Kengan Speed CRT: To bullet time or to not bullet time?

Well, lets get this done. Recently there has been a few issues raised with the speed ratings we have for the Kenganverse. Currently, the verse is Hypersonic based off this calc. However, as noted by the comments below, there are issues with the calc due to in-verse context.

The verse has 2 character/author statements, that bullet timing is not possible in the verse. Meaning that no fighter should even be supersonic by these statements.

However, there are a few feats that possibly contradict this. For example, the writers note that the tip of a whip can break the sound barrier and can't be dodged by normal humans, but then have Ohma reflect the tip with a technique mentioned above, which was done while he was weaker than he was EoS.

There is also Bando's Arm Whip feats, which are noted that they can't be seen by normal human eyes but can be heard by the loud boom followed by the Destruction. This point to the notion Bando's arm broke the sound barrier.

This is supported during Bando's fight with Hatsumi, where no one can tell what's going o and this think something is blowing up based on the sound and Destruction. By the way, Hatsumi was able to react to the attack and counteract it. Hatsumi was latter blitzed by another character.

Inaba was also straight up shown blocking bullets with his hair in a flashback

Another character, Muteba, is noted to have fought in wars without ever being shot. He also attacked a hijacked ship, which had armed combatants and was never hit.

Now, theres been some discourse on whether or not these feats should count. They can be summed up as follows:

For:

That is still putting pure statements above actual feats. The author is the mouthpiece through which the characters talk. If we disregard WoG when clear feats defy what is said, what other characters say should be no different. That has always been the case here unless the feats had something incongruous, which so far they haven't at all. Or rather, neither Kuroki nor Niko say any of the stuff in question about humans not comparing to bullets, that's purely narration text to provide context. You are telling me they can't react when Niko almost casually moves all the distance to intercept the bullet while having no problem keeping up with people on his level - not to mention his technique to deal with bullets has nothing to do with precog, just with realizing the path of the bullet.

Oh no, all we have are two instances of explanations, one of humans not being comparable to things like bullets (which is honest utter bullshit and empty when unarmed humans shouldn't be able to kill bear either and Wakatsuki casually destroyed a dude who could, or humans shouldn't be able to crack concrete with their bare hands without a single injury, this has never been about normal humans), and the second one is about dodging attacks that are quicker by acting first. That's... literally it. The second falls completely apart when Niko had to move as fast as the first bullet to even veer it off, the second is dubious at best since Kuroki could obviously perceive the bullet.

The issue here is nothing more that consistency and a sort of hierarchy. Feats come before narration, if consistency of feats is maintained, because authors are fallible and their intent not aligning with what is shown is very common. We are arguing the equivalent of saying the author is wrong because he thinks splitting a big mountain is a more impressive show of power thwn vaporizing a smaller but still big hill, which we know is objectively wrong if the hill is big enough and gives a big enough yield of energy. You'd have a bigger point if we were arguing the same thing but the character that vaporized the rock was hurt by much weaker attacks consistently, throwing the consistency of the vaped hill in question as an outlier.

The author talks about "humans can't compare to this" as an impossibility in the same series where a black mercenary can slip his hand inside your ribs and tap your heart to death, kids are mauled with hammers to make their bones like goddamn steel, the Fang creates whole ass special made martial arts in moments, a dude can extend his arms like whips to kill people, another fostered his muscles until he could push back against a Formula 1 car accelerating at full power, an assassin clan reinforce their hair until it can stop bullets and control it like extremities... stuff being beyond the realm of humans is half of this entire manga, if the fact that said statement about humans not comparing in speed is made right after a human quite obviously compares in speed to a bullet isn't refutation enough that there's no reason to take that statement seriously - feats above statements and all that.

Against:

My comment, however, was generally addressing the notion of scaling people in Kengan to being bullet-timing when they're all about prediction. It's, verbatim, not a bullet-timing verse, both by numerous explicit reaction speeds given to us by the author in objective narration, and by numerous reliable in-verse character statements

But no we aren't disregrading the explanations of the author here, we would be disregarding the explanations of the author and literally every major character in-verse. We are given objective data. We use objective data. If our calcs come out to something different, obviously we worked from flawed presumptions.

By any other presumptions leads us to ignoring Akoya having a scientifically-measured reaction time of 100ms, something that has on-panel feats to support, in lieu of saying he magically can have a reaction speed several dozen times that in a short timeframe. The same is true of Niko, Kuroki, Erioh, et all.

It's ludicrous to maintain Kengan is bullet timing in a verse where sub-100ms reactions are considered obscenely superhuman, and throwing out 4 strikes in 76ms (Akoya vs Haruo) or throwing out a dozen jabs in a breath (Gaolang's Flash), both feats which are considered absurd, would be rendered null and void by presuming they're hypersonic.

What, are they hypersonic for .0001 seconds at a time and then go back to their base physicals that the author gives us feats for?

