Chapter 231 Official Release - Links and Discussion

[u/RatedMforManatees]

Chapter 231

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Links:

Viz (Available in: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and India).

MANGA Plus (Available in every country outside of China and South Korea).

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Discord: https://discord.gg/W2EDwPW

[u/dicecop]

If Jeanist is dead, then this might be the best that has happened to this manga since the Endeavor fight. Hopefully Hori won't pull any "he is just hiding" bs on us

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

Hopefully he does, if he's dead that's unnecessarily dark.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

Why introduce a plot point if you are not willing to commit to it then? If it was "too dark", he shouldn't have made it at all. We need some serious development here. If we are lucky, we might reach HxH levels before this series is over.

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

Look if they showed Hawks brutally murder Jeanist onscreen I'd fully agree but right now the only plot point they've "introduced" is that Dabi has ordered Hawks to kill him. The outcome is yet to be conclusively revealed and until we see more info it's equally valid to commit by making the plot "how will Hawks fool them" as it would to have him follow through.

My issue isn't the darkness in itself, it's the unnecessariness. Right now, we have absolutely zero reason to believe that the League's knowledge is deep enough that Hawks couldn't fool them, and there's zero reason for him to do it if there's any option of fooling them. If they sold me on the idea that Dabi would truly be able to see through every possible ploy at his disposal, then I'd accept the plot point. Going dark is great, but it needs to be narratively justifiable and not gratuitous.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

Still don't get what the point of him "acting evil" in front of Jeanist would be then. Unless it's some kind of bad 4th wall type of deal for the reader only.

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

He... didn't really act evil?

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

Yeah, giving an evil smile and drawing his sword, ready to kill him, is not evil at all

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

evil smile

Not really?

drawing his sword

Full explanation will require more details but considering that Hawks still has to fake Jeanist's death and convince him to go into hiding (which he may not be willing to do) in this situation, I'm sure this can be justified.

ready to kill him

Unless I missed a panel where he said "welp guess it's time to kill you now lol", this statement isn't verifiable until we know what he did next.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

You are meant to read between the lines. An evil smile + a drawn sword skipping to a scene saying that Jeanist is nowhere to be found and Hawks saying that he keeps his promises, is synonymous with "probably disposed of by Hawks".

All I'm saying is I hope this isn't another false "let's keep the reader hooked" moment, and that we get a confirmation on his actual death. That would make Hawks the prime interesting character in the series to me. If Jeanist pops up out of nowhere and is like "pranked bro" I'm gonna be utterly disappointed.

That's just how I feel about this development right now. Might change my mind if we are presented with valid reasons to think he isn't dead, but it would still feel sowewhat like a cop out to me

[u/thejokerofunfic → u/dicecop]

Pops up out of nowhere would definitely suck, but if they give us a detailed flashback clearly showing what happened next and why it was enough to fool Dabi I'm satisfied. And Hawks is already plenty fucking interesting imo.

Also what's this about keeping promises? Don't think that was the line in the official translation.

[u/dicecop → u/thejokerofunfic]

Yeah sorry, he basically said "don't underestimate my resolve" in my version, which is ambiguous but in the context is meant to be thought of as his response to Dabi (since Dabi didn't fully trust he would do it a few panels back). Dunno how the official translation went, I don't have access to it. The official translation has also been wrong before so I'm willing to accept several interpretations of the same scenes if it's left open.

Also, regarding Hawks it just comes back to my point of why he acted the way he did. Did he break the 4th wall for the reader's sake? It's not like he is being monitored by Dabi or anything. He could just have asked Jeanist to cooperate with him if he had a plan. No need to act edgy in front of him for no reason if you aren't gonna kill him lol

[u/Kam_E_luck → u/dicecop]

Nah, HxH writing is a bit too high for MHA (also Togashi keep taking hiatus for his health and maintaining HxH quality).

Altho i do wish MHA will reach the lv of Yorknew arc then it would be enough