Japanese Title: Hunter x Hunter (2011)
Related: Hunter x Hunter (1999) (old version)
Hunter x Hunter Movie 1: Phantom Rogue (side story)
Hunter x Hunter Movie 2: The Last Mission (side story)
Similar: Naruto
One Piece
Watched in: Japanese & English
Genre: Supernatural Action Adventure
Length: 148 episodes
Positives:
- No filler plague.
- The villains Hisoka and Chimera King.
- Phantom Troupe arc.
Negatives:
- Hunter Exam is a waste of time.
- Greed Island may be one of shounen’s worst arcs.
- Too many ideas. No cohesion.
- Poor character designs.
- Perpetually delayed and incomplete.
(Request an anime for review here.)
Hunter x Hunter is purported to be different from other shounen battle anime. Let’s start by dispelling this notion, as it only sets up false expectations and ultimate disappointment.
Like all battle anime, Hunter x Hunter (don’t pronounce the x) is about a kid with big dreams. This time, we follow Gon Freecss, a boy in search of the father that abandoned him and his mother. To that end, he must become a hunter like his father before him in the belief that the profession will open new avenues of investigation.
Naturally, the story starts with Gon taking the exam to become a hunter. And here we hit the first brick wall. The Hunter Exam is tunnel-through-the-mountain boring! The exam is just one fake out after another.
Gon lives on an island, so must travel by ship to the mainland. Little does he know that the crossing is part of the test. Once ashore, he asks for directions to the exam, except the false directions are also part of the test. Then it’s an old lady with riddles, followed by a secret password into the exam site. But wait, that isn’t the site. We have to run a marathon first to get there! Watching people run, how riveting. Alright, are we done yet? No, we need to cook some barbeque. (Just kill me now.) And on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, (did I mention the recap episode halfway?), and on, and on…and on it goes for 21 episodes of boring task after boring task. This exam is every idea the author came up with dragged on for eternity. Why not pick the best three ideas and make something engaging of them? It serves no purpose other than to introduce characters, which could have happened naturally later had the exam be removed (and most introductions don’t matter anyway – more on that later).
Could a 21-episode exam work? Certainly, if interesting. Naruto managed it with the chunin exam using secret ninja techniques called “character development”, “meaningful conflict”, and “story progression”. Had the first episode of HxH been after this arc, all we would need is the narrator telling us, “This is Gon. He’s a hunter.” Twenty-one episodes saved. It’s the worst start to a shounen anime I’ve seen, barring the ones that had no potential to begin with. The arc isn’t filler, but it may as well be.
The plot next moves into a tournament arc, another common element of the genre. Gon and Killua have to fight to the top of a battle tower with hundreds of floors and millions in prize money. Matters get serious from the 200th floor onwards. Thankfully, we don’t have to watch all 200 floors – good performance leapfrogs contestants up faster.
The downfall of the tournament arc is the training sessions that eat up too much time between fights. HxH has a massive problem with over explaining its concepts and making them unnecessarily convoluted. This anime uses auras. If you’ve seen anything with aura powers before, you’ll get the point in a minute. HxH deems you too stupid to grasp it in less than hours of lectures. You can bet your savings that it will pause every fight for some long-winded explanation of X character’s power and strategy.
Training episodes suck because they have no plot nor any internal character growth. It isn’t a problem exclusive to this anime, yet these are particularly boring. Off the top of my head, only Bleach does them worse.
The first great moment occurs in episode 31 when Gon faces Hisoka, an interesting Pierrot-like villain, who values the challenge above all else and will go to extreme lengths for the greatest challenges, such as saving heroes with potential to contest him in future. He takes a keen interest in Gon. The exam introduced us to him and his villainy, but it all repeats here anyway. His power is a malleable aura compared to bubblegum that can manipulate targets with puppet strings, among other magician-type tricks. He’s a theatrical fighter that loves to put on a show.
Hisoka belongs to a villain group known as the Phantom Troupe, which leads into the next and best arc of the series. Gon and friends head to the big city to earn big bucks so they may buy a video game that will lead to his father. The Phantom Troupe arc succeeds where the others fail because it is all plot relevant and gives all main characters something to do, rather than forgetting half the team (more on that later). It also helps to have several interesting villains that pose a real threat. A highlight is the fight between Kurapika, the guy I confused for a girl in the artwork, and a villain. He is the revenge guy of the series, as there must be one in every shounen. Despite sharing much with others of his archetype, he works thanks to an interesting ability that cleverly explains how he can hope to match such powerful villains, but without overpowering him for the rest of the series. Shounens usually have to pull some convoluted nonsense to backpedal the power, such as Bleach with its moronic power resets.