I'm not trying to be hostile here, it's just the narrative consistently, at all possible moments, tells us mitigating context for any and every possible 'bullet-timing' feat in Kengan. The narrative wouldn't go out of its way this hard if it were simply meant to just be bullet-timing.

That is the current debate, as best as I cam sum it up at least. So, where should we go from here? This is an open thread to discuss the issues with the speed for the verse, but I would prefer if staff would provide insight. Please keep things civil and on task.

For:

Against:

I am for

I have to say that the Against side seems to be making more sense here.

I'm the progenitor of the Against side. As such, here's more context:

One of the only bullet dodges in Kengan has the person performing it immediately stating it's only possible due to noticing the moment it's going to be fired, not reacting post-firing

A fighter losing consciousness for 0.14 seconds is enough time for one of the fastest fighters in-series, albeit while injured, to pull off exactly one move . Note that this is the same fighter who 'reacts to a whip', yet he can only perform, explicitly, a single takedown on an opponent who wasnt paying attention for .14 seconds while in melee range.

Here is most of an entire chapter showing quite literally the second or third best fighter in the entire series fighting the world's best MMA fighter; they perform roughly 15 strikes/motions in a 34 second timeframe, explicitly

We are told, outright, by narration of one of the most skilled characters in-series that only prediction of a bullet's firing and its muzzle trajectory can be used to deflect, not react to but DELFECT bullets

The best reaction times in-series are stated to be 75 milliseconds, supported by said person being able to throw 4 strikes in a 76 millisecond timeframe and dodge a punch in a 78 millisecond timeframe. The doctor giving the reaction time statement is a man who can tell how much damage a man's heart is doing to their cardiovascular system simply by how irregularly fast it is beating, and is accurate in his assessment as such. The author uses him as objective medical data, and the fact that the series goes out of its way to give us an irl, accurate, peak human reaction time and stipulates that breaking it by barely 5 milliseconds is 'superhuman' tells us much, here, about the verse's speed.

An attack that lasts 100 milliseconds is actually one of the fastest fighter's trump cards

Of note is that the 'superhuman' reflexes guy, with 75ms reactions, explicitly can barely react to the aforementioned 100ms attack, making it perfectly consistent in-verse

So we have several statements that to dodge bullets you must know when it will be fired and know muzzle trajectory. We know that 100ms for an attack is impressive. We know that the fastest reflexes in the entire series are 75ms.

We also know that all these things are kept consistent with one another. Timeframes for fights, timeframes for attacks and openings, the author keeps these consistent. Paying attention to context is super important here.

As to the feats listed in the OP:

Inaba 'blocks' bullets with his hair, when the bullets are fired directly at his hair. It's literally one panel.

Muteba taking down armed pirates, off-screen, does not mean he's bullet-timing, that's absurdly weak.

Ohma 'reacting' to the tip of a whip doesn't mean anything since he had the entire wind-up to react to the whip's tip, and the fact that the author does not state for how long the tip exceeds the sound barrier (note: scientifically speaking, it only exceeds the sound barrier due to a loop in the whip accelerating to the end and 'snapping' it, a process which lasts milliseconds at most; so Ohma would have had to react only in that exact instant to be hypersonic).

The entirety of Bando Yohei is simply 'his arms disappear from sight'. Except, if his arms are supersonic, and they're disappearing from literally everyone's sight.....that's absurdly consistent with having reaction times beneath supersonic. And Hatsumi explicitly dodged by guessing where the blow was coming, the context for that entire fight was quite literally 'Hatsumi cannot dodge the strike, he has to guess at where it'll come from'.

Anyone who thinks Kengan is bullet-timing in the face of the entire series telling us otherwise is absurdly mistaken, or trying to blatantly and appallingly wank the series

Personally, I'm with Verlux here. Kengan is like OPM where the author isn't the artist. So inconsistent art with the dialogue makes sense to me, and the dialogue should hold more weight.

I feel like I've commented on this topic before, but if I haven't I'm 100% with Verlux against this.

Not to mention the calc in question isn't even of a bullet-timing feat, so there's that.

As much as I ******* love Kengan and has been following this discussion for a while, I have to go against.

NotoriouSoda said:

As much as I ******* love Kengan and has been following this discussion for a while, I have to go against.

Click to expand...

If you can't tell by how much I know the series well enough to pull every reelvant feat or know the context, I really love Kengan too. But I don't let my love for a series influence me to try and analyze it as higher than it is, and I appreciate you being the same!

I'll comment on my own later, at the moment that results impossible.

BUMP

Really sorry that I took so long, a lot of stuff mounted up.

So, to begin... Hanafuda is actually, like Xulrev said, a confiable resource on the series - This doesn't change the fact that he's utterly wrong.

