Far From Perfect -- A Series of Highs & Lows

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Hunter x Hunter (HxH) is widely regarded as one of the greatest battle shounen manga series of all time. But, I find this title to be a misnomer. Rather, the more accurate statement would be HxH is among the most influential battle shounen manga series of all time. Truthfully, HxH is vastly outclassed by many of its genre contemporaries for a variety of reasons.

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Story & Setting

HxH’s greatest strength is its story by far. The story evolves extremely organically, taking advantage of a myriad of unique settings. As an illustration, our introduction to the story is a lighthearted adventure on a small isolated island. Later on, the story becomes essentially a crime thriller in a major metropolitan area. Following that, our cast are quite literally “isekai’d” into a jrpg video game world. As a whole, the story is dyanmic & different from arc to arc, which keeps you engaged in the narrative.

Tone

Another strength of HxH is its tone. It is quite dark at times. People actually die, commit heinous atrocities, and engage in gratuitous acts of violence often throughout the series. In fact, our innocent protagonist Gon doesn’t even bat an eye as his best friend Killua rips a man’s heart out.

Beyond that, there is an overwhelming presence of moral relativity throughout the story too. Essentially, the antagonistic forces are not necessarily pure evil by nature. For example, Hisoka takes a peculiar interest in the main cast and often helps them in a variety of arcs. Likewise, Illumi is shown to care deeply for his brother Killua when Hisoka threatens his brother’s life. Furthermore, Mereum’s relationship with Komugi reveals his underlying gentle nature. Similarly, each member of the Phantom Troupe has their own motivations for joining the group, and they seemingly care a great deal for one another. As a whole, HxH’s tone is a bit more mature & serious than its contemporaries in the shounen demographic.

The Protagonist Problem

Dynamic and complex characters compliment a dynamic and complex story. While HxH succeeds on the story front, it fails, miserably on the character front.

I’ll focus on Gon, especially since he is the protagonist. Basically, he is an extremely simple and static character. In spite of all the hardship he encounters throughout the series, Gon’s values, opinions, personality, and the way he acts towards and interacts with other characters in the world remains consistent.

Gon is stubborn to a fault, oftentimes reckless, always selfish, hypocritical, narrow-minded, full of misplaced ideologies, over-confident in his abilities, and borderline sociopathic. These are all inherently character faults. His childish naïve nature, his perverted way of viewing the world, and his unwavering righteous ideals to protect others actively lead to conflict in the series time and time again. Yet, in spite of all this conflict, he never changes in the aftermath!

Therein lies the problem. Gon never learns from his mistakes, and he is never punished for his character flaws. In fact, he is often actively rewarded. As an illustration, his refusal to admit defeat in the Hunter Exams arc actually leads him to pass the exam and acquire a Hunter’s license. Also, Gon’s careless decision to purposefully let Bomber use his ability on him in order to counter at close range concludes in him losing an arm. Yet, his arm gets miraculously healed a few chapters later. And his extremely risky strategy results in him beating a much stronger opponent. Moreover, his egocentric insistence of enacting revenge on Neferpitou results in Gon being near death and unable to use his Nen abilities after the fight. In order for Gon to recover, Togashi pulls a character named Alluka out of his ass to magically heal our protagonist back to full strength with the most broken ability in the entire verse. Likewise, Gon is captured by the Phantom Troupe twice, yet no harm comes to him. Similarly, Gon lamented his weakness that led to Kite’s death. Ultimately, it is later revealed that Kite inexplicably has some Nen power that led to his rebirth, rejuvenating Gon’s broken pysche. I could go on & on, but you get the gist.

To put it simply, Gon doesn’t grow as a character because he doesn’t have to – he is merely rewarded for existing. There is no consequence to his actions. Togashi perverts all of his flaws into strengths. His plot armor is an impenetrable force. He is a child prodigy, a Nen genius, and beloved by everyone, including his enemies. There are no stakes. Gon has no character arc because the plot doesn’t demand him to change.

