(L) Hunter x Hunter (1999)

[ZODDGUTS]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

Any news about this amazing anime? It's been 2 years since the last time I watched the 3rd ova =(

The current arc which occurs right after the 3rd OVA hasn't finished yet, but it looks like the current arc is gonna end after the upcoming battles, guess that's when they'll decide to animated it.

[gvozden]

Manga news source manganews.net

Hunter x Hunter is Alive!

Posted Tuesday, February 5, 2008 at 10:02 PM by Novina

After a long a year and eight months of hiatus, followed by a 3 months serialization, and then a five months hiatus, one of our all-time favorite Weekly Shounen Jump series, Hunter x Hunter is back! The series is planned to restart on Issue 14 of Weekly Shounen Jump, on sale March 3rd.

On issue No. 13 (on sale february 25th), along with the information of the re-opening, it had a comment from Togashi saying, "I will come back as soon as possible. I will do my best!"

Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi started its serialization in 1998. However, since February 2006, it had its 1 year and 8 months hiatus. Last year, at the 10th anniversary issue of Weekly Shounen Jump, the series came back for a few weeks, and disappeared again in December.

Hunter x Hunter has now sold 45 million copies in Japan. It is currently licensed in the U.S. and is being printed by VIZ Media.

[ Source: Mainichi ]

[tommetass]

Originally Posted by ZODDGUTS

The current arc which occurs right after the 3rd OVA hasn't finished yet, but it looks like the current arc is gonna end after the upcoming battles, guess that's when they'll decide to animated it.

What do you mean; "the current arc" ?

Are they making more Hunter X Hunter anime?

[a_nevels666]

Originally Posted by tommetass

What do you mean; "the current arc" ?

Are they making more Hunter X Hunter anime?

He's talking about the current story arc in the manga.

The manga is still running, and is now about 7 volumes past where the 3rd OVA series ended.

[sangofe]

Hey, shouldn't HXH be moved to licensed?

[jpwong]

Did it get licensed when we weren't looking or something? Animesuki still lists all the torrents.

I know that Viz is putting out the manga, but I hadn't heard anything about the anime being released.

[Seko]

I know someone who is a voice actor in the show, he finished recording his part.
It SHOULD be under licensed. =x~~

[VeNjuNsE]

I just picked up the series and the story is starting off as if I should already know something about the anime. it says "OVA 1" and im not sure what ova is. If anyone knwos something about hunter x hunter, could you tell me for sure if the first ep starts of on a train and some dude in blue is talking to two little dudes about chaining spiders? and what is ova? ty all : /

[NoSanninWa]

Your problem is that you're not starting at the beginning of the show. OVA 1 is not the first episode.

An OVA is "Original Video Animation" and means that it is being produced direct to video. Before the first OVA series, the 62 TV episodes of Hunter x Hunter aired. You'll find the Hunter x Hunter TV series on AnimeSuki here. After you're done with the TV series you should watch OVA series 1, OVA series 2 and OVA series 3.

[tommetass]

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

Your problem is that you're not starting at the beginning of the show. OVA 1 is not the first episode.

An OVA is "Original Video Animation" and means that it is being produced direct to video. Before the first OVA series, the 62 TV episodes of Hunter x Hunter aired. You'll find the Hunter x Hunter TV series on AnimeSuki here. After you're done with the TV series you should watch OVA series 1, OVA series 2 and OVA series 3.

But do you know if more anime will be made of the manga?

[VeNjuNsE]

glad i only watchd that one episode then. i dont feel like anythign was spoiledz llolololo
thanks for the help

[Rahan]

Originally Posted by tommetass

But do you know if more anime will be made of the manga?

It's not known yet. The arc following the last one animated is not finished yet as a consequence of the mangaka's illness / laziness (or some unknown reason). Maybe when it's done, there will be a new series of OVA, maybe there won't.

[tommetass]

Originally Posted by Rahan

It's not known yet. The arc following the last one animated is not finished yet as a consequence of the mangaka's illness / laziness (or some unknown reason). Maybe when it's done, there will be a new series of OVA, maybe there won't.

thanks
That's all I needed to hear:P


I really do hope they make more OVA's though..

[9mmx19]

Okay years behind I know - but I watched everything including the GI story arc. Everyone said this was one of the must see classics but Im not that impressed. Started off okay and had some good moments but then went all over the place. Character designs were hit and miss and it started to drag on towards the end.

[xia]

I'm so glad that i'll have this on my shelves in the not so distant future. Even maybe be even to show my brother since he hates anime. Something tells me he might actually like this show.

