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"Frankly, this baffles me more then most anything else on this site."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/when-to-use-then-and-than

;^)

Lol calling Sword Art Online better than the masterpiece that is Shinsekai Yori.

Nah he's not there. I don't even think of Floch of an antagonist so he wouldn't qualify but he's a great character for sure.

Hey! Are you @PMDKU on Twitter?

The metaphors there are kinda weird and I don't like them much here, but it's something you'll understand much better with the context of later arcs, once you learn more about Isaburo. I don't want to spoil it.

I allude to a spoiler from episode 305, so it's probably best to watch it after you've finished the arc that ends at 307. Glad you loved the arc!

Thanks for accepting my friend request. Also what is so bad about the direction and characters from SSY? I liked the artstyle and enjoyed following the characters. And the concept is brilliantly executed imo. Storytelling and world-building are amazing.

Same as I said in my tweet about it yesterday! Hype stuff.

OK

82% . Man its so high.

Kaguya and Shirogane, lmao

Ishigami is awesome too, he'd be third

I read it a couple of years ago so I don’t remember what it was called mate, sorry. There’s an “apple calculation” image that helps with summarizing the passing of the apple symbol in the series though, and I know that can be helpful for some.

Hey, sorry for taking so long. The thing is that, for the first point regarding the plot focus, I had a hard time trying to think what else to reply that I hadn't already explained in the review, because I feel I already explained my thoughts regarding this pretty exhaustively there. That had been the idea, and I didn't want to now fall too much into repetitiveness, so I opted instead to take a more personal approach.



All these points referred to the same issue, so it makes sense to reply the same for all of them:

Fans often point out that final Ging's quote as the "defining" one of the HxH work and its messages. And it sounds inspiring, admittedly. However, to me it does sound like a final last-minute excuse to justify the shift in focus happening in the start of CAA. And it is a quote that works and is suitable for real life, not for serialized, non-episodic fictional narratives, because unlike the former, the latter interacts with an audience behind that invests its expectations into something in particular and to which it gives a promise given by a concrete overarching premise, expectations that shouldn't be betrayed later on. The exceptions are episodic or non-episodic "anything goes" type of shows that never really point anywhere. But HxH was not an "anything goes" type of show. Its story had a clear direction and clear goals provided by the motivations/struggles of the 4 main members introduced since the start. It starts with clear purposes and even more, works throughout its development upon that purposes. The story started and told the audience it was about a boy leaving his home with the purpose of finding his dad, and it's not like he said "naah, let's do this later, someday". Nope, all of his actions were aimed and were serving that purpose. He took the exam as 1st step. He wanted Killua to join him. He needed money to travel alone. Aunt gives him tape with a clue regarding a game. He went to the city to obtain the mysterious game. He played the game in hopes for next clues. Everything in the story was serving that clear goal. Everything was revolving around that core. This is how I always understood it; becase it was what the show had been communicating in every single step of the journey.

And then the ants situation, literally, just pops-up in the middle of the still unconcluded story-line, in the middle of the way, not only interrupting Gon's plans, but also breaking the continuity/flow of the plot progression, and betraying the audience's expectations. I can't not see it this way. This is how I felt initially in my first viewing and that was still how I felt in a later rewatch two years later, even if now knowing what was about to come this time, that didn't change. I could really listen to the author telling me by the start of the arc "naah, fuck this searching for dad thing, let's instead make Gon and Killua become the shounen superwarriors and kick some beasts asses". I in response said him, "well, fuck you too" lol. I did feel betrayed, and it wasn't precisely nice. Not only for this sudden massive shift in attention, but as I also said in the review, because I didn't like seeing how now Gon and Killua started turning more and more into unrelatable badass superwarriors owning overpowered enemies. Nope, I didn't sign up in the beginning of the story for this. That was not where I had put my expectations into, I didn't want to watch another DBZ and moreover, the show until the start of this arc never suggested to be another DBZ despite having some scattered fights here and there. Power creep was now becoming a thing. And I did feel immensely frustrated, since it was a show I had developed very strong positive feelings towards since early on. I swear once the arc started I remember very well I said to myself "what the heck is this, is this a filler arc?", and to my surprise it turned out it wasn't. To me its inclusion works the same as a skippable filler arc, except that, it wasn't. People complain a lot for example of the Naruto's fillers that break the immersion and temporarily deviate the attention of the viewers, so it's curious to notice why they don't have the same attitude towards this arc which has exactly the same narrative effect.

