Chandra Hume is a major antagonist from the manga series Choujin X. A member of the Tower of Mourning under Zora, he seeks to carry out the will of his "mother." Being the one who awakened Ely Otta as a choujin by murdering her and several other people in front of her, he serves as her arch-nemesis.
Personality[]
Chandra is an extremely arrogant individual who prides himself in coming off as cultured, and as such has a fondness for expensive clothing and fine dining. In spite of his vain personality, Chandra's defining characteristic is his extremely short temper, going into a blind rage at even the slightest insult. Chandra is so easily blinded by his own anger that he'll repeatedly sabatoge himself, such as when he tried to kill Tokio after being angered by him despite his mission being to capture him. While a genuine believer in Zora's cause, Chandra is a very cruel man who is willing to kill with zero hesitation. He's not entirely heartless, however, as he's shown to genuinely care about Zora as a sort of maternal figure.
Following his defeat at the hands of Tokio Kurohara and Ely Otta, Chandra has practically become a shell of his former self. Now bereft of the powers he once so greatly prided himself in, the once arrogant and vain Chandra has been reduced to a humble and extremely frightened man.
As time goes on, it gradually becomes clear that Chandra genuinely has no sense of self beyond serving Zora. However, when he's about to break free from Yubiko's apartment, Chandra realizes that Zora abandoned him and that he no longer provides any use to her, thus forcing Chandra to discover his own purpose in life. Furthermore, Chandra seems to be growing into a kinder individual following his exile from the Tower, saving Yubiko's life for zero personal gain even after she had routinely mistreated him as thanks for her saving his life.
Plot[]
Choujin X opens with a scene of Ely Otta talking with an old lady on a plane from Gaga to Yamato. In the middle of their conversation, Chandra interupts them to go to the bathroom. After a minor annoyance from the lady, Chandra attempts to hit her with the back of his hand, but his arm is caught by Ely midswing. Remembering that he came there to kill people in the hopes of awakening someone as a Choujin, Chandra attacks the passengers on the plane with his smoke. As luck would have it, he manages to awaken Ely Otta as a choujin.
After the plane crashes, Chandra continues pursuing Otta. He eventually follows her to a shipyard and kills the man she was talking with. The two of them then go on a chase across the city, with Ely borrowing a Roller-B from a kid playing outside and Chandra chasing her on another one. Eventually, Ely is forced to use her newly awakened choujin powers to save a group of bikers who Chandra forced to work with him. Chandra is delighted, and offers to take Ely under his wing his pupil. Ely, having seen Chandra kill several people in front of her, declines and calls his power ugly. Chandra flies into a blind rage at this insult and tries to attack her, but he is stopped by Sandrek, the second in command of Yamato Mori. Unable to put up a fight against the heroic choujin, Chandra is forced to flee.
Chandra is later approached by Noh Mask to partake in "hunting" the beast of prophecy. Despite Chandra's dislike of Noh Mask, he instantly jumps upon the offer. Chandra is accompanied by Yubiko and Hiroto Mori, two of Noh Mask's criminal contacts, in traveling to the Beast Isles. On the trip there, Chandra butts heads with his companions, finding Yubiko's use of strangulation distasteful and finding Mori's use of social media to be repulsive. He eventually flies off the handle in rage when Yubiko playfully calls him "ear-hair."
Once arriving on the island, the three criminals split up. Yubiko attacks Azuma Higashi, Mori attacks Maiko Momoma, Ely Otta, Shadowl, and Roja, and Chandra attacks Tokio Kurohara and Simon Kagomura. Upon smelling "beast" on Tokio, Chandra is able to identify him as the beast he's been looking for and moves in to kidnap him. In the process, however, Tokio manages to lure Chandra away from Simon by tactically using partial beastification. Since Chandra is able to receive a signal whenever Tokio uses his powers, he purposefully turns it on and off to throw off Chandra's sense of direction. This works for a while, but eventually Chandra gets so angry that he just burns down everything around them. Once spotting Tokio, Chandra flies into a blind rage, furiously attacking the teenager with such vigor that Tokio can't even move in time to dodge Chandra's attacks. Right as Chandra's about to kill him, Tokio asks if Chandra was looking for Tokio to kill him. This causes Chandra to remember that he wanted to kidnap Tokio to bring him to Zora in order to prevent the calamity that she foresaw, calming Chandra down.
