Yoshihiro Togashi

[Spark Of Spirit]

You should watch Chapter Black.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, yeah, the guy's temporarily getting off of his lazy ass again to continue a story arc that has been going on for 10 years, with most of that time spent on hiatus....

I give it about 10 chapters before he gets lazy again....

But, anyways, here's my personal suggestions for Togashi to save this series before it turns to shit:

1. Finish the Chimera arc as soon as possible. Its gone on for WAY too long. At this point I don't even give a shit if this arc gets a shitty ending as I no longer care about the villains anymore. Just keep the good guys interesting and further develop them with future arcs (which are hopefully much shorter than this one).

2. Bring Leorio and Kurapika back! Or, at the very least bring Leorio back. Togashi, I don't care what random plot-points you have to throw in to get them back into the story, but get them back in. Taking them out for so long is the equivalent of removing 2 of the main 4 characters of YYH half way into the series and then never bringing them back. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? They are such interesting characters, with Leorio being the most likeable character in the entire series (IMO), and Kurapika having had the most interesting character arc. Seriously, even just bringing Leorio back would go a long way in contributing to this series's enjoyment factor. The characters are best when they work as a group. So far to be honest the only character that has been holding the story together for me is Killua, and Togashi even hinted earlier on in the Chimera arc that he would be leaving Gon after this arc as well, and without any interesting characters around him, Gon himself become a boring piece of walking cardboard. So yes, this story can only benefit from the return of the other 2 of the main 4 characters in this series.

3. Make a villain that's interesting and complex and all that good stuff WITHOUT making them fucking immortal. Seriously, there are villains who are highly dangerous and have to be kept threatening to keep the story tense, but Meruem is fucking ridiculous with how overpowered he is. Even Netero couldn't beat him. In order to keep things tense, you must also leave a small sliver of hope that the good guys can actually conceivably survive against the villain if he were to take them seriously. Togashi, remember how you wrote for Minoru Sensui? He admitted that he was weaker than Yusuke, and the other 6 psychics barely had any physical prowess at all beyond their unique abilities, yet Minoru controlled them with sly and deceitful manipulation, and together they all kept the heroes at bay through wits rather than relying on Brute force. It make for a very interesting situation that still felt tense as the heroes were short on time and had to come up with a plan of action to take the villains down. In HXH, their plan of action horribly backfires on them despite great planning only because no amount of planning matters: The villains are fucking unbeatable, and even in cases in which the heroes, through brilliant strategy, are on the verge of taking one down, some shit luck has to happen to them and it forces them to give in and allow the villains to trounce all over them. Togashi, this is a SHOUNEN series. Do you really want to depress your readers? Especially when at least half of them are probably young kids?

**Sigh**

Despite all that I've said, HXH is far from shit, believe it or not, but its fallen a great deal in quality from its glory days. I know that Togashi can write better, but right now his story is a mess due to poor planning and really half-assed characterization as of late, which is quite sad since this guy was able to write my favorite shounen story and characters ever, and right now he refuses to use his talent to his fullest and come up with something of equal or even greater quality. This is the only time that I will say this, so read it carefully:

Togashi: TAKE POINTERS FROM ODA! Yeah, I think Togashi is overall a better write than Oda when he's serious, but I really admire Oda's dedication and attention to details with his story and characters. If Togashi were as dedicated, he'd easily be the best shounen mangaka of all-time in my book.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I really hope after HXH he just goes to a monthly magazine or something. It's far less work for him and he can take it at his own pace and won't have as much reason to get bored doing it.

Agreed on the villains. I've said it before, my main issue with the villains is that it always feels like for every boost the main characters get, the enemies still seem like they're light years away. They tend to have unique skills as it is, why do they need to be so absurdly powerful? It gets frustrating to read when it feels like the main characters are always so frail despite the fact that at this point they logically shouldn't be.

Also, agreed on Leorio. He's so far behind everyone else for seemingly no real reason other than Togashi figured he should be.

[Spark Of Spirit]

So I'm re-reading the manga of HXH, and I'm up to York Shin.

Jesus, does this get violent as hell. Like, almost to seinen/FOTNS levels of violence. You never see violence of this level in Shonen anymore. On the other hand, this is almost the complete opposite style of fights from YYH. While those relied on fighting smart with what skills you had, these fights rely on fighting around skills your opponent has.

Fighting aside, the whole auction thing is pretty interesting, but something of this speed would never be allowed in a current shonen magazine. It's simply too in depth on world lore and not enough "WHY AREN'T THEY FIGHTING" for general audiences. But it's clever.

Unfortunately, once we get to Greed Island, that's as far as I ever got both manga and anime wise. Though it will be nice to see the end of it. But that was the arc that really had me shaking my head at how ridiculously underpowered the main characters are most of the time. Normally it wouldn't bother me, but Togashi puts such emphasis on strategy, that the gap just seems way too ridiculous at times.

However, everything up to this point has been pretty good. But man does the Mafia suck.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I think that the only reason that Togashi got away with his excessive level of violence is because he had a much simpler art-style, so it wasn't super-detailed gore and still had an element of cartoony-ness to it. But I have to admit that I'm actually really glad that the anime toned it down to more acceptable levels.

And yeah, Togashi gets really in depth with the mafia lore that it would probably go straight over the heads of most young readers, but really that's what I love so much about this arc. He really fleshes out the criminal underground really well in this series, especially with the York Shin City arc.

