#moreasks

oh my god i'm so honored that you remembered!! it's such a rush to have people care about the things you make and this sent me into an absolute frenzy, so thank you!!!

the animatic is still in progress-- it's a pretty long one, covering everything from the end of the chimera ant arc to current day succession war politics. i'd say its about 70% done rn, but i'm a perfectionist at heart and routinely go over my work again and again until they meet the standard. i've been wary of posting anything abt it bc it gives me the jitters..... but in honor of you reaching out, here's a snippet!

(hopefully tumblr doesn't murder the quality) forgive any issues with framerate and timing! i animate in photoshop because i'm an absolute masochist and refuse to learn a new program. when the full thing comes out the little details will be fixed. even so: hope you enjoy!

Ooooh, that's an interesting what-if! Thematically speaking, I don't think Morena and the Poor Man's Rose have much synergy. As you said, the Poor Man's Rose is a symbol of the worst of humanity, specifically as it relates to the ruling class: the banal cruelty of the rich and powerful, on a governmental, systemic level. Morena being who she is, her wielding such a weapon would have a veryyyy different thematic connotation. There might be a way to pull it off, but it definitely wouldn't hit in the way it does in CAA.

But in-universe? I think Morena would have absolutely no qualms about using it--at least not on an ethical level. If we look at radiation poisoning as a kind of plague, I'd actually say it's just her style. But you're right in that it doesn't have the sort of flair we've expected of her; I think the thing that brings Morena the most satisfaction isn't murder by her own hands, but her ability to incite it in others. The way I see it, she wants the world to destroy itself: to watch people tear each other apart in one big bloodbath that she sparks, but doesn't necessarily conduct all the way through. Not because she shies away from killing (we obviously know that not to be the case), but because I believe at her core is the desire to be proven right: she believes humanity is evil, change is impossible, and that if given the opportunity people will always chose selfishness and cruelty. So pressing a button on a console remotely wouldn't really do it for her. But I could see her trying to incite nuclear war specifically to give the nations of the world a reason to destroy each other--and themselves in the process. After all, she desires the destruction not just of Kakin, but of humanity as a whole, and nuclear war is just about the fastest way to achieve such a thing. However, I personally believe that Morena's plan (if she survives the boat) is to bring back a Dark Continent calamity to unleash upon the world. Although it's unclear how much she knows about the true nature of the DC (seeing as Kakin as a whole is being misled on that front), it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility for her to have found out the truth and formulated a plan in response. Or maybe that's something she stumbles upon in the future. That would be my hope, anyway. A calamity like the Zobae Disease or Hellbell seems thematically cohesive and right up her alley.

Sorry follow up but I am amazed at how you predicted the central conflict of chapter 411 and even more amazed at togashi for setting it up. A power as strong as the kakin jar treats death as a prerequisite, if it were only natural, and assumes all the kakin princes do the same. It dehumanizes the family rather then aknowledge them as individuals (tie in to the zoldycks) and treats life as worthless then money and power. As you said, you cant lose what you cant value.

Omg 😳 you guys are so niceee to me, I'm kicking my legs and twirling my hair!!!

i'm notoriously terrible with picking a favorite anything but i will do my very best:

if we're talking characters that were specifically introduced that arc, it would have to be komugi and meruem <3 for both them as individuals but also their relationship, and its ability to both parallel and contrast killua and gon's... everything. "gon you are my light" + meruem meaning "the light that illuminates all".... it speaks for itself. episode 135 never fails to reduce me to an absolute mess. first time i watched it i was crying to hard i couldn't breathe. sidenote : i've seen plenty of other shonen try to do the sympathetic villain and/or villain redemption arc...but honestly they rarely hit for me. IMO, a great deal of the reason Meruem works so well is togashi's commitment to portraying the moral ambiguity of the so-called 'good guys' (i'll be a netero-hater till the day i die), without leaning into tell-don't-show territory that becomes the pitfall of so many of these stories. it's like, sometimes a villain will corner the hero and be all "you're just like me! you're just one step away from becoming evil!" which is (often) demonstrably false, or the story alludes to the systemic inequality that created the conditions for this villain to exist, but fails to meaningfully portray and address them. meruem is compelling for a great number of reasons--watching his growing sense of empathy warring with doctrine and biology, seeing how far he's come once he's able to find beauty in that which he once deemed weak, the ways in which his greater understanding of the world leads to a greater understanding of himself, and visa versa. but what really helps stick the landing for me is that the narrative is brave enough to MEANINGFULLY cast doubt on its heroes and the institution they serve. a lot of people reduce meruem's arc to "he becomes more human" which i think is missing some of the point. he embraces the beauty of humanity, yes, but is also forced to bear witness to its evils--and is eventually killed by the greatest symbol of human evil, the poor man's rose. but he dies happy, choosing beauty over violence, and our heroes' victory is purposefully hollow, because THEY (netero, the hunter association, the institution) failed to make that same choice. virtue is not a granted fact of biology, it a choice we make. and so meruem's story is less of a redemption arc than a complete deconstruction of the status quo. and i LOVE it. i'm having a mess trying to articulate my point (ive never been concise a day in my life), but smarter people than me have already written great analyses of the chimera ant arc, i don't need to restate all that, you get the point. meruem, komugi, awesome 🫶