#refusing to put this under a readmore; woe! long post be upon ye!

[shaiappreciation]

Hey ! As you may have noticed I really like your blog and everything you post ^^ I love Pouf’s character and I wanted to know how you « discovered » him, your first thoughts when you seeing him, and what is your global relation with him ?

This is such an exciting question to get, not just in general, but also as my first ask on this blog! Though I am gonna have to say, I'm not totally sure what you mean by global relation? So please feel free to either reply or send another ask to clarify, because I'd love to be able to answer every part of this!

---

I first got recommended hxh after seeing a "holy trinity of good anime" meme around 3 years ago and, while I'd already seen the other two mentioned (fma:b and mp100) and absolutely loved them, I hadn't seen hxh and had a moment of "huh, this show must be really good to be on this list" and a very good friend of mine saw me say that and messaged me to tell me to watch it, while also sending me a link for it. At 148 episodes I wasn't totally sure I would have the attention or motivation to actually watch the entire thing, but as it went on I felt less like I was watching it for my friend and was more really enjoying the series as it progressed! I had been blown away by the york new/auction arc and then dismayed and bored by the greed island arc, which brings me to the main point: the chimera ant arc.

I'd known about it, but didn't know any details, no one really seemed to talk about it in detail so I had no idea what to expect. I'd seen hushed whispers about it and braced myself for an impact, especially when I was reading the crunchyroll comments at the end of the greed island arc and so many of them were talking about how the 99 series had stopped there, so everything afterwards would be new material. It definitely started strong and, as someone who already has a special interest for insects, I was excited by the discussion of the ants and how their biology worked! It was pretty easy to tell that humans were gonna be added to the mix and I'm not gonna lie, I think the arc did an incredible job with character design as a result. I personally hold cheetu up as a design pinnacle in the arc, he strikes a very nice balance between "furry" and "insect", with all his joints being articulated like those of a bug. Speaking of design, I'm very excited to talk about our man of the hour over here, but I'd like to finish this thought off by saying that I don't think any piece of media I experience will ever impact me the way the CAA did; I don't remember the last time I'd ever felt so excited to keep watching something, nor do I remember ever feeling such genuine tension over how the arc progressed, especially seeing how much there was still left to resolve when there weren't very many episodes left, really giving a huge push towards plot resolution. Needless to say, like a lot of people, I was blown away. The character arcs were especially important to me, and that only grew with my rewatches and engagement with other people, which very neatly brings me back to him, the insect love of my life, Shaiapouf.

I always watched the openings while I watched hxh and was immediately drawn in when I saw Pouf in the last few seconds of it. I can't think of any other occasion where I'd seen a male character associated with butterflies, so that pulled me in and I was anxiously waiting for him to finally show up. His debut did not disappoint me at all, with the violin solo, the fairy chimes, the rainbow wings catching on the breeze. Youpi's debut is actually when we see Pouf play the violin for the first time and that scene actually made me realize that I missed playing music (because I actually do own a violin! I'm not very good with it, but his music made me want to try again!); seeing him fully open his wings and seeing that they had hearts all over them also really hammered in his design for me, and I absolutely loved it. Also he is an absolutely beautiful man 👀

Being a comic relief character seemed to be expected, given how emotional he was even fron the beginning, as well as how him being a butterfly felt like a little more of a silly design, even with his serious royal guard role. I never found him to be annoying, I was more amused by him than anything else; I thought he was pretty funny in how volatile he could be, with the best example being the infamous "screaming and crying while playing the violin" bit, where I really wondered why he wasn't everyone's favorite lmao. Really, it was seeing him respond wildly to inconsequential things that kept me interested. The throne room breakdown sealed it further.

I suppose I wasn't really all that surprised that Pouf turned out to be complex (with me being most surprised by Youpi actually!), but I think it was the severity and polarization of his arc that got me so interested. Him going from comic relief to antagonist (in an arc about gray morality, no less) felt absolutely stunning to watch, and what's more is that you can see every single step he took to get to where he ended up. Nothing he does is out of the blue; while it does get progressively more extreme, it all makes sense in the context of his character. I know a lot of people brushed him off as annoying and it's such a shame bc doing so prevents you from actually looking into how he thought and interacted with the world, and how those things played into how seemingly irrationally he acted.

People seem to have flat out forgotten about Youpi and diverted most of the attention to Pitou, whose growth has been analyzed over and over at this point; Pouf had an incredibly interesting arc that was mostly, if not entirely, emotionally driven, and looking into what happened with it necessitates actually understanding his character, which seems like something not a lot of people were all that willing to do, and I think that's really upsetting! Pouf was a really neat character with complex motivations and I don't think I've really seen anything else quite like him!

Continuing on, after the throne room breakdown and the realization of how he was shaping up as an antagonist, the entire bit with him in the cocoon happened and I had expectations that were a little bigger than what actually happened lmao. I was expecting something huge after he came out, especially since it took so long while everyone else was fighting for their lives while him and Morel were having an intense staredown. That bit led to the reveal of the Beelzebub ability which blew me away; I saw it in the episode preview right before it happened and didn't think very much of it, but actually seeing it? Actually seeing the ten thousand clones, hearing him become his own chorus, with all the little voices overlapping? What got me most was that his voice didn't get higher while he was so small, and all of this combined while he messed with Morel absolutely sealed the deal for me. I feel like you have to form your opinion on Pouf during the throne room scene because it's just so revealing about who he is, but I feel like if you still can't decide how you feel about him then, then you decide during the Beelzebub reveal because when I say I sat there with the biggest dumbest grin watching him go, I really do mean it. The sheer chaos coming from the same polite and dignified man we saw at the beginning of the arc was incredible to see.

His growing desperation and the way he went straight to violence after the rose bomb was also a lot to take in, and also something I myself have talked about because, while Pouf is resorting to wanting to kill Komugi, he is 100% convinced that it's the right thing to do, and he even acknowledges that he could be killed for doing it; he's desperate not because he's mean and petty, but because he's afraid he's going to lose absolutely everything he holds near and dear; ultimately, he's a tragic character. Of course, none of this was on my mind the first time I watched this, I was mostly taken aback by how quickly Pouf was able to think and resort to some underhanded tactics, trying to lie to and manipulate so many of the people around himself, which felt a little bit like a showcase on how awful he could be, but also, once more, he was working through self preservation in a literal life or death scenario. Yes he did bad things, but knowing why he did them is so very important to me.

And then the final scenes. Him swearing to keep Komugi a secret, Meruem regaining his memories, Pouf dropping to the ground sobbing, and then the final pan across him, dead in the dirt, utterly alone, the wind ripping apart his wings. The first time around I honestly didn't feel anything, just looking at him thinking like "wow, godspeed you wild wild man, WHAT was that all about!!", but the more I revisit it, the sadder I genuinely feel to see him like that. Pouf's last moments are so upsetting when you see that he was almost entirely driven by love and fear (which, don't quote me on this, are rumored to be the two most basic human emotions that all others stem from 👀). Overall, he had some very human emotions and motivations for someone who was so aggressively mis(ant)hropic.

Overall, that's my play by play initial thoughts on Pouf! I love his design and how complex his motivations were, he had me completely gripped for the entire arc and I was always so excited to see what he would do next because he felt so unpredictable, especially after the bomb drop when the plot was beginning to hinge almost entirely on what he was gonna do next! I could honestly talk about him for hours and have already done some writing about him on my main blog, which is something I'm planning to continue doing as well! I really do love him a lot, so once more, I was really glad to see this ask! Thank you and feel free to stop by any time!