Hunter x Hunter starts with a very strong feeling of adventure. On an isolated island lived an isolated boy, Gon, who never knew his parents and only had his aunt Mito and her mother to call family. Gon grew up without friends, surrounded by nature and full of unanswered questions.

Not that he didn't take advantage of the island, quite the contrary, he explored it from corner to corner and basically dominated it, earning the respect of the most ferocious creatures that lived there. But his curiosity remained firm. The big ocean and the stories from the fishermen surely kept it alive. The lack of answers about his parents only fueled this further. It's the perfect setting to start any adventure story: a skillful, happy and curious boy with no knowledge of the outside world, eager to explore it and meet new people. The road is ready, all that remains is to embark on it.

However, it is from there that Hunter x Hunter slowly shows what makes it different from other shounen, and truly makes it an exemplary adventure story: The detours on the road. With each story arc we go through, new detours emerge, and our characters become involved with more and more people and causes we could never have guessed they would be involved in. But of course we couldn't have guessed: all we knew was an island, just like our main character. The whole rest of the story should be unpredictable, but it still catched me off guard. Maybe it's because I'm used with shounen stories where the plot seems to constantly revolve around the main character. But in Hunter x Hunter, it really feels like a big, misterious world out there, where it's difficult to guess where (and how) our characters will end up from one arc to another.

One fun aspect of the detours is how they affect our main characters. All four of them have their initial motivations, but as they develop and strenghen relationships, as they explore new places and meet new people, they change. Their actions change and so they also change. And this is one of Hunter x Hunter strengths: you can feel like the characters are alive because of how malleable they are throughout the story; and yet you still feel like you know and understand them. It's an incredible feat by the author to display growth in such a way that it doesn't feel unnatural, but very easy for the viewer to embrace: no matter how crazy it may look to the eyes.

So yeah, if you want to watch an adventure story that feels real on the sense that it doesn't feel like everything revolves around the main character and the progress is very natural, full of detours, then please go ahead and enjoy Hunter x Hunter.