Animation Revelation Forum

Now, I could have just created a regular discussion thread for this, but that would be far too boring. Now let me just say that I do enjoy this series and to me it still proves that Togashi is a damn good writer....he's a lousy artist, but that's kind of irrelevant to me at this point since I've gotten used to his sloppy artwork....the bottom line is that his stories are good, so you get the idea.

Anyways, while I do love HXH, I have to admit that just like with the adaptation of Yu Yu Hakusho, and currently Level E (so far, though it has only aired 2 episodes up to this point), I do tend to prefer the anime adaptation for Hunter X Hunter for the portions of the anime that the TV series and first OVA series adapted (The Greed Island OVAs are an exception to the rule, and are definitely inferior to the manga).

Now, I know that Desensitized doesn't like HXH, and for understandable reasons, as I should confess that originally I didn't find any appeal in it myself. BUT, I didn't give up on the series if only because it was by Togashi, and when I came to terms with the fact that it was a vast departure from what I expected (which admittedly was kind of more of the same type of formula as Yu Yu Hakusho), I actually did really love the series for what it was.

I really think that in terms of atmosphere its a brilliant take on a traditional type of shonen tale, and it actually purposely contains all of the shonen tropes that you would expect a traditional shonen series to have....only it then gives all of those things the middle finger and shoves a stick up their ass. What I mean is that HXH, despite outwards appearances, most often has a dark twist to everything. Its a fantasy world, but it turns out this fantasy world is fucking cruel as shit, with villains that have no mercy to the point in which Togashi has the balls to even kill off little kids in this series. It has likable characters and strong bonds of friendship....so strong that these so-called likable characters will be just as merciless and cruel to any opposition as they would be to them. In that regard HXH can be fairly gray at times, which is a characteristic that I kind of like in Togashi's manga that we got a fair taste of with Yu Yu Hakusho. Overall, I think the plot is developed well and if one can get past that certain weirdness factor of how the world of HXH is clearly designed to not work anything like our own, then its a really entertaining series. Also, as I said in an earlier post about the series, among other Togashi works, its not a simple heroes and villains story. The world that Togashi has designed is highly organized with its own political system of sorts. It has its own form of mafias and government, and I feel that it adds a very interesting element to the series's overall background.

For the anime in particular, I really must praise the team that handled the animation for the fight-scenes in the TV series and first OVA. The anime is about a decade old by this point but time has been very good to it since the animation has aged splendidly. The fight scenes are so unbelievably fluid for a shonen series and the fights themselves actually look like real fights with constant motion and lots of tactics coming into play, rather than fights coming down to character internally monologue about stuff and then having to endure cheaply animated fodder and uninspired special attacks to pass the time by. it also helps that the fights themselves still retain an element of strategy to them, and that more often than not the heroes are at a complete disadvantage, and the interesting thing about the fights that grab you are that you want to see how the main characters will overcome their challenging situations. Overall, it works out perfectly, and I wish that more series could learn from this one. I mean, compare HXH to a series that came out nearly a decade later like HSDK, and you can see how embarrassing the animation is in most shonen series compared to this one.

Now, the one problem with HXH, though....scratch that, there are various problems with HXH. Let me clarify that none of them are big enough to hamper my enjoyment of this series too much, personally, but at the same time they do drag down this series in quality to the point of holding it back from reaching true greatness, IMO, and I do feel that fans often overlook its problems

Just to name a few, I'll start by saying that the series's initial problem is its horribly slow start. The beginning is flat out boring and don't expect anything interesting to happen until Togashi has had time to introduce all of the main characters and build them up a little bit. Another problem is the series's pacing, but without going into extraneous detail, lets just say that its horribly inconsistent, in that at times it can feel far too slow and kind of drag on, whereas at other times it feels almost too rushed. Another problem that I have which I will admit has been mended but it certainly took a while for Togashi to do so, is that Gon is a boring main character, or at least he was until later in the story. Initially his personality isn't very well-defined and he is a bit too happy-go-lucky for his own good. He certainly wasn't a bad character, but nothing stood out about him. It was all of the other characters that gave HXH its flair. I honestly cared far more about Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio than I ever did for Gon for quite a long while, and I especially found Killua to be a very interesting main character based on how his upbringing was the complete opposite of Gon's, yet out of all the people out there he immediately took a liking to the peace-loving Gon, and vice versa. I think their friendship has an extremely interesting chemistry to it, and IMO it still remains to be the highlight of this series, for me.

Of course my biggest criticism comes into Togashi always taking a hiatus from this series and the fact that I have to wait over a year just to see him churn out another 10-20 chapters until he takes his next hiatus. Its fucking grating, and he might as well drop the series at this point if he plans to keep doing that.

Still, overall, I must say that I do really like this series for what it is. Its certainly not YYH, but its good that its different, and I really do feel that it does deserve its praise if you look at it for what it does right, and it does a lot of things right, IMO.

So, I'm currently on the last quarter of the TV series as I'm re-watching the anime, and honestly I may have given it a bit too little credit for its slower-paced yet more character-focused episodes. The episode in which Kurapika was training with his master who was trying his best to guide Kurapika in the right direction since he was so obviously hellbent on revenge was handled really well. Unlike some generic vengeance-driven character like Sasuke from Naruto, I found that Kurapika's character was handled much better. He is determined to get revenge, but through his emotions and facial expressions you get the sense that he doesn't really want to become a killer and isn't even getting revenge so much because he wants to but because he feels as though he has to, as if its his obligation or duty as the last member of his clan. It was also just interesting to see how he interacted with someone who could analyze his psyche and state of mind so well (of course it ticked him off, but he also showed signs of understanding his master's concern).

The episodes that I really liked, though, were the ones in which Gon returns to his home village with Killua and visits his aunt Mito. I found those episodes to be quite meaningful in their own way, just in how Killua gets some development for his character in learning Gon's family values compared to his own, and how he was raised. That's why I find their friendship to be so interesting of a relationship, simply because they come from 2 completely different backgrounds, with Gon coming from a peaceful and quiet village whereas Killua's whole family consisted of assassins and he was taught to kill without hesitation and was basically all too accustomed to blood-lust at an early age, yet he himself hated being raised that way. Interestingly enough they each realize that the reason that they took a liking to each other was because of their one commonality, which is their age. Both of them discussed about how they never had any other kids to hang out with since they were born, and Gon is literally Killua's first and sort of his only real friend. Its also really interesting since despite Gon being the main character, unlike most shonen in which the main character is the strongest of the group and his best friend is in the mere side-kick role, Killua is actually far more advanced in his combat skills being trained to kill from an early age, and he actually uses his advanced abilities to protect Gon and sort of guide him along down the right path, sort of like acting like a caring older brother looking out for his younger and more naive little brother.

Character interactions is definitely something that Togashi has become really good at. While I personally find the characters of Yu Yu Hakusho to be much more interesting on the whole, I'd argue that Hunter X Hunter is somewhat superior in the actual character interactions department between the more interesting members of the cast.

At any rate, while I feel that this series is a tad bit underrated in some regards (though its fans horribly overrate it, as well, so it kind of evens out), I do see why it doesn't appeal to everyone. For those who are bigger into the more basic battle shonen crowd, the series doesn't hold their interest because its much more focused on its characters than its battles (though it still has plenty of fights, honestly, but I guess some people are way too spoiled by the other crap out there in the genre that completely panders to their whim), whereas the people who want more realistic stories or just don't like fantasy or battle shonen genre type stories would merely only find this to be a slightly more intelligent battle manga, but something that doesn't suit their fancy nonetheless. And of course some people just can't get used to the degree of weirdness that this series has no thanks in small part to Togashi's weird tendencies as a writer and character designer. I mean, seriously, one character looks like a giant dildo...I'm dead serious....WTF, Togashi!?!

I'll ask my usual question: manga first, anime first, or both at the same time?

I'd recommend the anime, personally, but only if you're willing to watch it in Japanese with subtitles or are willing to put up with a sub-par dub that is the embodiment of mediocrity.

Since we started posting up our list, a bunch of other threads got started and revived, so I figured I'd give this already dead thread at least one small chance to get some discussion.

Let me start off by posting one of my favorite villain scenes in the anime:

Requiem Scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkJxKPEIGeo&feature=related)

Most other shonen go out of their way to make their villains the most unlikable and generally evil guys ever, to the point of usually making them completely 1-dimensional. I always like how Togashi can actually make villains that you can kind of root for at times, especially when you can clearly see that their is more to their personality than meets the eye. The reason I like this scene is because its them doing a great job of being villains, but its also just a great revenge sort of scene as well. Plus, the mindless action nut in me just loves seeing things explode and people get shot up and killed in other gruesome ways. :D

Overall, its not something that any other list would feature on their top 65 and to be fair its probably only more fitting for an honorable mention anyways, since its certainly not a show that would appeal to everyone, but for what its worth I'm glad that we got a couple of positive responses about including it on the list from a few other people who actually watched the show and liked it quite a lot (even more than I do, in fact). If anyone wanted to check this show out, I would warn you that it starts out slow and it may not be your cup of tea (I already know a few people who don't like it as well), but to me its great as an acquired taste. Its certainly not as entertaining as Togashi's previous shonen manga Yu Yu Hakusho, but its certainly more ambitious and I can respect it just as much for when it does get things right.

Holy shit, that was cool.

I keep on delaying getting into this series, and that needs to change. I think that after I rewatch Higurashi, this will be my next show.

Sounds good. Like always I'll just warn you that the beginning is fairly slow and the initial arc might turn you off as its admittedly the most "generic shonen" part of the show. I feel that it really improves past the first 15 or so episodes, but it does take some time to get used to it. I'll warn you ahead of time that the show is kind of....weird in some respects (even by anime standards). If you don't mind a healthy dose of some weird character designs and overall strange querks to the series, then its quite an enjoyable story with some great characters. After all, its probably one of the most liked series of its kind for a reason (among those who see it, for the most part).

I definitely wouldn't say that its quite up to par with YYH, though, but it is undeniably a series that you would expect from a man such as Togashi. It definitely fits his style in that department (to put things in perspective, YYH is unusually tame and straightforward by Togashi's standards....though I think it turns out to that series's benefit in its case ;) ).

I look forward to your impressions as the show goes, actually. I haven't seen many opinions from people aside from when they've either seen the whole series (that's already available, that is) or have yet to watch it.

I personally really like the first arc, even if it isn't anything original in concept, it introduces characters really well and sets the tone just fine for what's to come.

To be honest, though, I just feel that arc where they go to the city feels the most like something I'd expect from Togashi. He mixes weird and supernatural sort of elements in a strange and unique world in with elements of modern society, just like with YYH having spirit detectives, psychics, and demons and the like in a modern city setting. I just like that blend and it feels very uniquely Togashi. And to be honest I think he's probably the best mangaka I've seen who can combine those 2 elements. Most other mangaka usually have their heroes who have crazy supernatural abilities go off to foreign settings that fit their nature, but really that contrast of fantasy and realism in Togashi's work has always been what appealed to me the most about his stuff. Its why I still like the Spirit Detective arc in YYH a whole lot even though its probably when the series is at its most basic and generic in terms of writing and characterization.

When Togashi gives us a world, he gives us a world. There are all sorts of rules, factions, cultures, and things we don't see that are in the background of what we do see. His worlds always feel full of potential because he doesn't explore every facet of them, but leaves us to imagine what they're like while he focuses on the story.

Say what you want about his stuff, but it never fulls like it's eating itself or obnoxiously nodding to the fans for cheap thrills.

Yeah, I really love the feeling of having such a unique world that the characters live in. It makes things more interesting and while the world has a different set of laws than our own it has its own clear definitive laws that it abides by and never breaks, so you are really sold on the fact that its an entire living, breathing world of its own.

The only other shonen mangaka that I know of who can successfully pull off something so ambitious are Eichiro Oda and Akira Toriyama (and even with Toriyama when he gets into the alien-planets he really loses the futuristic and unique atmosphere of Goku's adventures on that version of Earth as a child).

New anime season of HxH confirmed! (http://otanews.livedoor.biz/archives/51806850.html)

So I guess this will be the Chimera Ant arc?...... That he's been sitting on for years now? That isn't even over yet? I don't know what else it could be since the manga goes straight from Greed Island into the Chimera Ant arc.

By the way, speaking of Greed Island, what the hell was with all the dodgeball chapters in the manga? That was where I remember ceasing reading. The arc was boring me before then, but that was just unbearable.

Quote from: Foggle on July 21, 2011, 01:59:29 AM
New anime season of HxH confirmed! (http://otanews.livedoor.biz/archives/51806850.html)

:swoon:

I can't read Japanese but if that shit is true then there's finally another anime that I can look forward to (besides the new Rurouni Kenshin anime that's coming out really soon).

I'm going to make everyone watch the premiere for that anime seasons' entries.

Seems like a good time for me to start watching the show if this is really happening.

Ten episode in so far, and I'm liking it. So far, it's still in the basic shonen phase from what I can tell, but I can tell how fun the show is. And I'm really liking Gon as a protagonist. He reminds me of younger Goku, but smarter.

It goes way uphill from here, right? I'm liking the exams arc, but I can see this become a lot better before long.

Up through York Shin, yes.

I just don't really like Greed Island as a whole.

Yeah, the anime only gets better until the end of the York Shin City arc. The Greed Island arc is flat-out boring in the anime, and a little bit better in the manga but feels like a downturn in quality compared to York Shin City. After that is the Chimera arc (the current arc that Togashi has been on for more than a decade due to not actually writing ANYTHING for the series for being on hiatus more than half of that time), which starts out slow but then picks things up quite a lot in quality....and then goes downhill again. :(

I actually tend to think of the HXH TV anime and the 1st OVA much like how I view ADJL. The first half of the series (think of it as season 1 if you want), is decent enough and has some noticeably good episodes in the mix, but isn't really on the level of quality that gets you really into the story. The 2nd half of the series (I'd say by the time they get to the Celestial Tower) goes in far more bold directions, gets a lot darker, and has overall far better writing than the 1st half. I'd say by the time you get to the York Shin City arc Togashi has managed by that point to work the series up to the level of quality that you'd expect from his best work with YYH.

York Shin isn't as good as Chapter Black is, but its my 2nd favorite story arc that Togashi has ever written (that is to say, I like it even more than YYH's Dark Tournament arc, which is still saying quite a lot since I also love that arc, myself). Its certainly the most ambitious arc that he has ever written (well, the Chimera arc is arguably more "ambitious" but I don't count it yet since he hasn't even finished it, as of this point).

I think when Togashi goes into detail about the mafia and criminal underground world and fleshes out the side characters and even some of the villains that you meet later on rather than just focusing on Gon, is when the series really picks up its pace. Until then its just a good shonen series but not a truly great one.

It's pretty much an uphill ride until York Shin when it more or less reaches its potential.

Now, if the Chimera Ant arc didn't start the way it did, or take so damn long (hiatus or not, reading it became a chore) it probably would have been a return to form.

Greed Island's biggest problem to me is that the whole thing doesn't feel like it matters at all. The villains are kind of thrown in with some boring personalities, and it just sort of ends without anything really happening without much of a pay off. It literally ends and starts the next arc right away.

Actually, now that I think about it... Who's directing this anime? If it's the YYH/original HxH director, then we might be in for a real improvement here. Especially if he's as good at fixing the parts where Togashi gets totally lazy and gets out the pointless fat. A Chimera Ant arc without the crap might really be awesome.

The thing is, Greed Island is a training arc, which to me is a HUGE step back for the series after what Togashi managed to bring to the table with York Shin City. Its more or less HXH's equivalent of YYH's transition from the Chapter Black arc into the Three Kings arc (which also featured a lot of training scenes, and almost felt entirely pointless if it weren't for a few "convenient" plot points that related it to the rest of the series).

The thing that makes Greed Island even worse, though, is that the training doesn't even help since right after that Togashi introduced unbeatable villains in the Chimera arc. Its fucking retarded because all of the training that Gon and Killua went through to become stronger doesn't do them shit (and they go through even more training which, once again, doesn't do jack squat for them).

Its just a fucking mess. Though, at its current point, its still not all lost. Togashi can really save the series if he finishes up the Chimera arc and starts a fresh new arc that does all of the things that he should do to flesh out the characters more (especially the villains), and allow for intense and exciting plot points. I want to see another Chapter Black or York Shin City quality arc again, and I know that Togashi's talented enough to do it. He just has to stop being so fucking lazy.

In fact, seeing how Togashi acts with this series, it makes it all the more baffling to me that YYH turned out as great as it did. I mean, whoever his editor was back then who forced him to be on track, Weekly Shonen Jump should rehire him to be Togashi's editor once more and kick his ass into shape (for a writer's standards, anyways....).

If they left York Shin and got contacted by someone that Kaito was overseas and they followed it would have had the exact same result of Greed Island. There were no revelations, no characters arcs shifting, and nothing eventful really happened.

The only new character of any consequence of the arc even shows up in the next one to do the exact same thing.

If he ends this arc and we take a step back from superpowered villains and in to more of a strategy focus again with less reliance on shock value to make the villains seem tough, he might finally get it back on track again.



*SPOILER*

I face palmed in real life when the villain learned HXH's version of instant transmission and Gon basically went Super Saiyan with black hair right before he stopped writing. After the Youpi fight every other fight has been full of dumb non-Togashi elements

*END SPOILER*


Anyway, to bring it back to the anime again, I hope they're planning on streamlining the heck out of this arc and Togashi told them the ending or something so they can make the superior version again.

If they got Furuhara back to direct the anime, it'd be superior to the manga. Togashi did a great job himself on the beginning and middle of HXH, but Furuhara just took what he had and made it downright better in the anime. He also did a brilliant job on the first OVA series. Then Greed Island, an already weaker arc for this series was given to some mediocre team of animators who clearly didn't give a shit about the source material, and an already lower quality arc turned into a downright boring arc in the anime. Its not bad or terrible, but its just really dull.

That said, Togashi's mess of an arc with the Chimera arc is certainly not beyond saving. There is enough good material in there that if Furuhara were to come back in he could salvage all of that stuff and make the story flow a hell of a lot better. After all, its a good arc in concept, and when Togashi still gave a shit about the series he did a really good job with writing it, but then after his first really long hiatus he came back and clearly didn't care about the series anymore.

::EDIT::

Also, one other thing that can be done in the anime to make the Chimera arc even better is to give Knuckle even more screen-time. He's by far the best new character or THING in general about this arc, IMO. He's basically a bad-ass version of Kuwabara, and any character that can remind me of Kuwabara but come off even superior will easily become a favorite of mine for that particular series.

To me he feels like what Kuwabara and Yusuke as the same character would be like. Which is surprisingly awesome, funny, badass, and still a bit slow at times.

Since this seems to be a full blown anime and not an OVA, I'm guessing this entire anime will actually be the Chimera Ant arc done in a season or so. If Furuhara gets his hands on this and not some B-team, then I will definitely be there day one. If they're making this specifically for the Chimera Ant arc, then they're probably going in with the intention of going all out.

Going all out better lead to more Knuckle and Morau kicking ass.  ;D

I really liked the ending of episode 13. Goes out of left field, and shows just how off the tracks it can get.

Still digging the series a lot.

Yeah, Tompa is a total ass-hole. I kind of laughed when Killua casually went up to kill him before Gon stopped him.

Its good that you like the series so far. This stuff is pretty good but your actually still on what I consider to be the slow part of the series. It gets even better with the 2nd half of the Hunter Exam arc where the challenges get way more intense. Also Gon gets some pretty nice character development later on.

Also, even though Gon is the main character, I find it funny that Killua gets way more development than him or any other character in the series, overall. In a way I kind of think the series should have been about him. Gon is a nice character but I always felt that Killua was way more interesting. By now you've probably seen that he was a relatively quiet character in his initial appearance and more than a bit unorthodox and didn't behave at all like you'd expect a child to, but ever since meeting Gon he has been opening up to him. When you learn more about his character later on you'll see how unusual that is for him.

Speaking of which, I was wondering if there are any characters in particular you find to be interesting at all, so far. Obviously its too early in the series for you to have decided on any favorites, but its interesting to here people's initial impressions on characters before hearing what they think about them later on (each of the main 4 characters gets at least some level of development and change, so that's why initial opinions may differ over time).

It's a little too soon for me to say, really, but I am liking Gon a bit. No one seems to annoy me, either, so that's good.

Since not much has been confirmed yet, quite a few people are speculating that the new anime will be a reboot. I for one thing that such an idea would be very impractical. The 1st anime was already a splendid adaptation. I can't imagine it being done much better. The Greed Island OVAs kind of sucked, but I see little point in redoing an already weak story arc, anyways. The TV series would do much better to pick things up where the Greed Island OVAs left off and flesh out the Chimera arc better than how it has been in the manga, so far. There is a lot of material out in the manga from the point where Greed Island ends, so this new anime season could easily last for over 50 episodes. That gives Togashi PLENTY of time to finally wrap-up this overly long-winded arc and get into something else from a fresh start.

I hope it isn't... Actually, that's not true. I wouldn't mind it but only if they keep Furuhara, otherwise it will be a waste.

But something tells me this is an anime purely for the Chimera Ant arc. A new season for each arc would be good enough for me.

And the thing is, I doubt Furuhara would want to remake what he already made so perfectly. He made a great adaptation of Togashi's manga and made it even better, IMO. So telling him to redo everything he already did so fantastically would be like an insult to his work on the series.

Really, the only practical thing I can think of is that its a new season solely for the Chimera arc. I'm guessing that Togashi must already have an ending planned out this time if they are making this anime. It wouldn't make sense for them to do it if he didn't already have an ending in mind.

HOLY SHIT KILLUA!

Episode 16 was great, and I'm really liking him now.

G....Give it back....

**Killua crushes his heart in his palm**

I was waiting to see your reaction to that scene. Before then I knew that there was something unusually dark about Killua's character, but after that moment I started to realize just how fucked up his background must have been.

Oh yeah, the signs were already there, but that's when I truly got to get into his character, and I can tell there's a lot more to go for him.

I haven't seen an episode since, but I'll comment on what I watch later.

Awesome, done with the exams. At least, I think.

Really good so far. And I'm still really liking Gon.

And I'm worried (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-08-01/2011-hunter-x-hunter-anime-to-retell-story-from-start)

Starting from the beginning. No Furuhara. Current day Madhouse. Which means they'll probably overemphasize the gore and action over the story.

Not anticipating this at all.

Yeah, the Hunter Exams arc is great around the 2nd half, though still not this series's high point. The next few arcs are short but good, though they are still stuff you'd expect from a shonen.

The York Shin City arc and the first OVA that follows (which is 8 episodes long) is great stuff, though. Just so it doesn't strike you too weirdly, though, Togashi changes up the narrative and makes Kurapika the main character temporarily for that arc since its based on him, so don't let it throw you off when Gon isn't the primary focus for a while. I think its nice that Togashi lets other character "temporarily" become a main character, though, as it keeps the narrative feeling fresh throughout the series, and its better for Gon since you never get too tired of him.

I hope after this arc Togashi takes the focus to Leorio and constructs an arc around him for a while. Just to get away from the chaos currently going on, and take it down a notch. He also might be more inspired to write for a different character for a while, as he seemed really bored of the ones he was writing in the current arc.

After reading that news....I just don't get it. Well, I do: Its understandable that they have to reboot it for people who never watched the original anime or read the manga in order to attract new fans....but the first anime was so near perfect as an adaptation that it just seems almost impossible to top, especially without Furuhara directing it.

I'll definitely be checking this reboot out....but I can't say I expect it to actually outdo the original anime. I sincerely hope that it proves me wrong, though.

An arc centered around Leorio would please a lot of fans. I hope at the very least that both Leorio and Kurapika make a return in the next arc.

Well, at the very least it'd be nice to get other AR members to check out the reboot anime series and see what they think about it going into the series with a fresh perspective. At the very least we can get Dr. Insomniac and Foggle to check it out for the Fall seasonal Clusterfuck.

I re-titled the thread for discussion purposes. I was thinking of giving the remake/reboot its own separate thread, but since it isn't even out yet I think its fine to discuss the upcoming reboot along with the original anime, and even compare the 2 in this same thread when the reboot comes out. That said if the remake holds my interest for more than 26 episodes (the length of a full season), then I may end up giving it its own separate thread, but that won't be for months down the line, so lets just talk about the series here, for now.

Anyways, I still don't see a reboot topping the original anime, but at least we might still get to see the Chimera Ant arc animated this time, even if it won't be for another couple of years. I think my main issue, though, is that we get a completely new voice cast and animation staff. I really wanted to see the original anime staff and VAs continue the series, but perhaps this interpretation will prove to be equally as good, though I have some serious doubts about that.

I'm pretty sure we'll get the Chimera Ant arc here unless he continues his hiatus shenanigans, but the first chapter in his return seems like him laying his foot down in saying that the arc is going to be over soon.

It's what he does after this which will determine how long the anime will last. He needs to not take breaks and bring back his brisk pacing again. Over half the manga's length is in this one arc, and that's just silly.

You're totally right that the show picks up after the first arc. Just finished it, and was quite impressed overall, with just about everything. The show definitely belongs on our list.

I'm going to start the first OVA very soon now.

The first OVA is 8 episodes long and finishes up the arc that the TV series left off on. It still retains Furuhara as the director (if I'm not mistaken, anyways), and the animation style is still retained, but is now more consistent. Its probably my favorite part of the anime series, personally, as with the OVA the animation team got pretty much free reign to finish up the arc in the best way possible. Its even better than the manga because Furuhara actually does a better job than Togashi (and I don't say that lightly) of humanizing one of the key villains of the Spiders (you get to learn more about their history in general, as well).

After that....we get Greed Island. Its not a bad arc or anything, but after all of the build up to it earlier on in the series, its disappointingly generic shonen fair. Way below Togashi's standards (you could tell that he was getting a bit lazy by that point in the story). I suppose you kind of have to get through it to get on with the story, though, but I'd suggest reading that in the manga since its shorter than having to watch the anime, which got a whole new animation team that didn't even care about the source material to begin with (so, in other words, is a half-assed adaptation of the weakest arc in the series). After that is the Chimera Ant arc which is still currently going today (thanks to the fact that since it started almost 10 years ago....Togashi wasn't writing any new material for about 9 of those years, collectively). Having said that, though, to Togashi's credit the arc is a substantial step-up from Greed Island, and occasionally even reaches the heights of the York Shin City arc, but due to the constant hiatuses by Togashi, he clearly had trouble keeping the quality of the story and the pacing consistent, so the arc suffers from that and goes on for far too long. Thankfully it seems like he's going to be ending it really soon, though.

Greed Island's biggest sin is two fold. (Don't read this until after you see it)


1. Nothing here matters. At all.

Greed Island is a lot like Skypiea in One Piece in that it's glorified filler. If this wasn't written by the author (the only indicator is which is why the whole game concept is so well designed) it would no different than anime added filler as just like that, nothing that happens here means anything at all in the grand scheme of things. It lasts way longer than it should, and if this arc didn't occur, the story would still be progressing the same. When you see the Chimera Ant arc... Well, it actually makes this arc's problems worse.

2. The villains blow.

Remember Karasu from YYH? He's back! In lame form! Once again Togashi has the villains kill a mass of people to prove how "dangerous" they are, when they amount to still being nothing but glorified thugs with a recycled power from YYH.

It's a generic arc that's only made worse because of what happens after it. Honestly, I hate arcs like this because they waste time, and it's hard to feel any sense of attachment or excitement because it never leaves my mind the fact that it just plain doesn't matter.

I'd be a bit hesitant myself to say that Skypiea doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, because knowing Oda's writing style you can pretty much tell that the events of Skypiea will have some sort of reoccurring influence on later events in the story, even if they haven't been written yet. I actually don't mind arcs that don't have much relation to the main story as a sort of break in between the big arcs. My main problem is when they go on for too long and when they are sinfully boring. I don't find Greed Island to be as bad as Desensitized does on its own, but I do find it to be bad by Togashi's standards and by HXH's standards compared to what we see both before and after it. I do think its entertaining enough to read through with the whole game design concept and the strategic fights, but overall its pretty underwhelming. My suggestion is to keep your expectations low going into it.

But Desensitized is right about the Chimera arc. It does make GI seem even worse coming after it, since all of the training that the main characters did in GI is rendered completely pointless in the next arc. Its one of the few times I've wanted to personally slap Togashi in the face for making such an amateurish bad move. Someone of his level of experience should know better than that.

So, I can't read Japanese to confirm it, but this (http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-3499.html) blog entry by someone working at Madhouse claims these things (according to someone on MAL who apparently read it):

- Kaito won't appear early (I don't really get the point of this change, but OK, I guess.... :??: )

- Hisoka will no longer be perverted, but will just be a "brave man" (Fuck no! The dude is supposed to be a psycho....do they even understand his character at all....because if they do then they're clearly doing something wrong since you're not supposed to be able to understand a guy like him)

- less violence (Eh, I can live with it....its not like HXH was about the violence, anyways, and if nothing else Desensitized doesn't have to worry about this anime overemphasizing the blood and gore)

- Togashi will supervise the series (I approve of this :thumbup:....but then why the hell did he approve of Hisoka's personality change?....How curious, how very curious indeed :thinkin: )

So, there's now a 17 second TV commercial advertising the series, and I juts checked it out on Youtube. It looks....like Hunter X Hunter, I guess. I think my problem is that it basically looks like exactly what you would expect from HXH. It seems to follow the manga to the letter, and by consequence it also pretty much looks the same as the original TV series except with more updated artwork animation. To me that just begs the question for why this needed to be remade. If they really wanted to hook new fans into the series they really could have re-aired the classic episodes in remastered HD quality. I mean, if Dragon Ball Kai, which was just a watered down version of DBZ, could still be popular if all they did was re-cut and re-air the HD footage, then there's no reason that just airing HXH with all of its original content except in HD couldn't still be popular on TV as well. Then, after that they could have aired a new season specifically for the Chimera Ant arc. It just doesn't make sense to me why they are spending so much time and money on what ultimately looks like the exact same thing that many people have already seen before (and its not like HXH is unpopular in Japan, since the manga volumes still sell well despite Togashi rarely ever writing new material for the series). Of course, the music and voice acting will be different but the scenery and story will be minimally different from what I can tell.

At any rate, while I still think its pointless for them to be remaking what the original anime already did so well, I still can't deny that I'll be checking this out just to see if they can at least come up with an interesting execution for the story to still make it feel fresh. To be honest, though, I half expect this to just be a phoned-in, watered down version of what the manga and the first anime had clearly done so well. Maybe its just the fact that 95% of anime released these days just seem to be slapped together with little to no effort put into their construction and execution (even many of the ones that actually have reasonably interesting concepts behind them). I do sincerely hope that I'm wrong about my intuition on this, though.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on September 10, 2011, 05:26:14 PM
So, there's now a 17 second TV commercial advertising the series, and I juts checked it out on Youtube. It looks....like Hunter X Hunter, I guess. I think my problem is that it basically looks like exactly what you would expect from HXH. It seems to follow the manga to the letter, and by consequence it also pretty much looks the same as the original TV series except with more updated artwork animation. To me that just begs the question for why this needed to be remade. If they really wanted to hook new fans into the series they really could have re-aired the classic episodes in remastered HD quality. I mean, if Dragon Ball Kai, which was just a watered down version of DBZ, could still be popular if all they did was re-cut and re-air the HD footage, then there's no reason that just airing HXH with all of its original content except in HD couldn't still be popular on TV as well. Then, after that they could have aired a new season specifically for the Chimera Ant arc. It just doesn't make sense to me why they are spending so much time and money on what ultimately looks like the exact same thing that many people have already seen before (and its not like HXH is unpopular in Japan, since the manga volumes still sell well despite Togashi rarely ever writing new material for the series). Of course, the music and voice acting will be different but the scenery and story will be minimally different from what I can tell.

At any rate, while I still think its pointless for them to be remaking what the original anime already did so well, I still can't deny that I'll be checking this out just to see if they can at least come up with an interesting execution for the story to still make it feel fresh. To be honest, though, I half expect this to just be a phoned-in, watered down version of what the manga and the first anime had clearly done so well. Maybe its just the fact that 95% of anime released these days just seem to be slapped together with little to no effort put into their construction and execution (even many of the ones that actually have reasonably interesting concepts behind them). I do sincerely hope that I'm wrong about my intuition on this, though.

At least they mind include the arcs not in the original anime.

That wasn't my point, though. What I was saying was that they should have just made a new season for the Chimera arc rather than re-animating all of the arcs that the original anime already covered, starting from the beginning. Going by the original anime and the GI OVAs, that's 90+ episodes worth of material right there, and even if they condense it a lot I can't see it being any less than 50 episodes before they get to new material that the older anime series didn't cover (and if they did condense it that much, then everything up to the GI arc would feel horribly rushed, IMO).

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on September 10, 2011, 06:31:07 PM
That wasn't my point, though. What I was saying was that they should have just made a new season for the Chimera arc rather than re-animating all of the arcs that the original anime already covered, starting from the beginning. Going by the original anime and the GI OVAs, that's 90+ episodes worth of material right there, and even if they condense it a lot I can't see it being any less than 50 episodes before they get to new material that the older anime series didn't cover (and if they did condense it that much, then everything up to the GI arc would feel horribly rushed, IMO).

Well to be fair, the previous show was quite a while ago. And it'd be kind of a bitch for new viewers if they were thrown into the middle of the series (especially since Japanese DVDs are supposed to be expensive as hell).

Hence why I said in my previous post that they should have just remastered the original anime for HD and aired that until it got up to the material where the GI OVAs left off (and if they couldn't air the GI OVAs on TV for some legal reason, then they could have just skipped it entirely since it has little relevance to the main story in the grand scheme of things). Then they could have started the new season from where the last anime left off. To me that would actually be cheaper than re-animating the rest of the series.

And before you say it, yeah, I do know that the original series was done by Nippon animation and the new one is being done by Madhouse, but the thing is I'm willing to bet that if they made a deal with Nippon to get rights to have them air their original HXH anime on NTV, it still could have worked out to be cheaper than Madhouse reanimating every single arc that the original anime already covered (and while it might seem farfetched, from what I've heard businesses in Japan are actually quite cooperative more than competitive, so I don't think that cutting a deal would be that much of a stretch, especially if it saved Madhouse some money and made a bit for Nippon as well).

At any rate, that's just me griping about it. The remake is happening, and its starting in less than a month, whether I like it or not, so now the only thing that I can realistically hope for is that its at least a quality adaptation of the manga around the same level as the original anime was.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on September 10, 2011, 06:31:07 PM
That wasn't my point, though. What I was saying was that they should have just made a new season for the Chimera arc rather than re-animating all of the arcs that the original anime already covered, starting from the beginning. Going by the original anime and the GI OVAs, that's 90+ episodes worth of material right there, and even if they condense it a lot I can't see it being any less than 50 episodes before they get to new material that the older anime series didn't cover (and if they did condense it that much, then everything up to the GI arc would feel horribly rushed, IMO).

