Hunter x Hunter Review - 82.5/100
It’s strange… the more I experiment with my new series rating-system, the more annoying the old system becomes…so that’s why I’ve decided to stop using this old system. In any case, the reason why the next old anime-review this time is partly because I had other things to do, and also because Hunter x Hunter has 62 episodes. And to think that after the series, I still need to watch three OVAs that came out after it, but those are for another time.
Hunter x Hunter starts out as a classic shounen-series. It takes a group of people with special powers (Bleach has shinigamis, Naruto has ninjas, Hunter x Hunter has… hunters), gives them a number of different powers and specializations, creates a number of large organizations and picks a generic young male to be the main character. Of course, with such a huge amount of episodes, I was redundant to check out this series, but ten episodes in, and I was hooked. This is everything a shounen-series should be.
Hunter x Hunter is basically divided into two halves, with an incredible difference between them. The first half feels like a huge game, where Gon (the main character) and his friends need to overcome a number of challenges in order to become hunters. It’s a standard shounen-plot, but its charms come from the cast of characters. It’s so much fun to watch not only the main characters, but also the side-ones as they try to become one of the hunters, and on top of that, the main villain stands miles above his counterparts in series as Naruto, Dragonball Z and Bleach.
This series only really sets itself apart from the rest of the genre with its second half, though. It starts out pretty bad, admittedly. The Zoaldyeck-arc is pretty much the worst arc of the entire series, only to be followed by yet another dull training-arc, but afterwards the series slowly unfolds into a story about the mafia, that for once isn’t about destroying/ruling the world. It’s here were Hunter x Hunter introduces real jobs, such as being a body-guard, and interesting ways for hunters to make money.
The problem with lengthy shounen (at least the ones I’ve seen), is that they get duller and duller as they go on, usually thanks to some kind of training-arc where the creators abuse their powers a bit too much in order to god-mode their main character beyond the point of believability. Gon indeed gets powered up a bit too much, but what I like about this series is that he still is nowhere near the power of the strong guys. Heck, even the main villains aren’t the strongest characters in this series. The creators also make use of the fact that Gon is just a child: it unconsciously lets his enemies spare his life, instead of killing him.
One major annoyance with this series (apart from the training arcs, that is), is that during the times of building-up, it’s got the “everyone who isn’t strong is an idiot”-mentality. Whenever Gon is facing weaker enemies than himself, they’re always portrayed as cocky idiots without any brains or tactical knowledge, and things like a one-in-ten-million talent are pulled out of the creators’ sleeve in an attempt to explain his superiority. Thankfully, there are enough characters with depth to them. Especially Kurapica is someone to watch out for, because the character-development he goes through is truly memorable.
Also, this series has avoided one more subtle pitfall of shounen-series: wounded characters remain hurt, and don’t get magically healed in the next episode. When characters get punched in the face, it remains swollen until it gets a logical reason to heal. The overall animation isn’t anything special, but I really appreciate details like that one. The soundtrack is also really effective for a shounen-series.
Overall, in terms of seriousness, Hunter x Hunter is definitely my favourite shounen-fighting-series. Overall, it still doesn’t match up to the humour and fights of the Law of Ueki, but it easily takes second place. The thing that worked against it the most was its main character: Gon. He does have a number of really memorable moments, but the creators waste way too much time in trying to make his power catch up to the strong people, and he often takes away the screen-time of the much more interesting characters. It’s a thing that unfortunately every series of its kind has. The rest of the cast is rock-solid, though, and especially the second and final quarter of the series deliver. I’m curious whether the three OVAs that came out afterwards will keep this same quality, or fall horribly like nearly every other show of its kind.
| SCPS-Rating: | |
| Storytelling: | 8/10 |
| Characters: | 9/10 |
| Production-Values: | 7/10 |
| Setting: | 9/10 |
Too generous on the production values.
Comment by Wind — June 28, 2008 @ 22:36
To tell you the truth I also love this series. . .And I don’t like the mafia arc but I guess you do. I like the training arc in this series because I get to see Gon’s and Killua’s growth being flesh out. My favorite OVA is Greed Island.
Comment by Paj — June 28, 2008 @ 22:40
Whoa, fast.
Wind: Point taken about the production-values. I’m still trying to get used to that rating-system.
Comment by psgels — June 28, 2008 @ 22:42
Back when shounen was my favorite thing, I love hunterxhunter. Until, the whole ant-alien arc thing. I felt too “DBZ”-ish, and I didn’t really feel the sort of charm that HXH had before.
Comment by shirokiryuu — June 28, 2008 @ 22:56
HxH is one of my favorite series in its genre too. I liked the kurapica arc a lot (just before the ovas), but the rest is still very good for being a shounen.
It takes a little time to get used to your new rating system, don’t worry about that.
