#chapter 408

[mamashenanigans]

AFO’s Blue Screen of Death face when he kills Yoichi in a possessive rage.

He takes his hand. Obsesses over how the Quirk he gave Yoichi is gone. Comes to the conclusion “he still exists”. Cries when Kudo reiterates that he killed his brother. Goes a warpath to get Yoichi back by taking the Quirk back and creates entire machanizations to do so.

This dude’s reboot did not go well after that BSOD.

[zestirial]

Is the reason we don't see Inko anymore due to the fact that she finally recognized Hisashi during the war ?

A long time ago, I saw a post which said that All for one and All might had fought around the time of Izuku's birth.

On this day, All for one wore a suit and was well dressed. As if he was going to a meeting.

But there's one thing we now know: All for one can change his appearance !

If All for one had changed his appearance in order to meet Inko, then All might not have recognized him.

However, just the opposite happened and the number 1 of peace crushed him.

This means that the green woman knows All for one's true form! And that he went with his face as-is to see her.

During the recording, All for one could not be filmed in adult size, but only in child size.

Inko might well not have recognized him right away...

[basedkikuenjoyer]

HxH 408: Dear Prudo

Damn it Togashi, you did it again. I knew it was gonna be a banger when we spent a whole chapter setting up the game. But as is often the case with these types of scenes in his work...you know you don't really have to remember all the window dressing if it's too much to keep track of, right? It's all just a vehicle to give us this tense negotiation in a way that feels a little more engaging. Ultimately this is just a chat between Morena and Borksen, really giving us a good look at the character of Morena Prudo.

Which...gets complicated. For reasons I'll get to in a minute. But one thing I have to acknowledge hanging over this whole exchange. Morena is adorable. I know she's psychotic. I know she's probably doing it as a facade. But she's so cute! Like, this whole time. Her expressions, her tone. So affable. And that makes what lurks underneath that even more unsettling.

Okay, so the big reveal here has a lot of dimensions. First being that this is not the actual Morena Prudo. In the sense of being a bastard of the Kakin royal family. It's a lot to take in, but it seems as if this woman managed to awaken her Nen ability in hellish conditions and enacted a slow plan to replace the actual Morena as head of the Heil-Ly.

The circumstances and Borksen's own POV paint a very dark picture of Kakin compared to what we've seen. And it incidentally clarifies a lot. So Morena comes from something not unlike God Valley in One Piece. The royals occasionally descend on a random village and put them through a "Carnival" that's really just abusing the people as much as they want. We also introduce the idea of "Blasphemy" in that anything tampering with heredity and the royal family is forbidden. The key on there is genetic testing. Not only would it allow this Morena to pull off the switch but it'd hide which one of the princes is Beyond's kid.

This whole Carnival thing really makes Kakin look brutally repressive and Borksen follows that up with her own thoughts that paint her in the same light as someone growing up in a brutal regime just trying to find a spot to have a decent life. Shows she could actually get behind dismantling Kakin to a degree. Even with recent democratic reforms these issues persist. I've been comparing Kakin to China this whole time which does have its issues, but this is a much more brutal take that starts to feel a bit more like a much more powerful North Korea. FWIW, given my vies of the Succession Contest this knowledge actually makes me a bit more ready to buy the Justice Bureau guys getting behind someone like Fugetsu and just being good at keeping up a calm facade.

Borksen doesn't seem like she's going to bite though, and we do get a lot about why she was picked. Makes sense, Morena's looking for people with the potential to be Specialists. That makes me more interested in Borksen. Also peep the little blip about Dogman sniffing out a candidate I'm guessing was Chrollo. That team-up could be grisly.

