xenopyxis

so we’ve all seen the “it’s a mistranslation” explanation for hisoka and illumi’s engagement in chapter 377. but it’s not actually a mistranslation, and here’s why.

here’s the japanese scan of the panel:

and here’s the english translation:

the text we’re going to be focusing on is this one:

the kanji for that says 婚前契約 (which means prenuptial agreement), and the katakana* next to the kanji says エンゲージメントリング (which literally says “engagement ring”)

*the katakana is there for pronunciation help! so it would have the meaning of prenup, and be pronounced as engagement ring.

here’s what google translate says about the prenup kanji:

and here’s what GT says about the engagement ring katakana:

so, what exactly is a prenuptial agreement?

a prenuptial agreement (or prenup for short) is a legal document that is typically used for married couples to divide up their assets in the case of their marriage failing, or in this case, one of them dying. (sources: here and here)

the addition of the “engagement ring” katakana next to the kanji adds legitimacy this.

going off of togashi’s writing:

togashi wouldn’t put something in there that he doesn’t mean, and the prenup kanji along with the engagement ring pronunciation shows that the idea of their marriage was intentional. there’s also probably a reason that togashi has illumi stating the fact- he’s very blunt, and wouldn’t play around with words just for the fun of it, unlike hisoka.

togashi also has stated that he wanted to write gay manga- he’s said that in a couple interviews that i believe are on youtube (once i find them, i’ll link them in this post!!). there is a lot of gay subtext in the hxh series (ex. killua handing gon the rainbow diamond for proposals), so it’s quite believable that togashi meant for hisoka and illumi to be married.

hisoka and illumi have pretty messed up ideas about love, affection, and friendship. they’re most likely not going to have a wedding, complete with vows and an audience, but they’re still bound by marriage, even if it’s less romance-based and more murder-based.

anyway, that’s my two cents on the whole hisoka/illumi marriage situation. sorry if it’s hard to read or anything, i wrote this at around 2am and did not edit it.

tl;dr it’s not a mistranslation bc the official japanese scans show the kanji for prenuptial agreement, and put the katakana for engagement ring right next to it. also bc togashi’s writing has lotsa gay subtext.

There are...thoughts, feelings, vague half-formed ideas I'm having, about the story that's growing up around Zerxus and Evandran and Asmodeus, and they're not so much about the story itself as they are about the fact that it's the very start of Pride month again and I'm thinking about history, queer history, gay history, about Luis Carazo's adorable instagram takeover singing love songs with his partner, about context and the resonance of stories.

There's not a cohesive whole yet, exactly, just...there are pieces of the way this story is being put together that feel like they echo very specific things, real-world things rather than Exandrian things.

(A man says, my husband was dying of a disease that nobody could identify, I lifted his body and it was so light, there was so little of him left, nobody could stop it and nobody even tried, in this city of wonders I KNOW somebody could have tried. And it's the second day of pride month, and magic or no magic, there's a twist and a phrasing to that story that hits a very, very specific place.)

(The devil has a beautiful face, the Lord of Lies who looks like a good and angry man's dead husband. And the devil says, the ones who call themselves Bright and Good hated me for what was only my nature, and the good and honorable and righteous and angry man hates gods and wizards both, hates pride and power that calls itself Good and scorns compassion. And the devil looks like the good man's husband, who the bright and powerful let die, and the devil is beautiful.)

(Art doesn't exist without context. This little game of dungeons and dragons doesn't exist without John Milton as Lucifer, writing about how much better it is to reign upon the throne of hell than serve at the foot of heaven. Art is a conversation, a network of thoughts and ideas, relations and inspiration twisted up together to make something new.)

It's morality and compassion and a little bit passion, a little bit sex and romance rooted among the bitterness and resentment and grief. It's an old, old question of agnostics and heretics alike: if the gods are cruel and the monarchs corrupt, and everything claimed to be good is evil, then what does it mean to embrace everything claimed to be evil as good? And the answer is never that simple, and it's not going to be that simple here.

I don't know. I don't know. It's 2:00 in the morning, I'm googling pieces of Paradise Lost, I'm a little bit loopy, I have to be up in six hours.

she sat down and spent the next several minutes telling me how it was all gonna work out and she knows my life is gonna be better now. just wait five years and i’ll see she’s right.

When I saw spring awakening for the first time, the lady who sat on my row paid 58 pound on a cab to get me home because she saw me have a panic attack and didn't want me hurt.

She's not teaching in our school anymore, but when she emailed us our grades, she thanked me for being interested in her music taste and offered to give me recommendations if I needed it. She didn't have to go or do that far, she didn't even have to give me the playlist.

Another time, back in my home city, I was in danger of not being able to continue my schooling if my financial aid didn’t go through. Problem was, my university’s financial aid office is cruel and uncaring, and refused to return any of my calls or emails. I finally went to the office in person to ask them if my request for continued financial aid had been accepted, and they said, “Eh, we don’t know, we’ll get back to you.” Completely defeated, I found an out of the way hallway to cry in. 

Only, it wasn’t as out of the way as I thought. Another student saw me crying, and came over to ask what was wrong. I explained the situation to her, and her face hardened. “Come with me,” she said, and she marched me back into the financial aid office and demanded the clerk actually go look at my file to see if my request had been submitted. Once they went and retrieved my file, she patted me on the shoulder, said, “Good luck,” and left. I never saw her again after that, though I wish I could have bought her a coffee at least. She went out of her way to help me and I never even learned her name. (My request had been accepted, btw. Weeks prior. They just didn’t feel like telling me.)