HxH: The Problem With Nen
secret of nen and this is one of the things that kind of drives me insane about hunter hunter in terms of looking at the overall world because
The Main Problem with Nen
Today it's time to talk about hunter hunter surprise surprise specifically about one thing that just boggles the mind when you look back on this series and that is the whole supposed secret of nen and this is one of the things that kind of drives me insane about hunter hunter in terms of looking at the overall world because inconsistent is a fairly light way of putting it in the series it is established that nen is a dangerous art form and is thus hidden from the world at large which works well in theory until it doesn't until nenesse proudly on display in front of hundreds and thousands of people watching a televised fight between hunters in heaven's arena and that's the most commonly cited conflicting idea which we will get into but the entire series really is just a bit of a mess when it comes to the alleged secrecy of men.
I first want to reaffirm the assertion that nen is a secret in this world otherwise this entire argument falls apart so yeah however this notion is introduced to us by wing in heaven's arena where he states nen can be destructive if abused it's too dangerous to make it part of the official exam thus only people who have passed are tested and here he is referring to the nature of the hunter exam of course but it speaks to the greater reality of nen the hunter association are apparently extraordinarily careful with who they induct into the art form because in the wrong hands nen can be a terrible weapon to be used against humanity a theme that is constantly explored in the series all the way up to monday with fourth prince radnick who is undoubtedly one of the most terrifying individuals to have ever acquired nen at the same time i also need to point out that the hunter association is a massive pack of hypocrites they claim to be careful with who they induct but at the same time the standards for passing the hunter exam have nothing to do with intent or potential threat i mean for example if hisoka was not an end user and he passed the exam then they would have taught him nen regardless despite the fact that he is a major force of chaos and death on this planet the greater problem to do with the actual topic though is that wing's words would be fine if nen was restricted to hunters then the association could maybe effectively govern it but it isn't the hunter association is one of many many organizations that foster ninus and they have zero control whatsoever over the others and i guess here i'd be specifically referring to groups like the zoldic family or the ten dons who all have clear knowledge of men due to their control over the shadow beast and the abilities of neon astrad also the mafia forces of the khakian empire the phantom troop and i suppose you can make the argument that all of these groups have an incentive to keep nenus a secret or at least keep their own abilities a secret but my main point here is to demonstrate that aura manipulation is not exclusive to hunters and it has been disseminated into the general population it does get a lot worse though because let's take a look at the greed island arc this was a game that one could only play via nenu's and it involved a whole host of people who just how are they non-users the overwhelming majority of players we encounter on greed island are not hunters and they seem almost startlingly ordinary like all of the rejects who accompany gon and the important characters to the dodgeball match with razer not to mention genthro as well he's not a hunter he isn't actually in anything he just knows nen and he knows it very well and at this point i would like to just expand on the idea of nen that is the name given to the art form of wielding aura one can be a conscious or a user without referring to nen in any way however the vast majority of these ori users that we encounter have this intimate academic scale knowledge of nen specifically which may or may not have needed to come directly from the shingen ryu school of kung fu because that's the only institution we're aware of that teaches aura manipulation specifically as nen as in with the basic principles advanced principles all that labeling etc so i do find it a bit odd that every single conscious aura user in the series seems to have studied this one methodology of practice but this is all before we even get into the idea of using nen as entertainment for the general public heaven's arena poses a huge huge huge problem to this world because this is where at its highest levels only nen users can compete and in order to do so they need to proudly display their abilities in front of a live audience as well as televised audiences and sometimes i suppose that can work out pretty alright because most uses of nen would be invisible to those who do not use aura themselves but certainly not all of them for example almost any use of conjuration is visible to the human eye such as castro creating an entire aura clone of himself against hisoka and speaking of hisoka he also quite casually stated key details regarding nine in his fight against gon and even went on to explain his own ability just you know in front of the whole world so the idea of nen being a secret to the world under these circumstances to me it's a bit of a joke but let's look at the very best case scenario we can and that would be that the world of hunter hunter is one of established quote-unquote magic question mark things like magical beasts do exist and they are common knowledge so do various superhuman abilities some of which have never been explained by men for example killer's ability to grow claws out of nowhere i mean maybe it could be an unconscious use of enhancement but sure that's fine i'm willing to accept that killer just has a superhuman ability there but then you have a scenario where thousands and thousands of people flock to see a battle between superhumans using primarily but not always invisible powers and are you trying to tell me that not one of these people is curious to know how they are able to perform these feats that is the very best case scenario just a general acceptance that there are superhumans in the world but even then with that knowledge wouldn't you you know maybe i don't know want to study them figure out how these powers emerge whether or not you could isolate certain genes or practices that led to them no no one no like government agency or extraordinarily wealthy kingdom no one's interested in superpowers and how they could benefit them in fact as an example of that.
