Brief hxh chapter 414 discussion on Ben’s guards
Two details I like here:
The intimate exchange at the top characterizes both guards very simply and effectively. We have only had one short scene with Yushohi and zero with Mr. Bald Ben’s Guard #3 here, but I love their mutual melancholy in this scene, with Chamathy offering a small amount of comfort and agency to Yushohi before essentially prepping him to die. This is not an order either can refuse, but one asks if the other is ready anyway. Togashi nails it with both of their expressions on this page.
this is one of my favorite Nen abilities this arc. I adore how lacking in subtlety it is, even among Benjamin’s guards. Hunters treat developing Nen as a literal martial art, with abilities being something achieved through consistent training, discipline, and self-actualization. Their abilities are versatile and not too restriction-heavy (unless you’re Kurapika, whose over-intensity is also called attention to this chapter). Ben’s guards’ abilities all feel like hax made up by meatheads to achieve very one-dimensional goals. Make someone INVINCIBLE!! INSTANTLY defeat my enemy!! Discover someone’s ability WHILE DOING NOTHING!! Not only that, but their reliance of ridiculous restrictions (100x the time in Zetsu??) to achieve these ultimately one-dimensional effects betrays not only their lack of creativity, but a lack of interest in themselves as individuals outside of their usefulness to Benjamin. It’s the idea of planning as if failure is unthinkable, that if you cannot achieve your goal through initial brute force, if you are not useful to the cause even once, you might as well be dead, an idea we see Yushohi grapple with in this scene, both in his monologue before these panels, and in his expression here.