Just then, Ely Otta attacks Chandra while he isn't looking, saving Tokio in the process. Chandra expresses some dismay at needing to fight his "successor" but chooses to stick with his mission from Zora. After some teamwork from Tokio and Ely, they manage to hurt Chandra enough that he's forced to use a raise, only to find that Chandra's seemingly so burnt out that he's regressed into a neurotic and juvenile mindset. He then launches into such fury that he almost enters chaos state, charging into Ely with fumes of 1,200 degrees celcius, burning even himself in the process. Realizing that his friend is going to die, Tokio manages to force down all his thoughts of self-doubt and, in a moment of sheer adrenaline, manages to make himself grow wings and headbutt Chandra midair, causing him to drop Ely and plumet to the earth, snapping his neck upon impact.
Ely defeating Chandra by absorbing him
Tokio is completely spent after this, but Ely has enough energy to perform another raise. Unfortunately for her, so does Chandra. Refusing to abandon her friend, Ely stands her ground against Chandra and charges after him. Ely tackles Chandra mid-flight, jamming her thumbs into his eyes as she attempts to kill him. Despite everything that Chandra had done, however, Ely can't bring herself to take his life. In her moment of hesitation, Chandra is able to perform another raise and turns the tables on her. Having regressed to such a state of mind that he can barely even form coherent sentences, Chandra comments on how amazing Ely's power is before attempting to kill her. In a moment of resolve to stave off death, Ely uses the last of her strength to "steal everything" from Chandra.
Unbeknownst to Ely herself, she is not a smoke choujin like Chandra. In truth, Ely is a thief choujin who has the ability to rob other choujin of their powers, with this power being awoken from her insecurity over her mother's life as a bandit. Chandra, having completely lost himself in his chaos state, is absorbed into Ely's palm. Chandra disappears entirely, reduced to only a mark on Ely's palm, showing that he now resides inside of her.
Later Ely Otta, alongside Tokio and Azuma, is kidnapped by Noh Mask and brought before Zora, who then exorcises Chandra from Ely's body. Due to being sucked up by Ely, however, Chandra is now completely deprived of his powers. After the battle between Zora and Yamato Mori in which Zora is forced to retreat back to Omega Tower, Chandra is shown comforting her despite no longer having his powers.
Over the timeskip, Zora grows increasingly desperate to find an heir for her powers and begins to attempt to bestow her powers onto her followers en masse, killing all of them. Chandra, horrified at all the pointless death, pleads with Zora to stop her rampage. However, Zora takes this as a sign of rebellion from Chandra and attempts to kill him. Chandra manages to escape, but he is exiled from the Tower in the process and is without a place to stay. Having lost everything he once held dear, Chandra decides to go on a journey of self-discovery, but the plane he was taking is hijacked by the Tower who attempt to crash it. However, Ely Otta and Azuma Higashi manage to save all of the passengers and defeat the Tower members, but Nari manages to grab them and escape after blowing a hole in the plane, but Ely and Azuma manage to land the plane safely.
Later on, Azuma looks through a record of the plane's passengers, which causes Ely to notice that Chandra was onboard. Ely manages to track down Chandra and the two of them engage in a chase not unlike the one in chapter 2, except that Ely is the one doing the chasing this time. Ely eventually manages to corner Chandra, who pleads that he has nothing to do with the Tower anymore. Ely, not caring, attempts to take Chandra into custody, but she's stopped by the sudden internvention of I C Ice, a choujin from the Tower of Mourning. Ice had been sent there by Zora to assassinate Ely, and decides to pay Chandra no mind as he's not part of his assignment. Tokio Kurohara shows up, prompting him and Ely to team up against Ice. In the middle of the chaos, Chandra uses this opportunity to run away and go into hiding once again.
