Table of Contents

1. Worst Written Shounen Ever
2. Re-Evaluation of Hunter x Hunter

I’ve completed watching the entirety of the Hunter x Hunter 2011 anime series and I thought that I may as well summarize my views and critique it. I actually quite enjoyed the Chimera Ant arc, but I believe it is as flawed as any other shonen series and it is not this hyper-competent work of art that Hunter x Hunter fans make it out to be. It’s mostly average with some portions being uniquely above average, but nothing that can really compare it to greater works of fiction like Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Baccano!, S-Cry-Ed, One Piece, Berserk, and Madoka Magica. It certainly falls far short of Togashi’s magnum opus, Yu Yu Hakusho. I would even argue that much of its more violent parts are just derivatives of Dragonball Z’s manga, especially the Frieza saga. The character writing is also subpar compared to stories like Naruto. Kurapika is simply not as convincing as Uchiha Sasuke during the Valley of the End / Final Valley fight when speaking of the loss of his entire clan. Don’t take my word for it; just listen to the Japanese version of Sasuke explaining his pain. I would go so far as to say that Kurapika’s character writing is subpar even compared to Vegeta’s dub version from Dragonball Z. Both the old dub where Vegeta lays dying from Frieza’s torture and the dubbed add-ons of Vegeta rebutting Supreme Kai who was calling a fight between Goku and Vegeta meaningless; they give far more depth than anything I’ve witnessed in the Hunter x Hunter Japanese version. Killua reads like some bizarre wish fulfillment character who had an assassin version of the Addams family as his lineage. All that being said, if I had to pick re-watching a series between the Naruto series (which I thoroughly despise after the Timeskip) or Hunter x Hunter, then I would pick Naruto. To be frank, if you’ve watched Naruto, Dragonball Z, S-Cry-Ed, or One Piece; then you can skip Hunter x Hunter. That is, any single one of these four are better than Hunter x Hunter. Each of the three aforementioned series have far better characters, depth, plot (yes, plot), and settings. Despite Dragonball Z’s plot holes, I realize after watching Hunter x Hunter’s ending, that it’s nowhere near as bad as Hunter x Hunter. Despite even the prophecy nonsense of Naruto and the lack of meaningful depth given to the other villages, it’s still better than Hunter x Hunter’s worldbuilding. Hunter x Hunter cannot touch a candle to One Piece’s character depth, worldbuilding, and plot; Hunter x Hunter is essentially a weaker version of One Piece in most ways and essentially a less rational Naruto when it comes to the Hunter job system. Certain worldbuilding elements are interesting, but make less and less sense and aren’t as deeply explored as One Piece’s worldbuilding or the worldbuilding of Naruto’s Zabuza arc.

I’ve said quite a few harsh criticisms of Hunter x Hunter prior to this blog post; I simply could not believe people even thought to compare this story to fantastic works like Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood or Berserk. Togashi’s quality of writing is much sloppier and the final arc of the Hunter x Hunter 2011 anime with Alluka magically showing up despite never being hinted at during the Zoldyck rescue arc shows only contrivance and discovery writing on Togashi’s part. I keep reading reddit comments with the most moronic comments upvoted arguing what is clearly bad writing is magically good writing because it’s somehow intended to be intentionally bad and that makes it good . . . or something. The amount of delusion from Hunter x Hunter fans is truly astonishing; there was even a rather mild criticism by a user mentioning that it didn’t make sense to them that Jesus Christ and Christianity could exist in Hunter x Hunter due to Christian history being tied so strongly to the Roman empire and prior to that mentioning that it just seems bizarre to hear Jesus or Judas mentioned in a fantasy world. This criticism made perfect sense and seemed quite minimal. Another user then responded arguing that Togashi had made a backstory that Jesus Christ was an early nen user and became famous for using Nen to resurrect himself. Another user proceeded to ask the source of where Togashi had said that; the user making the claim admitted that they lied which was upvoted and the other user began making “lmfao” acronyms. Other reddit users proceeded to join in and laugh at having lied to people who were making mild criticisms of a series they were also fans of. I don’t even know what to call this; it seems like HxH reddit users and HxH fans more broadly have confused a fictional series with a cultish mentality. I can only surmise that it’s likely because the majority of Hunter x Hunter fans may have moved on instead of waiting around, the only ones remaining are “true believers” of Togashi who confuse mild criticism with somehow insulting the author and developed a peculiar parasocial relationship for Togashi as a result, and Reddit’s system creates an entrenched incentive to support all forms of extremism due to its upvote-downvote system. The reddit fanbase of Hunter x Hunter refuses to accept even the mildest of criticisms of Hunter x Hunter and have turned it into a cult as a result. I don’t know what else to call this but a mentally fragile and potentially disturbed group of people who confuse honest criticism with hate. They genuinely cannot seem to differentiate criticizing their favorite childhood anime with insulting them personally, somehow. To me, they honestly seem like a toxic gatekeeping cult that I wouldn’t want to be around when I see behavior like what they display.

