Review of Hunter x Hunter
Overall rating: 8, you can leave now if you feel like it. I have a problem judging Hunter X Hunter. Is it bad? No, it's actually pretty good, sometimes even great. Is it plain? Hard to tell. If I had to explain the anime in a single sentence it would be something like: This is as average as average shonen gets, but at the same time, there are enough added elements and the series is written well enough that it feels much better than it looks. That's the general idea about Hunter X Hunter. The anime feels better than it looks. The way it does that isby having those very small details, which, on their own don't make or break an anime but when put together makes the experience more unique. I'll list some of them because remembering all of them would be a pain.
Character relevance: Hisoka is the most obvious one, but something few of the old school shonen did was to keep early characters useful.
Battle shonen, not battle heavy shonen: HxH is a battle shonen, there's no denying this. But aside from the Chimera Ant arc (and Greed Island kind of), the show was never about beating all of the bad guys. I especially appreciated how the whole Phantom Troupe ordeal was settled.
A constantly evolving world: Unlike most battle shonens, Hunter X Hunter didn't feel static in its world. Even when the main characters were doing something, it just didn't feel like the fate of the world revolved around them. For some, it might be a bad thing, but I like when things move even during something as drastic as the Chimera Ant invasion.
Gon, just Gon: Back on that point, if you live Killua out (and even there, to an extent) the main character isn't the all centralizing force he is in every other battle shonen. Back to the Chimera Ant (don't blame me, half the anime is just this arc), which is probably the only arc where he had a huge role. Even there, he was only considered to be one of the key fighters in the battle. He wasn't the Goku that everyone waited for to take care of everything. Hell, he wasn't even the one to take down the big bad guy. Even heller, he never saw the guy, he had his own selfish goal and stuck to it, at the expense of the mission. So by that logic, he was a but of a hindrance, since the plan had to take into account Gon's childish selfishness. By the way, a very minor thing is how well the anime portrays children. By that standard, there's no better than HxH
Non fighters: This point is about Leorio, favorite character in the show. I know I'm the type to like characters who aren't all that liked, sometimes even disliked but fuck you I do what I want. The main reason I like the dude is basically his whole concept. Yes, he hangs out with the big guys. Yes, sometimes he feels out of place. But the man doesn't care all that much about battle, being the strongest and whatever. All he wants is to be a doctor, save people and make money. And that's really unique, and appreciated, at least for me.
And I guess those few points are enough to give you an idea of how I feel about this anime. One last thing though, Greed Island and Chimera Ant (especially Chimera Ant) could have gained from being a good 10-20 episodes shorter. And that last arc could have been a bit more fleshed out, like 5 episodes maybe.