Following Tokio's, Ely's, and Azuma's encounter with, and subsequent rescue of, Palma Shishinegura, Noh Mask comes to the discovery that the Xember drug can be used on other choujin. In Palma's case, injecting herself with Xember in a moment of desperation turned her into a bestial choujin, making her a suitable candidate for receiving Zora's powers. Emboldened by this new discovery, the Tower of Mourning discusses who to use as a candidate, before deciding upon Chandra Hume. The Tower contacts Ririka Umezawa and Ricardo Terror, who are able to track down Chandra at his job. While Chandra sits in the bathroom smoking and pensively reminiscing over his glory days as a choujin, he's jumped by Ricardo who knocks him out and ties him up.
When Chandra regains consciousness, he finds himself tied up before Ice, Jing, and Tawashi. Chandra immediately launches into an angry rant, assuming that the three of them had come there to mock him for falling into poverty and living paycheck-to-paycheck, but he immediately silences when Ice informs him that they're here to give him his powers back. Chandra, after being informed that the Xember drug can allow him to take his glory days backs, almost accepts, but stops upon realizing that this must have been Noh Mask's idea and that he's being used as a test subject. Ice, holding genuine respect for Chandra, makes it clear that Chandra's concerns are entirely valid, but tells him that they're doing this for Zora's sake. Still deeply loyal to Zora after all this time, Chandra reluctantly agrees to take the drug. Unfortunately for him, however, it immediately goes wrong and Chandra explodes into a pile of blood and gore. Although Tawashi doesn't seem particularly concerned about Chandra's fate (Or rather she doesn't seem to understand that Chandra literally exploding is not what was supposed to happen), Ice expresses genuine sympathy for his former comrade, cursing Noh Mask for using the man's life as a gamble.
Luckily (Or perhaps unluckily) for Chandra, Yubiko just so happened to be walking by when this transpired. Yubiko, being a sadistic lunatic, was curious to see how long it would take for a choujin to regenerate from only a head, and so took Chandra's head back to her apartment and suspended it in a jar. Miraculously, Chandra's head was still clinging to life, and he eventually woke up to his current predicament. Understandably for a man who had woken up to see himself reduced to a still-living severed head floating in a jar, Chandra freaks out and screams in terror, alerting Yubiko that her crazy theory had turned out to be correct. Yubiko, uncomfortably pleased with Chandra's current situation, happily informs him of what happened with the Xember drug. Sipping a glass of wine, Yubiko tells him that she's keeping him around just to see what will happen with him and walks away, prompting Chandra to scream out for someone to help him, but to no avail.
Four months of being tortured by Yubiko later, Chandra would gradually regrow his body from his severed head. Although Chandra lost his smoke powers, he later gained the gift of divination similar to Zora and Mado, as shown by Chandra having a prophecy depicting Zora's death.
Powers and Abilities[]
- High-heat Fumes: Chandra can emit smoke heated as high as 2,000 degrees Celsius.
- Flight: Chandra can use his fumes to propel himself through the air.
- Enhanced strength: When enraged, Chandra can become five times stronger, at the cost of thinking clearly.
Gallery[]
Manga pages[]
Official Art[]
Trivia[]
- Chandra's character arc seems to be a mirror of Tokio's. Like Tokio, Chandra starts the story basing his sense of self around serving another and, just like Tokio, he's forced to discover his own purpose in life once he's deprived of this role. The main difference lies in the fact that Tokio was deprived of this role in becoming a choujin whereas Chandra was deprived of this role by being forced to live as a human.
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 Villains
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Tower of Mourning Mercenaries Other | ||