We can take a look at the khaking empire this is one of the wealthiest nations on the planet capable of comfortably coughing up the cash for an expedition to the dark continent their royal family is beyond wealthy and also very much beyond the law they have access to anything they so desire and yet almost none of them have any knowledge of net you know that thing that they can watch on tv at any given time and also that thing that is known by a lot of their underlings as well by the way it always strikes me as a bit strange to think that fourth prince ryannick's entire mafia family and end users and he had no idea it even existed until now and i don't know i think i just find it pretty hard to believe that you can keep that knowledge of nen from the richest and most well-connected people on the planet yet miscellaneous non-hunter greed island rejects can be well aware of it and once again it is inconsistent because select members of the karkin empire are nen users such as benjamin and camilla and then the question pops up well how did they stumble into it to the point where they are extraordinarily proficient users and the other princes didn't in reality what should have occurred is exactly what happened with the chimera ants upon their first exposure of nine they discovered that it was a very useful phenomenon and did everything they could to learn about it swiftly and put it to use in order to propagate their colony that is how things should be everywhere in hunter hunter some incredibly rich piece of royalty or a businessman entrepreneur becomes curious about all of the super powers being blatantly displayed in heaven's arena and then they invest shocking amounts of resources into learning and commodifying it at which point maybe a natural counter-argument would be well the hunter association might step in to shut that down but in many cases these kingdoms are significantly more powerful and more influential than the hunter association and even if the hunter association did have that power it still would not be possible to do in all cases because nen is just known by so so many people all a really wealthy person would have to do is offer a random greed island player a ton of money and then all of a sudden they have a working theoretical knowledge of aura control there are just too many miscellaneous people in the world of hunter hunter to keep them more quiet and surprisingly few are bound by the mission and morals of the hunter association the hunter association aren't some sort of global nen police but even those without the resources would be very eagerly reporting on and following these superhuman figures very very closely just like in every superhero movie as soon as society discovers someone with an amazing ability then they are an instant celebrity and with heaven's arena in mind someone like hisoka should have thousands and thousands of fans that maybe even stalk him everywhere he goes because he is a celebrity and i could say the same about crollo as well given that he's a floor master and the only way you could really avoid that effect is to have a world like my hero academia where quirks are so painfully common that no one really cares anymore but togashi seems to be trying to play it both ways with hunter hunter having super secret powers that can be used in super public ways and resulting in the general public having this inexplicable disinterest in all of these rare funky powers it makes no sense to me and the only real explanation i have comes from the meta narrative viewpoint nen is a secret unless it's not it depends entirely on whatever idea togashi wants to explore at any given time if we require an arc like the hunter exam or the chimera ants when nen is a secret to be discovered then it is perfectly hidden from the world in every way however if an arc requires that we demonstrate nen combat in front of hundreds perhaps thousands of people like kevin's arena or even the succession war well then everyone knows about nen unless they don't somehow but lots of them do and if they don't they should be curious to find out but that's just hunter hunter and i should say that while i was researching this video i came across a very interesting question by a reddit user named manic marshall in regards to nen and the idea he poses is that because aura is a latent power residing in all living things is it morally acceptable to keep that knowledge from people and we know that the general theory is that it must be kept under wraps out of fear of misuse but there is a lot of good that can be done with nen as well the most basic benefits would be the extension of life learning how to control one's aura can add significant amounts to an individual's lifespan but it even goes on to greater ideas such as furthering human evolution in general and this was something else that the chimera ants nailed very quickly after they discovered then the decision was made to awaken their entire colony because it was seen as far more beneficial for their race to have access to their innate powers rather than deny that and as such the chimera ants evolved quite rapidly into an apocalyptic level threat which shows both the strengths and dangers of men meanwhile humanity is almost