I may have made a slight miscalculation when I set out to review anime the same way one would review a movie, namely in that some shows are long enough to include dozens of movies, each with different plots and a different subset of the larger cast to focus on, and perhaps only a single thread running between them to establish “continuity”. How does one stick a numerical score on such a show? If the different arcs have inconsistent quality, it can be tough to convey which points are worth watching, and to give an overall criticism about the balance between quality and mediocrity. Maybe the central characters should be the focus, as they will be the focus of your forty-hour experience. In the same vein, should it be the world?
Thankfully I don’t have to answer these questions yet. A prodigy named Ging left his home on a small island at age twelve to become a Hunter, an elite organization of professionals who travel the world in search of the most dangerous and mysterious jobs available. When he comes back to the island he leaves his son Gon in the care of his cousin and disappears. Twelve years later, the optimistic and carefree Gon sets out on the same journey of discovery, starting with the grueling and lethal Hunter exam designed to only accept a small percent of a small percent of the applicants who are qualified to bear the title of Hunter. In the preliminary stages of the test he meets the twelve year old ex-assassin Killua, as well as a prospective doctor named Leorio and a revenge-obsessed red-eyed swordsman named Kurapika. Together they fight through the exam—encountering enemies from both the exam and the applicant pool—and go out into the world to reach their respective goals when it’s over.
I say I don’t have to think too hard about how to write this review because Hunter X Hunter can be broken neatly into three pieces from my perspective: superpowers, no superpowers, and bugs. The Hunter exam has no superpowers among the central characters, other than boundless optimism, clever resourcefulness, superhuman strength, and an unbreakable will not to die. That may sound absurd to fit into the category of “no superpowers”, but it is clearly a show about the young characters trying to survive the hellish world of the exam through the skills they have honed by living their lives up until their meeting. It is absolute buckets of fun. Gon treads the line between incredibly profound and incredibly stupid perfectly by being simplistic in a way that ignores common sense. Killua, despite being cast as an assassin, is mischievous and clearly happy to find a friend his own age, and their friendship will shape the entire show. We focus on Kurapika and Leorio as friends rather than shounen archetypes, and the way they bounce lines off one another, as well as Gon and Killua, makes for a great travelling alliance to watch.
There is one other arc at the end with no superpowers, but basically from the end of the exam onwards the giant elephant in the room is Nen, which sometimes functions as the spirit energy from Dragon Ball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho, sometimes functions as the incredibly specific and bizarre abilities that could come from the To Aru Majutsu no Index series or a Western graphic novel, and in my opinion it never functions as a point of interest or enjoyable, sensible storytelling. It is vague, meaning it is exploited for every niche or development unfilled by the actions of the characters as people, and after going through the Hunter exam, having it dropped on us makes it feel incredibly shoehorned in. Also, for something so secretive and supernatural, it seems to be so incredibly prevalent and easy to find that I find it implausible that everyone in the world is in the dark about its existence. Where are the online conspiracy theories and leaks we are so fond of to blow the lid off that one?
The only good use of Nen in the show is Kurapika, who devotes his powers to exacting his revenge in a way that both suits his character and proves his obsession. His clan was slaughtered by an elite group of bandits called the Phantom Troupe, who wanted their beautiful scarlet red eyes as a treasure to sell to the rest of the world. While it’s not exactly a unique setup for a revenge character, Kurapika acts the part fairly well, and so it does not drop by the wayside. With that said, the Phantom Troupe are some of the most powerful characters in the show—if not the most powerful—with hundreds of enemies all looking for nothing in their lives but revenge, and nothing about the first few arcs indicate that Kurapika should be any stronger than them. Because of this it seems completely implausible that Kurapika should have any shot at putting a dent in them, even with the help of his friends. While the fight between the protagonists and the Troupe is tense and interesting to watch, it also raises quite a few eyebrows from the outset.
And then there are the bugs, or more accurately the sixty-episode monstrosity of the Chimera Ant arc, about a group of vicious ants that rapidly evolve after eating various animals, and ultimately humans and Nen users. It is a beautiful subversion of shounen anime as a genre, from the use of a narrator who remains impartial to the world’s imminent demise to the seeming randomness with which circumstances seem to change, both reminiscent of a Legend of the Galactic Heroes-esque epic. The central antagonist is slowly molded into a more sympathetic and contemplative entity by way of an entirely unrelated, powerless human. Central characters die unexpectedly and remain dead, and the climax is entirely anticlimactic. It is a masterfully human story. The only subversion I don’t like is how it took sixty episodes with predominantly little or nothing happening, which crosses the boundary into being unbearably tedious and grueling. This may have been a statement by author Togashi Yoshihiro and the producers, but ultimately they took a twenty-six episode show worthy of being hailed as an eternal masterpiece and stretched it to the point where I almost put the show down for good.
Which leaves the question: did I enjoy Hunter X Hunter, and would I recommend it? If you enjoy the type of shounen fighting superpower shows that Jump usually carries, then this is about as good as it gets. The characters, coupled with the bright palate and the enjoyable narration style gave me a very positive experience, despite my distaste for the genre. Given the length I probably would've sought out a different way to pass the time. Providing a balanced, consistent experience for a show of this length is hard, and doubly so when it is based on arcs and rotations of the main characters. Hunter X Hunter is not consistent, but it stays neatly between the boundaries of perfectly average and highly enjoyable. My recommendation, therefore, is to watch the first arc and then go off and talk about it to your friends. If you have the patience to watch farther, you may love the bugs.