Warning! Contains spoilers for Tokyo Demon Bride Story Chapter 11!Gon’s epic transformation at the end of the Chimera Ant arc in Shonen Jump series attempting to do a similar powerup illustrates exactly why this moment worked as well as it did. Unfortunately, it does this by failing to make its own version of this scene work well.
Tokyo Demon Bride Story by Tadaichi Nakama is one of Shonen Jump's newest series. It follows a young man named Jinta whose special blood attracts entities from the spirit world. This includes Manaka, a powerful demon who tracks down Jinta to marry him based on a promise he gave her in childhood. While Tokyo Demon Bride Story features some serious moments and fights, it is largely a comedic slice-of-life harem series. This causes the series to undercut a lot of its most interesting aspects with jokes. While this may work well for much of the series, it can backfire as shown in its latest fight.
In Chapter 11, Manaka must fight a powerful Ninja Tanuki named Tanukiyo who has been hired to kidnap Jinta by a mysterious villain. In order to defeat her, Manaka must use a special technique that she has not shown before where she ages up her body, so she can use more powerful attacks. The art initially makes this powerup look pretty serious, but it doesn't actually help Manaka in the fight and is undercut by a joke about how immature she is. All of this makes it feel underwhelming, unlike Gon's transformation into an adult.
Gon's Transformation Was Special Because It Had Consequences
In order to defeat Hunter x Hunter's Chimera Ant Neferpitou and avenge his mentor Kite, Gon willingly makes a nen contract to unlock his full potential. While these sorts of contracts had been mentioned before with Kurapika's Phantom Troupe specific abilities, this still was a rather abrupt development, much like Manaka's sudden growth. However, Gon's powerup is a manifestation of his extreme grief and guilt over Kite's death which makes it feel more significant than Manaka's use of the technique. It also enables him to easily defeat Neferpitou in combat and has major negative effects on his body afterwards. These consequences aren't present in Tokyo Demon Bride Story, in which the technique is ineffectual and doesn't have any downsides for Manaka afterwards.
The trivial nature of Manaka's powerup makes it feel underwhelming and pointless. This just highlights the impact of Gon's transformation even further and shows how skilled a writer Hunter x Hunter's author Yoshihiro Togashi is. So while Tokyo Demon Bride Story may fail in making its version of Gon's tragic transformation feel meaningful, in doing so it highlights how great Hunter x Hunter's version of this scene was, giving a greater appreciation of Togashi's iconic masterpiece.
Tokyo Demon Bride Story Chapter 11 is available to read from Viz Media.
