Hunter X Hunter 2011 is an shounen adventure featuring Gon Freecss who decides that he needs to look for his long gone father Ging that has been gone a long time to become a hunter. Gon wants to find out why Ging abandoned him and his family to become a hunter and what is so special about this profession. Gon wants also to become a hunter.
Along the way he meets his 3 friends, Killua, Kurapika and Leorio. All of those characters have their own backstories and the reason to join up with Gon in order for them to become hunters.
What is so special about this shounen compared to the rest?
Gon is a 12 year old boy who wants to become a hunter but in this show he does not overpower everyone after a while, yes, he gets his powers too via training but it is a brilliant ride to see him gain all those abillities, they are all very well explained in how they work and what they do. Gon is young and he does not know anything about this world but as he learns it so do we, for every event Gon gains knowledge around him but also responsibility. All the main cast is treated the same way, none of them feels like side characters but more of an family to Gon.
Story arc telling
While the main "father" plot is pretty mediocre, it is the arcs and those characters that brings Hunter x Hunter together. Eeach arc features a theme and develops the show further, some arcs deals with different main character and their desire why they want to be hunters in the first place.
The battles and animation
This shounen differs a lot from the crowd. Gon is 12 and the rest of the group is pretty young and therefore the battles are not resolved with brute force but rather with brains. There are pure battles of course but it never feels like the main group gets overpowered and destroys stuff. Since Hunter X Hunter is 148 episodes long you may think that the animation and production value would decrease over the time but thats not true. In fact, the battles feels like movie quality and the animation is almost Ufotable quality.
My personal favorite fight takes place almost at the end of the series where the music, animation and sound effects brings it to life. I dont want to tell you more since its a spoiler. When you finish HXH you will understand why the rest of the shounen genre is so far behind.
Final opinion
I have to mention that there are a bit of sluggish and dragged out episodes, betwen episode 100 to 120 feels like a drag and it could have been shorter. The beginning is not that strong either, the series starts out very light hearted but around episode 30 or so the series starts to grab you. Dont get me wrong, its not bad but not great either, its your typical shounen start.
I cant stand shounen becouse of all those years of crap shows like Naruto, Fairy Tail and many more. Those shounen series is what i dropped very quickly but HXH 2011 shows that the genre can change and the series is a proof of that, similar to what FMA: Brotherhood did back in the day. Those two are the staple of the genre for me.
Hunter X Hunter 2011 is amazing and you should watch it.
