Reviews for Hunter x Hunter (1999) (8.72)
ThatAnimeSnob
Furuhashi Kazuhiro
Hunter x Hunter easily ranks amongst the most interesting shounen anime ever made. At the same time, it is also amongst the most frustrating ones, as it has several mishaps. Let’s start with...
Home
Twitter
- Approval: 59.9% (5 votes)
11.09.2010 09:20 - direct link
(rs7526)
Hunter x Hunter easily ranks amongst the most interesting shounen anime ever made. At the same time, it is also amongst the most frustrating ones, as it has several mishaps.
Let’s start with the story. It’s about a little boy named Gon, looking for his father who is a Hunter, a super mercenary of sorts traveling the world and doing missions and quests. Like finding something rare or arresting a wanted criminal. So in the context of the story, that little boy decides that the best way to find him is to become one himself. And here you are, having a 12 year old boy rivaling hundreds of tough adult grunts for the rank of Hunter.
Sounds stupid doesn’t it? Especially when taking into account that he is totally weak, unskilled and his personality is like that of a saint inside a den of cannibals. Well, frankly it is. It is frakking impossible to buy it. The story does a good job at showing how friendship and teamwork can work through all that but it still is damn hard to buy it. Anyways, this is just the core story … and it gets nowhere. The boy never finds his father. In fact, this hardly matters as much as everything else in terms of character development or side stories. Which are both a lot in numbers and of a good level of storytelling.
Well, that is not really the point. The whole story is actually about a team of kids (and an almost token adult) passing tests and facing difficulties, as means to develop their skills and achieve their goals. Heck, 90% of the plot is either doing quests, duels or simple research in order to get to that meager 10% of actual progress in the story. And to the most part is slow and dull. I am fully aware that this anime is famous for being the exact opposite of slow and dull. But what I am referring to here is the pacing. Very few things happen in each episode and even those are done in a non-exciting way. This is mostly a problem of the poor use of cinematics the sections of animation and sound have, rather than the actual story.
The animation is indeed average to bad, a thing that shows way too early and never seems to go away. This is not excused by the year it was made as around that time there were far better animes in terms of looks than it. Movements are simply too stiff or even unexisting, even during battles. And shading and lighting seem to be rare or too simple too. The major battles are given a far better work but in all, stuff in this series neither move nor look so good.
Speaking of battles… there aren’t that many or that exciting. The good stuff is found in the second half, with the first being nothing but simplistic spars that end with just a few simple strikes. That is of course excused by the fact the characters in the beginning were weak and possessed no major special powers. That still makes it feel dull and drops the replay value of many of those episodes.
But it is wrong to see this as a fighting action series alone. Most confrontations, although very simple in choreography, have lots of wits and it is brains and not muscles that matter in most of them. That by the way does not save the animation from feeling boring. With proper handling, even a turtle sleeping can look amazing. And with all these frozen panels, generic character figures, and semi-interesting major battles, this isn’t what I’m talking about. Animation gets a 4.
Now back to the pacing. As I said, the initial episodes can be excused to be uneventful because they focus on getting to know the characters, as well as to keep in touch with the simple fact they are wimps. Not really a negative but it does make a lot of them to have no reason to watch twice. The magic of Media Res could help to start at a more exciting point in the plot and just present the rest as flashbacks or something. Anyways, the first 5 episodes are just to get to know them and then up to half of the series on how they pass the Hunter exam. It is still not much of a story and it’s the characters and their individual side stories that keep you interested. After that, the second half slowly makes the characters stronger and some missions get really serious, as professional killers enter and things get far more dangerous. At this point, the anime became a more traditional shounen type story and to be honest has more meat to keep watching. Plus it didn’t take out the feeling of strategy and wits in battles. Thus it really is the same, only better.
The main three arcs can be described as going from weak characters with simple quests, to stronger characters with harder quests, to even stronger characters fighting for their very lives against pro killers. Sure, it improves to the point where you feel you are watching Dragonball Z but with more wits… Still not much of a story though. And Gon’s father is nothing but a vague backdrop by now. Seriously, in the third arc Gon is hardly doing anything; it’s just his friend getting his revenge.
And what’s going on with the arc goals anyway? First they want to become Hunters and THEN they train to become strong? Doesn’t that make the whole title of a Hunter feel piss poor? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? And then what the hell was that business with the videogame? The third arc is about raising money to buy a game. Does that seem a logical upscale from someone taking part in deadly tournaments to be arm-wrestling for a videogame? Or an entire arc just playing that very videogame while gathering cards as if it’s a Yu-Gi-Oh rip-off? Why are the arcs going in reverse in terms of build up? What will their ultimate challenge be; to save a cat from a tree? It felt like the story starts with the lead wanting to become big macho Hokage and slowly making him return back to Ninja Kindergarten.
