Evolution of power hexagram

[Demonspeed]

So, this is a bad translation?

I think it's pretty clear here, he never found an opponent.

That's not the same thing. You posted that Netero said he never fought a worthy opponent in his life. He never said that, against Meruem, he said that he wanted to do his best to fight an opponent much stronger than him(In Viz translations he said: I dreamed of giving my heart and soul to battle an unstoppable adversary). This quote here is different, because even assuming that Netero is the strongest, it doesn't mean that all his opponents were unable to give him hard time. And on this page, as he said, he is the one who will challenge Meruem, when he is mostly challenged by people now, people weaker than him like Hisoka or those coming to his dojo.

Now that he is not a challenger anymore, after defeating countless challengers as he grew older, Netero became bored. What he wanted was not a battle against people of similar level. Only people like Meruem fit the bill because he is much stronger than Netero, the other humans ,even assuming that some are stronger than him, can't give him what he wants.

The implication of Maha's superiority of some translations doesn't fit in the context though. Zeno was talking about how singular Netero is; his subtle aura, his longevity and his Guanyin Bodhisattva. Comparing him to Maha in combat ability doesn't add anything, since Maha is not established as super-strong, beyond being a Zoldyck; it would only hype Maha, not Netero.

It hypes both, and I didn't say it means Maha is necessarily superior, that's my own interpretation. It's vague, I said that it means that both are least at a comparable level. Netero has been hyped since his introduction and the hype has been progressively built since his appearance in the CA arc. This part was not really to tell us that Netero was extremely strong, we all knew that. This part was to tell us what is it that makes Netero's strong(his abilities, fighting style etc.) Taking Ging as example, even if we know he is very strong, we don't know his abilities which is why Pariston tried to make him use it.

Cnet's translation ("He's the only man alive who has fought with my own grandfather.") makes more sense (and he is one of the most reliable in my experience) as that implies that everyone else who fought Maha either died by his hand... or have since died of age. Which fit perfectly in the context, as Zeno was specifically talking about Netero's exceptional longevity in that panel, and Zeno using Maha, his wizened old grandfather, to emphasize Netero's age makes sense, since the latter is unmistakably a very ancient character.

I see, but even that translation doesn't contradict the one from MS or Viz. And considering that he and Maha are of similar age, it means they should both have an unreadable Aura.

So, all we can gather from Zeno's comment is that Maha and Netero once fought back in the day, which doesn't tell us much since we don't know when they fought (e.g. Netero reached his peak fairly late in life) nor the result of their fight. But given Netero's desire for worthy opponents, and that he never once mentioned Maha when he reflected upon his quest for martial challenge, I find it highly unlikely that Maha could match or outfight him in his prime, as there's nothing that suggest he could, once you consider the context for the comment above.

Netero isn't looking for worthy opponents, he wanted fights against opponents way stronger than him and Maha not being very strong is unthinkable to me. The fact that we don't know the result is what makes it vague and hypes both. Netero became a legend at 50 and we have at least a picture of him in the DC where he is with Zzig (which I think was part of the Seirin Group) and looks like his 50 years old self with shorter hair. So we can say that it is very likely that he met Maha's son and Maha himself after his training in the mountains. Also, Netero being able to survive against Maha when he had no Nen ability(I explained why he having HK before his training makes no sense at all above) is unlikely. When Netero descended he was challenging people, we know that because we saw whim challenge a person at least once.

This is just my guess but I think he challenged the Zoldycks after that, many Hunters try do this even in the present after all. He fought Maha and possibly Zzig. Certain things happened and somehow Zzig became his friend(Ging said Netero went to the DC with his friends). When it happened, Zeno was very young, and that's how he established a relationship with the three oldest named Zoldycks. Zeno said he has never beat him once so they must have practiced many times, I suppose Netero was another sort of mentor to him.

 

[Kanmuru]

If he says he'll be challenging someone stronger at THAT age it means he never found one before. That's what I wanted to say
The viz translation sounds way different tho xD

 

[Nano2000]

In the official hunter x hunter power chart
Kurapika is rated 2 in talent.
what does that mean?

 

[Copy Panda]

That in terms of potential he isnt all that

 

[Phantron]

I went back and did some research and found that when Meruem fought Netero, Meruem said agreeing to his terms is like playing Shogi 3 pieces down. That's the difference between a 9-dan (highest ranked player) and a 2 or 3-dan (someone who just recently entered professional Shogi) because that's starting a game without your rook, bishop, and a lance in Shogi. Not only do the sourcebook generally have no idea what they're talking about, but the characters in HXH often have no idea what they're talking about. Based on the dialogue and outcome of the battle, at least one of the two between Meruem and Netero had to be on crack, possibly both.