That said...Borksen's trying to delay when members of the Troupe are inbound. Don't forget that. We also see a certain amount of honesty from Morena in this negotiation. Admitting it'll only be temporary given her overall goals but offering to make the effort to spare anyone Borksen wants for as long as she can and all. Either way, this whole exchange gets upended by one big bang to end the chapter:

Benjamin has pulled the trigger. Martial law. Something that's been floating around his story for a long time and something that really kicks everything on the ship into high gear. I'm wondering right now what the causus belli ultimately was and how this will effect ongoing plans for a lot of the princes and it looks like we're ready to get to that next chapter. Looking forward to it.

[migila]

If AFO named Yoichi, then who named AFO? My guess is that no one did. He doesn't have a name, an identity besides the most feared villain, All For One, which is just tragic.

On a lighter note, that means Yoichi must've always just called him big brother, and that's kinda cute.

[chaoticfandomthot]

Im not gonna lie, Hades and Persephone taking Kim Dokja in like that and protecting him so strongly is making me chew through my legs

[douglysium]

Nen Implications of Chapter 408 (Spoilers)

HxH manga spoilers for the most recent chapters (408). 

Interesting explanation about Nen. This confirms her Nen ability is Specialization but seems to make use of every type (which makes sense since it can grant abilities based on Nen affinity). 

Specialization has been of great debate in the community. We are told that it's placed between Manipulation and Conjuration because those two types are the most likely to become Specialists later in life (a 1% chance, which would mean other nen types like Enhancement can also become Specialists later but it's just way less likely, less than 1%). But does this mean Specialists are bound by nen affinity like other types? For example, would a Specialist have a 40% proficiency for Enhancement and a 80% proficiency for Manipulation? We know that you either are or aren't a Specialist, so a Manipulator cannot use a Specialist ability with 80% efficiency. It's either 0 or 100 for all types. But this confirms Specialists can practice and learn other nen types. This is obvious with abilities that allow for stealing or copying but the way she describes it here means a Specialist can accidentally practice the wrong type in the same way an Enhancer might put too much time into learning Conjuration (like Kastro) or any other nen type can spend too much time learning the wrong affinity. 

I'm currently of the suspicion that the affinity a Specialist has for other nen types varies from individual to indiviual. So one Specialist could have an 90% affinity for enhancement and 15% for Manipulation while another could have 80% for Manipulation and Conjuration (thus resembling a more traditional nen chart in that case). It could also explain certain abilities like Kurapika's Emperor Time. Some people argue that all Specialists must have a 80% affinity for the adjacent categories but if this is true then that would mean Kurapika becomes a less effective Conjurer when ET is active based on his explanation about how it works. Which is certainly possible but I feel like that's such an important factor it would have come up by now (at least in Kurapika's internal monlogue). The only way this could make sense to me is if every Specialist had unique set of affinities. This would mean that when Kurapika is a Specialist he would be a Specialist with a 100% affinity for Conjuration for example and when Chrollo is using a stolen technique he is using it as if he had a 100% affinity for said technique. Jury's still out on that one since more information could be revealed and it could just be an Emperor Time thing. 

Frankly, there’s also not a lot of Specialists to go off of which means that there’s still an argument that Specialists follow more traditional affinity patterns if you are one. Pitou is a Specialist but her dolls share a lot of similarities to Manipulation with it’s bodily control, Chrollo is a Specialist but summoning books is very in line for a Conjurer, and even Morena’s ability share’s similarities to Manipulation abilities that reward targets for doing something a user wants. However, abilities like Neon’s Ghostwriter seem a lot farther from standard Conjuration or Manipulation. Maybe it shares similarities to Manipulation with the ghost moving her hand but future sight seems pretty squarely in Specialization and lacks similarities to any of the other types. Although Morena does refer to “hybrid” types which seems to refer to Specialization abilities that resembles or utilizes multiple types in tandem.

What Morena says outright confirms that the affinity of Specialists do not look like this.

Specialization 100% Manipulation 0% Emission 0% Enhancement 0% Transmutation 0% Conjuration 0%

So it either has to look like this

Specialization 100% Manipulation 80% Emission 60% Enhancement 40% Transmutation 60% Conjuration 80%

Or like this

Specialization 100% Manipulation % is a case by case basis. Emission % is a case by case basis. Enhancement % is a case by case basis. Transmutation % is a case by case basis. Conjuration % is a case by case basis.