Not to mention the whole business of the videogame, this strikes me as nothing but crude marketing promotion of videogames and card games. They threw away the initial premise of a boy going on an adventure to find his lost father and replaced it with “buy card games and play videogames” commercials. I mean, come on, the story became “pay ten million bucks to play a videogame where you gather cards that will combine into the super card that will magically grand you a wish like the goddamn Dragonballs.” And did I just saw a cute girl transform into a brute male adult somewhere in there? What horsesh*t is this? Where did the pure feeling of the beginning go to?
I could be more lenient with the story and excuse the dull start if the anime was complete… but it ain’t. The anime ends openly and not even the following OVAs finished it. Thus this is a simple story that on top of that was left incomplete. Hell, it also stopped at a lame point. Story gets a 4.
By the way, I’d be damned if Kishimoto didn’t rip off the Hunter Exam arc to make the Chuunin Exam arc in Naruto…
So the characters are the meat of the story and it’s quite the likable cast as far as shounen go. Each one of the major and secondary characters is given a rather high amount of attention and “usually” some development other than his superpowers. They are still far from fully fleshed out characters though. Gon for example is impossible to relate to as everything is in his eyes one big rainbow of joy. You can stab him in the heart only to hear him asking for forgiveness because his blood stained your knife. As much as good hearted as he may be, he has no chance of surviving in the jungle that is the human civilization like that. Heck, let’s face it, he managed to become a Hunter only because all the super fighters he faced refused to hurt him.
His voice actor by the way is the same as Naruto’s and I’d be damned again if Kishimoto didn’t take ideas from this work into his. Like the red eyes of his vengeful friend for example… Whose feature ends up being just his revenge actually. Or the adult member of the team whose feature is lust; getting horny with every girl he meets. Otherwise, he is as useless in the story as Broke was in Pokemon. Extend that idea and you get the same in all the characters. Although not completely two-dimensional, they all lack real depth or even reasonable reactions. As for catharsis, well, Gon’s father is not found and the revenge thing was not completed, so nothing here either. Not to forget mentioning how everything feels like going in reverse from wanting to become Hokage to saving cats from trees (random parallelism). What you get are semi-developed characters at best, whose backdrop is quite the typical shounen archetype formula. Characters get a 5.
And now we are down to sound. Jeez how bad it was handled. The music score is likable but seriously, where the hell is the tension or atmosphere building? Half the time there isn’t even background music, and the other half usually doesn’t feel in unison with what is going on in the plot. Just random tunes in the distance.
Voice acting is ok for a shounen show but the pinch in voices feels awkward at times. Many boy characters are voiced by women and it usually shows… in a bad way. Also, even in moments of extreme tension, you feel the voice actors aren’t doing their best. Plus they talk… a lot. There is mostly talking rather than fighting in this series, which is not bad by itself but it ain’t done in great ways either. I mean, you could shit yourself while listening in Ultimate Survivor Kaiji, where someone could have a stroke over playing rock-paper-scissors. They play the same game here too and it’s piss poor unexciting. As is when someone is vowing to kill the murderers of his family and his victim is begging for his mercy. Geez how dull can a powerful scene become with bad sound and voice acting. Not bad music or voice acting but not great stuff either. Sound gets a 5.
Down to it, it still is a good shounen, as its internal logic surpasses most of everything in the genre. Most quests require strategy, field tactics, even psychology to overcome and it’s only towards the end where characters get all DBZ that “my battle power is greater than yours” becomes an issue. Even then, the reason “this power beats that power” is also excused nicely. But it still is not a series you watch for the battles as I said numerous times, they are few major ones and they are all handled poorly. I mean, the show is full of people being eaten alive by monsters or killed horribly by top assassins and yet it makes it feel like you are feeding ducks over at the park lake. Seriously, with different handling it could easily become a horror / survival to the most part. Yet all you get is Gon saying “Let’s be friends” while all around him people are nihilistically chewed alive by monsters or are decapitated by yawning assassins. This is a shounen series but, geez, the context is way off. If you are not willing to show it at its proper way, don’t show it at all. Atmosphere failure; that alone made the show half-likable. Value and Enjoyment get a 5.
Bottom line. Although terribly similar to Naruto (and damn ripped off by it), it really is superior to it, despite the worse animation and reverse build up. And since most people still consider Naruto to be amongst the top fighting shounen around (not me; I’m too smart to fall for that), that means it’s good stuff. Yet at the same time it lacks the tension of most modern shounens in terms of atmosphere and that can make its superior tactics and deep character immersion to lose a lot of credit.