I know. I'm just saying that, since they are already redoing the whole thing, since life already sucks for HxH fans, we might as well wish for the 2nd best.

Hopefully people stick around after Greed Island. It might get rough, but there's some good in there.

I've been re-reading the Chimera arc from the beginning, myself, and while there are some real face-palm worthy things about that arc that just bug me to no end (as in, mistakes that other mangaka would make that I'd expect someone of Togashi's level of experience to avoid, but are still present in the arc anyways), I still stand by my opinion that at its core its still a very good arc. That is to say, even though its dragged out far longer than it ever needed to be, there are a lot of good plot elements and tons of great character moments and development for Gon and Killua that its still very much an arc worth having read. I think the smart thing for the new anime to do would actually be to cut out some of the excess stuff that the arc never really needed in order to improve the pacing, as opposed to extending it out with filler, since in this case there is so much material in the manga that if the new anime starts from the beginning, it'll never have to worry about catching up to the manga even if they speed up the pacing.

I actually don't think that too many people would stop watching after the GI arc, though, since (believe it or not), you and I don't exactly hold the majority opinion on that arc. While you downright hate it and while I'm not to keen on it (I don't really hate it, though), most other people would say its an "OK arc" from what I've gathered of the other HXH fans that I've talked to. Perhaps by regular shonen standards it could be seen that way, but by Togashi's standards it kind of comes off as crap to me (I mean, considering that this is the same guy who brought us the genius of Chapter Black and the brilliance of York Shin City, GI just seems like such a huge downturn in comparison). I will say that the one thing that I actually found interesting about that arc was the whole game scenario. It was well-designed and was basically the only thing that kept me reading through that arc. The actual arc itself just felt like a boring training arc, though, and what's worse was that it was quickly made to be completely pointless right away in the next arc when Gon and Killua were shown to still be too weak and thus needed to do even more training just to fight on the same level as some of the basic Chimera Ant soldiers. That's something that you would expect series like Bleach or HSDK to pull, not a manga by Togashi.

It's just that Greed Island is pretty boring and Madhouse is not exactly known for their pacing, so I'm sort of worried on that one. If they destroy the pacing, it could turn people off.

That said, I just want to see an adapted version of the Chimera Ant arc at this point, so everything else is kind of gravy at this point.

Well, in order for the Chimera arc to even have a chance of being animated at this point, Madhouse needs to go all out and make the rest of the series up until that point really interesting to hook a lot of viewers in. If HXH's pacing is either too rushed or too slow, it'll drive most viewers away and the show will lose too much popularity before it gets to the Chimera arc (leading to an obvious cancellation). If Madhouse actually nails the execution, then we may be in for an interesting new take on the story that we already know so well by this point in time. The bottom line, though, is that they need to do everything up to the GI arc really well in order for us to even see an animated version of the Chimera arc. Let's hope that they can pull it off.

Nippon Animation (1999):
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi52.tinypic.com%2F288ox9s.png&hash=b924d53c6388ff2fbd8a3803448a025917e021bd)

Vs.

Madhouse (2011):
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi53.tinypic.com%2F2chtbiu.png&hash=0d80104cb50122e8e843dcf76ab32129e4e2b469)

I don't know, I kind of prefer the art-style of the original anime. I know that the dull coloring might seem more off-putting, especially for a shonen series (in which you would genuinely expect the more colorful palette that Madhouse is going with), but I just really came to appreciate the particular art-style that the original anime used, especially since it got a lot darker later on, anyways. To me its sort of like if they remade BTAS and instead of drawing things over a black bakground like they did when animating the original series, they decided to make it all colorful. Granted that, I guess HXH isn't necessarily a consistently dark series like Batman is (and like I said, as a shonen it "appears" to be more suited to sport a colorful look), but I just have a hard time getting used to this new bright and colorful look for the series. That said, I do genuinely prefer the art style of the original anime, so there's no bias there. To me, it just seems more defined and more interesting, but I suppose that's just me.

To be fair, the new anime still does look genuinely good, but it just seems to sport a more generic feel to me, now, which is rather disappointing for me as an HXH fan.

That screenshot from the original looks borderline Ghibli. The one from the new one looks good too, but a little less interesting.

I still have high hopes for it, though.

Well, muted colors work better for HxH, since it's not exactly a sunshine and roses upbeat show.

I don't really have a preference yet, it's going to come down to how well the new director can compare with the original.

Actually, I associate Studio Ghibli with more colorful looking stuff, but I do agree with you in a sense that the actual art style does sort of give me a Ghibli-esque vibe. I do think that Madhouse's more colorful look could potentially grow on me, though, over time. I just sort of feel that it contrasts the darker tone of the later portions of the series (though its certainly suitable enough for the Hunter Exams arc, which is considerably more lighthearted than the rest of the series, at the very least). Also, its certainly very possible that Madhouse may adjust the style for some later portions of the series when the show gets more serious, but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

I had Grave in the Fireflies in mind when I saw that shot, which is a bit darker visually than some of the other Ghibli films you're probably thinking of.

It just seems a little more artistic, while the new one looks a little more stylized. Which can also be a good thing, and I think it is looking like a good thing so far.

Also, to be fair, I suppose the remake kind of has to have its own distinct look and feel in order to even justify being remade in the first place. Its not like its a huge deal to me, anyways, so long as it doesn't take too many liberties with the story. I do know that they will be toning it down to make it a bit less violent (which I can't blame them for since current Japanese TV standards are a lot stricter than they were when the original anime aired), but as long as they keep the story and characters the way they are supposed to be (though rumors are that they are going to make Hisoka less psychotic for some reason, which is totally stupid and missing the idea of his character), then there is no reason that I shouldn't still be able to enjoy this anime. Either way, whether it turns out good or bad I certainly can't wait to check it out. October can't come soon enough (also because its when Batman: Arkham City releases, as well ;) ).

If they use the lack of violence to build Hisoka up for a really brutal moment, I wouldn't mind it. He was a bit too bloodthirsty in the first arc and not as cool and collected as he was later on, so IMO it might help the first arc.

The weird thing is that I'm going to miss the filler. The filler in HxH was actually really fun and added to the story and world.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on July 21, 2011, 05:53:36 PM
I can't read Japanese but if that shit is true then there's finally another anime that I can look forward to (besides the new Rurouni Kenshin anime that's coming out really soon).

I'm going to make everyone watch the premiere for that anime seasons' entries.

:unimpressed: Anyway, just heard that new RK is just going to be two new OVAs instead of a remake.

So, the series officially premieres on Crunchyroll tonight (which is technically Sunday morning in Japan). Does anyone else besides me or Desensitized plan on checking it out?

So, the premiere of HXH has just started on CR. Since I don't have a subscription I can't watch it right away, but I'll do a write-up for it as soon as I get a chance to see it.

What a nostalgic opening. The four main characters of HxH featured prominently- Gon, Kurapika, Leorio, and Killua.

The way it should be.

I love the opening song. Its very nostalgic and feels reminiscent of the tone of the original anime's first opening song in terms of its up-beat tone.

One thing that really bugs me about this episode: Where the heck is Kaito? He's an important character in terms of his influence on Gon. Maybe they'll fit him into a flash-back later, but people watching this series for the first time should know that following in the foot-steps of his father wasn't the only thing that inspired Gon to become a Hunter. I don't want to spoil anything in case the show covers this later on (and they should), but it was strange to see him excluded from the first episode.

Also, I can't wait to see how this show handles Killua. I still say that out of all of Togashi's series (including YYH, which is my favorite), Killua is by far the most interesting character that he's ever written, and arguably one of the most bad-ass. I can't wait until he gets introduced in this anime (which, judging by the pacing and the next episode preview, should be around episode 3 or so).

I must say, I was quite partial to the OST of the original anime, but I was also impressed by how much I immediately took a liking to this remake's OST. On the whole it got off to a positive start. But, really, I still need to see how Killua and Hisoka are handled in this series.

I'm actually hoping they pull back on Hisoka a bit. His best qualities include his unpredictability and viciousness. IMO, the original manga and anime brought him on too strong without any build up, and I'm kind of hoping they wait until the 'mist' to properly show how over the top he is. Hisoka is a lot more sneaky with his abilities in the rest of the series than the early Hunter exam arc implies.

I believe a representative from Madhouse who was involved with HXH's production said that in this adaptation they will be toning down Hisoka's character a considerable amount. To be specific, they aren't planning on building up to his more sadistic nature, but instead just toning down his more psychotic nature in general, which may work out better initially but its displeasing for me to here, personally.

That said, I can't blame the anime staff for doing that. The original anime could get away with Hisoka's type of character back in the day, but even if this new anime doesn't try to keep everything kid-friendly, they still have to keep Hisoka toned down a bit unless they want to deal with angry TV censors. The thing is, both the manga and the orginal anime had subtle implications (well, OK, maybe its not so subtle as long as you're not a kid) that Hisoka got some really insane "arousal" of sorts in the thrill of combat, specifically the type of combat that involved fighting to the brutal, gory death. He even showed some sexual implications by doing bizarre stuff like liking his own wounds and savoring the taste, and stuff such as that. In this aniem they described him as being more of a character who simply relishes the thrill of fighting and in that regard they may go more for him going into a state of "fighter's high" rather than having him act more psychotic than that when he's in a state of excitement.

It does betray the original concept of his character, but like I said I can understand why it was necessary for Madhouse to make that change, as stuff that's allowed in manga and that was allowed on TV a decade ago won't fly by most Japanese television vieweres today.

I actually noticed something (2 things actually) in the ED credits. If you look really closely, you can see that it quickly flashes a picture of Leorio standing over the body of his dead friend (who you see in a brief flash-back in the original anime), and it also flashes over another scene of Kurapika (with his back to the screen) holding the body of one of the dead Kurata clan members amongst a pile of dead bodies. I kind of found that to be a bit clever in a way of foreshadowing things that we'll learn about the dark histories of these characters later on. Of course, its worth pointing out that the original anime cleverly foreshadowed to Kurapika's vendetta towards the spiders as well as his unique trait regarding his eyes glowing red when he's in certain emotional states during a certain scene in the 2nd episode (which was of course complete filler, so all credit actually goes to Furahashi for that clever scene).

Also, in terms of comparisons, I went back and watched episode 3 of HXH to compare it to how the new series handled the whole part about sailing to the point of the Hunter's exam site. I didn't even catch onto it myself right away (since it is a really minor thing in the grand scheme of things, after all), but Katsuo's character in the new anime is the complete opposite of how he was portrayed in the older anime. In the old one, he was much tougher and actually ended up beating up a few of the more unruly shipmates who were on their way to to site of the Hunter exam, wheras in the new series he's shown to be a weakling who easily gets pushed around.

Anyways, its nothing significant since he's only a 1-episode character anyways who never appears again (and a filler character at that, as he's completely nonexistent in the manga), but i only felt like pointing that out because I just find making little comparisons like that between the old series and its remake to be interesting to do. You can expect more comparisons betweem similarities and differences to come from me later on as new episodes air.

Episode 2 was OK. The animation didn't seem to dip in quality and I'm still mostly liking the BGM soundtrack for the series (though most people seem to hate it so far). This time the anime combined another 2 episodes from the original anime (episodes 4 and 5). I understand that they probably want to speed the pacing up to get to the real exams as quickly as possible, which start in the next episode, but I hope that they eventually slow down the pace a bit so as not to rush through everything.

Also, I'm still just waiting until we get to see how this anime version deals with the darker parts of the series coming later on, especially with characters like Killua and Hisoka having some more gritty scenes later on in the series.

Alright, the first 2 episodes were a decent start, but I must admit that I REALLY did not like this episode at all. Very disappointing, in fact, and this is one area where I can clearly say the original anime handled it much better.

For one thing, why the heck did it take so long for Tompa to go through the introductions this time? Interestingly enough, neither the manga nor even the original anime spent this much time on introducing the other contestants, so I find it quite odd that out of all of the times this new anime picked to slow down the pace, it was at this portion that didn't even require slower pacing at all (in fact it would have been preferrable if they just got to the commencement of the first exam before the half-way point of this episode). Also, the animation took a noticeable downgrade in this episode, but I guess that was to be expected as long-running series generally have to divide their budget up between lots of episodes as opposed to just a handful of them.

What I really didn't like was how they totally just killed the whole reveal of Tompa being the rookie-crusher. Well, OK, to be fair they WERE following the manga more closely in this case, but it was changed in the original anime adaptation so that it would be built up a bit more and be revealed a bit later on in the first exam which made it come off as much more of a surprise. That proves that sometimes some changes from the manga can be for the better if they are in good taste, so I would have preferred that this new anime didn't play it so safe and follow the manga like a bible, being that a good adaptation can add in or change around things if it suits the story for the better.

Hisoka's introduction was pretty "meh" in terms of execution, but to be fair even in the original anime as well as the manga I always found his first appearance to be pretty "meh" as well, so I guess its not really a downgrade from that. I really need to see how they handle his character later on, though, when the story takes a bit of a dark turn.

Oh, and Killua....yeah, I'm going to have to try REALLY hard to get used to his new voice. To be honest, its just way too high-pitched for my liking. Once again, though, I'm going to have to reserve judgement until I see how they handle his character later on when you get to learn more about him and see what kind of person he is. I sincerely hope that they don't screw him up. He is my favorite character in Hunter X Hunter by far, and easily the most interesting character that Togashi has ever written, IMO. I hope that this anime treats his character with the respect that he deserves rather than trying to make him into a generic shonen side-kick character of some sort, because that would be really lame seeing as how he's the exact opposite of the annoyingly cliche young kid that you would see in other shonen series these days.

There were a lot of minor details that this episode changed from the manga, and there was some filler added and a couple of things removed, but overall I actually really liked this episode. It only covered a bit more than 1 chapter, but it didn't feel too slow since it was more about building tension than progressing the story. In this episode I grew a bit more used to Killua's voice (I still largely prefer the old one, though), and Namikawa Daisuke really shined through as Hisoka this time. They also didn't shy away from showing guys getting killed off (although they made it so that little to no blood was present, which I guess is sort of understandable). So, I'd say that this is definitely a positive upturn from the last 2 episodes (with episode 3 being really lackluster and episode 4 being OK but kind of boring).

The next episode will begin phase 2 of the exams, which will probably take about 1 and a half to 2 episodes for the anime to cover (based on the rate that its going at), and after that things get a bit more serious with phase 3.

Keep us updated on how the Hunter Exam section is. That was probably the arc I enjoyed most.

Wow, they REALLY cut out a lot of stuff from phase 2 of the exam. Buhara was the only one judging them on the pork in the manga and the old anime, while Menchi had them all make sushi (which most of them didn't know how to make) and ended up failing them all on that. In a way I don't mind it so much, though, because they probably wanted to rush through this phase of the exam to get to phase 3 as quickly as possible since that's when things get way more dangerous.

Still, it makes me curious as to why they would spend so much time on episode 3 introducing individual participants in the exam (even though half of them have already become irrelevant characters early on) but then rush through actual material that took place when a phase of the exam was in progress. I find that to be kind of strange. Personally, if they wanted to save time, I would have rather had them cut out those long-winded and mostly unnecessary character introductions rather than actual Hunter Exam material from the rest of the arc, but like I said its not a big deal as it doesn't have any huge relevance to the plot either way.

As for the next episode, it looks like it will cover the time in-between phases 2 and 3 of the exam where the remaining participants are on the airship traveling to the site of phase 3, which mainly consists of Gon and Killua getting to know each other better, and playing that little game of sorts with Netero.

So, at episode 15 we're about half-way into the 4th phase of the exam, whereas the original anime was only about half-way into the 3rd phase of the exam by this point in time. That said the show doesn't feel rushed, by any means, and its moving along at a steady enough pace so far. If anything its going a little bit slower than I expected given how much material from the manga the anime can afford to burn through, and yet even then it still wouldn't have a hope of catching up to the manga for at least a few years.

Anyways, things are shaping up pretty good, and that is to say a lot better than I had originally expected. If anything it doesn't really do much to differentiate itself from the original anime aside from following the manga's story line much more closely, though to be fair its not like the original anime was a huge deviation from the manga's story either, so its basically the same story and the characters remain largely the same. I wouldn't say that I like it better than the original anime yet, but its still a worthy remake up to this point, for what its worth.

So, is anyone else keeping up with this series besides me? Well, I suppose I'm the only one still interested in HXH, but overall the remake is holding its own pretty well. Currently its close to the end of the 4th phase of the Hunter Exams, but in this regard its only 17 episodes in whereas the original anime took around 25 episodes to get to that point, so this series is definitely paced a little bit faster.

I think that it benefits from better pacing than the original anime, but that's a given since there is so much manga material backed-up for them to use that even if they cut stuff out they still wouldn't need to resort to filler for years to come. I do feel that in terms of execution and direction, though, the original anime still has an edge over it. I felt that there was something that the original anime did with its slower pacing to actually use to its benefit, unlike most other anime, and it also had a more robust soundtrack to use, whereas this remake seems to be recycling way too many tunes this early on into the series, which isn't really a very good sign.

Having said all this, though, I'll give my full detailed thoughts on how the 2 series compare when I do an Old vs. New sort of article comparing the Hunter Exams arc in both series when it finishes up in this one, which by the looks of it will probably be within the next 5 or so episodes.

WOW! This week's episode was superb, IMO. I mean, wow. I haven't seen a shonen anime keep me this interested in a long time. Of course, this is an adaptation of an older series (that's still currently running), but the way they adapted the scenes in this particular episode not only trumps what the original anime did with it (IMO), but its a prime example of how to adapt something. It took what was done in the manga and improves on it with a great and moody soundtrack, fantastic voice-acting (I can't tell when voice acting is good or bad in Japanese, but over here even as an English speaker it was effective, which definitely says something about how well it was done), and great animation (at least by a shonen anime's standards), but not in terms of action scenes since there was practically no action in this episode, but in terms of portraying character's facial expressions and emotions. So far its the best episode in the new anime, so far, and it really leaves me hopeful to see how well the crew behind this remake can adapt the later arcs of the series, since things only get better from here on out until the Greed Island arc (in which case the quality kind of goes downhill until the middle of the Chimera Ant arc).

So the Hunter Exams arc has just been concluded in the new anime. Overall its been a pretty good run so far, with its own share of strengths and weaknesses that make it feel unique enough from the original anime. I do really want to do an old vs. new sort of feature comparing just this arc in the old anime and the new series, but I may have to hold off on that since I'm still bogged down with studying and busy-work for my college, even though I'm on my spring break. At any rate I'll see what I can manage to get done, but I won't likely have this feature up for a while.

Anyways, I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing how this new anime manages to handle the York Shin City arc when that comes up a few months down the line.

So, it looks like HXH is getting a theatrical feature sometime down the road according to this (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-03-13/mainichi/hunter-x-hunter-manga-gets-1st-anime-film) bit of news.

It'll probably be one of those over-sized 90 minute filler episodes that most movies for long-running shonen series tend to be like, but it would be so awesome if it was actually handled by people with genuine respect for the series and who knew Togashi's style of writing and could make an adventurous film that also wasn't afraid to explore darker themes. Since its an original story it'll be non-canon whichever way you slice it, so at the very least the writers could take the opportunity to tell whatever story they want to tell as sort of like taking place in an alternate Universe featuring the main characters of this series. Still, I know that this is just wishful thinking on my part, but I'll probably end up looking into this film anyways just because its HXH. I fully expect it to suck, but I'd love to be surprised and be proven wrong.

So, not too long after the announcement of a full feature length film, HXH is now getting the video game license (http://www.siliconera.com/2012/03/28/hunter-x-hunter-game-coming-to-psp-this-fall/) treatment as well.

Make no mistake, it'll probably be as crappy as other licensed game just like the movie will be as boring and uninspired as most movies based off of Shonen Jump properties. That said, this is a good indicator of how popular the series is right now with the new anime, which has only been running for a bit over 20 episodes, so for a reboot of a series that started back in the 90's this sure must be taking off pretty well with the anime ratings. That said, its not too surprising given that the earlier arcs of HXH (back before the term "Togashism" was coined in Japan) were actually interesting and had a genuinely talented writer of shonen series working on it. With all of the hacks who write boring shonen series today, a remake of a series like HXH doesn't have much competition to worry about. Still, I'm surprised that its already considered popular enough to be in the ranks of other shonen anime that get the crappy movie and video game treatment (that is to say those properties themselves are crappy in quality but still sell a shit-load more than they deserve due to the popularity of the series' they are based off of).

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on March 29, 2012, 01:20:58 AM
So, not too long after the announcement of a full feature length film, HXH is now getting the video game license (http://www.siliconera.com/2012/03/28/hunter-x-hunter-game-coming-to-psp-this-fall/) treatment as well.

Make no mistake, it'll probably be as crappy as other licensed game just like the movie will be as boring and uninspired as most movies based off of Shonen Jump properties.

To be fair, the DBZ and Naruto fighting games are actually respectable games in their own right, nothing special, but they are full of enough content to please both fans and non fans alike. I do agree with you on the movies though.

Well, Naruto has had some pretty decent games I must admit, and DBZ has had its share as well. I was more referring to the mass market of licensed shonen games out there, though. For every exception to the rule, there are at least a dozen pieces of turd out there that aren't worth mentioning yet still sell over 100,000 copies in Japan, each (and that's a lot for Japan, considering that gaming isn't nearly as big there as it is in the West, these days).

You know, with all my issues with Naruto, those PS3 games are some of the best looking games out there. If that could be the standard for next gen I'd be more than satisfied.

Well, the cell-shaded anime art-style does translate really well into video games, IMO, so its no surprise that they look good. For that matter, they are among the few games with great graphics that actually bothers to add plenty of color for you to actually admire the graphics, as well. For some reason so many developers seem to be too scared to actually make their games more "colorful" since there seems to be some stupid association with more brown and gray gritty colors making for a more "mature" game, which is some of the stupidest logic that I've ever heard of, personally.

Poster for the Heaven's Arena and Yorkshin City arcs:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg685.imageshack.us%2Fimg685%2F8180%2Fhunterxhunterj.jpg&hash=2c5b9c49c764d8f126992896b7f1ded237635414)

And now I'm pumped. The remake has been turning out to get better and better as it goes along, and by now I'm really confident that this anime staff knows what they're doing. This may potentially surpass the original if it keeps improving as much as it has over the past dozen or so episodes.

So, we got some new opening animation and a new ending theme with this week's episode. I like how we get to see the Genei Ryodan shown off in the opening this time around.

Also, the series is once again moving at a brisker pace. One episode into the Heaven's Arena arc and Gon and Killua are already about to start learning about Nen. Really, though, I'm just waiting to see how this anime handles the York Shin City arc. It has already proven that it won't shy away from being dark when it needs to be, so hopefully we'll get a second great adaptation of my favorite arc in the series that isn't heavy on censoring.

If anyone's wondering how this anime is shaping up so far, its successfully doing a good job of being its own separate thing that can stand on its own (I still prefer the first series so far, but that may be part of my own bias since that's the version that I'm still most used to), and for what it is the anime has been adapting the manga very well up to this point. Its good enough so far that I could recommend it to someone who wanted to get into the series but didn't feel like reading the manga and didn't want to watch the original anime because of its age (which is a stupid reason to not watch it, but a reason, nonetheless).

Actually, this version could end up surpassing the original depending on how they handle the York Shin City arc, IMO. At the very least it certainly has the potential to, anyways.

Alright, so now the remake is finally gearing up for my favorite arc in the entire series. I can't wait to see how it handles things from this point onward as the series becomes notably darker with the York Shin City stuff.

At any rate, the remake has been really good up to this point. Its actually a lot closer to Togashi's manga than the first anime series, though I still liked the first anime series despite (and sometimes even because) of its changes, but overall that's still my favorite version of the series. Even so, the remake is really shaping up to be a great shonen series, and its honestly the only current shonen anime that I'm aware of that is any good at all.

Seriously, for anyone complaining that there are no good shonen series currently airing, if you're not watching this current iteration of the series you really can't even say that. This is a really good adaptation and its honestly at least on par with some contemporary superhero cartoons over here, just for a point of reference.

Its one of those anime that seems to be taking the best aspects of Togashi's writing and amplifying those aspects while, at least up to this point, ignoring most of the weaker aspects of his manga. Its also currently the only thing that gives me faith that there is still some talent left among those involved with producing shonen anime, specifically.

This YYH reference with that key-chain was a really nice little nod to that series by the animators:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg685.imageshack.us%2Fimg685%2F9229%2F37706475.png&hash=644d0fb9ab1f72b979c0811c41c45c36f215816f)

This was also yet another really good episode. There was no action, but it moved along the plot along quite nicely and it really does a great job of foreshadowing how dark this story can get later on. I mean, this episode was literally about Neon's predictions that there would be a lot of death to come at the auction, using her ability of divination. It also introduces most of the members of the Genei Ryodan, and sets up the group quite nicely.

AWW LOOK, IT'S PUU!!

Man, I should try to start watching this.

You may like this series even better than the first anime. While I have a biased attachment to that series (though, to be fair, it is a legitimately good series on its own), this one has far less filler bogging it down and moves at a much smoother pace (it covers the first 5 episodes of the original anime in 2 episodes without feeling rushed), and while I wasn't keen on the music or voice acting in this series at first, both have substantially improved since the beginning. Also, this adaptation is strictly more accurate to Togashi's original work. That's not to say that the 1999 series deviated from the story all that much, but it made some notable character changes of its own that did not sit well with a lot of purist HXH fans (a part of the fan-base which I despise, even though I agree that the manga is better).

Still, I thought the old anime did a terrific job with the York Shin City arc. This anime only just started it, so I have to see how well they handle it in comparison.

Is Hisoka still good in the new series?

You have to specify what you mean by that? I think his choice of voice actor is perfect for his character, and they make him a bit more sadistic and psychotic than before, which is more accurate to how he is in the manga (though he is still largely the same character as in the 1999 anime), so in that regard they make him the type of character that he's supposed to be. Whether he's "good" in it or not is really up to how you define that term in the context of his character.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on July 29, 2012, 11:51:58 PM
You have to specify what you mean by that? I think his choice of voice actor is perfect for his character, and they make him a bit more sadistic and psychotic than before, which is more accurate to how he is in the manga (though he is still largely the same character as in the 1999 anime), so in that regard they make him the type of character that he's supposed to be. Whether he's "good" in it or not is really up to how you define that term in the context of his character.

Awesome! That answers my question, and is just what I wanted to hear.

I'm not really a fan of Hisoka because of how Togashi uses him. Mostly the same as what he uses most of the Ryodan for after York Shin, which are nothing more than killing machines for characters Togashi doesn't like anymore.

It works in the Hunter exam because of how creepy he is, and in York Shin because of how Kurapika deals with him, but after that he is totally wasted as a generic villain.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on July 30, 2012, 12:16:58 AM
I'm not really a fan of Hisoka because of how Togashi uses him. Mostly the same as what he uses most of the Ryodan for after York Shin, which are nothing more than killing machines for characters Togashi doesn't like anymore.

I kind of agree about Hisoka, but I completely disagree about the Ryodan. First off, Togashi's barely used them that much since York Shin, which is kind of disappointing given how good they were there. But I'm not sure if you missed the point of their apperance in the Chimera Ant arc, since they were doing the exact opposite of killing off minor characters just because Togashi didn't want them anymore. They were actually eliminating a bunch of Chimera Ants that had been terrorizing people at their home-town, Meteor City. That's actually contrary to what you'd expect of them, since they were actually helping people out (granted that, I think they were getting paid for it, and it WAS their home-town they were looking out for, anyways), and to me it makes them more 3-dimensional characters since not everything they do is pure evil as you might be lead to believe by their past actions. I think it'd be great to see more of them doing stuff like that, but either way, they are certainly underutilized by Togashi after York Shin.

QuoteIt works in the Hunter exam because of how creepy he is, and in York Shin because of how Kurapika deals with him, but after that he is totally wasted as a generic villain.

Well in Greed Island he works together with Gon and Killua, though while that could have been more interesting I feel as though Togashi doesn't do much with that scenario. It would have been interesting to see him in the Chimera Ant arc, but I'm kind of glad that Togashi left him out of it as that arc was already cluttered enough with character and plot-lines as it was, and his addition would have just made things far more confusing. I do fully agree that Togashi really wastes him in the post-Chimera Ant arc events, though. The way he just kills off minor characters for the sake of it really pissed me off, and it didn't even feel in character for Hisoka to target such "smally-fry" (that's probably how he'd put it), anyways. Especially ones that didn't even do anything to deserve such gruesome deaths at his hands.

Well, you already know my feelings on Greed Island.  :P

Honestly, I would have liked to have seen them (and Hisoka) in the Chimera Ant arc just to actually see them face a legitimate threat and get knocked onto the ropes for a bit. I'm actually kind of surprised they were hired for clean up, and not at the point when the threat was really severe.

Anyway, I'm kind of burnt out still on this series. I probably won't return to it until he actually finishes it. Whenever that may be.

I like the series on the whole, but I think it has flaws. It gradually gets better until the end of the York Shin City arc, which I still find to be its peak. Then Greed Island comes along, and while I wouldn't call it bad, its pretty underwhelming, especially with all of the build-up to it. Then we get the Chimera Ant arc which gets off to an even worse start, but thankfully picks up. Its a really ambitious arc and Togashi does a surprisingly great job of achieving that ambition....until the last 20 chapters or so when it just starts to drag out way too long. After that the post-arc stuff has a cop-out solution to "Gon's dilemma" and some stuff happens that pisses me off and then the series goes back on hiatus. So, yeah, its a very inconsistent run, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't still want to see where Togashi would take this series next. He's a terrific writer when he actually cares about what he's writing. The best in all of shonen manga, really. But I just feel like Togashi had gotten so out of tune with his own series after taking so many breaks from it that it may just be better for him to find a way to end it in another couple of arcs rather than keep fans waiting decades before its over.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on July 30, 2012, 12:43:57 AM
Honestly, I would have liked to have seen them (and Hisoka) in the Chimera Ant arc just to actually see them face a legitimate threat and get knocked onto the ropes for a bit. I'm actually kind of surprised they were hired for clean up, and not at the point when the threat was really severe.

That clean-up part was just because it was at their home-town. It was more of a personal thing for them rather than business. I thought it was actually really awesome of them to defend their local people. It also really makes it interesting when you consider that they supposedly massacred Kurapika's whole clan, yet they have their own to look out for as well, so it may be a future plot-line that Kurapkia tries to hit them where it hurts if he ever gets that far-gone. At the very least it'll be interesting to see.

That, and some of them showed some humanity in how they were disgusted at how those particular Chimera that they had to kill were treating the humans as slaves and torturing them by forcefully mutating them for their sick pleasure. The Ryodan may kill a lot of people themselves, but at least most of them aren't so sick and twisted about it. The even mercy killed the surviving humans who were so badly mutated that they were living in mortal pain.

Just drop all the characters and make the series about Knuckle teaching Gon and Killua how to be tough manly men.

Such a shame he was already basically written out. He was the best part of the whole Chimera Ant arc, and a reminder of why YYH characters will always be his best style of character writing.

And then we find out his last name was Urameshi or Kuwabara and this whole series was a stealth YYH sequel.  :>

Well, he hasn't really written Knuckle and the other side-characters out of the story yet. It feels like they could easily come back in the next arc as recurring characters. Gon's going to need a new companion to replace Killua since they parted ways, at any rate, so while I would love for it to be Leorio who joins him, I have a feeling that Knuckle would probably be the most likely candidate since he is also pretty much Gon's current mentor.

Another great episode this week, and as a nice bonus some great new scores have been added into the continually improving soundtrack. Man, this show has been on a streak lately. It really just may very well surpass the old anime in my eyes, and even possibly the manga if it manages to make Greed Island a good arc and fix the various problems with the Chimera Ant arc, but it'll still be quite a while before it ever actually gets to that point.

The beginning and ending of this episode were fucking awesome. The middle was kind of meh. I prefer how the 1999 anime handled this part in general, but this reboot still did a good job of it. I suppose my main problems were with the animation and choice of music for this episode. I'm a tad bit disappointed, but its still really good stuff, overall.

Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5uVoqafQWs&feature=player_embedded) is a perfect comparison video of the animation between the 1999 version and the 2011 version of the anime, with the most iconic fight sequence in the series.

This week's episode was fantastic. I may just copy and paste my full thoughts on it from the TZ HXH thread, but for now I'll just say that it was really well-done.

I specifically thought it was a nice touch in having Kurapika actually show some remorse for his fallen teammates once he learned that they were killed by the Genei Ryodan. They may have been minor characters, but Togashi just killed them off like usual and then had everyone else completely forget about them once they found out that they were dead. Over here there's a few seconds  in which Kurapika takes some time to remember them and he even shows some rage at Uvogin for killing them. Those are a pretty meaningful few seconds to me, and it makes Kurapika's character feel a bit more appealing, IMO. I only bothered to mention this because I figured that its something that Desensitized would also appreciate being that he and I both strongly agree that Togashi is a complete ass-hole when it comes to killing off characters without any sense of remorse or class.

Of course, this was the episode in which another certain member of the Nostrade family's team of bodyguards (Kurapika's team, basically) gets killed off. Its a really well-done death scene which I love for the shock factor that it has to it since it happens to suddenly, but while It was done relatively well in this episode, I feel as thoug hit was done a tad bit better in the 1999 anime without the use of any music building up to the assassination and with the guy standing up after being stabbed in the back (literally) and trying to use the last of his strength to attack the Genei Ryodan (which is of course a futile effort that ensures him an even quicker death, but at least he died with some dignity that way).

So, the first movie trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvpXksDdhaY&feature=player_embedded) for this feature was put up recently. Going by the way things look, it would seem that its either retelling a portion of the York Shin City arc OR actually adapting a later part of the arc. Its probably the former, though, since it showed a clip of Uvo in it and if it was a later part of the arc it would be after his death (then again, that scene with him in it could just be a flashback). Either way, its adapting canon material, as it would seem, so it may just be something interesting after all, rather than the half-assed garbage that most movies based off of shonen TV anime turn out to be.

I have to pity the poor pathetic saps who watch shounen movies for anything other than the fights. :P

Aren't movies that adapt canon material generally inferior to the source material though? Usually they blitz through most of the character development and plot.

Quote from: Rynnec on September 02, 2012, 03:20:25 PM
I have to pity the poor pathetic saps who watch shounen movies for anything other than the fights. :P

Aren't movies that adapt canon material generally inferior to the source material though? Usually they blitz through most of the character development and plot.

Though they usually get a better budget than TV anime. And besides, do you want a filler movie?

Well, the One Piece movies do it horribly. I think 2 of the Dragon Ball movies did something along those lines, but they changed things up greatly half-way through and told completely alternate stories that were still completely entertaining (IMO).

I haven't seen any other shonen movies that just condense major arcs into a movie, though, so I can't really comment on that.

I do think that if HXH were to do it with the York Shin City arc, it would unquestionably be inferior to the manga and anime arc, but it would at least make for better and more intelligent material than any other feature-length shonen movie.

Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on September 02, 2012, 03:23:21 PM

Quote from: Rynnec on September 02, 2012, 03:20:25 PM
I have to pity the poor pathetic saps who watch shounen movies for anything other than the fights. :P

Aren't movies that adapt canon material generally inferior to the source material though? Usually they blitz through most of the character development and plot.

Though they usually get a better budget than TV anime. And besides, do you want a filler movie?

Only if they expand on an aspect of the verse that the original source material couldn't be assed to explore.

OK, Somebody other than just me seriously needs to be watching this show. Its just too good for me to be the only one appreciating this reboot. This week's episode convinced me more than ever that the staff behind this anime knows what they are doing. I'll say that this episode managed to surpass a fight and a death scene that I already loved the interpretation of in the 1999 anime adaptation, so that's saying a lot right there.

In this particular episode we see a so-called shonen "good guy" basically being portrayed as anything but good. Even though he's killing a bad guy for revenge and retribution on his crimes and the crimes of the group that he comes from, he does so in a very savage way (which he of course hates doing, but feels as though he has to), and if you were to look at his actions from a neutral perspective and going by just this episode alone, he'd clearly seem like the bad guy. That's especially true when the so-called villain turns out to be the one staying loyal to his team by remaining tight-lipped while literally being beaten to death for information on the rest of them. The reason I like stuff like this is because its out of the norm for its genre BUT doesn't feel forced just for the sake of trying to stand out. Its backed by good writing, strong themes, and the violence doesn't actually feel pointless as there is a legitimate reason for it.

Now, I feel that this is something that Togashi often tends to forget in the Chimera Ant arc, but that's at a much later time. As for the York Shin City arc, I still say (and after watching this episode, I am more convinced than ever) that its the best arc that he's written since the Chapter Black arc of Yu Yu Hakusho.

I just watched this week's episode, and this show is still really good.

I remember on the podcast Dr. Isomniac mentioned to me that he thought most people hated the new show, but on the contrary a lot of people have really enjoyed it. People who really like the manga prefer this adaptation in particular since its more faithful to the characters. People who started with the 1999 anime are biased for that version.

As for me, I love the 1999 anime but this version has been getting better as it goes along, and unlike the 1999 version this one will get to make it a lot further along in the story than that anime did.

So, the series has just aired 50 episodes so far. At this point, the events of next episode or 2 will finally cover up to the end of what the original 62-episode TV anime covered. That said, the manga was still covered further in anime form through the OVAs, so it'll still be another 20-30 episodes before it finally catches up to and passes what the original anime iterations covered of the manga. After that we'll finally get to see the long-awaited anime adaptation of the Chimera Ant arc, which while I do think its quite a bit overrated by fans since I see more flaws in it than most other people, its still a great arc on the whole that really deserves to be told in animated form.

AWESOME EPISODE! Its worth noting that this was also my favorite segment from the 1999 anime, so I'm REALLY glad to see that they didn't drop the ball here. I also think it was a really cool touch to have the requiem music play over the end credits in place of the normal ending them. Its just a great way to end what I personally consider to be the best episode that has aired so far for this reboot. :D

Also, now I can say with much more certainty that the next episode will officially cover everything that the first TV series covered, and everything after that will be adapting material that was first adapted in the HXH OVA series. When I stop to think about it, we'll probably be at the Greed Island arc in just a few more months, and we'll probably be done with it well before the end of next year. Assuming that the show doesn't go into any fillers, we'll finally be able to see the adaptation of the long-awaited Chimera Ant arc star up by around the 3rd or 4th quarter of next year.

And I also just noticed yet another YYH nod in this episode:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg705%2F9923%2Fsuzakun.png&hash=f50cf851222aa22c03d4a8e2d7b99be9f64312c3)

Man, this show has been on a streak of completely awesome episodes, lately. Of course, it owes a lot of that to great source material, but still, the staff for this show clearly shows a ton of effort in making this adaptation as good as possible.

FINALLY watched the first episode, and if I have enough time later tonight, I'll get onto the second one too.

I really liked the '99 anime, but this is really good too! I know you told me about the poor reception the 2011 version has been getting, EK, but I was surprised to find so many negative comments. Granted, I'm not familiar with the actual manga, but even when comparing both shows, this was a fun pilot that stood up in its own rights and had me on the edge of my seat throughout.

I'm glad to see that you liked it! ;D

As for the poor reception, I don't think I ever said that it was received poorly (that was Dr. Insomniac if you're referring to the podcast from out top 65 list). This new anime has actually received generally positive reception from fans. It received mixed reception at first because people were skeptical of how bright and cheery it looked, but as of right now if you go onto any anime discussion board and look into a talkback thready for this series, you'll see that most people are genuinely praising it to the extent that Brotherhood got praised over the original FMA anime.

As for the manga, the '99 anime didn't change the story or anything, but it swayed the main characters a bit more towards being definitive good guys, whereas their attitude, feelings, and actions can be a bit more gray in the manga and this 2011 anime (they are still pretty much the good guys, though, whichever way you choose to look at this series). I think the character that really got misinterpreted in the '99 anime is Gon, though. That series portrays him more like a goody-goody protagonist. While he is initially "pure" as a character, it doesn't mean that he's pure good, but rather that he has an unbiased view of the world, and doesn't judge people as good or evil but rather to the extent that they genuinely interest him.

Putting my nerd talk aside, though, I still love the '99 anime and that's not going to change, but the reality of the situation is that this new anime will get to cover much more material from the manga than the original anime ever had the opportunity to, so this is certainly the version to stick with. I think you'll like what you see of the alter arcs as well, Avaitor. This anime does not shy away from going into dark places despite how it may seem initially, and if you can believe it, this one is actually LESS censored than the '99 version. ;)

You know, it's too bad that we don;t do AV Club-style reviews for episodes of each series, otherwise we could do what they do with Game of Thrones- have 2 different reviewers for the show, one an expert of the franchise who tries to compare how the show is tackling the source material (that'd be you), and the other more of a newbie, who can only use vague-ish memories of the older series to compare the show initially (me).

That would make for a great compare-contrast series of articles.

If you and me actually had more free-time in our busy schedules, I'd totally be up for that! :thumbup:

Unfortunately, though, life is far too demanding for either of us to take on a task like that and stay consistent and timely with it. :(

I still want to do an Old vs. New for these anime series' when I finally finish up this semester of college, though.

I would love to do something like that, but I dunno, it sounds like a daunting task.

Not the old vs. new idea though. That's a great idea that I'd love to see done. :)

Oh, and since its not spoilers seeing as how you've already watched the '99 anime, here is the new anime's take on 2 of my favorite (and probably among the most iconic and recognizable) scenes from the '99 anime:

Requiem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2qOkmQjjDg&feature=relmfu)

Zeno and Silva Vs. Chrollo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hTta0c4V30)

Now just watch those and try and tell me that this series doesn't look fucking amazing. :sly:

Another good episode this week. The slower pacing and somber mood of this particular episode reminds me of just how good Togashi is at making his story engaging and his characters interesting in-between all of the intense action. When reading or watching these segments of the series, you aren't motivated to keep going in anticipation from build-up to the next big fight, but rather you just keep watching because you want to see what happens next in the story or how the characters will act in certain situations, as it should be. This is pretty much the mark that almost no other shonen series can provide me, personally.

There's a brand new trailer (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-10-28/hunter-hunter/phantom-rouge-film-trailer-previewed) up. It looks like rather than just a blatant retelling of a popular story-arc, this movie will delve deep into Kurapika's back-story with (potentially) canon material, as I don't believe they'd reveal all of this stuff without Togashi's approval. This movie could possibly turn into something worth watching, rather than a cheap and lazy cash-in as most movies based off of long-running shonen series seem to turn out to be.

Dem chickens.

Sounds like a good idea for a movie, I love it when extraneous material actually expands positively on the overall story. :joy:

Yeah, like the trailer teases that we will get the reveal of #4, a member of the Spiders/Genei Ryodan who was supposedly killed by his replacement, Hisoka. Most shonen movies wouldn't try anything but glorified filler for a movie, but if they are going into back-story like this then it has to be canon. I wouldn't be surprised, either, because having watched this current TV anime for a year, its clear that this is one of those rare series where the staff working on it clearly gives a shit about the source material. You can tell that they are big fans of Togashi with those fun little YYH references strewn about the series as well (pretty much the closest that series will ever get to seeing itself in anime form ever again).

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2012-10-31/aya-hirano-to-voice-original-character-in-hunter-x-hunter-film

QuoteThe film is based on an unpublished story manga creator Yoshihiro Togashi wrote around 10 years ago.

So, in other words, its officially canon (if this bit in the article is indeed true). And, if it was something Togashi wrote from 10 years ago, it was back during a time when it was still presumably on his A game, so it'll probably be some actual good story material that he decided not to tell at that time for whatever reason. Either way, now I'm actually really interested and even a tad bit excited to see this film. It sounds a lot more ambitious than any other movie based off of a long-running shonen series.

Maybe he just never got around to drawing it. Like, he's had it ready to go for awhile, but hadn't found a good way to fit it into the timeline properly yet.

It could be that, or any number of reasons. One example would be that he might have written it but never drew it up because he wanted to save an important story like that for later on when the series needed the popularity votes, which is a technique that many shonen mangaka use in order to keep their series from being cancelled in desperate times (I learned that thanks to reading Bakuman :D ). That said, even after taking mutiple year + long hiatuses, the manga has failed to lose its popularity, which may either be a testament to Togashi's skills as a writer in keeping people interested and invested in his series through such long gaps/intervals in time, or how overly-loyal his fan-base is for HXH. :sly:

There is also the possibility that Togashi wrote out the story, thought it was shit, and decided to toss it out until this movie came up in which he let the studio take the story since it would have most likely been shit if they came up with it themselves, anyways, but I'm hoping that's not the case.

Maybe it's the ending.  :lol:

Kurapika's back-story would be the planned ending to the series?....Huh, I guess there's a sort of poetic quality to that if that were the case in that it ends at the beginning, but....wasn't this series supposed to be about Gon at one point in time? :>

Until he found his father, anyway.

I honestly have no idea anymore what this show is about.  :P

I was kind of hoping that Gon finding his father would mark the end of the series....period. It'd at least end on a good note that way. Instead we got such an abrupt reveal of his father and somehow the series is still continuing by might as well be over since it'll probably be on hiatus forever. Honestly, I don't know what Togashi's thinking at this point. I swear that he's really just deliberately trying to fuck around with his fan-base and keep stalling the series for as long as possible just to see how much crap his most loyal of fans are willing to put up with before finally giving up on this series.

Hooray?.... (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-11-20/hunter-x-hunter-manga-to-run-2-part-kurapika-tsuioku-hen) :??:

I'd be more excited for this, but really I'd much rather have Togashi get off of his lazy-ass and just continue the story, but I suppose that this is still better than nothing.

It was annoying having to wait 2 weeks for another episode, but this week we got a new episode and it didn't disappoint. I really like how this arc has the fighting and action scenes (as great and entertaining as they are) take a backseat to the story, character development, and favors a battle of wits over a battle of fists and energy. We've basically reached the climax of this arc (well, the next episode is going to be the climax), but just observe how different it is from what you'd expect to see in a regular shonen series. Rather than having the protagonists face off against the villains in a big battle, this arc instead is going to head off on a hostage-exchange of all things, with both sides trying to deceive the other, and the protagonists not afraid to use underhanded tactics of their own. Its not really a battle between good guys and bad guys, but rather the main characters and an opposing force (though to be fair, the protagonists are clearly much closer to being good guys in this case).

I'm....kind of disappointed, to be honest. I felt that this episode was way too rushed in order to get finished with this arc, and there were a lot of great moments in the OVA that I felt worked because it wasn't rushing itself to get to the next arc and was instead really focused on building up the drama of the situation in a way that really made an impact. Pakunoda's death in the OVA was a genuinely sad moment for a character who up to this point was supposed to be one of the "bad guys," but in this anime's version of the episode I didn't feel anything for her. To be fair, that's kind of how it was in the manga as well, where it kind of felt like it just moved things along to get done with the arc, but that's why its not always best to follow the manga to the letter, and I kind of liked how the OVA took its time with the end of the York Shin City arc. I'm not saying that I'd want the end of it to be more than one episode in this anime, but I would have appreciated it if they ended off the episode with Paku's death, and then started up the GI arc with the next episode. The thing about the narrator saying that the GI arc starts with the next episode is that he's technically wrong as it already started with Gon and Killua making it to the auction. York Shin City arc at its heart was Kurapika's story, and the arc was concluded with Gon and Killua being returned to him and Leorio safely, and Chrollo departing away from the rest of the Phantom Troupe.

Well, at any rate we are finally done with the York Shin City arc, and on the whole I think this anime did a really good job of adapting it, rushed ending aside. Now we'll be moving onto the Greed Island arc!!!!....Oh wait, that's not so exciting....:(

Here's a neat looking poster for it, though:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg41.imageshack.us%2Fimg41%2F2043%2Fgreed10.jpg&hash=55749d7537a6d029a26267d69c9d4b12fd2fa603)

Why does Ging look like Elc?

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage.jeuxvideo.com%2Fimages%2Fps%2Fa%2Fr%2Farc-the-lad-ii-playstation-ps1-00a.jpg&hash=6edeea8c613665c85fee57b7320561d8cfd8729b)
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fa4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com%2Fimages01%2F38%2F5f12219d41ee269435c0267aae5cc9c7%2Fl.jpg&hash=3cda14aeb9b1d8888c16dfc27897be794b835188)

Huh? He's always had that look that he's got in that poster. The hair-style and face are the same as ever. If he happens to look like another character from another anime that's just a result of his character design. It has been established that if you cover up his hair, he looks quite a bit like Yusuke from YYH.

I know, it's just the way he looks in that poster. Freaky.

So, it looks as though we'll finally be getting to see the Chimera Ant arc animated (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-02-20/hunter-x-hunter-anime-to-air-chimera-ant-arc) not too long from now.

This should certainly be interesting. If the anime catches up to where the manga is at and ends right after a certain scene of the mini-arc, then I'd be completely satisfied with that ending. Really, I believe that the manga should have just ended after that scene to begin with. I'm not really too sure what's left to accomplish with this series past that point.

So, Greed Island is almost done. In another 3 weeks, we'll finally be getting to see the Chimera Ant arc animated. Is anyone else but me going to watch that? I figure Desensitized might want to see whether the anime can improve on the flaws in that arc, just out of curiosity. At least, that's what interests me the most in regard to seeing that arc finally being animated.

So, yeah, we've finally gotten to that point where this new anime adaptation of Hunter X Hunter has actually managed to reach the whole purpose for its existence in the first place (or at least it will by next week).

Since nobody other than me is ever going to watch the rest of this show, anyways, if you ever have the slightest bit of interest in checking out some portion of this series, then next week's episode may not be such a bad starting point. For one thing, a portion of it will cover an important part of the beginning of the manga that was cut out of this anime's first episode, so it'll probably get you familiar with Gon and his whole motivation for becoming a Hunter, and the rest of the episode will be an introduction to the Chimera Ant arc, in which you probably won't need to know a lot about previous story arcs to get the gist of what's going on (though you probably would be perplexed as to the abilities of characters in this show if you don't know what the fuck Nen is).

I might check it out, but I'm not sure. Maybe I'll wait until Knuckle shows up.

For what its worth, this anime adaptation probably has the best iteration of the Greed Island arc. Its still the worst arc in the series, but something about this adaptation made it more tolerable for me than the old OVAs or the manga. Part of that may be because it really sped things along with this arc to get done with it faster (I got the impression that the staff behind this anime weren't big fans of the arc, either). Perhaps they can improve the faults of the Chimera Ant arc as well. Then again, seeing as how Togashi hasn't written any new material in well over a year, now, this anime adaptation might try to drag out the arc to keep the show running for as long as possible, but they do have a satisfying spot to end the series at with the Chairmen Election arc, so they could still keep up the good pace that they've had for this series with the Chimera Ant arc, and just end the show on a dignified note, rather than delving into filler territory.

Interesting....

It's worth mentioning that this episode made a few notable changes from the manga. First off, the meeting with Kite was handled really differently than how it was in the manga. You saw a few brief glimpses of the flash-back of where he saved Gon, but that was actually covered in more detail in the very first chapter of the manga, as well as the first episode of the 1999 anime. Gon had been saved by Kite, and learned his name there, as well as the fact that he was Ging's student. Kite was also the one who gave him Ging's double-star Hunter license in the first place, which is what really inspired Gon to become a Hunter like his father, and like Kite. So, when he and Killua meets him in the manga, Gon instantly recognizes him and they hit it off like old friends, rather than just mere acquaintances In this episode, they changed it so that Gon never really knew anything about Kite other than the fact that he saved him when he was younger. Its not a huge change, but its worth mentioning.

Also, this episode added 2 scenes that were never in the manga. The part where Kite attacked those "Chimera Ants" that were going after Gon and Killua never happened in the manga. They don't meet any creature from that species until they get to NGL. In addition to that, the whole flash-back scene where Kite meets Ging for the first time was also added in for the anime. For what its worth, I actually like both of those additions, but it makes me wonder if we are going to get a lot of filler scenes like this as the arc progresses, in order to draw out the length of the series for as long as possible until it catches up with the manga. That kind of seems to be the intention, in this case.

All in all, it was a decent episode for what it was. Every arc in this series starts out slow and gradually builds up the tension, and this one is no exception. I just hope that they don't drag things out too much in later episodes, because it would be really disappointing to see the Chimera Ant arc anime adaptation, which HXH fans have been waiting so long for, succumb to the issue of bad pacing. We'll have to wait and see if that happens as the arc progresses, though.

One thing I want to point out is to really pay close attention to Gon's character in this arc. You'll see for once that his thick-headed attitude and way of thinking may have some seriously negative repercussions for him at this point in the series. I've mentioned this before, but what's especially interesting is how this repercussions end up affecting his character.

The last thing that I wanted to comment on is that, while I'm still not a fan of them sticking to the same opening theme yet again (at this point its safe to assume that they'll just be using it throughout the entire series), I really do love the visuals that they use for it this time around. Its completely different from previous openings, without any recycled animation, and it really does a good job of hyping up the allies and villains that you will encounter throughout this arc.

Man, I'd watch this if Crunchyroll's video player didn't keep freezing on me. Seriously annoying. I'll need to find some other way to watch it. Although, I'll probably wait until they get to Knuckle and Shoot so that I can marathon the early, slower portion of the arc in one go.

Knuckle is easily the best new character in that arc. His introduction into the story instantly made the arc better for me, and it had already gradually been getting better by that point (the only part I downright hated in the beginning was with Meruem slaughtering innocent people for no reason other than for Togashi to put in some shock value). After Knuckle stepped into the picture, the arc got downright awesome from that point and pretty much maintained that quality until after the 2nd hiatus, wehre the pacing became drawn out again. Then the arc got awesome again....then it got annoying when Netero was fighting Meruem and it became apparently just how overpowered Meruem was. Then the arc was good again until Gon pulled a BS power-up out of nowhere. Then the arc concluded with a pretty good and satisfying ending. Its a lopsided arc in terms of quality, to be sure, but I still feel that, looking back on it, the good far outweighs the bad for me.

I don't really watch this show (waiting for a dub and possible TV airing), but I just had to link this video, I think a lot of people here will get a kick out of it. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf0zZw6GYdI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf0zZw6GYdI)

Quote from: Rynnec on April 21, 2013, 02:55:49 PM
I don't really watch this show (waiting for a dub and possible TV airing), but I just had to link this video, I think a lot of people here will get a kick out of it. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf0zZw6GYdI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf0zZw6GYdI)

This just made my day! :thumbup:

Quote from: Rynnec on April 21, 2013, 02:55:49 PM
I don't really watch this show (waiting for a dub and possible TV airing), but I just had to link this video, I think a lot of people here will get a kick out of it. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf0zZw6GYdI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf0zZw6GYdI)

:worship: :swoon: :swoon: :swoon: :swoon: :swoon: :swoon: :swoon: :swoon: :thumbup:

I hope I'm not speaking prematurely about this, as its still very early on and the quality could easily drop at any time, but overall I think this anime adaptation of the Chimera Ant arc is slowly but steadily shaping up to be superior to the manga version. There has been filler in each of the 3 episodes aired so far, but almost all of it has been meaningful in some way. Certain death scenes are somewhat toned down for TV (which in this case is actually a good thing, IMO). I also liked how the scene with Kurt and his little sister Reina being mercilessly killed and eaten by the Chimera Ant queen had some build-up to it. You got to see that Kurt came from a peaceful village and was very protective of his sister, actually giving these people just a tiny bit of character so there would be at least a small amount of weight to their deaths. And then in this week's episode they added in another short but meaningful scene in which you see their mother weeping for her missing children, once again adding weight to something that Togashi just brushed off and used for shock value more than anything else.

It was also a nice touch to have Colt (the creature Kurt becomes after he's reborn from the Chimera Ant Queen) recognize his mother (at least subconsciously) from his previous life, during the raid on her village, and in the process sparing her life while attacking the rest of the village. It showed a little bit more compassion for the character, whereas in the manga he was shown to be just as ruthless as his other Chimera Ant brothers early on in the arc (though, to be fair, Togashi did at least humanize him later on).

These are all small touches, mind you, but to me they go a long way toward making this arc in general feel a lot less disturbingly cold-blooded and mean-spirited as it did in the manga, at times.

That's good to hear. The beginning of the arc is REALLY rough and was hard to read at times.

What episode does Greed Island start at in the new anime? I want to watch the original series and the first OVA, then jump to GI in the current series.

I'd actually just recommend watching the new anime from the beginning. The main reason being that the voice cast, art-style, animation, and music change between the 1999 anime and the 2011 reboot, which can be really jarring and awkward to get used to.

The old anime also moves at a slower pace than the new one, and while I don't mind a lot of its additional content, I think the fact that the Hunter Exams arc alone takes over 30 episodes to complete might make things feel a bit too slow for some other people (and there are certain parts of the arc that can be kind of boring to watch).

That said, I still do personally like the older anime better for what it adapts, but at the same time, that may just be personal preference.

At any rate, to answer your question, The original TV anime is 62 episodes and the first OVA that finishes up the York New City arc is 8 episodes long. As for Greed Island, it starts on episode 58 of the new anime. Hope that helps. :)

Well, I'll try starting with the original series since you like it more. If I find it boring or whatever, then I'll switch to the new one. ;)

Thanks for the info!

Well, on that note, just be forewarned: the beginning of the series is kind of slow and boring. I'd say the first 5 or so episodes, while canon, may not do much for you. If your willing to invest in some time, though, I think it really picks things up before too long. Just keep in mind, the show is more like a typical shonen up until the York New City arc. That said, its Yoshihiro Togashi, so its still a very well-written shonen with actual likable characters.

The other thing to keep in mind is that there is a huge weird-ness factor to Togashi's art-style and some of his characterization. Its certainly not for everyone, so hopefully it doesn't bother you to much, but if it does I can certainly understand that.

At any rate, I do hope that you enjoy the series on the whole if you decide to stick with it. :thumbup:

Well, I really enjoyed YYH when I saw it on Adult Swim/Toonami, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is one of my all time favorite anime/manga, so I think I'll probably like HxH. ;)

Yeah, at the very least I'm pretty positive that you won't find HXH to be in the same class of intolerable nonsense that pretty much describes at least 90% of other shonen series out there. :>

How is the background music in the new HxH? I remember liking a lot of the background music in the original series.

It starts out kind of weak, but eventually there are some good and memorable tracks later down the line. My main problem is that the music in the new series isn't as "distinct" in how it fits the series as in the 1999 anime. The first anime had a clear theme to its music, such as some tracks being about wilderness and survival, while others were about adventure. The music in the new series, while not bad, kind of feels like it could fit in any other series.

Here are samples of music from the old series and the new one just for some comparison:

1999 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAIpdZR5XfM)

2011 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cquEnzg0OeQ)

I actually like both, but one ust has a more distinct and defined sound to it, and for me that's the 1999 version.

Now, to the new anime's credit, it does have this particular gem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7DFzfKo6lA), which I love listening to.

I would never recommend starting at Greed Island. If you think the beginning of the anime is slow at least it has something to do with the story and isn't a glorified side-story. It's the low point of the series next to a bit under half of the Chimera Ant arc.

I agree about Greed Island. I don't think its terrible, but my problem with the arc is that it feels extremely bland, more than anything else. The villains are forgettable, the premise has promise but is completely underutilized, and nothing that Gon and Killua learn on their journey has any real use after the end of the arc, which makes me wonder what the whole point of it was to begin with. Its like except for a few key plot elements, you could have gotten rid of the entire arc and the story wouldn't be any different for it.

That said, the 2011 anime did a good job of probably making it the most entertaining it would ever possibly be without completely overhauling the arc from scratch.

The 2011 anime has also significantly improved on the beginning parts of the Chimera Ant arc from what it has adapted so far, IMO, so I may yet get to see this arc reach its full potential without any of the really negative aspects of Togashi's insanity bogging it down from achieving the true greatness that it could have had in the manga if it weren't for how obnoxious that first  third of it was. I still say that the middle and last thirds of the arc were excellent, though, with the exception of that godawful thing that happened with Gon at the end. Its such a cop-out on Togashi's part to have had things end that way, rather than coming up with his usual intelligent solution to one of the main dilemmas in his story arcs.

So, as far as the previous episode goes, just to briefly share my thoughts and comments, I thought the first half detailing Gyro's back-story was excellent, and it was shown at a time that made more sense in the anime and flowed along with the story, whereas it felt so randomly placed in the manga thanks to Togashi's very lopsided narration. At any rate, stuff like this is where Togashi's talent can really show itself. He creates a very immersive and engaging back-story on a villain that the audience hasn't even been acquainted with yet, and really gets you to understand the motives of this character, and he does it all without even showing you so much as a picture of the guy you're looking at, leaving things up to you the viewer's imagination. It also ties back into the plot since it gives you the reason for NGL's creation in the first place, and the true purpose of its existence. I should also add that he accomplishes all of this without showing any gore or violence whatsoever, but rather just implying it where necessary.

Then the 2nd half of the episode rolled around, and IMO adapted some of the worst parts of the manga. As an adaptation, it did its job, and I suppose it tried to make things a bit more tolerable, but there's only so much you can do with bad writing, and Togashi's over-exaggerated gore and needless manslaughter of minor characters is jut as tasteless and annoyingly self-indulgent (on his part) as ever. I can't really blame the anime too much here, though, because there isn't much that they could do to fix this without outright changing entire elements of the plot and characters. Still, I have to stand by my opinion that, on the whole so far, this anime adaptation has been superior to the beginning parts of the Chimera Ant arc in the manga. It captures the interesting elements of the early parts of that arc while doing its best to make the more obnoxious parts more tolerable. Of course, it can only do so much, but I still appreciate the effort.

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthecartdriver.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F05%2Fhunter-x-hunter-horse-kebab.jpg&hash=f3aef15c3921afbc4d789eda759fedcde90ba3bd)

Stuff like that is really tame by Togashi's standards. You should see what the guy does to actual supporting characters rather than nameless animals. Its the main thing that lead me to believe that Togashi went mentally insane somewhere along the line (sort of like Frank Miller, though to be fair even Togashi doesn't seem nearly as self-indulgent as him).

Is that the Chimera Ant arc?

You ain't seen nothing yet.

So, if any of you guys want a perfect example of why I can't stand at least 99% of HXH's fan-base (even more-so than the annoying fan-bases for actual bad shows), here (http://www.toonzone.net/forums/anime-forum/287789-hunter-x-hunter-series-talkback-22.html#post4122340) it is.

Rud represents the 99% of HXH fans, and I represent the 1%, with Nobodyman being more of a neutral party.

Rud's (the 99%'s) argument in a nutshell:

Togashi is a genious and flawless. His work is dark and edgy and deep, and the gore and hyper-violence is completely necessary to make the series better. It makes it more REALISTIC, and thus more MATURE, which automatically means that its BETTER. Saying otherwise means that you're just being childish and want's an idealistic generic shonen.

Nobodyman's argument in a nutshell:

Gore doesn't make a series good. Writing can be good without it, and manga being a visual medium doesn't add any weight to your argument. The series still doesn't need to be hyperviolent and gory. Its just disturbing and pointless.

My argument in a nutshell:

Dude, I just want an entertaining series. Over-the-top hyperviolence and killing off good guys for shock value isn't entertaining.

Thus ends my argument. Of course since its me I find a way to ramble on the same message for entire paragraphs, but still, that's essentially all I'm saying. Well, that....and that Rud (essentially a representative for 99% of HXH fans) is a dick.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on May 30, 2013, 10:08:03 PM
I just want an entertaining series.

That's all I ask for when it comes to television myself, since at the end of the day that's all that matters. Of course, people will always have differing views on what is entertaining and what isn't', but at the end of the day a well-written story speaks for itself. And I agree that Togashi's overuse of gory violence for shock value was not written in the best way possible, and detracts from the experience a small bit.

Honestly, every fandom in existence annoys me to some degree. They tend to overly praise their favorite show while ignoring it's  flaws (and everything has a flaw to some degree) no matter how reasonable the argument is. Like, I dislike the One Piece fandom for thinking it's the best thing ever made and infallible, but I obviously don't agree with the people who think it's total shit either. More often then not, really avid fans become trolls of other works they personally detest. The defensiveness and stubbornness of fandoms has honestly disillusioned me quite a bit with opinions I hear over the net. I try not to get worked up about negative opinions or opinions I don't agree with anymore because it's rather pointless; you are not going to convince someone who loves something very dearly that they are wrong and attacking what they like is just going to lead to a lot of unpleasant conversations. So I try not to seem like a dick about disagreeing with other people's opinions and try to be respectful of them. I don't always manage to keep myself from getting out of line, but I don't attack people for liking something I don't like or having a opinion I don't share. I try to respectfully disagree and not bash.

Probably the fandom I dislike the least is the Bobobo fandom, because it (in many respects unfortunately) doesn't have all that many fans in the first place so real dickish members haven't manifested much if at all.

There is nothing realistic about HxH. Even by the standards of shonen it's completely unrealistic because that's the way Togashi wants it.

The fact that the anime cut a lot of the gore from his work and still keeps the general story without skipping a beat should prove it's completely needless.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on May 30, 2013, 11:13:37 PM
There is nothing realistic about HxH. Even by the standards of shonen it's completely unrealistic because that's the way Togashi wants it.

The fact that the anime cut a lot of the gore from his work and still keeps the general story without skipping a beat should prove it's completely needless.

Well, on that note I'd actually say HXH is probably more believable (rather than realistic) than most shonen in how un-idealistic it is and in how, discounting a few really stupid exceptions, characters generally have consequences for their actions, and a lot of things don't go their way at the most inopportune times, and they just have to learn to deal with it and move on. On that end, I think the series is leaps and bounds above most shonen stuff.

In nature, though, yeah, the series can be completely ridiculous at times. It is important to note that, as flawed as this series is, I absolutely LOVE its strengths, which is why my enjoyment of the series has endured. Oh, no doubt Togashi tests my patience and my sanity with way too many of his writing decisions, but at the same time, I'm a glass-half full kind of a guy, so I tend to focus more on what I like about a series than what bothers me about it.

That said, my biggest problem with the HXH franchise in general has never actually been anything internal to the series, but more-so how much I detest the majority of its fan-base that likes to pretend its perfect. That's just a load of shit.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on May 30, 2013, 11:34:09 PM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on May 30, 2013, 11:13:37 PM
There is nothing realistic about HxH. Even by the standards of shonen it's completely unrealistic because that's the way Togashi wants it.

The fact that the anime cut a lot of the gore from his work and still keeps the general story without skipping a beat should prove it's completely needless.

Well, on that note I'd actually say HXH is probably more believable (rather than realistic) than most shonen in how un-idealistic it is and in how, discounting a few really stupid exceptions, characters generally have consequences for their actions, and a lot of things don't go their way at the most inopportune times, and they just have to learn to deal with it and move on. On that end, I think the series is leaps and bounds above most shonen stuff.

In nature, though, yeah, the series can be completely ridiculous at times. It is important to note that, as flawed as this series is, I absolutely LOVE its strengths, which is why my enjoyment of the series has endured. Oh, no doubt Togashi tests my patience and my sanity with way too many of his writing decisions, but at the same time, I'm a glass-half full kind of a guy, so I tend to focus more on what I like about a series than what bothers me about it.

That said, my biggest problem with the HXH franchise in general has never actually been anything internal to the series, but more-so how much I detest the majority of its fan-base that likes to pretend its perfect. That's just a load of shit.

Maybe that's why it attracts fans who love needless violence? If that's all you're looking for, then HxH is probably the greatest shonen ever made next to Fist Of The North Star. But if you have standards beyond that, then it's hard to argue how often it misses the mark when it should be hitting it dead on.

My problem is that the best parts of HxH echo a strength in plotting that I know he has (and that he had in the first 3/4 of YYH) which get promptly overshadowed because hey we haven't seen Hisoka throw a card in somebody's brain for awhile let's get on that. Hiei was a cold blooded killer and I can count on one hand the amount of times he indiscriminately killed before he, y'know, grew as a character. HxH has glaring weaknesses that really shouldn't be glossed over because they shouldn't exist.

It's the same when we lament what happened to Watsuki after Rurouni Kenshin. It's because they're capable of more.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on May 30, 2013, 11:34:09 PM

Well, on that note I'd actually say HXH is probably more believable (rather than realistic) than most shonen in how un-idealistic it is and in how, discounting a few really stupid exceptions, characters generally have consequences for their actions, and a lot of things don't go their way at the most inopportune times, and they just have to learn to deal with it and move on.

I have to concur and say this is one of the principal reasons I think Hunter X Hunter is a great read. In most stories, not just "shonen," many characters major or minor tend to get off scot free for dangerous, risky, and stupid actions or survive ridiculous circumstances without cause. In this manga, every decision the characters make is practically life or death, and a wrong move can result in a quick, ruthless death or in many cases a whole lot of pain. Contrast this to manga like Dragonball and One Piece where the protagonist's more or less act first without really thinking things through or survive things they really shouldn't (and in Dragonball's case come back to life because death is cheap in that series). Mind you, I love those manga and actually prefer them over Hunter X Hunter on my personal favorites list, but it's true that Togashi for the most part plots this series very smartly and has his heroes struggle to simply survive using both wit and power, yet also not having them win all the time or having things go the right way for them conveniently, if much at all.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on May 30, 2013, 11:34:09 PM
That said, my biggest problem with the HXH franchise in general has never actually been anything internal to the series, but more-so how much I detest the majority of its fan-base that likes to pretend its perfect. That's just a load of shit.