In general, I think Togashi actually sucks with power level issues. The way Netero is described he has no possible chance of being a threat to Meruem (which is probably why Pitou didn't think of him as a threat to Meruem either, but did consider Gon as a possible threat presumably factoring his potential) and yet that'd mean their whole battle is faker than something out of WWE. It's hard to see Meruem will seriously offer the same 'down 3 pieces' handicap to a Royal Guard in combat, because he obviously has some faith in their power and we can see that he improved significantly after eating them, but HXH totally failed to establish the power level of someone like a Royal Guard who is probably 1-2 pieces down versus Netero (3 pieces) and anyone else (probably a lot more than 3 pieces). And if you can't get it right with characters that have such a wide range of powers, when you go back to human tier it's literally anything is possible because apparently Netero can't tell that Meruem was auditioning for WWE when he agreed to the fight.

 

[Demonspeed]

I went back and did some research and found that when Meruem fought Netero, Meruem said agreeing to his terms is like playing Shogi 3 pieces down. That's the difference between a 9-dan (highest ranked player) and a 2 or 3-dan (someone who just recently entered professional Shogi) because that's starting a game without your rook, bishop, and a lance in Shogi. Not only do the sourcebook generally have no idea what they're talking about, but the characters in HXH often have no idea what they're talking about. Based on the dialogue and outcome of the battle, at least one of the two between Meruem and Netero had to be on crack, possibly both.

In general, I think Togashi actually sucks with power level issues. The way Netero is described he has no possible chance of being a threat to Meruem (which is probably why Pitou didn't think of him as a threat to Meruem either, but did consider Gon as a possible threat presumably factoring his potential) and yet that'd mean their whole battle is faker than something out of WWE. It's hard to see Meruem will seriously offer the same 'down 3 pieces' handicap to a Royal Guard in combat, because he obviously has some faith in their power and we can see that he improved significantly after eating them, but HXH totally failed to establish the power level of someone like a Royal Guard who is probably 1-2 pieces down versus Netero (3 pieces) and anyone else (probably a lot more than 3 pieces). And if you can't get it right with characters that have such a wide range of powers, when you go back to human tier it's literally anything is possible because apparently Netero can't tell that Meruem was auditioning for WWE when he agreed to the fight.

Netero has not been portrayed as a threat to Meruem. It was clear that Meruem was on another level during the fight. His Aura is far too below his level to damage him despite his amazing technique. Gon however has more Aura than the RG and in Gon-san mode he would definitely be able to give serious injuries to Meruem.

 

[Phantron]

Netero has not been portrayed as a threat to Meruem. It was clear that Meruem was on another level during the fight. His Aura is far too below his level to damage him despite his amazing technique. Gon however has more Aura than the RG and in Gon-san mode he would definitely be able to give serious injuries to Meruem.

I don't think this part was obvious to most people, and while Togashi is not necessarily responsible for what fans make of his work, he's not exactly good at handling power level issues. Gon-san's damage in terms of depiction is actually pretty modest compared to Netero's crater creating effects even though Gon hits way harder than Netero. Honestly, HXH's definition of top tier destruction potential seems to be 'able to create craters' even though this spectrum covers from Ubogin, who failed Aura 101 to Gon-san, who can probably kill any human character in the story in one hit. I have a hard time seeing someone just made up the power hexagram numbers for Togashi, and while I don't think he gave much thought to those numbers, you can see that he puts characters in very broad categories. The '4' and '5' covers way too many characters and no human minus Gon-san should have ever been in the same ballpark as a Royal Guard in any quantitative category.

The underlying problem is that the closer you get to Reinforcement the less likely you'll have interesting Hatsus. It has to be this way or there would literally be no way anybody could ever beat a Reinforcement user of the same level who already starts with the best combined stats as long as that guy isn't stupid, and contrary to popular belief, Reinforcement guys aren't any more likely to fall for tricks because the existence of Netero says that a Reinforcement user can utterly dominate with basically just strength alone. So when you got two guys hitting each other, is it going to be like Chrollo versus Hisoka where Hisoka obviously cannot do enough physical damage to overpower Chrollo's tricks? Or is it going to be like Palm who just smashes Killua's special yoyo to pieces just because she's Reinforcement type? Note that Hisoka's 'closer to Reinforcement' and inherent physical strength advantage relative to Chrollo is almost certainly greater than the difference between Palm and Killua, but Hisoka was unable to press a physical advantage like Palm. Even if you're favored by Togashi like Hisoka, Bungee Gum is not a match for Skill Hunter or Emperor Time when you don't have a physical advantage. Of course, after the fight Hisoka apparently could instant kill Machi, Shalnark, and Kortopi on his physical stats alone (hard to imagine the move he used to immobilize Machi would have no dependence on physical power given it's stated quite a few times that someone physically stronger can break Bungee Gum), and there's no way you can get that conclusion from looking at how Spiders, or even HXH in general, is portrayed, because everyone normally is too closely bunched up together on the power graphs. You end up with a conclusion of 'all Spiders are kind of close to each other in power, but Hisoka and Chrollo can sometimes kill 3 Spiders in rapid succession without breaking a sweat', which of course makes no sense but that's what the reality is.

 

[REN KOUEN]

I'm a BEAST!

i bet you gings was close to as high, too bad they didnt show it !!!