Bando Yohei's arm whips are explicitlycompletely invisible and impossible to followto everyone. This is outright FTE, at worst. Among everyone in the stadium that isn't a top tier fighter, only Jerry Tiso could barely see what was actually happening. Terry is also absolute fodder, getting evaded by Ohma despite his unorthodox move and ability to quickly change directions and then even getting turned aside easilyafter Ohma takes his attacks a few times. This is Ohma before he regained any of his power and technique from the past, his absolute weakest. Why is this important? Not only even the weakest fighter in the tournament scales above Jerry, we are explicitly shown they can see it. Hanafuda even brings up here that the technique isn't too fast too evade or anything similar, it is just completely unorthodox and seeing it coming from Bando's posture would be really difficult even for an expert martial artis. As the cake on top, not only are we shown Hatsumi evading from up close and without moving out of the way before Bando throws his attack, but he also got struck directly on the head and avoided damage by making his body go limp.Bando explains it clearly, Hatsumi went limp the instant before impact and being even slightly off in timing would have been lethal if not certain death. Hatsumi even notes that it was a really close one, as he changed the course of his attack right before it landed. Hatsumi also doesn't have Pre-Initiative, Motionlessness, or however you may want to call Kanoh's and Kuroki's technique where they predict the next move of the opponent and move before them, not that knowing before hand would have ever helped Hatsumi since he had to go limp the instant before impact, and you don't do that with a blow coming over your head just because you know it's coming.

And Hatsumi doesn't have super reflexes like Cosmo and Akoya, and 75 milliseconds would already make this impossible against a FTE attack, unless I am wrong and I wouldn't mind being told how.

Now, for Niko... there's a lot of issues. First one? Niko is nowhere near Ohma after he fell from the building and is never shown moving closer to him even after the Mob Boss pulls out his gu, so everything indicates he moved after the shot, yet still diverts it. I doubt nobody can notice the movement lines in both his arm and his entire body, indicating he did indeed move. So then we get told about seeing the trajectory of the gun and evading it making diverting bullets in theory, blah blah blah, everything painting it as bullets are much faster than humans, despite the feat above. Problem is... that is impossible with how Flowing Edge, the technique Niko used to deflect the bullets, works. Flowing edge works by diverting a blow by means of applying power to it's side, which we also get told in chapter 48.5 when Niko uses the technique. "Pushed away at the moment of impact with the hard bone", which unless I am wrong, is not something Niko could ever achieve by just knowing the bullet's trajectory. He would need to react at the exact moment of impact to slightly divert the bullet, no matter how well he could know it's trajectory. Even worse, the top of the page talking about humans not comparing to a bullet is showing movement speed, not even actually talking about reactionary speeds, as shown by the illustration of the top speed of a cheetah and a racing car.

Now as an add on, one of the scenarios that would be most impossible in the series with the speeds hinted at by Doctor Hanafuda. Muteba Gizenga attacks pirates in a ship with cargo, landing alone, in an open space and with nothing nearby to act as cover , not even with equipment on him and in front of the armed pirates. At no point we are shown Muteba moving, even after hegets aimed at by all of the pirates and they start firing. And if you care to notice, there are at least 2 to 4 different assault rifles in there, a minigu, and even a sawed off shotgun all aimed at him. I see no amount of bullet timing, no matter how unreal Muteba's senses are, dealing with that much ordenance, especially when we are shown him in the same spot with no cover as they all go crazy shooting at him with multiple automatic weapons and at least 8 armed people, not with less than subsonic speeds. He also didn't deal with this right away, the combat lasted at least more than a minute , so this isn't some "oh he likely killed them right away so they weren't firing much".

So all these and others, like Kuroki apparently being able to perceive the bullet fired at him even without anticipating it, Inaba (who also has no technique for anticipating moves like Kuroki or Kanoh or super senses like Muteba) blocking bullets from a Tommygun in short range with his hair, etc... I don't really care about getting hypersonic, but I would be flabbergasted if anyone saw all of this and seriously believed fighters can't react at even, and again this is a lowball just going off Bando's arms going invisible, FTE.

i'm for

Akoya, Koruki and Rei calculated feats aren't debunked yet and saying Muteba or Inaba aren't faster than bullets doesn't make sense. Muteba and Inaba have's precognition and in order to deflecting and dodging something you need to having relative speed. only knowing direction of something isn't enough for deflecting or dodging that. based on this logic i can dodge or deflect machine gun's bullets by knowing their direction?

also in order to deflecting bullets Niko in "exact moment" hardened his muscles, reacted to bullets, touched and deflected them.

Oddly enough, literally nothing that was just posted does anything remotely, whatsoever, to discredit my entire argument.

It boils down to 'Well if we ignore all the evidence that Kengan isn't bullet-timing, it's likely that it can be bullet-timing'.

The consistency of the statements and context is too overwhelmingly solid to simply dismiss.

As to calcs: the Kuroki calc is unusable since we know he explicitly was predicting the bullet, and moving before it was fired. My own Rei calc was denied at face value for being more likely subsonic.

Akoya's calc was pointed out to have factual contextual errors, making the presumptions erroneous.

The very fact that reliance upon off-screen feats and headcanon to support bullet timing (the entirety of Muteba's feats, Inaba's single panel of having bullets fired right at his hair) should speak volumes for itself, realistically.

Any conclusions made here?

