Review of Hunter x Hunter
Hunter x Hunter’s 2011 adaptation is praised almost ubiquitously as the greatest shounen anime. On this website nearly 75% of review say that the show is either a “masterpiece” or “great.” A part of me wishes that I weren’t in the 25% minority because I saw a lot of glimpses of what could have made HxH great in my mind but ultimately it fell flat and I feel that on the whole it is an average anime. MAL has you divide your score into 6 categories when reviewing so I’ll share those scores quickly before diving into a spoiler free arc-by-arc review. Story - 5 Mediocre,the one clear overarching plot point in the show was “Gon wants to find his dad” and the payoff for that was incredibly underwhelming, partially because Ging isn’t a great character in my eyes and partially because the show handled the event poorly. There were individual arcs that were good to great and there were individual arcs that were bad to very bad in my eyes so overall the story was pretty mediocre.
Art - 8 Very Good, this show looks really good and makes some artistic choices during choice moments that I felt paid off very well. Madhouse brings consistent quality to the table and this show is no different.
Sound - 4 Decent, there are a few great pieces in the soundtrack. However the most underwhelming 4 or 5 tracks are used ad nauseam and they are often used at times when the timbre of the music conflicts with the tone of the scene. The EDs are fine, a few of them good a few leave something to be desired but my biggest gripe is that for all 148 episodes they use the same damn OP. It isn’t a bad song but it got old about 30 episodes in and stuck around for another 118. Some tracks are straight lifted from classical music, the chorale from Jupiter from Holst's The Planets shows up in like 2 episodes never to be heard again and Mozart’s Lacrimosa gets used every now and then and frequently is used in tandem with the Zoldyck theme (which I don’t particularly like). Overall some really weird decisions were made when it comes to the music in the show.
Character - 4 Decent, the main characters are the worst characters in the show and only one shows any sort of development besides ‘got stronger.’ I would have preferred this show be much shorter and focused on the second half of the Chimera Ant Arc (more on that later) because the King, Shoot, Knuckle, and Morel who I thought were the most engaging characters in the show by a long shot.
Enjoyment - 5 Mediocre, the show had a few decent highs but just as many lows and the rest was kind of plain. I’ll go more in depth arc by arc.
Overall - 5 Mediocre.
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Hunter Exam Arc - This arc is two standard seasons long and just drags on and on. It has a good start building the world but the actual exam got fairly old fairly quickly. There was supposed a big twist near the end but it was telegraphed from miles away once a certain rule is established. For the most part a similar theme is followed for the next 122 episodes: if a character has no thought put into their character design they will die or never have dialogue, often both.
Heavens Arena Arc - This arc isn’t bad but I feel like the Exam Arc and Arena Arc could have easily been truncated together to fit into 26 episodes total. The in depth explanation of nen, etc. is fairly engaging but again drags on just a little too long for my tastes and I lost interest by the end.
Phantom Troupe Arc - I believe these 20 episodes are probably the worst in the show. It primarily follows Kurapika while the other 3 main characters run around on the side doing their own thing. Kurapika’s story is a generic revenge plot and once his power is explained there’s no tension at all. The Phantom Troupe come up only once or twice after this arc and have no more impact on the rest of the show even though they were hyped up to be super relevant to the main characters. After the arc wraps up we see Hisoka every now and then because he’s a pretty important ancillary character but the rest of the Troupe fades into the background hoping that you’ll forget the abandoned plot threads. There’s one weird bit where a big plot event happens but then they cut to Gon, Killua, and Leorio talking as if it never happened even though it would have impacted their plans and then they find out later in that scene like a full day after the event happened and then they drop their plans to do something else? It's kind of a jumbled mess.
Greed Island Arc - The villains in this arc never seemed strong. A common problem this show has is that in order to convey the strength of enemies the villains are shown slaughtering hordes of rather powerless people. This doesn’t effectively communicate their power, all it does is show that they’re complacent with death. I had no reason to believe that Genthru and his homies were stronger than Gon and Killua but I guess they were because all of a sudden the audience was being told through dialogue only that they were stronger right before their final conflict. It's a fairly standard shounen arc. Characters start out weak (in game), they train (hey Biscuit), they aren’t strong enough, they a. train more, or if the plot demands a time constraint b. set up a trap, they win. Nothing genre defining and no real subversion of expectations that I can see.