Gon’s main goal principally throughout the series is to reunite with his estranged father. In the grand scheme of things, he manages to accomplish this goal rather handily. This is a perfect opportunity for Gon to get some actual development – Gon could succumb to the realization that he doesn’t need his father’s affirmation to be a strong Hunter, paralleling Killua’s relationship with his father in many aspects. Perhaps, Gon could confront his father for being a POS absentee. Perhaps, Gon could inquire about his mother’s origins. Perhaps, Gon could throw away his desire to be a Hunter entirely or reveal what type of Hunter he wants to be.

There are a near infinite amount of solid options that could help develop Gon as a character or the plot as a whole during this fated encounter. Instead, Togashi completely blows this golden opportunity by having nothing happen at all. What else is there for Gon to do? He accomplished his goals. What now? I contend that Togashi found himself asking the same questions. Consequently, Gon has been completely forced out of the mainline plot beyond this moment, notably being absent throughout the entirety of the Succession War arc. And the story still works just fine, albeit without its star. I contend that Killua or Kurapika would have been a better choice for protagonist to begin with. Gon is just fundamentally an uninteresting character.

Manga As A Visual Medium

Let’s be real – the manga art sucks. In fact, it is amateurish at best. I understand that Togashi has health issues, but some of this shit is genuinely unacceptable. Most panels have very little background detail, if any. Aside from that, some chapters will literally just be storyboards rather than refined panels.

Sure, there are some good panels on occasion. But, we are talking well-drawn panels. Not entire chapters. Likewise, consider the following: Togashi literally has months or even years to draw particular standout panels given his history of hiatuses, whereas other authors in the same shounen demographic have better or the same level of artwork on a strict weekly schedule.

Show Don’t Tell

Even worse than the panels that look like they were drawn by a grade schooler, are panels like these:

Togashi uses dialogue as a crutch. Togashi seems to think that laying out every meticulous detail for every little thing that happens to every little character will somehow make up for his lackluster drawing skills. Fundamentally, you are blurring the lines of what is a manga versus what is a light novel when you publish entire walls of text for pages.

The fundamental tenet for any story is show don’t tell. A manga like Innocent or Blood on the Tracks will have entire chapters with zero dialogue, yet these chapters still have a lot to say. Conversely, Togashi’s patented unyielding walls of text for chapters have nothing of substance to say at all. At a certain point, it literally becomes a chore to read.

Debunking The Deconstruction Myth

There is a small minority of smooth-brained aschtually types of HxH stans that will try to convince you that HxH is a deconstruction of the battle shounen genre. But, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding on what deconstruction means. While it a notoriously vague term, a true deconstruction provides commentary about various genre norms before breaking down the tropes & rebuilding them. As an illustration, Madoka Magica takes the happy-go-lucky nature of magical girl stories & flips it on its head, perverting it into a tragic death battle. Neon Genesis Evangelion will take the mecha genre tropes of having teenage boys piloting massive war machines to its logical conclusion. Indeed, HxH does often betray the reader’s expectations, but it never subverts the expectations of the genre. We still have an over-powered “chosen one”-esque protagonist with daddy issues – pretty much a staple in battle shounen. It’s not that I don’t get HxH, it’s just that there is nothing to get. A certain group of readers just read far too deeply into things.

Concluding Remarks

Hunter x Hunter is a series of highs and lows. I genuinely think everything up to the end of Yorknew arc is fantastic, but cracks in the foundation start to show after that turning point. Greed Island could be removed from the story entirely and the fundamental plot of the series would remain the same. Chimera Ant arc, while very solid, over stays its welcome by about 20-30 chapters. The fat should have been trimmed to make it truly great. Beyond the conclusion of the Chimera Ant arc, the quality of the series becomes wildly inconsistent.

Altogether, HxH is pretty solid. The story is great, the characters are mid, and the art is ... well, you know. It's a mixed bag. Modern battle shounen authors have learned from Togashi's mistakes and adopted his more-favorable qualities. Ultimately, HxH's legacy lives on in weekly shounen jump magazines to this day. But, just not in the way most HxH fans would want.