But it actually does. Hanafuda's words lose meaning when Hatsumi isn't even comparable to Cosmo and Akoya, yet he perceives and close range dodges an at least FTE attack. It doesn't matter that he "sees it coming", he's moving at comparable speeds. Which would be impossible even with the reactionary speeds of Akoya, who is above him.

No Xulrev, is like "we are told something, and then shown something completely different, which happens all the time in verses".

Not actually. Hatsumi by himself casts Hanafuda's words into question, and the entire mechanic by which Flowing Edge works makes it completely useless unless Niko can react to the bullets regardless of reading their trajectory.

Akoya? Contextual errors? The only that were ever brought up was the series being questionably capable of bullet timing.

Yes, and it is realistically laughable to say Muteba's feat and the context given would ever make it possible with the speeds you are suggesting. Off-screen? A direct drawing of Inaba blocking bullets from a Tommy Thompson at close ranges? An on-screen showing of Niko keeping up with a bullet. An on screen showing of Hatsumi reacting and dodging an at least FTE attack, two times even as he had to make his body muscles limp the instant before impact with his head despite Bando suddenly changing the angle of his blow at the last moment?

I'll be honest. The light of ridicule under which you are placing all of this pretty solid evidence is getting absurd.

I'm for on this. I'm not convinced and there's too many feats going against the anti-status.

For the record, so far the consensus sides with me, and every Staff so far in the thread has agreed to be AGAINST Kengan bullet timing.

But beyond that:

Hatsumi is faster than Cosmo, I've no clue why you think he isn't. Hatsumi is casually faster than Ohma in Advance, Cosmo got mogged by base Ohma with recovered memories.

Hatsumi also explicitly could only predict Bando's attacks due to having foreknowledge of how they work, ordinary fighters can still see the movements but think it's an optical illusion due to not figuring out the technique, something that Katahara Metsudo, a 96 year old man, explicitly points out, and again, Hatsumi is literally reading the moves beforehand .


The rest simply isn't worth going in circles over: the narration and explanation of the explicit techniques tells us that the verse is not bullet timing, and it's consistent, and even shows us through feats what Akoya's reaction times are at, and he's the fastest reaction time in-verse.

Consensus is even. Staff is on your side to clarify. I can't spend time here either but to point out.


On Hatsumi. Having foreknowledge helps. But there's a limit to it. Hatsumi himself is only slightly aware that it can be done once. And even if he was just charging in, Bando still attacked him. Even if you argue that he's only predicting Bando, he was still able to move from the position where Bando attacked him, straight into an attack. Meaning he was able to move as fast as Bando's attack can extend.

C160

https://s2.********.org/data/17af5f9ad57b1d50b5bbd7a892491d2d/q16.png

https://s2.********.org/data/17af5f9ad57b1d50b5bbd7a892491d2d/q17.png

https://s2.********.org/data/17af5f9ad57b1d50b5bbd7a892491d2d/q18.png

Not only did Hatsumi close the distance. He had to step on the ground, turn around, and attack. If he was predicting the attack and is slower, he would still be hit by the virtue of being too slow to move out of the way since Bando himself is doing the predicting.


This is the same effect as Ohma's master getting in between the path of a bullet for Ohma. This is a feat that cannot be done by mere prediction.


This is also heavily consistent with the fact that there are literal speed feats for Ohma with supersonic level. The Black bodyguard, which is mook class for most people, is on that level for Ohma. And it's implied he can go faster than that attack and go toe to toe with him at the end of Round 1.

Not only that, the Cosmo that was slower than Ohma is the same Cosmo that's incredibly injured to the point that it's a heavy emphasis. It is true that Ohma himself is injured, but that's not such an anti-feat to Cosmo. Cosmo himself is able to dodge whatever that Worm fellow was doing in one instance which further backs up the speed feat.

And those Worm fellows are quite potent, being able to oneshot the Black guards that are at base minimum, Supersonic.

It's heavily consistent barring the conflict with author. There are far too many feats to ignore.


Though there are circumstances where the narrator repeatedly enforce that this cast is not faster than what they can do... There are also contradictions that exist where we have to ditch the limits enforced by the author.

The rest are worth going over if they're worth it.


Anyway that's what I can say for now. Too busy to keep up here I'm afraid, but if this goes or not, I honestly don't think I'd get bummmed about this lol. Speed equalized is a thing after all

Bonus - On examples

The whip thing is something you're making more complex than it seems. It's not necessary and I'm sure the author means to convey it's supersonic. That's about it. Any of what you said would've been likely explained by narration like anyhing else that required more than just being faster.


Your first example of bullet dodge is not necessary with our old men Kurei when he was younger. It's performed by two characters way into the past. Their scaling is irrelevant to the current cast

That was it. It was injury. Not only was Ohma injured, Raian was faster and stronger by a large degree. The set up for the move was necessary. It's no different than Zeldris losing consciousness in SDS for a second and being attacked by Lucodiel. The injury part is what downscales this one.