This show really needed a remake, one where the videogame fuss never happened and the story was completed. And it did, since it was remade in 2011 but it is too erly to see if it did an overall better job.
In other news, other shows like Kaiji or Liar Game eat its tactics for breakfast, and Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood does an overall far better job in terms of action, character immersion, and proper use of cinematics. You have been informed.
Let’s start with the story. It’s about a little boy named Gon, looking for his father who is a Hunter, a super mercenary of sorts traveling the world and doing missions and quests. Like finding something rare or arresting a wanted criminal. So in the context of the story, that little boy decides that the best way to find him is to become one himself. And here you are, having a 12 year old boy rivaling hundreds of tough adult grunts for the rank of Hunter.
Sounds stupid doesn’t it? Especially when taking into account that he is totally weak, unskilled and his personality is like that of a saint inside a den of cannibals. Well, frankly it is. It is frakking impossible to buy it. The story does a good job at showing how friendship and teamwork can work through all that but it still is damn hard to buy it. Anyways, this is just the core story … and it gets nowhere. The boy never finds his father. In fact, this hardly matters as much as everything else in terms of character development or side stories. Which are both a lot in numbers and of a good level of storytelling.
Well, that is not really the point. The whole story is actually about a team of kids (and an almost token adult) passing tests and facing difficulties, as means to develop their skills and achieve their goals. Heck, 90% of the plot is either doing quests, duels or simple research in order to get to that meager 10% of actual progress in the story. And to the most part is slow and dull. I am fully aware that this anime is famous for being the exact opposite of slow and dull. But what I am referring to here is the pacing. Very few things happen in each episode and even those are done in a non-exciting way. This is mostly a problem of the poor use of cinematics the sections of animation and sound have, rather than the actual story.
The animation is indeed average to bad, a thing that shows way too early and never seems to go away. This is not excused by the year it was made as around that time there were far better animes in terms of looks than it. Movements are simply too stiff or even unexisting, even during battles. And shading and lighting seem to be rare or too simple too. The major battles are given a far better work but in all, stuff in this series neither move nor look so good.
Speaking of battles… there aren’t that many or that exciting. The good stuff is found in the second half, with the first being nothing but simplistic spars that end with just a few simple strikes. That is of course excused by the fact the characters in the beginning were weak and possessed no major special powers. That still makes it feel dull and drops the replay value of many of those episodes.
But it is wrong to see this as a fighting action series alone. Most confrontations, although very simple in choreography, have lots of wits and it is brains and not muscles that matter in most of them. That by the way does not save the animation from feeling boring. With proper handling, even a turtle sleeping can look amazing. And with all these frozen panels, generic character figures, and semi-interesting major battles, this isn’t what I’m talking about. Animation gets a 4.
Now back to the pacing. As I said, the initial episodes can be excused to be uneventful because they focus on getting to know the characters, as well as to keep in touch with the simple fact they are wimps. Not really a negative but it does make a lot of them to have no reason to watch twice. The magic of Media Res could help to start at a more exciting point in the plot and just present the rest as flashbacks or something. Anyways, the first 5 episodes are just to get to know them and then up to half of the series on how they pass the Hunter exam. It is still not much of a story and it’s the characters and their individual side stories that keep you interested. After that, the second half slowly makes the characters stronger and some missions get really serious, as professional killers enter and things get far more dangerous. At this point, the anime became a more traditional shounen type story and to be honest has more meat to keep watching. Plus it didn’t take out the feeling of strategy and wits in battles. Thus it really is the same, only better.
The main three arcs can be described as going from weak characters with simple quests, to stronger characters with harder quests, to even stronger characters fighting for their very lives against pro killers. Sure, it improves to the point where you feel you are watching Dragonball Z but with more wits… Still not much of a story though. And Gon’s father is nothing but a vague backdrop by now. Seriously, in the third arc Gon is hardly doing anything; it’s just his friend getting his revenge.
And what’s going on with the arc goals anyway? First they want to become Hunters and THEN they train to become strong? Doesn’t that make the whole title of a Hunter feel piss poor? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? And then what the hell was that business with the videogame? The third arc is about raising money to buy a game. Does that seem a logical upscale from someone taking part in deadly tournaments to be arm-wrestling for a videogame? Or an entire arc just playing that very videogame while gathering cards as if it’s a Yu-Gi-Oh rip-off? Why are the arcs going in reverse in terms of build up? What will their ultimate challenge be; to save a cat from a tree? It felt like the story starts with the lead wanting to become big macho Hokage and slowly making him return back to Ninja Kindergarten.