[frubam]

whats going on with this? Hasn't a new chapter come out?

[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by frubam

whats going on with this? Hasn't a new chapter come out?

Probably not until they're finished with the current arc, which won't be until sometime next year.

[frubam]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

Probably not until they're finished with the current arc, which won't be until sometime next year.

whoops wrong thread And I was wondering what happened to that post

[roriconfan]

Hunter x Hunter easily ranks amongst the most interesting shounen anime ever made. At the same time, it is also amongst the most frustrating ones, as it has several mishaps.

Let’s start with the story. It’s about a little boy named Gon, looking for his father who is a Hunter, a super mercenary of sorts traveling the world and doing missions and quests. Like finding something rare or arresting a wanted criminal. So in the context of the story, that little boy decides that the best way to find him is to become one himself. And here you are, having a 12 year old boy rivaling hundreds of tough adult grunts for the rank of Hunter.

Sounds stupid doesn’t it? Especially when taking into account that he is totally weak, unskilled and his personality is like that of a saint inside a den of cannibals. Well, frankly it is. It is frakking impossible to buy it. The story does a good job at showing how friendship and teamwork can work through all that but it still is damn hard to buy it. Anyways, this is just the core story … and it gets nowhere. The boy never finds his father. In fact, this hardly matters as much as everything else in terms of character development or side stories. Which are both a lot in numbers and of a good level of storytelling.

Well, that is not really the point. The whole story is actually about a team of kids (and an almost token adult) passing tests and facing difficulties, as means to develop their skills and achieve their goals. Heck, 90% of the plot is either doing quests, duels or simple research in order to get to that meager 10% of actual progress in the story. And to the most part is slow and dull. I am fully aware that this anime is famous for being the exact opposite of slow and dull. But what I am referring to here is the pacing. Very few things happen in each episode and even those are done in a non-exciting way. This is mostly a problem of the poor use of cinematics the sections of animation and sound have, rather than the actual story.

The animation is indeed average to bad, a thing that shows way too early and never seems to go away. This is not excused by the year it was made as around that time there were far better animes in terms of looks than it. Movements are simply too stiff or even unexisting, even during battles. And shading and lighting seem to be rare or too simple too. The major battles are given a far better work but in all, stuff in this series neither move nor look so good.

Speaking of battles… there aren’t that many or that exciting. The good stuff is found in the second half, with the first being nothing but simplistic spars that end with just a few simple strikes. That is of course excused by the fact the characters in the beginning were weak and possessed no major special powers. That still makes it feel dull and drops the replay value of many of those episodes.

But it is wrong to see this as a fighting action series alone. Most confrontations, although very simple in choreography, have lots of wits and it is brains and not muscles that matter in most of them. That by the way does not save the animation from feeling boring. With proper handling, even a turtle sleeping can look amazing. And with all these frozen panels, generic character figures, and semi-interesting major battles, this isn’t what I’m talking about. Animation gets a 4.

Now back to the pacing. As I said, the initial episodes can be excused to be uneventful because they focus on getting to know the characters, as well as to keep in touch with the simple fact they are wimps. Not really a negative but it does make a lot of them to have no reason to watch twice. The magic of Media Res could help to start at a more exciting point in the plot and just present the rest as flashbacks or something. Anyways, the first 5 episodes are just to get to know them and then up to half of the series on how they pass the Hunter exam. It is still not much of a story and it’s the characters and their individual side stories that keep you interested. After that, the second half slowly makes the characters stronger and some missions get really serious, as professional killers enter and things get far more dangerous. At this point, the anime became a more traditional shounen type story and to be honest has more meat to keep watching. Plus it didn’t took out the feeling of strategy and wits in battles. Thus it really is the same, only better.

The main three arcs can be described as going from weak characters with simple quests, to stronger characters with harder quests, to even stronger characters fighting for their very lives against pro killers. Sure, it improves to the point where you feel you are watching Dragonball Z but with more wits… Still not much of a story though. And Gon’s father is nothing but a vague backdrop by now. Seriously, in the third arc Gon is hardly doing anything; it’s just his friend getting his revenge. And what’s going on with the arc goals anyway? First they want to become Hunters and THEN they train to become strong? Doesn’t that make the whole title of a Hunter feel piss poor? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? And then what the hell was that business with the videogame? The third arc is about raising money to buy a game. Does that seem a logical upscale from someone taking part in deadly tournaments to be arm-wrestling for a videogame? Or an entire arc just playing that very videogame while gathering cards as if it’s a Yu-Gi-Oh rip-off? Why are the arcs going in reverse in terms of built up? What will their ultimate challenge be; to save a cat from a tree? It felt like the story starts with the lead wanting to become big macho Hokage and slowly making him return back to Ninja Kindergarten.

