Hunter x Hunter (2011) Episode 11 Discussion

While I am resoundingly in favour of the old anime in virtually every conceivable regard, the heart removal scene in this episode--taken purely in isolation--is something I prefer in this new adaptation. There's something subtle about it--and something very, very clever.

The removal of music is sufficient to bestow the scene with some gravitas on its own, but it was having Killua wrap the heart up in the cloth and have the screen play perform simply to the sound of the heart beat that was so achingly clever; and it's all down to what it does for the imagination.

Hiding the heart from view is necessary for the time-slot--and I won't pretend that what's happened here is anything other than a response to that--but it's how this anime takes that restriction and uses it to its advantage to evoke something sinister that I find staggering.

After Killua does his work, when you hear the heart beat sound start up when the screen dashes to Joness's profile, your imagination gets to work. You start to think: "Did Killua just...?" And then the screen turns to Killua, who doesn't flagrantly show the thing off to reach an immediate climax; he lets the thing pump away, hidden so weakly from view, in blood-soaked bit of cloth. The sight of the heart itself couldn't be more close--but you never get that catharsis...you never get that immediate shock--and this makes the scene that bit more disturbing. You never quite get to see the full extent of the horror.

If Killua had revealed the heart from the outset, that would have necessarily been the climax to a crescendo of tension. There's no way, I believe, that you can maintain a sense of unease when a pulsing human heart is in full view. The full extent of the deed would be in full view, and there would be nothing more to say about it: the shock is there, and that's that. It is because Killua leaves it up to your imagination to imagine the gore oozing inside that bit of cloth that the sight is horrific. As a result of the cloth being blood-soaked--nothing more than a paltry curtain--the heart is never more than a thin veil away from a terrible sight: it's achingly close. Having Killua go through the trouble of tying it up in a knot, suggesting continued tampering with a functioning human organ, makes the interference on his part feel disturbingly gratuitous. He doesn't outright show Joness why he's suddenly feeling cold, he lets the realisation slowly dawn upon him...but it's never actually confirmed. We all know it, but we're never quite get that closure. We're still left in palpable anticipation. Killua invites your imagination to consider the worst--to consider just how ugly the thing looks, and continue to gather suspense for the impending sight of it. The disquieting crescendo can keep building--and that makes the scene very affecting.

But there is no climax. You get close to it, but you never quite see it. All the while, Killua just holds that pulsing bag in his hand--a symbol representing an impending horror. Worse than actually finding a zombie in Resident Evil, for example, is the knowledge that you're about to find a zombie behind a door--and it's that tension before you encounter something you're not sure you're prepared for that makes your stomach turn. Like getting a vaccination, it's the wait that kills you; the process is brief and lacks impact. The effect is emulated here; having the heart wrapped in the bag represents that door or that wait--it's the difference between the tension being released and the sickening sense of tension being maintained. The fact that Killua never crushes the heart leaves its horror in tact....because it's still there. You can't get that climax to release the tension. He places it back in Joness's fingers and its relative horror never subsides, because that climax--the full reveal of the heart--is never satisfied. It's still there, so close but so far away, the quietude of the scene only augmenting the unchanging sentiment of tension--a sense of tension that, even when the electronic counter changes to '3', never goes away.

For something born out of need to meet the demands of an early-morning time-slot, I think that's absolutely genius.

colbub said:
This version did censor things quite a bit: I mean, instead of presenting the woman who Leorio gambled with as a psychologist who made people suicide, she was presented with a different crime, and they didn't really show Killua's heart ripping scene as intensely as they could have. You could say that, of course, the heart being in a bag made of his shirt makes it seem more suspenseful but the shirt was sucked into the hole, not ripped out. There's a hole in that theory. So, if it wasn't the shirt, why would Killua have a paper bag for gruesome things? He came here for a game, for entertainment, and he had been trained to kill since he was three. Though him giving back the heart was funny, I agree.

Also, with the bright colours, it does give a sense of life into the animation, and more kid-friendly, but it stops the atmosphere of how unforgiving the Hunter Exam is. It doesn't wholly get through the feeling that the people who pass the hunter test can be unforgiving, and that's why when presented with Gon's sometimes aloof and trusting attitude that they want to help him. It's just that kind of world, and somehow, sometimes it doesn't feel that way, which I worry sometimes for in the future Gon influencing others comes into play many many times...

I guess I could some it up by the new series being 'cuter', and the old series being 'cooler' (artwise). You can't really criticise the quality of art in the old one since it really was old, but how they're presented... it gives me that impression. It's whether the watcher is more adapted to the newer style of art, or could appreciate the old style of art.

Although both have it's good and weak points, somehow right now I think the old one still has more impact. Maybe in the future of this new series it would change. If I was too harsh, I'm sorry. >_<