Some may say this is obvious because Chrollo and Kurapika can steal and use other nen abilities but I would argue that wouldn't make things any clearer since you could chalk that up to the specific Hatsu involved as opposed to anything indicative of a specific affinity in general. Kurapika's Stealth Dolphin specifically seems to drain some aura from a target so you could argue certain stealing abilities are actually somehow using the aura of someone else or that the Hatsu lets them specifically use the stolen Hatsu with seemingly no drop off as opposed to bumping up Chrollo's affinity for Conjuration to 100% in general.

[ronimacaroni77]

Someone? Explanation?

[tatis-stuff]

“…the power to give and take…could have been the kindest in the world.”

-The First

All for One saying Gloop Warp? I’m sorry but that’s so unserious. World class villain says gloop warp in the middle of battle. It’s just not real.

[everykillerbee]

[algumaideia]

Luffy found pigeon guy

Chopper went crazy

Secretary has a weird power

And weirdly homoerotic fight

[mamashenanigans]

408 Leaks Thoughts

Well, holy shit those leaks, amiright?

So, I’ve finally processed some of this. I will say that this is definitely a chapter that needs a strong translation done due to all the dialogue and exposition happening. Therefore, some of this may change once we start to get the fan translation on Friday then the official English one Sunday night.

Here we go…

+I’m going to say this right now: how Horikoshi has handled AFO’s backstory flashbacks is very strange and disjointed. We are presented with a flashback of him crying while getting ready to kill Kudo then one prior to the full backstory where he seems pretty upset(almost like he didn’t know) when Kudo tells him he killed Yoichi. Once we finally get to these leaks, there doesn’t seem to be a clear connection between those flashbacks and when Yoichi died.

It feels like Hori is expecting the readers to be incredibly good at understanding context clues, including imagery, and putting plot strings together without the extra exposition. That’s interesting considering the target audience’s age range.

+So, he did kill Yoichi and all that was left was his hand. This is where the “being able to read/see context clues in a comic” comes into play. AFO didn’t mean to outright kill Yoichi. The look on his face after the fact makes that pretty clear. Also, talking about how he named his brother Yoichi for first gift while this is happening drives that home. Kudo is crying while AFO seems completely numb like his brain shorted out.

+Then BAM, we’re taken to AFO’s office and WE DID IT FAM he kept the hand. All of the thoughts and dialogue for the next few pages needs a good translation because this is prior to him killing Kudo. AFO is confused as to why he can’t feel the Quirk he gave Yoichi and ponders how that can be possible. We then get Kudo and third, who is named Bruce for some reason, discussing how Kudo now has another Quirk within him. Both AFO and Kudo are figuring out at the same time that Yoichi must have passed on his Quirk, but AFO seems to take it as “he still exists”(rough translation). Interesting.

+There’s a page where Yoichi is cut in half by the paneling and it’s assumed that the one on the left is from AFO’s memory and he is talking straight to his brother, while the one on the right is Yoichi talking to Kudo and Bruce. It kinda presents a duality in Yoichi’s thoughts concerning his brother. There’s the rational, “hero” thoughts about how “He only sees people as toys” and the emotional, little brother thoughts of “You’re the only reason I’m alive.”

+Instead of getting a direct connection explaining why AFO had so much emotion being told he killed Yoichi after we saw that he killed him in front of his own eyes, there’s a double spread of AFO’s decades and decades of trying to get his brother back since he knows he still “exists” within OFA. A panel prior to all of this has Yoichi saying how his power could have done a lot of good. This double spread has a lot of small thoughts from AFO throughout. Rough translations talk about how he cried and another is about how he “only/just/simply wants Yoichi”. This is definitely something that needs a good translation.

