-- The review contains spoilers--
So in “One Piece” we got dudes who wanna become pirates right? In “Naruto” we got dudes who want to become respected ninjas. Cool world settings, they’re simple but effective descriptions that can help drive a story forward.
In “Hunter X Hunter’ we got dudes who want to be able to do whatever the fuck they please. That’s about as accurate as it gets with this world setting. A “Hunter” as described in the beginning of this anime as someone who has a license that grants him complete freedom to travel where he pleases, and kill whoever he pleases. People become hunters because they want to pursue something, for example exotic monsters or jewellery. Now the anime becomes bat-shit crazy when the obstacles that are portrayed in this fictional universe are just straight up unforgiving.
The fictional universe here is just extremely dangerous and every pursuit by a hunter always involves death and suffering.
Want a rare trading card? Sorry, you’re going to have to win a game of dodge ball against a team of steroid-abusing super-humans who can kill you in-game by the way.
Want to stamp on an ant? Sorry, you’re going to have to use a special nuclear missile that poisons those who manage to survive the explosion. Either that or you have to beat the ant in a game of three-dimensional chess.
Note: These are actual events in the anime and haven’t been over-exaggerated in any way.
The story, at-least as long as the anime aired centred around a 10 year old boy looking for his father, who in the process ends up becoming a hunter, creating beef with a family of assassins, clearing a video game that kills you in real-life if you die in game and also killing an ant cat-girl. It doesn’t get better than this folks.
On a more serious note, this anime is a fighting anime that is basically a lesson to every other fighting anime in existence on how to do it right. The super-natural powers and martial art technique shown in the anime immerse you in fights that are over-whelming yet not over-exaggerated. The anime achieves this by simply explaining the world it’s set in with a degree of rationality a scientist would describe the world we live in with. Nothing feels unreal if you can explain it. This also leads to a dark atmosphere being set out throughout the anime accompanied by parts that make you feel the anime is just another easy-going show.
The heavy technical side of the anime unfortunately ends up reducing the pacing significantly, and also killing the humanity in the plot. But it really is compensated by how good everything else is.