deliberately stunting its growth by gatekeeping ore control and it is a tricky thing because we're talking about the right of someone to understand and use their own life energy it's not an optional power you know it's not a situation where we're asking ourselves well should we inject everyone with a genetic serum to turn them into super soldiers or something along those lines because in the case of hunter hunter everyone in this world is already an aura user to some degree so i don't know ask yourselves right here and now if you had a latent ability to control a greater degree of your own life and it was being kept from you by some unknown authority how would you feel about it it's a tricky question and it probably has a greater good answer attached to it i do find it interesting though because some of isaac netaro's final words in this world were don't underestimate humanity's potential for evolution and at the same time at the helm of humanity he was deliberately limiting its evolution although to be fair in the manga that word also could have been read as malice but the anime chose evolution but that tangent aside nen secrecy makes little to no sense in hunter hunter in terms of story relevance it's supposed to be a hidden art form only wielded by those of a secret society or secret societies plural despite that nen is undeniably present in very prominent aspects of daily life including entertainment and really when it comes down to it there is very little logic to who is and who is not allowed to be a nen user it just boils down to whoever togashi needs to be one it does make sense that characters like gone are unaware of nen he grew up on an isolated island same with grapica he grew up in an isolated village clan however for everyone who lives in big cities and more active parts of civilization it's very difficult for me to buy that they are not aware of men in at least the vaguest of senses of the existence of superhuman abilities and from there for there to not be any sense of curiosity and entrepreneurship associated is quite unthinkable and a pretty big disconnect luckily i suppose honda hunter spends most of its arcs in more isolated scenarios and it is easy to forget about but the secrecy of nine is one of those things that just slipped through the cracks with togashi but what do you guys think please do leave your thoughts in the comments below.
I first want to reaffirm the assertion that nen is a secret in this world otherwise this entire argument falls apart so yeah however this notion is introduced to us by wing in heaven's arena where he states nen can be destructive if abused it's too dangerous to make it part of the official exam thus only people who have passed are tested and here he is referring to the nature of the hunter exam of course but it speaks to the greater reality of nen the hunter association are apparently extraordinarily careful with who they induct into the art form because in the wrong hands nen can be a terrible weapon to be used against humanity a theme that is constantly explored in the series all the way up to monday with fourth prince radnick who is undoubtedly one of the most terrifying individuals to have ever acquired nen at the same time i also need to point out that the hunter association is a massive pack of hypocrites they claim to be careful with who they induct but at the same time the standards for passing the hunter exam have nothing to do with intent or potential threat i mean for example if hisoka was not an end user and he passed the exam then they would have taught him nen regardless despite the fact that he is a major force of chaos and death on this planet the greater problem to do with the actual topic though is that wing's words would be fine if nen was restricted to hunters then the association could maybe effectively govern it but it isn't the hunter association is one of many many organizations that foster ninus and they have zero control whatsoever over the others and i guess here i'd be specifically referring to groups like the zoldic family or the ten dons who all have clear knowledge of men due to their control over the shadow beast and the abilities of neon astrad also the mafia forces of the khakian empire the phantom troop and i suppose you can make the argument that all of these groups have an incentive to keep nenus a secret or at least keep their own abilities a secret but my main point here is to demonstrate that aura manipulation is not exclusive to hunters and it has been disseminated into the general population it does get a lot worse though because let's take a look at the greed island arc this was a game that one could only play via nenu's and it involved a whole host of people who just how are they non-users the overwhelming majority of players we encounter on greed island are not hunters and they seem almost startlingly ordinary like all of the rejects who accompany gon and the important characters to the dodgeball match with razer not to mention genthro as well he's not a hunter he isn't actually in anything he just knows nen and he knows it very well and at this point i would like to just expand on the idea of nen that is the name given to the art form of wielding aura one can be a conscious