Review of Hunter x Hunter

Hunter x Hunter is a long running action adventure shonen anime originally created by Yoshihiro Togashi & re-adapted in 2011 by powerhouse studio Madhouse. Hunter x Hunter is rather famous here on MAL, it’s currently the 4th highest rated anime on this sight with an average score of 9.12. Well damn, that’s some really high praise, lets see if it lives up to that praise. Probably gonna be some spoilers, be prepared. Story:10/10 The story of Hunter x Hunter is a sprawling epic laid out over a series of 7 arcs. We begin with our main protagonist Gon, Gon decides he wants to become a Hunterso that he can find his dad, who left him in the hands of Mito, a friend of Gon’s dad. Gon then meets up with Leorio, Kurapika, & later on his soon to be life long partner Killua. These 4 all go and take on the Hunter exams together. Once the hunter exams are all over everyone goes out to embark on their own adventures. What makes HxH’s story work so well is the sheer scale of the world that the main 4 (particularly Gon & Killua) traverse throughout their journey. The locations are all full of variety, & introduce us to some great characters with their own stories to tell. My favorite arcs in the series are Greed Island & Yorknew City, I like Greed Island because of Bisky’s training of both Gon & Killua. Greed Island the game is also an interesting setting with some excellent world design, good/interesting game mechanics, a strong villain, & a cathartic payoff at the end of the arc. Phantom Troupe being my other favorite because of 2 things primarily, Kurapika’s development & resolve, along with the Phantom Troupe themselves. From beginning to end every arc, while not as equally good as one another, offer engaging storylines, sublime character moments/development, good episode structure, & payoff. The final thing I have to bring up in my point about why Hunter x Hunter’s story is so good is the pacing. Hunter x Hunter has some of the best pacing I’ve seen out of a long running shonen adventure series like this. Scenes rarely ever drag, the fights usually stay in one episode & only go on for multiple episodes after a long build-up to a point where the multiple episode battles (particularly the final 25 or so episodes of Chimera Amt when the team storms the castle) feels earned.

Characters: 10/10

Hunter x Hunter has excellent characters. Main, supporting, major, minor, the characters of Hunter x Hunter all offer something to the series. The main 4 offer great dynamics between one another. Gon is the innocent somewhat idiotic character, this is a great contrast to the dark & violent world of Hunter x Hunter. Killua serves as the straight man to Gon’s idiot, Killua is the more serious character who keeps Gon in check whenever Gon steps out of line. Killa goes through some great development about learning what friendship means, how to open up himself, & becoming a more sympathetic character as the series goes on. Kurapika was part of a tribe who was later wiped out due to the value of their eyes. It’s later revealed that the phantom troupe (more on them later) were responsible for the massacre of Kurapika’s tribe so he decides to become a Hunter so that he can become stronger, gain more experience both in combat & general world knowledge, to later take on the phantom troupe & seek vengeance for his tribe. I already mentioned it in my story segment, but Kurapika’s character growth & resolve in the Yorknew City arc elevated him to my second favorite character of the series. Our final of the main 4 is Leorio, the fool with a heart of gold. Leorio becomes a Hunter so that he can gain money in order to go to med school & become a doctor & help people because his friend died from a curable disease, yet Leorio couldn’t do anything about it because he didn’t have the medical knowledge to know how to cure his friend. The motivations driving each character, along with the development that everybody gets to go through (even if Leorio’s is unfortunately pretty minimal due to his lack of screentime in the grand scheme of the series). I must also mention side heroes such as the aforementioned Bisky, Knuckle, Wing, Zushi, & many more. Much like our main heroes, these guys contribute majorly to not just the development of Gon & Killua, but the development of the plot as well. They’re fleshed out beings with their own stories to tell.

All of the villains in the series are also great, from the Phantom Troupe in Yorknew City, the Chimera Ants, the Bombers in Greed Island, every villain in this series is full of character & all have their own stories to tell & their own challenges to offer to the heroes. The Phantom Troupe are a group of people who do bad things, but they all look out for one another & become genuinely upset & unsettled at the thought of one of their members getting taken out by “The Chain User”. The Chimera ants, even the minor ones offer something. Take Rammot for example, he’s not around for very long in the arc, but his encounter with Gon & Killua made him angry about the fact that he couldn’t beat them, so he gains a desire to become even stronger & defeat his new found foes. It’s simple, but it’s effective because it not only shows the desire for growth, but the fact that the Chimera Ants are a greater threat than we thought, Gon & Killua did struggle to defeat him after all. There’s too many villains in this series for me to name off one by one, but a commonality between all of them is that they're fleshed out & written as characters, not evil villains.

