’s had, like a hundred years to get good at it, he’s, well, pretty good. I bet he draws a lot of the ads for the Seireitei Bulletin himself, like the J. Peterman catalog.

The Squad 11 offering is allegedly by Yachiru, but it’s weirdly good. It looks like one of those continuous line drawings that are way harder than they look. 

That’s it for people we actually have evidence for. Here are a couple of additional headcanons:

Ikkaku is a real connoisseur of drawing dicks on things.

Yumichika draws beautifully. He uses this mostly to do fashion-design type stuff, but he also likes to do general designs. He especially likes to incorporate feathers and swirling colors.

Nemu is a highly skilled scientific illustrator. Mayuri is pretty good at drawing diagrams-- he’s very good at conveying ideas thru images, but he tends to hand things over to Nemu if he wants something for publishing and archival purposes. Akon is also a pretty decent hand at drawing. He’s one of those guys who can draw straight lines and perfect circles without tools. Akon also occasionally enjoys doing some creative art. Is “Tool album covers” a genre? Anyway, that’s what he does.

Toushiro likes building things out of ice, and he’s quite good at making detailed construction plans. He’s real into using rulers and French curves and crap like that. These plans are legitimately gorgeous, even though they are basically technical work. Every so often (usually for Momo’s sake), he’ll try to draw a person or a cute animal and it’s real bad and Momo and Rangiku both make fun of him for being a terrible drawer, because they know he isn’t. He puts up with it, as is his way.

Kyouraku likes to draw “sensual” art, which is nearly as bad as his terrible romance novel. Juushirou likes it though, it always makes him giggle.

[digital-dhampirs]

vampire eye rings: power and rewriting the world formula

The number of rings vnc’s vampires have in their eyes has confused me for a very long time. We know vampire eyes are the key to vampires’ abilities to manipulate the world formula, so it follows to assume that the rings have some sort of meaning, right? Right?

It seems like the normal number of rings is one, as a majority of the vampires we see in universe have eyes like this (including but not limited to Noé, Chloé, Jeanne, and (usually) Luca). But then there’s also vampires with no rings— the beastias, for example, and all of the de Sade siblings, and Amelia; and then conversely there are vampires with a lot of rings, like several members of the senate and Luna; and that isn’t even mentioning the vampires with black eyes like Nox and Manet and Jean-Jacques, and the colored sclera some vampires have—

Suffice to say we have a lot of raw information and very little tying it together. For a while, I had absolutely no clue what the eye rings meant or what they did.

But! While I was doing my usual average completely normal and non obsessive staring at Ruthven one day, I noticed something.

After Ruthven loses his right eye, the number of rings in his left eye changes.

Back when Ruthven meets Chloé, he’s almost always drawn with normal one ringed eyes (albeit with colored sclera). There are a feeeew panels where it kinda looks like he has more rings, but looking closely at them it’s pretty much impossible to tell if that’s due to his eyelashes, sclera, or actually him having more rings. However, in a vast majority of these flashback panels, it’s very clear he only has one ring in each eye. The first time we definitively see him having more rings than normal is right after he loses his right eye.

Similarly, current day Ruthven’s eye ring count tends to fluctuate a bit. He’s occasionally drawn with just one ring in his eye, but he’s usually shown with more, particularly during his appearances in more recent chapters.

So… what does this mean?

Let’s start off with something well on the beaten track. I think this change in Ruthven’s eye solidifies the idea that sclera color is something separate from ring count when it comes to vampire eyes. Loki and Lord Paldence both having black sclera implied this beforehand, but Ruthven’s rings changing while his sclera remain the same seems to further this eye-dea (I’m very sorry).

Stepping off the track and onto the rails now… let’s talk about why Ruthven’s eye rings changed. My first thought was that it occurred due to Ruthven’s left eye attempting to compensate for his missing right. Maybe the rings have something to do with vampires’ ability to see and alter world formulas, and Ruthven’s left eye is now working double time to try and make up for his missing right eye. Come to think of it, we never actually see Luna’s left eye, do we? Maybe that has something to do with why they have multiple rings in one eye as well?

But no, that doesn’t make any sense either. We see two other Senator dudes with multiple rings in their eyes, and neither of them is missing an eye. We also never see Baby Noé’s right eye developing multiple rings to compensate for his injured eye as a child.

…or do we.

(I don’t have the voice or the talent for YouTube essays so please just mentally hear that in a dramatic YouTube essay tone of voice)

When we see Noé before he comes to Altus, before he meets the Teacher, before his eye gets injured, he doesn’t have any eye rings.

This isn’t just a missed detail in a random tiny background illustration. It’s shown in both the anime and manga (both digital and published editions, yes, I had to check). Noé did not have eye rings when he was staying with his grandparents. The first time we see him with one ring in his eyes is when he meets the Teacher— aka, when his left eye is injured.

I think I’ve been thinking about this all wrong from the start.

What if having one ring isn’t actually the “normal” number of eye rings for vampires in VnC— what if having one ring is actually unusual, and just seems common due to the large number of extremely powerful vampires we see in VnC?

Let’s go back to those one-ringed characters I listed back at the start. Noé, Chloé, Jeanne, Luca. Thinking about it, all of them are exceptionally powerful vampires capable of large scale formula revision (we don’t really see Chloé do anything destructive on a Luca or Jeanne scale, but she’s able to use that magic piano and break Ruthven’s curse, implying she’d likely be able to if she tried).

If anything, Noé seems like the odd one out. The only formula revisions he can do seem stock standard (increased durability and speed, heightened senses and perception); and the one unique revision he can do is quite weak compared to the things we see Luca and Jeanne do, took a lot of training for him to master, and makes him sick when he does it to boot.

So with that very long wind up in mind, here’s my theory on vampire eye rings.

Vampires’ eye rings correspond to a vampire’s ability to see and manipulate the world formula (tldr, how powerful they are as a vampire). The average vampires (Amelia, Catherine, Mina, Noé) have no eye rings and minimal ability to change the world formula. Vampires with exceptional abilities (Chloé, Jeanne, Luca, Ruthven) have one ring. After that, the more rings, the more powerful a vampire is (e.g. queen Faustina).

Vampires who lose or injure one of their eyes, like Noé, Ruthven, and possibly Luna, often end up gaining rings in their uninjured eyes to compensate for the loss of the other.

There are also exceptions to this rule, like the Beastias and the De Sade family, who likely have very distinct types of eyes (whether inherited through blood, like the de Sades, or given to them somehow, like the Beastias) that overwrite the usual rings system.

Of course, there’s one pretty big problem with this theory. When Noé recovers from his injury, he ends up with one ring in both of his eyes, rather than just in one of them. I do have a potential explanation for this, but I will warn you that we’ve now reached the inevitable part of all of my theories where we go off the rails and into the world of wild speculation.

Here’s my theory— a small number of vampires are able to “strengthen” their eyes by temporarily putting out one of them. This is likely very difficult and dangerous to do (since we know from Veronica that powerful vampires can see through things like masks and eyepatches), but if a vampire manages to render one of their eyes temporarily unusable, both of their eyes will gain rings as their working eye attempts to compensate for their unusable one.