I would argue that Hunter x Hunter is the very definition of a mediocre shounen series that happened to appeal to people who like hard magic systems. The magic system of Hunter x Hunter happens to be better explained than the vast majority of other shounen series. But, while it’s well-deserved praise, the terminology is still obtuse and the Hatsu system still doesn’t quite make sense. For example, Kurapika had to taste the chains to create their Hatsu with the Nen condition that he would die if he used the chains on anyone who wasn’t a member of the Phantom Troupe. However, did the old lady maid, Tsubone, have to taste a motorbike to create a Hatsu in which she transforms herself into a motorbike? Also, I still don’t quite understand how this fits as a Nen ability. Even if she didn’t taste diesel, was she tasting tires, the oil filter within motorbikes, and the motorbike engine? I’m genuinely confused how it makes sense that she can change her body’s anatomy into that of a motorbike even if she was a specialization class. I’d argue it’s just yet another example of Togashi making up the story as he goes along as so much of Hunter x Hunter feels haphazard.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the Chimera Ant arc and I do think it has portions of quality writing that – in isolation – show a unique narrative brilliance that can’t be compared to other shows, but it doesn’t have the appropriate worldbuilding or quality character writing for consistency after these high marks. However, the Chimera Ant arc is the definite highpoint of the series despite the length. My reasons are as follows:

The beginning half is a bit of a mixed bag of storytelling. The biggest failing of the Chimera Ant arc is definitely that the Chimera Ants were never once mentioned prior to their arc. No foreshadowing of any kind existed. It would not have been hard to have even just a slight mention of Netero calling Kite about a possible dangerous species. This isn’t the first time as Wing failed to mention being taught by Biscuit and the narrative instead had Biscuit casually mention that she trained Wing after her initial introduction. This is why I argue that Togashi is obviously making it up as he goes along. Nevertheless, the beginning of the arc is pretty good with showing the contrast of Kite’s team involving Gon and Killua compared to Pokkle’s team. Whereas Kite repeatedly emphasizes the dangers and constantly asks Gon and Killua if they want to continue despite the dangers; Pokkle’s team did not truly take the dangers seriously and this can be shown when they agree to go. Pokkle’s only thinking of his own insecurities about becoming a good Hunter and doesn’t think twice as he hears a news reporter’s death from the radio transmission. Ponzu is told of the danger, but she decides to go anyway because she wants to be one of the team and Pokkle stupidly decides to bring two people who are completely untrained. Ultimately, it was Pokkle’s fault for taking the three into the danger zone. Despite the the member of Pokkle’s team who shouted alerting the Chimera Ants, it’s Pokkle’s fault for not putting in ground rules and for taking them there. Ponzu actually did her best given the circumstances and the note she sent Kite ended-up helping Kite’s group adjust their expectations to the dangers initially since they learned the Chimera Ants were openly killing people as a fact and not a hypothetical. An interesting aspect of their deaths, that I haven’t seen anyone else mention, was that three never passed the Hunter exam and Pokkle only passed because Killua gave him a free pass by quitting the match. In effect, Pokkle’s victory was unearned as he never had to prove himself in the final portion of the Hunter exams, Ponzu hadn’t been able to pass and accidentally trapped herself in a cave that she only got out of thanks to Gon’s help, and the other two shouldn’t have ever gone there as they had no way to defend themselves from the dangers. Thus, acquiring a Hunter license by effortful and honest methods meant a great deal.

