Hunter x Hunter

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Welcome to the world of Hunter X Hunter where people pursue to become Hunters. But to become one, one must undergo the Hunter Exam. Thousands of people participate in this exam. Among them is a kid name Gon Freecs who longs to meet his father, a great hunter, but in order to do so, he must become a great Hunter and follow his footsteps. Along the way, he meets Killua, a kid whose family is famous for being assassins, Kurapika, a kind and loyal friend but at times reckless due to his revenge motive and Leorio, a brash man who aims to be a successful ... Hunter specializing in medical treatments.

Yoshihiro Togashi is the same guy who wrote the 1994 hit YuYu Hakusho, a successful long running shounen. And this manga is no exception.

Nearly all long-running shounens throughout anime history has already been labeled tedious, dull and unimaginative. Without fail, HxH will relieve you of that perspective.

Hxh simply has it all. Action, check. Pragmatic characters, check. Psychological contest, check. It can be a psychological thriller or an action-packed manga. Either way, HxH is superbly crafted.

The anime played out with touches of pathos and humor creating a superb atmosphere. The manga provided numerous slap-stick comedies to lighten the mood a little. But when its serious, its serious. The intensity of HxH cannot be denied.

While it isn't groundbreaking in the concept aspect, the real treat is in the execution. Supernatural abilities aside, this manga undertakes a realistic approach. The little things actually matter from getting adapting your eyes to the dark to increasing efficiency on running, every small thing counts. This results to intense an conflict for both the mind and the muscle during battle's. HxH concentrate's on the adventure aspect more so than the fighting aspect. So dont expect any out-of-this-world "sudden power outbursts" to save the day because HxH wont allow it. And thats one of the many things you'll like bout this manga.
Regardless of this, HxH still proves to be enough to considered an action. The action does play it safe but it is still highly invigorating. It succeeds in keeping many readers on their toes, and often leaves readers with cliffhangers that are big and small.

The rather slow paced scripts are fleshed out with a set of tremendous central and supporting characters. The various other characters and factions involved in playing the manga do not end up seeming flat. They take the time to develop and flesh out even some of incidentally encountered characters appearing only for a chapter even if it would have been easier to simply have them appear for their necessary encounters without giving us any real insight into their personality.
Also character developments are a plus. While Gon remains static, Killua and Kurapika in particular, goes through massive changes throughout the manga .

To some the art is horrible. But I dont think its bad at all. I mean, it isnt amazing but is simply good. Another issue is the amount of text. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to the reader, since HxH will rain you with texts everywhere on the panel. HxH doesnt want to seem miss any explanations and leave some plot holes. It wants to be rational, as much as possible. Incredible sense of detail shows in key points of the story.

Once you reach the Hunter Exams, everything will shift to overdrive. If that arc doesnt interest you in the slightest, I suggest you stop reading it from there as by that time, it should have caught your attention.

This anime is light years ahead of all shounen out there. No shounen anime holds a candle to Hunter X Hunter when it comes to being ardent and scrupulous. Amidst all monotonous shounen that have come out on the heels, HxH was able to crank it up a notch.

With Hiatus x Hiatus, you have to take the good with the bad. Or, on second thought, you don’t really have to take the bad at all. Read the following arcs: Hunter exam, York Shin City, Chimera Ant. I’ll make it easy for you: read manga chapters 1 through 38, 64 through 119, then 186 through 318. That is Hunter x Hunter. The rest is not worth the time. When reading HxH this way, it becomes a really solid, decent length shonen manga with a bittersweet ending. Considering the manga will never have an actual ending, this is really the only way to read it.

So ... don't let the constant hiatuses deter you: the last 50 chapters are garbage anyway. Most of the series is an experience of slogging through bullshit until the next stretch where the it gets decent. But the great thing about the manga is that arcs are relatively episodic, and thus you can do this without missing anything important to the plot or relevant to character development. I wish someone had told me about this before I wasted my time reading shit like Greed Island and wondering why anyone liked this series.

The highs are high, but the lows are miserable. Sometimes it felt like every fight was just two guys explaining each of their 10 abilities to the other in detail until one of them got bored to death. A lot of shonen fall into this trap but I’ve never seen one leap into it quite so fully. It’s genuinely painful to read these scenes. They’re creatively bankrupt, and the only tension is wondering what overpowered new ability Togashi pull out of his ass this time.

There is no interesting overarching narrative, the world is a bit dull, the combat is more annoying than engaging, and most of the main characters are kind of boring. But you know what? The Hunter Exam was halfway decent. Yorknew City felt like a classic battle shonen revenge arc. And the Chimera Ant Arc was an example of the genre at its peak, pretty much DBZ spliced with psychological horror. It got self-indulgent, and the narrator is a bit annoying, but overall it’s one of the best arcs I’ve read in any shonen manga. Justified its length. Meruem is an incredible villain.