The match between top MMA boi and Fang doesn't mean they're immediately going at their peak speed. In other franchises we don't have to count every single motion of a character and assume that they aren't faster than supersonic or such if they don't perform that many moves in that specific timeframe.

Contradicted by the narration fading out as if to say it was rejected. It's also contradicted by the fact that the character is standing a good distance away and not close to the path of the bullet. They'd have to cross the same distance as the bullet to even reach and deflect it, and from how the panels are set up, it's clear that he wasn't moving closer during the entire talk.

C48.5

https://s2.********.org/data/97ce5d5849d47ffb4c3fee2ede37e03e/27.png

https://s2.********.org/data/97ce5d5849d47ffb4c3fee2ede37e03e/28.png

https://s2.********.org/data/97ce5d5849d47ffb4c3fee2ede37e03e/29.png

https://s2.********.org/data/97ce5d5849d47ffb4c3fee2ede37e03e/30.png

He didn't just calculate and predict. He calculated and moved.


I don't see the doctor's analysis as being different than Baki where the 0.5 consciousness was used to bale the limits of people in a research paper. Though there is a great degree of accuracy here, it's not the first time that 'Ceilings' for feats are set up and then broken. This one's the hardest to counter though and is your strongest backing.

However, to imply that if he's an expert at detecting irregularities in a body means he's a safe check for anyone faster than him is false. He was beaten by Bando who's technically the minimum for everyone's reaction speed to react to. Also, Bando's potency comes more from his reach of attack rather than his speed and how no one can expect that attack initially.

Back on topic, the doctor himself says the supposed speed limits is on that level. And the reaction level he's seeing is from Base Akoya, the one who doesn't go berserk and gets even stronger and more dangerous than his current form. He's not a good speed feat measurer in that case.


I'll combine these feats together. Hiyama was about to send a signal to Akoya. Akoya is not at his best when he's fighting with Hiyama but at this mode, he's able to at least non-lethally take out his opponents. Even at this speed he was just able to barely reach Cosmo. Cosmo himself is as you say limited on that time factor. But further on into the series he himself is able to improve and better his capabilities.

The details when first describing Cosmo's ZONE is also countered by the fact that most fighters take less than a second to attack, examples being literally Akoya, the Beard and the Fang who have both been able to keep up each other to the end when Fang was shaving off miliseconds off his moves to become even faster. This doesn't mean that Cosmo is literally limited to that ability.


Bonus Bonus - all of this takes place in Kengan Ashura, and Kengan Omega is quite the timeskip to that. We haven't had much speed feats yet but everyone's been getting stronger so you might see some big feats there.

Phew this was a lot to type in. I can't allocate anymore time than this, but I'm strongly for the keeping of the speed feats.

I'm gonna write this on a second reply since I forgot to ref this

C225,

https://s2.********.org/data/2acdf99882afb736e05de73baa7ceaf6/D20.png?t=1581059350253

https://s2.********.org/data/2acdf99882afb736e05de73baa7ceaf6/D21.png?t=1581059352730

Though only a few miliseconds are shaved off, isn't that easily Supersonic level reactions wise? Not only that, both would have to be able to react to each other to pull defense and offense off of each other. Even if Gensai was overwhelmed, it doesn't change the fact that he's adapted very quickly. And even without the miliseconds being shaved off, it doesn't change the implication that they were already on that level of reaction levels.

A lot of your scans aren't opening for me Ciruno, but something that sticks out to me as hilarious:

You're arguing that the author's intent for the whip, via narration boxes, is support of supersonic reaction times.

Just.....let that sink in for a second, in context of this debate, and hopefully you'll see why you're wrong

Weird. But ah well, that's why I have the backup of the Chapters and the pages at the end (D20 meaning Page 20, D21 meanig Pg21)

Nah it's simple.

If it really was something special like saying "It wasn't because he was faster. It was because he was precognitioning." It would be similar to literaly the Gensai bullet feat and the situation of Niko blocking the bullet. Both however are contradicted by the fact that each feat is performed with the character moving faster than said bullet due to more distance being covered. The narration's intent was to show off prediction, yet fails to even suit that.

On the other hand, if the supersonic whip feat which would be easily comparable to a bullet was simply put not explained. As if the narrator was going "That's because everyone can react to it easily."

That's all there is to it.

Besides, your literal arguments are based on narration boxes. I don't see what makes mine invalid without making yours invalid (Don't you also rely on narration on some of your arguments?). If there was something else similar to what you're explaining like the speed reaching that level at the peak, and by that point Ohma being able to react, then yes I would agree with you. It would be Ohma predicting.

But no it's just him reacting.

So I'm arguing for the lack of your explanation or you making it more complex than needed. Occam's Razor really.

C160, page 16 to 18. C 48.5 Page 27 to 30. C225 Pg 20 to 21

For the links

Since it was simple to defend the point that's all I can do for now. Really big projects and all, someone else take the helm for me

The point is that the primary disagreement here is that the author's intent and objective narration (MY argument) is being dismissed wholesale to entertain the ludicrous notion of bullet timing, yet one of the main staples of the PRO argument is......author's intent and objective narration being accurate because it just-so-happens to align with what is believed.