Kite’s team had gotten all the way to the nest of the Chimera Ant Queen before Neferpitou’s attack. Gon and Killua repeatedly handled themselves expertly in the dangerous situations. The narrative then shifts when Killua grabs Gon and escapes to meet Netero’s expert Hunters recruited for the Chimera Ant extermination mission. Knov and Morel view them as children getting far over their heads; a test is devised for further training and to further test their resolve. I felt it was a bit haphazard that Biscuit had left at the end of the Greed Island arc only to show-up yet again. The “humor” with her being “scared” of Palm seemed really out of place and asinine. If Biscuit was just faking, then I don’t understand the point of the so-called humor. I didn’t initially enjoy the training arc and I still maintain that not being able to see the conclusion of the final battle, except through a quick flashback, was completely stupid in terms of writing. As a viewer, this was among the most annoying parts of the Chimera Ant arc and where my enjoyment nosedived. I was enjoying all of the beginning and then my enjoyment completely cratered as I had to endure yet another fucking stupid training arc after Heaven’s Arena and Greed Island. I was immensely enjoying the fact that the Chimera Ant arc didn’t contain and tournaments or training arcs. Yet, somehow, Togashi managed to make yet another arc and this time with “stakes” of Gon and Killua needing to say goodbye to their friendship if they lose because Killua is too cowardly and could leave Gon behind and Gon doesn’t pay attention to Ja-Janken’s weaknesses that could get him injured. We then have to endure one of the creepiest story arcs whereby Gon goes on a date with Palm, who is way older than him, and Killua has a battle with Rammot and overcomes the hurdle to his growth that Biscuit warned him about.

The Meruem story, while initially good with set-up, seemed incredibly forced once nearing the invasion portion. Meruem’s growth is being shown with him playing Gungi with Komugi and it creates forced plot stupidity with Meruem randomly deciding to break his arm for the dumbest of reasons just so Knov can break into the facility to plant teleportation points without being caught. Knov proceeds to randomly break down while nothing in his character hinted at this random change once he feels Pouf’s En aura. As the coming battle approaches, Meruem randomly decides that Neferpitou needs to stop having their aura shot into the sky and he says any aerial attack will be handled by himself. Meruem proceeds to absolutely fail at sensing the aerial dragon drive attack before it happens and he was quite clearly dumbed down and given the idiot ball by Togashi to make the initial invasion portion of the story arc make sense. To be clear, if Meruem really was able to handle an aerial attack, then why didn’t he? It was just the shallowest, piss poor writing on Togashi’s part to make the initial invasion work. I enjoyed how Killua and Gon recruited Chimera Ants to their cause to help with the invasion. Likewise, Netero’s boring backstory appearing during the invasion was extremely annoying. Episode 112 was the worst episode of the entire season as it was the narrator narrating everything from start to finish in one of the most painfully stupid episodes ever created. The arguments from Hunter x Hunter fans that it needed the narration because of too much going on is completely false, since it did nothing more than increase the run time for a short two-minute event. Characters like Shoot randomly having personality changes that weren’t hinted at, had my eyes rolling. There were certainly parts that dipped in quality throughout the entire arc.

