Hunter X Hunter (Original + Remake)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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

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.

[Avaitor]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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

Zeno and Silva Vs. Chrollo

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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

There's a brand new trailer 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.

[Foggle]

Dem chickens.

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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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

The 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.

[Foggle]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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 ). 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.

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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Maybe it's the ending. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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?

[Spark Of Spirit]

Until he found his father, anyway.

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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hooray?....

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.