I don’t think this sort of thing actually changes a vampire’s inherent abilities that much (as, while Noé does seem to be stronger than the average vampire, he never does anything on the same scale as the other one ringed vampires we see in VnC), but could definitely be used as an intimidation factor over other vamps. And this absolutely sounds like the sort of thing the senators we see with a bajillion eye rings would try. Vampire society is built on superstition and politics and playing the game of thrones posturing… if a vampire like Lord Paldence thought he could get ahead by purposefully injuring one of his eyes, increasing the number of rings he has in both, I could absolutely see him doing it.

I think this theory could also lend a very amusing edge to the De Sades’ lack of eye rings. The De Sade family absolutely cares about status and reputation, but we do know they’re often viewed as capricious eccentrics by a lot of vampire high society. There’s something so damn neat about Antoine, with no eye rings, perceived as less powerful and clearly playing it up by acting humble and friendly, completely manipulating Lord Paldence despite his five hundred eye rings.

the end (for now)

And with that, we’ve finally arrived at the end of this theory!! Thank you so much for reading this rambling meta theory analysis thing. As always, please take everything here with a massive massive grain of salt— it’s very possible that vampire eye rings are like, feckin sharingan or something and Noé and Ruthven just gained more eye rings after experiencing something deeply scarring / traumatic or something to that effect. This is all just complete speculation based on me spending way too much time staring at this manga.

Thanks again for reading and see ya next time!

TLDR

I don’t usually include TLDRs in my posts, but this was a very long and rambly one, so here’s the basic gist!

Vampires’ eye rings seem to correspond to their ability to manipulate the world formula/ their “power” as a vampire. Most vampires have no eye rings; powerful vampires have one; after that the actual change in power is unclear, but having more rings seems to be perceived as having more power.

There are exceptions to this rule, like the Beastias and the De Sades.

When a vampire loses the ability to use one of their eyes (permanently or temporarily), their working eye gains rings in an attempt to compensate for the missing one.

Vampires MIGHT (this is intENSE sPECULATION) purposefully temporarily injure one of their eyes in an attempt to gain rings in both eyes and be perceived as more powerful.

thanks for reading pls take this with a grain of salt because I’m probably wrong

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 320: Deku vs. Class 1-A

Previously on BnHA: Flashback!Kacchan was all “fuck Deku and fuck his stupid goodbye letters, I need to speak to somebody in charge.” Endeavor was all “hello, I am Somebody In Charge.” Kacchan was all “listen up asshole, you need to let us go out and collect our wayward nerd because you stupidly left him alone with All Might and that’s a fast track to disaster right there.” Endeavor was all, “[self-incriminating silence].” Rat Principal was all, “okay sure, have fun kids.” Back in the present, class 1-A was all “hi Deku” and Deku was all “I’M FINE!!!!!” and Kacchan was all “THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT YOU’D SAY YOU DUMB FUCKING NERD” and so the kids all got ready to fight, because OF COURSE they’re gonna fight. Sorry guys, but yeah it’s happening.

Today on BnHA: Kacchan is all “what’s up Deku you look like a possessed Rorschach test, so anyway how are the new quirks coming along.” Deku is all “they’re coming along like THIS” and uses Smokescreen to try and get away. Kacchan is all “PHASE ONE COMMENCE”, and Kouda, Sero, Jirou, and Ojiro leap into the fray to shower Deku with heaps of love and violence, because this is a shounen manga and kicking someone’s ass while simultaneously proclaiming your undying admiration for them is just how it’s done in these parts. The KoudaSeroOJirou squad then passes the baton to Satou, Momo, Tokoyami, Kaminari, and Shouji, who are all “fuck this mask” and do a bunch of stuff to tear Deku’s mask off because they’re the real heroes. Shouto is all “LOOK AT THE LITTLE CRYBABY, THAT’S RIGHT, GO AHEAD AND FUCKING CRY and by the way let us share your burden please,” and once again I swear this is all very deeply moving and touching within the actual context. The chapter ends with Tsuyu being all “look at me. I’m the cliffhanger now,” and damn.

lol what

I don’t think anyone was expecting that. I mean, not that I’ve got anything against Tsuyu or anything. anyways it’s a very nice cover and I love the colors and I hope this means Tsuyu’s gonna do something badass

also, “Deku vs Class A” -- pretty much the expected title, but it’s still got me hyped nonetheless fuck yeah let’s go

IIDA ANGST

Iida Tenya really said “fuck the uniform code, we’re leaving the helmet at home today.” sorry kids, prim and proper C-3PO Comic Relief Iida has left the building. can I interest you in some Serious Iida

meanwhile Kacchan is all “sup Deku, I heard you got a few more quirks, and might I just add that you look like the Snyder Cut of Detective Pikachu”

“you look like a tarred and feathered squid” okay easy there Kacchan. I mean it’s all true of course, but still

“thank you all for coming” OH EXCUSE ME SON, WERE YOU PLANNING ON GOING SOMEWHERE. LET’S JUST SEE HOW THAT PLAYS OUT

yep and there’s Smokescreen, right on cue

okay Horikoshi, I leave it in your hands. hopefully you can come up with some more interesting combos than my dumbass predictions lol

LOL THIS ISN’T A COMBO AT ALL

“explosions solve everything” -- Horikoshi Kouhei, 2021. something something shockwave, something something handwave ta-da no more smoke. lol okay then

oh, ouch

he would know, wouldn’t he. nice application of one of your many hard-earned life lessons, Kacchan

by the way you guys, just as an experiment, I’m going to try to anticipate some of the discourse this week in the hopes of preemptively addressing it and thus saving myself some time later on lol. so here’s our first test run!

ANTICIPATED DISCOURSE: “oh my god what a fucking hypocrite can you believe this fucking guy”

PREEMPTIVE REBUTTAL: it’s precisely because Kacchan has been in this exact situation himself that he’s able to recognize his past self in Deku now and call him out on it. just because it took him sixteen years to get it through his head that he can’t accomplish every single thing completely by himself doesn’t mean Deku has to go down that same path. so yeah, maybe it is a bit hypocritical, but if you insist that the only people qualified to call out stupid shit are people who have never done a single stupid thing in their own lives, then what you’re basically saying is that absolutely no one on earth is qualified lol. so yeah, I’d have to disagree

and one last unrelated note, I’m willing to bet the whole “you didn’t even say a word before you ran off” thing is possibly the first thing Kacchan’s said in this whole encounter that actually does stem from genuine hurt rather than his tough-love-harsh-truths strategy. I’M TAKING NOTES HERE HORIKOSHI. at this rate it’ll take twice as many chapters as DvK2 for them to hash out all the stuff between them, geez

anyway so I gotta say, so far Deku vs. Class A is looking an awful lot like a DvK3 wearing a hat, trenchcoat, and sunglasses lol

OH SHIT I TAKE IT BACK??