Greed Island is basically just a training arc. At its best its average training-fare, and while its not horrible it just feels kind of ridiculous in some ways. I kind of disagree that this is where the overpowered villains issue starts, though. Its presented in the form of a game so it has the heroes doing things in that style and using tons of strategy to win different cards to add to their collection. Also, being that its a training arc it makes sense that the main enemies are stronger than them. I don't want to spoil anything, but since this arc isn't that great anyways it shouldn't be giving away too much to say that the main villains themselves are not that overpowered at all. Its revealed that they actually rely on tricks a bit too much and when they are exposed they aren't as intimidating as they seem.

The Chimera arc is where shit gets overly ridiculous with the villains. Wait until you see Meruem. It'll make you want to pull your hair out at just how futile ANYTHING that ANYONE does against that guy is all but hopeless. He's so overpowered that even Hunters far stronger than Gon and Killua can barely even wound him let alone actually kill him. It especially pisses me off when one particular character sacrifices his own life and comes close....But then Meruem pulls a Cell like thing from DBZ and regenerates from the little of him that is left. It really ticked me off at Togashi.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Well, I'm partly relieved and horrified. Not sure which I'm more.

I can only imagine how annoying the Chimera arc must be considering he has yet to actually finish it. I wish he would have at least finished it before going on such a long break. I think when I get to the end, I'll just watch the anime again for comparison purposes.

Fanboy idiocy ahead: Hiei Vs. Hisoka

Fuck. yes.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I actually think that the anime is for the most part superior to the manga very much in the vein of YYH, up until the end of the York Shin City arc, which was what Furahara directed. After that, though, we get GI and its actually worse in the anime than it is in the manga. I miss the fluid style of animation from Furahara's episodes and I also just feel that no effort was put into fleshing out the story at all of the GI arc with those OVAs. That's what happens when you hand Togashi's work over to people who don't really give a shit about adapting it (though to be fair it was a relatively weak arc to begin with, but at least it still felt like it had some effort put into it in the manga).

[Spark Of Spirit]

So a few chapters into the Chimera Ant arc and he's not only casually killed off several characters from the early part of the manga, and basically referred to a "guard" level character above two of the strongest characters in this manga. On top of it, there's even more pointless slaughter and most of the enemy characters are so boringly generic that I'm not even intrigued to see where this goes.

I'm sorry to say that I'm not really that impressed, EK. It's pretty much everything I didn't like about earlier arcs rolled into this one.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Reading further on and I'm kind of conflicted. It's definitely better than the mass murdering spree that was going on before, but by the same token... Why is Meruem more or less Cell? He looks a lot like Pokkuro (Jesus, did he really deserve that kind of death?) but is clearly based on Cell.

Needless to say, I actually liked that some of the Chimera actually had development beyond killing machines that kill because why not. Some of the new human characters are pretty cool, too... But I have a bit of an issue getting attached to anyone in this manga since they seem to die pointlessly and all the time.

I don't know why Togashi feels the need to to do this so often, it's like any villainous character that is introduced needs to kill 100 innocent people (or minor characters, same difference) for no reason to be considered a threat to the heroes. I've been paying attention and he literally does this with every villain he introduces in this manga. Why? I have no idea. But it's getting old. Meruem going out of his way to slaughter a child and eat her brain was lame and actually had me rolling my eyes.

I don't remember Sensui having to commit fucking genocide to be considered a threatening villain. Heck, part of the appeal of the Toguro Bros. was that they could do that, but didn't because they were more calculated. What happened to villains like that?


*Side note, I'm reading this because of insomnia and the fact that I had some weird kind of panic attack thing the previous night and I'm a bit paranoid at what will happen if I try to sleep again. It's a testament to Togashi's skills that I'm still reading this despite my issues.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Having the Genei Ryodan fight (relatively) bottom tier enemies that anyone else could defeat feels like a cop out considering the strength of other Ants in this arc. This also feels like filler since it's basically just a chance for the lesser known members to use their powers. Also, why is Killua's younger sibling so much stronger than he is? That just seems downright silly since he didn't even know what Nen was at the start of the story.

If Hisoka doesn't show up in this arc, I'm going to be pretty disappointed at the missed opportunity for a fight with him that might last more than 15 seconds.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Gon and Killua are pretty well developed in this arc. I still don't like the villains, as they seem really one dimensional, but at least Gon and Killua are actually shining pretty well here.

That said, if Togashi kills Knuckle or Morel off, then fuck him. 

[Spark Of Spirit]

Wow, Meruem showing signs of weakness was a bit unexpected if only because of the way he did it. Not in the casual "everything I've done has been a lie!" way, but in the "maybe it isn't all as simple as I thought it was?" kind of way. That he remembered even killing a child despite his character proves that even on a subconscious level he already knew something was off with what he was doing.

His subordinates are still really lame characters, though.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Holy shit, 270 is really the first hiatus?!? He wasted like 7 chapters just getting them in to the building and he cuts it off there?!?

Cold blooded, Togashi.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Holy shit, Gon got awesome. I like the subtle character change in this arc where it seems like Gon is becoming more like Killua and Killua is becoming more like Gon.

But I seriously don't think this arc needs to be so long.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Hiatus #2 is right at the climax of the best fight of this whole arc so far and only after ten chapters.

GEEZ.