Every fandom is like this.  :sweat:

I mean, the most popular series more so than the more obscure, but still most fans in general like to pretend that their favorite series is flawless and above criticism. I think the ironic thing is that a lot of the time these hyperactive fandoms do more harm than good in promoting their series and give it a bad rap. I'm saving a particular example for a very unpopular opinion that I will be writing a fair amount about in that particular thread one of these days, but for right now from my own experience I can use Puella Magi Madoka Magica as an example. I kept hearing about the series and it's fans were raving like lunatcis about how great it is that I eventually got annoyed and developed a negative attitude towards the series before even having watched it. Once I gave it a chance, though, I saw it was a legitimately good show and really got into it. For a while I considered it a super top favorite, although another re-watch combined with viewings of certain other shows shifted my opinion of it slightly down, yet still highly favorable. For the most part, though, I still don't care much for it's more rabid fans and can agree that it is rather overrated as well. I think the best sort of fan is one who loves their favorite shows very much but yet still can reasonably discuss it's flaws and shortcomings while still generally being positive and in love with it. With most of the series I like, I feel I can discuss both their strengths and weaknesses, which I think I certainly should be able to do without attacking the those whose opinions I don't agree with or don't find enjoyment  in the same things I like.

I just thought I'd clarify that I don't get upset when characters die for making a wrong choice. I know that's a big theme with this story- my issue is how he's been going about it by using mass murder and going one shade short of Elfen Lied to kill supporting characters in pointlessly graphic ways.

We didn't need so many scenes devoted to the butchering of random people in the Chimera Ant arc. It added nothing to the story and tremendously broke the pacing when the thing is it was not something he used to do to build tension. That's a trick a lesser writer relies on because it's incredibly easy to do.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on May 31, 2013, 12:38:59 AM
I just thought I'd clarify that I don't get upset when characters die for making a wrong choice. I know that's a big theme with this story- my issue is how he's been going about it by using mass murder and going one shade short of Elfen Lied to kill supporting characters in pointlessly graphic ways.

We didn't need so many scenes devoted to the butchering of random people in the Chimera Ant arc. It added nothing to the story and tremendously broke the pacing when the thing is it was not something he used to do to build tension. That's a trick a lesser writer relies on because it's incredibly easy to do.

This 100%.

It just hurts so much BECAUSE its Togashi writing it. On the whole, he's NOT a lesser writer, yet in the Chimera Ant arc, he so often takes the path of a lesser writer. To me, the pointless manslaughter in the Chimera Ant arc is far worse than ANYTHING in the Greed Island arc. That arc was pretty stale but it was also harmless and didn't actually do anything to piss me off. The first third of the Chimera Ant arc still gets me to question whether Togashi has been all there or not in the past few years. I mean, he still has a lot of his trademark brilliance in that arc, but there are also a lot of writing decisions he makes that IMO are borderline, if not downright, insane.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on May 31, 2013, 05:44:14 PM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on May 31, 2013, 12:38:59 AM
I just thought I'd clarify that I don't get upset when characters die for making a wrong choice. I know that's a big theme with this story- my issue is how he's been going about it by using mass murder and going one shade short of Elfen Lied to kill supporting characters in pointlessly graphic ways.

We didn't need so many scenes devoted to the butchering of random people in the Chimera Ant arc. It added nothing to the story and tremendously broke the pacing when the thing is it was not something he used to do to build tension. That's a trick a lesser writer relies on because it's incredibly easy to do.

This 100%.

It just hurts so much BECAUSE its Togashi writing it. On the whole, he's NOT a lesser writer, yet in the Chimera Ant arc, he so often takes the path of a lesser writer. To me, the pointless manslaughter in the Chimera Ant arc is far worse than ANYTHING in the Greed Island arc. That arc was pretty stale but it was also harmless and didn't actually do anything to piss me off. The first third of the Chimera Ant arc still gets me to question whether Togashi has been all there or not in the past few years. I mean, he still has a lot of his trademark brilliance in that arc, but there are also a lot of writing decisions he makes that IMO are borderline, if not downright, insane.

That's why I say that Greed Island (despite all my issues with it) is not the series low point. It may be rather disposable and adds little to the story, but at least it is decently written and constructed. When he re-introduced those early characters only to slaughter them graphically I won't lie I almost considered dropping the whole thing. The stretch from first meeting the Chimera Ants up until Knuckle's introduction might be the worst thing he's done since the YYH manga's Three Kings arc. I literally hated every single thing he did and how he approached doing it.

It eventually got better and dipped and see-sawed until the ending which was rather nice compared to everything... but it hurt the arc a lot. It was too long, it wasn't executed all that well (except when he focused on Knuckle, Shoot, Morau, or Killua) and a lot of potentially decent ideas were never really pursued. It feels like a misfire that only gets by because some core moments aren't infected with whatever he was on when he wrote the arc.

I'm not kidding when I say that if Knuckle had not been introduced when he did I would have totally dropped it and never looked back.

I wasn't really on the verge of dropping it, myself, and I don't think that every single thing he did in the first 3rd pissed me off, but I was certainly losing all of my faith in the series and Togashi while reading the beginning of that arc (I'd....still honestly take it over something like Bleach or post-DOD HSDK, though; I just can't stand those series in a much worse way). The current anime is doing its best to capture the good ideas that Togashi had going early on while trying to at least add some weight to some of the early characters. It still doesn't fix the problem, but it makes things much more bearable for me.

When I stop to think about it, though, its almost like Togashi has a split personality, or as if 2 entirely different people have taken turns working on the series under his name, in reality. On the one hand, I'll always see and admire the guy who wrote everything in YYH up to the end of the Chapter Black arc, as well as the York New City arc of HXH, and its other good arcs as well. On the other hand, there is also this other guy I see who I can't stand, as he's the one who wrote the absolute trash that was the Three Kings arc in the manga, and he's responsible for the travesty that is the worst part of the Chimera Ant arc, and other bad parts of HXH in general. When you compare Togashi's good quality work to his bad stuff, it really does seem like 2 completely different authors with different styles wrote them.

It's probably the same side that keeps taking hiatuses, too. Usually authors only take them when they're sick or out of ideas and given the amount of time he spent on this one arc it makes me think that he was not just lazy at the time. Whenever he gets lazy (like he did in a chunk of Greed Island, Three Kings arc, and a chunk of the last one) he seems to simply not care whatsoever about his own story. It's a shame because when he isn't lazy, he's mighty talented.

I still think that Hiramaru in Bakuman is based on him. It definitely would explain a lot.  ;)

Holy shit, I never thought about that, but I think you're right. Granted that Hiramaru's shtick was with comedy (it was heavily implied to be fairly mean-spirited comedy at that, though ;) ), but yeah, that describes Togashi in a nutshell. If the guy really is lazy, though, then its probably a good thing that he takes all of those hiatuses. Just imagine if he didn't and the entire series turned out as bad as Greed Island, or even the first 3rd of the Chimera Ant arc.

Personally I'm just going to convince myself that my split-personality theory is right, though. I really can't see a calm and collected person writing some of the crap that Togashi ended up churning out, yet also writing some of the most brilliant story arcs in all of shonen manga. It just baffles me too much.

As many complaints as I have about this series, fucking awesome scenes like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edaDwSfmLVo) remind me of why I like it. That's just one of those parts where I enjoy it for the shallowest of reasons: I just like seeing bad-ass stuff happening. I wish I could have found the scene in English, but since its only from yesterday's episode, I had to make do. Either way, the dialogue isn't as important as the bad-ass level in this case. ;)

This scene is basically HXH's equivalent of the Hiei vs. Makintaro scene from YYH. Anyone who's seen YYH would know what I'm talking about, here.

Wow, they animated that fight pretty awesomely! I should really start watching the Chimera Ant arc now that I've got Crunchyroll working decently on my computer.

Yeah, like most long-running shonen anime the animation quality is kind of lop-sided and unbalanced in terms of quality in this series, but this episode had some pretty good animation, overall.

Well, the animation quality probably will still be better than what I've seen of Naruto Shippuden and Toriko recently. One Piece's animation is also pretty uneven, but they've been doing an alright job with it and the pacing of Punk Hazard so far all things considered, although of course Hunter X Hunter is probably and should be blowing the quality of those episodes out of the water since they can adapt more than one chapter an episode and has the ability to make changes to the source material thanks to foreknowledge of where the arc will lead.

I don't think that the anime will make any drastic changes to the source material other than probably toning down the gore and overall level of violence. That in itself goes a long way for me, though. And yeah, the overall quality of this series is instantly better than most modern shonen anime just for the simple fact that it has no need to resort to filler material or even slow down the pacing in order to avoid catching up to the manga. It already will inevitably catch up to the manga, so this new anime is most likely just going to adapt up to the end of the Chairman Election arc, which itself serves as a good stopping point of the series, even if it would be an ending that doesn't necessarily give off the most closure. At any rate, Togashi could still theoretically end this series in just one more story arc. The only major loose-end that he has to tie up that most fans would even care about is explaining just who the fuck Gyro is and what the hell his purpose of being introduced into the story was in the first place.

This article (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/house-of-1000-manga/2012-04-26) has been out for about a year already, but I just came across it and had to link to it. I find it to be and EXCELLENT read regarding Hunter X Hunter, and I pretty much agree with it wholeheartedly in pointing out the strengths of Togashi's writing, as well as some of the issues and problems the series presents (though, its mostly a neutral, unbiased look at the series, which I like). The only thing I somewhat disagree with the author on is about the series not being character-driven. I'd say that it depends on the arc, myself. The Hunter Exams arc and Greed Island are not very character driven arcs in their structure, though they do have plenty of moments of characterization, of course. The Zoldyck Family, Heaven's Arena, York New City, and Chimera Ant arc (or at least the 2nd half of it), are VERY character-driven arcs, IMO, in that if you stop to think about it, the plots progress due to the decisions and actions of the characters, rather than the plots being elements that would progress on their own without much influence needed from these characters.

Heh. I was just thinking about starting a thread for Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga in the Manga/Comics section (I'm gonna do that tomorrow, so no one beat me to it, ya hear! ;) ).

I agreed quite a bit with his Hunter X Hunter article myself, with my only complaint being the same as yours. I don't see how York New City was not character driven. The whole thing rests on Kurapika's conflict between his desire for revenge and his desire to protect his friends from harm, contrasting Chrollo and the Phantom Troupe's devotion to each other and their desire to avenge Uvogin's death. And of course I think most of the other arcs are moved by the characters and not the story too, especially Chimera Ant's second half.

So, yeah, same idea as what I did in the YYH thread:

Hunter Exams- 8/10
Zoldyck Family- 9/10 (I really like this one, for some reason)
Heaven's Arena- 8/10
York New City- 10/10
Greed Island- 6/10
Chimera Ant- 8/10 (this could have been a solid 10, or at least a 9, if not for the numerous problems plaguing it)
Chairman Election- 8/10

 :happytime:

Okay, now you'll get to see my HxH opinions for what they are.


Hunter Exams- 8/10

Strong start, but not quite as strong as YYH (but since I'm not going to compare it to that beyond here I'll just say that it does the job), yet better than most modern shonen. The exam is very clever and has the characters we just meet put through some rigorous testing. For a first arc, though, there is a bit of weirdness like Killua's random murdering of two contestants on the blimp (he would never do that, and I'm puzzled as to why the anime left that in) and Hisoka being WAY too obvious (which, again, is something he doesn't come out and do in front of everybody), but those are nitpicks. The arc is a fun start and the ending is really good despite Killua randomly killing the old man which... I dunno, still comes out of nowhere to me. I understand he's frustrated, but he always has a much cooler head than that.

Zoldyck Family- 7/10

Points for having an arc that doesn't end with a free-for-all battle. The family is also an interesting cast of characters.

Heaven's Arena- 6/10

It's okay. There's nothing about I particularly like outside of the Nen stuff, but there's nothing to really dislike. It's kind of just there for me.

York New City- 9/10

The best part of HxH. He keeps it focused despite having so many characters floating around to where even if you don't like a certain character chances are you're going to get to a character you like sooner or later. Again, the ending is really unexpected and plays well on the characters' motivations from the good to the bad guys. Also some good development for Kurapika.

Greed Island- 4/10

*Yawn* Is it over yet? I wafted through this arc and really didn't care one bit. It's well done, but for someone who likes his plotting and characters above all, I found it severely lacking in both.

Chimera Ant- 1/10, 5/10, 8/10 or 10/10 depending on the moment we're talking about

I... can't rate this one right. I literally LOATHE parts of this so much more than anything he has done since manga Three Kings, other parts I don't like, others I really like, and others I think house his best material since YYH. This arc probably emphasizes everything about Togashi in one arc. Missed potential, stupid decisions, abysmal writing and art, great ideas, intriguing characters, awesome plot ideas, excellent confrontations, and ingenious moves in story. He hits every low and high mark in just this one arc, so if I had to average the whole thing out I don't think it would fairly surmise what a crazy arc this is.

Chairman Election- 7/10

Pariston and Leorio made this arc, and Killua helped add meat to it. Otherwise it's a good transition arc, but I don't know if it will have any bearing later so I'll just leave it at 7 for now.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 12, 2013, 10:03:35 PM
Hunter Exams- 8/10

Strong start, but not quite as strong as YYH (but since I'm not going to compare it to that beyond here I'll just say that it does the job), yet better than most modern shonen. The exam is very clever and has the characters we just meet put through some rigorous testing. For a first arc, though, there is a bit of weirdness like Killua's random murdering of two contestants on the blimp (he would never do that, and I'm puzzled as to why the anime left that in) and Hisoka being WAY too obvious (which, again, is something he doesn't come out and do in front of everybody), but those are nitpicks. The arc is a fun start and the ending is really good despite Killua randomly killing the old man which... I dunno, still comes out of nowhere to me. I understand he's frustrated, but he always has a much cooler head than that.

Actually, on the point of Killua that always fit his character for me. You have to keep in mind that Killua was a VERY unstable character during the initial arc. He had just broken away from his family (or so he thought), and wanted to get out of the life he had been raised into. Its not that he was ever against killing in the first place. He was just against having his destiny decided for him by his family (basically, he didn't want to be an assassin, regardless of his moral stance on killing). That said, it was shown that his family's influence was built into his very core, so in the first arc he is purposely written to be a bit too blood-happy. But if you notice for the subtleties, he tries to control his "urges" whenever Gon is around. For instance, he decides to quit the game with Netero after he realizes that he was about to go for a killing blow against the guy (not realizing that he didn't stand of chance of defeating him, anyways), and he obviously didn't want to resort to that in front of Gon. That's why when those guys came up to him right after that when he was alone, he let his urge slip and took it out on them (that's the way that I always interpreted that scene, myself). As for killing the guy at the end of the arc, it was heavily implied that he was both incredibly unstable, and more importantly under Illumi's influence. I think that death was mostly the result of Illumi testing Killua and purposefully trying to have him demonstrate his heartless nature IN FRONT of his friends (in this case Kurapika and Leorio), in order to give him no choice but to retreat back into the sanctuary of his home, where his family could have control of him again. This is just a theory of mine, but it is further backed-up by the fact that Killua ends up finding that needle implant that Illumi had left in him from long ago (since before the Hunter Exams arc), which Killua realized was somehow linked to messing with his behavior. In this case it was mostly in the sense of making him feel fear, but its not too much of a stretch, IMO, that it could also stimulate him to indulge in his killing urges (sort of like a fight or flight response to the extreme, if you will).

QuoteZoldyck Family- 7/10

Points for having an arc that doesn't end with a free-for-all battle. The family is also an interesting cast of characters.

Honestly, I like this arc a lot for how unique it is. In some regards its the cliche rescue arc, but not a thing about it is cliche, and everything about it is more interesting for that reason. Its really just about Killua's family, and his friends discovering what kind of life-style he was raised in and how different he truly is from them. But, more importantly its a character arc for Killua. Its not about his friends partaking in a series of fights to save him, but its about Killua learning to stand up for himself and his own beliefs, hence why at the end of the arc he leaves of his own accord rather than his friends actually rescuing him. I think that's brilliant, and a total slap in the face to the "damsel in distress" arcs that most shonen of this type would typically go for.

QuoteHeaven's Arena- 6/10

It's okay. There's nothing about I particularly like outside of the Nen stuff, but there's nothing to really dislike. It's kind of just there for me.

Its a generic arc for sure, but I like it because....it's honestly done pretty well. The concept of Nen is interesting, and the fights are all strategic and entertaining. Its just good old-school shonen fun, IMO.

QuoteYork New City- 9/10

The best part of HxH. He keeps it focused despite having so many characters floating around to where even if you don't like a certain character chances are you're going to get to a character you like sooner or later. Again, the ending is really unexpected and plays well on the characters' motivations from the good to the bad guys. Also some good development for Kurapika.

Yeah, this is basically the one arc where Togashi was on his A-game the ENTIRE way through. As far as I'm concerned, there were no hiccups, here. The arc was paced perfectly the entire way through, the good guys were interesting, the villains were even more interesting, the fights were exceptional, and the ending was superb in how unexpected it was, but also in how much sense it made from a character stand-point. Its some of Togashi's most brilliant writing ever.

QuoteGreed Island- 4/10

*Yawn* Is it over yet? I wafted through this arc and really didn't care one bit. It's well done, but for someone who likes his plotting and characters above all, I found it severely lacking in both.

I honestly don't think this arc was bad by any means, hence why I gave it a 6 rather than a 4, but it just didn't feel as interesting as it should have felt, to me. I do find that it has some strong points to it, but on the whole it was probably the weakest full arc in the entire series.

QuoteChimera Ant- 1/10, 5/10, 8/10 or 10/10 depending on the moment we're talking about

While I don't think that I'd ever necessarily go as low as a 1 for any point in this arc (I'd probably go as low as a 3 for its worst moments, though), I do believe that as lop-sided as it is, I can judge it as a whole piece and find that I like a lot more about this arc than what I don't like. On that end, if I were to divide it up in thirds, it would go like this:

First Third- 6/10 (There is a lot of good set-up, here, and I love the concept, but I LOATHE the needless violence so much)
Middle Third- 10/10 (Honestly, this is the strongest point of the arc, and where Togashi really has the ball rolling)
Final Third- 8/10 (it has some pacing problems, and that thing with Gon....ugh; but other than that its great, especially Knuckle)

QuoteI... can't rate this one right. I literally LOATHE parts of this so much more than anything he has done since manga Three Kings, other parts I don't like, others I really like, and others I think house his best material since YYH. This arc probably emphasizes everything about Togashi in one arc. Missed potential, stupid decisions, abysmal writing and art, great ideas, intriguing characters, awesome plot ideas, excellent confrontations, and ingenious moves in story. He hits every low and high mark in just this one arc, so if I had to average the whole thing out I don't think it would fairly surmise what a crazy arc this is.

On that note, I have to say: If nothing else, this arc is a marvelous way to study the strengths and weaknesses of Togashi's writing-style, and is basically the best way to summarize every aspect of him as a writer. ;D

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on August 12, 2013, 10:26:22 PM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 12, 2013, 10:03:35 PM
Hunter Exams- 8/10

Strong start, but not quite as strong as YYH (but since I'm not going to compare it to that beyond here I'll just say that it does the job), yet better than most modern shonen. The exam is very clever and has the characters we just meet put through some rigorous testing. For a first arc, though, there is a bit of weirdness like Killua's random murdering of two contestants on the blimp (he would never do that, and I'm puzzled as to why the anime left that in) and Hisoka being WAY too obvious (which, again, is something he doesn't come out and do in front of everybody), but those are nitpicks. The arc is a fun start and the ending is really good despite Killua randomly killing the old man which... I dunno, still comes out of nowhere to me. I understand he's frustrated, but he always has a much cooler head than that.

Actually, on the point of Killua that always fit his character for me. You have to keep in mind that Killua was a VERY unstable character during the initial arc. He had just broken away from his family (or so he thought), and wanted to get out of the life he had been raised into. Its not that he was ever against killing in the first place. He was just against having his destiny decided for him by his family (basically, he didn't want to be an assassin, regardless of his moral stance on killing). That said, it was shown that his family's influence was built into his very core, so in the first arc he is purposely written to be a bit too blood-happy. But if you notice for the subtleties, he tries to control his "urges" whenever Gon is around. For instance, he decides to quit the game with Netero after he realizes that he was about to go for a killing blow against the guy (not realizing that he didn't stand of chance of defeating him, anyways), and he obviously didn't want to resort to that in front of Gon. That's why when those guys came up to him right after that when he was alone, he let his urge slip and took it out on them (that's the way that I always interpreted that scene, myself). As for killing the guy at the end of the arc, it was heavily implied that he was both incredibly unstable, and more importantly under Illumi's influence. I think that death was mostly the result of Illumi testing Killua and purposefully trying to have him demonstrate his heartless nature IN FRONT of his friends (in this case Kurapika and Leorio), in order to give him no choice but to retreat back into the sanctuary of his home, where his family could have control of him again. This is just a theory of mine, but it is further backed-up by the fact that Killua ends up finding that needle implant that Illumi had left in him from long ago (since before the Hunter Exams arc), which Killua realized was somehow linked to messing with his behavior. In this case it was mostly in the sense of making him feel fear, but its not too much of a stretch, IMO, that it could also stimulate him to indulge in his killing urges (sort of like a fight or flight response to the extreme, if you will).

Oh wow, you're right. I completely forgot about the needle and the discussion about his urges which explains a lot. It probably says a lot that after he takes the needle out he's a lot more reserved and thoughtful compared to Gon (who is a LOT more bloodthirsty) and always tries to find the best way through any situation. The part where he didn't kill the chimera who tried to kill him was a perfect 10/10 moment to me and showed just how far he came since the beginning where he valued little of anything. If you want to be honest, I consider Killua the real hero of HxH.

Thanks for mentioning that, I honestly never put the two together like that before, but it makes perfect sense.

Quote

QuoteZoldyck Family- 7/10

Points for having an arc that doesn't end with a free-for-all battle. The family is also an interesting cast of characters.

Honestly, I like this arc a lot for how unique it is. In some regards its the cliche rescue arc, but not a thing about it is cliche, and everything about it is more interesting for that reason. Its really just about Killua's family, and his friends discovering what kind of life-style he was raised in and how different he truly is from them. But, more importantly its a character arc for Killua. Its not about his friends partaking in a series of fights to save him, but its about Killua learning to stand up for himself and his own beliefs, hence why at the end of the arc he leaves of his own accord rather than his friends actually rescuing him. I think that's brilliant, and a total slap in the face to the "damsel in distress" arcs that most shonen of this type would typically go for.

It's more of a world-building arc and is good for what it is, so I do like it for that. I really don't like what he did to a certain character later on... but that has nothing to do with this arc.

Quote

QuoteHeaven's Arena- 6/10

It's okay. There's nothing about I particularly like outside of the Nen stuff, but there's nothing to really dislike. It's kind of just there for me.

Its a generic arc for sure, but I like it because....it's honestly done pretty well. The concept of Nen is interesting, and the fights are all strategic and entertaining. Its just good old-school shonen fun, IMO.

Yep, it's just a fun arc. Not Rescue Yukina fun, but fun nonetheless.

Quote

QuoteYork New City- 9/10

The best part of HxH. He keeps it focused despite having so many characters floating around to where even if you don't like a certain character chances are you're going to get to a character you like sooner or later. Again, the ending is really unexpected and plays well on the characters' motivations from the good to the bad guys. Also some good development for Kurapika.

Yeah, this is basically the one arc where Togashi was on his A-game the ENTIRE way through. As far as I'm concerned, there were no hiccups, here. The arc was paced perfectly the entire way through, the good guys were interesting, the villains were even more interesting, the fights were exceptional, and the ending was superb in how unexpected it was, but also in how much sense it made from a character stand-point. Its some of Togashi's most brilliant writing ever.

My only issue is that I wish he would do something with them beyond cameos. They haven't had much chance to do anything since that arc.

Quote

QuoteGreed Island- 4/10

*Yawn* Is it over yet? I wafted through this arc and really didn't care one bit. It's well done, but for someone who likes his plotting and characters above all, I found it severely lacking in both.

I honestly don't think this arc was bad by any means, hence why I gave it a 6 rather than a 4, but it just didn't feel as interesting as it should have felt, to me. I do find that it has some strong points to it, but on the whole it was probably the weakest full arc in the entire series.

It is the weakest, but I think I gave it a 4 because I just expected more than what he gave us. As a whole it's probably just average, but I can't escape the fact that we could have gotten something to do with someone like Leorio instead.

Quote

QuoteChimera Ant- 1/10, 5/10, 8/10 or 10/10 depending on the moment we're talking about

While I don't think that I'd ever necessarily go as low as a 1 for any point in this arc (I'd probably go as low as a 3 for its worst moments, though), I do believe that as lop-sided as it is, I can judge it as a whole piece and find that I like a lot more about this arc than what I don't like. On that end, if I were to divide it up in thirds, it would go like this:

First Third- 6/10 (There is a lot of good set-up, here, and I love the concept, but I LOATHE the needless violence so much)
Middle Third- 10/10 (Honestly, this is the strongest point of the arc, and where Togashi really has the ball rolling)
Final Third- 8/10 (it has some pacing problems, and that thing with Gon....ugh; but other than that its great, especially Knuckle)

QuoteI... can't rate this one right. I literally LOATHE parts of this so much more than anything he has done since manga Three Kings, other parts I don't like, others I really like, and others I think house his best material since YYH. This arc probably emphasizes everything about Togashi in one arc. Missed potential, stupid decisions, abysmal writing and art, great ideas, intriguing characters, awesome plot ideas, excellent confrontations, and ingenious moves in story. He hits every low and high mark in just this one arc, so if I had to average the whole thing out I don't think it would fairly surmise what a crazy arc this is.

On that note, I have to say: If nothing else, this arc is a marvelous way to study the strengths and weaknesses of Togashi's writing-style, and is basically the best way to summarize every aspect of him as a writer. ;D

It's a mess of an arc, but that's what I mean by describing him to a tee. Great ideas, bad ideas, excellent execution, horrendous execution. I'm a big fan of adventure and HxH succeeds when it delivers on that front, but Chimera Ant is the one arc that showed that he might have finally understood his own strengths and weaknesses, and it happened as he was writing it.

When he comes back, I hope he re-read the arc and took some notes.

By the way, no Leorio is an instant loss of points. How Togashi keeps avoiding him I have no idea.  :D

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 12, 2013, 10:46:33 PM
Oh wow, you're right. I completely forgot about the needle and the discussion about his urges which explains a lot. It probably says a lot that after he takes the needle out he's a lot more reserved and thoughtful compared to Gon (who is a LOT more bloodthirsty) and always tries to find the best way through any situation. The part where he didn't kill the chimera who tried to kill him was a perfect 10/10 moment to me and showed just how far he came since the beginning where he valued little of anything. If you want to be honest, I consider Killua the real hero of HxH.

Thanks for mentioning that, I honestly never put the two together like that before, but it makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I agree about Killua being the real hero of the series. Honestly, he's tied with Kurama as my favorite Togashi character, and he's easily the most psychologically deep character that Togashi has ever written (even more so than Sensui). His character development from a heartless killer into a truly great and protective friend for Gon is one of the strongest points of HXH as a series, on the whole. This is how you do a "dark" character the right way. Most shonen series would make the mistake of making a character like this edgy and grim for the sake of being cool. Togashi wisely has Killua quickly grow out of this archetype and instead has him learn the most through his experiences. The scene that you referred to in which he saves Ikarugo's life despite being his enemy is actually my favorite Killua moment in the entire series. In that one moment, you see how much he has changed for the better as a character. Not only did he save a character who was trying to kill him, but that whole segment where he's in the forest and basically taking on an entire freaking army of Chimera Ant soldiers is also where I realized that he wasn't doing any of this for himself. He was doing it for Gon, keeping in mind the entire time that his goal was to help Gon save Kite (who they still believed could be saved by this point).

Also, the best thing about Killua's character is that there are so many different ways in which you ca interpret him, and honestly you probably wouldn't be wrong. What I described to you is basically my theory on how Killua functions and operates as a character and what his various states of mind were throughout the series, and I was simply using some evidence to back up my claims. But in the end, that's basically only how I interpret the character, and the best way for me to make sense of him and all of his actions throughout the series, and that's honestly a great thing that you don't get from too many other shonen characters, in general.

Now, all of this talk about what a great character Killua is really begs the question: Why the fuck did Togashi write him off at the end of the Chairman Election arc? Seriously, Togashi, I know you've made some stupid decisions before, but why the hell would you get rid of your BEST and most INTERESTING character like that? Whenever HXH finally continues, Killua better be written back in, and on that note I better see Leorio and Kurapika back in the plot as well. I mean, come on, reuniting the main 4 characters after OVER A DECADE is a surefire way to skyrocket HXH to being the most popular shonen manga in WSJ again. Seriously, its that obvious of a decision. Why has Togashi not done it yet?

Hunter Exam 8/10
Zoldyck Family 9/10 (short but great)
Heavens Arena 8/10
Yorknew City 10/10
Greed Island 7/10 (I feel that it's not great but not bad either)

Chimera Ant:
First Third 6/10 (Unnecessary violence hurts this part)
Second Third 10/10
Final Third 9/10 (I have some issues with the Gon vs Neferpitou fight
but still really good)

Chairman Election 8/10

Yeah, Pariston, Leorio, and Killua were what kept me reading the Chairman Election arc (though it was good, they were BY FAR the best part) and when I saw him try to pull Killua out of the arc I was disappointed.

I kind of wanted to see him become the protagonist longer. I also really wanted to see Leorio in the main character seat for once since he's barely been around for like a decade and hardly used. Also, keeping Knuckle out of the election arc was kind of lame being he was so awesome.

Mind if I join in?  :)

Hunter Exam - 8/10. Good start to the series with a lot of interesting twists on "fighting" challenges. A lot of great strategy-based challenges here, and I really love that stuff, so I find the arc entertaining through and through.

Zoldyck Family Mansion - 7/10. I'm glad Togashi didn't do the obvious and boring route and have Gon and company fight their way to Killua (contrast to say, a similar arc in Medaka Box, although to it's credit that did manage to be entertaining overall). It's not particularly memorable overall, though, but it's a fun mini-arc all the same.

Heaven's Arena - 7.5/10. Gon v. Hisoka is easily the best animated fight in the original anime. Overall it's more entertaining than Zoldyck, but still not stand out quality to me outside some bits involving nen training and it's application in the fights.

Yorknew City - 10/10. The best arc in terms of overall quality in the entire series. Love the moral struggle Kurapika goes through here, and love the Phantom Troupe as villains. A tense, gripping arc relying on strategy over power and one of the finest stories in action animation and comics in general.

Greed Island - 6/10. I don't hate this arc, but it gets really, really boring once Gensuru or whatever his name is reveals himself as a villain, and while the training stuff with Bisky and parts of the Gon v. Gensuru fight are enjoyable, overall the arc was kind of a pain to go through, and it's easily my least favorite arc in the series.

Chimera Ant - 9/10. This is actually my favorite arc in the series for what is does right. But what is does wrong, really
wrong...I just can't put it over Yorknew City in terms of quality. But this arc has some great character development for heroes and villains alike, and some excellent moments, and the fights? Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Maybe not Livio/Razlo fights brutal (read Trigun Maximum if you don't know what I'm talking about), but really, really close. Defiantly smarter, though, which I love. Yes, Gon transformation is the single worst moment in the entire series, but still, I really do love this arc. In a subjective list of my favorite arcs in manga it would probably rank higher than Yorknew. It's best parts are just that good to me.

Chairman Election - 8/10. Killua and Leorio steal this arc and make it really enjoyable, and it's got a great wrapup chapter. But it really is more of a transition arc in feel, and outside of some nice moments there's just better arcs in the series.

On a side note, Killua is my favorite character that Togashi has ever written. I agree that he's the true star of Hunter X Hunter, because as a character, he's the one that does the most growing, and whose thoughts we hear the most of. A lot of the series feels like it's coming from his perspective, rather than Gon's, who is honestly the least interesting main character in the series (Seriously, I like Meleoron more than him, and he doesn't do anything compared to the other main characters  :sweat:). I really hope Leorio or Knuckle somebody accompanies Gon or Kurapika finally returns and travels with him because an arc without Killua and focused ONLY on Gon? Yeah...Oda made two years of Luffy work, but even he brought back great characters from past arcs that gelled well with him. Gon isn't interesting by himself and the story needs a more interesting character like Killua to move it along. In any case I hope Killua is not gone for good, because I do love the character and would like to see him continue to play a role in the story, not be forgotten or pushed to the side like Leorio or Kurapika.

So, Hunter X Hunter is getting another movie. It's called Hunter X Hunter: The Last Mission, and is apparently supposed to be about the shady side of the Hunters Association. I still haven't seen the first movie, which I imagine is you're standard fair "safe" shonen movie that doesn't do anything particularly interesting with the characters, and clearly isn't of the same level of quality as the manga or anime that it's based off of. That said, I'll probably check that out eventually, and look into this new movie next year, whenever it gets subbed.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on August 21, 2013, 12:53:03 PM
which I imagine is you're standard fair "safe" shonen movie that doesn't do anything particularly interesting with the characters, and clearly isn't of the same level of quality as the manga or anime that it's based off of.

Yeah, pretty much this. Just like all of those non-canon DBZ movies.
It still had some good parts though, especially Kurapika's story. And Retz (http://24.media.tumblr.com/e6440037f8b38f82909d6821f44e2e42/tumblr_mqzs75IYkR1s27if4o1_1280.jpg) wad adorable.

As for the 2011 Hunter x Hunter anime, I'm currently keeping up with it and I like it a lot (I never got far in the manga, so it's all new to me now).
I wasn't happy with the animation in the old Greed Island OVAs, so I'm glad those episodes got reanimated. And I'm glad Biscuit doesn't sound like a man anymore, because that was just silly.

Yeah, I checked out the movie a while back and it's really nothing special. The only really stand-out part of it was Kurapika's back-story, which itself was already based off of the 2 special chapters of the manga that Togashi had written and gotten published in conjunction with the release of this movie to help promote it.

I kind of wish they could use full-length movies of long-running shonen series like this to help expand their worlds and characters and tell stuff outside of the main story-line, but I suppose that wouldn't be as profitable because people wouldn't "get it" in the sense that they just want to see the main characters, even if it's non-canon. I'd prefer a really good spin-off that's canon to the story-line, myself, over a very mediocre to downright bad non-canon snore-fest. You especially can tell that the writers of these movies usually don't get or care about the general theme and style of any of these manga/anime that the movie is based from, because usually the new characters and original plot are just so jarring in how badly they clash with the characters and story-telling style of the series as you know them.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on August 28, 2013, 11:25:30 AM

I kind of wish they could use full-length movies of long-running shonen series like this to help expand their worlds and characters and tell stuff outside of the main story-line, but I suppose that wouldn't be as profitable because people wouldn't "get it" in the sense that they just want to see the main characters, even if it's non-canon. I'd prefer a really good spin-off that's canon to the story-line, myself, over a very mediocre to downright bad non-canon snore-fest. You especially can tell that the writers of these movies usually don't get or care about the general theme and style of any of these manga/anime that the movie is based from, because usually the new characters and original plot are just so jarring in how badly they clash with the characters and story-telling style of the series as you know them.