+From what I can understand through all of this, AFO was either in super denial over accidentally killing Yoichi or he had compartmentalized his feelings over it so thoroughly that his emotions over the matter didn’t come out until Kudo plainly told him that he killed his brother. I think the fact that AFO blames Kudo for “everything” drives home that he can’t accept that he would have killed Yoichi.

+We find out that AFO’s body was in a morgue and Garaki stole it. So, like, what? AFO was brought back from death by Garaki? Is he, like, a Nomu? This is weird.

+AFO goes full Lovecraft on a double spread as his brother senses him using it. It’s his last ditch effort to ram through Bakugo and get to Tomura and Deku. All Might says how he’ll turn into a baby after using it. Bakugo is, unsurprisingly, overconfident.

I will say this: I still don’t think AFO was born evil in the purest sense of it. He was born with his Quirk activated and the intrinsic affect on his very nature and inclinations were already happening. Also, this isn’t entirely AFO narrating. This seems to be a combo between him thinking about his past and Horikoshi being an omniscient narrator.

Also, I really do think AFO and Yoichi are identical twins, especially with how much goes into stealing nutrients and that they can sense each other(classic literary thingy). From how AFO talks about it here(again rough translations), he assumed he had stolen any Quirk his brother may have had in the womb, so Yoichi’s can-hardly-work “giving” Quirk is what is leftover. With Yoichi stating that the power could have done a lot of good, it makes me wonder what could have been if they never split and were one person. The AFO Quirk would make a lot more sense since it seems Yoichi is like the part of the soul that was about “giving”/“good”. Two halves that would have worked incredibly well with such an awesome power if they were one person. However, I believe AFO has a need for them to be together in this way. Because, if he acquires OFA, he’ll have his brother literally a part of himself/inside him. Then Yoichi can really never leave him.

Would have liked a little explanation of why Yoichi was put in “the vault”. I’m assuming it’s because he wouldn’t bend to AFO’s will, but it seems like that was already a thing, sooo? Did he already try to run away? I dunno. I would have liked something more with that just like how I would have liked a more direct connection between AFO killing Yoichi and killing Kudo.

Horikoshi is definitely rushing to finish this manga and move on and how he’s handled these last two chapters is pretty indicative of that. Which is such a shame since it ended up producing a weak way to tell AFO’s story.

Anyway, no break next week, so either we switch back to Tomura and Deku or AFO is somehow stopped by Bakugo because I guess Bakugo is Goku now? I’d love to have more vestige Yoichi interacting or reacting to AFO. Disappointed we haven’t gotten more than the two panels of him sensing his brother’s Spirit Bomb.

[calekinnieplus]

"…there's one thing that I never told you."

My brows suddenly jumped up as I abruptly lifted my head.

'He couldn't be…'

"Ever since that day, some weird phenomenon occurred and I'm not sure exactly when, but I received this strange interface that essentially helped me get to where I am now. That interface, it's called the system."

"Ah."

I could only reply to his words with a weird sound. I really couldn't understand what was happening at the moment. Did Kevin just reveal to me his biggest secret?

AHHHHHHH THEY'RE BESTIES, YOUR HONOR T^T

[amaranthdahlia]

my love, my love, love, love

[andaniellight]

GODDD the fact that Yoichi had TWO months of being away from his brother. TWO MONTHS OF YOICHI LIVING WITH THIS MAN WHO SAVED HIM FROM THE GRASP OF HIS TOXIC BROTHER. TWO-FUCKING-MONTHS OF THEM THINKING SO DAMN HARD TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET RID OF HIS QUIRK WHILE ALSO TRYING TO AVOID ALL FOR ONE AT ALL COSTS

...Horikoshi. HORIKOSHI.

They fucked without protection didn't they-

[jaded-ghoster]

imagine being outed by one for all

[inkseye]

No because Yoichi died before either him or Kudou knew what OFA was, HOW DID THEY KNOW IT WAS DNA TRANSFER???

These men were kissing and you can't convince me otherwise