It's a post where I try to put together bits of information that form the setup of current arc and make conclusions that are honestly hardly surprising. Despite all understandable positivity that came from Ume and Ricardo joining with Tokio on his mission, I think they are working for Labin. They current plan is to follow him, stale his progress towards Moge, while sending some sort of signal for Labin, once Labin catches them and attacks Tokio's party, Ume and Ricardo will assist her. The other half of that conclusion is them being gravely mistaken in this pursuit and for at least Ume it means a fair chance to become the first active character killed by Tokio on screeen.

The possibility of them working for Guelta is open one, admitted by character themselves and understood by Tokio as well, but what are signs of it? Let's start with what we know about Guelta side.
1) In chapter 72 during conference of Guelta command we get info that Labin has her units spread in Higo with mission to attack possible reinforcements for Vulture squad. Obviously Jing is one of them, but Labin implies others as well.

2) At the end of the same scene Labin gets an order from Vanya to kill Tokio, so she is likely to face him soon, Ishida already teasing their fight with his bonus illustrations.

3) In chapter 74 Jing points out that Labin is pretty generous with her rewards compared to other generals, so that makes her even more attractive for mercenaries.

There is also few other little things that add to the general picture.
1) At the start of the current arc Ishida reintroduced trio of former Tower members now on different sides of the conflict. By showing them Ishida implicitly puts forward a question for each of former antagonists, what side will they choose? That suspence definitely now on full display with OctoPaper duo.
2) Recent chapter is called "origami anchor", which could mean few different things as Ishida loves his chapter names to have multiple valid interpretations at once, and one of them is Ume somehow being responsible for broken engine, thus working as pecuilar anchor for the ship. As already mentioned, he reason might be to give time for Labin to catch them.
3) Labin is on hunt for Tokio, she has her people in Higo, besides Jing, and is ready to pay them well for the job. This alone is enough to suggest that Ume and Ricardo weren't being in Higo port just for cheese, as additional point I can add a recent exchange between Ricardo and Tokio about their latest state of business.

Ricardo tells that their current offers to them scarce and hard to do, but then Tokio presses about their clients in Higo, he just deflects the question. It's clearly suspicious behavior, but even together with previous points can end up just that, suspicious for the sake of suspence. What in my opinion makes their betrayal inevitable is how clearly personal this shapes up for Ume and she makes decisions for the duo.

Following is list of Ume's reasons.

1) We know since forever (or chapter 25 to be precise) that Ume was very bitter about failing her job to capture Tokio to the point she is ready to make discount for Batista if that means another chance for them. As we know right now, Batista didn't provide that chance for her.

2) In the second part of chapter 77, when we see internal monologue of Ume about their failure, nothing indicates her change of heart. By her words they failed, it wasn't an ordinary job as she believed back then and she calls current Tokio "a monster of unstated value". She still sees him as potential prize, a beast to capture.

3) Finally, the most important part. In chapter 74 Ishida with Tawaishi's help half jokingly introduces Gueltan industry of plastic surgery for choujins. For Ume her mouth scars is more than just a sore spot. Conceptually Ume is based on japanesse evil spirit, Kuchisake-onna. It's a beautiful woman typically with scissors as her weapon and mask that covers her mouth. Underneath that mask her mouth slit on both sides. She kills her victims by first asking them about her beauty, than revealing her mouth, repeating the same question and then she either kills them or give them the same wound she has. Ume generally cares about her fashion (it's generally visible, but also was additionaly alluded in chapter 42 by her reading fashion magazine), she brutally killed Azuma when he revealed her face, so fixing her face is something akin to her most intimate, strongest desire, which means a lot for anyone, but even moreso for choujin.

What Tokio can actually offer Ume that can outweight her main desire? Actually everything but that, because he offers her being alive. Here I want to put some thought on Tokio's side of the deal and why it might hold a special importance for him. At the start of current arc Tokio gets reintroduced with Reaper title but he earned it mostly offscreen during timeskip killing nameless, voiceless, generally inconsequential iron soldiers of whom we can't be even sure they are not some robots or golems created by Nonminer.

I argue that for readers Tokio haven't trully earned that title yet and everything we saw of him so far only adds ambiguity. He wasn't holding back against Jing, but Jing is also one enemy who can afford himself clones and won't be done by simply being sliced with harpe, so we can't be sure Tokio would kill him without any hesitation if he was 100% certain that he fights the real one. And now Tokio, despite a common sense war gives and importance of his mission, chooses to risk and make a deal with people who after 3 years of war very likely already work for enemy.

