Chapter 2
? My personal motto? ‘Among the heavens and Earth, I stand unrivaled.’
This phrase, which you may have heard in its transliterated form—“tenjou tenge yuiga dokuson”—has significance in two related but still fairly distinct manners! On the one hand, it’s a phrase that has great significance in Zen Buddhism, having been uttered by a Buddha in the moment he achieved enlightenment. On the other hand, it comes up a lot in Japanese media of all forms and genres, most often when a character quotes the phrase in a self-aggrandizing fashion (or quotes it to talk up some other character). The phrase as used in media is certainly an explicit allusion to the Buddhist phrase, but it’s taken on a life of its own at this point, and its modern usage doesn’t necessarily have much to do with its original religious meaning.
? My favorite DIO? The version in Part 6.
It wouldn’t be a volume of Supernatural Battles without multiple JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure references! This one refers to the series’s most prolific recurring antagonist, DIO, who makes appearances in and influences the story of almost every arc of the series. The manner in which he manifests in each given arc tends to be fairly different, so while the idea of naming your favorite DIO is comically geeky, it’s also not a totally absurd statement.
? Why’re you hiding your eye? Paying homage to Kitaro, the yokai?
Kitaro is the main and titular character of GeGeGe no Kitaro, a classic manga by Mizuki Shigeru that ran throughout the sixties and has been adapted into anime on multiple occasions. The manga centers its story around yokai, a fairly broad category of Japanese supernatural creatures, and is often credited for popularizing the use of yokai in modern Japanese media. Kitaro himself is a yokai, and resembles a human child for the most part—one of his only overtly abnormal features is his missing left eye, which he usually keeps covered up with his bangs in much the same manner Hitomi covers her right eye.
? Or maybe to Sanji?
Sanji, meanwhile, is one of the main characters in One Piece. He also keeps one eye constantly covered by his bangs, though in his case, the one he keeps covered changes following a time skip, meaning that both of his eyes are present and seem to be fully functional.
? ...he just kept moaning something about his ‘Eight Trigrams Seal’...
Moving on to another of the Shonen Jump big three, this refers to a technique from Naruto! Specifically, the Eight Trigrams Seal is the technique that was used to seal a nine-tailed fox beast inside the main character of the series. The seal itself is located on Naruto’s abdomen, right around the spot where Hitomi kneed Kiryuu.
? My Hierro Skin is the hardest of all the Espadas!
And just like that, we’ve reached the third of the big three: Bleach! Hierro is a defensive technique used by the Arrancar, and it involves them using spiritual power to harden their skin. The Espada, meanwhile, are a group made up of the ten most powerful Arrancar. Hajime’s directly quoting an Espada named Nnoitora Gilga in this line.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login