I don’t really have much to say about this manga. It's not very remarkable. I just wanted to post this in order to tell people what I wish I was told: just read the good parts. You won’t miss anything. You’ll actually like the series more. Also, make sure you’re reading the scans of official volumes, since for a while Togashi would turn in sketches to shonen jump and then only bother to draw the scenes when the volume was released.

Yeah, that’s it. 5/10 I guess.

Before beginning this review, I will like to point out that the intention of this review is not to trigger Hunter X Hunter (HxH for short)fans or let them feel like I'm attacking them or their intelligence since that is basically the trend in most reviews these days. Most reviews are made with the intention to 'trigger' a reaction out of fans by criticizing a series to the point that you are telling fans that they are basically dumb for liking a particular series.

This review is simply showing you guys another perspective since HxH fans aren't used to seeing much criticism when it comes to ... this series. Now, shall we begin?

Hxh is a series that I once loved, the anime that is, now after finishing the anime I went into the manga and quickly realise a problem this series has had in the anime, but now, it was more apparent in the manga. The problem is the absurd amount of dialogue and monologue within it that makes it ridiculous, the author of HxH decided that every single character is going to have long monologue and dialogue, but it's even worse when the characters are just redshirts.

The latest arc is especially guilty of this, basically, we as the reader are forced to see the point of view of literally every single character in this arc; the guards of the Prince's, the Prince's, guards of a Prince stalking another Prince, people associated to a Prince, people keeping an eye on another Prince, the Mafia Bosses, Hunters, the guards of the Mafia Bosses, the people from branch families, all of the underlings of the people from branch families as well, and we can go on and on — I wouldn't be surprised if we start getting the point of view from the trees, cats, dogs and basically everything else. You get the point. This is not interesting at all and it's just a chore to read. Sure you can say that he is amazing for giving redshirts their moments and making them feel important, but, truth be told, redshirts will always be redshirts! You can give them a few dialogues or give them a purpose later on without watering down the series quality by having them talk about stuff, we as the readers, are already aware of. I also saw the Viz translation, and it's a bit better, but still, its too dialogue heavy and unnecessary — just pointing that out before someone says it is Mangastream's fault, btw this is wall x text the manga.

Togashi is like a student that is writing an essay that should be 800 words in length and thinks that writing a 2000 word essay instead will impress the teacher. That is basically how a lot of the fans are behaving as well, I've seen HxH fans praising the series because it has so many dialogues and saying how long it took them to read a single chapter, like it was some type of accomplishment, while other HxH fans are saying they feel dumb because they are not understanding the plot. The truth is, the reason why some people are having difficulty in understanding the plot is because Togashi, as a writer, is failing to express his work to his readers properly, because all he is doing is throwing dialogue and monologue at his fans and telling them that they should figure out his mess, I'm not sure how the editor even approve these chapters. If this was a monthly manga then that could be an excuse to why some fans are forgetting vital points, but it's a weekly series which means it should be easier to follow and remember. Togashi is also lacking in the "show but not tell" type of storytelling, he would rather lazily tell the audience every tiny detail, even the irrelevant ones.

I'm sure Togashi has planned out everything in this arc and that he knows what he is doing, but he is not executing it properly if half of his fans feel like it is a chore to read his manga, it just means he is not writing this arc in a creative way. At the end of the day, its the author's story, but he is writing his story to his fans, and if his fans are not liking it, something is clearly wrong. Togashi may have a brilliant idea, but if he is not executing it properly then it is all a waste.

This manga overall is a chore to read and it is boring for me personally, the characters for HxH has always been decent for me, I never had a problem with the characters, I don't think they are anything special but at the same time, I don't think they are bad. I don't like the art style because it is drawn in a generic style that I, personally don't like, but its even worst when it is not drawn properly by Togashi. In saying that, the art really doesn't affect my enjoyment that much, since there isn't much art, to begin with.

Overall, this manga is a 4/10, and I don't feel like Togashi is taking advantage of his imagination. I know he can do way better than this, and perhaps this series will be a bit more bearable to watch when it's animated, whenever that is.

To people that are still enjoying this series, more power to you, but at least try to understand why some peoples are not enjoying it, without talking down on them or challenging their intelligence, because I've seen that a lot.

As a university student, reading HxH feels like reading a school textbook, the only purpose is for you to temporarily memorize information just to pass a test. HxH is at the borderline of a school textbook than a fictional book, which basically sums up how I currently feel for this series, and I'm having a lot of doubt that my opinion will ever change.

Thanks for reading if you were able to reach this far.