FUCK YEAH, YOU GO KOUDA. and I guess he ditched his mask as well! excellent

so far the strategy here seems to be “Kacchan says all the mean tough love shit while the rest of 1-A balances it out with warmth and kindness”, which actually works pretty well imo. Deku is one of those people that doesn’t usually need a Kacchan Translator anyway, but just in case, this is very efficient

mm but of course Deku is slingshotting himself away with Blackwhip. all right then, who’s up next!

FUCK YEAH

okay but seriously you guys, what is going on with Sero’s face in these last couple of chapters though, it’s really starting to unnerve me. is he trying to emulate Kacchan’s whole asymmetrical facial expressions thing?

in fact let me just quickly hit pause here because,

ANTICIPATED DISCOURSE: “SERO IS TOGA??!”

PREEMPTIVE REBUTTAL: no

oh snap looks like Jirou’s getting in on the action too!

poor Jirou probably spent days racking her brain trying to think of something she could bond with Deku over. is Horikoshi doing these in reverse order of the kids who have had the most interaction with him? that would explain why poor Kouda didn’t get a flashback lol

omg. well that answers that

so by my count, Satou and Hagakure are the only ones remaining in this first tier of kids who Still Appreciate Midoriya even though they’ve barely ever spoken two words to him in their lives lol. so they’ll probably be next, and then we’ll get to the next tier of kids who are pretty good friends with him but not quite besties. and then we’ll move on to the IidaRokiRaka trio, and then lastly, to the boy who is in a tier all his own

BUT FIRST, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

and by “sponsor” I mean the Dekuangst. just in case that wasn’t clear. indeed, many thanks to the Dekuangst for making this all possible

(ETA: okay so this whole “take me away” line seemed pretty weird to me, and sure enough it’s yet another one of those cases where only the verb is specified, and the object is left to the reader’s interpretation. so even though the translation says “take me away”, I’m pretty sure that what Deku’s actually saying is “take you away” -- as in, his loved ones will be taken away by AFO.

and that is literally the way he phrases it, though -- the verb used is “奪う” (ubau), meaning “to snatch away; to dispossess; to steal.” which, god, that hurts my whole goddamn heart though, because for him to say it like that?? not “AFO will kill you”, but “AFO will take you away from me.” he can’t have nice things anymore because of AFO. he can’t be around the people he loves because AFO will hurt them. he can’t have happiness because AFO will take it away from him. anyway so where the fuck is AFO right now, motherfucker I just want to talk.)

by the way can Ojiro just extend his tail to whatever fucking length he wants or what because it’s like twelve feet long in this panel lol

WOOO FUCK YEAH TOKOYAMI

YOU LOVE TO SEE IT!! BUT WHERE’S YOUR FLASHBACK? YOU’VE HAD A BUNCH OF INTERACTIONS WITH HIM, THAT’S NOT FAIR

okay so now Satou’s stepping in which is back to my anticipated order, so maybe Toko will finish his little moment afterward

dskfjfkk

“REMEMBER THAT TIME DEKU BORROWED SATOU’S FOOD COLORING” Horikoshi says, sweating. “AND REMEMBER THAT TIME HE, UM, SMILED IN HAGAKURE’S GENERAL DIRECTION”

actually I am curious about what Hagakure’s part will be because, you know, the whole traitor thing lol

(ETA: funny how we just skipped right over it huh. can we get a traitor reveal countdown started here? definitely getting close to that time.)

whoa lol wtf

MOMO??? THIS HAS MOMO WRITTEN ALL OVER IT DAMMIT

-- SWEET MOTHER OF FUCK

“SORRY MIDORIYA-SAN, I LEFT MY FUCKING CHILL AT HOME IN THE LOCKER NEXT TO IIDA’S HELMET” holy shit lmao

and here I thought she’d get a flashback to her time on the Baku Rescue Squad or something. but nope, no flashbacks from Momo, only terrifying sci-fi torture devices

poor Dark Shadow is such a trooper omg

“why am I the only one who has to make prolonged contact with his smelly disgusting self” taking one for the team there DS

FUCK YEAH KAMINARI NO JUTSU

THE PRICKLY BASTARD WHISPERER STRIKES AGAIN!! don’t suppose you brought any clean clothes you could sneakily force him into huh Kami

okay here we go, so now Shouji and Tokoyami are joining forces

um excuse me this is fucking awesome

wonder how he’ll break free? don’t think he’ll reveal Fa Jin until the end of the chapter, so maybe Air Force or something? idk

TOKO GETS AN EXTENDED MOMENT BECAUSE HE IS A TIER TWO PATREON REWARD LEVEL FRIEND YAY

WHY IS MOMO MAKING THIS FACE LOL YOUR THING WAS WAY WORSE

and Shouji just casually hitting him with what is easily the best comment from anyone yet. too bad Deku’s just gonna ignore it. you deserve better Shouji

KAMINARI OMFG

it only just occurred to me that Kami is currently trapped inside Dark Shadow right along with him lmao omg. realest one in the entirety of BnHA, right here. we will never forget your sacrifice

aaaaaaand Deku’s yeeting himself

do you really hate the thought of taking a bath that much my dude

oh shit the mask!!

-- oh shit the feels

o(TヘTo)

fuck. and I mean, we knew he was crying, that was a done deal. but still, to see him in this much pain is just...

and the acknowledgement that he knows they’re worried about him, but that it doesn’t change his mind one bit. this, right here, is why they have to be a bit harsh with him, you guys. because they’re up against the full, unbridled stubbornness of Midoriya fucking Izuku, and if they don’t match that stubbornness with an equal stubbornness of their own, they basically don’t stand a chance

(ETA: quick note that there is apparently another mistranslation here -- rather than saying that his friends are oblivious to the danger, what Deku is actually saying is that none of his friends have activated his Danger Sense once throughout this entire fight. which I had been wondering about, and it turns out Horikoshi actually confirmed it. so basically none of the kids bears any ill intent toward him, and there’s literal proof right there.

incidentally, as @class1akids​ pointed out, this also casts an interesting light on this chapter in terms of who hasn’t fought Deku yet. not to play the Hagakure Traitor Music for the billionth time you guys, but I’M JUST SAYING lol.)

anyway, but the good news is that they all seem to understand that. and the even better news is that we have reached the tier 3 friends!!