or a user without referring to nen in any way however the vast majority of these ori users that we encounter have this intimate academic scale knowledge of nen specifically which may or may not have needed to come directly from the shingen ryu school of kung fu because that's the only institution we're aware of that teaches aura manipulation specifically as nen as in with the basic principles advanced principles all that labeling etc so i do find it a bit odd that every single conscious aura user in the series seems to have studied this one methodology of practice but this is all before we even get into the idea of using nen as entertainment for the general public heaven's arena poses a huge huge huge problem to this world because this is where at its highest levels only nen users can compete and in order to do so they need to proudly display their abilities in front of a live audience as well as televised audiences and sometimes i suppose that can work out pretty alright because most uses of nen would be invisible to those who do not use aura themselves but certainly not all of them for example almost any use of conjuration is visible to the human eye such as castro creating an entire aura clone of himself against hisoka and speaking of hisoka he also quite casually stated key details regarding nine in his fight against gon and even went on to explain his own ability just you know in front of the whole world so the idea of nen being a secret to the world under these circumstances to me it's a bit of a joke but let's look at the very best case scenario we can and that would be that the world of hunter hunter is one of established quote-unquote magic question mark things like magical beasts do exist and they are common knowledge so do various superhuman abilities some of which have never been explained by men for example killer's ability to grow claws out of nowhere i mean maybe it could be an unconscious use of enhancement but sure that's fine i'm willing to accept that killer just has a superhuman ability there but then you have a scenario where thousands and thousands of people flock to see a battle between superhumans using primarily but not always invisible powers and are you trying to tell me that not one of these people is curious to know how they are able to perform these feats that is the very best case scenario just a general acceptance that there are superhumans in the world but even then with that knowledge wouldn't you you know maybe i don't know want to study them figure out how these powers emerge whether or not you could isolate certain genes or practices that led to them no no one no like government agency or extraordinarily wealthy kingdom no one's interested in superpowers and how they could benefit them in fact as an example of that.
We can take a look at the khaking empire this is one of the wealthiest nations on the planet capable of comfortably coughing up the cash for an expedition to the dark continent their royal family is beyond wealthy and also very much beyond the law they have access to anything they so desire and yet almost none of them have any knowledge of net you know that thing that they can watch on tv at any given time and also that thing that is known by a lot of their underlings as well by the way it always strikes me as a bit strange to think that fourth prince ryannick's entire mafia family and end users and he had no idea it even existed until now and i don't know i think i just find it pretty hard to believe that you can keep that knowledge of nen from the richest and most well-connected people on the planet yet miscellaneous non-hunter greed island rejects can be well aware of it and once again it is inconsistent because select members of the karkin empire are nen users such as benjamin and camilla and then the question pops up well how did they stumble into it to the point where they are extraordinarily proficient users and the other princes didn't in reality what should have occurred is exactly what happened with the chimera ants upon their first exposure of nine they discovered that it was a very useful phenomenon and did everything they could to learn about it swiftly and put it to use in order to propagate their colony that is how things should be everywhere in hunter hunter some incredibly rich piece of royalty or a businessman entrepreneur becomes curious about all of the super powers being blatantly displayed in heaven's arena and then they invest shocking amounts of resources into learning and commodifying it at which point maybe a natural counter-argument would be well the hunter association might step in to shut that down but in many cases these kingdoms are significantly more powerful and more influential than the hunter association and even if the hunter association did have that power it still would not be possible to do in all cases because nen is just known by so so many people all a really wealthy person would have to do is offer a random greed island player a ton of money and then all of a sudden they have a working theoretical knowledge of aura control there are just too many miscellaneous people in the world of hunter hunter to keep them more quiet and surprisingly few are bound by the mission and morals