The Urusei Yatsura movies, especially Beautiful Dreamer and Lum the Forever, are the only movies I've seen based off a a long-running shonen manga that are not only good complements to their series, but are bold enough to experiment thematically and visually, stay true to the characters while also examining them to extents the source material only occasionally did (Ataru and Lum in particular), and explored the world of the anime and manga to create engaging plots. If we're talking about movies based on shonen anime in general,  End of Evangelion is the absolute best in my opinion, although whether the movie itself is "shonen" or not is...debatable, I'd guess. End of Evangelion and Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer are my favorite anime films, and are also two of my top ten favorite films of all time, and Urusei Yatsura 4: Lum the Forever and Urusei Yatsura: The Final Chapter are also both in my top thirty favorite films list as well. Of course, those films can only really be enjoyed if you are familiar with and are a fan of their series, so I wouldn't recommend watching them before watching the anime, or in Urusei Yatsura's case reading the manga, if you want to really enjoy them.

I'm disappointed to hear that the Hunter X Hunter movie is just another "eh" manga-based anime movie, but I wasn't expecting that much from a shonen manga-based movie anyway, so I will probably still like it enough when I get around to watching it. But I'll probably put it on low priority until I watch Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods and the One Piece films Strong World, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, and Film Z, since I heard those movies are actually good, but I guess I'll see about that...

I know what Ensatsu-Ken means. I always thought a YYH movie starring Kuwabara and dealing with something in the real world during the Three Kings arc would have been an excellent idea. But it would never could have happened because everybody would be saying "Where's Yusuke, Hiei, and Kurama? You can't have YYH without them!" which sort of misses the point of a world-building story that doesn't have all of the characters.

A Trigun movie centering on the space crew before Vash? One about Wolfwood? Or just one on another outlaw with ties to the series somehow?

Things like that not only shake up the formula, but open up the worlds more.

There's that, OR you could even do movies set after the end of a manga/anime that doesn't already have a definitive ending. That would allow you to have canon material (if it was all approved by the original author/creator), and it could have much more interesting story-telling since anything could happen in them, and because of that there wouldn't be a limit put onto the story-telling like those "safe" anime movies based off of shounen manga have to have. Stuff like Stark Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Serenity prove that you can get genuinely great films set after the end of certain series (especially in Serenity's case, since Firefly never actually got a proper ending, OR even a full first season, for that matter). Sure, those are live-action movies taking place after their respective live-action shows, but the point remains that those types of movies can work, and I don't see why it couldn't work for certain anime as well.

Quote from: Cartoon X on August 28, 2013, 09:59:33 PMThe Urusei Yatsura movies, especially Beautiful Dreamer and Lum the Forever, are the only movies I've seen based off a a long-running shonen manga that are not only good complements to their series, but are bold enough to experiment thematically and visually, stay true to the characters while also examining them to extents the source material only occasionally did (Ataru and Lum in particular), and explored the world of the anime and manga to create engaging plots. If we're talking about movies based on shonen anime in general,  End of Evangelion is the absolute best in my opinion, although whether the movie itself is "shonen" or not is...debatable, I'd guess. End of Evangelion and Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer are my favorite anime films, and are also two of my top ten favorite films of all time, and Urusei Yatsura 4: Lum the Forever and Urusei Yatsura: The Final Chapter are also both in my top thirty favorite films list as well. Of course, those films can only really be enjoyed if you are familiar with and are a fan of their series, so I wouldn't recommend watching them before watching the anime, or in Urusei Yatsura's case reading the manga, if you want to really enjoy them.

Speaking of good movies based off of good shounen series, while it's not a full-length feature film, I do think that Our War Game was an exceptionally excellent Digimon piece, and easily surpassed anything in Adventure as a series, itself.

QuoteI'm disappointed to hear that the Hunter X Hunter movie is just another "eh" manga-based anime movie, but I wasn't expecting that much from a shonen manga-based movie anyway, so I will probably still like it enough when I get around to watching it. But I'll probably put it on low priority until I watch Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods and the One Piece films Strong World, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, and Film Z, since I heard those movies are actually good, but I guess I'll see about that...

I haven't seen One Piece Film Z, so I don't have an opinion on that one. As for Strong World, that was actually pretty decent. I wouldn't call it great, but it was surprisingly fun (most likely due to Oda's involvement in helping to write the screenplay for it), and came pretty close to being great at times, but as it is I think it was a good movie that stands out among the mostly boring films based off of shonen manga. I remember I made a post once about Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, and you commented saying that all One Piece films were forgettable and mediocre, making me assume that you had already seen that movie as well (it's the 6th One Piece movie, in case you're wondering). If you haven't seen it, though, then you should know that it was directed by Mamoru Hosoda (same guy who directed Our War Game, The Girl Who Leaped Through Time, and Summer Wars), so it's definitely a very unique entry in the One Piece movie line. It's very....strange, but for me it was strange in a good way. The thing about it is that it's surprisingly dark for a One Piece film, and while the tone doesn't feel like One Piece, it's still one of those movies that I found hard to stop watching because of the intriguing background plot which was honestly incredibly creepy and messed up for a kids film. I'd recommend giving the movie a look just on its bizarre weirdness-factor, alone.

As for Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, I haven't seen it yet, myself (obviously), but I've heard pretty mixed opinions about it. I think it's safe to say that the general consensus on it is that it's certainly not bad, but it's also not what anyone was really expecting, for better or worse (depending on who you ask).

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on August 28, 2013, 11:14:56 PM
I remember I made a post once about Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, and you commented saying that all One Piece films were forgettable and mediocre, making me assume that you had already seen that movie as well (it's the 6th One Piece movie, in case you're wondering).

??? I don't remember this, and I don't think I could've said this since the only One Piece film I've seen is Desert Princess and the Pirates: Adventures in Alabasta. Maybe I was talking about the Dragonball Z movies, since I have seen all of those (Battle of the Gods aside) and don't care too much for them.  :sweat: Good to know that Baron Omatsuri is worth seeing, though.

I'll check out Our War Game sometime as well if it's really that good.  ;)

Just don't confuse it with Digimon: The Movie, which is the English dub movie that splices 3 separate Digimon features into one (and quite horribly so, at that), including Our War Game. Just watch the Japanese version, which is only about 40-50 minutes long (hence why it is only a feature and not a full-length movie), but most Digimon fans seem to agree that it is one of the best things to come out of the entire series. Just treat it like a really long episode that takes place in-between Digimon Adventure season 1 and 02, and you'll really be able to enjoy it for what it is. It's basically the original Summer Wars (which is also by the same director).

Alright, we're finally getting to the bread and butter of the Chimera Ant arc in the anime. I mean the really, really fucking good stuff. I mean the stuff that's actually praiseworthy, and proves that despite his faults earlier on, Togashi can still produce kick-ass material and excellent writing when he's on his A game. I mean the stuff that even Desensitized said was great (and I know he has a strong disposition towards Togashi and this series ;) ). What's the only problem? I'm the only freaking person on this board watching this anime to even appreciate that stuff in the first place. Well, maybe GSF is watching it as well, if he's caught up with the show by now.

Which HxH anime is better?

Probably the newer one simply for adapting the later stuff.

Well, in my "personal" opinion, the 1999 TV anime and the first OVA are better in the material that they adapt. The 2011 version is a straight-up copy/paste style adaptation, and as one reviewer said, that means that it carries both the same strengths and weaknesses as the original manga. The 1999 version makes slight alterations here and there, and while hardcore fans seem to hate it for that, I personally find those changes to be more appealing to me. The characters come off a bit more likable to me, and I also appreciate the art-style of the original anime, along with the fluidity of the animation. The music in the 1999 version is also MUCH better than the 2011 anime, IMO. The 2011 anime is a bit faster in it's pacing, but I never minded the pacing of the 1999 version of the show to begin with.

That said, the 2011 anime has the obvious advantage of being able to adapt the Chimera Ant arc, which hadn't even started yet in the manga by the end of the first TV series, so there is of course that advantage to it. But, on the whole, I felt that the 1999 version was the more consistent package in terms of quality, if you compare it directly to the 2011 anime up to the end of the York New City arc, so that's my personal favorite version. Keep in mind, though, that I'm in the minority on that opinion. A lot of HXH fans prefer the new anime for the very reason that it plays it safe and just copies and pastes the manga's story without adding anything intuitive of its own to the experience, which is fine by them because apparently they consider the original manga to be absolutely flawless. I should also mention that I consider at least 90% of the HXH fanbase to be composed of complete idiots, so I'm not surprised to see that as the general verdict.

Having said that, though, I do still obviously like the current anime enough to be keeping up with it on a regular basis, which is why I'm happy that it has finally gotten around to adapting the best parts of the Chimera Ant arc.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on September 10, 2013, 07:09:37 PM
Alright, we're finally getting to the bread and butter of the Chimera Ant arc in the anime. I mean the really, really fucking good stuff. What's the only problem? I'm the only freaking person on this board watching this anime to even appreciate that stuff in the first place.

I know for a fact VlordGTZ's watching it! As for me, I haven't gotten around to watching yet, but....

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsakuga.yshi.org%2Fdata%2F0b78d1552f5a9f880994fef4b412d586.gif&hash=162707c4388fa98aff2ea8605c0e48588b737e28)

...I'm going to start catching up, asap.  ;)

Wow, they really did him justice. I didn't think they could do it.

I also love how there isn't an obnoxious use of CG in that clip. Or, if there is, it's integrated into the animation so well that it's barely noticeable.

Quote from: Cartoon X on September 11, 2013, 06:02:53 PM
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsakuga.yshi.org%2Fdata%2F0b78d1552f5a9f880994fef4b412d586.gif&hash=162707c4388fa98aff2ea8605c0e48588b737e28)

:swoon:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FLFdwN9J.gif&hash=0097a63346600fe1433bba3a82700a61d431db6b) (http://takazugi.tumblr.com/post/61325466106)

I never really liked Shalnark, but this was kind of cool.

Quote from: Mas on September 16, 2013, 06:04:01 AM
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FLFdwN9J.gif&hash=0097a63346600fe1433bba3a82700a61d431db6b) (http://takazugi.tumblr.com/post/61325466106)

I never really liked Shalnark, but this was kind of cool.

It looks like he was trying to go Super Saiyan right there. :sly:

We've finally reached 100 episodes. I forgot about that whole "fart explosion" thing which was incredibly stupid, but only lasted for a moment, anyways. This episode was a great one for Killua, and brought up an unexpected face turn of one of the Chimera ants who has been tailing Gon for a while now.

Just finished episode 101...how does Togashi right action this good? I have trouble calling it an action scene since it basically was a chess match. I also like how all 3 times Killua "flipped a switch", (including the last two episodes) an enemy would/try to do a hidden trick or attack to him. I like how he doesn't just have flat out invincible moments when he does that (even though when he got stabbed in the back and pretended to be poisoned was close but you know what I mean)

Quote from: gunswordfist on October 22, 2013, 11:20:40 PM
Just finished episode 101...how does Togashi right action this good? I have trouble calling it an action scene since it basically was a chess match. I also like how all 3 times Killua "flipped a switch", (including the last two episodes) an enemy would/try to do a hidden trick or attack to him. I like how he doesn't just have flat out invincible moments when he does that (even though when he got stabbed in the back and pretended to be poisoned was close but you know what I mean)

Togashi is just really good at playing around with expectations. As for the whole dartboard thing, what made it so great is that Killua ultimately prevailed through experience and wit. The experience he had let him keep a cool head throughout the situation, and his wit allowed him to utilize what powers he had to make it through a seemingly hopeless situation. A more amateur writer would have just mad Killua have an easy time with the whole ordeal in order to come off like a bad-ass. But the thing that mad Killua awesome here is that he didn't have an easy time at all, and yet still prevailed despite everything working against him. I also like how he spared Ikalgo's life (showing just how muchness developed as a character) and how Ikalgo saved him at the end in return.

Oh, and I love Togashi's cartoony yet dark humor. Killua severs the heads of those two chimera ants while their guard is down, yet their heads can still function on their own, allowing Killua to explain to them just how he outwitted their asses, only to leave them bickering between each other until they presumably ran out of juice and died (which was cleverly not shown in order to keep the scene funny).

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on October 23, 2013, 12:30:06 AM

Quote from: gunswordfist on October 22, 2013, 11:20:40 PM
Just finished episode 101...how does Togashi right action this good? I have trouble calling it an action scene since it basically was a chess match. I also like how all 3 times Killua "flipped a switch", (including the last two episodes) an enemy would/try to do a hidden trick or attack to him. I like how he doesn't just have flat out invincible moments when he does that (even though when he got stabbed in the back and pretended to be poisoned was close but you know what I mean)

Togashi is just really good at playing around with expectations. As for the whole dartboard thing, what made it so great is that Killua ultimately prevailed through experience and wit. The experience he had let him keep a cool head throughout the situation, and his wit allowed him to utilize what powers he had to make it through a seemingly hopeless situation. A more amateur writer would have just mad Killua have an easy time with the whole ordeal in order to come off like a bad-ass. But the thing that mad Killua awesome here is that he didn't have an easy time at all, and yet still prevailed despite everything working against him. I also like how he spared Ikalgo's life (showing just how muchness developed as a character) and how Ikalgo saved him at the end in return.

Oh, and I love Togashi's cartoony yet dark humor. Killua severs the heads of those two chimera ants while their guard is down, yet their heads can still function on their own, allowing Killua to explain to them just how he outwitted their asses, only to leave them bickering between each other until they presumably ran out of juice and died (which was cleverly not shown in order to keep the scene funny).

Oh yeah, ants can survive days headless. Heh heh

I liked Ikalgo's part in this as well. I thought Killua would be straight up heartless to all Chimera Ants but that was a pleasant surprise.

As for Killua experience, even though he did it at such a young age, I like how he had extensive training with darts instead of "just knowing it" or whatever. It was all well put together. I also like how the dart power was a nod to Sniper's from YYH.

Yeahh, congrats on 100 episodes, HxH!

I think the octopus is my new favorite chimera ant now next to Colt, and I can't wait to see more of him and his interactions with Killua. Avoiding the manga is getting harder and harder.

I love how Komugi, who is ironically a weak blind girl, is essentially so much better than Meruem at something that she has more influence on his character and his actions than even the strongest Nen users around (who incidentally don't even hold his attention). Meruem believes himself to be so divine that he's naturally the best in everything. Just finding out that there's someone better than him in something as insignificant as a mere strategy game is a big deal to him, as it totally crushes his own deluded life philosophy.

I love how much of a gamble Knov (Novu) has to take in order to even set the first part of a plan in motion. It takes a lot of strategizing and a big risk, and with Pitou's En being temporarily down, he has the rare opportunity to set up portals in the palace itself, but if he's caught, he's a dead man. Togashi is really good at writing intense and thoughtful situations like this. I also love how he doesn't ignore the outside world, and made note of Senator Bizef as the guy who communicates with outside countries so that they don't get suspicious of what's going on.

Also, Meruem continues to evolve into a more fleshed out, 3-Dimensional character, which is always great. And it's great how Komugi isn't exactly the type of character that you expect. She's naive, yet also rightfully insiteful, not just in terms of the game that she plays, but also in terms of knowing just how to talk to Meruem. There's a lot of layers to this part of the story, especially regarding Meruem's character development. And it's not something that so clearly changes him from a bad guy into a good guy (which would be the stupid thing a lot of amateur writers would do with this situation), but rather it just forces him to adopt a new philosophy, one that could lead him to a potentially more dangerous goal if it comes into fruition.

Yep, this is definitely my favorite anime that's currently airing.

If there's one criticism I have for it, though it's that the Chimera Ant arc's heavy use of narration and exposition clearly makes it work better in manga form. I do wish the anime could have improved on the manga by cutting out a lot of the narration and finding a way to show a lot of what the characters were going through without directly having to explain it. Even as far as the manga, goes, it is the one noticeable weakness of Togashi in this arc (a problem that he never had before this point), and while it doesn't kill it for me, it does feel like it's robbing the reader/viewer of the opportunity to interpret things form themselves. I also can't stand the HXH fans who so blatantly defend this and say that Togashi is a genius and that I just can't appreciate his work (those of you who know me know how laughably absurd it is that I, of all people, don't fucking appreciate Togashi). I'm just calling this out for what it is: lazy writing. Mind you, it's not bad writing, because Togashi is adding in sensible and interesting plot points while fleshing out his characters in very thoughtful ways. It's just that I wish he could rely on visuals a bit more, and less on blatant exposition.

How have they adapted the... dicier parts of the arc so far?

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on November 19, 2013, 06:46:24 PMHow have they adapted the... dicier parts of the arc so far?

They just toned it down, is all.

The girl getting stabbed by Meruem's tail only shows the silhouette. Any of the brain for flesh eating is cut out. And Pokkle getting minced and diced into a human meatball is cut out (and only disturbingly implied, instead).

So, for anyone who's keeping up with the current anime, what's your opinion on it, so far?

I do really like it, but I feel that the Chimera Ant arc has had some pacing issues, and I don't really see why they have to drag things out when they already have the arc completed in the manga. Togashi is clearly not going to end his hiatus for a long while, so the best thing that the anime can do is to end at that one certain point in the Chairman Election arc that makes for a good stopping point, and possibly make a new anime a few years later to cover stuff that Togashi writes after he ever decides to get off of his lazy ass and continue the story (and hopefully finally finish it, this time).

Overall, though, it's my favorite currently running shounen anime. The story-lines are mostly great and the characterization is brilliant. The animation quality has gone down since the Greed Island arc, but it still remains to be a notch above the abysmal quality of most other long-running shounen series. I've also grown to like the soundtrack for this series, but I still feel that the 1999 anime's music was way better, on the whole.

I think the current anime is really good. I like that it toned down some of the more violent scenes of the Chimera Ant arc (such as Meruem killing that little girl) since those scenes were just present for needless shock-value in the manga. 

I just finished Knov and Morel.

I am liking this arc so far and since HXH is the only currently running anime I watch, it's my favorite of that type. :D

My only have exactly one complaint: when they left after they saw the first Royal Guard. Specifically the slow episodes in between them being off the mission. They could have met Knuckle, Shoot, Palm, Knov, Morel and the Chairman at the meeting point where they met 3 of them or Killua could have stayed in enemy territory with an unconscious Gon and the 6 could have eventually found them (I'd prefer the latter). I could have lived without Knuckle vs. Gon and Killua could have just had the rabbit guy fight to help get over his strong urge to run from stronger opponents.

So that would be the only pacing problem I have had with CA. I like all of the tension buildup and strategy laying.

This week's episode was a great character-piece for The King. Only just now does he find out Komugi's name, and then he realizes that he doesn't even know his own name. Meanwhile Pouf is really distraught by all of this, so he's going to be an interesting character to watch out for as well.

on top of all that, Gon and the others are in the middle of finally planning their assault on the castle, so we are nearing the 3rd and final act of this arc.

.

Quote from: Jacob T. Paschal

I am not sure of what to say about the King's arc, though. It's very by the numbers and I just don't really care. Komugi is the same kind of stupid character Oda would come up with so I have to just roll my eyes through this stuff.

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fglobal3.memecdn.com%2Fhunter-x-hunter-facepalm_o_582980.jpg&hash=d263508f21a137234eb22133e29f7cba8c67f5d9)

Dammit Paschal, just how is Merurem's character development from a one-dimmensional merciless killer with a superiority complex who treats everyone else as inferior to a character who comes to terms with his own strengths, weaknesses, and limitations and comes to recognize those of (some) human beings, on top of trying to understand the nature of his identity, with him slowly becoming humbled into confronting these questions by being bested in gungki games by a blind girl who is naive yet insightful and dignified all the same, ultimately forcing him to change his philosophy to justify his actions and newfound sense of humanity, just so "by the numbers?" Also, Komugi ain't no character Oda would create. She doesn't have any obvious quirks to be used for comic relief purposes.  :awesome:

Anyways, now that the arc is getting to the meat of the action and character drama I should finally start keeping up with the series. I'll probably go and start from Knov's infiltration of the palace since I'm interested in how the anime handled that.

QuoteIt's very by the numbers

No, it's not. The king's arc is the most heart the entire arc has and is the only thing that makes Meruem have any sort of redeeming factor to him. If Komugi was not in the arc, it would probably be far worse.

I have many issues with the arc, but it being "by the numbers" is most definitely not one of them. Greed Island is "by the numbers", Chimera Ant is hectic and all over the place. There's nothing predictable about it.

CX, You should totally post that reply to Jacob on the thread. Including the face palm. :sly:

No, but seriously, fuck that guy. I don't mind so much that he doesn't care for the show, but he's so incredibly pretentious about his opinions. He seems to care for nothing more than tiny details in animation, and when he offers up criticisms to other shows like this one, he spews out whatever he feels like yet can almost never back up his opinions. He doesn't actually know HOW to criticize something. He just tries to seem smart at the expense of being a prick.

"Oh, you mean the good guy is going to fight the bad guy? How droll!"

They're called elements, every story has them. It's how they're used that matters.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on December 10, 2013, 11:09:49 PM
"Oh, you mean the good guy is going to fight the bad guy? How droll!"

They're called elements, every story has them. It's how they're used that matters.

Was that an actual quote from Paschal?

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on December 10, 2013, 11:15:03 PM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on December 10, 2013, 11:09:49 PM
"Oh, you mean the good guy is going to fight the bad guy? How droll!"

They're called elements, every story has them. It's how they're used that matters.

Was that an actual quote from Paschal?

No, but it might as well have been. I've seen people say things like that before.

"You mean the good guys win? Boring!"

It's like they're missing the elements of the story that actually matter. It's like hating Bleach because Ichigo has orange hair and is a teenager and not because it's poorly written.

Yeah, a lot of people can be real dumb-asses in that way.

It's like Jacob is going through that one annoying phase where when something so deliberately acts pretentious, he thinks its deep, meaningful, and unique because the writing makes it a point to shove it in your face. Yet when you have a series like HXH which primarily focuses on telling a good story, but is sensible enough to at least be somewhat subtle about its sub-text, he can only take it at face value and claims that there is nothing more to it.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on December 10, 2013, 11:05:10 PM


No, but seriously, fuck that guy. I don't mind so much that he doesn't care for the show, but he's so incredibly pretentious about his opinions. He seems to care for nothing more than tiny details in animation, and when he offers up criticisms to other shows like this one, he spews out whatever he feels like yet can almost never back up his opinions. He doesn't actually know HOW to criticize something. He just tries to seem smart at the expense of being a prick.

I agree with you about his attitude. Mostly, though, it's rudeness towards other members that just really irks me.

It's the storytelling that should be judged above all, really.

Sure, a girl that can't see the monster sees who he truly is in the inside isn't original, but that's not the point. It's executed well, adds to the story, the characters, and is still rather unpredictable despite being a familiar element. And that's how all the best stories are. They all use familiar elements we all know, but execute them in different ways. It's how they're written that makes the most difference.

How many good manga, for instance, involve a thug kid with a bad background? Now how many are still classics despite that "by the numbers" background?

A lot.

You know, after seeing Jacob's outlandish response this time, I get the feeling that the guy is just desperately trying to sound smart by critiquing something, yet he is clearly a shitty critic. He said this arc is repetitive yet fails to provide any examples supporting that point. Furthermore, he utterly fails to actually even attempt to analyze anything going on with the characters. He just takes everything at face-value and spews out bull-shit.

Forgot to mention this in the watching thread: I feel kind of stupid not noticing Ikalgo was there until they explained that he was inside of Flutter's corpse. I was O_o when Flutter first got up and seemed to be working with them.

One might argue that Togashi is just that good at paying attention to detail that he baffles most viewers the first time through HXH who forget little plot points like that. I really just love how every bit of what's going on in this part of the arc is hardcore strategizing. If there's one thing that the slow, elaborate pacing does well in this section, it's to show just how significant and consequential each and every single action that any character takes can be towards completely altering the playing field in this invasion plan. It really does just get more and more tense as the arc progresses.

I think I'm going to have a heart attack then. :D

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FYNrSYlO.jpg&hash=317004a363d16be8b55382fb4a66f46bc21ffc80)

Yeah, this part summarizes exactly how I feel every week while watching HxH.

;_;

Ok, I am on episode 113 and decided to give HXH a break. I want to watch Dragonball, finish Lupin AWNF, finish Saint Seiya, catch up on Space Dandy, watch The Mysteries Cities Of Gold and all of the original Hunter X Hunter series. Hopefully I'll have at least 10 episodes of HXH 2011 to catch up on but with how slow they are coming out, you never know. :D And I won't be even watching episode 114 until then. A few random thoughts:

I love Meruem and Komugi's (sp?) voices. They are perfect.

My favorite HXH characters are:

2. Nobunaga - He has the most heart and personality out of any Phantom Troupe member. The way he was laughing and smiling when Gon and Killua said that they refused to look at him because they had no respect for him won me over.

1. Killua - I'm pretty sure he's my favorite "Dark Hero" character now. It's been Hiei (surprise, surprise) before that but Killua isn't as scared to show his feelings as he is and is more charismatic. I am still impressed that it took no convincing from Gon for Killua to want to leave with him during Killua's Retrieval arc. Gon and the guys just simply met Killua on his way out. Togashi knows how to break cliches like no other.

It's been a long time since I saw the original series. But did anyone besides me not particularly "love" Gon? Like, he was a good character, but he wasn't necessarily one of my favorites in the series.

Yeah, Gon is my least favorite of the main protagonists as well. He's by far overshadowed by Killua, who has a more interesting backstory, personality, and character development, and Kurapika and Leorio are also more likable and fun to watch than him as well. I did find him more interesting once I saw that his innocent personality and simple-mindedness were faults that led him to become a more..."disturbed" character in the Chimera Ant arc, but of course, that wasn't in the first anime.

He's like Ed in FMA to me, he's a good character but there's a bunch of better characters than him in his own show. But then again, I like Ed more than Gon.

Ok, I finished episode 1 about 10 minutes ago. Very different than I expected. There was also two pretty big changes from 2011 (or should I say it's the other way around, lol). Color me interested with the different pacing. I can't wait to find other changes myself.

While I have been upset with the pacing of the last few episodes for the most part, I found it to be appropriate for this episode to focus only on the conflict between Gon and Pitou. I also have to give them props for choosing not to play any background music for this episode. The silence really made so many scenes feel more intense, because with Gon in his border-line psychotic state, you really have no idea what he's going to do. If you remember back to when Gon told Kite that he didn't have a problem killing the Chimera Ants because they were despicable and showed no compassion even for their own brethren, Kite said something along the lines of how that would be a problem if Gon ever ran into an enemy who could show compassion. And this is Togashi's way of portraying just how flawed Gon's way of thinking is. He clearly doesn't know how to react in this situation and it's quickly leading him down a dark path. It's very telling that Killua was the voice of reason in this situation and had to calm Gon down enough for him to not do anything wreck-less. It shows you just how far both of these characters have come since the beginning of the series, and while Killua has bettered himself, Gon has changed for the worse. It's very unconventional and a very fresh sort of conflict to see in a shounen series.

Personally, this is one of my favorite episodes in the series so far.

I love Han Megumi. She did an amazing job as Gon's voice in this episode.

That's another thing that I forgot to mention. The voice-acting here was top-notch. I don't usually take too much notice to Japanese voice-actors, but in this case Han Megumi definitely deserves props for her portrayal of Gon in his emotionally unstable state.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BgjMHNHCIAAQN0P.jpg:large)

Well....it's certainly better artwork than anything Togashi can draw.

The Jojo one is great, but...

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bfi_XF2CIAEXy0q.jpg:large)


...I'm more of a fan of this one, myself.  ;)

That's not gonna help the Cell comparisons.  :sweat:

It was so heart-wrenching to see all of that effort that all of these characters put in as a team to end up going to waste when they were SO CLOSE to defeating Youpi, and even then it would have merely been just one royal guard, but it was still a glimmer of hope that the heroes desperately needed. And it's just like Togashi to pull that hope away at the last second. Meanwhile in Gon's part of the story, he has almost become the bad guy in a way, essentially holding Komugi hostage in order to get Pitou to cooperate with him and agree to revive Kite.

And now we'll soon be getting into the fight between Meruem and Netero. Now, just try to think back to about 2 years ago in the Hunter Exams arc where we learned that Netero was supposed to be this ultimate bad-ass among Hunters, but we never got to see him be even remotely serious. Well, now we'll finally see him fighting at 100% of his power. Typically I prefer the more strategic fights like we just saw between Youpi and the others, so this isn't necessarily one of my favorite fights compared to that since this is a more DBZ-styled power struggle, but I will say that you will get to see just how insane a battle between true masters of Nen can be, and it will be glorious to finally see it animated (assuming that Madhouse doesn't cheap out on the animation budget for it).

It's such a tease to start up the fight between Netero and Meruem and then just switch to another sub-plot for the next episode, going by the preview. That said, they can't delay the fight for too much longer since the arc is drawing ever closer to its conclusion.

At any rate, I really liked this episode mainly for showing what Meruem's development has culminated to. In a weird way he almost seems like the good guy in some respects compared to the Hunters (especially Gon), who are essentially just doing the bidding of high-ranking, corrupt politicians, even if they themselves mean well for humanity. Meanwhile, Meruem's human side is growing stronger and he is the one who actually wants to come to a rational agreement with Netero, without having to resort to violence. This contrast is especially jarring if you compare him to Gon in his current psychotic state, who is basically just holding an innocent girl hostage to get what he wants. Also, notice how both Meruem and Gon use that same exact sitting position when they are in these very extreme states of mind. Sure, it could just be a coincidence....or maybe Togashi wants to hint at making that particular comparison between this Aric's main villain and the main hero of the series. Who knows? :humhumhum:

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on February 13, 2014, 02:46:05 PM
While I have been upset with the pacing of the last few episodes for the most part, I found it to be appropriate for this episode to focus only on the conflict between Gon and Pitou. I also have to give them props for choosing not to play any background music for this episode. The silence really made so many scenes feel more intense, because with Gon in his border-line psychotic state, you really have no idea what he's going to do. If you remember back to when Gon told Kite that he didn't have a problem killing the Chimera Ants because they were despicable and showed no compassion even for their own brethren, Kite said something along the lines of how that would be a problem if Gon ever ran into an enemy who could show compassion. And this is Togashi's way of portraying just how flawed Gon's way of thinking is. He clearly doesn't know how to react in this situation and it's quickly leading him down a dark path. It's very telling that Killua was the voice of reason in this situation and had to calm Gon down enough for him to not do anything wreck-less. It shows you just how far both of these characters have come since the beginning of the series, and while Killua has bettered himself, Gon has changed for the worse. It's very unconventional and a very fresh sort of conflict to see in a shounen series.

Personally, this is one of my favorite episodes in the series so far.

Yes, I loved that part. I was so impressed that they held a scene so long with just 3 characters communicating and very little music played. I was actually surprised at the mood that was set there.

Ok, yesterday through early this morning, I watched episodes 115-118. False Rage was a good episode to watch before going to sleep. It was impressive how Youpi learned to control his rage and goaded Knuckle and the part when he got hit by Killua's lightning and then Knuckle hit him 8 times and then ran off scared, tripped and rolled and then continued running was probably the funniest moment in the entire series. I usually don't like last second saves, probably thanks to Bleach and Naruto's overuse of them, but that was not only an exception, it's probably my new favorite now. I rewatched that part like 5 times and my eyes were watered from laughing. :D

This afternoon and up to about 10 minutes ago, I watched episodes 119-122. Yep, Youpi is my favorite Chimera Ant. Hmm, I was going to say Royal Guard but that may be accurate. Togashi writing still surprises me. You think one thing is going to happen and then it ends up not happening or happening anyway (Pouf escaping from Smoky Jail and having Morel stay there when I thought he was going to transform into some terrifying monster but he ended up actually being trapped in there the whole time. The gang surviving long enough to have Loanboy take Youpi's Nen away and then them finally killing Youpi..., etc., etc.) Also, it was nice to see Killua speak to his grandpa for the first time in the entire series. I wonder why he didn't go with Netero. I guess he couldn't pay him enough for that. lol I also thought the Ikalgo scenes were interesting, if not sometimes overdramatic. Welfin and Melereon (sp?) are definitely overdramatic. There's no doubt about that. I was cracking up when Melereon starting jogging after Knuckle when Knuckle first got chased by Youpi to save Shoot. His clothing made it that much funnier.

Damn Crunchyroll. They say 20 hours until episode 123 but that means 2 days for them. I already know. And it's kind of sad that I finished an entire fucking series and come back and there's not even 10 new episodes for me to watch. I already know 123 is online but I'll wait. It's so beautiful watching the show on my tv.

Ah geez, poor Killua. Seeing him cry like that was so painful to watch. I don't know how many times Hunter x Hunter made me feel like this already.
I'm glad Palm is okay. She actually seems even prettier now.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on March 18, 2014, 09:08:16 PM
It was so heart-wrenching to see all of that effort that all of these characters put in as a team to end up going to waste when they were SO CLOSE to defeating Youpi, and even then it would have merely been just one royal guard, but it was still a glimmer of hope that the heroes desperately needed. And it's just like Togashi to pull that hope away at the last second.

Yeahh, though Youpi turned out to be a pretty great character. I like all of the Royal Guards now, even Pouf despite his insane obsession with the King.

The animation this week was excellent. Also this is pretty crucial, game-changing episode in terms of what happens at the end, so I'm glad to see that it was pulled off well, here.

Watching episode 126 was wonderful. I'm guessing that bomb paid homage to Android 16.

Or it was just a plot device....because, you know there are a lot of stories that feature bombs, so I don't really think it's necessarily meant to parallel any other shounen series in particular.

I just can't wait to see what Cell does in the next episode of Hunter X Hunter.

I forgot to say this, rest in peace, Ichiro Nagai. http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/01/27/veteran-voice-actor-ichiro-nagai-passes-away (http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/01/27/veteran-voice-actor-ichiro-nagai-passes-away)

Whelp... on episode three. Never thought you'd me in this thread now DIDN'T you?

Uh-oh, it'll be interesting to see you tear apart Hakusho 2.0! :SHOCK:

But in all seriousness, be weary that up until York New City,mHXH plays out more like a typical shounen. Granted that, it's all intentional. Part of Togashi's writing style is to set things up using familiar tropes only to go against your expectations later on. It's not for everyone (personally,I love it, though), but it certainly also isn't really like any other series out there. It's rather high on the "WTF, this shit is weird" factor, even by shounen standards (which, once again, is kind of up my alley).

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on April 26, 2014, 11:34:45 AM
Uh-oh, it'll be interesting to see you tear apart Hakusho 2.0! :SHOCK:

What's more shocking is I kinda like it.

