User blog comment:Martialmaniac/The Zero Hand and Transmutation/@comment-26871067-20170131044813

Well the Wiki ate my comment (as it's been prone to doing lately) so I'll sum it up really quickly:

The two terms sharing a kanji doesn't necessarily mean anything, but in this case they are actually synonyms. However, I think it's silly to assume any use of 変える (pronounced "kaeru") refers to transmutation as it doesn't share the full root of the word used for the nen type and it's a basic verb that sees common use. 変 is a word on its own (usually translated as "strange"), and is the root for other terms as well (notably, hentai).

The confusion here is probably stemming from the fact that Viz chose to translate these two words ( 変える  and  変化)  inconsistently - so we get multiple terms when we should only be getting two regular ones. (Instead of "change" and "transmute", we get "change, turn (into), modify" as you've stated, and probably others like "alter" or even "transform", which was what many scanlations chose to translate 変化 as.)

 I think Viz dropped the ball by translating  変化 as "turn", because in Japanese there's a direct link to transmutation as a concept. (Just to be really clear while also brief,  変化 and  変える are pronounced differently and are different words despite the shared kanji. The  える in  変える is verb conjugation like "ing" or "ed", which modifies  変.  える on its on doesn't have any meaning, it's just sounds without a kanji to modify.   化 is another kanji that on its own is a word and combines with  変 to create the term known in HxH as transmutation.)

 L ike "mutant" refers to something specific in the X-men 'verse,  変化 refers to a method of nen use in HxH, and by translating it into a different term the link is severed.

 As for whether or not this is meant to indicate that Netero's technique uses transmutation... maybe? Despite nen seemingly having clear-cut rules, they... really aren't in the slightest. If not for Tsubone's vehicle modes being stated as conjuration, would any of you guys have thought they were? That's one of the biggest reasons I'm iffy on the idea of putting down nen types for techniques that are not explicitly stated to be utilizing them, honestly. Common sense regarding what the different nen categories are stated to be is all well and good, but we have examples of things not fitting common sense.