I could be more lenient with the story and excuse the dull start if the anime was complete… but it ain’t. The anime ends openly and not even the following OVAs finished it. Thus this is a simple story that on top of that was left incomplete. Story gets a 4.

By the way, I’d be damned if Kishimoto didn’t rip off the Hunter Exam arc to make the Chuunin Exam arc in Naruto…

So the characters are the meat of the story and it’s quite the likable cast as far as shounen go. Each one of the major and secondary characters is given a rather high amount of attention and “usually” some development other than his superpowers. They are still far from organic characters though. Gon for example is impossible to relate to as everything is in his eyes one big rainbow of joy. You can stab him in the heart only to hear him asking for forgiveness because his blood stained your knife. As much as good hearted as he may be, he has no chance of surviving in the jungle that is the human civilization like that.

His voice actor by the way is the same as Naruto’s and I’d be damned again if Kishimoto didn’t take ideas from this work into his. Like the red eyes of his vengeful friend for example… Whose feature ends up being just his revenge actually. Or the adult member of the team whose feature is lust; getting horny with every girl he meets. Otherwise, he is as useless in the story as Broke was in Pokemon. Extend that idea and you get the same in all the characters. Although not completely two-dimensional, they all lack real depth or even reasonable reactions. As for catharsis, well, Gon’s father is not found and the revenge thing was not completed, so nothing here either. Not to forget mentioning how everything feels like going in reverse from wanting to become Hokage to saving cats from trees (random parallelism). What you get are semi-developed characters at best, whose backdrop is quite the typical shounen archetype formula. Characters get a 5.

And now we are down to sound. Jeez how bad it was handled. The music score is likable but seriously, where the hell is the tension or atmosphere building? Half the time there isn’t even background music, and the other half usually doesn’t feel in unison with what is going on in the plot. Just random tunes in the distance.

Voice acting is ok for a shounen show but the pinch in voices feels awkward at times. Many boy characters are voiced by women and it usually shows… in a bad way. Also, even in moments of extreme tension, you feel the voice actors aren’t doing their best. Plus they talk… a lot. There is mostly talking than fighting in this series, which is not bad by itself but it ain’t done in great ways either. I mean, you could shit yourself while listening in Ultimate Survivor Kaiji someone almost having a stroke over playing rock-paper-scissors. They play the same game here too and it’s piss poor unexciting. As is when someone is vowing to kill the murderers of his family and his victim is begging for his mercy. Geez how dull can a powerful scene become with bad sound and voice acting. Not bad music or voice acting but not great stuff either. Sound gets a 5.

Down to it, it still is a good shounen, as its internal logic surpasses most of everything in the genre. Most quests require strategy, field tactics, even psychology to overcome and it’s only towards the end where characters get all DBZ that “my battle power is greater than yours” becomes an issue. Even then, the reason “this power beats that power” is also excused nicely. But it still is not a series you watch for the battles as I said numerous times, they are few major ones and they are all handled poorly. I mean, the show is full of people being eaten alive by monsters or killed horribly by top assassins and yet it makes it feel like you are feeding ducks over at the park lake. Seriously, with different handling it could easily become a horror / survival to the most part. Yet all you get is Gon saying “Let’s be friends” while all around him people are nihilistically chewed alive by monsters or are decapitated by yawning assassins. This is a shounen series but, geez, the context is way off. If you are not willing to show it at its proper way, don’t show it at all. Atmosphere failure; that alone made the show half-likable. Value and Enjoyment get a 5.

Bottom line. Although terribly similar to Naruto (and damn ripped off by it), it really is superior to it, despite the worse animation and reverse built up. And since most people still consider Naruto to be amongst the top fighting shounen around (not me; I’m too smart to fall for that), that means it’s good stuff. Yet at the same time it lacks the tension of most modern shounens in terms of atmosphere and that can make its superior tactics and deep character immersion to lose a lot of credit. This show really needs a remake.

In other news, other shows like Kaiji or Liar Game eat its tactics for breakfast, and Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood does an overall far better job in terms of action, character immersion, and proper use of cinematics. You have been informed.

Overall score: 4.7/10

[ChibiGoku]

Bumping this up, because we finally got some possible news. If this is correct and real, we should be seeing another Hunter x Hunter TV series.