However, the positives outweigh the negatives. Whereas Gon and Killua were repeatedly tested by Morel and Knov about the serious nature of joining the invasion, they both ended-up being proven the most capable. Knuckle ended-up being the biggest failure of a human being in the entire Chimera Ant story arc and ultimately, the most selfish and idiotic member of the group. To be clear, he was well-written, but his story arc ultimately proves that he did not deserve to be a Hunter and could be the next Pokkle in a future story arc under even more dire circumstances. Togashi made this clear throughout the entire story arc, if you closely examine Knuckle’s behavior and compare them to the tests Morel does on Gon and Killua to determine how serious they are about getting the job done to exterminate the Chimera Ant enemies completely. Early in the arc, Knuckle is frustrated about not being able to help approximately 500,000 to a million people set to be turned into food for the Chimera Ant King, Meruem. Shoot calmly explains that billions of lives outside of the country are at stake and therefore, they must remain calm. Morel’s lessons for Killua and especially Gon are to refuse to let-up on attacks, even if one of the Royal Guards threatens to murder Morel or Gon’s other friends like Killua. Gon must have the resolve to carry forward with the mission and he must not allow pride to get in the way because the Chimera Ants are extremely dangerous and one wrong move could get them killed. When we get to the events of the invasion, Gon is ready to fight Neferpitou as per his and Killua’s mission objective and only waits because Pitou broke her own arm to show her sincerity in keeping her word. Neferpitou sticks to her assigned mission from Meruem to keep Komugi safe. Knuckle and Shoot face off against Youpi and after Shoot clearly loses, Knuckle decides to risk his own life to attack Youpi because Shoot felt his pride was damaged due to Youpi not viewing Shoot as a worthy enough threat to kill. Knuckle attacks Youpi thinking he’s timed his attacks; only to fall for Youpi’s trap. The only reason Knuckle doesn’t die immediately is because Killua manages to arrive on time to hit Youpi with Godspeed and trade blows. Unlike Knuckle, who nearly got himself killed, Killua had gotten enough distance to safely flee once his electricity ran out. Later, when Youpi threatens to murder Morel who is out of energy, Knuckle cancels his technique to drain Youpi’s aura. Thus, Knuckle effectively gave Youpi aura for free and drained himself. The only reason Morel, Knuckle himself, and Meleoron aren’t all dead is because Youpi decides to let them live on a whim. First of all, this completely trashes the whole idea of Hunter x Hunter not being like other Shounen, especially in the most important arc of the series where dangers were repeatedly emphasized with Pokkle and Ponzu’s deaths. Second, it shows that Knuckle is absolutely failure of a Hunter. After Meruem’s return from his fight with Netero, Knuckle decides to call it quits and to leave it up to the countries that hired the Hunter association; fully knowing that billions of people will die and pissing Meleoron off as Meleoron is adamant to avenge is adopted father and has been putting himself in constant danger throughout the entire invasion arc to help others.

There were only two reasons that the Invasion arc ended with the humans victory over the Chimera Ants. Meruem’s stupidity of having Pitou only use aura in the lower quarters while being completely unable to handle attacks from the air that took Komugi’s wellbeing into account and Shaiapouf’s complete betrayal of Meruem’s trust by insisting on his own deluded ideals of what Meruem should be over Meruem’s orders. Shaiapouf’s idiocy further extends in two ways: Shaiapouf clearly did not understand the danger that Gon Freecs posed and even after Neferpitou explained that Gon was not showing mercy for Komugi’s sake, it seemed as if Shaiapouf still had some bizarre notion that Gon would be merciful and somehow wasn’t really a threat. Whereas Neferpitou picked up on how dangerous Gon was immediately and was blindsided by Gon’s raw analytical intelligence since Gon outsmarted Pitou completely in the arc; even when given direct proof of Gon’s intellect with Gon flat out calling Shaiapouf a liar and warning Knuckle to be on his guard, Shaiapouf’s later thoughts demonstrate that he didn’t quite understand how dangerous that was and Shaiapouf’s only thoughts go back to preserving his deluded ideal of what Meruem should be instead of obeying his King’s direct orders as transmitted by Pitou. Shaiapouf’s ability to switch his voicework showed tactical brilliance, but only in an effort to lie to his fellow Royal Guard, Neferpitou. Shaiapouf never once considered using this voicework to deceive Morel when tricking Morel to keep his smoke barrier up. He could have easily sent one of his clone fairies to fake the voice of one of Morel’s comrades to keep Morel there while his clones helped Youpi kill Morel’s teammates. Instead, he shouted his own voice outside the smoke barrier and pretended that was his plan. Shaiapouf is also completely at fault for Meruem’s death in equal measure to Netero. Shaiapouf decided to act on his own arrogant impulses by splitting up and flying away, making Neferpitou’s job harder and in direct defiance of Meruem’s orders to Neferpitou. It resulted in Gon reducing the amount of time Pitou was permitted to heal Komugi and Gon brilliantly using Knuckle as a henchman to keep Komugi as a hostage to get the job done as Morel had emphasized. Gon had even threatened to kill Komugi, if Neferpitou didn’t shut up and obey Gon’s commands. Shaiapouf lied to Neferpitou about Komugi being safe by faking her voice and this petty decision by Pouf is what actually killed Meruem. Whereas Meruem could have eaten the aura of Neferpitou to use Dr. Blythe to heal himself or have Neferpitou heal his body from the radiation, Gon had effectively carried out his mission as repeatedly emphasized by Knov and especially Morel to kill Neferpitou using any means necessary. The sheer genius of Gon Freecs laying this trap paid of brilliantly for the human side of the conflict. At the end of their respective arcs, Neferpitou proudly dies in service to her King and her loyalty to him without a hint of needing any praise or awareness from the King himself. She dies knowing that she prevented a challenge to his power and even after death managed to force Gon to fall for the same flaws that Biscuit Kreuger had stressed about the weaknesses of Gon’s Ja-Janken technique. Whereas Killua overcame his flaws in his fight with Rammot, Gon – for the third time – lost the use of an arm due to falling for the same failings that he was warned about regarding his Ja-Janken technique. By contrast, Shaiapouf wastes the King’s time on stupid games that end-up guaranteeing Meruem’s death and especially the death of Youpi. After Meruem recovers his memory, Shaiapouf lays on the ground abandoned by his King despite being forgiven for his betrayal after Meruem explicitly told the Royal Guards to never lie to him prior to the invasion.

