Review of Hunter x Hunter

This show gets all the fluff right and not much of the substance. It has consistently great visuals and sound, but outside of that it's just...meh. The main character, Gon, is fairly inconsistent, going from a fairly decent shounen protagonist, who while he is the "not super smart adventurous type" is a refreshing spin on the archetype because he doesn't solely believe in his own ideals. But then suddenly he meets one guy who knew his dad and spent a couple days with him, and goes utterly insane when this person is attacked. Killua, the other main character, offers an interesting foil and really thehighlight of the show is the friendship these two form, but even that ends up getting sappy in odd ways. Beyond those two, none of the characters really last. A number of characters get introduced in the first twenty episodes who barely, if at all, appear later. Basically most of them pop in and out of the story fairly regularly, even two of the characters on the shows promo image. Each of them is given varying amounts of depth but few really stand out as interesting characters, much less ones who actually make the show entertaining to watch.

1/3 of the show is spent in arguably the worst arc, the Chimera Ant arc, which utterly ruins my suspension of disbelief in all manner of convoluted ways, even more so than the Greed Island arc. The story writing in this show can just be all over the place sometimes leaving me tilting my head in bewilderment and going "That's not how it works, darn it." or "That's just silly". And the last 14 episodes feature a deus ex machina if I've ever seen one.

But the most egregious offense this show commits is how little the main duo actually have fights or exchanges that really use their abilities. You don't find out what they even are until over 1/3 of the way through the show and the amount they actually use them is staggeringly low. I get that it's not trying to be the most action packed shounen anime out there, but in 148 episodes the main character only has a handful of actual fights, sometimes going entire arcs without any action, and most of the early ones just involve him getting utterly thrashed. The remainder of the show is, by and large, training segments. The entire show titillates you into thinking these characters are going to grow as Nen users but most of the show is training, training, training. I get that the series isn't complete, but there is no excuse for 148 episodes and such little payoff. Their work doesn't amount to much at all, and it leaves me, as a viewer, with a very incomplete feeling. It just doesn't pay off to watch this show.

It's a decent enough show and premise, but it could be so, so very much more, both in entertainment and in actual substance.