#wang ken'i

[tomahawkuv]

[moretheta]

speaking of kenny, i've been seeing people claim that "oh he's not working for morena directly, he just has some insight into her plans." i think this is stupid (although it might also be the fault of people reading the fan translation, which uses more ambiguous wording?) i think it's kind of irrefutable at this point that kenny is conspiring with her. that's why he uses "we," when referring to morena's plans, and addresses her in his head directly.

makes me wonder what other moles morena has planted....

[mobiuslake]

How does オウ＝ケンイ (Ou Ken'i) get localised to ‘Ken’i Wang’ in officials?

when a manga setting has chinese culture or loosely chinese culture, translators have the choice of going by the chinese or japanese reading of hanzi/kanji. lilian olsen favors chinese readings, which is why the shu-ei-sha joke for the names of the kakin mafia is lost in the english localization.

ou is written in katakana instead of kanji, as is typical for names in hxh, but it's also a reading of the kanji 王:

as you can see, the chinese reading of 王 is wang. now, it is not typical for surnames to be written first in hxh, even for characters that are japanese or chinese. but since wang is a family name and not a given name, olsen reversed the order.

[moretheta]

no, this is a really good point! i think it's obvious that kenn'i at the very least knows more than he's letting on about morena. and with the added context of 407, knowing that there is literally a joker card to be played, it pretty much confirms to me that he's working with her.

so yeah, i'm pretty sure he's been shepherding the troupe to their deaths from the start

looking back on all the interactions between ken'i and hinrigh to read too much into the fact that he's so invested in keeping the spiders on the case

[moretheta]

yes exactly!!! idk it's so interesting to me that while the cha'r seems to consider themselves the ones in charge of managing the spider situation (or at least, being liaisons), it's the xi-yu that have actually been doing the majority of the work. like hinrigh put his life on the line multiple times in order to infiltrate the heil-lily hideout, earning nobunaga's respect in the process. not to mention the fact that it was lynch (rip) and zakuro how actually followed through and found hisoka. in comparison, the cha'r have been pretty unhelpful to the spiders after their initial introduction.

and yet, it's tahao and kenn'i that usher them through the door to the heil-my hideout in tier 2... idk makes me suspicious. they had more resources than they let on, and are only now putting them to good use. and you're right, i think hinrigh picked up on it too, and his taking charge of the operation directly might have been a way to keep an eye on both parties.... we shall simply have to see

looking back on all the interactions between ken'i and hinrigh to read too much into the fact that he's so invested in keeping the spiders on the case