Hunter X Hunter (Original + Remake)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I can't read Japanese to confirm it, but this 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 ....but then why the hell did he approve of Hisoka's personality change?....How curious, how very curious indeed )

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[talonmalon333]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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).

[Dr. Insomniac]

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).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[talonmalon333]

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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Nippon Animation (1999):


Vs.

Madhouse (2011):


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.

[Avaitor]

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.

[Spark Of Spirit]

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.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

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.