Every ability in Hunter x Hunter runs on the same fuel. Nen is the life energy that leaks out of every living person, and the whole power system is what you can do with it once you learn to control it. There are six answers, and yours is decided at birth.
That is why a trickster whose aura behaves like gum, a boy who turns his into electricity and a man who binds his enemies in chains can share a fight and obey the same rules. Here is how the rules work, what the spider tattoo's numbers are for, and where each idea ends up on our own Hunter x Hunter collection.
The four principles
Before the six types there are four techniques, and everything else is built on them. Ten keeps aura wrapped around the body instead of letting it drift off. Zetsu shuts the flow off entirely, which hides your presence and leaves you unprotected. Ren pushes out far more aura than the body normally produces. Hatsu is the personal expression: the specific ability a user builds out of the other three.
The six Nen types
The six categories are drawn as a hexagon, and the drawing is the point. Enhancement sits at the top: strengthening the natural qualities of the body or an object, which is Gon charging the rock of his Jajanken. Transmutation, beside it, changes the properties of aura itself, so Killua's aura carries an electric charge and Hisoka's Bungee Gum has the properties of both rubber and gum. Emission, on the other side, fires aura away from the body. Conjuration turns aura into a physical thing, which is how Kurapika's chains and Shizuku's vacuum cleaner exist. Manipulation controls people, animals or objects. Specialization holds everything that fits nowhere else, including the book Chrollo uses to steal abilities.
Position matters: a user learns the categories beside their own with reasonable efficiency and the ones further round with progressively less. Specialization is generally only within reach of Conjurers and Manipulators, whose types sit beside it.
Hisoka carries most of the Transmuter artwork in our range: the Bungee Gum two-sided tee, the Bungee Gum hoodie, and the Trickster Joker tee and hoodie.
Transmuter pieces
The Water Divination test
A student learns their type with a glass of water. A leaf floats on the surface, the student cups their hands around the glass and performs Ren, and the water reacts. If the volume rises and overflows, the student is an Enhancer. If the taste changes, a Transmuter. If the color changes, an Emitter. If something solid appears in the water, a Conjurer. If the leaf moves, a Manipulator. Anything else marks a Specialist.
Wing runs it on Gon and Killua at Heavens Arena: Gon's glass overflows across the table, and Killua's water turns sweet. It says nothing about strength, only which direction to train in.
The Phantom Troupe spider
The Phantom Troupe is a company of thieves from Meteor City, a dump whose people have no records and no country. There are thirteen members. Twelve carry a number from one to twelve, and Chrollo Lucilfer, the head, is zero. Every member wears the same tattoo: a twelve-legged spider with their number inside it.
The numbers are positions, not ranks. Chrollo's rule is that the spider is the whole and no single leg matters, including the head; a dead member's number passes to their replacement. Nobunaga is one, Feitan two, Machi three, Phinks five, Shalnark six, Franklin seven, Shizuku eight, Pakunoda nine, Bonolenov ten, Uvogin eleven, Kortopi twelve. Hisoka held four without ever really belonging, and the number later passed to Kalluto Zoldyck.
Two abilities define the Troupe visually. Shizuku's Nen vacuum cleaner swallows anything non-living, which is how the Troupe empties a vault. Chrollo's book holds abilities stolen from other users under strict conditions. The spider is on the Troupe Skull Spider tee and the vacuum is the artwork on the Phantom Vacuum tee.
Kurapika's five chains
Kurapika is the last of the Kurta, a clan whose eyes turn scarlet under strong emotion and whose eyes were taken by the Troupe when the clan was wiped out. He is a Conjurer, and his Hatsu is a set of chains that materialize from the fingers of his right hand, one per finger, each with its own job.
The thumb carries the Holy Chain, which heals. The index finger carries Chain Jail, which binds a target and forces them into Zetsu so they cannot use Nen. The middle finger carries the Dowsing Chain, used to find things and to catch lies. The ring finger carries the Judgment Chain, a blade that pierces the heart and imposes a rule; break it and the heart is crushed. Much later he adds a chain on the little finger that steals abilities.
The part that defines him is the cost. Chain Jail works because he swore it would only ever be used on Troupe members, on pain of his own death, and that severity is where its strength comes from. When his eyes turn scarlet he becomes a Specialist with full use of all six types, paying with his own lifespan for every second it lasts. He drives the Judgment Chain into Chrollo with two conditions, no Nen and no contact with the Troupe, and that one act reshapes the rest of the story.
The chains are on the Chain Oath tee, the Chain Jail two-sided tee and a second two-sided tee built around the Judgment Chain; the eyes are the subject of the Scarlet Chains two-sided tee and the Last Survivor tee.
Scarlet Chains pieces
Godspeed
Killua was raised by the Zoldyck family of assassins, and part of that upbringing was being shocked with electricity until it stopped hurting. When he becomes a Transmuter that history gives him his Hatsu: his aura takes on the properties of electricity. Godspeed is the refinement of it.
It has two modes. Whirlwind sets his body to react automatically to anything that moves against it, with the response decided in advance so his own thinking never slows him down. Speed of Lightning is the deliberate version, where he chooses the movement and the charge carries it faster than muscle could. The charge is finite, and once spent he has to recharge from an outside source.
It is the most drawn ability in our range. The Godspeed Charge, Thunder Step and Volt Vein tees each take a different moment of it; there is a Lightning Aura hoodie, a Divine Speed hoodie and Godspeed Blitz sweatpants, and the Exam Number 99 tee takes its name from the badge Killua wore through the Hunter Exam.
Godspeed pieces
How this translates onto cloth
Nen is invisible in the story, so the artwork that survives on a garment is the artwork of its side effects: a spider with a number in it, a chain, a bolt of lightning, a hand holding a card. Those are shapes, and shapes hold up on a chest or a back.
Every piece linked above is printed with a bonded matte finish on garment-washed cotton, so the artwork sits flat against the cloth rather than shining under direct light. Where a design sits is stated on each product page.
Measurements for every size are published on the sizing page rather than left to a generic S, M, L chart, and the whole set is in the Hunter x Hunter collection.
Read next: the Uchiha eyes make a useful comparison with the Scarlet Eyes in Naruto symbols explained, and cursed energy is the closest thing another series has to Nen in Jujutsu Kaisen domains, shikigami and cursed energy.
Torazen designs are independent fan-inspired work — not affiliated with or endorsed by the rights holders. Character and series names are used to describe what the artwork refers to.