The first time I went trough it I won't exaggerate here when I say that I was feeling an annoying pressure in the chest due to the massive disappointment. And when you feel that it's clearly because there's something not right going on here. That was the level of frustration. I really hated it. It caused me physical pain to notice in what the story I had grown to love had been turned into now. Of course the 2nd time I watched it, with now personal feelings more cooled down, it became more bearable, and in fact I recognized that it was indeed an interesting arc, but only on itself, as a separate entity, not when joined with the previous part of the series, where it causes a continuity break and makes the whole show to not work in the long run. Thematically speaking is interesting, is compelling, is morally complex, no doubts here. Palace Invasion segment is amazing. Music is awesome. Yeah, but even with this, I can't ignore my first impressions, which are the ones that count the most.

And this is not only me, a lot of other people "complain" too that the arcs felt very disjointed between each other, I'm going to quote here other comments made in other reviews about the same:

- ReallyPatrice: "The series is a jovial but deeply confused hodgepodge of conflicting themes and narratives, some so starkly different from the last that they'd be better suited for an entirely different series rather than a single continuity. ". "Each previous arc is immediately forgotten upon the introduction of the next, and with that forgetfulness often comes abandoned characters and unresolved plot threads. One of the worst examples of wasted potential in serialized history." (I don't entirely agree, but this applies for CAA evidently).

- mpdissonance: "Almost everything that happened in the first few arcs is completely forgotten, Gon again gets completely distracted from the goal of finding his father and gets sidetracked with the game and another random unnecessary training sequence.". "The early part of this arc is a bunch of boring exposition spoon-fed to the viewer through badly written explanatory dialogue that needed to be done because the arc had nothing to do with anything before it. This really points to the problem of having such a completely incoherent, unrelated set of arcs: the viewers’ time is wasted with a bunch more exposition when nobody really wants tedious explanation 60+ episodes into the series." […] "Again, this arc has almost nothing to do with anything that came before it, an entirely new cast of characters are introduced, and we’re exposed to even more exposition."



That's precisely the point. They aren't there because they have no business there. But if they have no business there that's not because of narrative randomness, because "oh, look, it just happened this way"; no, it's because the author wanted it that way: he conceived an arc where they were going to be put aside. After GI he could have written an arc where Leorio and Kurapika would participate again. But he didn't. It was precisely the intention to put them aside. And that to me is worse than leaving characters behind or in the background because you just don't know what else to do with them, like it was the case of Toriyama and DBZ for example with the human part of the Z warriors.



She acted like one because she was introduced in the story to serve as a way to give development to Meruem. The character didn't have any other role in the story apart from that.



I suppose you say this in relation to my understanding of Gon acting out-of-character. It's true that he is not entirely pure-hearted, I mean he witnessed how people was dying or even murdered in front of him in hunter exam and he didn't give a crap. But a whole other story is behaving straight evil. He never seemed to me like an evil boy, capable of threatening to murder an innocent blind girl out of personal frustration. The series never suggested so.



I know that, but that always felt honestly like an excuse just to justify their participation in the campaign lol. Again, as I already mentioned in the review, I thought all of these points were minor issues that weren't really thaat damaging, not major, I only mentioned them to back my idea that the arc as a whole wasn't exactly flawless as the fanbase tends to claim.



Again, HxH thematically can be about many things, but the overarching premise was one and only one: Gon trying to find his father. That was what motivated him to leave his home in episode 1. That oriented all of his actions. It wasn't just a long-term objective for which he someday in the distant future was going to set out to fulfill, and let's just have fun, explore the world and do random adventuring for now. I never saw HxH as that. And even if I tried to, I can't see it like that. In this sense, to me Gon meeting Ging for the first time since birth was the most crucial moment in the whole series. I wanted it to be inspiring and dramatic and emotional. What did we get? Comedy, funny music and funny faces. Nope, just nope. Tonally it was so underwhelming.

And that's another issue: now that Gon is nen-less and his story is over, then you're virtually removing your main character from your work. What's then the point of everything coming now? I know there's a Dark Continent arc, but personally and honestly, after the fulfillment of Gon's goal, which was the climax, I see no point in remaining interested with following content, even if Kurapika's, Chrollo's and Hisoka's personal issues are left hanging.

Ehh I can’t really tell you about that, sorry!

It'll go up in my list, for sure! A couple of spots at least.