dreamnants-mis - Tumblr blog

dreamnants-mis · 2 years ago

Text

Undead Unluck Theory

Feng’s Character Arc isn’t over - Possible Unfade Evolution

I’ve been thinking about this theory for a while and with chapter 191 partly confirming something for me I think it’s time to write it down.

Basically: Start Investing in Feng Kowloon stocks.

Major Spoiler Warning all the way up to chapter 191 of the manga.

This theory initially spawned after chapter 177 came out. More specifically, it spawned from the spread panel that showcased the current union members (minus Chikara, Sean, and Yusai who were shown to be in the operating room with Latla and Rip).

Here it was shown that Feng was not with the other union members. Earlier it was hinted that he didn’t join because he wasn’t with them when the group time skipped from 1999 to 2015.

At the time I had suspected that Feng simply hadn’t time traveled with everyone else and had used those 15 years to train (taking advantage of Unfade) and might’ve rejoined later, but no, turns out he hasn’t joined the Union at all.

Which made me ask this: why didn’t Feng join the union? It would’ve been easy for Tozuka to write a little panel or two where Fuuko could’ve said, “ok sorry I lied to you, I promise this time we’ll fight monsters this time though” and Feng could’ve begrudgingly agreed to join at that point.

The thing with Undead Unluck is that Tozuka has a habit of constantly setting up minor plot details and then giving them major payoffs later on. It’s one of the best parts of the manga’s writing in my opinion. So I believe Feng not joining the union at this point of time was a very deliberate writing choice on the author's part.

So with that in mind, let’s get started.

Current Quest Rounds

Currently, there are four quests active.

Let’s take out “Capture of UMA Burn”. It's not relevant for this theory. What matters for this theory are the quests for Language, Beast, and Summer.

Language and Beast have relevance because of their rewards. Four extra seats added to the round table means four negators can participate on quests. But that’s all they can offer for this topic.

Summer, on the other hand, is extremely important. Because in loop 100, Summer was the exact quest Feng got his formal debut in.

My prediction is that in a direct parallel to loop 100, the 101 version of the Summer quest is where we’re going to get reintroduced to Feng, and probably get told that he’s been up to for the last fifteen or so years.

What follows is that one of the union members will tell Feng about the Sick fight, to which he will be extremely disappointed to have missed out on. It’s at this point that upon learning there’s more of these extremely strong UMAs that he’ll go, “Fine, you win Fuuko Izumo, I’ll join your Union.”

My guess is that, assuming that Fuuko successfully recruits the five negators Andy led her to, the open seats will go as following:

- Feng

- Top

- Tatiana

- Latla/Julia

This is because the first three are more suited to go straight into combat roles. As for Latla and Julia, I think the last seat could go to either one of them. It depends on whether Julia manifests Unjustice during this quest period but if she doesn’t, Latla can now fight directly due to being equipped with one half of Blade Runner.

This would leave Ichico, Nico, Kururu, Haruka, Bunny and Julia/Latla (aka the one who didn’t get the seat) as support members until new seats are rewarded.

It’s extremely important to note that at this point Feng isn’t part of the Union because he cares about protecting people or saving the world. Despite him acknowledging Shen as his son, Feng still prioritizes his quest of being the strongest more.

Unfade Intermission (AKA Billy Would Kick Feng's Ass if they fought Right Now)

This is where I talk about my thoughts of Unfade because this is where it would flow best.

(I am also going to put a quick disclaimer that this isn’t an invitation for power scaling arguments as they don’t have any relevance here.)

Anyway, Unfade, Feng’s negation ability. In Feng’s character bio in the volume 8 extras Unfade is described as a self-targeting compulsory activation type. “An ability that Negates aging after activation.”

… aaaand that’s all Unfade can do, really.

In fact, Unfade stands out from other negation powers because from what we’ve been shown it has no viability in combat. I think the only negation that shares this trait is Unsleep. The reason Feng is such a threatening person has to do almost entirely with his years of cultivating his skills as a martial artist (granted, having an ageless, unfading body which is forever at peak condition probably does help a lot but I digress). It’s worth noting that if Unfade had been given to almost any other person, they wouldn’t nearly be as dangerous as Feng is.

It is my belief that within the current negators, you take out their powers and make them fight purely hand to hand as normal humans? Feng comes out the strongest, if not pretty damn close to it.

However, the second that negation powers are added into the fray, Feng would lose his title as the strongest, and he would lose that title very quickly. In a negator fight with, say, Billy, he wipes the floor with Feng, easily. Feng having no idea how negator powers work is how Fuuko was able to keep him in check for so long in loop 101.

In UU, negation powers don’t get stronger via traditional training. In order to level up, the negator in question has to expand their interpretation of their powers.

By expanding their interpretation, this typically leads to the negator having a journey of self discovery about themselves. Inherently due to this system, a lot of times this means that negators evolving their powers tend to be directly tied into character development. It’s a neat system! One of my favorite power systems in SJ because of how naturally it ties together with the narrative.