The Chimera Ant arc is certainly where I enjoyed Gon’s development the most. What surprised me the most though was that the comments calling Gon a sociopath / psychopath or that he wasted his energy on Pitou when he could have used it to fight the King were all categorically wrong. Gon and Killua were assigned to the mission of murdering Neferpitou. Gon stuck with his mission objective far better than the others, even if it was just waiting in a room. Prior to Gon’s transformation, he blamed himself for Kite’s death and Killua had wrongly assumed that Gon was coming to his senses when really Killua’s comments were making Gon feel even guiltier and that’s why Gon lashed out at Killua. Gon went through survivor’s guilt, denial, arguably post-traumatic stress, and self-loathing all at once when Neferpitou revealed the truth. After Pitou revealed that she wouldn’t heal Kite, Gon’s negative emotions overwhelmed him and he killed Pitou in revenge. Regardless of Gon’s thoughts, feelings, and reasoning; this was a completely acceptable and praiseworthy act as a Hunter. He had an assigned mission and fully carried it out. Morel explicitly and repeatedly stressed that Gon had to be willing to do anything and everything to meet mission objectives and Gon carried it out. Whereas Knuckle absolutely failed at being a Hunter twice in the same arc, Gon fulfilled his mission objective. He was never assigned to take down Meruem and had no way of knowing that Meruem was no longer fighting Netero and had returned to the palace. Gon blaming himself for most of the inner shouting match shows that he is not a psychopath / sociopath or whatever else that people wish to wrongly label him. He’s a twelve-year old who was suffering and lashed out because that’s what he was conditioned to do as a Hunter. It seems as if people did not appropriately understand the entire training arc of the Chimera Ant arc conditioned Gon to do this and that Gon’s actions are interpreted as noble and heroic by the Hunter association writ large. The final concluding moments of Komugi and Meruem were nice, even if I felt their relationship was rather under-developed and only really started to become more interesting when Meruem saved her from the eagle.