That's good to know. I'll be interested to see your thoughts on the York New City arc (the one that I wrote like a 10-page review on a few months ago).

https://twitter.com/RealLordDalek/status/460646882008514561/photo/1

When you said before you had watched the first anime and thought it sucked, I thought you had at least watched a good chunk of it. But apparently you didn't even get to this part (which is in episode 16 in the first anime) first (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ve_1hHJLSk)? How much of 1999 did you actually watch? :thinkin:

Quote from: Cartoon X on April 28, 2014, 12:24:10 AM
When you said before you had watched the first anime and thought it sucked, I thought you had at least watched a good chunk of it. But apparently you didn't even get to this part (which is in episode 16 in the first anime) first (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ve_1hHJLSk)? How much of 1999 did you actually watch? :thinkin:

Only up to about 10 episodes. The pace of the old show was a real grind.

I love that scene in both versions. Though, as a whole, I still think the 1999 anime is better. I didn't mind the pacing aside from the filler. It also had great moments that weren't in the 2011 version, not to mention a much more appropriate use of music.

Still, HXH is one of the better shounen series out there, so it seems like we can all at least agree on that point for now.

Whelp... York New City. Here we go.

Wow, you're already that far? You must be marathoning this series. :sweat:

Then again, I've been known to do that before, on plenty of occasions.

So yeah... Requiem... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBq7yu8H2kI) Jesus Christ...

Yeah, whether it's this or the 1999 version, it's one of my favorite scenes in a shounen anime. The 1999 version has more fluid and crisp animation, while this has a more appropriate use of music for the scene (a rarity for the 2011 anime, IMO).

It's scenes like this that establish the villains as a legitimate threat and leaves you in awe of their bad-assery. Unfortunately we don't get stuff like that from most modern shounen villains, especially when it involves a large group of characters like this.

At any rate, I'll warn you of something: after YNC comes Greed Island, which isn't bad, but it's a glorified training arc that  IMO is the most lackluster part of the series. If you can tough it out through that, then you'll have to deal with a very....twisted kind of story-line with the first third of the Chimera Ant arc (in both good and bad ways), an excellent middle third, and an uneven final act that for me leans more to the side of being good, but there's no escaping that it's a flawed arc with some serious pacing issues. YNC was my personal favorite for being what I consider to be the most consistent in quality.

This week's episode was quite good. The fact that Meruem is still very different from how he used to be despite losing his memories is something that I love. It'd have been disappointing to see him revert back to his old ways, but Togashi knows better than that, and this demonstrates that Meruem's change was something that was ingrained in him deeper than just his memories.

Pouf on the other hand is the character we all love to hate. His obsession and over-devotion to the King has lead him to defy Meruem to do what he thinks is best, but in reality his actions are completely selfish, as he just wants Meruem to fit his ideal for what the chimera ant King should be, rather than the person that he has now become.

Killua was a bad-ass like usual, this time around, and Gon is getting close yo his breaking point. Things are getting more intense than ever as this arc nears it's ultimate conclusion.

Spoiler

I won't lie, I don't care for sudden power-ups where the hero gets all the power he needs to defeat an enemy out of seemingly nowhere, even if it's sacrificing their own life to do so. It just feels like lazy writing to me. That said, this episode did a great job of executing thus part all the same, at least from an emotional standpoint. Once again the soundtrack used in this episode was both appropriate and not overdone as has been an issue in many previous episodes. I also loved the flow of the animation here. It basically made the best of mediocre writing, IMO. You really also felt the emotional weight of these characters thanks to the performances.

Oh, and Killua instantly killing one of Pouf's clones when he offered to tell Pitou to spare Gon in exchange for Komugi was another great scene. I just love it whenever that guy gets his comeuppances, and Killua always comes off as a bad-ass whenever he doesn't take crap from the antagonists.

[close]

https://twitter.com/RealLordDalek/status/471876587852279808

So you already managed to stomach your way past Greed Island? Impressive.

As for the Chimera Ant arc....I'm still not a huge fan of the first third. Way too much shock value just for the sake of it. Once Togashi becomes less focused on being violent for no reason and more focused on actually telling a story with interesting characters, it gets much better. Unfortunately the anime kind of runs into some pacing problems here, and I can't stand the over-use of the OST in some episodes, but if you can look past its faults, there are a lot of great things in this arc.

So Crunchyroll decided to upload the Spanish version of HXH episode 132 in their Xbox app...in Spanish. :wth: Since I had nothing else to watch while I was eating my chicken, I watched half of it with my extremely limited Spanish and the fact that no one's name changed helped. I'm guessing Pouf is trying to convince Meruem that his fragmented memories of Komugi are memories of Pitou. Also, it seems like Mereum told Youpi to search for Pitou. That would of course help Pouf's plans since Youpi is the man one who could ruin them. I do wonder if Youpi actually knows what is going one and acknowledged that when he looked at Pouf. Anyway, I'll just wait for the ingles version to upload so I can stop this pointless speculation. :sly: :sly:

I want to brush Gon's hair (https://31.media.tumblr.com/f67f82e1c0fa5e3cd025ad5194f4be25/tumblr_n6mpnxEepW1s27if4o1_250.jpg).

Well, apparently my Spanish sucks. :D

I looked away when I saw Youpi's body. :'(

I just finishing watching the most recent episode of HXH. At least I think it was but there's no telling with Cruncyroll. I was surprised to see the title of the show come up at the start and no OP. Thanks to seeing a picture of Komugi holding Meruem I saw on youtube, that pretty much spoiled what was coming, even though it was kind of obvious. I didn't know both of them were going to die until it became obvious that Komugi wasn't going to leave him. I haven't had an episode of anything make me feel this said in a long time.

My favorite HXH characters:

8. Meruem
7. Pouf
6. Ikalgo
5. Shoot
4. Youpi
3. 1999 Leorio
2. Nobunaga
1. Killua

Whoops! I forgot about Leorio AND Ikalgo. :sweat:

1. Killua
2. Leorio
3. Knuckle
4. Kurapika
5. Shoot

My top 5.

Ah, some Shoot love. I guess Pouf will be my only "odd" favorite here. :D

a few more notes about the episode: I knew they were going to play a special version of Legend Of The Martial Artist by the way it started. :'( After hearing that Chimera Ants had an alarming number of deaths, I thought at least one, if not half of Knuckle, Shoot, Morel, Knov, Palm, Meleoron (sp?) and Ikalgo would die. Honestly, Ikalgo just looks like a character that would get slaughter being how he's lovable and was pretty much waiting for him to be at any moment. In just about any other show I would expect him to be offed to get some tears from the fans. Also, this reminds me that I also left him off my list, hold on...

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on July 21, 2011, 06:15:38 AM
So I guess this will be the Chimera Ant arc?...... That he's been sitting on for years now? That isn't even over yet? I don't know what else it could be since the manga goes straight from Greed Island into the Chimera Ant arc.

By the way, speaking of Greed Island, what the hell was with all the dodgeball chapters in the manga? That was where I remember ceasing reading. The arc was boring me before then, but that was just unbearable.

Funny how that's the absolute best part in the anime. :D (reading through these threads is fun. :))

Yeah, the Dodgeball game was actually the highlight of the arc for me. It showed both an element of fun and creativity, which most of the rest of the arc was sorely lacking, IMO. Well, it was kind of creative with the card game system, but it got too bogged down in exposition to be any fun. The dodgeball game through that out the window for a while and was just it's own fun little thing. It's also probably the closest that Togashi will ever come to writing a sports manga, at that.

I remember it being well done, I just don't remember understanding why exactly it was occurring.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on June 24, 2014, 09:02:33 PM
Yeah, the Dodgeball game was actually the highlight of the arc for me. It showed both an element of fun and creativity, which most of the rest of the arc was sorely lacking, IMO. Well, it was kind of creative with the card game system, but it got too bogged down in exposition to be any fun. The dodgeball game through that out the window for a while and was just it's own fun little thing. It's also probably the closest that Togashi will ever come to writing a sports manga, at that.

So, what's your top 5?

I'd watch a dodgeball anime from him.

It's sad that Greed Island had a ton of potential and threw it away. It is an adventure arc, which I love more than any other kind but they did that wrong, the training sucked, the background sucked, all the new villains sucked. The bombers had a dimension tacked on to them during literally their last scene when they showed that they actually cared about each other. And way before that, everyone and their grandma saw that they were going to betray that group of card collectors and kill them. It's like Togashi thought that if he could make them do a few smart things and have them seem cool (well at least the main bomber, the other two weren't even cool looking) then that'd be enough...sounds like a mediocre, modern mangaka. Ugh.

Quote from: gunswordfist on June 24, 2014, 09:14:01 PMIt's sad that Greed Island had a ton of potential and threw it away. It is an adventure arc, which I love more than any other kind but they did that wrong, the training sucked, the background sucked, all the new villains sucked. The bombers had a dimension tacked on to them during literally their last scene when they showed that they actually cared about each other. And way before that, everyone and their grandma saw that they were going to betray that group of card collectors and kill them. It's like Togashi thought that if he could make them do a few smart things and have them seem cool (well at least the main bomber, the other two weren't even cool looking) then that'd be enough...sounds like a mediocre, modern mangaka. Ugh.

Yeah, when Togashi wrote that they cared about each other I thought that was more than a bit forced. We actively watched these guys torture and murder people and we're supposed to feel sorry for them because they were stopped from doing more of it and were pals while doing so?

He might as well have just kept them as flat as they already were. It really added nothing.

1. Killua
2. Knuckle
3. Leorio
4. Morel
5. Meruem

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 01, 2011, 06:19:34 PM
And I'm worried (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-08-01/2011-hunter-x-hunter-anime-to-retell-story-from-start)

Starting from the beginning. No Furuhara. Current day Madhouse. Which means they'll probably overemphasize the gore and action over the story.

Not anticipating this at all.

Funny how they toned down the gore. Don't mind me, I'm still reading through here. :D

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on June 24, 2014, 09:20:17 PM

Quote from: gunswordfist on June 24, 2014, 09:14:01 PMIt's sad that Greed Island had a ton of potential and threw it away. It is an adventure arc, which I love more than any other kind but they did that wrong, the training sucked, the background sucked, all the new villains sucked. The bombers had a dimension tacked on to them during literally their last scene when they showed that they actually cared about each other. And way before that, everyone and their grandma saw that they were going to betray that group of card collectors and kill them. It's like Togashi thought that if he could make them do a few smart things and have them seem cool (well at least the main bomber, the other two weren't even cool looking) then that'd be enough...sounds like a mediocre, modern mangaka. Ugh.

Yeah, when Togashi wrote that they cared about each other I thought that was more than a bit forced. We actively watched these guys torture and murder people and we're supposed to feel sorry for them because they were stopped from doing more of it and were pals while doing so?

He might as well have just kept them as flat as they already were. It really added nothing.

Yeah, it didn't. Togashi is good a writing 3 dimensional villain..that wasn't them. Hell, Karasu was pretty simple but I had no complaints about him. He knew how to be wicked. But then again, he didn't have to be complicated since he wasn't the main villain.

Quote from: gunswordfist on June 24, 2014, 09:31:19 PM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 01, 2011, 06:19:34 PM
And I'm worried (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-08-01/2011-hunter-x-hunter-anime-to-retell-story-from-start)

Starting from the beginning. No Furuhara. Current day Madhouse. Which means they'll probably overemphasize the gore and action over the story.

Not anticipating this at all.

Funny hoe they toned down the gore. Don't mind me, I'm still reading through here. :D

Glad to be wrong. The last thing the Chimera Ant arc needed was more gore.

Hmm, I wonder how many familiar faces will return in upcoming episodes (Don't spoil it for me! >:() I can't wait. Not seeing about 6 characters that have been gone will probably make me appreciate them more when they bring them back.Edit: Did I already make a post where I compared 2011's arcs with 1999's months ago. I forgot/can't find the post.

Favorite characters:

5. Knuckle
4. Ikalgo
3. Leorio
2. Meruem
1. Killua

Good choices.

I particularly enjoyed the twist where Ikalgo could have been just another generic enemy dispatched in Togashi fashion if it wasn't for Killua deciding to change his mind. That was one of the arc's highlights to me.

Yeah, that really surprised me. It's funny how Killua found a much better Chimera Ant friend than Gon's. :sly: Heck, Meleoron shined the most when he was paired with Knuckle anyway.

Favorite Characters:

1. Killua
2. Meruem
3. Kurapika
4. Leorio
5. Knuckle

More random thoughts:
Anyone else thought Meruem was supposed to have some similarities to Raizen? Youpi's powers remind me of Elder Toguro's. I love Shoot's powers so much. I honestly think they may be my favorite set of powers in the entire show. I like how Togashi took a non-combatant in Gatekeeper from Chapter Black (forget his real name) and gave them to a Hunter. Also, the main reason why I like Shoot so much is his flashback that was short and sweet and made me feel for the guy. In fact, it wasn't even a flashback, they just went over how he has been scared during his whole life and how his friends have been urging him to come out of it. Then he has his coming out party against Youpi of all people. I thought that was beautiful. I thought Knuckle was alright but Shoot is my favorite hero from Chimera Ants.

I hope Hisoka's past isn't like Werefin's and Meruem when they were human. Quite a few characters in this show have been abused as kids. I was going to group in Razer and Binolt (scissor dude from Greed Island. I only remember his name because his music on youtube rocks) but I seriously doubt he wasn't at least an outcast as a kid. I forget if those two were also physically abused. Anyway, my only reason for wanting it to not be like that is I want his to be different.

Edit:
I didn't really care for Pitou going from psycho torturer to caring protector of an innocent. The how, I mean. She literally went from never blinking to crying when she saw Meruem hold Komugi. Then her features started softening up out of nowhere. I do like how she changed based off of interactions with Gon, it's just I thought her initial jump between being two different characters had no good setup. She's also my least favorite Ant out of the Royal Guards and The King and the only one I'm not a fan of. I wouldn't be surprised if she was at least the favorite Royal Guard for most fans. She got the most screen time and fans tend to like psycho characters like that, I think.

Pitou was my least favorite Ant, so there's that, I guess. Youpi was by far the best of the lackeys.

Pitou had the least personality and character of the three, imo. Youpi had interesting character development in his fight, and Shaiapouf was an excellent scheming villain to love to hate, but Pitou rarely showed much personality, except for that scene where Gon confronted him and he was desperate to fulfill his order to heal Komugi.

He was also the only one to actually lose in a proper fight, too. That's quite odd for shonen for the bad guys to not be beaten in a fight, so I have to give Togashi credit for that.

Pouf was the worst ant. Everyone knows that. :bleh:

Also, Pitou did have personality, CX, and unlike the other 2 Royal Guards, it was strongly implied that Pitou, despite being devoted to the King, also had interests of his/her own (remember, the gender is kept ambiguous in the manga). Whereas Youpi's personality was just being easy to anger until he got a little smarter, and Pouf was just overly-devoted to Meruem (ultimately to his detriment), Pouf also showed a side to his/herself that wanted to break free and indulge in its own personal interests, like fighting strong opponents and such. Pitoun even showed a level of respect for strong opponents,which gave him far more nuance than the other 2 Royal Guards who were only devoted to the King. Yes, Youpi developed a sort of respect for Knuckle and the others, but it was very late in the arc by that point. Hell, Pitou even decided to be honest with Gon about not being able to restore Kite before trying to kill him. To Pitou, he owed him at least that much for allowing him/her to heal Komugi. Such a thought never would have crossed the mind of Youpi or Pouf. They would have just blindly killed Gon on the spot.

Now Pouf is the weakest link among the Royal Guards. I like what Togashi was going for with having his devotion to the King ultimately be a fault of his character, but there was really nothing more to him than that. There were no sublet implications of any greater depth or nuance to his character, and while I could see both Pitou and Youpi developing further had they lived longer, I can almost guarantee you that Pouf would not have changed at all. He was ultimately just appalled of the King's admiration for Komugi as he believed that the King had no equal, and that's it. He didn't learn anything about the King or about himself at all, unlike Pitou and Youpi.

So in other words, both of you guys are incorrect in your analysis, since what I just said is fact and not opinion, you may both feel free to be ashamed of yourselves for not being as smart and awesome as me. I encourage it. :>

Hmm, I didn't consider those aspects of Pitou's character before, and I suppose they do make him a more layered character than I had thought. That doesn't change the fact that, despite his shallowness, I found Pouf's over the top devotion to Meruem and his schemes to keep him and Komugi apart more entertaining to read/watch.  :D

What? Pitou only gave respect to Gon and that was after Youpi's fight. She said she enjoyed the fight against Kite but I saw no respect given. Blindly killing Gon would have been better anyway. It was kind of stupid that she gave Gon all those chances to live. Gon was knee deep in plot armor.

Pouf also showed respect to an opponent. He didn't just speed blitz Morel because he respected his experience as a Hunter. There wasn't even a fight. He basically stalled him out and then he mugged him from behind. I personally liked that. In fact, Pouf never had a proper fight. He kept on gauging all the opponents and scheming. His only real faults are his devotion could get downright comical (I like some of the zany scenes he had though. Like when he called himself the king of idiots or something for going to the wrong room.) and his plans laughably backfired at times which makes you kind of question his intelligence. He was almost certainly smarter than he thought he was.

Quote from: Cartoon X on June 26, 2014, 01:32:12 PM
Hmm, I didn't consider those aspects of Pitou's character before, and I suppose they do make him a more layered character than I had thought. That doesn't change the fact that, despite his shallowness, I found Pouf's over the top devotion to Meruem and his schemes to keep him and Komugi apart more entertaining to read/watch.  :D

This

Quote from: gunswordfist on June 26, 2014, 05:33:47 PM
What? Pitou only gave respect to Gon and that was after Youpi's fight. She said she enjoyed the fight against Kite but I saw no respect given. Blindly killing Gon would have been better anyway. It was kind of stupid that she gave Gon all those chances to live. Gon was knee deep in plot armor.

Pitou showed respect to Kite after he fought him, saying that he was strong and that he/she enjoyed fighting him. That is respect. Respect isn't just letting someone live. Respect is acknowledging someone's strong points, even if they are an enemy. That was why Kite was made into a training puppet to begin with, because Pitou recognized his strength. Watch the anime again or read the manga. That was clearly stated.

Pitou also didn't give Gon all of the chances to live. Pitou didn't know that Gon could pull out a trump card like that. Gon defeating Pitou was bad plot writing on Togashi's part. Not bad character writing.

QuotePouf also showed respect to an opponent. He didn't just speed blitz Morel because he respected his experience as a Hunter. There wasn't even a fight. He basically stalled him out and then he mugged him from behind. I personally liked that.

This is where you're mistaken. THAT is not respect. Pouf was showing no admiration or acknowledgement of Morel as a fighter. He didn't care. His goal was only to get to the King's side and he didn't want to risk getting trapped in Morel's strategy, so he instead outwitted him. That isn't respect, just strategy. The reason it was respect on Pitou and Youpi's part was because they did things they otherwise would not have done out of some courtesy for their opponents, even if it wasn't necessarily sensible. Pitou wanted to tell Gon the truth because Gon kept his word to him and didn't kill Komugi. Youpi could have easily killed Morel and Knuckle after Knuckle removed his ability from Youpi, but he kept his word out of admiration for all of the effort they put into fighting him and how they almost defeated him. Pouf just flat-out didn't give a shit about Morel, and as proof of this he questioned Youpi on why he let Morel live later on, and seemed concerned with the fact that he spared them out of respect. Once again, go back to the anime or manga. It's in there.

Quote

QuoteHmm, I didn't consider those aspects of Pitou's character before, and I suppose they do make him a more layered character than I had thought. That doesn't change the fact that, despite his shallowness, I found Pouf's over the top devotion to Meruem and his schemes to keep him and Komugi apart more entertaining to read/watch.  :D

This

It was entertaining until it dragged out as Pouf was basically resorting to making it into a game to hide his secret from Meruem, at which point I found it was pretty stupid writing on Togashi's part, especially since Meruem found out anyways, and not through some subtle detail that Pouf missed, but because Werefin just flat-out reminded him that Komugi existed, making the whole scheme feel unrewarding for being dragged out so much.

That barely counts. Youpi put on a much better display of respect. He didn't wait for them to be dead to acknowledge their efforts. How late in the arc it was doesn't discount it.

Pitou could have easily killed him at the palace. Pitou could have killed him instead of healing her arm. Pitou just sat there and watched him powerup. I'm referring to examples before he became adult Gon. After that she started to make more sense like how she tried to attack him from behind twice, once after death. And yes, Pitou sensed that his will could be a threat. That's the whole reason why she tried to kill him. She basically just stood there until he found a way to pull it off.

Pouf didn't kill Morel because he thought he was harmless without his pipe. He lost respect for him after he literally acknowledged his abilities when he was studying him. He said something along the lines that he was impressed with his fortitude while they were in Smoky Jail.

It sucked that his game ended so quickly. Again, I already said Pouf could look pretty much stupid at times but I enjoyed him being the only villain antagonizing the Hunters in the palace at times. Besides Gon vs. Pitou, those were my favorite parts near the end of the arc.

I notice that you arguments are based entirely on assumptions, GSF.

Pitou realized that Gon could be dangerous, but it was made clear that he/she didn't understand what that meant. At the time it was just that Pitou fully believed Gon on his threat of killing Komugi if he/she didn't cooperate. It was never indicated that he knew that Gon could power-up to a level strong enough to kill a royal guard. And standing their that whole time healing him/herself taking so long was only a product of the anime being ridiculously dragged out, hence why I say the manga for this arc is far better. In the manga that was literally just a few panels that took place over a few seconds. Pitou's natural instinct was to heal first and then take out Gon.

And if we're talking about stupid, once again, you just personally admitted that Pouf was guilty of that on more than one occasion, so I don't see your point there. We were talking about respect, not which Royal Guard was smarter than the other. Saying things like "that barely counts" without giving proper explanation why just feels like argument for the sake of argument. I explained already why Pitou's actions qualify as respect, and those aren't the only examples. Another scene had the narrator clearly spell out that he was in awe of Netero's power when he briefly made eye-contact with him, and recognized his ability, yet another form of respect.

Pouf respected absolutely no one but the King himself. That was in fact the very basis of his character. His over-obsession with the King was ironically a hindrance to him. I don't really see how you can change that around from what it was clearly intended to be.

Wait, if Pitou can respect Netero's ability in an action that took less than a second then why doesn't it count when Pouf was analyzing different aspects of Morel and showing respect for that? I'm not talking about Pouf respecting anyone as a person, just as a fighter. Pitou didn't respect Netero that much either.

Oh boy. The first example I named was after Gon turned his back on Pitou to walk away. The other 2 examples I named were AFTER Pouf told Pitou that Komugi was safe and before Pitou decided to heal herself. She should have made Gon drop dead after she got the phone call and then ran back to the palace. It was stupid.

But whatever, you don't have to agree. I'm going to watch the scene of Pouf prancing around in a colorful background again. :bleh: Pouf rocks!

Quote from: gunswordfist on June 27, 2014, 12:22:24 AMOh boy. The first example I named was after Gon turned his back on Pitou to walk away. The other 2 examples I named were AFTER Pouf told Pitou that Komugi was safe and before Pitou decided to heal herself. She should have made Gon drop dead after she got the phone call and then ran back to the palace. It was stupid.

Uh, in that case you just flat-out ignored my point about Pitou NOT killing Gon right away go be upfront with him about Kite. I clearly hammered out that point. Pitou even said that he wanted to tell this to Gon since Gon had kept his word about not killing Komugi. Of course it wasn't the sensible thing to do, which is what Pouf would have done in Pitou's place. That was the whole freaking basis for why I said that was essentially out of Pitou's respect for Gon. I just love how you completely ignored a point that I already addressed.

So it was respectful, yet stupid? Either way, Pitou shouldn't have used Doctor Blythe (sp?) before attacking Gon nor should she have just stood there while Gon was powering up.

Once again, I love how you try to change the subject to draw attention away from the intent of why you started arguing with me in the first place when you can't come up with evidence otherwise to prove your original point. Is there a point to all of this, GSF, or are you just trying to drag out yet another debate just for the hell of it?

So, this is what I posted on another site in regard to which version of this arc I prefer:

QuoteI don't know if I agree. In the manga, while I didn't like the idea of having so much heavy narration about what was going on, I didn't mind it as much because I was still reading it all and I've read certain other manga and comics that use heavy 3rd person narration, so I could get over it. I was hoping that the anime could find some way around that, but they didn't and I have to say that it just felt so awkward having the narrator suddenly tell us most of what was going on, having more dialogue than the actual characters. In books and comics you can get away with that. In anime, TV shows, movies, and such, I firmly believe in the "show don't tell" philosophy of story-telling (except for when heavy exposition is absolutely needed, of course). Having the narrator have to tell us what a character was feeling, for example, rather than actually show what they are feeling through good animation and voice acting, feels rather cheap. An example of where an exception was made was that scene in which Killua broke down in tears in front of Palm. No narration was needed to tell us what his character was going through. But there are so many other times when the narrator cuts in, and I quite frankly just got sick of hearing that voice all of the time.

Combine that with the fact that the anime really made me realize how slow-paced this arc really is in the second half. In the manga I could read it at my own pace, so I got through it much quicker. Watching it in the anime, though, I honestly felt like the second half of the arc dragged on longer than it needed to. That's just my opinion, anyways. I will say that I think the first half of the arc was somewhat better in the anime (especially the first third).

Yeah, I think they should've cut out the narration in the anime too. There were much more appropriate ways to get the same ideas and feelings across using the medium than having the narrator explain everything.

Quote from: gunswordfist on June 25, 2014, 03:49:00 PM
More random thoughts:
Anyone else thought Meruem was supposed to have some similarities to Raizen? Youpi's powers remind me of Elder Toguro's. I love Shoot's powers so much. I honestly think they may be my favorite set of powers in the entire show. I like how Togashi took a non-combatant in Gatekeeper from Chapter Black (forget his real name) and gave them to a Hunter. Also, the main reason why I like Shoot so much is his flashback that was short and sweet and made me feel for the guy. In fact, it wasn't even a flashback, they just went over how he has been scared during his whole life and how his friends have been urging him to come out of it. Then he has his coming out party against Youpi of all people. I thought that was beautiful. I thought Knuckle was alright but Shoot is my favorite hero from Chimera Ants.

I hope Hisoka's past isn't like Werefin's and Meruem when they were human. Quite a few characters in this show have been abused as kids. I was going to group in Razer and Binolt (scissor dude from Greed Island. I only remember his name because his music on youtube rocks) but I seriously doubt he wasn't at least an outcast as a kid. I forget if those two were also physically abused. Anyway, my only reason for wanting it to not be like that is I want his to be different.

Edit:
I didn't really care for Pitou going from psycho torturer to caring protector of an innocent. The how, I mean. She literally went from never blinking to crying when she saw Meruem hold Komugi. Then her features started softening up out of nowhere. I do like how she changed based off of interactions with Gon, it's just I thought her initial jump between being two different characters had no good setup. She's also my least favorite Ant out of the Royal Guards and The King and the only one I'm not a fan of. I wouldn't be surprised if she was at least the favorite Royal Guard for most fans. She got the most screen time and fans tend to like psycho characters like that, I think.

I also suspect that Feitan's Pain Packer ability was developed from child abuse but I'm guessing I'm just asking to have a spoiler mentioned so I won't go into that.

Some nice animation this week, and it was great to finally see some daylight again. Just like the last episode, it was another touching one.

It was nice to see some characters that we hadn't seen in a long time. If you remember the beginning of the arc from over a year ago, then it was nice to see Reina finally return to her mother. Most of the surviving Chimera Ants will be officially classified as Magical Beasts and will be allowed to pursue their own goals now that they are no longer concerned with the King or his Royal Guards.

Then we get to see Colt, who we also haven't seen in a long time (and if you don't remember, he's the Chimera Ant incarnation of Reina's brother). More satisfying is that the last Chimera Ant baby that the Queen had who Colt vowed to protect, turned out to be Kite's incarnation. Granted that, it's strange since Kite's body was turned into a puppet, so it would seem that the Queen didn't eat him, but maybe they gave her some of his organs or something along those lines, and left his outer-body in-tact.

Gon is still in critical condition, and it looks like Killua has a desperate plan to save him. We'll find out more about that soon.

but, of course, the true highlight of this episode for me was the gathering of the 12 Zodiacs at the end. They'll be carrying out the election process for the new Chairman of the Hunter Association. And yes, Ging has finally stepped onto the stage. No more dicking around, Gon's dad will finally be a part of the main plot. I love how Togashi gave him a look reminiscent of Yusuke Urameshi, as a sort of homage to Yu Yu Hakusho.

Oh, and if all of that wasn't awesome enough, even good old Hisoka will be returning in the next episode. Seeing such familiar faces after such a long absence makes me realize just how much I've missed these characters.

Huh, I wasn't expecting them to change the opening or ending animation since the series is almost done, but I'm happy that they did. I appreciated the ending especially, if only for the fact it shows the main 4 together, which is a nice thing for the final ending theme of this anime to have (even though it's a bit misleading, since Kurapika will barely appear for 30 seconds before this show ends unless they add filler scenes with him or something).

I felt like more should've happened in this episode, but I was still thoroughly entertained, and it helps that Ging and Pariston are so much fun to watch. Next week's episode should be great, though, since in addition to the Alluka stuff it should also have Leorio's return scene (at least, I think it should).

I can't stop rewatching the new OP.
So happy to see Alluka finally animated.

I thought "OH MY FUCKING GOD" when I saw Ging at the end of episode 136. My heart is still hurting from that surprise.

Just finished episode 137. Dammit, why did I watch the OP? I would preferred half of what I saw to be a surprise. I had a nerdgasm either way.

Ah, so that's the Pariston Hill I've heard a little bit about?

I loved seeing the Hunters from past seasons. Surprised to hear that Illumi is stronger than a few Zodiacs. Probably thanks to Gon vs Illumi in 1999.

Hmm, I wonder why Illumi wants to kill Feitan. Can't see that turning out well for him. Also, lmao at Hisoka being oblivious to the events of Chimera Ants and him saying Illumi should be his manager.

So, just to remind everyone, Togashi is a huge fan of the occult. You can definitely see that in this episode given the flash-back scene with Alluka. She is as adorable as she is creepy as hell. Clearly Killua is willing to take the risk of using her ability to help save Gon, but going by the rules of her ability, it will have to come at a tremendous cost to someone else, unless they just lock her up again, but I doubt that Killua will allow her to be treated like a prisoner any longer.

Meanwhile, the Chairman Election still isn't reaching its minimum turnout percentage, so Pariston is cleverly attempting to work it in his favor by suggesting additional stipulations to increase the turnout, which it just so happens can also potentially work to his advantage. I love the underhanded politics between the Zodiacs to claim the now vacant title of Chairman of the Hunter Association. It's just a ton of clever scheming between multiple members, which is always entertaining.

Doubt? But you already know.  :D

I thought this episode was going to cover up to Leorio's return, for some reason, but I forgot that is a few chapters away. If the next episode only covers two chapters it will for sure happen in episode 140. I actually forgot how short this arc is. There's only 17 chapters left to adapt, which will only make for 9 more episodes at most unless they adapt only one per episode at some point, which I doubt they'll do. It's going to be a fun few weeks, though.

Quote from: Cartoon X on July 15, 2014, 03:37:36 PM
Doubt? But you already know.  :D

I'm speaking as if I haven't read the manga so as to not spoil anything for anime-only watchers.

I can't think of another show where I wish the episodes were longer just because I'm so immersed in it. I keep on checking the time hoping it won't end and I hate seeing the halfway points come up.

As if Killua wasn't already bad-ass enough, he defiantly outsmarts his entire family and forces his father (a proven bad-ass in his own rite) to submit to his demands (it's for reasons like this that he's one of my favorite characters in any shounen manga/anime). It's hilarious to see his mother praise him for threatening his life, which is a nice call-back to Killua's story arc much earlier in the series. I mean, of course her logic is twisted enough to be proud of him for something like that. :P

The exchange between Hisoka and Illumi was also nice, and it was really funny to see Hisoka, of all people, comment on how twisted Illumi was to think that he was the person that Killua cared about the most (or so he wishes, as his caring but completely psychotic older brother).

In the next episode we'll also get to see the long awaited return of Leorio! This arc is already escalating and getting more exciting, and that's a big feat when it's coming hot of the heels of the an epic scale arc like the Chimera Ant arc. They really got the pacing back in order this time around.

Oh man, that was fucking confusing. The episode was just as interesting though.

Ha! Leorio is such an awesome character, and if you needed a reminder, this episode is it. His long awaited return does not disappoint. He shows off his new Nen ability and punches Ging square in the jaw (who, may I remind you, is a legendary Hunter among the association), and as a mockery of modern society, the video will go viral, thus making Leorio insanely popular because everyone thinks of Ging as kind of a jerk (which, to be fair, he totally is). It was also great to see Kurapkia for all of 2 seconds, even if he didn't have any dialogue. And of course if was nice to have all of those cameos of characters that Gon had met in the past (bonus points to anyone who can actually remember all of their names, besides myself, of course). :D

Meanwhile, on Killua's end of the plot, they have to discreetly deliver Alluka to Gon in order to heal him, which may seem simple enough, but since this is HXH, they will of course run into major trouble in the next episode, and as the title pretty much gives away, it'll be Hisoka who's behind that trouble (along with Illumi, who clearly doesn't want Gon to be rescued by Killua).

Yeah, I knew that scene was going to be even more awesome animated.  ;D

I was surprised that they showed that scene with Kurapika here early, but it was a good change. I also just love all the extra touches the anime has been making to some scenes, like Biscuit yelling at Gon through and Hanzo pounding the glass and stuff.

Leorio coming back in this episode made me realize just how much I missed the guy. I think it's great that the current arc is focusing on him and Kurapika (plus Ging and Pariston), and not Gon and Killua, for a change, at least so far.

Who knows? Perhaps Togashi will flat-out not use either Gon or Killua in this arc, and just focus on the duo of Leorio and Kurapika instead, with Ging and Pariston as a parallel to them. Yes, I know that Gon is the "main character," but until further notice he really has no business going to the Dark Continent, and it wouldn't be the first time that Togashi has defied convention. Of course, we still may see Gon doing his own thing in a side story/sub-plot just like in the York New City arc, while the main conflict focuses on other characters, which would be a style of story-telling that Togashi has already used before in this series. One of the great things about HXH is that it's just that unpredictable. Were this any other shounen manga, having Gin written into the main conflict would be guaranteed. In this series, though, I have no idea what Togashi has in store for him and the other characters, but I can't wait to find out.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the main character sitting out an arc. To be honest, in Yu Yu Hakusho, I actually wanted some sort of arc in the real world starring Kuwabara while the other the three were in the demon world. I think it would have worked really well. Of course, Togashi completely lost it by that point in the manga, but still. It would have been cool to see.

So, I have no problems if Gon and Killua sit out on this one. These characters more than deserve the focus.

So...Hunter X Hunter (2011) is on Netflix now. The first 100 episodes are currently available for legal streaming.

...

HOLY SHIT HOW? This is awesome news, but who's responsible for putting this on there? Could this mean someone has the license now? Hmm...

