[HybridBloodsZak]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

IIRC, in the manga Hagya watches what happens with Frog personally (from a safe distance, but he's watching), so there is no need for another fight. The themes you're talking about are hammered well enough that way. Putting yet another fight just to get the same result is redundant.

Spoiler for not spoiler but to be safe:

Furthermore, now the climax of the current storyline will be placed at the beginning of next episode, which isn't the best option storytelling-wise. Without the filler, they could have had that moment at the end of this episode (as an awesome cliffhanger), and begin the next one with the aftermath. If I was witting the script I would have done it that way for maximum dramatic impact.

There's your issue right there, this isn't the manga but the anime.... Comparing apples and oranges

That beginning scene shows Hagya's squad wondering what happened to the Frog's squad because they hadn't arrived yet. All they can see is the aftermath of the rare humans strength. Hagya didn't know at the time how strong Gon and co truly are.

A great anime adaptation isn't a 1;1 panel by panel copy/paste, it's about adapting the spirit of story to fit in an anime context. The theme of this episode ,going off of what Funkatron said, was about being outclassed in the presence of a greater force(Nen). Before Rammot was overwhelmed by Nen, Madhouse shows the same thing happening to Hagya for two fold which are imo

1.Give a sense cohesion between the two separate parties
2.To have a "B Story" of the episode for pacing purposes so they can put all of next week's events in one episode(Rest of 198/199) which in my opinion makes more sense considering how they've been structuring previous episodes

Now whether you liked/disliked is your opinion but I thought it complemented Pitou's introduction well

Also your climax happening at the beginning of the episode I don't agree with, the "climax" is seeing what happened as a result of what you're referring(End of 199). Don't forget the preview for next week shows some more insight into Kite so THAT EVENT probably won't happen at the beginning but maybe around half way