It is easier to start with negatives. HxH is a pure shounen fighting anime. By ‘pure’ I mean “using every shonen trope possible” . Protagonists are male children of genuine goodness, occasional attempts of author to taint them with negative seem phony. HxH is about fights and superpowers: about 70% of screen time will be alloted to various character battles. Lightweight supporting humor is present. Adventure is present too: fantasy world and lots of journing. And, finally and most riveting, HxH is all about friendship and hard work (*sigh*). In fact it is *so* about hard work that I was shocked. 100 episodes of 148 (I mean it) you will hear phrases like “I need to train more”, “I got to get better”, “I am still too weak” every 3-4 minutes. But the problem of pure shounenism of HxH for me is not excessive self-betterment but the fact that the overall screenplay is extremely predictable - HxH follows the trodden path shared by all shounens. Some (most) people like watching through various realization of same blueprint because they like that blueprint. But I do not. If I should decide to give another iteration of shounen a chance it is because I naively hope it will surprise me in some way, that it will deviate. HxH did not deviate, unfortunately, but it *did* surprise me.
But before the elaboration I want to pinpoint another two derivatives of being an shounen. First is a cheap, simplistic picture. I jumped onto HxH after Mushishi and it was like replacing heavenly bath with puddle of dirt. Is being a long-running series an excuse to draw jauntily? Luckily, character and world design is charming in core so it somehow negates plain picture. The second is music. Voice acting is OK but soundtrack… same bunch of vapid annoying melodies, all 148 episodes... Why do you have to be so cruel, Madhouse?
So what is the surprise of HxH? Why does it have such high rating? For me It is brilliant writing and extraordinary production quality. I wrote above about how HxH is being typical and unoriginal but paradox is that HxH is *not* generic at the same time. Yoshihiro Togashi (or people who adapted his script) was at the peak performance, it seems, because he managed turn filthy overused shounen road into beautiful wondrous terrace. His writing, his style, his vision and rhythm are so fascinating and so smart it amazes from episode 2 to episode 148. Yoshihiro Togashi’s best trait is that he always knows where to stop and turn the situation around. While watching HxH there were dozens cases in the story where I exclaimed “Aha! Now you have no other option but to used that stupid cliche! You lost!” but he *always* managed to find a way out. And this other way… seem so natural and fresh, it gave HxH a boost of respect each time and put me back into my noname seat.
The author’s cleverness and unorthodox approach to the shounen is seen in every detail. Heroes have believable motivation, villains are not brainless “conquer the world” idiots. Every character is provided with rich, logical introspective which makes almost all of them very likeable and interesting. Protagonists’ personalities evolve and change over time. People die, heroes die! Plot often branches into multiple subplots. Narration often shits between multiple actors. Every little character has detailed personality. Battle are… they deserve separate paragraph.
Fights of HxH are probably the smartest component of them all. In fact they are not really fights, they are standoffs. Heroes are put into situations with no clear solution, and often restricted by various conditions. The spotlight of narration will be on the search for winning scenario. In HxH logic and intelligence wins over willpower or goodness (can you imagine). Viewer always will be provided with elaborated comments by the narrator explaining chain of thoughts of current actors. These explanations usually extremely logical and believable. Yoshihiro Togashi’s superpower system or confrontations in general are not objectively the best explained or scientifically accurate but better than the most thanks to the trite yet clever tactic: Togashi does not create situations he cannot explain properly. If he writes something you can be assured there will be no logical holes in the narration.
Final brilliance of HxH, and the primary one for me, is that HxH is ultimate adventure. The journey to find prodigal father is supplied with such enthralling events in such intriguing sophisticated world you cannot but be in awe in the end of the series and desire more. Modern cities with skyscrapers, serene medieval villages, mafia with guns, warriors with swords, arenas, natural landmarks, dangerous organizations, super families, mystic monsters, internet, cars, ships. The blend of *everything* by Yoshihiro Togashi is, as always, smart thus spectacular and great. Concerning HxH events, aka arcs, they are simply classic, they epitomize how it must be done. In particularly Phantom Troupe, the independent bunch of overpowered villains… yes of course someone did it before, but I am pretty sure no one did it better than HxH at the time. And 61 episode long Chimera Ant arc? It could have been shorter, but do not pretend it was not epic. The HxH plot device that the world is filled with “adventure stuff” is so stereotypical but, yet again, Togashi manages to weave upon it a magnificent background with great many possibilities.
All the good things I wrote above can be applied both to manga and anime. Specifically concerning anime, I am pretty confident it does every little thing in the best manner possible except aforementioned picture and music. General direction of the series is good and matches perfectly with adventure mood of HxH. Animation sequence did not seem cheap or loosely built.
Hunter x Hunter is a paradox for me: it is a typical shounen but the one I cannot help but marvel. Maybe it is even greater than Alchemist, I don’t know. But I know one thing: I want more. And so I grieve Yoshihiro Togashi clearly does not intent to finish the story. The story where so much left untold.
8/10
