I just caught up to the current chapter of HxH (as of writing that's chpt. 408) and I'm wondering what other hexbears have to think about HxH?

  • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
    ·
    12 hours ago

    I've only seen the (second?) anime, and that had its highlights but serious pacing problems throughout, especially in the chimera ants arc. The generic shonen tournament arcs were fine, if drawn out, but the chimera ants arc felt like a whole lot of jumping back and forth between way too many ongoing individual stories most of which were usually treading water waiting for something else to happen or other parts of the plot to progress - the whole arc could have reasonable been like 12 episodes long with some montages and it wouldn't have lost much of anything.

    • hello_hello [comrade/them]
      ·
      11 hours ago

      Actually the second anime's pacing in the beginning was incredibly quick (at least compared to the 1999 version) and basically speeds through the source material until the Chimera Ant arc where it slows back down. It's definitely a slow-burn arc and part of Togashi's anti-shonen writing style where characters and events are in no way predictable, but I think the chimera ant arc benefits from that slow build-up since its highs are really high.

      Chimera Ant spoilers

      I really like the twists the arcs had though. There's no happy ending to the arc where the heros get everything they want. Supposedly Togashi wanted chimera ant to be the final hxh arc and end the series with Gon meeting his dad and we basically get that with the election arc where Killua and Gon split up to take their own paths in life and considering where the manga is going it's probably going to stay that way until the very end of the series.

      The idea that even with all the psychic martial arts energy in the world that Meruem was no match for a single dirty bomb and that hummanity had 1000s of these bombs ready and that the Hunter associations whole goal wasn't to eliminate the ants but to do so with the least amount of casualties.

      Gon becoming a normal kid again and staying with his maternal aunt and going to school is something I really enjoy. His whole drive in life was to find his dad and once he did that there's not anything left for him to do, he helped Killua find a purpose in life (protecting his trans sister from his horrible family like Gon did with him).

      Chimera ant feels like to book ends HxH and the manga transforms dramatically afterward as we shift protagonists from Gon+Killua -> Kurapika. I think Togashi enjoys writing Kurapika more than Gon and I do consider Yorknew City as one of my favorite arcs. The Succession Contest is gearing up to be my favorite arc though, it's so intricately planned and executed.