Overall, despite the weak build-up, I did enjoy the battles more than I expected. The strategic battles are absolutely the highpoint of this series and if you’re a fan of strategic usage of power, then this is definitely a worthwhile show as it has some of the most entertaining strategies for different magical powers interacting in the same world. However, these strategic battles are usually reserved for the side characters and they’re not as typical of Gon’s battles. Gon just seems to be used more to explain the magic system than have an interesting fight using the system. Finally, the election arc was completely stupid; Killua is randomly revealed to have a sister than can freely grant any wish that he wants because he’s the only one who loves her among their family and she was never hinted at before. Moreover, the election system was absolutely the stupidest plot point ever devised with the vice-Chairman Paristan’s motives of wanting difficulty and then quitting at the end being the dumbest writing imaginable for a story arc. I understand Togashi is obsessed with a theme of anti-climactic plot twists for this entire story as that’s been clear since the Hunter exam, but the ending of the election storyline was just completely stupid. Apparently, Netero’s Zodiac subordinates are all too dumb to conduct a single transferable vote like how India conducts its elections for the Rajya Sabha (more commonly referred to as “Ranked-Choice voting” in the US). Seriously, that was all they needed. They just needed voters pick their top three preferred choices in numerical order, once the candidate with the least votes is determined then have then stricken out, and have the second choice of the voters who made the choice for the stricken-out candidate transferred to their second choice. Rinse and repeat until you get the 95% voting quota. Y’know, like how it is done in real life? That was honestly the stupidest arc because of the waste of manpower and time over something that could have been resolved in such a simple manner. Of course, the narrative was just contrived to bend over backwards in order for Gon to finally meet Ging and give viewers a comedic scene with Ging’s interactions with the rest of the Hunters. The interactions were hilarious and enjoyable, but unfortunately it was contrived. It’s hard to believe the Zodiacs couldn’t think of such a simple solution, even if they’re all muscleheads who became members due to their proficiency with Nen and not for legislative duties. It’s odd that they simply couldn’t hire public policy makers to shape their institution of that was the case, since they’re entrusted with protecting the globe during times of peril like against the Chimera Ant invasion. Finally, the last few episodes were quite good with Gon and Killua thanking each other and saying goodbye, and given that Togashi had them make a motto that friends’ don’t thank each other; it seems that Killua and Gon had mutually decided to end their friendship due to taking Biscuit Krueger’s critique into account and Killua realizing that he’d perhaps used Gon as a crutch of sorts while Gon had acted too selfishly. The final scene with Ging revealing an entire continent mostly unknown to the world doesn’t make much sense in a world with satellite technology that allows for televisions to be watchable. It’s yet another in a litany of examples that Togashi makes up the story as he goes along. Hunter x Hunter is a fine show and it has probably the best strategic use of Shounen battle techniques, but it is ultimately skippable if you’ve watched other shounen battle series.

As a bonus, here’s my assessment of each individual episode that I found to have a particularly noteworthy quality to keep note of and below that a copy of the reddit interaction that critiqued the worldbuilding:

Episode 77: Unease and sighting, Kite shows a video of horned tigers that he discovered but claims there is no signal in his cell phone.

 

Episode 78: How would the NGL ever be able to enforce its rejection of technology on a population of 2.17 million? How would they enforce an execution? Overly convenient worldbuilding after Chimera Ants are mentioned.

 

Episode 89: at the end of the episode with 2:43 remaining, it says [Killua] when Bisky is talking in the subtitle.

 

Episode 96: A Lawless Home. Bombs are said to be unable to kill Chimera Ants, but a mass-produced bomb available to all countries kills Meruem.

 

Episode 98: Explains supposed plot hole of nen puppeteering the country.

 

Episode 101: Darts game gets the same explanation after one of the Ortho siblings, the villains, explains it.

 

Episode 105: Mereum breaking his arm for no reason felt like plot convenience. After his discussion with the blind girl, in which she says she won’t request his life and explains her life story, he breaks his arm for no reason and no explanation just so Neferpitou can drop their En so others can enter the palace building.

 

Episode 106: Knov’s freak out comes out of nowhere and seems very forced and random.

 

Episode 109: Ants picking up on cell phone signals makes absolutely no sense as an explanation since Gon and Killua constantly used cell phones for communication while in Ant territory. It’s completely stupid as an explanation and reads like Togashi forgot that cell phones were suppose to be banned in the country.

 

Episode 111: HORRIBLE way of introducing Netero’s backstory just before a battle in the sky. Instead of having it before the invasion, it’s right after he hits Pitou in the sky. Naruto levels of bad writing made even worse by a piss poor narrator. Worst invasion arc start ever.

Episode 112: Among the worst episodes ever. Narration throughout the entirety of it from the fucking narrator. Mereum proven to be an absolutely moronic decision-maker.

 

Episode 117: Stupidest, most contrived Shounen brainless muscle-head reasoning for Knuckle to keep fighting Youpi, because Shoot’s pride was hurt.

 

Episode 125: The scene in the room where Komugi is being healed is fucking fantastic, but too much telling.

 

Episode 126: Brilliant but kinda dumb that Meruem didn’t have a fucking Hatsu or use Nen abilities. So much for the ultimate species.

 

Episode 128: Fucking stupid “KING / SIRE / OUUU!!” screaming from two Royal Guards turning what was a serious moment into the most dumbass comedy. Ruins any tension or serious moment. Absolutely stupid.

131: Best fucking episode.

 

Last few episodes prove Pouf was a moron and Meruem and Komugi’s deaths were bittersweet.