Hunter x Hunter (2011)

Name: An incredibly fun Shounen to watch that has a few flaws
Item: Hunter x Hunter (2011)
Rating: 93
Author: Jambees

a review by Jambees

Jambees

3 years ago·Jul 21, 2022

/ 100

Story:

I'm going to go in order of each arc and explain my thoughts

The Hunter Exam arc kinda had a slow start, nothing really interesting happens in the beginning until later on but it did introduce the characters nicely, the pacing wasn't too bad either, overall not bad it's simply an introduction and i didn't really have any problems with this part of the series. Most notable parts have to be Killua's reveal of his background, that was great, it was the single point in the show that really got me invested. Hisoka's development throughout the arc set him up to be an incredibly intersting villian.

I know that the Zoldyck Family, Heavens Arena, and Yorknew City arc are seperate things but I think I'm going to cover them all at about the same since each arc seems way too short to justify having them seperate. the Zoldyck arc is pretty much the same as the hunter exam just with more chracters to introudce, not much development not anything that interetsing being set up. However the Heavens arena arc is fantastic, this is where the really good action starts, the whole concept of Nen is still really confusing but it's really cool in practice throughout the rest of the show, also has possibly one of my favorite actions scenes ever with the Hisoka vs Gon fight, that scene was a cinematic masterpiece, soooo hype my eyes were glued to the screen the entire time, I love how theres was little to no dialogue, just pure raw animation and sound effects, i dont really remember much from that arc but overall it was pretty great. Next the Yorknew city arc didn't really have any great fight scenes but it was still a great part of the show, the spiter troupe exposition durring the exam arc is finally getting developed and its really fun to see all these characters of the troupe getting introduced along with seeing Kurapika getting his time to shine. It's not as good as the Hisoka and Gon fight but the scene when they plan to escape when the lights go out was also another masterpiece, it had me at the edge of my seat. However the end of that arc was kinda dissapointing since we never get to see the boss again or see Hisoka actually fight him for the rest of the show, at least the rest of the troupe gets more screentime later on.

The Greed Island arc was porobably the most slow arc of the entire show, hardly anything interesting happens and most of its time is spent focusing on these side characters that weren't that interesting in the first place and we see almost no actual action until near the end of the show, however Gon discovering his powers was pretty interetsing and the dodgeball part was intriguing for the most part so at least that kept me from falling alseep through the rest of the arc

After reading some reviews on the Chimera Ant arc I can see that it's kinda controversal, some people say it's the best arc while others say it ruined the show, me personally i thought it was a really interesting new twist to the show that shows the more dark side of the world and how it impacts the characters, however this is probably the arc i have the most problems with, some i'll explain in the other sections. But the pacing in this part was so painfully slow it actually put me to sleep once and i got close to doing so a few other times, certain parts just dragged on for so long, like a part of a fight that in real time took 10 seconds to play out, they spend an ENTIRE episode dedicated to JUST those 10 seconds, not only that but there was just waaaaaaaay to much narration like an unnecessary amount, I really didn't like how they had to explain every little deatil thats going on especially what the characters are thinking. The show don't tell parts that the previous arcs had going on made the fights so much more engaging, but this just put me to sleep. not only that but there are like 8 B-Plots going on at the same time, constantly cutting back and forth, each part being equally as slow, obviously some being more interesting than the others such and Gon seeing Pitou for the second time, but it just made the beginning of the arc drag on for so long, the end of the arc however... would I say the wait was worth it? it's hard to say, the end was super nice that i will explain later on.

The Election arc is kinda like a mix of the Zoldyck and the beginning of the Chimera arc but a little more interesting, it was really interesting seeing more of the family along with more characters and it also had a pretty satisfying ending. Nothing really that interesting or that notable.

Characters:

When an anime has around 100 characters, theres bound to be a bunch of uninteresting fellows, but to my surprise there are quite a lot of intriguing characters, more than I expected going into this. I'll go over most of the significant main characters and some side characters if i feel like they stood out.

