Prequel said: Wow. What a pathetic end. So let me summarize what happened so far. We watched one of the main characters talk about a group of barbarians of how they killed his tribe, including some children, for 58 episodes. And we've ACTUALLY seen those barbarians kill THOUSANDS of people, create pools of blood, terrorise a whole city, shoot police, run over people with cars, vacuum clean them, etc. all sort of inhuman things. We also got to see the main protagonist to face them and actually accuse them of being cold blooded mass murderers.
So what else supposed to be there for them to be completely wiped out? I expected a complete annahilation of Phantom Troupe and I had all the right to expect so...
Then suddenly a couple of them have FEELINGS?!? And a ridiculous exchange is decided? And then they just let them go? And no one complains about this? WOW. Just WOW.
At least Hisoka could kill a half of them. And only one of them dies? And possibly the least "evil"? How is this supposed to be satisfying? Not to mention "trolling" of Hisoka-Chrolla war. I'm not even gonna talk about of how PT was suddenly so strong, or why did they wait to get rich so long or how on earth are the mafia so weak or how the kid who punched probably the most powerful "spider" was suddenly so powerless against rest or how shadow beasts were so powerless considering they were the ultimate leverage of the mafia for tens and probably hundreds of years. I'm not even gonna talk about of how everyone knew about Nen and yet still no one knew about it when story needed some directions...
You know... I was drawn back to shounen with HxH... but now I see this ending... I'm back to square one. This is just ridiculously ignoring all the mechanics of the show and the characters. This is just beyond ridiculous. There were also some other ridiculous things with this thing called "arc", but I could accept them one way or the other.. but this ending? This is just unacceptable. I guess you really don't care about the characters. I wish this arc never happened. I'm not rejecting I didn't have fun at times (esp. at 52) but this lowered the story's quality one level below.
Such different-toned changes in a story is just making a story as a whole unconvincing and unworthy. Seeing the fact that writers are that unable to write a more complete, more connected story without such change is pathetic. Sorry, no matter what you call some thing, "arc"s, "part" or whatever.. a story MUST be whole and you can't cut it to pieces. And spare me the lectures, I completed Bleach a while ago, I'm not new to this... this is fundamentally wrong. And this is why some don't take anime so seriously.
Some people would agree with you on how this arc ended. And I, in fact, agree with how you think this was an anti-climatic ending but there is more to a story than the ending and this arc of HxH incorporates writing techniques that should be acknowledged.
Let's take what you said after your summary. Just because the Phantom Troupe members have murders thousands of people and are the goal of revenge for one of the main protagonists does NOT mean that they "should be completely wiped out." That is unrealistic. I suspect you've already noticed that HxH has logic and strategy in its fights. There are distinct tiers in power. And as you put it, the Phantom Troupe members are powerful (you mentioned how we are never introduced to how they are so strong, yes, that is something I wish the author did elaborate on, but think about all the other mainstream anime as well as mainstream books like the popular Harry Potter. It is never explained how Voldemort is so powerful).
Now, with extremely powerful Nen users, even Kurapika would not be able to stand up to them. You have not seen the full power of all the Troupe members, but reach episode 96 and you'll realize how powerful most of the members are. Kurapika would not stand a chance to members like Feitan. And even in this arc, I think Kurapika was lucky. He killed Pakunoda, who is arguably not a combat oriented member, and Uvo who is the perfect target for his ability. If Kurapika fought any of the other members (excluding Kortopi), he would probably have major issues.
With that explanation, it should be painfully obvious that if Kurapika did annihilate all the Troupe members, that would be extremely unrealistic.
To your next point, I don't see why villains having feelings is bad. If you think about other shounens, most villains do not get such a subtle kind of development. They always have some sort of random sad backstory that makes the audience feel bad for them or nothing at all. The Phantom Troupe members are slowly being shown as human. Just because they killed thousands of people means they don't have feelings? EVERYONE has feelings. As for complaining, Kurapika knows what's important; he's acting like an adult. He has a job as a bodyguard and he is going to use that job to get back his tribe's scarlet eyes. Killing the Phantom Troupe members is not his only goal and if he slips up and gets fired, he will probably never get another chance to find his tribe's scarlet eyes. And the Phantom Troupe members themselves are adults, so they should not be complaining.
Lastly, sure, stories should have a concrete end but is that realistic? I'll go back to the Harry Potter example in hopes you have read it (and since you mentioned how some people don't take anime seriously because it's divided into arcs). Every Harry Potter book is essentially an arc in a large picture. But think about the ending for most of those "arcs." In more than one, Harry defeats the main villain and everything is nice and happy. That is extremely unrealistic. On top of that, no one complains about the arc-like style Harry Potter has (which is even more disjointed than most transitions between shounen arcs). That's simply because Harry Potter has the comfort of being a series that can skip over the boring summer that Harry experiences every year without making it obvious (manga and anime do not have that luxury because of how short each manga volumes are).
To conclude, yes this arc's ending is anti-climatic, but I do hope that you can see the writing techniques in here and the logic that makes this ending more than suitable. Not everything is about making the reader/watcher satisfied; writing is an art, and if you read literary fiction, you'll realize that. HxH, in my opinion, is a combination of mainstream writing with literary writing, it incorporates techniques that most mainstream books/anime/manga don't have (specifically the realism) and that's what makes it powerful. |