Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25814498-20150505201606/@comment-26871105-20160905145923

Mand21 wrote: @ "I Want a Stand" by me,

Don't you think it would make more sense to put either the range restriction or the strength restriction?

Think about it: Technically, Manipulation should work as far as you can control your aura. This means En training could improve your range with the technique. If you're not improving it that way, then it's Restriction '× and' × Vow, meaning you're restricting your range when you could do better to improve the strength of the skill. If you're restricting the strength of the skill too... What's the point? You should either restrict the Force of this Nen ability, or restrict its range (Accuracy).

(Edit: For some reason, I cannot correctly ident and edit this post, meaning the highlights will remain screwed for the time being.)

Do you mean my last ability?

Manipulation is always an odd one when it comes to its interaction with Nen itself, so much so Togashi himself just simply refrain from going into details about the Manipulation category in fears of running into severe contradictions with the Nen's own rule set. Hence apart from the 2 Manipulators (Kalluto and Morel), all of them function either identically just about mind-controlling of some sort with slightly different mechanisms (Leech, Illumi, Squala, Boki etc), rely other too much other Nen types to make their abilities work (Goreinu, Shoot), or rely too much on their innate non-human qualities (Zazan, Pouf).

As such, to create a legit, fun and diverse Manipulation Hatsu in HxH's world has been quite a pain because you really don't have many examples to look at in terms of what kind of power level you should expect to be balanced, or just how the thing actually works in general.

En training while extend the range of which you could stretch your aura without resorting to tapping Emission category, it doesn't seem to work with Manipulated subjects. The reason being, Manipulation doesn't seem to be actually controlling someone or something by pouring your aura into them and they just do stuff afterwards, as that would run into problems with the definition of Emission to quite a significant extent. As a result, in HxH Manipulation is portrayed differently and often in a very abstract manner.

From what I know, Manipulation in HxH works by having a "medium", in which that "medium" is assigned a "function" that is given to a "subject".

- Take Illumi for instance, his "mediums" are his needles, his "functions" are that his needles could either twist people's body or control their minds, and his subjects are "people".

- Take another example say Morel, his "mediums" are his pipe, his "functions" are that his the smoke from his pipe are controlled by him, and his subjects are "smoke".

- Take another example of Kalluto, his "medium" is the peper he possess on his hands (paper cut-outs or his paper fan), his "functions" are that his subjects fly and attack according to his will or that he is aware of what happens around his subjects, and his "subjects" are the the paper pieces.

When Manipulators control their "subjects", they don't actually just control their subjects, but rather, they give orders to their "mediums", which in terms manages the subjects for the user either without their intervention, or minimallly so.

This is also why all of the Manipulators seem to be able to control things independantly of the user's body or aura, an can get far away from their subjects without even needing to use Emission, as the only thing they need is a consistent medium to pull off their abilities most of the time unless the distances is really too great (such as Morel's Deep Purple, that can be combined with Emission to give it the range to cover an entire city, as well as automation that would still continue even after he's locked in another dimension).

Therefore, by going with my analysis, Manipulation's ranged is defined by its medium rather than your Nen skill. And it's going by that logic that I make the ability.

The "medium" would be myself, the "function" is the air around me within 3m is under my control, and the actual subjects are the "air". That's why my ability has BOTH a range limit and a strength limit. The range limit is a fundamental limit that I conclude from how the Manipulation works in HxH, while the other is a practical limit simply because strength can not be infinite hence I give it a requirement to "charge". Not to mention, the harsher the rules, the stronger and more control you have is the principle of Nen.

There is also another element that I included within my consideration on why I intentionally set the range to be no longer than 3m, that's "efficiency". I could emit out a bunch of Nen balls and have them act as my limits to extend the range, but is it really necessary to achieve the functions I am looking for?

The answer is No, because you could still have access to almost all of the utilities air control has even when you have a small control range. The only difference is that you can not create tornados and hurricanes due to limited range, but that's not what I'm looking for so I have no problem to discard that in favour of more control on what I have.

That's what I think anyway.