I cannot gush enough about how great the soundtrack and animation was in this show, so I won’t. Simply know that I couldn’t see any problems with either one apart from minor quirks that are easily forgiven.
At its start, the series has a faster pace and is far more about being a light-hearted adventure, using the dynamic of the four main characters and action to grab your interest. Most importantly, it knows how to use action the correct way, as it doesn’t rely on fights or gore alone to get an emotion out of you. Examples being leaps of faith into a cavern, sneaking up on dangerous opponents, trying to beat the clock, or escape from a nest of venomous vipers. Hunter X Hunter manages to be a great shounen that makes the best use it can of both tired tropes and original ideas. The show’s style of storytelling changes significantly as time goes by however. Towards the ending it slows down, exploring the thoughts of the character in greater detail, adding far more narration and flowery language. It makes it seem like you’re watching an animated novel rather than any ordinary series. While the narration and symbolism is used thoughtfully in the later parts of the Chimera Ant arc, the final Election arc suffers from having too much narration, telling you things rather than showing them. If you like or dislike this change is very much up to personal taste, as both ways of storytelling are used well for what they are.
Like many shounens, HxH comes with a large cast. Some characters are focused on to a great extent, some less so. Two particular cases, Leorio and Kurapika, were presented as part of the main cast yet are left out of several arcs, leaving you wishing their stories had some closure. In the end though I can’t say I wasn’t satisfied with how our other main characters reached their goals.
What I found most interesting about the show was the way it developed characters in the Chimera Ant arc, where some very unconventional means were used to bring about its emotional end. I raged several times as it seemed the story was taking a turn for the worse, only to see that most of those moments would have a greater meaning later on. What brings HxH to such a high score is the fact that it taught me something about writing. The one thing most shocking to an audience isn’t character-death or such things, but rather extreme changes to a character. One can in fact use bad tropes to threaten a character’s development, engaging the audience, making us wish to see them find their way back to their piece of heaven.
Overall, the only things that bring the show down from being perfect are the characters that were left behind, and the less exciting politics of the last arc. I’d recommend it to all lovers of anime, adventure, and good writing. A must-see.