“OR ELSE” lol, great to see Shouto wielding his friendship just as aggressively as Deku once did towards him. I do love a good role reversal

p.s., ANTICIPATED DISCOURSE: “why is Shouto being so cruel to Deku can’t he see how hard this is on him”

PREEMPTIVE REBUTTAL: this is a callback to the classic “even heroes cry when they have to” Shouto line from chapter 137. Shouto is clearly following Kacchan’s lead here and going for the more ruthless approach, knowing that the gentle approach isn’t getting through to him (if anything it’s only making him more stubborn as we saw on the previous page). basically it’s his way of pointing out that even heroes are still only human, and so is Deku last time he checked

ah okay, and there Tsuyu is at last

okay real talk, I get why Tsuyu is included in the tier 3 friends, because she was one of the first people to team up with Deku going all the way back to USJ. but that said, this probably would have had more impact if their most recent interaction hadn’t been like 150 chapters ago

but anyway though it’s still a good speech. maybe not quite a cliffhanger-level speech, but a good speech nonetheless. in a way though, I’m glad to see that Horikoshi seemingly didn’t give a fuck whether he ended this on an actual cliffhanger or not for once

and that “headed toward the climax” part has me excited too, ngl. because if we really are getting to the so-called climax this soon, that makes me even more certain that there is indeed a DvK3 in the forecast. so I presume that next week (or I guess two weeks from now) will be the tier 3s along with the remaining tier 2s like Kirishima and Aoyama

and then after that, well... [orange and green banners being hoisted] [sound of screeching airhorns and vuvuzelas in the distance] [sound of All Might approaching in his car which I didn’t notice until I looked back at this page a second time whoops] THE PROPHECY WILL NOT BE DENIED

[m1ckeyb3rry]

UNFORTUNATELY?? Nay….I say that the hair gel jokes are one of the highlights of his character…package deal yk….i know EXACTLY which panel you’re referring to HAHA I think every Karasu fan has that hiding in a little corner of the brain somewhere….but also I really wanna know what made him chose that specific shape Ike I get shaping it up but bro really said lemme make it pointy and sharp in the front too…like let me extend this far beyond my forehead….anyways…

But I TOTALLY feel you!!! I’m not much of a shipper myself either (both in BLLK and general media), just here to enjoy the hype and the goofy little men kicking balls! I do love the dynamics between characters though (like Barou and Chigiri, Karasu and Hiori, Otoya and Karasu, nagi and Barou, etc there’s too many LOL) but I’ve just never felt the seen anything really romantically although I don’t mind other ppl doing so! Maybe Karasu lovers are just on another wavelength bc I resonate a lot with what you said LOL I love analyzing lore and everything and seeing the different interactions and dynamics between characters, but I’ve never felt the need to push a specific romantic agenda to develop my understanding of them or their background…They’re so silly though I love those little almost slice of life moments where they’re just doing the funniest things…speaking of slice of life the bowling off day I cannot wait for that to be animated BUT what are your thoughts on tabieitaken outfits…I’ve heard mixed reviews and would love to hear your take LMAO

And LMAO RIN’S ENTRANCE so funny I fr lost it when I heard his theme music playing like oh my

I also only really consume the sub content and I agree!! I think it’s really cool how they hired some smaller/less known jp vas and how well they fit!!! Esp like Isagi and Bachira I think their voices are also perfect for them! I’m also really hoping eightbit puts their heart and soul into animating 2nd selection ppl bc I will also not survive if they’re all done dirty

And UGH HIORI I’m ngl I feel like he’s almost kinda a package deal with Karasu kinda like how Otoya is like….by default since I like Karasu those two end up growing on me too and I’m gonna be real I think your work (both white butterfly and the Hiori cameos in the Karasu series) have been converting me even more….its like I’ve been enlightened fr but their dynamic is so hilarious!! I agree I also thought that it was Karasu who was more interested in Hiori but then the LIGHT NOVEL HAHAHAHA I’m so glad they made that!! I’m crossing my fingers for an Otoya and Karasu version too!! I know the Yukimiya chapter is coming out this month so YAYY

The BLLK cast just has too many good characters it’s like my favs have to evolve to keep up LOLLL as of rn at the top it’s basically Karasu and like I’ve mentioned a little earlier Hiori is really growing on me too….esp in the latest manga chapters too like seeing him genuinely smile I’m like omg my boy!!! I think I’m probably a little biased too just because I also love his hair color like…coincidentally my fav shade of blue….Other than those two I’d say probably Chigiri!!! He’s so sassy I love it, and then Otoya nagi and Rin are a close second….its so hard to choose I’d fr just make an in depth tier list if I had the motivation LMAO but yeah uhh tldr in approximate ordered ranking…Karasu, Hiori, Chigiri, nagi, Otoya, rin….i think…..

You’re real for that though….the duality of nagi…6’3 squishable man fr…I also love the little miffy expression he makes it’s so cute <33

Also ugh yeah….fanon mischaracterization….really not it…I agree the mischaracterization for Rin is INSANE and NAGI TOO?? I definitely didn’t like Rin as much before but I think he also eventually grew on me when I realized he’s kinda just a dork who doesn’t know how to act and is dealing with some crap….luckily I don’t see as much mischaracterization of Nagi here specifically but generally in the fandom I know ppl say some wild things like throwing around that he’s a red flag or something and I’m like….are we talking about the same person? The dude who can’t even be bothered to wake up and dress himself like…Ofc diff interpretations can bring more interesting ideas and ppl are welcome to interpret things differently but yeah some I feel take a little too much artistic liberty…or straight up just make up facts but :/

And THANK YOU HAHA I’ll always have plenty of thoughts for you LMAO I’m like spilling all of my BLLK thoughts here and I love just chatting with you <3

YOU’RE SO RIGHT it’s not karasu if his hair isn’t getting made fun of just a bit 😭 pleaseee that panel is nightmare fuel HAHA i have to respect his commitment to the crow aesthetic though so i can’t hate too much 😫 he had a bit and he WENT for it

YESYES i love platonic relationships sm more!! writing and reading good friendships will always be far more enjoyable to me than romances especially rushed ones. tabieita and barounagi (as well as nagisagi to a certain extent) are my fav duos in the manga i feel like there’s always some silly nonsense going on when they’re onscreen. the nagi isagi barou trio from second selection can never be topped imo they were SO funny together but also balanced each other out super well?? super enjoyable overall. heheh i think it’s because only cool people like karasu so we’re always linked up 🫡

i feel pretty neutral abt otoya and yuki’s outfits…i think of the three yuki’s was my least fav but he still looked good!! otoya’s was a little goofy but it fit him so well that i can’t hate. and possibly an unpopular opinion but i LOVED karasu’s fit in the bowling chapters!! sorry but a man in a turtleneck will always get me going and tbh the trench coat made him look very mature and respectable so i loved it!! i also just love men who dress like grandparents tbf so that might be why. i feel like i have seen slander abt it but i was like 😲😍 when i saw it

RIN’S THEME HAS ME HOWLING EVERY TIME I HEAR IT BRUH WHY IS IT SO DRAMATIC HE’S SO STUPID (<- affectionate) KFDHSKKS although tbf barou’s lion growling and chigiri’s guitar solo aren’t any less over the top…smth abt rin’s specifically is insane to me though like he is fr trying out for a part in attack on titan or smth

okay honestly hiori has been growing on me for the same reasons which is hilarious because i feel like i wrote him so differently in white butterfly vs fwtkac?? like in wb he’s so sad and ghostly and sickeningly in love vs in fwtkac he’s just karasu x y/n’s goofy little shadow that they are mystified by but cannot help loving 😭 i think that’s a good example though of how the same character can be written differently while still seeming in character!! i actually have a couple more hiori requests that i’m going to work on once i’m done with the karasu ones so you have that to look forward to if you’re a fan of him as well 💖

