Sounds mediocre, right? Can’t blame for that. The term of “Adventure” is mainly overused in the various forms of popculture and media taking away it’s appeal and making it sound average. We’ve all seen stories with that main word on stake – primarly in shows aimed to younger viewers - following the same and frequently seen tropes, making unable to surprise the viewer anymore. How a piece with so weakly presented and unoriginal premise of the story be so acclaimed and loved by both critics and fans, to the point where experienced viewers of the anime medium are surprised with cleverness of the story and place it among their most favourite shows? The main reason behind that is how the story is being executed during it’s airing and the powerful usage of cunning writing of Yoshihiro Togashi visible as the show progreses.
Nearly all shounens in anime history are basing on cliché formulas and tropes, predictable action and unimaginative plot completely withdrawing it’s charm to eventually become tedious and uncaptivating. As a matter of fact Hunter x Hunter breaks and deconstructs every formula we got used to in the genre, being the superiorance of main protagonist or cliché character interactions, creating something extremely charming, making it something more than just a shounen anime. It’s visible where the show begin to split the moral lines between protagonists and antagonists. It’s normal for shounen “bad guys” to soften and understand their mistake, eventually teaming with the “good guys”, Hunter x Hunter however, goes further, fleshing out it’s villains not in a way we’re used to in fiction, forcing the audience to reconsider their measurement of good and evil ultimately making the viewer unsure of righteousness of the "good side”.
Perfectly balancing between the main goal of the story and the subsidiary plots, the show slowly creates a bigger picture with them, without losing the sight from the goal, as it quickly takes place in One Piece. Fluently portraying new fleshed out characters to the story, pushing the plot forward, while constantly keeping the cunning and intelligent narrative, portraying creative and and imaginative outcomes for characters’ actions, presents unconventional worldbuilding adding lots of exoticity to the modern civilization and the nature, with more government authority visible, introducing the most creative and set out power system ever created, giving limitless options and infinite usage of it not only in the show, but also being a nice food-for-imagination for those dedicated enough to invent something on their own. It is not afraid to show the main characters fail or place them in extreme situations, when winning isn’t always solving the problem and battles becoming more of psychological contests than rumbling, when using strategy in a crafty way and outsmarting your enemy is what means victory – which leads to a question if the raw power the only measurement of strenght, or can it also be found in many different aspects in life? - hence making the encounters even more tense, as the show constantly keeps it’s best cards in hiding, creating a false ensure of safety, completely overturning the viewers expectations and eventually leaving the viewer speechless with the final outcome.
Hunter x Hunter: 2011, while not carrying much artistic values, nor revolutionizng the medium is still a profound story delving from cheerful plot to powerful analysis of humanity, strategy contests and ponderings about morality and human decisions, and is the testimony of Yoshihiro Togashi’s creativity. It sets standards not only for the shounen genre, while being one of the most entertaining shows, always staying unpredictable and cunning, making it easy to marathon it and keeping top-notch production values despite of it’s length, which is the very evidence of Madhouse workmanship. Nonethless it’s a flawed work. The fact that the original source has not ended doesn’t help with the fact that author’s writing bases on not fully explaining or fleshing out some of the themes or leaving questions unanswered giving the author a bigger field to write the story in the future, while judging the anime adaptation alone it may appeal to be nothing more than just a plot hole. Even though the story still continues in the manga, the show beautifully ends leaving the viewer with a bittersweet taste as if it was the real ending of the story.
A certain work of fiction – while giving some sort of message - may therapeutically resonate with you or your current situation, giving you more positive outlook on certain circumstances. That has been the case with Hunter x Hunter. Telling a story of optimism and persistence - as shounen anime usually used to do – Hunter x Hunter highly encourages to aim bigger, but in the most reliable way i've ever encountered in anime, not giving a naive perspective of being the center of the world, but still not losing the child inside you despite of your age and seeking what drives you to become passionate, which at the end of it all gives such an obvious message (when in the beginning of the story seemed to set off unappealing) that turns around the main theme of the show. It tells how vast the world and it’s not logical to naturally understand it all, while giving that microscopic feeling of having infinitely larger amount of options and capabilities than what it appears to be at first, having a big amount of time to enjoy getting from one point to another. It wouldn’t necessarily matter how prestigious your title or degree is or how much money you earn, but how much experience and knowledge you received along the way and how much passion drove you to ultimately become like this. There is much to see and do despite our mistakes and hardships we endure along the way, the journey is ultimately what shape the very person you become, which is why Hunter x Hunter is so meaningful. If you haven’t watched this enormously large show, consisting of 148 episodes, don’t be hesitating to check it – not to ultimately finish it and get rid of it, but to enjoy what is between the end of it, because that is where Hunter x Hunter truly shine.