Well either Funi finally licensed it or Netflix got them directly from VAP.

I'm thinking the latter because of Sidonia.

As cool as that news is, I dont really anticipate it increasing viewership, seeing as how more than just the first 100 episodes are already available on CR without the need for a subscription fee. Also, I doubt the anime was licensed for official release, seeing as how I've heard no announcements on the matter so far, and since it's a popular enough show, announcing a license for it would kind of be a big deal.

If anything this is an admission that Viz is no longer in the running for the rights since they're entrenched in the Hulu camp.

Hey, cool! I may take this chance to catch what I haven't seen yet.

Quote from: Avaitor on August 03, 2014, 09:46:09 PM
Hey, cool! I may take this chance to catch what I haven't seen yet.

Its a better show to marathon then to take in weekly spurts. The plot does drag frequently especially early on and this is the no-filler version!

Quote from: Lord Dalek on August 03, 2014, 11:15:46 PM

Quote from: Avaitor on August 03, 2014, 09:46:09 PM
Hey, cool! I may take this chance to catch what I haven't seen yet.

Its a better show to marathon then to take in weekly spurts. The plot does drag frequently especially early on and this is the no-filler version!

Yeah, that's fair. I watched about the first 20 or so episodes, then lost track and fell out. I'll try to look up recaps and- ugh- go back on MAL briefly to find out where I stopped.

Quote from: Lord Dalek on August 03, 2014, 11:15:46 PM

Quote from: Avaitor on August 03, 2014, 09:46:09 PM
Hey, cool! I may take this chance to catch what I haven't seen yet.

Its a better show to marathon then to take in weekly spurts. The plot does drag frequently especially early on and this is the no-filler version!

Avaitor has already watched the 1999 anime (or at least part of it), so I don't think that it'll be a problem for him.

I don't have a problem with the pacing until the Chimera Ant arc, which only covers about 2 chapters per episode. I think that was a mistake, and with the heavy exposition in the dialogue, I think it made for a better read than a watch, with a few key episodes being the exception.

Trust Togashi to take a joke scene from one chapter and then make it part of the actual plot. Leorio getting the 3rd most votes in the election just because of a viral video of him decking Ging is both absurd and hilarious. Of course he doesn't really stand a chance against the top 2 contenders, but tis still very amusing all the same.

Meanwhile on Killua's side of the plot, he's gotten separated from the rest of the butlers and has to protect Alluka from Illumi. And Hisoka and Gotoh are about to throw down. All I can say is that this....won't be pretty. But, what else could you expect from Hunter X Hunter at this point?

It's available on Netflix here. But since I've already seen it...

I hope more series escape from Viz's grip so folks up north can actually watch them. Less Hulu, more Netflix.

Well, you've seen the 1999 anime. There is also this anime's adaptation of the Chimera Ant arc, which was never previously animated before.

Do you happen to know what episode it starts at? I'll put it in my list to watch later.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 05, 2014, 03:48:53 PM
Do you happen to know what episode it starts at? I'll put it in my list to watch later.

The Chimera Ant arc starts at episode 76.

Episode 140: It was good seeing Leorio, Gotoh, Canary and Kurapika again. Leorio decking Ging was hilarious. Also, he's reminding me of Knuckle.
Episode 141: Starting the arc, I had no clue Killua would have such an important role in it because I just assumed the main characters would take a backseat to the election, if that even makes sense. I always love seeing Godspeed. Also, I thought it was possible that we wouldn't see another Hisoka fight. I went, "Ah man." when it got cut off at the end. This show is too addictive.

I still say that Togashi is by far the best "contemporary" shounen mangaka that I know of. Yu Yu Hakusho is a more traditional series in its formula, but a proven classic of the genre that helped to set a lot of the trends that many future shounen series would follow. Level E is a fun and short anthology series, and one of the most unique comedies ever (I personally prefer it to Space Dandy as a show, in general, TBH), and Hunter X Hunter is a unique battle shounen manga that puts a lot more emphasis on wits and characterization than just straight up action or gags. It is definitely a flawed series, and I would never pretend that it's perfect; I also kind of feel that it's lacking in the heart that a series like YYH had, as sometimes Togashi gets too wrapped up in technical details and forgoes any good emotional scenes for a long while. Yet, even so, it still has good enough writing and an intriguing enough plot with most story arcs to put most other currently running shounen manga to shame, IMO.

It's true that the anime adaptations of Togashi's work are always better than his actual manga, but I attribute that to his talent to write really good concepts and ideas, and execute them well enough while leaving them with enough substance to them for any good anime staff to expand upon in ways that make his stories and characters even more interesting, and truth be told, despite it's really rushed and crappy final arc, I will still re-read the YYH manga to this day. Never let it be said that Togashi isn't a damn fine writer when he's on his A-game.

once i think about it, i haven't seen hisoka fight since he fought gon at heaven's arena in 1999. he had no real fights in yorknew and i don't think the dodgeball game counts.

Farewell, Gotoh. In the manga, he has his head cut clean off, but in the anime they leave it in-tact, which oddly enough still seems more violent in this version if only because Togashi's crappy artwork makes the violence come off as more cartoony in the manga. But, yeah, in case you've forgotten by his incredibly hilarious yet perverse behavior, Hisoka is still a deadly cold-blooded killer.

Meanwhile, Killua managed to slip away from his Butlers thanks to Canary's help, and is on his way to Gon via airship, but Illumi won't make it easy for him with a mini-army of Needlemen coming his way. And he takes precautions to send Hisoka to deal with the Anti-Chairman Association to prevent them from meddling in his affairs. A seemingly simple arc has already gotten this intense. That's Hunter X Hunter for you. :sweat:

The Hunter X Hunter anime has been confirmed to end in six episodes. (http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/08/16/hunter-x-hunter-anime-production-wraps-up)

Yeah, I read that earlier today, and honestly, is anybody the least bit surprised? If Togashi had gotten off his ass a year or 2 ago and actually did his job, we'd probably be done with the DC arc by now, but instead it's barely even started yet, so the anime will have to end for now. If he can somehow finish the arc before taking another hiatus, we could see an adaptation of that as well, but you all know that it's only inevitable that he takes his next break whenever the fuck he wants, which will be well before the end of this arc.

Still, seeing the CA and CE arcs animated was still really nice. I still prefer the 1999 version of the anime, though, including the first OVA series (the Greed Island one sucked, though).

It was obvious that the anime was ending after the Chairman Election arc. But I was wondering what episode number they'd leave off on and when exactly it would end, and so I'm satisfied to finally know that. Makes sense, since the series will end just before the fall season. Now I'm sure the upcoming Parasyte anime will be taking it's timeslot.

Eh not unexpected. At least the Chariman Election arc does leave a certain degree of finality to it (even though we all know HxH will be back in a couple years).

Quote from: Lord Dalek on August 17, 2014, 10:05:04 AM
Eh not unexpected. At least the Chariman Election arc does leave a certain degree of finality to it (even though we all know HxH will be back in a couple years).

Or Desensitized's theory of having another reboot in 10 hears will come true. Quite frankly, at Togashi's pace, that's more likely. :P

So, Killua had a powerful emotional moment, Illumi utilizes an army of "zombie-like" Needle Men, and Hisoka assassinates an entire committee within the Hunter Association. All in all it's pretty standard-fair stuff for this series by this point. :sweat:

I really so love that Killua finally got to stick it to his brother and one-up him in the end. If you remember way back to the Hunter Exams arc, his brother had so much influence over him and forced him to return home. Later in the Chimera Ant arc, he realized that Illumi had planted a needle in him from way back, continuing to influence his thoughts, and indirectly his actions. Now, for once, he finally manages to defy Illumi as he stands right in front of him, and the reaction on Illumi's face when he realizes that he doesn't have Alluka completely figured out after all is priceless.

Also, watching a relatively good episode like this makes me kind of sad that we only have 5 episodes of the show yet, but I'll be sure to enjoy each of them as much as possible.

I love how they didn't transition to the ending theme in this episode. Just letting what Hisoka did to Terradein sink in while announcing the latest Election results. Though, I suppose it would have been funny if they did play the "do do do" over that scene as well.  :D

This week the election reaches its final stages. We'll see who wins soon enough.

It's kind of hard to believe that there are only 4 more episodes left, but it's true. Those last 4 episodes will be a pretty big deal or any fans, though. Something pretty major is bound to happen, after all.

I finished episode 142.

Spoiler

Poor Gotoh

[close]

Starting episode 143 now.

So, yeah, Gon is healed (albeit he still has no access to his Nen), and as if that wasn't good enough, he's finally going to meet his father, the thing that was his very goal from the first episode of the series. It really makes you realize how many long-running shounen series never really have the main character meet their goals like that, but it's sure to be an emotional moment for Gon.

Also, there are only 3 episodes left, now.

I..did not think I'd be that happy to see Gon come back. Maybe it was also the fact that I didn't think he'd be healed that fast once they got Alluka in the building, plus even after Morel showed up and didn't think he'd actually appear in this episode. And Leorio's reaction made me like him that much more.

I meant to post about the last episode, but suffice it to say that it was excellently handled, with so many stand-out scenes. Such high emotional points are not often pulled off so well in shounen anime.

As for this episode, I adored that ending montage between Gon and Killua as they officially part ways. It really is very bittersweet. I mean, they've been best friends throughout the entire series since the Hunter Exams arc. It really just reminds you of how much they've been through together. Still, I prefer the ending montage from the first anime series for covering the exploits of the entire group, including Kurapika and Leorio as well, but since they weren't a factor in the Chimera Ant arc, I can see why they just stuck to Gon and Killua in this anime. Man, even though the story isn't done, and even though I've had my issues with this anime, I'm still going to miss it when it ends next week. I'll need to find something new to keep up with in its place.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on September 16, 2014, 08:12:34 PM
I'll need to find something new to keep up with in its place.

PARASYTE.

The last episode was really well done. Like the corresponding chapters it adapted from the manga, it really felt like a perfect capper to the series proper. I particularly loved the montage at the beginning, where Gon is reflecting on his adventures and everyone who affected him during his journey, and then the ending, which shows off all the major protagonists of the series and where they are now, with the chaos of the Chimera Ant crises behind them and new adventures on the horizon. Of course, we know that there's still more to come down the pipe sometime in the indeterminate future, but I honestly think this works as a definitive and satisfying conclusion should another anime never be made. The 2011 anime might have had it's missteps, but it was still by far the best shonen anime, particularly the best long-running shonen anime, for the past few years, and I'll certainly miss watching it every week.

Well, even though it's not truly the end, I will miss watching this anime every week. The montage really did a great job of showcasing just how many unforgettable adventures these characters have been on, and it was really nice to see all of our favorite characters from this anime one final time as the full version of Departure played over a montage that required absolutely no dialogue.

I'll be honest and say that I don't quite agree with the people who say this is better than the 1999 version, at least not up until after the YNC arc, primarily because I actually admire the direction of that series and how it actually made some notable differences from the manga which I personally felt helped flesh out the characters and certain scenes some more. Much like the YYH anime, I found the filler to be more thoughtful and enhance the main story rather than detract from it, but it's a shame that nobody else really sees it that way. While I liked 2011 just fine, this one was considerably more safe and a carbon copy of the manga, which left absolutely no surprises or treats for me since I already knew everything that would happen. That, and I already explained how I felt that the second half of the Chimera Ant arc didn't translate well into the anime medium, primarily because extensive narration works far better in reading form than in motion form where you would expect more of a "show, don't tell" approach.

Putting my gripes aside, though, I still really enjoyed this anime, and overall I don't think there's any version of HXH that I consider to be bad or even close to it. I love the first anime, this reboot, and the original manga. It's just a shame that the manga is on hiatus AGAIN! We probably won't get a new anime for another 10 years, at this rate. However, like I said previously, the end of the CE arc was a really good ending spot to leave off on. We get a definitive wrap-up to the events of the CA arc, and Gon finally meets his father. I really enjoyed the scene where they conversed and Gon was telling Ging about all of his adventures. Overall, the anime ended on a really high note, IMO.

I almost forgot, but there is still that second movie that I need to watch. I doubt that it'll be good, as I didn't really care for the first movie, but it's still HXH, so I'll probably still eventually check it out.

I've heard the second movie is pretty awful, myself, so be warned.

Yeah, I'm not expecting anything good, but I still feel compelled to watch it just for the sake of being able to say that I've seen everything HXH-related.

Anyways, now that the anime is done, I'm really hoping that someone picks up the NA distribution license, most preferably FUNimation. Granted that, Viz may also be a candidate to pick it up, but I'm still thinking that they may cautiously pass on it since the 1999 anime sold so poorly for them (even though that was largely their own fault thanks to virtually no marketing and a godawful English dub).

You have to admit that this would be a perfect Toonami anime, and it IS definitely popular enough among Western anime fans this time around thanks to the streaming on CR and Netflix, so I don't see any excuse as to why it shouldn't be a strong candidate for licensure.

(https://scontent-a-mxp.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t31.0-8/1263910_10204060596267679_4636412966710923073_o.jpg)

 :sly:

Shame that it has to be such a scummy character based on Yusuke, though.  ;)

To be fair, you could call it an homage to Yusuke in the beginning of YYH, where he may have been the punk with a heart of gold, but he was still mostly a punk when it didn't come to saving a little kid's life. :sly:

I watched episode 146 yesterday on a flat screen tv. I was surprised that Gon apologized for what happened to Kite..instead of hitting Ging. That seems to be the usual reaction to meeting a deadbeat dad but that shows how Gon is different from others.

Quote from: gunswordfist on October 13, 2014, 03:45:46 PM
I watched episode 146 yesterday on a flat screen tv. I was surprised that Gon apologized for what happened to Kite..instead of hitting Ging. That seems to be the usual reaction to meeting a deadbeat dad but that shows how Gon is different from others.

I got over Gon not hitting Ging, since someone else hit him instead.

And it was an awesome moment.

Just finished 147. So that's Killua send off, huh? That wasn't so bad. I loved the credits. And I'm guessing the last episode is where Gon hears about Don Freecs.

is phantom rouge good?

No. Both movies suck, IMO. Most movies based off of long-running shonen series tend to just feel like over-sized fillerepisodes. The animation is kind of nice, but that's about it. Overall, they just aren't worth your time.

i suspected as much. i only asked about rouge because you said it was based on an early draft or something of hxh.

Supposedly it's based on an early manuscript that Togashi had originally submitted for the York New City arc, which he ended up scrapping in favor of the arc that we got. Based on the actual movie....I think I can see why he scrapped it (though, in actuality, much of the content was probably re-worked for the film by other writers).

I'm about to watch the finale episode of Hunter X Hunter.

Just finished the last episode... :'( That really was great.

1999 Vs. 2011 arcs

1999                       2011
Hunter Exam = Hunter Exam - Hmmm, it's been a little while so I can't give too fair of an assessment as I want to. Anyway, 2011 Hunter Exam is what made me fall in love with the franchise. Because of that great start, 2011 is the most immersive series I've ever watched since I marathoned Simpsons DVDs 10 years ago. 1999's filler was a double edged sword. It had its strengths (Leorio's friend, the Hunter candidates working together, Killua's dark nature explored) but on the other hand, it was clear that it was filler and even the illusion tree or whatever went on too long.

1999                     2011
Killua Retrieval=Killua Retrieval

This really comes down to both versions of Canary's memories being just as fascinating to me personally. From what I remember, all the other parts were just as good and being mostly the same from what I remembered, with 1999 being a bit longer but not adding too much (seriously, the Zoldyck dog should have insta-killed Gon so that part didn't add anything)

1999                   2011
Heaven's Arena<Heaven's Arena

2011 wins by a sliver in just my opinion. In 1999, I liked how well they handled how much Killua using his assassination skills on the handicapped Nen users without just killing them weighed down on him. Iirc, Killua said that Gon would have been upset if he killed those guys and this was him trying to change for their friendship even though just murdering them would have been so much easier for him. Funny enough, the main edge that makes me like 2011 Heaven's Arena more is how they handled that part. Killua scaring the crap out of them was a lot funnier and probably one of my top 5 favorite HXH moments in 2011, imo. I also like how they actually animated Hisoka fight with Rando or whatever the hell that guy was called.

1999                2011
York New>>>>York New
Aaaannnndddd this is why 1999 is still better than 2011. Key things like me actually caring about Paku (seriously, I didn't give a shit when she died in 2011), me noticing Franky's existence, how much sadder is was for the dog guy to die due to seeing his pets watching his body get carried away, how much more of an emotional impact Kurapika Vs. Uvogin had on Kurapika, I could just go on and on. Hmm, this reminds me how highly I think of the arc.

I definitely agree that 1999 is better. Also, check out this article for why the Hunter Exams arc is better in the '99 version as well: https://twolongfourtwitlonger.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/hxh-99-hxh-2011-btw/

I'll check it out. :)

Just thinking about how said it is that HXH is over. While flawed, it showed how good a shounen series can be. *sighs*

Now you can finally join the rest of us in complaining about how lazy Togashi is despite being the best modern battle shonen mangaka ever. :sly:

And I suffer with the rest of you and try to keep up with the manga.

I didn't really know which thread to rant about this in, but I figured this one made as much sense as any. Anyways, I just watched WatchMojo's Top 10 Anime Deaths list which came out today. Now, WatchMojo's lists are, in general, very poorly and arbitrarily made, which makes sense considering it's voter-based. With most subject, though, they at least put understandable picks in them. Their anime lists, however, are mind-boggling to me in how random and downright awful some of their choices are. Take for instance this list. There are some choices that I thought were good, like Franz and L, and others I accepted because they are popular, like Mami and the School Days kid. But at #1 was a Hunter X Hunter character. Now, I'm not sure if my personal favorite death scene in anime/manga would be from HXH, but there are a lot of great deaths in Hunter X Hunter that would be worthy contenders for a list like this. Uvogin, Pakunoda, Kite, Meruem & Komugi, etc. A lot of really poignant and powerful death scenes to choose from there. So guess who, out of all the characters who died in the series, made their list?

Ponzu. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVVUJGYCLTA)

No, seriously, the WatchMojo voters voted Ponzu as the #1 anime death of all time. Out of all the deaths in the series, Ponzu's was considered by the WatchMojo people as the best death in not only Hunter X Hunter, but in all of anime.

What the fuck? What the actual fuck? How does something like this even happen? I would think maybe it's a troll choice, but the rest of the list had understandable if not decent choices, so probably not. Is there really a big portion of the HXH fanbase that for some reason thinks Ponzu had the best death in the series? Really? People really felt more at her death than Pakunoda or Kite or Meruem? A fucking minor character who had like zero personality and whose only notable moment in the series was in the fact her death was kind of unpleasant (and stupid and unnecessary)? And they thought it was better than L's death from Death Note, Mami's death from Madoka, and way better than stuff that didn't even make the list proper like Ace from One Piece or Hughes from FMA, and a ton of other better deserving characters that didn't even make the honorable mentions like they did? I just...I do not understand this at all. It's absolutely baffling to me. This isn't even the worst anime list WatchMojo has made, I'd say the fucking Top 10 Anime Couples list takes that cake, but holy shit, that one, random as fuck choice puts it pretty close up there.

First of all, I just want to say that I can't stand sites like Watch Mojo. They do nothing more than make glorified articles/videos (mostly these lists) that are based primarily on popularity from their userbase, and there is not an ounce of credibility or even passion that goes into them. It's just an easy pay-check to these people without any creativity or effort.

You can tell that the writers of these lists have barely even watched any anime that are on there, constantly spewing out inaccuracies and blatantly ignorant statements that any casual fan could call BS on. So in that regard, it doesn't surprise me that they would rank something as stupid as Ponzu's death as number one and pretend like it's actually a big deal, because they honestly haven't even watched HXH and don't know what a minor and irrelevant character she was, or how her death is nothing more than shock value.

It's more surprising that this death would even be remembered by anyone. As CX pointed out, aside from being a poorly done death scene, there are tons of better options within the series, from more important and meaningful characters. Even then, as a huge HXH fan, nothing from this series would be even close to my favorite anine death of all time (maybe lower top 10 at best).

This list is just another reason of why click-bait sites/channels like WM need to be wiped off the Internet. They get a ton of money in ad revenue and millions of views per video without actually earning any of it, yet there are sites and channels run by far more dedicated and hard-working people who can barely even get a tenth of that amount of views per article/video.

The death scene did a good job of setting the ton for the arc to me but yeah, it should not even be in the top 100. Did Wolfwood make the list? I believe that's the death that effected me the most, once I think about it.

Quote from: gunswordfist on August 23, 2015, 10:12:14 PM
Did Wolfwood make the list? I believe that's the death that effected me the most, once I think about it.

Nope. He didn't even make their honorable mentions.

Oh, and just to point out how lazy and unoriginal WM is, this isn't even the first anime deaths list that they've made! They already did one less than a year ago!

 :whuh:

Quote from: Cartoon X on August 23, 2015, 10:14:14 PM

Quote from: gunswordfist on August 23, 2015, 10:12:14 PM
Did Wolfwood make the list? I believe that's the death that effected me the most, once I think about it.

Nope. He didn't even make their honorable mentions.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on August 23, 2015, 10:15:23 PM
Oh, and just to point out how lazy and unoriginal WM is, this isn't even the first anime deaths list that they've made! They already did one less than a year ago!

Oh god, you're right! I totally forgot about that!  :wth:

Holy shit, WatchMojo really is scraping the barrel for ideas at this point. Though I guess that's to be expected when you blow your load churning out like a dozen fucking videos every day.

I literally shouted out loud "HOLY SHIT!" when I saw this news.

Viz has licensed Hunter X Hunter (2011) and will be releasing it on blu-ray and giving it an english dub. (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-10-09/viz-media-adds-2011-hunter-x-hunter-anime/.93993)

I'm so happy and hyped. This has been a long time coming, and I'm glad it finally has.

HOLY SHIT YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake: :shakeshakeshake:

Awesome. I hope the English dub is great. ;D

They sure took their time.

I'm a tad skeptical about the quality of the dub given how bad of a job they did with the old anime (I was sort of hoping for FUNimation to license this), but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they will take this property more seriously this time around. After the 1999 anime sold so poorly for them, they wouldn't have snagged this reboot up unless they saw a lot of potential in it, and its massive popularity on CR certainly must have helped with that.

I'd love for this to air on Toonami, as well.

Viz doesn't work with Blue Water anymore. This will be getting a Bang Zoom or Studiopolis dub. And if you've seen any Viz dub they've done in the past five years, there's definitely nothing to worry about. They know this is a big property with a lot of potential for them (especially in a time with so few long-running shonen hits, and with them finally through with releasing Bleach), so they'll do the best job possible on it.

And yeah, this should be a shoe-in for Toonami next year as well.

I'd want cable back just to get in on the Toonami Hunter X Hunter hype.

I doubt it, they only have two timeslots remaining (not counting the 2:30 AM rerun slot which is a death sentence anyway) and its highly unlikely that DeMarco wants to waste one on yet another 150 episode shonen whose ratings are pretty much going to crash and burn in the first ten weeks.

You can keep dreaming your weeaboo fantasies but realistically its not gonna happen unless either Shippuden or One Piece get pulled and that ain't gonna happen.

Has Bleach still been pulling in good ratings on Toonami? Is it even still on Toonami (I honestly haven't kept up with TV this year)? If the answer to both is yes, then I'd be surprised. But I'd find it hard to believe that there isn't something with weak ratings on the channel that could afford to be replaced.

Quote from: Lord Dalek on October 09, 2015, 02:04:31 PM
You can keep dreaming your weeaboo fantasies

How exactly is it a "weaboo" fantasy if one is excited about the prospect of an "English" dub airing on an "American" channel? :sly:

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on October 09, 2015, 02:18:41 PM
Has Bleach still been pulling in good ratings on Toonami? Is it even still on Toonami (I honestly haven't kept up with TV this year)? If the answer to both is yes, then I'd be surprised. But I'd find it hard to believe that there isn't something with weak ratings on the channel that could afford to be replaced.

It hasn't aired since, like, February, and probably never will again.

DeMarco has said time and again that he doesn't think OP and NS's ratings are bad, and the network doesn't think so either, at least not enough to gut them. It might be an issue of money that prevents them from getting HXH next year, but as far as getting timeslots go, the block can reclaim 11:30 and put Kai there to make room for it. It's their highest performing show ever and has done better than in it's timeslot than Attack on Titan ever did during it's run at 11:30, so it'd hardly be unjustifiable.

Also, if DeMarco likes a show, he'll try to put it on and keep it on the block anyway. That's why One Piece and Naruto Shippuden are on the block; they might have had fan demand, but OP is actually one of DeMarco's favorite anime and he likes Naruto and actively wanted Shippuden on the block to begin with. So I certainly don't think he has any pessimism or disinterest in airing more running long-running shonen series, and he's said before they'd look into getting HXH once it got licensed. I doubt a lack on interest on his part is going to factor in how and when the series gets on the block.

Long running shonen anime on Toonami?

Talk about a pipe dream. When has that ever happened? We all know that's not what Toonami was known for.

Considering that DeMarco still gets a lot of requests to bring back Yu Yu Hakusho, I'm sure he'll be interested in airing another Togashi series, and Viz will probably be pushing Toonami to pick it up.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on October 09, 2015, 03:17:39 PM
Long running shonen anime on Toonami?

Talk about a pipe dream. When has that ever happened? We all know that's not what Toonami was known for.

Spoiler

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F25.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_m3rtyerfHZ1qir45xo1_500.gif&hash=d30956205f53bd06a37a948fb7da51d0ecda09f4)

[close]

Viz has started announcing the cast for the HxH 2011 dub. (http://www.fandompost.com/2016/03/19/hunter-x-hunter-anime-dub-cast-revealed/)

Quote
Erica Mendez as Gon Freecss
Cristina Vee as Killua Zoldyck
Matt Mercer as Leorio
Keith Silverstein as Hisoka

Still no reason this will ever air on tv. Toonami just doesn't have a time slot to give.

At this point, I'm just happy that it's licensed and has a dub.  Being on Toonami would just be a bonus.

I'm really out of the loop when it comes to modern English dubs. I'm not familiar with any of these VAs.

I also find it strange that of the initial four characters that they have announced, Hisoka is among them while Kurapika is notably absent.

Yeah, it's strange that they didn't announce Kurapika's VA, especially since the brief dub clip shown DID have him speak.

Overall, the cast is looking good so far.  Matt Mercer and Keith Silverstein are nice choices for Leorio and Hisoka, and Erica Mendez did a pretty good job as Aladdin in Magi so I think she'll be able to pull off Gon fine.  I'm interested to hear what Killua sounds like since I'm not aware of any child male characters that Cristina Vee has done in the past.

I can understand Gon being played by a woman but not Killua. Just my two cents.

Killua is played by women in both the 1999 and 2011 anime, so you're pretty much proven wrong there.

Kurapika is being voiced by Erika Harlacher. (https://twitter.com/NebsTV/status/711598044651909122)

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 20, 2016, 08:08:06 AM
Killua is played by women in both the 1999 and 2011 anime, so you're pretty much proven wrong there.

How's my opinion proven wrong?

Because there are already two versions of Killua played by women that are objectively, factually great. :>

Hunter x Hunter (2011) is coming to Toonami on April 16th! (http://toonamifaithful.com/hunter-x-hunter-debuts-on-toonami-starting-april-16/)  ;D

And they just happened to post this bit of news on today of all days....nice try....:humhumhum:

 :o Wait, in two weeks? That makes it hard to believe. Also, if the new FLCL really going to have 2 seasons?! Hard to believe anything from [as] on today. http://www.adultswim.com/videos/toonami/friday-april-1st-2016/ (http://www.adultswim.com/videos/toonami/friday-april-1st-2016/)

Quote from: gunswordfist on April 01, 2016, 06:49:11 PM:o Wait, in two weeks? That makes it hard to believe. Also, if the new FLCL really going to have 2 seasons?! Hard to believe anything from [as] on today. http://www.adultswim.com/videos/toonami/friday-april-1st-2016/ (http://www.adultswim.com/videos/toonami/friday-april-1st-2016/)

Yes, it's all real. Production I.G. acquired the property (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-08-31/production-i.g-acquires-flcl-rights-for-ventures-such-as-anime-remake/.92335) last August, and Toonami announced last week (https://www.turner.com/pressroom/turner%E2%80%99s-adult-swim-announces-new-seasons-anime-hit-series-flcl) that they're co-producing it.

I know FLCL getting a new season/series was real but hearing about two seasons greenlit on April Fools had me suspicious.

For those interested, the latest episode of the Weekly Shonen Jump podcast features an interview with Erica Mendez, (http://shonenjump.viz.com/blog/posts/sj-podcast-ep-151) who's playing Gon in the Hunter X Hunter (2011) dub.

So far, I'm sold on Gon and Kurapika's voices. But the rest are kind of spotty for now, which is fine for smaller characters early on.

Leorio's voice itself sounds right, but his VA isn't giving it a great performance so far.

I thought all the voices were very well-fitting myself, including Matt Mercer's Leorio, which honestly wasn't far off from the voice I used to imagine him having in my head back when I was first reading through the manga and hadn't watched either anime adaption yet. It was kind of surprising to hear Matt Mercer give such a light-pitched performance, though, especially considering his most notable roles have tended to be deeper voiced characters like Levi in Attack on Titan, Kiritsugu in Fate/Zero, Sinbad in Magi, and Jotaro in the Stardust Crusaders test dub.

But Erika Harlacher's Kurapika is definitely my favorite dub performance so far. She sounds very close to Miyuki Sawashiro's, but it still feels like she's giving her own take on her character all the same. I'll be keen on hearing how she handles his really dramatic parts, especially during York New.

I'm still sad Viz probably won't cough up the extra bucks to fly Justin Cook to LA for some Ging lines.

Erika Harlacher and Erica Mendez's Kurapika and Gon were both solid respectively.  While I was a bit iffy on Matt Mercer's Leorio voice when I initially watched the preview (especially since he usually voices much deeper voice characters), I have a very positive opinion of his performance after watching this premiere.  Overall, I feel that Viz and Bang Zoom have put a lot of effort into this dub and I have confidence that the rest of the castings will be solid (Hisoka already sounds perfect just from the small promo bits that have been shown).

Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on April 17, 2016, 12:40:20 AM
I'm still sad Viz probably won't cough up the extra bucks to fly Justin Cook to LA for some Ging lines.

I'm pretty sure that Justin Cook works exclusively on Funi dubs.

If all else fails, at least we already got perfect voice acting in the sub :>

I missed the Toonami premiere, so I had to wait until the episode was available online in order to watch it. Maybe it's because I had my expectations lowered by Viz's previous (and awful) HXH dub, but I loved the voice-acting in this. Gon, Kurapika, and even Leorio worked for me, personally.

Now to see if the ratings manage to pick up enough to keep the show on air. While I personally disagree with Dalek that York New City is the only good arc (and it's certainly not the only arc that fans love by a long-shot), I do agree that the Hunter Exams arc is initially a hard-sell for most Toonami regulars. I believe that Trick Tower is where your typical shonen action fan would start getting into the series, mostly thanks to Killua Vs. Jones. But that requires sticking with the slower stuff for about 5-8 episodes.

I'm honestly pretty cool with Killua's voice. It isn't perfect by any means, but I can see his VA growing into the role over time.

On the other hand, Hisoka's voice doesn't sound nearly perverted/psychotic enough....but maybe that's for the best in the English dub.

Sorry, I just had to post this:

QuoteMeruem was a disappointing villain. So, he wants to turn the human population into Chimera Ants? Okay, how are you going to manage that, genius? The only known Chimera Ant Queen died giving birth to him. What, are all female Chimera Ants queens? If so, why does he have his female soldiers out on the front lines? The amount of male Chimera Ants drastically outweigh the female, so common sense would dictate that he'd keep the females out of battle if he wants to achieve his goal. His motive didn't make much sense. I don't like the "Genocide Solves Humanity's Atrocities" cliche. What's the logic in that? Wouldn't the mere threat of somebody like Meruem be enough to get humanity to comply with his orders? Not to mention his motive is also pretty cliched. He's a member of a race of powerful being that believes humans should be wiped out so that his race can be the dominant species. Yeah, that hasn't been done a million times before. He ends up being a total Villain Sue. The second he's born, he's already a genius with enormous power, and he survives getting nuked, which makes his death by radiation poisoning a massive cop-out. Finally, we're supposed to see his relationship with Komugi as his redeeming quality, but their relationship is many layers of creepy. For one, Meruem is a cross-breed of many species, and he was only a few weeks old when he met Komugi, so we get a combination of bestiality and pedophilia. Second, despite holding her hostage and threatening to kill her multiple times, she falls in love with him. Yeah, there's a disorder for that. It's called "Stockholm Syndrome." Finally, he makes no effort to make her leave when he contracts radiation poisoning. After one warning, he decides it's okay to play Gungi with her again as they slowly die together. That's not romantic. That's disturbing.

That's actually called "missing the point", but hey, what do I know?

The arc was almost garbage before he even showed up (and took a while for it to get better after that), so there are far worse parts of the Chimera Ant arc than Meruem.

Was that posted by Jacob, by any chance? :>

What's funny is that never once is it even remotely applied that the feelings which Meruem and Komugi have for each other are in any way sexual. It's the poster himself who assumed that, so the only disturbing thing here is his train of thought. I suppose it's too much of a foreign concept to him that love is an emotion that is in and of itself not sexual in nature.

Also, did the poster pay attention to the plot at all? You don't need female Chimera Ants to turn humans into Chmera Ants. Clearly we've seen multiple times in the arc that humans are mutated into Chimera Ants. The ones that were birthed by the queen were pure Chimera Ants. It was never part of Meruem's plan to birth ore of them. It was his plan to select those humans worthy to keep living through the selection process.

Now, don't get me wrong, the Chimera Ant arc is far from perfect and despite the fact that I like it, it has tons of flaws. However, this post addresses absolutely none of them. It's like the person who wrote this post saw something like YMS and wanted to sound smart by criticizing something popular and highlighting how stupid it is, except wasn't actually smart enough to even comprehend how to do something like that and distinguish between what separates a genuine flaw from flat-out not understanding something.

I hate when people assume their relationship was sexual.

How's the ratings?

If you're talking about the Toonami HxH ratings, they've been consistently above 1 million.  Personally, I think it would do even better if they would move it to 12:30, but it seems like Toonami wants to keep that as a rotating premiere slot.  In any case, HxH is not in any danger of going off air in the near future (or ever considering how badly it would need to bomb).

Ha, looks like Hunter Exam is doing just fine.
Thank you.

I'm probably going to be posting some of my random thoughts on HxH in here as I continue to move through it for the first time. I've already posted a bunch in the Toonami thread, so I thought I'd move my upcoming thoughts over to this thread. I haven't watched anymore today because I've been busy and now I'm kind of watching the game. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Chimera Ants arc, partially because of what Dr. Ensatsu-Ken said about Meruem as a character. I'm hopeful I'll enjoy it.