Every since I saw Gon's appearance and personailty I can see huge resemblances of Goku, and it stays that way for most of the show. As a result he doesn't really have that much depth to his character, he does have really good growth and he creates most of the hype moments in the show because of his strong determination. Overall hes a perfectly good character but the Chimera arc left me a bit confused. His personality seemed to completely change once he developed pure hatred towards Pitou, I can understand his reasonings and I can sympathize with how hes feeling, but up until that point, is he really the type of person to just straight up kill some innocent bystander just becasue hes too impatient to let out his rage? He never ends up doing this but he threatened to do so which kinda left a bitter taste in my mouth. Thankfully in the next arc he seemed to go back to his old self but that arc just left me a bit confused.
Killua was always everyones favorite, I can definitely see why, theres a lot of depth to his character with a whole lot of development from pretty much every arc while also being really charming at the same time. His relationship with Gon makes for a really fun dynamic and seeing their bond grow stronger through hardships was really touching. This isn't really a problem with his character but there was this one arc with his character that started in Greed island and Ended in the middle of Chimera, where (seemingly) the trauma from his brother teaching him how to fight is holding him back from reaching his full potential. When they started to point this out i thought it was gonna lead to a really dramatic story where he eventually learns to think for himself... only for it to just end abruptly because turns out it wasn't actually trauma, it was jiust a needle inside of his head from his brother constantly telling him what to do, which was kinda ridiculous I can't lie. You wen't through all that build up only for it to be cut short without any actual development, which was simply disappointing.
Kurapika is personally one of my favorites from this show, at first he was kind of a character that was just there for most of the beginning but over time he really grew on me with the whole Spider revenge arc. objectively he isn't really that interesting but I really like him cuz hes just a raw character, I have no idea how to describe it
Leorio is a hit or miss most of the time, he seems to serve as a comic relief which can be pretty funny at times but other times be kinda obnoxious, I still like him but i wish he got more screen time. Seeing him come back in the last arc and show off his new Nen ability was really satisfying to watch, I was always wondering when is he ever going to learn to actually fight and it was really hype seeing it for the first time.
Ever since Hisoka was introduced he always had mad potential to be a great villain, his desire to break people through fighting and describing people as "toys" and getting turned on seeing charcaters develop and fantasizing about them is both a really funny and intriguing trait for a villain. He gives off this incredible pedo vibe as well which adds on to his villainous appeal, you can't ever justify him for being a morally good character.
Now I don't want to make this review painfully long so I'm just going to talk about one last character briefly. Meruem is another one of my favorites becasue i find him to be a really compelling villain, given his circumstances on how he was born or why he was born and having him figure out what his purpose in life is. You would think it would be the obvious to take over the world since thats what he was intented to do since birth but trying to find himself and constantly wondering what's his true purpose. Watching him come to his own conclusion by developing genuine feelings for a girl he plays a board game simply cuz he has fun doing so, it makes for a really good villain since he is intened to do horrible things but later on changes his mind for his own feeling was really compelling.

Visuals:

I'm going to compare this to Full Metal Alchemist for a second since they are quite similar in the fact that they both were shows that were adapted a long time ago but had a remaster around the same year, they both aged around the same but I personally prefer HxH's animation a bit over FMA in terms of action, granted neither of them aged that well but they still hold up decently well to todays standards and I imagine it looked amazing for the time it came out. When this show went off on some of the action, it REALLY went off and the animation backed it up immensely. The expressions on the characters and the level of detail they put into some parts of the show really makes you feel and understand the severity of the situation with some great symbolism.

Audio:

I have to talk about this music first, it is phenomenal. The opening is a banger while being incredibly catchy after the 2nd or 3rd listen and some of the endings are pretty good, but the background music is easily the main selling point of this show for me personally. The action music goes inconceivably crazy, it enhances the action to obscene levels to the point where i'm physically on the edge of my seat the second i hear the first note, most notably the fight with Hisoka and Gon, 'Try Your Luck' is probably like top 5 action songs of all time for me and it makes every single fight using that song hype as hell. Kurapika's theme is not to far off as well, its an incrdible theme that really encapsulates his persoanlity and rage. The more upbeat and playful themes are also incredibly good, they all have a really feel good tone to them while on the contrary despite being a meme, Kingdom of Predators is still a really dramatic theme that makes you feel the weight of the situation at hand. The music as a whole would have easily been a 10 but i'm kinda stuborn because themes like "Try Your Luck" was wayyyyy to underused and should have been used more in my opinion. Oh yeah... the voice acting was also incedibly good too, sometimes they we're kinda generic but when there we're some emotional beats you can really feel it in their voice.

Enjoyment:

As I mentioned previously in the story section about the Chimera arc having the pacing of molasses, that hindered the rating of the enjoyment by a bit since realistically I did not enjoy that a lot, the rest of the show was really good tho and kept me invested for the most part so it's still rated really high, it just could have been a lot more enjoyable had i not fallen asleep a few times. I also have to give this show props for being the 3rd anime to ever make me cry, on several occasions nonetheless while the other shows made me sob only once. Even though the really insignificant side characters of the mom and 2 kids that got abducted was pretty pointless to the whole story, at the same time it was SOOOO SAD, I give mad respect to this show for making me cry and feel bad for insugnificant characters, that takes a lot. Also around the end of the show when Killua sees Gon's fucked up body for the first time and the look of terror on his face really got me too.

Ending Thoughts:

I can agree with this possibly being a top 10 anime of all time, but i would say it's kinda low on that list due to all of the problems that i stated having with the show. Its still a fantasic show don't get me wrong but the greatest Shounen on all time? Eh, kind of a hard sell. I still haven't read the manga yet and i have no idea if they ever expand more apon stuff i want to see more of like Hisoka, but as the anime stands I was satisfied for the most part but it really left me wanting more, thankully the manga is in progress again and I plan to start reading it soon.