Art - 8/10
Sound - 7/10
Character - 6/10
Enjoyment - 7/10
Overall - 7/10
Near the beginning of the movie, Gon says something along the lines of "this feels nostalgic" as he sees the towering Heaven's Arena. I actually think that was my general impression after watching the movie. The art and sound were good, but the story and characterization honestly was rather lacking(that's putting it lightly since the plot was probably as cliche as you could get). Yet, it was probably nostalgia (at least in my case) that made the movie still enjoyable to watch.
What kind of nostalgia am I talking about? I'm talking about that feeling you get when you see Zushi(OSU!! kid), Wing, and Biske(I miss Greed Island @_@) again at Heaven's Arena . It's that feeling you get when you see Leorio being the butt of the jokes once again (I think all the gloom and doom of the Chimera Ant arc made me forget how funny he can be sometimes). It's that feeling that you get when you see Gon use a fishing rod again (man that feels like such a long time ago).
To be fair, most of these moments are as brief and as inconsequential as Pariston's cameo in this movie. But for die hard Hunter X Hunter fans and even semi-casual fans like me I'm sure will be entertained enough by these moments to walk away from this movie with a positive feeling.
If you like Hunter X Hunter a lot, I'm sure you'll enjoy this movie.
Just don't come in here expecting the epic narrative of the Chimera Ant arc condensed into a nice one and a half hour movie.
*** IN-DEPTH REVIEW BUT WITH SLIGHT SPOILERS ***
Art - 8/10
I actually though the art and animation was a big plus in this movie. I liked the character designs of the villains (those eyes). I thought the animation of the new aura, On, accompanying these villains was rather nice too (especially that one scene where Jed destroys all those blimps. You have to admit that was pretty awesome). The battle animation, in my opinion, was nice and fluid (mostly referring to Gon & Killua vs. Gaki). Maybe I have low expectations and/or was more aware of it since it's a movie, but I felt the animation was great and definitely movie quality.
Sound - 7/10
There were a LOT of recycled songs from the TV show all throughout the movie. The ending song of the movie was actually Hyouriittai (ending song for the Chimera Ant arc). Overall, the songs were appropriate though, and I was actually impressed by their orchestral arrangement of Hyouriittai. Besides the song sounding nice, they somehow made it fit both the joyful mood at the beginning of the movie and the bittersweet mood of the end. That was a big plus for me, but then again, I always thought that ending song was pretty catchy.
Story - 5/10
Pros of the movie in this department were probably...
1) They established the context of the movie early in the movie with a quick flashback (to see how poorly flashbacks can be utilized, go watch Road to Ninja, ughhh).
2) Pacing, for the most part, felt okay.
And...that's pretty much it.
Seriously, for an anime that has stories that often think outside of the shounen box or takes creative licenses, the plot for this movie was probably as bland/ cliche as it could get. I mean, just look at the name for the group of villains (the Shadow >_>). Not to mention the whole aura of hate and anger (On) vs. the power of friendship and compassion. The fact that you can sum up the plot of the movie with "a group of evil, vengeful guys attack Heaven's Arena and hold Netero hostage, leaving Gon and friends to save the day" is disappointing.
Characters - 6/10
For Gon, I really liked what they did to reinforce his character from the moment where he saves the balloon for the little girl at the beginning of the movie to the moment where he willingly uses On to save his friends (that is honestly such a Gon thing to do).
For the others, Killua was Killua as usual, shining the most during the elevator scene vs. Gaki where he comes up with a clever plan to trap Gaki. Leorio did not really have a big part in this movie, but he added some comic relief which I rather enjoyed.
Kurapika had an interesting dynamic with the villains since he's also in this hate-filled vengeful state as they are. Though they touched on this issue, I really felt like they could have explored it a bit more thoroughly, and I was disappointed with his role in this movie. (I think Kurapika using On vs. the others is definitely something they could have written in).
Hisoka, though, was probably the biggest disappointment in this movie as he pretty much does nothing in it besides add some interesting symbolism to the movie. There was that one scene where he tells Gon that to beat a royal flush (the villains) with a four of a kind(Gon + friends), you need a wild card. I thought that was Hisoka's way of making his brilliant entrance into the battle grounds but noooo. In the end, I'm guessing he was just referring to friendship as the wildcard -,-. The fact that he just sits out of all these fights is honestly out of character for him to begin with. I would have appreciated him not being in the movie at all then seeing him act this way.
The villains, sadly, were not as developed as I would've liked them to be. My favorite villain was actually the girl who I thought had a lot of potential from the moment she smiles at the kid who bumps into her. We all know how her character got butchered -,-". Overall, I just wish they delved more into how the schism between Jed and Netero developed. I felt like Netero's motivation for destroying the Shadow and the Hunter Association's reasoning for moving descendants of the Shadow into concentration camps was never fully explained. If they had at least spent a little more time explaining basic thing like those issues or how Jed even came back to life instead of scenes like the one where Gaki destroys all the tanks(what a waste of animation/time), I would have been happier with the characterization (and probably the story) overall.