At the end of this arc, 58 episodes in, I’m not blown away, yet it has been on an upward trajectory and I am convinced it’s only the good stuff from here.
Boy was I wrong.
The Greed Island arc that follows is somehow worse than the exam. Greed Island is the video game Gon seeks on his father’s trail. Players enter the game world and fight using cards with abilities. That’s right, we are in Yu-Gi-Oh now! It’s as dumb as it sounds. This arc was just an excuse for the author to cram in more convoluted mechanics and hours of idiots explaining how they work. If you want to see some of the worst pacing and exposition anime has to offer, watch the dodgeball game in this arc. Only masters of Zen can handle such trash.
The main villain for this period, a punk that blows people up with the power of cards, is pathetically dull. Much like the exam, this arc amounts to little more than wasting 17 episodes of your time. If I didn’t know better, I would believe this to be a filler arc.
Finally we come to the Chimera Ant arc, the longest at 61 episodes long, which tells of a species of dangerous human-creature hybrids that soon develop aura powers. The Hunter Association dispatches many hunters to deal with the threat.
The story has now gone from a big city, to a video game, and reached a monster slaying fantasy. Hunter x Hunter lacks focus. This review is so long because I feel as though I am reviewing three different anime at once. Watching this series gives the impression that the author had too many ideas and wanted them all to be in one story, jumping impatiently from one to the next. Remember the Big Bad Phantom Troupe? They’re barely relevant after their arc. That Yu-Gi-Oh garbage? Forget it ever existed. Arc after arc seems to wipe the relevance of the story that came previous. None suffer more than HxH’s characters.
Each arc dumps a boatload of new character on your lap for you to care about, only to take them away as soon as the arc ends. “What happened to that guy?” I kept asking myself. At the start, HxH presents a core group of four characters. Remember Kurapika of central importance against the Troupe? He’s barely in this. Oh yeah, there’s some guy called Leorio – you’ll know him as the tall guy you see on most cover art who receives enough attention for a major character. Well, he has as much screen time as a minor character. Only Killua with the white hair has the screen time to match his relevance alongside Gon.
So when we come to the Chimera Ant arc, it is no surprise to have over 50 – yes, 50 – new characters thrown at the story. A story, I might add, that isn’t directly relevant to the main plot even with 61 episodes. Interestingly, however, it’s a good arc. It starts slow (could have fit in half the number of episodes), though once the main villain emerges in act two it shows promise, until it finishes with a strong third act. The heart of the story is the Chimera King villain that questions life, morality, and meaning.
This arc gives fans a reason to call HxH dark, “the darkest shounen anime”. It isn’t really. It’s only dark if you haven’t seen what a proper dark story looks like. A villain killing random civilians isn’t dark – it’s just meaningless. There are a couple of dark moments, but it’s nowhere near enough to call the series dark. What Itachi does in Naruto is darker, yet I wouldn’t call that anime dark either. That said, a false reputation doesn’t take away from the strength of its third act. It’s a shame the arc has to be part of this anime. Both this arc and HxH would have benefited from separation. The Chimera Ant arc works as a standalone story similar to From the New World and with its removal, HxH can refocus on the plot. There is a main story consequence resulting from the Ants, but that could have come just as easily from the Phantom Troupe.
What HxH boasts in the end is two good arcs, which still need work, and a mixture of decent and utter trash for the remainder of the time. I haven’t covered half the problems with HxH in this already too-long review.
A common note you will hear of this anime is that it is the best of the battle shounen. It has the smartest fights, greatest characters, best villains, and most complex stories, they will tell you. Does it? Not really. There are smarter fights, greater characters, and better villains in other shounen anime. Nor is HxH different from the norm. You have the same types of arcs, the same cast of characters, yelling for power, energy attacks, poor explanations, and there is even a Super Saiyan mode (I won’t give it away, but it is the goofiest super mode I have ever witnessed). It does do one better than the rest – no unofficial filler, though that doesn’t save it from other pacing issues, including a narrator that repeats everything we just saw.
Many of these problems are common to most entries in the genre though. Would I recommend another battle anime over this? I don’t know. No matter which you pick, you have to tolerate a lot of garbage.