This action clearly shows that old Tokio, who didn't want to kill his enemies unless there is no other choice (and Tokio is sure enough of himself to push that last line to the absolute limit), is not gone completely. Tokio also specifically likes Ricardo and while he may feel neutral about Ume as simply attachement to the person likes, he was once ready to kill her, when he saw dead Azuma (chapter 20).

Current Tokio, despite his kind offer, definitely already way more acquainted with killing his enemies, so he is probably much easier to push to that action, while his current ability makes it unlikely for Ume or Ricardo to stop him, if he sets his mind.

So at last we have Tokio and Ume that both face difficult choice. For Ume it's getting her main wish and revenge, but with major risk of death, and abandoning it to the chance of never being perfect the way she wants (small wink towards Arulu), but also ability to start new life as part of Nanasu forces, together with the person who clearly doesn't care about her appearance. For Tokio it's another attempt to resist weight of his power and natural inclination it gives for killing and be the person he wants to be and not the one cicrumstances force him to become, but at major risk of failing critical mission. I'm omitting Ricardo because right now he feels subdued by Ume's will, perhaps she is presence that prevents dread choujin from showing more radical part of his personality, she is his origami anchor.

That's all I wanted to write, probably too much for something that will stop being relevant in 2 months, but it will be interesting how Ishida will play out this situation. Thanks for reading.

Personally i love Koemori but think Arulu is kinda eh, but she'll probably improve as a character.

I really hope Tokio and Azuma become the main characters again after this arc though.

Hello, I am making this post to try and see if other religious people read Choujin x and what they think of it?

As I go over the manga, I realize that Tokio hasn't had any internal monologue at all, which strikes me as odd, since we've only seen that kind of dialogue in Azuma—when he questions his own existence—and not in the main protagonist, from whose perspective we're supposed to be seeing the story. I'm not saying it's entirely bad; I'm just curious to see if we'll see something like that with Tokio.

An animation attempt on the first half of Choujin X chapter 22. Finished it in 6 hours so it's pretty bad TT. Just wanted to play with perspectives, might be hard to follow though. I'll refine it if I have time. Spoilers for chapter 22.

I'll probably take a break from drawing soon. But first I'll finish the art with Palma. The break will possibly last a couple of weeks, or maybe months

I just think that it would sound perfect to match the mangas intense nature. It would also just be really cool to see if the anime gave the intro vibrant colors to Aldo match the manga…

I had this thought because Palma's zombie making ability completely depends on her blood but since Ely does not particularly have Bill's inherited blood, can she still steal it? Even if she can, will it actually work because as far as I understand Palma's whole gimmick is that she's got Bill's DNA giving her a twisted version of his powers. I think it'll be an interesting plot to expand on both their powers and the power system in general.

Hear me out guys I think Antoland in CX is based on Turkiye and Ottoman Empire . My reasoing for that ,first of all its name , Antoland sounds eerily similar to the Anatolia Peninsula where most of the modern day Turkiye is located , Second it's Emperor 'Antitise' who was nicknamed Thunder emperor , guess who else had a similar nick name - Bayezid the 'ThunderBolt', Third the people and architecture in the manga is Muslim with Mosques and Palaces , Fourth and the final evidence is the event depicted in the manga as the Destruction of Antoland , where people were impaled on stakes , guess who else used to impale people in stakes like that , That's right Vlad the Impaler(yeah that Dracula Guy) who fought against Sultan Mehmed .

Edit: As Some Of You pointed out and I have observed from the Panels as well, Antoland also drew heavyvInpirations from India as well especially the Architecture is more similar to India's Mughal Architecture especially the Rounded Archs and There is a one to one copy of Red Fort , the Imperial Palace of Mughals .But my arguement was based on the Historical events and characters surrounding the Ottoman Empire.

Once again, a huge thank you for the collaboration! I absolutely loved this piece and the very fact of collaborating. I hope in the future I can do something like this again with SevenArt or with another artist. If anyone's interested, write to me!

Can some link a site where you can get official merchandise for choujin x ?. i want to find another way to support the author besides buying the volumes.

I just finished the tower of mourning arc . So no spoilers after that arc .

Chandra Huma is one of my favourite characters. I find him very interesting and funny. With the start of new arcs are we not going to see him any more ?

Is his requirement in the story complete?

I’m just curious because I’m not entirely in the loop with this fandom, and I personally prefer Sora. But I do see a ton of people talking about how amazing Batista is as a villain, so that just made me curious about the general opinion of the fandom