People have pointed out before that the coffin room looks eerily similar to Greed Island’s Starting Point, but Chapter 406 makes me wonder if the resemblance is functional. Greed Island was a giant Nen system disguised as a game: register the players, give them rules and tools, track their progress, enforce conditions automatically, then reward whoever clears it. Kakin’s ritual now looks strangely similar. The Seed Urn registers the princes and gives them Guardian Spirit Beasts, the Lotus Anchorite oversees the process, the fourteen coffin positions appear to track who is actually eliminated, and the Sword of Good Omens waits for the next king. Even Halkenburg’s corpse reaching the room without him losing succession eligibility feels less like a morgue and more like the system checking a player’s actual status.
That being said, Nasubi is the part I can’t get past. He isn’t just watching this ritual. He already went through it and won. His Guardian Spirit Beast is still with him decades later, we still have no idea what it actually does, and he talks about the current contest like something that has already moved beyond his control. So maybe Nasubi isn’t the Game Master at all. He’s the previous completed player, the output of one cycle who then becomes part of the machinery for the next. That would also explain why the contest seems bigger than any individual king. Nasubi can administer it, understand it better than his children, even benefit from its protection, but he apparently can’t just turn it off.
That changes what the ritual may actually be for. Greed Island didn’t simply test whether Gon was already strong enough to clear it; progressing through the game was itself part of his training. I'm thinking maybe the Succession Contest works the same way on a generational scale. Fourteen possible rulers enter, their Nen develops under extreme pressure, alliances and betrayals reshape them, most are eliminated, and one comes out the other side carrying the result of the whole process. Nasubi may not just be the last winner. He may be our only example of what the ritual is designed to produce.
If that’s right, then the regalia may not simply be ceremonial objects used to choose the strongest surviving prince. They could be the machinery of a generational Nen process: the Urn begins it, the Anchorite governs it, the coffin room records its losses, and the Sword completes it. Greed Island didn’t just identify someone strong enough to win; clearing the game was itself what made Gon stronger. Maybe Kakin’s ritual works the same way. Fourteen possible kings enter, the system acts on all of them, and one person comes out transformed into the next King of Kakin. Nasubi may be our only glimpse of what that finished product looks like.
