Welcome to the first edition of my blog series "Put Respect on that Name," where I will try and shine some light on some underrated characters or verses that deserve more respect. I figured the best character to kick off this series should be none other than Shaiapouf, the severely underrated and generally disrespected Royal Guard.
I never really understood the unjustified downplay of Pouf's combat abilities. I've seen people claim he is BY FAR the weakest of the Royal Guards or that people like Chrollo would stomp him, both of which I don't think are true in the slightest.
The first thing to takeaway from Pouf is that he is not a conventional fighter. He is not like a Youpi or Uvogin in that regard. He is a trickster at heart, preferring to play mindgames with his opponents. We saw this best with Morel, where he was able to outsmart Morel, one of the most seasoned and experienced Hunters the Hunter Association had ever produced. In fact, Morel has several feats of tactical prowess, his fights against Leol and Cheetu coming to mind. And Pouf toyed with him mentally. This is significant because in the HxH verse, and in battle in general, psychological warfare can be just as damaging as physical attacks.
That said, Pouf is not lacking in the physical department either. Pouf's first feat ever was him tanking tail whip from Meruem. We know that Meruem does not hold back against his Royal Guards based off of his dialogue with Pitou, so Pouf tanking an attack from one of the most powerful people in the verse is just insane. Flash forward to the invasion, Pouf was confident that he would've been able to kill an Enraged Gon. Based on how the scene was written, there is no reason to believe this is hyperbole. Pitou wanted to stop Pouf from killing Gon because it would've cost Komugi her life, whom she was trying to protect. But there was never any doubt that Pouf was capable of doing so, which is very impressive as Gon was in his most powerful form (ignoring Adult Gon transformation of course).
With this in mind, I have no doubt that Pouf is easily a high tier if the HxH verse. His intelligence and battle ingenuity alone gives him such status, where there is such a heavy emphasis on these factors. But beyond that, Pouf tanking a strike from a bloodlusted Meruem and only getting superficial wounds and the series pretty much confirming Pouf could kill an Enraged Gon cements in stone that Pouf is not one to be underestimated. And all of this was disregarding his status as a Royal Guard, the most powerful Chimera Ants under Meruem. For reference, someone like Rammot before he even acquired Nen was fodderizing Gon and Killua (w/ Illumi's Needle) in CQC, forcing them to use their Hatsu abilities. So taking all this into consideration, Pouf is nowhere near as weak as most will tell you.
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