Not to mention the whole business of the videogame, this strikes me as nothing but crude marketing promotion of videogames and card games. They threw away the initial premise of a boy going on an adventure to find his lost father and replaced it with “buy card games and play videogames” commercials. I mean, come on, the story became “pay ten million bucks to play a videogame where you gather cards that will combine into the super card that will magically grand you a wish like the goddamn Dragonballs.” And did I just saw a cute girl transform into a brute male adult somewhere in there? What horsesh*t is this? Where did the pure feeling of the beginning go to?
I could be more lenient with the story and excuse the dull start if the anime was complete… but it ain’t. The anime ends openly and not even the following OVAs finished it. Thus this is a simple story that on top of that was left incomplete. Hell, it also stopped at a lame point. Story gets a 4.
By the way, I’d be damned if Kishimoto didn’t rip off the Hunter Exam arc to make the Chuunin Exam arc in Naruto…
So the characters are the meat of the story and it’s quite the likable cast as far as shounen go. Each one of the major and secondary characters is given a rather high amount of attention and “usually” some development other than his superpowers. They are still far from fully fleshed out characters though. Gon for example is impossible to relate to as everything is in his eyes one big rainbow of joy. You can stab him in the heart only to hear him asking for forgiveness because his blood stained your knife. As much as good hearted as he may be, he has no chance of surviving in the jungle that is the human civilization like that. Heck, let’s face it, he managed to become a Hunter only because all the super fighters he faced refused to hurt him.
His voice actor by the way is the same as Naruto’s and I’d be damned again if Kishimoto didn’t take ideas from this work into his. Like the red eyes of his vengeful friend for example… Whose feature ends up being just his revenge actually. Or the adult member of the team whose feature is lust; getting horny with every girl he meets. Otherwise, he is as useless in the story as Broke was in Pokemon. Extend that idea and you get the same in all the characters. Although not completely two-dimensional, they all lack real depth or even reasonable reactions. As for catharsis, well, Gon’s father is not found and the revenge thing was not completed, so nothing here either. Not to forget mentioning how everything feels like going in reverse from wanting to become Hokage to saving cats from trees (random parallelism). What you get are semi-developed characters at best, whose backdrop is quite the typical shounen archetype formula. Characters get a 5.
And now we are down to sound. Jeez how bad it was handled. The music score is likable but seriously, where the hell is the tension or atmosphere building? Half the time there isn’t even background music, and the other half usually doesn’t feel in unison with what is going on in the plot. Just random tunes in the distance.
Voice acting is ok for a shounen show but the pinch in voices feels awkward at times. Many boy characters are voiced by women and it usually shows… in a bad way. Also, even in moments of extreme tension, you feel the voice actors aren’t doing their best. Plus they talk… a lot. There is mostly talking rather than fighting in this series, which is not bad by itself but it ain’t done in great ways either. I mean, you could shit yourself while listening in Ultimate Survivor Kaiji, where someone could have a stroke over playing rock-paper-scissors. They play the same game here too and it’s piss poor unexciting. As is when someone is vowing to kill the murderers of his family and his victim is begging for his mercy. Geez how dull can a powerful scene become with bad sound and voice acting. Not bad music or voice acting but not great stuff either. Sound gets a 5.
Down to it, it still is a good shounen, as its internal logic surpasses most of everything in the genre. Most quests require strategy, field tactics, even psychology to overcome and it’s only towards the end where characters get all DBZ that “my battle power is greater than yours” becomes an issue. Even then, the reason “this power beats that power” is also excused nicely. But it still is not a series you watch for the battles as I said numerous times, they are few major ones and they are all handled poorly. I mean, the show is full of people being eaten alive by monsters or killed horribly by top assassins and yet it makes it feel like you are feeding ducks over at the park lake. Seriously, with different handling it could easily become a horror / survival to the most part. Yet all you get is Gon saying “Let’s be friends” while all around him people are nihilistically chewed alive by monsters or are decapitated by yawning assassins. This is a shounen series but, geez, the context is way off. If you are not willing to show it at its proper way, don’t show it at all. Atmosphere failure; that alone made the show half-likable. Value and Enjoyment get a 5.
Bottom line. Although terribly similar to Naruto (and damn ripped off by it), it really is superior to it, despite the worse animation and reverse build up. And since most people still consider Naruto to be amongst the top fighting shounen around (not me; I’m too smart to fall for that), that means it’s good stuff. Yet at the same time it lacks the tension of most modern shounens in terms of atmosphere and that can make its superior tactics and deep character immersion to lose a lot of credit.
This show really needed a remake, one where the videogame fuss never happened and the story was completed. And it did, since it was remade in 2011 but it is too erly to see if it did an overall better job.
In other news, other shows like Kaiji or Liar Game eat its tactics for breakfast, and Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood does an overall far better job in terms of action, character immersion, and proper use of cinematics. You have been informed.