I actually have given a dismissal of that feat based in physics, for the record. None exists for all of my evidence for my side of the argument.

It's a double-standard that the PRO side has to maintain, which is ipso facto giving my own evidence validation.

You couldn't have brought up a more unimportant subject as the agreement of the staff. None of us had posted our points before hand, unlike you, and they haven't come since then, of course they are still in agreement with you.

Something I do find hilarious, Xul, is that you keep talking and using author's intent as if it an all or nothing tool. It isn't. Author's intent has relevance, as do statements, when they are not outright contradicted. Just because we don't take the statements as factual in one instance because outright feats show this as wrong, it doesn't suddenly mean all statements are null and void and nonexistent, specially the ones that have nothing contradicting them. Unless you wanna say anything about the whip statement had shown anything contradictory that would rule it as false...? No? Exactly.

Author intent fails in the face of your argument because the author is as fallible as anyone, and he could perfectly believe the speeds he lists are perfectly okay and make the feats he showcases possible. They do not. Your over emphasizing of "you are using intent while discrediting intent" is getting outright irritating and lacking in any relevance when at no point was it ever said you either believe all statements or the intent of all scenes, or yoy believe none.

That's something you've said and sticken to, no one else. And assuming your points remain wholly more concise is acting like everyone else is also sticking with you on this opinion, which is wholly untrue. You'd be surprised to find statements, like everything else here, is mostly taken in a case-to-case, isolated basis. Look no further than pokemon lore statements, were a vast amount are accepted as usable information while some are discarded as unreliable or outright proved wrong by other feats. The statements aren't accepted or rejected wholesale, they are considered one by one.

I think Xulrev makes sense.

Sigurd Snake in The Eye said:

I think Xulrev makes sense.

Click to expand...

What part makes you say that, Sigurd? I wanna see if there's anything I may have missed.

Well based off his scans and what the op posted it doesn't seem such a feat is possible or even intended within the context of the verse at least from what I understand.

Have you seen what I posted as well? As we do have Hatsumi outright evading and reacting to an at least FTE speed attack, which I am not sure should be possible with 75 milliseconds of reaction speed. Granted, he doesn't scale to that reaction as he is below Akoya in reactions, and that statement refers to Akoya.

Hmmm interesting threads, both sides make some very valid arguments so I'll chime in with my own two cents here. I'm currently leaning towards the pro bullet timing side for a few main reasons.


1: The first statement coming from the anti bullet dodging side is from chapter 49.8, it's very possible that it could have been retconned and that's kinda contradicted within the same chapter. Ohma tackled the Yakuza member out of a building where Ohma was about to get shot by the one who was outside the building. Niko was nowhere to be seen, at least anywhere near Ohma and the thugs at the time the bullet was shot. And it's not necessarily atated that it's entirely impossible, just that humans can hardly come close to matching it. It's also worth noting the Kengan fighters are far stronger and faster than a normal humam, so bullet dodging shouldn't be necessarily impossible for most Kengan fighters.


2: The next statement has a little bit more weight to it. The statement is coming from chapter 199, but there's some slight issues with this statement, I.E Niko already proved that statement isn't necessarily true that bullet dodging is impossible. I'm also not entirely convinced the statement from this chapter is meant to be taken as the speed of the bullet. "How do you stop an attack that has already been fired?" that doesn't necessarily strike me as soley as a gunshot, but other attacks. Jabs that are too quick to react to, kicks, etc. This one definitely holds a lot more weight to it than the one in chapter 48.9


3: Regarding Kuroki's bullet dodging feat, this takes place when he was much younger and not as skilled in his usage of Motionless. As for the enitre feat being dismissed due to the prediction i wouldn't agree with that. Given the distance and the fact that Kuroki had to lift and heavy jar of sand and place it in front of the bullet before it could tag him makes me believe that he would have needed to have speeds relative to the rifle. Prediction is neat and all but that doesn't increase your speed.


4: There are quite a few Whip feats in Kengan, durning the attack in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament to overtake it, Ohma, Cosmo and Gaolong dodged several Whip Strikes by the 3rd strongest member of the group that attacked. ( could be making a mistake on his ranking but it was top 5.) while also using Possessing Spirit, which is a 4x amp. I'd imagine someone who's already much stronger, faster and durable than ordinary humans while using Possessing Spirit would be capable of attacking with said whip at subsonic speeds, and Gaolong, Ohma and Cosmo could dodge them. It's essentially Bando's arguments but with more supportive evidence to it.


Also I'm not sure about using "author intent." as an arguement for either side. I'm pretty positive this wiki uses Death of the Author which removes such things, unless it's a direct statement from the Author it shouldn't be used as an arguement for either side here.