But for Feng? This is the literal worst thing for him. Because even though he’s a legendary martial artist, Feng has a terrible understanding of people. He’s the least emotionally intelligent person among the negators, and it’s not even close. Shen, who was raised by Feng for around twenty years, notes that Feng’s unending pursuit of strength hasn’t brought him any sense of fulfillment and that Feng himself isn’t even self aware of that fact.

Feng didn’t even realize he even had a negation tragedy until 150 years after his ability manifested. Even then, Shen (who, for the record, only found out about negations like… 15 minutes prior), had to spell it out to Feng.

Throughout loops 100 and 101, we’ve seen how differently negation abilities can evolve. Negation abilities so far have tend to have fallen in three ways:

It has direct ties into character development and how they evolve as people (Unluck, Unchange, Unseen)

It has manifested differently due to the wildly different circumstances between loops (Unfair)

The negator have found ways to work around what would be entirely detrimental abilities to make them useable to get through day to day life (Unsleep, Untell)

The idea that Unfade has never evolved since manifestation ties pretty well with how stagnant Feng has been as a person throughout most of his life. In fact, while the circumstances of manifestation are different, Feng 100 getting UF as an old man vs Feng 101 getting UF when he was around his twenties, the ability itself hasn’t changed at all. Which definitely isn’t unique but it is worth noting, I feel.

Master Rule VII

Remember at the beginning of this post that stated chapter 191 partly confirmed something to me? Yeah that’s relevant now. This was the big clincher that inspired me to write this giant theory.

Right now we don’t know exactly what Master Rule VII represents exactly (it’s possible “Time Defense” is just an attack name just like how Andy uses “Crimson Bullet"), however he is absolutely heavily time based if not outright time. My top prediction for him is that he’s UMA Time or Fade. (For simplicity’s sake, this theory will use “VII” when it comes to referring to him.)

Anyway, assuming that we’re going in order of counting down, then naturally VII is next in the line up. Feng's first round as a union member means he’s conveniently part of the quest period where, chances are, he might be a hard counter to the UMA that represents time in some capacity, as Unfade negates the passage of time affecting his body. Everyone in the Roundtable comes to this conclusion as well and thus Feng is signed up for the quest for the neutralization of VII. In this scenario, Shen would also be one of the negators in this quest, this is going to be extremely important.

However as the actual fight begins, Feng turns out to not be a perfect counter to VII for one reason or another. This fight would end up being a struggle for everyone involved because VII would presumably use his time abilities to avoid hits and disorient everyone by time lagging them like how he did to Andy in 191.

During this fight, Shen is going to be in danger, and possibly get hit with a fatal injury before he can even react. Feng, witnessing this, is going to have one thought in his head, “Shen is going to die.” “My son is about to die.”

And at that moment Feng recalls what Fuuko believes the meaning of being the strongest:

“Those who care for others with an unwavering heart have always been the strongest people around.”

And Feng, after decades of not knowing what she meant, finally realizes what Fuuko was trying to tell him. And this, in turn, causes Unfade to evolve.

Interestingly, Feng back in loop 100 is stated to figure out how souls worked, but this hasn’t come up since.

And I think this would be a great opportunity to fire that Chekhov’s Gun, because my friend (who also reads the manga) gave a really cool possibility on how Unfade could evolve into a combat viable ability by combining the idea of Feng mastering using his soul in combat. The basic idea follows that by unleashing his soul in his impacts he would be able to make strikes that don’t fade away. Tying into the idea of how he only unlocks Unfade’s true potential when he opens himself up to the more metaphorical version of “the impact he has on others” and vice versa.

(Of course this is just one idea of how Unfade could evolve, I just really like this idea because it ties with UU’s constant video game analogies, with Unfade’s evolution being akin to a damage multiplier like when you get a really good combo in a fighting game. Basically Tozuka would acknowledge Feng’s a giant Tekken reference).

I know that negation abilities are classified with external or self targeting, but Sean alone proves that if you bend the rules enough, you can get away with not following those classifications to the letter.

Either way, this upgrade leads Feng to turn the tides against VII and complete the quest in a way that leads to the Union getting away without casualties. Maybe as a bonus we get Feng making a Shen-esq joke (like "Your rules are outdated, you old coot" or smth) to tie how much influence both of them have had on each other. Also ideally Feng stops having the emotional intelligence of a goldfish and trying to fight Fuuko at a drop of a hat but that might be asking for too much, honestly.

After the fight Feng would finally drop his tsundere bullshit and admits out loud (and to himself) that yes, he cares for Mei and Shen not just because they’re his disciples but because he genuinely loves them as family.

This would also be the point he’s marked as a true member of the Union because he now wants to protect his family.

#aiiiii! it's here!#please read this because it's actually really cool

60 notes · View notes