ALL OF THE LIGHT NOVELS ARE SO OUT OF POCKET…craziest parts to me are when a bunch of girls refuse to wake up/talk to/touch nagi because they think he’s the cursed child of the devil and hiori trying to follow karasu home but then getting caught and #pranked by crow boy. i feel like an otoya ln would just be his extensive dating history FJDJSKAB but tbh i would read!! and ofc a karasu one would be super fun asw. i feel like if there were ones written abt yuki and ARYU of all characters there definitely will be ones for those two!! fingers crossed anyways

you’re so real for that…my top three has been p solid for a while now (nagi, karasu, barou) but four and five change so frequently HAHAH i think atm i would say in order it’s nagi, karasu, barou, reo, and maybe kaiser or one of the itoshi bros?? but only MY versions of them JDDHSK. otoya is a character i cannot help but slander though he is growing on me for sure and chigiri is an hm because i’m not attracted to him per se but he’s like my bestie yk. speaking of otoya slander omg i am so sorry in advance but he gets DOGGED on in the next part of fwtkac 😭😭😭 it’s all in good fun though but it had to happen alas

EVERY TINE NAGI GOES :x I SQUEAL he’s so cuteee but also enormous?? he’s just a big fluffy koala i love him and i want to carry him around in my pocket and take care of him forever 🥹

ohhh the mischaracterization of those two is frightening!! like no i’m sorry nagi would NOT be a cheater 😰 he’s not even that bad tbh!! he reminds me a lot of someone suffering from heavy depression and burnout…which especially considering how his light novel goes and the fact that his parents basically neglect him it’s v understandable??? he’s honestly a very sad character when you examine him on a deeper level 😕 and RIN PLEASEEE i think some people saw a hot talented dark haired character and decided he had to behave in a certain way when he’s really just an insecure unfriendly loser 😭🙏🏻 imo karasu yukimiya and aiku are what fanon rin wishes he was!!! i do think diff interpretations are fun and i’m the first to make a character ooc if that’s what i need for a fic — what gets me is when the ooc version becomes the widely accepted version of them and you can’t find anything else if that makes sense!! i wouldn’t mind ONE fic of nagi being a red flag because okay drama 🤩 but when people (more so on tik tok than her fs) act like that’s actually who he is i’m just like oh 😟

YAYYY i love talking to you as well!! as i’m sure you can tell by my extensive replies i am nothing if not a chatter…also kinning y/n’s bff in the saturday date oneshot of fwtkac because i did in fact respond to this while on the treadmill 😭 one thing abt me i will be chronically online so whenever you want to talk i’ll probably respond relatively quickly for the most part!! as long as i’m not out and abt with my friends or smth hehe

[telehxhtrash]

A masterpost on Togashi’s gay subtext and why it’s intentional.

Hi ! After seeing so many posts about Togashi dropping subtext about Killua's possible romantic feelings for Gon, I thought it'd be a good idea to make a sort of "masterpost" with all the subtext that Togashi has included into his work.

I usually see a lot of people trying to say that HxH isn't about romance and that Togashi isn't interested in writing romance into the manga, but when you analyze all the subtext that's been going on the further Gon and Killua's relationship progresses, I think it's incorrect to say that Togashi has never hinted at the possibility of romance in HxH.

This is going to be a long post, enjoy your read!

Also, please note that I will only base this analysis on the manga, so there can be no mistake that "maybe this is just something the anime made gayer" : i want to prove that the subtext is 100% intentional on Togashi's part.

I'd also like to mention, although I will analyze it further after listing the subtext, that Togashi is a VERY smart man. There are always little details in the story and/or foreshadowing that are easily missed at first but when you notice them, it truly makes you understand how much attention and care Togashi puts into his work. There are countless details and symbolism that are analyzed daily through wonderful meta posts, from the main 4′s birthdays and their link to their character or the religious symbolism in Kurapika’s story arc.... Togashi loves to foreshadow and plant little details into his work, so when Togashi plants subtext, I'm sure he 100% knows that he's writing it, and it can't be seen as unintentional.

I'll also link all my references for this post at the end of it, so feel free to read all the additional textposts and content if you want to know more.

Well, let's get into it!

EDIT : i can’t believe this post is still being used as a reference it makes me so happy... thank you so much !!! i edited this to tweak it a bit because i wrote this a while ago and the phrasing seemed off to me, so if you’re reading or re-reading this post, hi, welcome to masterpost on gay subtext 2.0 !

GREED ISLAND ARC

Greed Island is to me the arc that lays down the nature of Killua and Gon's relationship. It's during this arc that we get to see a bit more of what Killua thinks, how he's lucky to have met Gon and that he feels really grateful. Gon’s behavior in this arc is also very affectionate, with him always reassuring Killua about his place next to him. While the scene where Killua thinks "You've got it backwards, Gon, I'm the one that's glad I met you." can't be considered as subtext, I think it's something that lets the reader know a bit more about how Killua feels towards Gon. 

But other than this scene, which can clearly be dismissed as platonic, there are 2 more moments in the Greed Island arc that are layered in subtext.

• The Rainbow Diamond (chapter 151)

During their time in Dorias, Killua uses Risky Dice to gain cards from the slot machines. The first card that Killua gains is called "Rainbow Diamond", the description of the card being "A diamond that shines in a rainbow of colors. Propose with this diamond and she is guaranteed to say "yes"". 

There are 3 different things we can take from this panel. First, the card is a marriage proposal card, so it's obviously romantic in nature. Second, the object is a RAINBOW diamond. And third, Killua, wanting to keep the card safe, gifts it to Gon.

In short, Togashi sat down at his desk, decided to draw Killua winning a MARRIAGE PROPOSAL CARD (it could've been any card, but Togashi CHOSE to make Killua win a marriage proposal card) that has a RAINBOW diamond on it and made Killua gift it to Gon. 

While I personally don't think that subtext can be used to 100% ascert that Killua has romantic feelings for Gon, I think it's a funny little touch from Togashi, and I'm even gonna say a sort of hint towards how Killua's feelings for Gon are going to evolve in this arc and the next.

• “It has to be Killua” (chapter 166)

Now this is a scene that I've never seen anyone talk about, at least on Tumblr, but when I read a bit of analysis on it I was 100% convinced this was intentional subtext. I'm basically quoting here what this article explains, so if you want more detail, I recommend reading it.

As you probably recall, during their deadly dodgeball game against Razor, Killua decides to sacrifice his hands to ensure that Gon could use all his strength. When confronted about it, Killua insists that it's nothing, and Gon shocks him by saying that he knew all along that he was hurting himself for his sake. 

Gon then says that it can only be Killua holding the ball, and that it has to be Killua, resulting in Killua being absolutely awestruck and embarassed. I'm also going to talk about the anime adaptation for this one, because it's perfectly executed and translates extremely well the nuance that the second sentence bears. If you want to rewatch it, this scene happens in episode 70. It's worth noting that in the anime, we see Killua not reacting to Gon's first sentence, but losing his composure entirely when Gon says the second sentence. But why ?

