Hit's Time-Skip in the manga

[Yuji]

I was re-reading through the Super manga, and I noticed an aspect of the Goku/Hit fight that always bothered me. The way Hit's Time-Skip technique is described is inconsistent with the way it is later visually portrayed. Allow me to explain. Goku firstly describes the technique as so (as per the Viz translation): "You can skip time 0.1 seconds into the future, right? So, right from when you vanished, I tried to predict where you'd move to in that time." Hit rebukes by saying he can just move in ways Goku can't predict, to which Goku replies: "Your hands. Your hands stay in your pockets and you hide your feet under your coat all so you can mask your movements. Doesn't that mean you can't change whatever movement you've already started?"

From this description, one can infer that Hit's technique functions in such a way where he essentially just teleports 0.1 seconds into the future. He can't change his movements because he's not in control of his actions when time is skipped, they're already predetermined; he's essentially just skipping ahead on a Youtube video. This is why Goku can keep up with him simply by a) adjusting his timing to react attacks 0.1 seconds faster, and b) predicting when Hit is going to activate the technique and where he is going to attack from through his stance and twitching motions.

However, see how the technique is visually portrayed later in the same chapter:

Spoiler:

This, to me, is a departure from the way the technique was described. Here, it seems like Hit is simply just stopping time. He seems to have complete control over his actions and is conscious of the frozen time around him, whereas from the description that Hit and Goku provided earlier on in the chapter, one would assume he wouldn't even be conscious of his movements after activating his technique (after all, if he were, why wouldn't he be able to change the movement he had already started? If it was just "time freeze," why wouldn't he attack while time was frozen, instead of waiting until the time interval finished and risk getting hit?).

Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding, but this looks like an incongruity between visuals and narrative. Perhaps some of the members who speak japanese can better clarify how the technique was described originally?

[Magnificent Ponta]

Doesn't Jaco explain in Chapter 12 that stopping time for everyone else is precisely what Hit is doing? It's just that he's doing it for too short a period to actually do an awful lot with it. Hence why, when Goku starts eating into it and nullifying it by having become so much stronger than Hit, Hit keeps getting taken by surprise because he has even less 'time' than that to work with.

The "hands in the pockets" quote is a confusing one - I too was confused by it when I did the Super Re-Read for these chapters - but Goku is interpreting instances when Hit's hands aren't in his pockets, as it gives a 'tell' for how he's going to move: he starts the movement, stops time extra-briefly, and Goku knows where he is going to move to because of the 'tell' he's already given him (the fact that he doesn't have his hands in his pockets when he starts the movement).

Cipher helpfully explained in the Super Re-Read that Hit's statement about "I can keep my hands hidden without worry" (later in Chapter 13) only serves to confuse matters, as he's actually saying that he's also going to conceal his movements in addition to being able to Time-Skip, rather than indicating that this limits him in some way.

[Yuji]

Doesn't Jaco explain in Chapter 12 that stopping time for everyone else is precisely what Hit is doing? It's just that he's doing it for too short a period to actually do an awful lot with it. Hence why, when Goku starts eating into it and nullifying it by having become so much stronger than Hit, Hit keeps getting taken by surprise because he has even less 'time' than that to work with.

The "hands in the pockets" quote is a confusing one - I too was confused by it when I did the Super Re-Read for these chapters - but Goku is interpreting instances when Hit's hands aren't in his pockets, as it gives a 'tell' for how he's going to move: he starts the movement, stops time extra-briefly, and Goku knows where he is going to move to because of the 'tell' he's already given him (the fact that he doesn't have his hands in his pockets when he starts the movement).

Cipher helpfully explained in the Super Re-Read that Hit's statement about "I can keep my hands hidden without worry" (later in Chapter 13) only serves to confuse matters, as he's actually saying that he's also going to conceal his movements in addition to being able to Time-Skip, rather than indicating that this limits him in some way.

