Hunter x Hunter (2011)

Hunters devote themselves to accomplishing hazardous tasks, all from traversing the world's uncharted territories to locating rare items and monsters. Before becoming a Hunter, one must pass the Hunter Examination—a high-risk selection process in which most applicants end up handicapped or worse, deceased.

Ambitious participants who challenge the notorious exam carry their own reason. What drives 12-year-old Gon Freecss is finding Ging, his father and a Hunter himself. Believing that he will meet his father by becoming a Hunter, Gon takes the first step to walk the same path.

During the Hunter Examination, Gon befriends the medical student Leorio Paladiknight, the vindictive Kurapika, and ex-assassin Killua Zoldyck. While their motives vastly differ from each other, they band together for a common goal and begin to venture into a perilous world.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Zoldyck, Killua Main

Ise, Mariya Japanese

Kurapika Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Freecss, Gon Main

Han, Megumi Japanese

Paladiknight, Leorio Main

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Morow, Hisoka Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Meruem Supporting

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Lucilfer, Chrollo Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Netero, Isaac Supporting

Ginga, Banjou Japanese

Neferpitou Supporting

Fujimura, Ayumi Japanese

Portor, Feitan Supporting

Yamaguchi, Kappei Japanese

Maruyama, Masao Producer

Tamura, Manabu Producer, Planning

Nakatani, Toshio Producer

Shinohara, Akira Producer

Reviews

Nov 3, 2025

jujuestar

Recommended

My Reasons Why Hunter x Hunter is One of the Best Shounen of All Time

1. Great Characters
The characters are so memorable. The visuals for them are insane, and their personalities are distinct and well-developed. They have layers.

2. The Relationships Between the Characters
The characters are so involved with each other. The relationship between Gon and Killua is the best bond between a protagonist and a sidekick/supporting character ("coadjuvant"). I was tired of seeing all the main relationships in anime being about hetero romances, or just men fighting and competing all the time. For the first time, I saw a genuine, pure, and sweet friendship that felt ... like love. Killua clearly has a more feminine vibe. He is more aggressive, cautious, jealous, and reactive. Gon is the classic, somewhat naive one. The other characters have great and sensitive feelings, too. For example, Leorio was absent for most of the Chimera Ant arc, but when he returned, he clearly showed how bad he felt for Gon, and it moved me so much.

3. Great Character Development
Just look at how much Meruem changed, and how much Gon and Killua grew up.

4. Moments of Great Tension
Every arc has a part that made me think "absolute cinema!"

The Only Problem:
I don't like the narrator talking all the time, and some parts have too much information. There is also a lot of rpadding. But that's classic for almost all shounen.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 19, 2025

ZeRainyMae

Mixed Feelings

TLDR; A fun show with a lot of potential, but held back by some serious flaws. It's a solid 6/10 for me.

The story itself is fun, the characters unique and refreshing, and if this story ever continues I'll most definitely watch it.

However, there are a lot of things left to be desired in the presentation of this anime. Its greatest downfall is its narration and pacing. There were points in the show I had to set the speed to 1.5 just to keep my attention; something keep in mind I rarely do. You have a narrator that spends half the anime practically reading you a ... bed time story, along with long moments of visuals that don't provide any information or interest to the viewer. Characters that you fall in love with, and ASSUME are main characters just fall off the planet, only to briefly appear for a few seconds 40 episodes later. It took me a lot longer to finish the anime not because of its robust length, but because I would burn out and need something more stimulating to grasp on to.

Though there were parts of this show that really gripped me, I'm looking at you Meruem and Komugi, I can't say confidently that this is worth the rating it seems to get. Maybe its nostalgic for some, or the fact that its run time makes it easier for people to grow a deep connection with the show, but I would expect more from an anime that has been frequently recommended to me for years now.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 20, 2023

Adam_Lilith

Not Recommended

Funny

"I can see people calling it a fun guilty pleasure, but one of the highest ranked anime of all time is a catastrophic crime"

Hunter X Hunter 2011 is one I have heard of for years. In fact I caught up to the manga many years ago during one of the many hiatuses. I remember thinking the manga was pretty good. Anyway my brother told me it was his favorite anime. He is not usually into anime so I thought it would be a great thing for us to bond over if I watched it again. And so I started.

At first things seemed good, ... Gon and Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio and the rest of the cast seemed interesting. The world intrigued me. The Hunter Exam was fun. The Zoldycks were cool and even the arena was kind of entertaining. Yorknew was fine. Greed island was fun though a little elementary. But more and more flaws started standing out to me. In the storytelling, the ability to utilize multiple characters at a time, to give a compelling story without insulting your audience or pulling bs. I stopped caring for any of the characters pretty early as they just didn't feel worthy of investment or all that compelling. I mean Leorio is maybe in 10 episodes and yet you can tell he's considered a main character. It felt like an anime for 10 year olds the way characters speak and act at times.

Every arc drags just a little more than the last one until the chimera ant just puts you to sleep with an asmr narrarator who needs to recap for 5 minutes what you just saw 2 minutes of in real time. I am sure people hear a lot of negatives about the chimera ant arc and think, "It's just one arc it can't sink the whole series". Unfortunately, Chimera ant is nearly 50% of the entire anime runtime. It is horrendously long and dragged out. It dragged more than the 4th great shinobi war, which had dozens of more characters to balance to flush out and was about 4 times longer.

Ultimately Id give the first few arcs a generous 6.5-7 but the Chimera ant arc should have been a 7 if it was 1/3 its length. Unfortunately for that I have to take off 3 points for 40 episodes that felt like someone put me in time-out. When nearly half of the anime is a 4/10 I can't really justify more than a 5.

All in all, Hunter x Hunter is the single most overhyped anime I've ever seen.

I fell asleep to it many times, which is very unusual and I had to force myself to start the next episode on multiple occasions just because I wanted to talk to my brother. It felt awful. It has it's moments but they are very far between and don't justify themselves when there is so much better out there.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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