Chimera Ant Arc - For what it’s worth I believe this was the best arc in the show. I also believe that this arc was at its best when Gon and Killua are off screen. This arc tries to be more serious but at the same time tries to keep a few pieces of light heartedness scattered here and there and I didn’t think it pulled off the contrast as well as, say, Fullmetal Alchemisst did. (I know that the Hunter x Hunter manga began first, just an example of a show that I believe did pull off the balance). There was so much narration in this arc that I kept almost tuning out, show your audience what’s happening don’t just say “this was the right decision” “this saved them” “he was nervous” I can fucking look with my eyes and see that. It moved slowly and the first third of the arc wasn’t anything special but then they introduced the King. His interactions with certain characters almost made me rate this show a 6 or 7 based on him alone. They crafted a genuinely good villain who was complex and interesting to watch and developed him very well. They made him more likable than the chairman in their interactions which I was impressed by. However there were too many things in the arc that outweighed how good of a character he was. Gon reacts to a death in a way that was fairly out of character (and not justified well enough to feel impactful. I know that the shounen genre is targeted towards young boys especially but I don’t find their characters/character motivations compelling and this is no exception) and only got worse as the arc progressed. The Queen part of the arc felt more like extended filler to try and explain how the King showed up. Character motivations were worn on sleeves and their next actions were fairly predictable (Colt, Melereon, Ikalgo, and the 3 Royal Guards especially). Half an episode is spent giving backstory to a drug lord just to kill him off right after introducing him and never mentioning him again. A poor deus ex machina to make Gon relevant after 55 episodes explaining why he is not relevant in this arc. An awkward “us vs. them” theme that felt a little xenophobic especially as Meruem got more and more humanlike and the theme continued through the end of the arc. Weird orgasming by 2/3 of the Royal Guard in episode 128 that was probably the low point of the show because of how long it lasted. A kind of lame end to the arc honestly, [spoiler!!!!!!] radiation poisoning? that’s how you kill of 2 Royal Guard and the King? [/spoiler] The best parts involved Meruem, Komugi, Knuckle, Morel, and Shoot. Honestly if the show was boiled down to about 26 episodes and was centered around those 5 characters I would likely greatly enjoy it. It was the longest and best arc, but it was still fewer than half the episodes so even if individually this arc was good (7) to very good (8) the rest of the show drags down my rating.
Election Arc - you go from some good intense action, a bit of a copout ending but a firm resolution to HARD HITTING FAST PACED BUREAUCRACY. Half of this arc was incredibly boring (elections involving character introduced just for the sake of having characters to elect for something are not compelling) and the other half attempted to tug on the viewer’s heart strings. If you felt attached to Gon and Killua it likely did a good job but I was never incredibly invested in either one of them frankly and this arc didn’t change that. The reason for the medical problem in the arc is very poorly explained at the end of the chimera arc and if it were less out of left field I feel I would have been more impacted by it. The one overarching plot (Find Ging!) is concluded and instead of taking it seriously the show decides to just make a joke out of it and spoils what could have been a satisfying reunion. There is a second dues ex machina involving a Zoldyck that didn’t exist until they decided they wanted to make it more personal for Killua I guess and it felt kind of hastily throw together to give a slightly more lighthearted conclusion after the Chimera Ant Arc.
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Ultimately this show suffers from a lack of focus in my eyes. Each arc is very different and they don’t flow together well so there’s a jolting start and stop every time an arc begins and ends. This is likely attributed to the manga which is affectionately known as Hiatus x Hiatus. The Yoshihiro Togashi had some good ideas and implemented them in some good ways but it seemed like he wasn’t sure what kind of story he wanted to tell and so he tried to tell a bunch of different stories in a limited space. Ultimately I think the effort falls flat because of the length and largely mediocre characters. Sure there are exceptions to the faults I couldn’t help but see but they are few and very far between so the show averages out to be a largely mediocre experience. Half the characters advertised as main characters don't make an appearance in the longest arc, story quality is all over the place, villains come and go and are largely forgettable with the exception of Meruem, plot threads are abandoned as the show moves on, and the overall experience was neither positive nor negative for me personally.