Is HxH better than most of the genre? Sure, why not. With such a low bar, it isn’t difficult to hit single digit ranks, though that is still low when looking at anime as a whole. If coming from Dragon Ball Z, as this did with the 90s manga release, it would seem mind blowing to have any strategy to fights, character development, and a story that’s more than “punch the bad guy”.
The difficulty I have with justifying a recommendation to watch Hunter x Hunter is in its 148-episode length. Consider how many other better anime you could finish in that time. And you have to factor in that no one has any idea when or even if this will ever receive a conclusion. If you love shounen, you will love this – I don’t doubt it. But if you don’t love shounen, then I can’t recommend it.
Art – Medium
What is with these character designs? Everyone looks like a bootleg knock off from other anime with no thought to theme or cohesion. There’s a reason these characters feature so little in aesthetic contests. Like all long anime, the budget has to cover too much ground. However, unlike other battle anime, HxH doesn’t drop in quality for action scenes – quite the opposite. A pleasant surprise.
Sound – High
The acting is the strongest area of HxH and the music is solid, though lacks variety for such a long series.
Story – Medium
A kid becomes a hunter in a quest to find his father, but will have to overcome many trials and foes before the end. The short version: Phantom Troupe and Chimera Ant arcs are good, and I wouldn’t bother with the rest.
Overall Quality – Medium
Recommendation: For battle shounen fans only. Hunter x Hunter doesn’t have the crossover appeal to go beyond its demographic. For those who do start, note that the series is incomplete with no continuation in sight.
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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)
Positive: None
Negative: None
Nefarious Reviews 
The level of #Hottake in this is delicious. And to shit on this anime by comparing it to a better example in… Naruto?!
Ho-ly shit. Great contrasting review. Have heard nothing but praise for this.
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Agreed to the fullest lol.
Not that I wanted to see you shit on the show but only to have heard praises makes me think also, that something is not quite right…
All of us together are just not robotic enough — there is no such thing liked by everybody.
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Always be suspicious when there is nothing but praise, particularly for shounen anime.
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It’s actually pretty known out there about HxH common flaws. Overexplanation and pacing are the most glaring ones.
I still think it’s a great anime nonetheless, since its positives outweigh negatives.
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Naruto classic is largely good. Naruto Shippuden is when the serious issues arise, particularly in the anime adaptation. I’ve started a rewatch of it for review (will take a while though).
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I’m still just short of actually finishing this series even though I started it last year. Eventually I will finish and review. I don’t dislike it, but it has trouble holding my attention so I keep forgetting I’m mid-way through watching it until I read something like this and then I’m reminded that was a thing I was supposed to be finishing.
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Effectively “resetting” the cast of characters and story with each arc after the Phantom Troupe will do that to you.
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Hi, I don’t disagree with anything you have stated in your reivew (aside from disliking the Hunter Exam, I thought it was a good introduction), but I would be curious as to what you think of these videos (they are part 1 and part 2 of one topic, not 2 completely separate videos fyi).
I think the person who makes these videos is really intelligent and brings up great points that reference your problem with the lack of cohesion and consistency within the show.
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I bookmarked these videos, but didn’t find the time before I left on holiday and had forgotten them in the process. My apologies.
He makes some great points. I particularly liked his note on tone or “darkness” not being dictated by number of deaths. People do often confuse the two. And he is right about the up and down balance of light-hearted vs dark arcs – I like his observations. However, he ignores the flaws with the arcs, such as the disappearance of major characters for dozens of episodes. The themes have a good flow to them, contrasted by the villains, but the actual content is inconsistent. On paper, almost every battle anime is the same – hero wants to be strong to achieve X, must train for Y, and defeat villains ABC along the way. What differentiates one series from the others is in how it goes about to show us these events. HxH has the problem that it changes style and series “type”, so to speak, too drastically. As I mentioned in the review, the Chimera arc is great, but it doesn’t feel like it fits particularly well to Gon’s story.
Lastly, the Greed Island villain fitting the theme of the series doesn’t make him good. You could take any great character and strip them of what makes them engaging without changing their theme. It’s why Lelouch from Code Geass, a character struggling with power and self-corruption, is excellent, while Shuu from Guilty Crown is garbage despite having the same theme. If you boil every character in existence down to the absolute basics, there aren’t that many character types. The layers above make the difference. Weak characters simply don’t have enough layers or put them on wrong.
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I don’t think poor is a good choice to describe HxH character design. I mean, yeah, some design choices seems kind of random, BUT most characters have different features and distinguish silhouette (just look at Zoldic family shapes!), and that alone makes it at least above average.