Comment by Patrick Monti — June 28, 2008 @ 23:02
I’m surprised you hadn’t already seen this, though you rate it up with Ueki, so you must have liked it.
I have to say, HxH is a VERY GOOD shounen, and it’s very enjoyable and involving.
The OVAs are okay too. The first OVA is still in York Shin, but then it sort of branches off into an RPG world which you may or may not like.
Comment by Denizen — June 29, 2008 @ 0:14
I too find HxH to be one of the better shonen series out there, i still read the manga… whenever the author decides he wants to draw some , the 1 year gap between 10 chapters is quite painful.
I also have to say that i think you should keep including a link to the reasoning behind your scoring system somewhere visible, sure, now its still on the first page in clear view, however, since it differs quite a lot from many rating systems (ie. 2/7 is still a decent show)it will confuse new readers on the blog…. jsut a pointer
Comment by ZokiE — June 29, 2008 @ 3:08
my favorite shounen series! I’m also surprised you hadn’t seen this before. But i guess it’s because it’s not as mainstream as Naruto or Bleach, though it’s quite popular among shounen fans.
The characters basically drawn me into the series as well. Kurapica was the most intriguing character for me. I loved the york shin (spider) arc the most.
Comment by upie — June 29, 2008 @ 4:52
I think I like your old ratings system better. The stars are probably better for you, but the percentage grade is better for the reader. With the stars, there’s too much “wiggle room”… is it a high 5-stars, or a low 5-stars? With a set percentage grade, we know EXACTLY where you stand. (And it doesn’t matter if you don’t use all the percentages available to you - it’s like grades in school, where 70-79 is passing but not great, and anything below that is a D+ or below, which is basically failure!)
I guess the problem is, you can’t really make numerical judgments like that and have them stay constant from one day to the next. I know for me, there are days when I’ll like one anime considerably more than if I were to watch it on a different day… and I guess for that, the stars are a bit clearer.
But still, I find the percentage grade a lot easier to digest overall.
-Tom
Comment by Wyrdwad — June 29, 2008 @ 7:35
Wyrdwad: I see your point. Another reason I had to move away from the number-system is that everyone seems to have a different interpretation for these numbers. When I rate a series 7/10, it means that I sortof liked the series, but it had a lot of flaws. Someone else, however, may think that the series with a 7/10 rating is actually pretty good, and others might think it’s utter crap. That’s why I went with my own system: at least there’s less room for misunderstandings this way.
I agree with you on the “wiggle-room”-part, though. I now realize too that within those categories, a difference should be made between high 5-stars and low 5-stars… Perhaps if I append a small “+”-sign at the end of the ratings of those high 5-sters… hmm, time to experiment a bit mor…
Comment by psgels — June 29, 2008 @ 8:53
i have to say that this is maybe my favorite shounen anime,Gon may be a typical main character sometimes and even if he is not my favorite character in the series i like him,he is if i can say quite realistic for its age in that world,once Gon starts his journey and meets with Leorio, Kurapica and Killua it is very hard not to continue watching and Hunter x Hunter is probably one of the most enjoyable anime to watch,there are also many interesting side-characters like Hisoka,Kuroro
the art is not fantastic but i can’t say it is that bad either,the music is ok i especially enjoyed listening almost every time to the 1st op song so overall a very good anime and now i still need to get used to the new system :D but overall the your review is very good and psg you might like the Greed Island and Greed Island Final OVA’s since you are into the RPG series
Comment by Archer — June 29, 2008 @ 10:54
Quite honestly the star system confuses me because I am not sure what the maximum number of stars a series can get is. I liked your old system much better although I understand numbers can be misleading I mean is there really a big difference between an 84 and an 83?
My suggestion would be to use letter grades. I think they are easily understood and you can easily add + or - to them.
So and A would be better than an A- but an A- would be better than a B+ and so on.
Comment by Kim — June 30, 2008 @ 2:36
yea is 10 the max for stars?
Not sure how this works…I honestly liked the old system better. 70s and up were all solid shows and as long as you keep the rating system explanation along with the reviews it should be fine
Comment by cody — June 30, 2008 @ 4:47
btw I would check out the ovas if I was you. First one clears up the york shin incident, and the next ones are about greed island. The 2 last ovas have improved production values as well btw. Nothing fantastic but it’s nice to see a bit of an upgrade.
Btw the manga is on hiatus right? I would REALLY like a continuation for the HxH anime. Great great show. Love how significant battle wounds carry over, the lighthearted combat in the show, and the characters.
Comment by cody — July 4, 2008 @ 23:48
I was actually pretty interested in the training arc. But I really just love every aspect of HxH. You know… it’s “that series” for me. (In other words, I think that if Osamu Tezuka were an anime, he’d be this one)
To put it succinctly;
stfu n00b
hxh pwns
if u dont think so u must be stupid
Comment by yoshi927 — July 17, 2008 @ 5:27