Spotlight Anime: Hunter x Hunter (2011)

Junchi said:
Ok, here is a (somewhat dumb) question: I didn't put this anime to my list, because I only watched certain arcs (Yorkshin, Ant, Election). Can I vote on the next week's "you decide" above all?

(...) I had already watched the original older version, and I knew this was a remake with the hated "fillers" (that I hadn't even noticed in the original) and with a prolongation of the story. (...) It's a famous series, loved by many people, but that unfortunately will not have my recommendation. As always, we swim against the current in this space [blog] and we have to be mean to things that people love. But everything has a reason. I'll explain.

Everything starts in Whale Island, a pacifical Island where Gon live with his mother [or aunt, it does not really matter]. Ging, Gon's father, is a famous "Hunter". "Hunters" are those that have a licence that grants them access to various things, allowing them to make new discoveries, solve pendent issues of various levels of danger and, deep inside, to live constant adventures. Thus, Gon decides to be a Hunter as well, to be able to discover the location of his absent father, that is always away for reasons that nobody knows.

Everything starts, thus, with the Hunter Exam. The candidates will have to pass through a series of tests that will give information on their abilities to attain the desired license. The start is quite fun, captivating, colourful, full of energy. We follow Gon and his new friends, Killua, Leorio and Kurapika, on theire intense and dangerous tests, always wishing that they will find the best solution. These are smart, original and very stimulating. From the second part, there is a certain change, that affects the whole tone of the series, progressively. In this arc, we are going to meet Killua's family. These moments are darker, but we still learn a bit of the values that characterize all shounen series, love, friendship and so on. Deep inside, the series was not atypical, but had a refreshing originality, variying between humour and sarcasm and in the enemies that appeared. One of them, for me, was especially interesting: Hisoka. Even though, maybe, my opinion is biased because (once in a while) he appeared naked (which is very appealing visually), I felt that this villain was more than expected. Characterized with an aura ov doom, the fact that for him everything is kind of a game, a search for the strongest oponent with a simple objective of pure fun, is a pleasant variation to the typical antagonist.

Now, I felt a certain magic in HxH. It was something unique, even though it was normal. Unfortunately, it's hard to keep things unique. And HxH disappointed on that aspect. The magic is lost quickly from the moment in which we enter the third arch. Here, the main character is Kurapika, a person interesting from his conception. He looks forward to revenge the death of his clan, perpretated by the group of "Spiders" and, because of that, has to destroy the assassins the best way he can. It's introduced a new concept, "nen". This "nen" ends up to turn the continuation of the story in a constant oposition of original super powers (certainly inspired by Jojo's "Stands"), giving a reason to the existance of many ways to fight. This concept makes everything quite boring and unpleasant, especially because great part of the series is spent training it. Oh well, let's come back to Kurapika. This caharacter, that was quite dear to me, suffers a deep decaracterization in a way that he turns into some kind of killing machine, a hurt being, introverted and with an evil aura that was not proper to him. The anime becomes "dark" and it seems that's what people like. "Dark" things and with a lot of deaths, and blood and so on. And the magic? Seems that the magic is in destruction.

We go to Greed Island, a game that Ging gives the chance to play. Extremelly uninteresting arc, seems to be there just to establish the powers of "nen", allow the characters to perfect it, and in the end is just a physical and mental preparation ot the following arc, the very famed Chimera Ant Arc. To be honest, I understand the reasons that lead the majority of people to like this arc. It's dark, very dark, with horrifying and terrifically bloody moments. People like it. I felt that, once again, there was a complete decaracterization of the characters. Even Gon, that was a childing and happy go lucky creature, becomes a psichotic animal able to do anything for a revenge and defeat the forces of evil. That's it, for the first time we have an invincible malificent force, exactly what a typical shounen was missing... The same as every other. So invincible that the author uses an instrument of extreme bad taste to solve the situation, even though it does not solve anything anyway. This is, in some way we could do a paralelism to the past of real life: we are under this type of weapon and we find some kind of inner peace. Even though, it seemed to me completely unnecessary and I had prefered if the inner peace had been found in other way of destruction: after all, the power of the old man was so interesting that could have been usedd in that way. Also, the narrative style (with a narrator) is anticlimatic, boring, sins for lack of rythm. In this part, the soundtrack is so repetitive that is nauseous. And the integration of comedy moments in the most unsettling situations turns them ridiculous.

To finalize, we get a bit of what was the first part. A relief, comparing to the anterior arcs. But, even like this, I felt that important characters were forgetton, namely Leorio and Kurapika.

In artistic terms, the series has its highs and lows, as in any long series. There are some extremelly well done action scenes, but in some moments (especially in the end) they demonstrate a bad use of budget, making use of a bland and little enlightned experimentation.

Musically, the same thing happens. In some moments the soundtrack is terrifgying and very exciting but, as the narrative processes and the style is added, it ends up to become repetitive and source of headaches.

So, a series that could have been much more than what it is, if it had chosen a different route for itself. I'm very sorry that this is like this, but I can't recommend it.