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The seemingly random and haphazard nature of the character designs are the biggest problems. Half the characters don’t look like they come from the same series.
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Idk, doesn’t it mean it’s just more varied like say, One Piece? I feel there’re consistency in this inconsistency throughout the series in the sense that every arc has some characters with designs that vary from mundane to wacky.
Like I said, It’s functional in distinguishing characters, but that’s it. Some choices in individual designs are questionable, though.
Like, what are those symbols in Bomber’s clothes and on his underlyings’s forehead? Do they mean anything? The hell if I (or Togashi) know.
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“Does it? Not really. There are smarter fights, greater characters, and better villains in other shounen anime.”
Do you know one that has all of this? Because to be honest, concerning smarter fights the only shounen that comes to my mind is Jojo Bizarre adventure (when it’s not bullshit mode XD). Fullmetal brotherhood has some of those aspects too.
About “Super Saiyan mode”, I can agree it seems silly design wise, but… it’s a little bit more ellaborated, don’t you think? I mean, it follows the logic of its power system, and is more functional thematically and narratively than what I see in most battleshounen powerups.
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One battle anime that has it all at the highest level? No, I haven’t seen that yet, but I await the day for that 10 out of 10 battle anime. However, for individual elements, you will find better villains and smarter fights in Naruto (Classic, not so much Shippuden, where it almost feels like a different series entirely), Jojo has some true brilliance if you’re after something crazy and different yet still clever.
Outside of battle anime, FMA Brotherhood and Code Geass hit the heroes, villains, and smart action trifecta at the highest tier, but those won’t be quite what a shounen fan is after due to shorter lengths.
I have almost finished the first season of My Hero Academia. So far its solid, but nothing new or outstanding (needs more threatening villains in particular). I have yet to watch One Piece, so that could be better than the rest.
The “Super Saiyan” scene was great. Just the design looks hilarious.
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I don’t remember classic Naruto fights being that much strategic (I watched it a long time). Maybe Zabuza and Haku and some chunin exams fights?
The reason I say HxH relies more in smarts is that strategies seems to be more of a factor than strenght, they are outclassed in most of fights, and there’re more variety of scenarios overall. For example:
(SPOILERS for whoever else is reading)
– Gon had his ass kicked in hunter exams, but he did achieve minor “victories” in way stronger oponents, like forcing Netero to use his hand, stealing Hisoka’s badge and having more determination in the fight with ninja dude.
– In tournment tower it was more of a training, they had a teacher and were able to at least defeat crippled foes that learned nen the hard way. Hisoka was fooling around (he didn’t use his cutting cards).
– In Phantom troupe arc they act stealthly, improvise escape and plan ahead since they were outnumbered and out-strenght-ed in every way.
– Dodgeball was 6 against one strong dude (and they were lucky it was a game). Gon didn’t had time to finish his training against Bomber, had to resort to card tricks.
– Royal guards/ Meruem fights were basically experience and smarts vs overwhelming raw strenght.
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I find it somewhat hard to look through this trashy and somewhat unimpressed comments, as anyone who doesn’t love it simply doesn’t completely understand it. This reviewers note that the Hunter exam was a waste of time, as well as the greed island arc was bad simply implies that he didn’t fully understand all of the nuances of said arcs. His note of there being “too many ideas and no cohesion” could not be further from the truth. When you look at a show like Fairy Tail (not hating, I love the show), every arc is very much so unconnected to the rest, as the team gos on a mission, comes home, then goes on another. All of the Hunter x Hunter arcs blend together extremely well, as the author put a lot of thought into every little detail of the story. Though it is true that there is a lot of information and it can become a bit much if you aren’t quite ready. When it come to his comment about bad character designs, he’s not completely wrong. However, its more that the character designs are weird, not necessarily bad. And the whole “Perpetually delayed and incomplete” thing, well this is true, however it is mostly due to Togashi’s health (the creator). He has actually come out quite recently and said more or less that the thing that could stop him from finishing it would be his death. I just want to emphasize that yes, Hunter x Hunter is very different in comparison to popular shows such as Naruto, however it is no less wonderful. I urge anyone who is uncertain about whether or not they want to watch Hunter x Hunter to watch this. https://youtu.be/EY3deSWuO58 This is a 50 minute video giving different reasons as to why you should watch it. 50 MINUTES! Think about it! Someone found an hour worth of reasons to watch the show, without doing any major spoilers! I mean come on man! UGH JUST WATCH IT
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You deny things yet present no counter argument other than “what he said isn’t true.” Fairy Tail being worse (which I agree with), doesn’t make HxH better.
