Was the exact reason for Arthur's immense hatred towards Ash ever revealed in the manga? I guess before their final knife fight, Arthur asks Ash if he knows why Arthur hates him so and Ash is like yeah and that's pretty much it. Neither of them mention the actual reason. I might have missed some details in the earlier chapters but was it because Ash knived his trigger finger and was also becoming very popular among the juvenile delinquents etc etc?
Ash had completely cut Arthur’s trigger finger as far as I can tell and Arthur cant use a gun at all with that hand due to his fingers being re-attached, that alone must have been a mess.
Ash took Arthur’s turf by gained a big following with the street kids, he gain respect, they respect Ash and they fear Arthur. You cant be a good boss with fear alone. Arthur hates that and the fact that Ash was basically Golzine’s pet. ( despite that Ash never asking Golzine for help , he could have but he never did ). Arthur also always figured Ash did use Golzines help to achieve his gang goals and was surprised in the manga when they told him Ash did everything himself, I think knowing how good Ash is at what he dose just pisses Arthur off even further.
We have no idea how Arthur ended up as a delinquent gang boss or what his childhood was like but I cant imagine it was pretty or easy.
You are mostly on point Anon ,the real reason is never given but from what we can conclude from Angel Eyes that takes place when Ash was 14 years old. Arthur has sent guys to kill him even then…and there is another thing that happened when Ash was 14.
in Vol.8 we get this scene
Ash tells Eiji about a girl he liked and potentially might have loved when he was 14, but she was killed because she was associated with Ash. He failed to save her , she died because of him and Ash feels guilty. This girl is never mentioned again ,but why was she mentioned now a night before the big showdown with Arthur ?
Then in Vol.9 we get this scene with Arthur
Look at how ready Arthur is to do all this , its personal , its very personal and we get a moment where Ash is feeling guilt for something that happened between them in the past , so what do we know that happened in Ash’s past that he feels guilty about and that we found out in the manga about recently ? …the killed girl.
Hear me out Anon there is a fan-theory going around that the girl that was killed was somehow connected to Arthur, his little sister maybe?.
For all the reason that Arthur has to hate Ash with this we are given a deeply personal one and it would explain why Ash just didn’t kill Arthur earlier , he felt guilty, Ash didn’t want to kill the brother of a girl he liked and even when that same girl died because of him and Arthur was out to get him , Ash didn’t want to do it until it was this serious and necessary.
I talked to a few people who where thinking the same thing when they where reading this part of the manga, so every time somebody asks me about a valid reason for Arthur’s hate for Ash this now comes to mind despite it not being confirmed as canon but it somehow fits and gives Arthur some much needed humanity.
