HunterxHunter, Anime Review!

                                 HunterxHunter, Anime Review!

Anime is a hand-drawn and animated series originating from Japan. Anime isn’t new, nor unheard of, as many people around the world enjoy it.

Anime is widely known and quite a few students at BTMS enjoy Anime themselves, so I couldn’t think of a better way to cater to our audience and bring more attention to the page than to bring some of the students’ interests here! With that being said, let’s do an Anime review on one of my favorites and which was also the first Anime I’ve ever watched! Spoilers may be ahead! Read with caution unless you’ve already watched the said show.

HunterxHunter! (pronounced Hunter Hunter) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi and was adapted into an anime in both 1999 and 2011 (being told separately, not being continued from 1999 into 2011.)

The story follows a young adolescent 12-year-old boy named Gon Freecss, a spunky and joyful young boy from a place called Whale Island, who dreams of being a hunter, to take after his dad, Ging Freeccs.
Although Gon is excited to be a hunter and has dreamed of this moment, his Aunt Mito isn’t so thrilled, worrying for him on the tough journey that it is to get his hunter license and follow in his father’s footsteps. Though Aunt Mito is supportive, she gives him a task to complete to sign up to join the hunter test; he must catch the biggest fish on Whale Island. And though this task sounds impossible, Gon is persistent! And catches the fish just as Aunt Mito said and now can finally set off to take the test, followed by an emotional embrace from his Aunt Mito. And thus, Gon sets off to test his ability and in his hopes to become a hunter.

Gon and friends

“Gon and friends,” a phrase often used by the narrator of hxh after Gon and his friends are off on an adventure or had just completed one, this phrase would be rather relevant right now as that’s what we’re getting into! All of the friends Gon has met on the way, I’ll be going over each character individually. With the only reason being, I feel that the friendship in this anime is one of the best things, and was probably the main thing that kept drawing me to this anime besides the amazing writing. Enough of me blabbering! Let’s meet the cast!

Kurapika Kurta

Let me start with my favorite character, Kurapika Kurta. Kurapika is about 17-19 near the start of the anime and at the end of the anime. Kurapika has to be my favorite character not just for his arc, but also because every time he seems to be on screen it always brings a smile to my face, a lot of people could call his back story “cliche.” but I feel his back story perfectly suits his personality, as to why he’s so closed off and isolated at times and was hesitant to become attached to Gon and the rest of the group at the start. The connection between him and Leorio is another thing to greatly appreciate, although not getting along all that well at the start, the development of their friendship was a great one, really taking time on their differences as characters.

Leorio Paradinight

At the start, I’ll admit I didn’t like Leorio all that much, as I thought he was just the typical perverted, ignorant comedy relief character. As the series progressed it didn’t take me long to realize that wasn’t true, and there’s so much more to his character if you dig deep enough. Acting like he doesn’t care at first and building up walls is only to protect himself and others at the end, just like Kurapika his backstory explains a lot about him as a person, the more I observed Leorio and her personality the more I fell more in love with him as a character. Leorio may trick you at first with his character, but the sooner he opens up and shows more himself the sooner you understand him a lot more and begin to truly appreciate his character. A goofy, short-tempered kind-hearted man who learned to wear his heart on his sleeve after losing one he truly loves is for sure to steal your heart, along with the other characters along the way.

Killua Zoldyck

Onto one of the best characters and one of the definitely most favorite characters in the fandom! Killua Zoldyck, I have no idea where else to begin with Killua other than his friendship with Gon, which is definitely relevant to his character arc.

Killua and Gon’s friendship has to be one of the main highlights of this anime, despite everything have been through together as a whole, nothing about their friendship ever changes, they play like friends, talk like friends, fight like friends, etc. Despite some of their differences Killua and Gon most definitely balance each other out and improve each other as people, Gon teaching Killua friendship, acceptance in himself, and genuinely the joys of being a kid, all while Killua teaches him how to fight and improve himself physically on the way. It’s not often in animes that you see child characters acting like children, often being sexualized through some of the worst, or acting way older than they seem, and that’s one of the reasons why I love them as a pair together, as their friendship is a replica of how childhood friendships are in real life and brought me back to many childhood memories I have with my friends and the things they’ve taught me along the way.

This anime is definitely one of my biggest comfort anime’s right next to Black Butler, and it’ll always remain one of my favorites, from the characters to the plot, to the arc, I’ll always love this anime, I’d rate it 10/10 kisses and even higher if I could, I definitely recommend this anime.

Thank you so much to Maddie for the talented art above! You rock! It’s absolutely perfect for this article! 🙂