If Hit is truly stopping time, rather than essentially time travelling into the future, then that brings up a host of other problems, such as why Hit lacks agency to the point where Goku can successfully predict his moves, when theoretically he'd be able to mix up his movements or, better yet, just attack Goku whilst time is frozen (one can argue that 0.1 seconds is more than enough time for a Dragon Ball character, but even taking at face value that it's a minuscule amount of time to move in, Hit could have simply activated the technique while he was close enough to Goku and strike him in frozen time; yet outside of the final clash where we see the world from his perspective, every time Hit activates the technique, he always attacks after time stops/skips).

I still think there are two completely different descriptions being given to how the power works, but the "time freeze" idea is essentially what he is shown doing, so I can't at all dispute it.

[Magnificent Ponta]

even taking at face value that it's a minuscule amount of time to move in, Hit could have simply activated the technique while he was close enough to Goku and strike him in frozen time).

I think we do have to take the fact that it's such a small amount of time at face value, given that Jaco also presents it that way when he describes the technique. As for Hit activating the technique at an advantageous time: that's what he starts out by doing, when he's able to (he lands a hard hit on Goku at the beginning). But Goku's first response after the 'hint' deliberately stops Hit from putting his hands back in his pockets, so that he can see and interpret what Hit is going to do: Hit doesn't get to use the Time-Skip on his own terms at that point.

Then, when Goku points out that Hit can't change his movements, Hit deliberately fights with hands out to show that he can still beat Goku even when being 'predictable' and fighting openly, but Goku matches him - so it's just that Goku puts Hit on the back foot at the beginning, and reads the movements he makes well enough to nullify the advantage that the technique conveys. However, he really does start to struggle more with it as it goes on, until he goes SSjG and makes it no longer an issue. I'd say all of that is compatible with a 'Time Freeze' as described and shown, so long as you take the information the Chapter is giving as being necessarily the case.

I'd definitely recommend having a look at Cipher's post, as it cleared up my own sense of confusion on the issue.

[ChronoTwigger]

They mixed two fluff things.
Without knowing the context is a pure mess.

The hands in pocket and hidden feets is a more than evident BAKI the Grappler reference.
The chinese hitman of the asian tournament cannot be parried as, if you don't see the start of the movements you cannot determine the actual trajectory.
Is mythical kung fu fluff that got no actual sense and evolved into iai-jutsu legends.

What Goku is telling is, well, extra fluff.
He does now understand the time is STOPPED for JUST 0.1 seconds and no more than this, and that's why Hit have to hide the start of the movement. If Hit was able to actually skip time for more, he could have RODO-ROLLAAAAA him easily without care of that kung fu assassin trick. Having just 0.1 seconds, he can't change movement once started - not enough "stopped time" to change trajectory.

As for that Baki reference, the moment you understand that the hands are hidden to mask the movement, magically the kung fu trick doesn't work anymore and you can predict it even easier than before.
Just... fluff.

Why then the thing become a time stop?
Oliva, facing the chinese hitman, simply "get thru" the assassin by sheer brute force. The same as Goku do with Blue and Kaiohken. So Goku have to brute force thru the technique and bla bla bla.
Mind that everything could turn fine with different wordings. But in the end they simply copied another context.
I can tell so as the italian translation, that use latin logic and is made by bilinguals, got the same issue. Goku tell "skip in the future" ("salti avanti 0.1 secondi nel futuro") that look like a TIME TRAVEL SKILL, while in fact Hit was time stopping the whole match.
You can tell Goku was talking about the CONSEQUENCE of the technique from his own POV.
But in the end the whole thing was about quoting a famous scene of another anime and that's why is a mess.

Sometime things are... just bad.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Bad writing. Hirohiko Araki Toyotaro is not.

[Cipher]

I don’t think there’s much to support the idea that Hit genuinely can’t change course after initiating the Time Skip. Rather his subtle body movements proceeding it are like a tell in poker—a fantastical supherhiman martial artist can read sufficiently into them to make a guess as to Hit’s movements from there and prepare his response in advance. Hit is moving during the 0.1 seconds of the Time Skip and Goku is not, but Goku preps his body so as to already be ready to respond to what he thinks Hit’ll do. He’s betting on Hit not having enough time to, or not be skilled enough to, deviate from what his initial tells might show. (Otherwise, he surmises, Hit wouldn’t need to rely on hiding his hands. He’s calling Hit out.)