Art: 10/10

Hunter x Hunter is without a doubt in my mind, the most consistently high quality long running shonen adventure series in both its sheer visual prowess & animation. The environments in Hunter x Hunter look really good because of the landscapes & the color of the world. The colors make the world pop & the lighting only further adds to this. Hunter X Hunter is never too bright or too dark in each scene respectively. Animation is impressive, while Hunter x Hunter is one of those series in which a lot of the scenes are comprised of static shots where the characters are just sitting around talking with the mouth flaps rarely matched up because that’s just the way animation works unless you’re the Monogatari Series. This really isn’t a flaw, as these more static scenes still bring with them some great shot compositions that don’t make the scenes completely uninteresting to look at. Also helping these scenes are the surrounding environments having things going on in the background, so it’s not like these shots are completely uninteresting, I will admit, there are sometimes shots in Hunter x Hunter that are completely uninteresting, but these are negligible as they never last for very long, & their pretty forgettable in the grand scheme, so it’s not like they hold these shots for a long time or anything.

The action directing in Hunter X Hunter is some of the best that TV animation can offer. There are so many great moments in the directing that lead to memorable fights. Take Gon vs Hisoka as Heaven’s Arena for example, at one point Hisoka punches Gon in the face with a hook, & the camera then moves to Gon’s face whilst the background is spinning. It’s a nice shot that demonstrates Gon’s frustrations while keeping the show moving. Another good example of directing would be in the Chiemra Ant arc when the good guys are storming the castle to try & take on the Chimera Ant king. We open with a shot that opens on the Good Guys entering through a portal that Know left by the staircase in an earlier episode. The next shot showcases the villain that our heroes are going to have to fight as they didn’t intend on him being by the staircase, in this case Pouf. The scene then plays out in slow motion for a bit switching between close ups of a good guy, then pouf, & then a good guy again. This sequence of events is excellent because it establishes the beginning of the invasion, the threat that our heroes are going up against, & the determination of the good guys to complete their mission. I can go on all day naming off these moments but that would only serve to pad this review even further, so for now I’ll contain myself & just say “Yeah, Hunter x Hunters action directing is some of the best that TV anime can offer & has so many groundbreaking moments throughout the series”.

Sound: 10/10

The voice acting is an all around sublime effort from everybody. Megumi Han as Gon, Miyuki Sawashiro as Kurapika, Ayumi Fujiwara as Pitou, Daisuke Namikawa as Hisoka. Really, everybody brings a great effort & continuously improves their performance as the show goes along. Don’t get me wrong, their performances aren’t bad at the beginning, I’m just saying, it starts strong, and it only gets stronger from there.The sound design is also really good. Punches, comedic sfx, rubble, nen, the sound design does a great job at keeping everything tied together & making sure everything leaves an impact, so I have no further comments to make on Hunter x Hunter having excellent sound design.

The music is so damn good. A common criticism I hear about Hunter x Hunter is that the series becomes too expository at points. While I can understand the frustration (I myself hate expository dialogue when it’s used incorrectly). Music from the freaking kick ass OST that is this anime will usually play in the background to distract from the exposition, so it rarely, if ever gets boring to hear these characters talk because the music is well placed & is just used so well. I also have to give a shout-out to ending theme 5 (the 2nd Chimera Ant ending theme). Such a great piece that fits the arc perfectly. It starts off nice & slow replicating the build-up to the invasion, then it builds up to represent the invasion taking place, couldn’t have been placed any better.

Overall: 10/10

So that’s Hunter X Hunter. It is absolutely deserving of the spot & reputation its received over the course of 9 years. Its story is a sprawling, globe trotting epic. It takes simple premises & makes complex storylines & characters out of them. The characters are extremely well written & offer their own stories & challenges. The development of both the plot & characters is phenomenal. The structure is on point. The action directing is some of the best that TV anime has ever seen. Every arc is at its minimum an 8/10 or above. The pacing is some of the best I’ve seen out of a long running shonen adventure series like this. It’s a brilliant series Yoshihiro ToGODshi hit it out of the park with this one. With as much praise as I’ve given this one, it’s of course going to receive a 10/10.