Review of Hunter x Hunter

I actually feel guilty about giving this anything lower than a ten, but I actually do have my reasons. To begin with: before I watched this series, I had an aversion to any long series. I went through a phase where I was even too lazy to watch series that were 24 episodes. After all, I have a particular obsession with having to finish every single show I watch, and the length of some shows makes it hard for me to do. To say the least, this show broke my short show streak, and now I don't know if I can go back to shortseries. I think short series miss a lot of the character development and love you develop for the characters when compared to long series.

Anyways, I've ranted enough about that. WARNING: This is going to be a rambling, detailed review, but I will not include any spoilers. This is specifically aimed at people who are apprehensive about watching this show, whether because of the length or some of the floating opinions. I will do my best to make this unbiased. :)

The story was well written. The show is split up into different arcs, starting with (some of these might be slightly wrong names) the Exam Arc before moving onto the Zoldyck Family Arc. Both of these arcs deal with character development and set up the rest of the series very well. Next is the Heaven's Arena Arc, where we get introduced to nen, the 'power' that the characters develop and fight with throughout the rest of the series. The Phantom Troupe Arc introduces a massive new cast of characters that will probably continue popping up forever, which technically isn't a bad thing. It also creates a lot of character development for Kurapika. The Greed Island Arc is reminiscent of Sword Art Online, but much better. The most controversial and longest arc, the Chimera Ant Arc, takes over the anime for a good 60 episodes with gore and tears before finally closing it off with the Election Arc. Why did I go through all these arcs? Well, honestly, each arc can be treated as its own season, and some arcs even as their own separate anime. For people who aren't interested in watching the whole thing, I would recommend specific arcs to them, it all depends on your taste. The biggest strength of Hunter x Hunter is that even if some episodes tend to drag, along with some arcs, the characters keep everything alive and engaging. More on that later.

The art was phenomenal. It was neat, clean, brightly colored and nice to look at. I say this often, but it honestly was a pleasure to watch. The animation itself was also very pretty, especially the last episode with those gorgeous natural backgrounds.

The sound was pretty neat. The voice actors (both English and Japanese) did a great job, putting a lot of emotion into their characters. They all felt very real. The opening theme was always the same, but it was changed to fit every arc, and it was done very well as well. The closing themes changed over the course of the anime, but they always fit the arc and served as a good way to end it. My only problem with the sound was for the next episode preview. Sometimes, it had rather 'circus' music that messed with the soft feels the episode itself gave. The background music was also very fitting and quiet.

I loved the characters to death. Even as much as I hated myself for it, I couldn't bring myself to truly dislike a single person. Even the villains had their redeeming qualities while every hero had their low points. Nobody was black or white, everyone was in the gray area and everyone had the potential to change. Not a lot of series or writers can master this balance, but they managed it and it was beautiful. I loved Leorio and Kurapika, so I was a little sad they were AWOL for so long, but it was pretty sweet when Leorio made his appearance again.

I enjoyed this more than I expected I would. It was fun, engaging, and it made me laugh, cry, and learn a lot. Perhaps we're not all perfect, and perhaps we're not all heroes. And maybe we don't always get what we want. But as our old man Ging says, "You should enjoy the little detours to the fullest. Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want." In the end, this is what the show boils down to, and I can vouch that I enjoyed those detours to the fullest.

In the end, I loved it to death and it hurts that there's no more. (I'm still praying for another season of this... and Ouran season two pleasseeee)

I would recommend this if you: like shonen, like FullMetal Alchemist/ long drawn out adventures for an ultimate goal, fighting anime, like kid main characters, like lowkey bromance, like questions about morality and death and worthiness and willpower, think about what makes people human a lot, like long series, like character development, can handle blood/gore, can handle death

I would NOT recommend this if you: can't handle blood/death/gore, prefer short series, need a lot of comedy and romance, don't like long, drawn-out sagas, not into fighting, prefer shoujo

Have a great day everyone!