HxH isn’t full of detail or information. It’s a series for kids and the author knows to keep it simple – less is more. He’s a good enough writer to manage that. This is true of most battle shounen.
Furthermore, one’s ability to make a 50 minute video isn’t evidence of a good show. There’s hours of content out there loving the Star Wars prequels – doesn’t make them good. I’m not saying the video doesn’t make good points (it does, by the way, but glosses over just about every fault with the series – his “why you should watch” videos are intended to focus on the positives to sell you the series, not to review), but it’s length and lack of spoilers aren’t an argument, nor would the video’s author suggest so.
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If “better than Fairy Tail” equals good then all anime except Sword Art Online and Akame ga Kill are ‘good anime’.
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…. But as the story progresses, this kid gets omitted from the stories, not even any a trace, disappointing millions that grew up with the series.
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Which kid?
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Gon.
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First of all, I disagree with the Hunter Exam arc being bad and having no plot relevance, it was the thing that bought the four main characters together which would never have happened under different circumstances considering how wildly different their goals are, introduced and built up Killua and Gon’s relationship, and overall had some interesting subversions and character moments by showing how far Gon’s stubborness could go and such. I consider the 4 main characters seperating a good thing btw, it’s more realistic considering their paths barely align with each other and it’s refreshing to occasionally switch between protagonists.
Another one of your points you listed as a fault which I consider a positive is how vastly different each arc is from the other, it makes HxH never get old and be varied and consistently engaging, besides, the carry in onto every arc is handled smoothly and well, as a natural progression to the Exam’s events, we lead into the Zoldyck arc to save Killua, remembering that he wants to return the badge to Hisoka, they then head to Heaven’s Arena, the scenes we had of Kurapika meeting his mentor and trying to get a job are bought back up and it proceeds naturally into Yorknew, the Greed Island subplot bought up just after Heaven’s Arena leads them into Greed Island, and finally, Kite from the very first chapter of the series is bought back to lead them into the Ant arc, and I’m sure I don’t have to explain how the Chimera Ant arc transitions into Election since it’s obvious, my point is, none of the arc transitions are abrupt, they’re are all natural and progress previously bought up plot points.
Heaven’s Arena having no plot relevance is false as well, nen is literally the foundation of the entire series and without Heaven’s Arena to lay it out Gon and Killua would get completely disconnected from the rest of the story, I can agree with some of the other criticism towards the arc like the boring exposition dumps however.
Greed Island was actually great imo, it served as a fun tension breaker between Yorknew and Chimera, went into more detail about some important aspects of nen and built upon Gon and Killua’s friendship and characterization even more, while it is flawed like the slow pacing and expo dumps, the positives still outweight the negatives, we see Gon’s stubborness to the point of self destruction, Killua’s own devotion to Gon to the point of self destructiveness and the dodgeball match with Razor was genuinely one of the best moments in the series
Ah, of course, the classic narrator complaint, the thing is, while the narrator did speak unnecessarily at times, most of the time, you wouldn’t have any idea what’s going on without him and wouldn’t know of 80% of the character development without him either, the Palace Invasion would just be an incomprehensible mess of characters running here and there. When the narrator does say obvious stuff, it’s not because the author thinks the audience is stupid, but to add tone.
I think I’ve addressed most of your criticisms now, overall, I think HxH is solid, the quality never drops below mediocre and the only arc that drops to that level is Heaven’s Arena, everything else is consistently good that peaks at great during arcs like Yorknew and Chimera Ant.
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Also, although each arc introduces a new set of characters, it never wipes the board, characters from previous arcs are always still relevant, Kurapika, Leorio, Hisoka, Melody, Bisky, the Phantom Troupe and even tiny characters like Hanzo, Kurapika’s teacher, his bodyguard friend from the Yorknew arc are all focused on in the current manga arc, likewise Kite is relevant in the Ant arc, Pokkle and Ponzu are important to the plot again as they let the Ants learn nen, my point is, despite how different each arc is, the characters never suffer because at some point or another, nearly every character is bought back to have relevance.
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I kind of agree regarding Hunter x Hunter 1999 but not 2011. 2011 amended the Hunter Exam arcs and Greed Island was extended and even added an OVA to it. I also love Hisoka. I definitely think he’s the best character in the whole series. He deserves his own spin off. I would love to see that.
