Hunter X Hunter

Yep another anime where a kids looking for his father. What is with the parental system in Japan? Does no one have a solid family background with 2 parents or siblings to gain support from? Anyway Gon is one day out in a forest or something and gets attacked by a bear (I think) and just before he’s eaten alive a mysterious man saves him. Gon shortly after finds out that this man is a “hunter”, the same as his father who left years ago to peruse his goal.

Anyway Gon decides he wants to become a hunter like his dad and goes off to do the hunter exam, whilst being there he makes friends; Kurapika, Leorio and Killua who help Gon to progress towards his dream.

Now this sounds very much like shaman king to me when I first heard about it, but there’s some fantastic twists that kept me interested in the show for a long time. You see hunter x hunter starts out as a very slow moving and easy going show. But it has this fantastic quality of enticing you in each episode and delivering something new and exciting about each character. Sure this could be said for any anime series but hunter x hunter just has a fantastic story that never stops giving you more until the end.

The characters all have the typical shounen style backgrounds that develop into something dark and sinister. Kurapika and Killua have assassin backgrounds where they learn to suppress their desires and revenge into a desire for power and for good. Where as Gon has this need to constantly get stronger so he can meet his father.

Each character in the anime has a diverse background and even the villainous characters seem to have some kind of apathy for the good guys.

All in all, I love HxH, its constant plot twists will send you on a high for weeks after completing the show and the way the show progresses into a dark and power themed show in the OVA’s will make you wish that the writer continued the show. (I know I did!) One of the best things about the show is there are NO FILLERS, The only filler in the show is the ship wrecked episode.

As this is one of the first anime’s I saw it still has a way of bringing back memories that im thankful my to friends for introducing me to such a good series. Although some might disagree with me (Runningkid said it was too long) and the animation is quite dated now, I still enjoy lending the dvds to friends who don’t watch a lot of anime just to see if the effect rubs off on them aswell as it did to me.

thund3r

Runningkid’s Response:

I won’t deny the fact that Hunter x Hunter is a good series, as thund3r pointed out there are many surprises through out the series, however I do think it was a little longer than it needed to be. It was a long time since I’ve watched it, but I do remember the Kurapika arc was quite dark and perhaps a little complex for me back then. I guess what drew me in at the first place was the examinations for the hunter license, riddles and puzzle seem some what clever at the time and probably still is.

Also I think what differentiated HxH from some of the other shounen at it’s time was that Gon was not the best with some super power up that kicked ass, even at the end there were many better than him. No fillers? Damn right! Well actually I never read the manga and at that young age I probably couldn’t care less, as long as it’s HxH it made me happy. So in short, although Hunter X Hunter had it’s ups and downs, it was definitely one I would recommend.