The reason was lost in translation. His exact words are "Booru wa Killua ga motte-kurenai to. Killua ja nakya dame nan da.". Both sentences basically say the same thing : It has to be Killua holding the ball. That second sentence can be translated literally as "If it's not Killua, that won't do." However, the second sentence, in a different context, can also be used to say a totally different thing. 

While it's certain that Gon used this sentence in the context of the dodgeball match, the sentence "~ja nakya dame nan da" also serves as a confession of one's feelings in japanese. It's basically the equivalent to "you're the one for me". When you google the sentence, it turns up romantic songs, forum posts asking what it would translate to in English and posts on how to confess to someone. 

The sentence basically drowns in romantic subtext. As mentioned before, Killua has no reaction to the first sentence "Booru wa Killua ga motte-kurenai to.", but loses his composure at the second one, and I think that was a very deliberate thing Togashi wanted to convey : this sentence has an additional layer, and clearly Killua is taking it to heart.

I will come back to this specific subtext in a bit, because we can parallel it with another subtext-y situation, so please keep it in mind for now.

CHIMERA ANT ARC

Now onto the sad gay arc! This arc is so RIDDLED in subtext and parallels that it's making me lose my mind.

• Gon, you are light. (chapter 199)

This scene is just... So romantic in nature. I’m not too objective on this, but I really do believe that this moment is the exact moment Killua fell in love with Gon and started to realize he felt a bit more than friendship towards him. It’s Killua respecting Gon for who he is, realizing that he’s light and he’s always been, he’s the one who saved him and who’s always been so bright and optimistic and always makes the best out of any situation. In this scene, Killua lets himself drown in Gon’s light, allows himself to feel this “wow” moment of pure admiration and love, and it’s absolutely beautiful.

It's extremely important to take the context of this scene into account. What happened is that Killua, who has been struggling mentally for the entire series with the fact that he's always running away, ran away once more, leaving Kite to die with Pitou. This ENTIRE chapter is literally adults absolutely DESTROYING Killua, first Kite's troupe bashing him for leaving Kite behind, and then Netero, Morel and Knov coming in like icing on the cake telling Killua that "After all, he's just a kid", and that he should hurry up to his mommy. 

Killua is beating himself up for running away again, got destroyed by Kite's team and 3 extremely strong pro hunters. His morale is down in the drains right now. He expects Gon to be mad at him for betraying Kite, for running away once again, for leaving Kite to die alone and ripping Gon away from Kite : he expects that he'll lose Gon for his cowardice.

HOWEVER, the first thing that Gon says to Killua after having been passed out for god knows how many hours is "Thank you". 

Gon woke up and instantly eased up all of Killua's fears : he wasn't a loser for running away, and Gon was actually thankful for him. Gon, at this moment, was the only one that showed kindness, understanding and gratefulness towards Killua. Gon even goes so far as saying that he knows that Kite isn't dead, and that they have to help him. At this instant, Gon is truly Killua's saving grace. He's the one that trusts him with his entire heart, and believes in his choices when even he can't believe in himself. Gon is truly Killua's light at this precise moment, because he was the only one who supported him, trusted him and reassured him in this awful situation.

How can someone shine so bright in such a terrible situation ? How can someone be so positive that nothing bad will happen ? 

Gon asserting all of this makes Killua respect him a lot. Keep this word in mind, because it’s going to be important in the next piece of subtext I’m analyzing, because those two scenes canonically follow each other and are basically Togashi highlighting that something special happened when Killua called Gon his light, and that his feelings deepened.

• Introduction to Palm's character (chapter 200)

This piece of subtext is very very easy to miss but it's one of the most important subtext-y scene, because coupled with the “Gon, you are light” scene, it’s very clear that this dialogue is deliberately highlighting Killua’s feelings.

This chapter introduces Palm's character (which, imo, is a character introduced for the sole intent of being a catalyst to Killua's feelings towards Gon, but I'll talk about it in my post talking about the CAA parallels) - edit: i talked about this briefly here.

So, Killua having looked into Gon's eyes for like 10min straight and concluded that Gon was the light of his life a chapter ago, is now chilling with Gon as they meet Palm. 

Palm takes them to a café and STRAIGHT OFF THE BAT harasses them about how much she's in love with Knov. Like when I say harassing, it's literally a whole page of her explaining her feelings towards Knov. 

There are two interesting things that can be drawn from this interaction.

First, it's extremely easy to draw parallels between Palm's situation towards Knov and Killua's situation towards Gon. Palm starts by saying how amazing her master is, that she probably has special feelings for him but the most important thing is to respect the other person. Remember how I talked about how this last scene was Killua having a surge of deep, deep respect for Gon ? Palm makes sure to highlight that special word, that it’s important to respect someone when it comes to love.

She then goes on to say that she hasn't said anything to Knov, and never will. All of this adds nothing to the story, it's empty dialogue, Togashi could've introduced Palm in virtually any other way possible, but he chose to drag her and the gay duo to a café and make her have a monologue about love RIGHT after the extremely emotional panel of Killua declaring that Gon is his light just a chapter ago.

But there's more. Not only does Palm monologue for a while about love, but after finishing her monologue, this happens :

This panel features ONLY Palm and Killua, her looking at him like the psycho she is, and straight up telling him that "love can suddenly spark out of nowhere, don't you think so?". 

What's so interesting about this is the fact that Togashi made the deliberate choice to have Palm say this to Killua and Killua ONLY, which after the gay existential crisis he had last chapter, can very much be applied to his situation. Love DID spark out of nowhere, and Togashi wants you to notice. Togashi could've made Palm say this to herself, with no distinct listener like the last panel, but he made the conscious choice to draw this panel with Palm adressing herself to Killua SPECIFICALLY. 

Those two pieces of subtext, that fit perfectly together, make me believe 100% that Togashi knows what he's doing and he's not unintentionally planting gay subtext in his work. The fact that Togashi sat at his desk, drew Killua calling Gon his light, and then followed this scene with the introduction to a character who picks Killua apart to tell him that "love is something that just happens, don't you think?" is 100% proof that Togashi knows what he's doing.

• Date with Palm (chapters 217 and 218)

I think this situation has many layers, but many people still dismiss it as bro behavior so I'm gonna try my best to counter argue. First of all, and although that's not proof of anything, Killua looks EXTREMELY distressed by the prospect of Gon going on a date with Palm, but that can be counter-argued by saying that Killua is just worried because Palm is completely crazy. 

What I want to talk about is the scene that happens right after, when Gon and Killua go to the gym (because theyre DUDES YEAH WE WORK OUT NO HOMO), and the conversation casually drifts to Killua asking Gon if he's ever been on a date before, valid question considering what just happened previously. There are multiple things here :

1) Killua seems distressed that Gon has been on dates before. While it can be argued that it's a normal reaction because Gon has and he hasn't, I believe that Killua - who is in no way a normal person who would get flustered about "not having been on dates before a certain age" - would not feel uncomfortable that his friend is more experienced than him - especially when literal seconds later, he monologues about how he doesn’t care about dates and just wants to stick with Gon.