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Regarding “poor character designs” 2011 has amazing details. Hisoka especially. The scene where he’s with Illumi on the air ship is so well structured. 1999 has very nice visuals but it really lacks in comparison to 2011.
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I somehow missed this review, but THANK YOU for confirming that I am indeed sane. Thought there was something wrong with my brain for not being particularly impressed with this one nor finding it much different from the rest of the genre. Guess that’s what unnecessary amounts of hype can do to your enjoyment of a show. The worst part is you can’t even voice a negative opinion of the series without fans telling you that “you don’t get it”, “2dark4you”, or accusing you of being a Naruto fan (what they have against an arguably superior series, I don’t know). So annoying.
Also, the lack of focus you spoke of is often praised by fans as giving the show variety, making you never get bored. I just don’t buy that. To me, HxH lacks identity. It isn’t quite a “I’m gonna be pirate king/hokage/Pokemon master” kind of shonen, nor is it exactly in the mould of FMA with the protagonist on a personal mission, nor is it just a fun action show, nor is it a Madoka Magica or Evangelion that gets progressively darker and puts its characters to the test (am rather ashamed to even mention Eva, Madoka, and FMA in the same sentence as HxH). The description of the Hunter profession had me thinking it’d be an exploration adventure type story, which would of course benefit from random variety, but there’s not much of this, and in that department it is totally blown out of the water by other adventure shonen like One Piece and Toriko. Some people praise it as “every shonen in one”, but to me that just says that the writer wasn’t able to pare down his list of ideas to just the best and most coherent ones. I enjoyed the Chimera Ant arc a lot, but it felt like a spin-off anime. For staying fresh and varied while retaining coherence, HxH can learn much from the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure model, where each ‘generation’ is a new story in a new setting with new characters and conflicts, but the overall themes and tone are similar enough to feel like the same manga. JoJo is truly great in a way HxH isn’t.
Lastly, fans praising this for being “the most violent shonen” should just stop. The YuGiOh manga is the most violent shonen I’ve ever seen (not kidding; the manga is a completely different beast from the goofy anime), and the likes of JoJo, Toriko, Attack on Titan, Ruroni Kenshin, and Claymore are far, far more violent than HxH. (There’s also Akame ga Kill, but the less said about that the better.)
Sorry for the long rant but I genuinely thought I was alone in being unimpressed by it, and I hate being told “you don’t get it”. Such a lazy cop out of an argument.
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Ultimately, I think the Medium score is a bit flattering, if anything. It could be more accurately described as Low/High, with the good arcs standing out and the bad arcs being total shite.
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What you say about lack of identity is true, especially for kids. I think that’s why it’s nowhere near as popular as the other successful battle anime. The Hunter profession definition couldn’t be any vaguer. I never thought of the comparison, but you are right about JoJo doing the “variety” model much better. Not once when watching JoJo did I feel a lack of structural cohesion.
Anyone who claims HxH to be the most violent must be very new to the genre.
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Yeah, and being on Hiatus x Hiatus doesn’t help matters. The ending of Bleach is probably in the top 10 worst endings in all of fiction, but at least it ends. This dragged me along for hundreds of episodes, and for what? Can’t even turn to the manga for closure.
The violence thing is as ridiculous as you think, and yet not just fans but reviewers as well (ANN and other sources) seem to think so. One reviewer (from ComicsAlliance, no less) called it “ludicrously violent”. Are they for real? Have they only ever read Doraemon before? Hell, Gintama is more violent, and that’s a comedy manga!
The overall idea is fine but the final product is just all over the place. What initially made me watch this was the description of the Hunter profession. I love stories of exploration, particularly of naturalists and biologists of old, who’d go off to faraway places in search of some fabled animal (they’d never find it, but they’d end up discovering 14 species of ant and collecting a bunch of rare orchids and gemstones to bring back to England or wherever). I thought that’s what Hunters would do, only to be disappointed. Still searching for an adventure series heavy on the discovery and exploration aspects I mentioned.
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That said, I did like some of the characters, particularly Hisoka (and to a lesser extent Kurapika). Wish he’d get his own spin-off. Apparently the Tokyo Ghoul author is a big HxH fan so he storyboarded an entire Hisoka spinoff detailing his backstory. Would be interesting to have that adapted!
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I agree with some of what you said, but it seems you forgot how unique and moving gon and killua’s relationship feels. That in itself makes HxH great. Yes there’s way too many episodes and the ideas do go everywhere, but the phantom troupe and final arc are brilliant. I’m sad to see you only think this is a ‘medium’ work considering your good taste for other stuff
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