I'll warn you in advance that the arc is a bit lopsided in quality. Most people love the arc so I'm in the minority, but while I do like the arc a lot, I also find quite a few flaws with it.

What ultimately wins me over though is the characters. For a Shonen series, this arc has some of the most interesting character deconstruction that I've seen in the genre. I've already mentioned Meruem, but Gon also gets some much needed development here, and Killua is great as always. Actually, as you may have already noticed, Gon's highly idealistic nature and naivety have already come back to bite him in the ass in this arc. His insistence on tagging along with Kaito cost his life, which is a sense of guilt that will build up and weigh Gon down as the arc progresses. Togashi takes the characters in some interesting and unpredictable directions in this arc, which despite its faults is something that I really enjoy about it.

Did two episodes tonight and I really enjoyed them. It was really cool seeing Killua overcome his brother's influence and then pull out that thing from his head. And then he took care of that annoying Chimera Ant. Good episode for Killua. Oh yeah Palm's nuts. Like really nuts.

I'm also happy that Knuckle and the rest of the Hunters are starting to grow on me. I didn't care for them much at first, but I'm interested to see how they all do against the royal guard. Plus, Gon coming face to face with Kite was well done. Good stuff so far.

Quote from: Dreamer2 on June 21, 2016, 01:37:25 AMDid two episodes tonight and I really enjoyed them. It was really cool seeing Killua overcome his brother's influence and then pull out that thing from his head. And then he took care of that annoying Chimera Ant. Good episode for Killua. Oh yeah Palm's nuts. Like really nuts.

I've always loved that scene, and I find it to be very symbolic of Killua finally breaking free from his family's legacy. Since the beginning, his entire character arc was about choosing his own path in life, despite being raised to be an assassin. Even if he didn't want to be one, he still very much was a Zoldyck in nature. His father may have let him go, but as he said at the end of that arc, Killua is his son and would ultimately realize his true nature. And for a time that was true. While he was off on adventures with Gon, his way of thinking and characteristic nature was still very definitively that of a Zoldyck. In that regard, he wasn't truly free yet. When he finally removes that implant, it not only symbolizes him breaking away from Illumi's grasp, but also that of his entire family. I love character arcs like this, and that's a big reason for why Killua is one of my favorite Shonen protagonists.

QuoteI'm also happy that Knuckle and the rest of the Hunters are starting to grow on me. I didn't care for them much at first, but I'm interested to see how they all do against the royal guard. Plus, Gon coming face to face with Kite was well done. Good stuff so far.

Yeah, the supporting characters of the Chimera Ant arc were really boring during the first third of it, but they really grow into their own after that, and the final battle is so intense because you really come to care about them a lot more by that point. Knuckle in particular has one of the best fights in the series and it's made more intense since you don't know if he's going to make it out of that battle alive or not, seeing as how HXH is not shy about killing off members of its supporting cast (though, sometimes to a fault, admittedly).

And I love how Togashi turns Gon's naive, idealistic nature on its head in this arc. He thought: "Everything will be alright! Kite won'the die!" And now look what happened. Now he's convinced that he can save Kite, but as Knuckle hints at with his comment, Gon may need to face reality sooner or later.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on June 21, 2016, 12:12:01 PM

I've always loved that scene, and I find it to be very symbolic of Killua finally breaking free from his family's legacy. Since the beginning, his entire character arc was about choosing his own path in life, despite being raised to be an assassin. Even if he didn't want to be one, he still very much was a Zoldyck in nature. His father may have let him go, but as he said at the end of that arc, Killua is his son and would ultimately realize his true nature. And for a time that was true. While he was off on adventures with Gon, his way of thinking and characteristic nature was still very definitively that of a Zoldyck. In that regard, he wasn't truly free yet. When he finally removes that implant, it not only symbolizes him breaking away from Illumi's grasp, but also that of his entire family. I love character arcs like this, and that's a big reason for why Killua is one of my favorite Shonen protagonists.

Killua really is awesome. He's been one of my favorites since really early in the show. Especially when they started showing that he was basically the second main character. His interactions with Gon have always been pretty fun. But, they definitely seem to be doing some great stuff with him. I really hope we see more of the Zoldyck family, since I think there's a lot of potential with them.

Well I did get to see Alluka today. Plus some of the other Phantom Troupe members. Too bad they were missing some of my favorites. These two episodes kind of disappointed me a little bit. They weren't terrible, but a little boring. It was cool seeing some of their powers expanded on, but the problem lied with the villains. These Chimera Ants just weren't interesting, including the "Queen". But, I haven't found most of the Chimera Ants to be all that interesting. I'm still hopeful for the main four villains, but I'm not sure how soon they're going to get involved in the action.

That wasn't Alluka with the Chimera Ants. That was Kalluto....who I just realized is also Killua's "brother" who crossdresses as a girl. I kind of forgot about that character, TBH. :sweat:

Alluka isn't introduced until after the Chimera Ant arc. But I guess Alluka isn't that unique after all. Killua's family seems to have a thing for males who are internally females, apparently. :lol:

Guess that's what happens when I don't pay attention to character's names. I'd heard about Alluka, so I just assumed that's who this was. I'll be happy to see more Zoldyck family stuff after this arc.

Episode 116. Wow. That was something.

Gon was crazy in this episode. I mean he didn't even care at all that Komugi was pretty much dying. I know he doesn't know who she is, but still. But, Gon was definitely out of control and I totally felt bad for Killua. But, really really good episode. And I really can't wait to see what happens next for them.

I'm been moving semi quickly through this arc, and I do enjoy it, but it has some issues. Some of these lower level Chimera Ants still don't interest me much. Like the wolf or Cheetu. I'm surprised he's still alive. But, I'm interested in Netero and Meruem's fight and whatever happens between Gon and Pitou.

I'm also happy they didn't kill off Komugi here, I was concerned. Her and Meruem have been one of the best parts of this arc.

Also, happy to see Killua's Grandpa show up. I really like the Zoldyck family.

Quote from: Dreamer2 on June 25, 2016, 09:59:41 PMEpisode 116. Wow. That was something.

Gon was crazy in this episode. I mean he didn't even care at all that Komugi was pretty much dying. I know he doesn't know who she is, but still. But, Gon was definitely out of control and I totally felt bad for Killua. But, really really good episode. And I really can't wait to see what happens next for them.

One thing that I like about Togashi's writing in general is that he's masterful at taking very common shonen tropes, running with them for a while, and them twisting them in unexpected directions. In the previous arcs of this series Gon was certainly a very standard shonen protagonist, but in this case it was completely intentional as Togashi was clearly using him as more of a baseline character to show you how much he contrasted with the other characters in the series, or rather, how much they contrasted with a very "normal" sort of shonen hero. In a sense, what makes Hunter X Hunter rather odd as a series, and different from its contemporaries, is that rather than the story and character development unfolding due to the main character serving as the catalyst to progress forward, as is usually the case, Gon is instead more of a surrogate character who's point of view we experience the story through. However, he himself is rather unimportant to the world which he inhabits in the grand scheme of things. Togashi is clearly more interested in exploring different kinds of genres and themes in this story rather than in seeing Gon reach his goal of meeting his father. That's why that aspect of the story feels like more of an afterthought and takes a back seat to everything else going on. What I really like, though, is that it does feel rather believable for someone as young and inexperienced as Gon to usually play a low-level role to much tougher and far more seasoned characters in the story, so while we do follow him as the main character, his encounters are all the more interesting because you are never sure if he will win a particular scenario or not. When the story doesn't absolutely hinge on the main character prevailing in any given instance, the outcome becomes much less predictable, and that's what I admire about what Togashi has done with Gon.

However, in this arc he clearly got bored with Gon being a static protagonist, so he did finally decide to develop him a little bit. What makes this particular character arc so fascinating, though, is that Togashi essentially punishes Gon for his naive an idealistic personality leading to this point in the story. Up until the Chimera Ant arc, Gon managed to get by on his wit and talent, but also relied heavily on having powerful friends and allies to help him out along the way. They were certainly pitted against overwhelming odds at times, but often more times than not a combination of strategy with a surprising amount of luck managed to see Gon and his friends out safely of each major encounter (or at least with their lives intact). However, if the previous enemies which they faced could be equated to something along the lines of charging in against a well-armed militia with a disadvantaged group carrying less sophisticated weaponry, facing the Chimera Ants so unprepared would be like doing that same thing except now the militia also has nuclear warheads at their disposal. The point being that Gon seemed to believe that everything would be OK and work out like normal, but instead he has been smacked in the face with a heavy dose of reality. Kite is dead, and they may be facing an unwinnable situation. Having to continually deal with the high levels of stress and guilt that he has had to bear for so long up until now, it's not that surprising that Gon finally snapped.

What I find particularly brilliant is that Gon, a pure-hearted and well-natured kid at the start of this arc has started acting very villainous in the name of doing something that, while supposedly good, is really just coming from selfish desires which he wants to fulfill. In that regard, maybe Togashi is saying that he has been a more flawed character than we realize. This is, after all, similar to a villain from Togashi's earlier manga, Yu Yu Hakusho. In that manga, Shinobu Sensui was a very idealistic youth who saw everything in Black and White, but ended up having his mind twisted when he was faced with the realization that a good chunk of the people he was protecting were total scumbags, whereas the enemies that he blindly believed were all one-dimensionally evil were not so simple as he had initially perceived. In that regard, I always kind of saw that as a bit of a critique on how the notion of an overly-idealistic hero doesn't work when faced with real-world logic. What Gon is going through in this arc sort of has that same vibe to me. Meanwhile, Meruem, while still clearly the villain here, seems a lot less out of control than Gon does right now, doesn't he? Of course, Meruem believes that he's essentially saving the world when that couldn't be further from the truth, but he is still doing something out of his own self-interest. So, in a weird way Meruem, the main villain of this arc, is displaying more qualities of a heroic character than our actual main hero of Hunter X Hunter, who is acting a lot more like a villain right now. I love Reverse Parallel character arcs like that in fiction.

QuoteI'm been moving semi quickly through this arc, and I do enjoy it, but it has some issues. Some of these lower level Chimera Ants still don't interest me much. Like the wolf or Cheetu. I'm surprised he's still alive. But, I'm interested in Netero and Meruem's fight and whatever happens between Gon and Pitou.

For as much as I like about this arc, I also have quite a few problems with it as well. I can't stand when people treat it as perfect. It's absolutely fine to like or even love something and still find fault with it. Hell, I don't believe that you can truly love something unless you are also able to acknowledge its flaws, and this arc definitely has plenty of them. I do agree that some of the extra characters and fights can feel a bit extraneous at times, and unnecessary to the overall plot.

Having said that, one of my personal main criticisms of this arc is how Togashi handled the narrative in the last third of it. I think that it's a rather interesting and unique idea to have so much take place in such a short period of time, and for the action to slow down to show just how much can happen and go wrong with a plan in a matter literal minutes, all the while taking episodes worth of material to cover. So when the narrator explains where characters are and what their objective is in a certain situation, I can understand that. Although, I say that it works better in manga form than in anime, which I see as a medium that should rely less so on dialogue and more so on visuals. What I draw a lot of issue with, though, is when the narrator also constantly explains what characters are feeling, and what emotions they are going through at any given time. Those things should speak for themselves through the story, their facial expressions, and subtle and nuanced visual hints by utilizing the advantage of the artwork and animation. When I see writing like that, it cheapens many big and emotional moments for the characters, and makes their development during these segments feel less sincere. Basically, I feel like Togashi didn't really need to spoon-feed us everything during this part of the arc, and I have no idea why he felt the need to.

QuoteI'm also happy they didn't kill off Komugi here, I was concerned. Her and Meruem have been one of the best parts of this arc.

:thumbup:

QuoteAlso, happy to see Killua's Grandpa show up. I really like the Zoldyck family.

Then you'll probably love the Chairman Election arc. :sly:

Wolfen was actually one of my favorite Chimera Ants.

And that's saying something because I only liked about 5 of them.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on June 26, 2016, 09:29:51 PMWolfen was actually one of my favorite Chimera Ants.

And that's saying something because I only liked about 5 of them.

It's Werefin....[/nitpick] :>

He gets some really good development towards the end of the arc, but he felt a bit extraneous in the earlier portions of it.

As for the Chimera Ants, I myself liked:

Meruem
Youpi
Meleoron
Colt
Ikalgo
Werefin

And....

Spoiler

Palm

[close]

Most of the rest didn't really leave much of an impression on me, though.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on June 25, 2016, 11:09:58 PM
Then you'll probably love the Chairman Election arc. :sly:

So, then all that arc needs is Leorio, Kurapika, and Hisoka. Seriously its been like 60 episodes since either Leorio or Kurapika have had any importance. I also assumed Hisoka was going to show up, since he's been in every arc besides the Zoldyck family arc, and that one was really short. But, I guess he's not going to.

But, yeah most of the Ants are really boring or annoying. At least today they finally got rid of Cheetu. Showing how unimportant and useless he was, he was ki!led off by a character who had absolutely no importance in this arc at all. But, so far Werefin hasn't done anything to interest me so far. I do really like Ikalgo and Meleoron, though.

Also, today I really noticed what Dr. Ensatsu-ken was talking about with narrator. He wouldn't shut up at all and it was getting seriously annoying. I noticed it a little bit yesterday, but a lot today.

Knuckle vs Youpi was ok, but it felt like it was really dragging on. But, then Killua showed up at the end, so hopefully that'll be interesting.

One thing that I will say, is that I really don't know how this whole arc is going to handle some of the big situations and how the whole thing will finish. Which is good.

Quote from: Dreamer2 on June 26, 2016, 10:33:05 PM
So, then all that arc needs is Leorio, Kurapika, and Hisoka. Seriously its been like 60 episodes since either Leorio or Kurapika have had any importance.

You think that's bad? Manga readers went without seeing them for around a decade during this arc.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on June 26, 2016, 11:01:38 PM
You think that's bad? Manga readers went without seeing them for around a decade during this arc.

So, the hiatuses caused this arc to last that long? That's brutal. I'm not too familiar with the hiatuses, but its because of health reasons right?

Quote from: Dreamer2 on June 26, 2016, 11:15:23 PM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on June 26, 2016, 11:01:38 PM
You think that's bad? Manga readers went without seeing them for around a decade during this arc.

So, the hiatuses caused this arc to last that long? That's brutal. I'm not too familiar with the hiatuses, but its because of health reasons right?

Yes, the Chimera Ant arc is the longest arc in the manga both in sheer length of the story and in how long it took Togashi to write it between hiatuses. Togashi apparently has back problems, and they were at the worst at the time.

As for the hiatuses, this post that I made a few months ago pretty much explains the logic behind them. Some were due to legitimate health problems, but not all of them.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on March 22, 2016, 11:54:35 PMWhile we're on the subject of YYH's rushed ending, here is a translation of an old article of an interview with Togashi in which he clearly explains why he stopped. Working on Yu Yu Hakusho so abruptly: https://www.reddit.com/r/HunterXHunter/comments/2ga6as/togashis_long_written_piece_found_in_the_yyh/

In particular, this piece of information explains it the best:

QuoteIt saddens me to say this, but I had explored every possible direction for the YYH characters that I could in the context of a professional publication. All I could do at this point was to start deconstructing the characters, or go on repeating the same storylines over and over until the readers got bored. My attempts to deconstruct the characters were, of course, turned down by Jump. I didn't have the strength, physically and mentally, to keep doing the same thing over and over.

So I went ahead and did what I had always wanted to do: "If I ever manage to have a long serialization in Jump, I will end it on my own terms." I knew that Jump dropped a manga after 10 weeks if the readers' surveys proved it to be unpopular, and I knew this when I started working for them. This system proved encouraging for me, and I learned a lot by being aware of readers reactions. But I ended up wanting to draw manga for myself, without thinking about anyone's reactions. I don't believe that anything I came up with on this premise will live up to Jump's standards, so I will not try.

In conclusion: I ended YYH because of my own selfishness. I'm sorry.

Regardless of whether you agree with his mentality or not, it clearly shows Togashi's talent and skill as a writer to understand when his story and characters are at risk of becoming stale, and I for one would have loved to see his deconstruction of the main characters had the editorial staff accepted his pitch.

Unfortunately, they turned it down, and Togashi decided that he'd rather have the series end abruptly (and horribly, in terms of a lack of care and quality), than drag it out for several more years of bland material. I kind of think it's cool that someone would be willing to do that for a successful manga in a weekly serialization as high-selling and hard to get into as Jump Comics. Essentially, Togashi cared less about making money and more about writing a story with characters that he was invested in. However, since he lost interest in the YYH cast as they were, and wasn't given the freedom of creativity to explore them in unique and different ways, he said "fuck it" and basically told the editorial staff to go eat a dick by not even trying anymore. If he's not allowed to write a story with the best of his ability, then he won't even try at all. It's either writing with all of your passion, or not giving two shits. There's no room for half-heartedness, which is how I interpret what he said.

The interview also explains why he is prone to taking so many breaks, and this was long before Hunter X Hunter was ever even conceptualized in his head. Basically, he says that he wants to have a life, and this was before he even had a family, but now that he has a wife and two kids, you can probably understand even more that he doesn't want to devote all of his time to drawing.

While I disagree with his methods of taking long breaks (I mean, he could at least try and publish one chapter a month if he wanted more time for himself and his family), it's honestly kind of bad-ass for him to have been the only mangaka in history to have stood up to the most notoriously ferocious editorial staff for a manga publication magazine in Japan (at the height of its popularity, too!!!! This was during Jump's Golden Age, after all)....and come out the winner of the conflict.

I relly recommend reading that whole statement in the link. It's a very interesting piece to get into Togashi's head.

Quote from: Dreamer2 on June 26, 2016, 10:33:05 PMSo, then all that arc needs is Leorio, Kurapika, and Hisoka. Seriously its been like 60 episodes since either Leorio or Kurapika have had any importance.

Spoiler

Man, it looks more and more like the next arc was pretty much made for you. :D

[close]

Actually, as for Kurapika and Leorio being off-screen for so long, while I did miss those characters myself during the Greed Island and Chimera Ant arcs, I don't fault Togashi for deciding not to include them. Common shonen tropes and formulas tell us that all of the main supporting characters should be there at all times. However, there are times when certain characters just don't suit or have a reason to take part in a certain story arc being told. In this case, Kurapika and Leorio's goals are very important to their characters. It makes sense that Leorio would want to be off pursuing his path to becoming a doctor unless his friends desperately needed him. And in the Chimera Ant arc, while Gon and Killua did desperately need their friends, it was made abundantly clear that the Chimera Ant invasion caused government and military forces to try and quarantine off that entire continent to outsiders, so it'd make sense that low-level Hunters like Leorio and Kurapika couldn't gain access in. But as for Kurapika, putting that aside, it also makes sense that his priorities would be toward hunting down and gathering the rest of the eyes of his clan that had been sold to various different buyers. The bottom line being that there was no reason for Leorio or Kurapika to get involved initially, and when the situation turned into a crisis, it was too late for them to get involved. In fact, Gon and Killua would have outright been sent away, but they managed to get on the good side of the higher-level Hunters involved in the conflict, which is why they were allowed to be a part of the plan.

QuoteBut, yeah most of the Ants are really boring or annoying. At least today they finally got rid of Cheetu. Showing how unimportant and useless he was, he was ki!led off by a character who had absolutely no importance in this arc at all. But, so far Werefin hasn't done anything to interest me so far. I do really like Ikalgo and Meleoron, though.

Like I said, Werefin's development strangely comes when the arc is almost over. As for the less important ants, though, I'd argue that in all fairness, most of them were phased out by the half-way point of the arc, and in the last third only a few of the useless ones have much screen presence.

QuoteKnuckle vs Youpi was ok, but it felt like it was really dragging on. But, then Killua showed up at the end, so hopefully that'll be interesting.

I love that fight, but more so in the manga. What I like about it is the sense of desperation since it's clear that Knuckle and Meleoron could die at any moment, and all the while Youpi has some interesting character development during the conflict. In the anime it tends to drag on longer than it should, though.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on June 27, 2016, 12:24:50 AM

Spoiler

Man, it looks more and more like the next arc was pretty much made for you. :D

[close]

My interest level for the next arc increases with each comment you make. ;D And its short, so coming off this super long arc, it'll feel nice.

QuoteActually, as for Kurapika and Leorio being off-screen for so long, while I did miss those characters myself during the Greed Island and Chimera Ant arcs, I don't fault Togashi for deciding not to include them. Common shonen tropes and formulas tell us that all of the main supporting characters should be there at all times. However, there are times when certain characters just don't suit or have a reason to take part in a certain story arc being told. In this case, Kurapika and Leorio's goals are very important to their characters. It makes sense that Leorio would want to be off pursuing his path to becoming a doctor unless his friends desperately needed him. And in the Chimera Ant arc, while Gon and Killua did desperately need their friends, it was made abundantly clear that the Chimera Ant invasion caused government and military forces to try and quarantine off that entire continent to outsiders, so it'd make sense that low-level Hunters like Leorio and Kurapika couldn't gain access in. But as for Kurapika, putting that aside, it also makes sense that his priorities would be toward hunting down and gathering the rest of the eyes of his clan that had been sold to various different buyers. The bottom line being that there was no reason for Leorio or Kurapika to get involved initially, and when the situation turned into a crisis, it was too late for them to get involved. In fact, Gon and Killua would have outright been sent away, but they managed to get on the good side of the higher-level Hunters involved in the conflict, which is why they were allowed to be a part of the plan.

Yeah, it makes sense why they're not involved with Gon and Killua, although I would've liked to see them in this arc. Maybe even something like the Phantom Troupe got. A random episode or two where they deal with some Chimera Ants. Now I'm wondering why the Phantom Troupe got those two episodes a while back. Unless they're going to show up again, but I doubt it.

Well, another criticism that I have with Togashi's writing specifically for Hunter X Hunter is that he has this odd habit of introducing characters or concepts into the story that seem like they will be important but then never come up again. This is kind of a staple of the shonen genre since the way these are written, writers will try to introduce new elements into the story to shake it up, but if it proves to be unpopular with readers they will quickly scrap it in favor of something that will get their readership back up. However sometimes Togashi tends to dedicate quite a significant amount of time to something, so when he seems to all but forget about those things then it gets frustrating since it just feels like you wasted a decent amount of time that could have been spent on progressing the main plot.

Introducing the Phantom Troupe into this arc is one of those things that just felt so weirdly out of place, as cool as it was to see them again. While they do come back into the story in a later arc, it really has nothing to do with the appearance that they made in this one. The one that really gets to me, though, is Jairo. There was a whole episode's worth of backstory dedicated to him, yet as of where the manga is currently at, he has yet to appear again. He's mentioned a few times in passing, but that's about it. Why introduce that character at such a random time and then do nothing with him for so long? It makes no sense to me.

Oh good, I wasn't the only one who found all that to be really weird. It totally felt like he was being setup as someone important, but he wasn't. And now you're telling me he hasn't had any real importance in the manga at all. That's strange.

Ikalgo is pretty awesome. Watching his plan was actually really interesting and watching him break down like that was kind of sad. And then his stuff with Werefin was interesting as well. Even though it felt like a weird time to learn more about him, I enjoyed it and I enjoyed his interactions with Ikalgo.

Plus, I enjoyed some of the Youpi stuff today. So, good or interesting moments for some of the Ants. Which is definitely welcome.

Man, Knov is really having some trouble out there.

Not surprising that Meruem's name is playing a role here. But, I did like how he just wanted to talk and had very little interest in fighting at first. Hopefully they're fight is good.

Looks like Palm's finally coming back and she's apparently a Chimera Ant now. Which I kind of spoiled for myself a while back.

Oh yeah, Gon still looks nuts.

So, I zoomed through the rest of this arc in the last couple of days.

First off, the Netero vs Meruem fight was all kinds of awesome. Netero's move was really to fun watch, even if it was just the giant hands moving and hitting the King. There was a really cool level of intensity to everything that was happening. The resolution was also pretty cool. Netero went out fighting and he accomplished his goal. After this awesome fight, I feel like this arc kind of hit a wall for a while. As I continued on, I just started to lose interest and was getting tired of the arc. It was bound to happen because of how long the whole arc is. I just expected it to happen earlier.

Youpi and Pouf reviving the King was something. Something weird. I know what they were going for, but all of the facial expressions and the screaming was just a little too over the top for me.

Next is Gon and Pitou. I had high hopes for this part, even though I don't know what I really wanted to happen. At times Gon was becoming a little too unlikeable for me. But, once he started to crying in front of Pitou, I started feeling bad for him. But, my interest in what was going on wasn't really there. And then Gon aged up for some reason, and I was ready to move on. It wasn't bad per say, just not something I needed to see last a while. Thankfully it didn't and I am interested in the fallout.

My interest in this arc returned when Werefin said Komugi. I was just happy that the King remembered her and I was looking forward to seeing their reunion. Their scenes together were just fantastic. And I was legitimately sad to see them both die.

Even though I had my fair share of problems with most of the Chimera Ants, I enjoyed watching the scenes for Bolster and Reina. It was nice.

Oh and that baby Colt was watching is Kite? I'm a tad confused. Hopefully they'll expand on that. Although, Morel's response was pretty funny.

And Killua is off to save Gon somehow. Sounds good. I'm looking forward to the final arc.

This was a long long arc. I'm not usually a huge fan of long arcs and overall I think this one is just solid. The stuff it did well was really enjoyable. But, there was stuff I didn't like and because of the overall length, it made the whole thing drag on at times. Meruem and Komugi were without a doubt the best parts of this arc and one of the best of the entire show. They made the whole arc worthwhile, even with the things I didn't like. They might be my second and third favorite characters overall.

I pretty much agree with that outlook. The Chimera Ant arc is heavily flawed. I still love it for what it does right, though. There are big chunks of that arc that are outright A+ material, some middling parts that are C tier writing, and then a few notable but terrible parts that are a straight-up F. Despite all of this, the higher quality material ultimately makes the arc a worthwhile experience to me, and I get why so many other people seem to love it for the same reasons. About my only gripe is that some fans seem to think that it's perfect, and it isn't even close. Just in terms of an overall balance in quality and pacing, I'd have to say that Yorknew City was probably the most consistent story arc in Hunter X Hunter, and my personal favorite from the series so far.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on June 27, 2016, 12:24:50 AM

Quote from: Dreamer2 on June 26, 2016, 10:33:05 PMSo, then all that arc needs is Leorio, Kurapika, and Hisoka. Seriously its been like 60 episodes since either Leorio or Kurapika have had any importance.

Spoiler

Man, it looks more and more like the next arc was pretty much made for you. :D

[close]

You were right. I thought it was pretty awesome.

I was planning to only do a few episodes each day, but it was a boring Saturday, and I got into it, so I did the rest of the show in one day. But, I really really liked this arc. Wasn't perfect, but there was some great Killua and Zoldyck family stuff. Leorio and Hisoka return. Even if Hisoka didn't get to do too much. And Gon met Ging. I also surprisingly got into the Hunter Association stuff. It was fun and got kind of emotional too. Plus, Cheadle was kind of awesome. I could go more into what I liked and disliked, but its pretty late. I'll try to post my overall thoughts on this show some time soon.

Also, if you were disappointed by the lack of Kurapika here (outside of a small cameo at the end), it's worth mentioning that he does play a big part in the next (and still current) story arc. Unfortunately, this is the part where you have to deal with Togashi's constant hiatuses. He literally just went on another one after publishing only ten new chapters of the manga. For a frame of reference, the 2011 anime covers up chapter 339 of the manga. The current run of the manga has just been left off at chapter 359, so it's only 20 chapters ahead of where the anime ended. In essence, you've essentially caught up to the current story-line. In all honesty, I'd recommend skipping out on the manga for the next several years since I can easily see it taking Togashi another decade just to finish the Dark Continent arc like how long it took him to finish the Chimera Ant arc. These kinds of stories just work much better when read as a whole, rather than having to read a cluster of chapters here and there spread out years apart.

On another note, now that you've finished the entire series, here's a good video that really sums up the strong points of Hunter X Hunter as a whole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnt5zE-Cu1A

And just for the hell of it (since it's by Togashi as well and one of my favorite shonen of all time), here's one for Yu Yu Hakusho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mwouh5raDg

I found a really great video explaining what makes HXH a great series and the strengths of Togashi's writing style: http://youtu.be/EY3deSWuO58

Just to forewarn you, the author is a bit biased against a lot of popular shonen series, but not in a hateful or ignorant way that should piss you off. He does in fact admit to liking several of those series which he criticizes, in fact, but simply tries to highlight what he perceives as their flaws and how HXH manages to brilliantly subvert those tropes.

I do feel that this is the best video that I've seen on the subject, and it's what I would personally use to convince anyone on the fence about this show to why it's worth giving a shot. It's also a good response to those who don't like the series but are genuinely curious as to what its appeal is to other people.

Set 1 of Hunter X Hunter (2011) comes out of DVD/Blu-ray on October 25th. (https://twitter.com/WTK/status/773712654879690752)

I'll be looking forward to adding this to my collection.  ;D

Hey E-K, I've been thinking about giving HxH another shot since I'm getting back into anime finally, is your recommended viewing order for it still the original series aside from Greed Island and then the new one picking up from there? Also, when should I watch the movies?

I'm not E-K, but I'll respond to your question anyway.

If you wanna watch the anime, I'd recommend this:

-Watch ONLY the first episode of the original series (since the remake skims over the start of the story, for some odd reason).
-Watch the 2011 series in its entirety.
-After the anime ends, continue the manga from volume 32 (chapter 340) onward, since it likely won't be adapted anytime soon.

The main issue with the original version of the series is it misses the tone of the manga, whereas the remake gets it right.

While I'd argue that the original has a superior artistic expression to the remake (and IMO a less generic score and more unique art-style), I will agree that the remake is actually better to watch first. It is definitely more faithful to Togashi's vision of the story and has much better pacing than the original due to having a lot more material to adapt when it came out.

That said, if you end up enjoying the remake, then it certainly wouldn't hurt at some point to check out the original anime at some point if you are curious to see a different series director's take on a beloved manga, artistic liberties and all.

Either way, glad that you're giving the series another go! It's a personal favorite of mine. It is a long-running shonen of course, so it may take a bit of an investment before you really get to it's strongest material, but I think it's worth it. I'd say the York New City arc somewhere in the mid 30's (episode-wise) is where it gets into it's groove and it has some of my favorite story-telling in any medium, with layered and nuanced characters and villains all wrapped in a really unique and well-crafted package. It's also a series that isn't afraid to kill off characters (maybe sometimes to it's detriment), so I think it helps keep the narrative feeling less predictable and more engaging in some of the later arcs since you don't always know if a conflict will end well.

Thanks guys! One of my other friends said the same thing as Daikun but I just wanted to check in with you. I noticed that the 1999 series has two arcs mentioned on its Wikipedia page that the remake doesn't, Zoldyck Family and Genei Ryodan. Were these also incorporated into the remake or should I watch those episodes from the original?

Those arcs are in the remake.

Those arcs are both in the remake. They just used different terminology back when the 1999 anime was the only adaptation due to the choice of words from fansubs. Zoldyck Family is just lumped in with the Hunter Exams arc in the remake since it's so short, and Genei Ryodan is translated to Phantom Troupe in English, which the official subs of the 2011 version use (as does the Viz translation of the manga), which itself is now commonly titled as the York New City arc (my personal favorite in the series, BTW).

I do want to say that while I understand Daikun and other people's opinions on the matter, I personally disagree with the sentiment that the deviations of the '99 series are inherently an issue. To me, part of the job of an adaptation is just that, to "adapt" the work. It's first and foremost an interpretation of the original to try and make it work best in another medium. In that regard, the remake does it's job well enough (and I by no means wish to diminish the hard work that goes into any animation project), but very little of it stands out to me, personally, compared to the original manga. The '99 series, putting my biases aside, is certainly not perfect in it's approach, but it offers me a far more interesting vision of the story that covers all of the same major plot beats while adding it's own cinematic presentation of key scenes through not just great sakuga moments, but a very cinematic use of lighting, music, and motifs/symbolism. Key moments like Killua's confrontation with Illumi, Chrollo's Symphony, and {Spoiler}'s Death scene are far better directed, visually represented, and more impactful in the '99 series, IMO.

Of course, not all of it works, and even I recognize that the '99 series has a lot of filler to deal with early on, and can also feel a bit too slow paced to newcomers. I watched it back in 2006 when I was a High School student, had no part time job, and didn't socialize much outside of one or two real friends that I had, so I was all for that stuff back in the day. The characterization of the main cast is also subtly different initially but in a way that becomes more pronounced later on. Namely, Gon, Kurapika, and Killua are made out to be more traditionally good and less morally ambiguous in the '99 series, which is a huge point of contention with fans (ESPECIALLY manga purists). Again, I get the issue that some people have with this, but I again don't think it's inherently a problem. In the context of the '99 series, that characterization absolutely works. That said, it would certainly clash with the later arcs if those were available to adapt at the time. In that regard, I do fully recognize that the 2011 version is far more streamlined and a much better option for a new viewer to get into. It also has much sleeker pacing than most shonen series of it's kind (though you still have 20+ episode arcs, obviously).

I just don't want people who have never seen it to go around thinking that the '99 version is somehow a bad or lackluster product. On the contrary, it may be of it's time, but that comes with more good than bad in my book. I will always advocate for creative liberties over 1:1 adaptations anyday. And in that aspect, I actually think that the by the book nature of the 2011 series somewhat backfires in the back half of the Chimera Ant arc, which Togashi wrote in a way that is uniquely suited to the medium of comics/manga. It's very narration-heavy, and meant to convey through text how several actions, emotions, and intersecting story-lines are happening and clashing all in a matter of seconds to minutes. It's weirdly ambitious and unique, and also a bit messy in execution, but it still is something he can get away with in that medium. The anime tries to directly translate this and I just don't think that it works, personally. But, that's just my personal opinion, and I'd certainly still encourage you to decide for yourself should the series hold your interest up to that point in the first place.

If I had to sum it up, I'd say that the '99 series is akin to Raimi-era Spider-Man, with both the creative strengths as well as the awkward flaws that come with that. In the end, though, it's artists taking a source material and putting their own creative spin on it, and I will always be for that if it provides me with something memorable.

Anyways, sorry for going on for so long. Hopefully I didn't deter you from the series in general with all of my rambling. I just don't get many opportunities to talk about some of my favorite manga and anime these days. :sweat:

Nah it's totally fine, I'm happy to read your thoughts on it! I suppose I'll go ahead with the new series first but still plan to check out the old one later (which I've already seen about 15-20 episodes of and liked, only put it on hold because I got busy with school/work). You know I love Raimi's Spider-Man and the Deen Higurashi anime (which is also hated by many purists) more than a large chunk of the source material, and I'm honestly super interested in alternate takes on the same stories in the first place. And thanks for explaining about the arc names!

The first episode of the 1999 series was actually an anime original filler (that later got worked into the manga) so that's why it isn't in the remake.