This is backed up by Hit removing his hands from his pockets and proclaiming he’ll simply try to be more unpredictable in the second part of the fight--so unpredictable in fact, that he can even show Goku his hands in the open as a taunt/mix-up. If he were truly locked into his movement after starting the skip, he could never afford to give Goku extra tells. Instead, since he is moving during the skip, he can afford to, essentially, bluff, provided he can pull it off. (Calling Goku out for underestimating his skill and challenging himself to move out of his comfort zone at the same time.)

(For the final all-or-nothing full-power Time Skip, as others have pointed out, he puts his hands back into his pockets so as not to allow Goku any handicaps.)

when theoretically he'd be able to mix up his movements or

He does do that. That's the whole part of the fight where he removes his hands from his pockets. It's just not something he's used to challenging himself to do.

[Desassina]

Without a fighting stance, Hit is more subject to move slower than with a stance - imagine yourself trying to fight with hands on pockets or with your legs covered - so even if he can gain some time by skipping it, he still has to take action on the opening that he just gained. Doing what? Putting himself in fighting position and going for the hit. That's why he fought better when he took his hands off the pockets, trying to hit almost instantly after skipping, with the downside of having to reveal its moment by twitching on sight. The stakes were actually rising despite the trick being revealed.

So why did he try to hide his stance once more upon removing the gap between him and Super Saiyan God Goku? It was so that he could try to give his all during the moment that his opponent was frozen in without the latter knowing when that happened. In other words: Hit had to move faster and more unpredictably in those 0.1 seconds, which represents a change in mindset and technique in such short time, given that Goku was predicting him before due to his superior martial arts.

I don't think that it's bluffing like poker more than it's like an old western face off with a gun in the holster. They were guns blazing before without going anywhere, so they took a moment to ditch their last resort, like samurai did by sheathing the sword as well. It was out of respect for the opponent.

[Cipher]

Without a fighting stance, Hit is more subject to move slower than with a stance - imagine yourself trying to fight with hands on pockets or with your legs covered - so even if he can gain some time by skipping it, he still has to take action on the opening that he just gained. Doing what? Putting himself in fighting position and going for the hit. That's why he fought better when he took his hands off the pockets, trying to hit almost instantly after skipping, with the downside of having to reveal its moment by twitching on sight. The stakes were actually rising despite the trick being revealed.

So why did he try to hide his stance once more upon removing the gap between him and Super Saiyan God Goku? It was so that he could try to give his all during the moment that his opponent was frozen in without the latter knowing when that happened. In other words: Hit had to move faster and more unpredictably in those 0.1 seconds, which represents a change in mindset and technique in such short time, given that Goku was predicting him before due to his superior martial arts.

I don't think that it's bluffing like poker more than it's like an old western face off with a gun in the holster. They were guns blazing before without going anywhere, so they took a moment to ditch their last resort, like samurai did by sheathing the sword as well. It was out of respect for the opponent.

A better way of looking at it, I suppose, with the hands-out-of-pockets being more of a trade-off, and rising to the challenge of fighting "fairly" with Goku, in terms of having to succeed on speed and mix-ups while providing more initial visual tells.

[emperior]

This is such a great thread to be honest. I don’t think there’s much to add to what other posters, Cipher in particular, have already written.

I will just reiterate that, yeah, from Goku’s perspective Hit was always skipping ahead of time. What we see at the end of the fight is Hit’s very perspective.

And in the manga (but in the anime’s Tournament of Power something similar is pointed out by Dyspo) one of the time-skip’s downsides is how it telegraphs the move which will come immediately afterwards. In the manga Hit tries to hide this flaw by hiding his legs and hands before using it.

Goku calls him out on his trick cause he knows he can. Once the secret that Hit is skipping time is out his time-skip isn’t anymore as invincible as it looked against Vegeta, to whom fighting Hit must have felt like fighting an armless man who somehow keeps punching you straight in the face. Once you understand he has invisible hands and only throws straight punches you can adapt fairly quickly as Goku did (or, at least, that’s my impression of it).