2) Gon then proceeds to ask Killua if he's ever been on a date, to which Killua responds :

What I want to highlight is the panel where Killua says "And the truth is, I want to stay by your side... Always...". Basically, what Killua is saying, is that he doesn't care about dates, all he wants to do is be with Gon.

I don't think this can be counter-argued as bro behavior, but with all the subtext I've explained before, this right here is pretty gay. Togashi put this panel deliberately to show that Killua doesn't give a crap about dates when he can stay with Gon, and with the "gon you are light" scene and everything in mind, this is another intentional subtext.

There's also the fact that Killua stalks the date like a jealous girlfriend - but I'm not gonna count that as subtext because it can be argued that he's just worried about Gon because Palm is insane.

• Gon is my best friend ! (chapter 219)

Remember how I told you to keep the "It has to be Killua" subtext in mind because I was gonna come back to it later ? Well.

During Palm's date with Gon, Killua runs into Rammot, who would definitely have ran into Palm and nenless Gon. Killua is forced to confront his worst fear : this is the moment where he knows that if he runs away again, Gon WILL die. Killua is literally overcoming his "programming", the physical representation of years of abuse out of love and care for Gon. He's ripping out the needle from his forehead out of pure, genuine care for Gon, because if he doesn't, then he'll lose him forever. 

Now, what I actually wanna talk about is this panel :

What we see is Killua thinking happy thoughts about all his adventures with Gon because he can't - won't - doesn't want to run away anymore, and all this for his sake. But what I wanna draw attention to is the dodgeball panel that's bigger than all the others, and the only one where you can actually clearly make out what's written : "Killua ja nakya dame nan da". 

Now, isn't that interesting that the panel that takes a bigger place in the whole panel is the one with this particular sentence? Remember what I talked about a bit earlier, about how "~ ja nakya dame nan da" is a sentence with a lot of romantic connotations (would pretty much equal to "you're the one for me" in English). Clearly this particular sentence stuck with Killua. 

I'm not completely objective on this matter since I firmly believe that at this point, Killua has romantic feelings for Gon, but I interpret this as another deliberate thing Togashi did : putting the panel bigger so we can see that it has a particularly significant importance to Killua, and Killua's state of mind right now (not wanting to lose Gon). 

In my opinion, two things happened here: One, Killua remembers this specific interaction because he knows how much Gon trusts him and he doesn't want to betray his trust. But I also firmly believe that Killua remembered this specific interaction because of the romantic connotation the sentence "Killua ja nakya dame nan da" has. Those words clearly shocked him, and I think he remembers them in this life-threatening situation, after the "gon you are light" scene, Palm talking about "love just happens", the "i want to stay with you, always" because he realizes that he wishes Gon would say that sentence in a romantic context, and not in the context of the dodgeball match, thus leading him to surpass himself to prove his love and perhaps live to see the day where Gon could say those words in that romantic context.

Now, of course, all of this is my interpretation, so it's really up to debate, but I really wanna highlight the fact that Togashi deliberately CHOSE to highlight this particular interaction between Gon and Killua, this sentence with romantic subtext, to lead Killua to finally break his chains and be able to be protect Gon fully. It’s also interesting to note that the 2011 anime adaptation also makes it a point to emphasize how deep these words stuck to Killua by making it the last flashback that makes Killua effectively rip out the needle out of his head. 

Also let's quickly mention the irony in the situation here : while Gon is on a romantic date, Killua fights to protect him, overcoming his weakness to prove his love. It’s not Palm who deserves that date, it’s Killua.

• A lovers’ suicide (chapter 286)

Now, onto the most important piece of subtext, that can not be counterargued as platonic in any way, shape or form. During the palace invasion, Killua leaves Gon's side, proceeds to go kick Youpi's butt only to have to fall back because he used up all his electricity nen. When Killua is charging up, he meets with Meleoron, and tells him that once he's done charging, he'll go back to Gon's side. 

They briefly exchange information about the battle, and then Meleoron proceeds to ask Killua what's the plan for him and Gon. That's when Killua explains that "Once Gon is like this, he won't budge an inch. Worst case scenario, it'll be a double suicide.". At worst they both die, cool. They “go down in flames together”. It’s actually much, much more meaningful than that.

The specific word that Killua uses for double suicide is "心中" (shinjuu), which is a heavily romantically connotated word in japanese. Shinjuu, also translated as "lovers’ suicide", is when two people die out of love, by the same method, because there's a belief that this'll allow those two people to spend eternity together. Shinjuu is a major theme of Japanese literature, and it is always used romantically. It's a very uncommon word to use to refer to two people dying together, because of its heavy romantic connotation, and because it always refers to double suicide committed by people bound by love. In literature, it always refers to two lovers, in love. If you want to read more on shinjuu, i suggest this and this, those articles explain its historic roots and the definition, also emphasizing the feeling of "oneness" that characterizes shinjuu. If you’re interested, I also suggest reading the japanese article that defines shinjuu, and hitting the google translate button, it has some pretty interesting sentences like “Shinjuu is traditionally committed by men and women out of mutual love, in the hope that they will be connected in the afterlife because they can't be together in this world.”

So basically, what Killua is saying is that he wants to go back to Gon's side to die with him, committing a "lovers’ suicide" because he doesn't want to leave Gon to die alone, and wants to die with him.

I also want to emphasize how special this word is to Killua, and that he and everyone around him know the special meaning of this word - In chapter 300, Ikalgo literally says "We were... No, KILLUA was ready to commit shinjuu with Gon". Ikalgo is really highlighting the fact that this word holds special meaning, especially to Killua, and that it was HIM who was willing to commit shinjuu by staying with Gon. Ikalgo and company dying with Gon wouldn't be shinjuu, but Killua dying with Gon would be, and Togashi emphasizes this through Ikalgo's thoughts.

This is pretty much the gist of it, but I suggest reading the wonderful post I linked in the references below if you want to know more about this specific subtext.

(edit : i actually wrote a post going a bit more into detail on Killua’s shinjuu wish if you want to read it here ! :3)

• “The one that Gon needs the most is you” (chapter 294)

I will go into this subtext more in details when I write the post about parallels in CAA, but I still want to talk about it briefly here.

Like I said before, to me, Palm was introduced as a catalyst for Killua's feelings towards Gon. Togashi purposefully wrote Palm as having romantic feelings for Gon to foil Killua's feelings for Gon and make him show jealousy towards Palm. 

To Killua, Palm is someone who stole Gon from him, he sees her as a threat because maybe she'll make Gon happier than he does ? (ofc we all know thats not true but Killua is baby) - Basically, Killua thinks Palm might be more important to Gon than Killua is, because he believes they are romantically involved. That's why when he sees her again later on, after Gon rejected his help, leaving Killua helpess as to how to save his dear friend, Killua sees Palm as a saving grace. 