Ultimately I'm mostly neutral on this but i lean more towards the pro side. But I'd suggest using the same format as Spiderman's Spidey Sense works. Spidey and several other precognition users have a separate rating for their speed with their form of precognition / Analytical Prediction. In a case like this if a conclusion can't be reached then I'd say keep the current ratings but with "via foresight." or soemthing along those lines.

As far as I understand and have seen, we do practice Death of the Author but not in it's entirety. The author's intent and statements have weight, the issues is when they clash with what is actually shown to us. Which was my main issues with that as an argument, as the Hatsumi feats by themselves cast heavy doubt in the characters not even being subsonic, which is a good deal above the reaction speeds Hanafuda mentioned, and those statements are for Akoya, who you should know is the fighter that everyone in the tournament keeps mentioning for his inhuman reaction speeds so everyone is comparable or below him.

My other issue is just the incessant to our use of statements or author intent by Xulrev, which I find really weird since denying the use of statements in an scene if they are outright contradicted by what happens doesn't suddenly mean the statements of another scene can't be used, as long as they aren't similarly contradicted. Nothing contradicts the statement about whips, or about Bando's arms being invisible to people, or about Flowing Edge working by applying power to the side of an attack which would require, in the first place, being able to react to the attack to push on it at the moment of impact, which is exactly what Niko is doing with the bullets.

Otherwise, we would need to assume that Niko isn't just predicting the bullet's trajectory, but at what moment they will come into contact with the back of his hand so he can push them away. Which is said nowhere. Predicting the exact moment the bullet is gonna be fired also doesn't help, that doesn't let him predict at what instant the bullet would be impacting the back of his hand.

The Prince of Counters said:

But I'd suggest using the same format as Spiderman's Spidey Sense works. Spidey and several other precognition users have a separate rating for their speed with their form of precognition / Analytical Prediction. In a case like this if a conclusion can't be reached then I'd say keep the current ratings but with "via foresight." or soemthing along those lines.

Click to expand...

I find this to be a good alternative if we can't get anywhere in this discussion

1. Bando's arms are physically visible on-scree for every feat involving his arm 'whips', for the record, and Hanafusa points out that it simply appears to be an optical illusio , so it's odd to rely on the statements that they're invisible to ordinary people when we can clearly see them moving on-panel in every instance (sound like a familiar argument?)

2. You don't need to move as fast as a bullet to predict its path and make it hit your bone at an angle and deflect, excuse me but what on earth is this argument? He impacts the bullet with his moving arm at a precise point, that in no way means he must be moving remotely as fast as the bullet.

3. Niko explicitly predicts the trajectory of the angle of fire as well as when it will be fired, so yes, he's actually predicting where he needs to place his hand to have it come into contact with his hand.

Of course we can see them, as we are seeing things from the perspective of the people that can understand what is going on. This is your weakest argument so far. Hanafusa's comment is about his arms actually extending, instead of it just being an optical illusion. If we are seeing Dragon Ball for the fights, why would we see it the way Bulma, a fodder, would see it? A bunch of blurs moving all around from beginning to end. We wouldn't, we see this for the fights. Is this you literally saying bullcrap because you wanna keep driving our disagreements with your statements like it means something? Using all statements or no statements is not a thing, get that through your head.

That is also a terribly bad argument. Both the Kuroki - Ohma fight and the chapter where Niko deflects the bullets mention applying power to the side at the moment of impact, not leaving your hand in there and letting the bullet/punch deflect on it's own. Unless you are saying Kuroki is so worthless he can't circumvent a half dying dude putting his arms at an angle from his strikes.

This is irrelevant. I literally pointed out neither of those things would tell you when the bullet would impact the back of the hand.

1. Proof that we are seeing things from the perspective of those who can see what is going on?? That's coming from nowhere, unironically.

2. The fighters disappear from sight, outright, all the time in Dragonball and Bulma comments on it as such.

3. Yeah, they're impacting the bullet by putting it in the path of the bullet. They're not reacting to the impact, they're doing the prediction so that they intercept it at a particular point and deflecting it. This doesn't actually negate anything I say.

4. Raian Kure is literally one of the fastest people in-verse and can't react to a hand-crossbow up close , just additional information for my side of the argument. If Kengan fighters were supersonic, I find it EXCEPTIONALLY hard to believe that one of the top fighters would be incapable of reacting to a hand-crossbow draw and fire from a couple meters away

It is not. It's pretty logical, why the heck would we see a fight we don't understand? You would need to prove we are being shown things from the perspective of a normal human being.

And we are shown their movemenets without any disappearing a lot, all the time, with people commenting that they can see nothing and can't keep up. Why would we assume what we are shown is the same as what the normal people see? We don't, so what you are doing is a poor man's attempt at my argument.

Sure, prove that. Despite the description directly describing it as applying power to the side.

Perfect, an actually legitimate anti-feat. Was that so hard? Granted, there's the issue of why the dude with the attack obviously faster then Raian missed hitting literally any vital area despite being so close, and despite obviously being incredibly skillful.

It's not unheard of for someone being invisible being......invisible. Or an attack to have simply the effect of it shown.