of the hunter association the hunter association aren't some sort of global nen police but even those without the resources would be very eagerly reporting on and following these superhuman figures very very closely just like in every superhero movie as soon as society discovers someone with an amazing ability then they are an instant celebrity and with heaven's arena in mind someone like hisoka should have thousands and thousands of fans that maybe even stalk him everywhere he goes because he is a celebrity and i could say the same about crollo as well given that he's a floor master and the only way you could really avoid that effect is to have a world like my hero academia where quirks are so painfully common that no one really cares anymore but togashi seems to be trying to play it both ways with hunter hunter having super secret powers that can be used in super public ways and resulting in the general public having this inexplicable disinterest in all of these rare funky powers it makes no sense to me and the only real explanation i have comes from the meta narrative viewpoint nen is a secret unless it's not it depends entirely on whatever idea togashi wants to explore at any given time if we require an arc like the hunter exam or the chimera ants when nen is a secret to be discovered then it is perfectly hidden from the world in every way however if an arc requires that we demonstrate nen combat in front of hundreds perhaps thousands of people like kevin's arena or even the succession war well then everyone knows about nen unless they don't somehow but lots of them do and if they don't they should be curious to find out but that's just hunter hunter and i should say that while i was researching this video i came across a very interesting question by a reddit user named manic marshall in regards to nen and the idea he poses is that because aura is a latent power residing in all living things is it morally acceptable to keep that knowledge from people and we know that the general theory is that it must be kept under wraps out of fear of misuse but there is a lot of good that can be done with nen as well the most basic benefits would be the extension of life learning how to control one's aura can add significant amounts to an individual's lifespan but it even goes on to greater ideas such as furthering human evolution in general and this was something else that the chimera ants nailed very quickly after they discovered then the decision was made to awaken their entire colony because it was seen as far more beneficial for their race to have access to their innate powers rather than deny that and as such the chimera ants evolved quite rapidly into an apocalyptic level threat which shows both the strengths and dangers of men meanwhile humanity is almost deliberately stunting its growth by gatekeeping ore control and it is a tricky thing because we're talking about the right of someone to understand and use their own life energy it's not an optional power you know it's not a situation where we're asking ourselves well should we inject everyone with a genetic serum to turn them into super soldiers or something along those lines because in the case of hunter hunter everyone in this world is already an aura user to some degree so i don't know ask yourselves right here and now if you had a latent ability to control a greater degree of your own life and it was being kept from you by some unknown authority how would you feel about it it's a tricky question and it probably has a greater good answer attached to it i do find it interesting though because some of isaac netaro's final words in this world were don't underestimate humanity's potential for evolution and at the same time at the helm of humanity he was deliberately limiting its evolution although to be fair in the manga that word also could have been read as malice but the anime chose evolution but that tangent aside nen secrecy makes little to no sense in hunter hunter in terms of story relevance it's supposed to be a hidden art form only wielded by those of a secret society or secret societies plural despite that nen is undeniably present in very prominent aspects of daily life including entertainment and really when it comes down to it there is very little logic to who is and who is not allowed to be a nen user it just boils down to whoever togashi needs to be one it does make sense that characters like gone are unaware of nen he grew up on an isolated island same with grapica he grew up in an isolated village clan however for everyone who lives in big cities and more active parts of civilization it's very difficult for me to buy that they are not aware of men in at least the vaguest of senses of the existence of superhuman abilities and from there for there to not be any sense of curiosity and entrepreneurship associated is quite unthinkable and a pretty big disconnect luckily i suppose honda hunter spends most of its arcs in more isolated scenarios and it is easy to forget about but the secrecy of nine is one of those things that just slipped through the cracks with togashi but what do you guys think please do leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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