He knows that if Gon sees Palm as a chimera ant, he will spiral down even more, so he tries to reason with her to get her to be gentle to Gon, because if not her, then who could? Palm would clearly be able to comfort Gon, with whom Killua believes is romantically involved with, better than him, right ? If Gon rejected Killua, then clearly Palm could help, since she seems closer to Gon (BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THEYRE DATING), right? 

This confrontation between Palm and Killua closely ressembles a situation like an ex confronting a new girlfriend - and I think this is exactly why Togashi wrote Palm this way. He wanted Killua to confront who he thought was a threat to their relationship, making him believe that this person who's """"dating"""” Gon is more important to him than himself, only to have her openly admit that she means nothing to Gon. The only one Gon needs is Killua.

And that, my friends, coming from someone you believe is romantically involved with your best friend (who you probably have a crush on), someone you're jealous of, the one you thought was the person most important to him, that's a pretty meaningful statement. 

Basically, what's happening, is that Palm reaffirms that Gon holds Killua closer than a potential romantic partner. And that's why Killua is so, so happy to hear that. He was questioning his entire relationship, questioning if Gon even cared about him, because he rejected him a few minutes before, but then his "rival" comes in and reaffirms that even she knows that no one comes close to Killua to Gon.

I also want to mention that this act of pure love (Killua only thinking of saving Gon when in a life threatening situation) is what made Palm come back to her human senses. d'awwwwww

• Illumi and Hisoka’s parallel on lovers who die of Alluka’s requests. (chapter 323)

Now onto the final significant subtext - while I don't particularly think of it as subtext-y, I know a lot of people have so I still want to include it here.

When Illumi explains Alluka's powers to Hisoka, he explains that there are two different types of linked deaths when a request is failed : 1) the person who failed + the person they love the most 2) the person who failed + the people they spent most of their time with. 

When applied to Killua, Hisoka naturally comes to the conclusion that no matter the outcome, Gon would always be the one dying with Killua, because he's spent so much time with him, and because he's the one that Killua loves the most. In the panel where Illumi explains this, we see a romantic, heterosexual couple  demonstrating the effects of not completing one of Alluka's requests, and thus the "most important person dying". 

While not making any true parallels, the fact that Hisoka, and the readers, are drawn to compare a heterosexual, romantic pairing to Killua dying with Gon because he's his "most important person" is an interesting piece of subtext.

_______

I want to finish by talking about Killua's birthday and how significant it is in my opinion. All the main 4 characters have birthdays that fall on specific dates, related to Japanese tradition, and often with events that can be associated to their character. Gon's is 5/5, which is Children's Day. Kurapika's is 4/4, the number 4 being considered an unlucky number, and this being an unlucky day to have a child. Leorio's is 3/3, Hinamatsuri (not really any main parallels here but still). But Killua's birthday is 7/7, and is the Japanese day to celebrate Tanabata. 

If you are not familiar with Tanabata, the story is as follows : Orihime is a princess who works for her father, working hard and well, but she laments the fact that because of her hard work she can't meet someone and fall in love. Her father arranges for her to meet Hikoboshi, allowing Orihime to leave because he expects her to come back to work for him, but the two immediately fall in love and get married, and she never returns. I won't get into the rest of the story as it's this part that interests me the most, but if you want to read more about Killua and Tanabata I suggest reading the post I referenced below.

Does the story of Orihime remind you of anyone ? Killua also works for his father, but laments the fact that he can't go outside and meet someone. His father then lets him go, saying, and i quote: "he will come back, because he's my son". Doesn't this remind you of the tale of Tanabata ? Killua's story references the tale of Orihime perfectly, and I believe this is intentional : Killua's birthday isn't of any importance to the plot, so why make it Tanabata, a day that celebrates a love story that closely ressembles Killua's story ? The answer is simple : subtext.

With all this in mind, I think it's pretty clear that Togashi is writing intentional subtext to hint at Killua's feelings being romantic in nature. Togashi is a master writer, he has years of experience, and I strongly believe he knows what he's doing and not planting unintentional subtext. He's a very smart man, and knows how all of this can be interpreted.

I will finish by saying that Togashi is NOT an author that would deliberately queerbait his readers. So many people dismiss the possibility of having gay subtext leading onto an actual canon gay relationship because "it's not like the author would ever have gay main characters". While this holds true for a lot of manga authors, especially shonen manga authors, it does NOT apply to Togashi. 

Togashi has always displayed interest in queer subjects and queer representation, putting trans characters in all of his major works (Miyuki in YYH, Mikihisa in Level E and Alluka in HxH). There were also canonically gay characters in his previous works : Itsuki in YYH, and a character named Kuramoto in Level E. 

Togashi also always had interest in mangas having BL elements, citing Maya Mineo's "Patalliro!" as a manga he was attracted to during High School. If you're unfamiliar with Patalliro, the story focuses on the main character's love life as a gay man.  He also admitted to basing Hiei's (YYH) design off a character from that manga. 

Last but not least, Togashi mentioned in a note included in volume 1 of YYH that he wanted to write a sports manga, called The Trouble Quartet, where basically all the characters are gay. Togashi said he based it off his own interests as a writer, and that while it was refused by Shonen Jump, he got deeply attached to the project and that he would love to explore this project in a different shape once he made a name for himself. I suggest reading this post because the parallels between The Trouble Quartet and HxH are HILARIOUSLY accurate.

In short, Togashi has always had interest in queer matters, and was always interested in putting queer representation in his work. After YYH, which was a terrible experience for Togashi as a writer, he managed to snatch a contract that basically allows him to do whatever he wants with HxH. Having always held dear BL matters but never being able to explore it to his full intent, I believe Togashi is exploring queer identity further with HxH, because Shonen Jump basically lets him do anything.

To conclude, with Togashi's past experience and skill, his interest in queer representation, and the amount of subtext surrounding Killua, I honestly believe that Togashi is trying to explore further queer representation, and I wouldn't be surprised if HxH ends with Gon and Killua becoming a canon pairing, whether it be delivered in an ambiguous manner or not. 

Edit : I actually wrote a post on why I believe it won’t be ambiguous, and that it’s truly never been ambiguous, just developing : here.

I hope you enjoyed the read, thank you for reading all of this, and feel free to show this to anyone who denies subtext in HxH !

REFERENCES

- "It has to be Killua" - Medium article, "Impossibilities in Translating Queerness : The Dodgeball Dilemma" 

- Palm's Date Scene - Reddit post, "Togashi's love of Ambiguity: Chapters 217 and 218" 

-A thematic analysis of Palm’s character : ”The Issue With Palm”

- Shinjuu - Tumblr post by hunterxhell, "A lovers' suicide, I guess." :  + the post that mentions Ikalgo talking about shinjuu 

- An analysis on different subtext-y situations

- Illumi and Hisoka’s parallel : here and here 

- Killua’s birthday : "Killua, July 7th, and the significance of his birthdate”

- Togashi's interview mentioning Mineo's Patalliro