I don't have to prove that Niko deflects the bullet with his bone when that's.....what occurs. His bone impacts the bullet at an angle. That pushes it to the side.

But yeah, the guy didn't hit any vital area cuz it was a hip-fire draw and shoot. Hip firing is immensely inaccurate as-is, and firing on the draw is even doubly-so inaccurate, combined with firing on a moving target. Makes perfect sense he simply landed a shoulder shot.

If someone of Raian's speed and ability can be hit with a hand-crossbow, in addition to all other factors I have presented, I think there's enough doubt to dispel this entire motion of bullet-timing.

Considering Raian's playstyle of literally going through anything with raw power and not use any techniques, I doubt he'd be the dodging type to be honest. He literally took all of Ohma's strikes and refused to use any techniques.

Not gonna contest the other feats since I think I'm misunderstanding them.

Also, to be honest? I do agree with you Xulrev the importance of trusting a narrator's defining statements. Repeatedly they can reinforce a statement. But at the same time even if we rely on the values given by an author, it's never usually the ceiling. The ceiling can always be breached and as realistic as Kengan can be, and as consistent the narration can be by the author themselves, their own messages can be in conflict and be in the wrong. Proven by Niko himself when he 'did the impossible' and deflected the bullet.

And even with the bone deflection- he still needed to actually move his body at the right angle after moving that distance in order to reach the bullet's path in the first place. A wrong timing with such an attack would've just got him shot and likely still get Ohma injured.


Heck in OPM we have a case where people were temporarily nerfed because of WoG claiming a building's feat was a threat to most A class heroes. Yet they're back to their current selves now because of a higher number of feats. Same with Baki on their 0.5 consciousness. Those two however are bigger verses compared to Kengan, but even Kengan has their own fair share of impressive calcs.


Also... The main staple is simple...

The other Pro-Precognition only feats about bullet timing are described, but are contradicted by actaul feats

Meanwhile the other Literal Supersonic feat that exists in the author's works, is not really inconsistent.

Bar those inconsistencies with that, the side of supersonic feats are the ones that win out in terms of higher sconcret existence.

I do not NEED the author's intention for backing from that whip feat. It literally is the whip feat being just that fast.


Can you clarify on the dismissal of that feat in physics section? What happened exactly?

Nah not really. It's just a contradiction of 3 big 'statements' from the artist and author.


And another big conflict... This is a major one. If the pics don't load, use the chapter section. C199, Pg 14 - Pg 18

https://s2.********.org/data/5ef953ccb057e77f234960cbe7a0bda3/B14.png

https://s2.********.org/data/5ef953ccb057e77f234960cbe7a0bda3/B15.png

https://s2.********.org/data/5ef953ccb057e77f234960cbe7a0bda3/B16.png

https://s2.********.org/data/5ef953ccb057e77f234960cbe7a0bda3/B17.png

https://s2.********.org/data/5ef953ccb057e77f234960cbe7a0bda3/B18.png

No matter how much one can predict the enemy, they have to have a semblance of their speed to be able to react. Here, Gensai was indeed using foresight. But at the same time, there is no way for someone to move that fist in front of Rei to block him, if they are not even close to the level of speed.

And those might be supersonic booms. His speed has been described as lightning fast and too fast for many to see so that might be an anti-feat. Evne then I'm not gonna argue for MHS Rei lol, would be great.


So... I think there's a possibility that maybe.. Combat speed wise everyone is Supersonic but its their reactions that are lacking. That's another theory I got. That's one argument we can take lol.

Xulrev said:

-snip-

Click to expand...

When you are putting into doubt what the audience says because you seem to have a bone to pick with me saying statements can be disregarded and using the unsupported assumption of the audience seeing what we are seeing, I doubt that matters.

Yes, you do have to prove the technique doesn't work the way it's described. I don't know in what world "applying power to the side" means keeping static. Unless you think a fist really veers off course because you put the side of your arm on the way.

On the draw? You see the crossbow is already out in the panel right before, and these guys are inhumanly skilled.

I'm staying out of this for neutrality reasons, but theres one thing I have to say:

Claiming Bando's arm whip isn't even subsonic because "we can see it on the page" is a whack argument. By that logic, no speed feat in any visual media ever is above athletic human because "we can see them." Plus, it confirmed that just about every spectator in the stadium, a few yakuza and even a few fighters couldn't even see what was going on. Hatsumi, who can outpace casually Ohma, a guy with solid FTE feats, needed prior knowledge to just barely dodge the attack.

Granted, the barely dodging is more of an issue of unpredictability. Like Hanafusa mentions, you don't expect a dude's arm to come out flying at you, much less by his posture, so you are just taken by surprise and don't see it coming.

Yeah, there's also the Okubo vs Fang fight which honestly makes me think of DBZ. A character doesn't have to represent the exact top limits of their speed and strength to show off they can do said amount of feats.

I'd be usually on the side of narrators in these type of arguments but for Kengan there are just too many contradictions