D.Gray-Man: Hallow

I have to admit, I did not expect the D.Gray-Man anime to continue. Ten years after the original began, and with the manga first going from weekly to monthly with the switch from Jump to Jump SQ, then going on a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, I just never thought we’d see an animated continuation. Which was a shame, because I’ve always had a real soft spot for Allen Walker and his motley crew of exorcists.

This short, 13-episode season continues where the last season left off, and unfortunately the chapters it covers are a bit haphazard and uneven. It’s good that the show gets to ease in again with the introduction of Timothy, whose blue mullet and cute shorts and amusing powers I’ve always enjoyed, but the problem is that no sooner is he introduced than he becomes an extremely minor background character, where he remains to the current manga chapter.

Then we have fan favourite Kanda getting his emotional backstory, as the mysterious Third Exorcist Project is undermined by the Millennium Earl by revealing Kanda and the mysterious Alma were created in the Second Exorcist Project, and using this knowledge to cause chaos. Allen gets to witness an extended memory sequence of adorable shota versions of Kanda and Alma, blessed with great strength and a healing factor, but doomed to be torn apart by the truth. It’s a nice, self-contained background story, but eats up almost the whole of this season, completely ruining its pacing.

This leaves only the final episodes to tease the story to come – which is extremely convoluted and confusing. The Millennium Earl’s true face is revealed as various new Noah make their appearance, a few of them looking way too similar to one another, and the relationship between Nea and Mana is teased. It’s a very unsatisfying cliffhanger to leave the season on, especially with so little build-up, and if this season could be kicked off by the quick and easy Timothy / Phantom Thief G story, next season would begin with – without spoiling the manga – several episodes of slow, dull, rather confusing chapters from probably the worst period of serialisation. This makes me worry we won’t see any more of the show, but where Hallow left off was a very poor end point, so I hope that’s not the case and they find a way to have the next season start in an interesting fashion, even if it means original material.

For all the small qualms I had, though, the central point is that it was a delight to see the show on the screen again. I didn’t mind all the changes in voice actors at all, though Lavi sounded a bit strange. Allen Walker remains a favourite character and with Timothy and the flashback to Alma and young Kanda, this section of the manga had a huge focus on cute adolescent boy characters. It’s nice to start seeing more depth to the Millennium Earl, and Road gets some good moments, too.

I’m still a manga reader, and that’s not going to change, but the more the manga gets adapted to an anime, the happier I’ll be, and if we get an adaptation right up until the manga’s eventual conclusion, I’ll be very happy indeed.

ワンパンマン / Wanpanman / One Punch Man

I realised when I posted my review of the OVAs that I had never actually written my thoughts on the first season of One Punch Man – in fact, I decided not to because those OVAs were coming out and I thought I could write everything together. But that was six months ago and I forgot all about it. Well, I’ve posted my thoughts on the OVAs, so I’d better post about season one!

One Punch Man has an interesting creation story, which really helps its success. It’s the kind of feel-good underdog success story that you can really get behind. A writer calling himself One started to publish a crudely-drawn webcomic about a superhero so strong that no matter how powerful his opponents, they can be beaten with one punch. Rather than looking incredibly cool, this hero is a rather ordinary-looking bald guy with a silly costume reminiscent of Anpanman with colours inverted, the Japanese title being a play on that classic children’s character. Not only is our caped hero Saitama goofy-looking, but he has a very detached, deadpan attitude to the world, speaking his mind and undercutting all the usual inflated rhetoric of comic book villains by using a single punch to destroy them. As a vehicle for bathos to undercut all of the clichés of a world where huge monsters and cheesy superheroes do battle, it works marvellously.

I was a little sceptical when I heard the premise. Godzilla vs Bambi is never much fun. If Saitama overcomes all obstacles with one punch, what drama can there be? But this is where One’s writing makes a difference, and why, I presume, readers were hooked despite the terrible art (which has it has to be said vastly improved by this point) and the obvious concept. Rather than Saitama’s power, it is the world he is part of and the way he balances indifference and yearning to be recognised and appreciated that makes this series so compelling.

One of the things that I like the most about One Punch Man is that in many ways it echoes HunterxHunter. One is not shy about this – some character designs are direct echoes, and one frontispiece had Saitama reading and praising HunterxHunter in Jump. The Hero Association in One Punch Man is very similar to the Hunter Association, with some very familiar dynamics.

The real compelling drama of One Punch Man is the slow recognition of Saitama’s talents. He is first acknowledged by Genos, a rather adorably pure-hearted cyborg out for revenge and powerful enough to go right to the top of the Association. Saitama, meanwhile, is held down by not being the brightest bulb, despite what his shiny head might make you think, and enters the association near the bottom – and is given the rather unfortunate name of ‘Caped Baldy’.

This premise is what got me hooked, but it’s the ensemble cast of S-Class heroes that took me over the boundary to loving this series. Each of them revealed thus far is very interesting and interacts with Saitama in a very amusing way, be it tetchy master telepath Tatsumaki or the wonderfully misleading King.

I’m delighted that One Punch Man is so popular and will soon be having its second season. It’s funny, it does smart things with its simple concept, and above all, it’s likeable. I want more!

One Punch Man: Season 1 OVAs

One Punch Man remains the darling of anime fandom at the moment, and I’m very much under its spell, especially as it keeps adding characters that really seem like nods to HunterxHunter. I’ve read all of One’s webcomic currently available, as well as the nicely redrawn manga currently exploring its own original side-arc (written by One), and thoroughly enjoying it all.

So it’s nice to also have some original material presented in animated form. And with the DVD releases came six more episodes, with original side-stories to add to what we already saw in the anime. While there are a number of side-stories in the manga that could have been adapted very nicely for this purpose, the creators decided instead to have original material. And I have to say I was quite pleased with that decision, because the days of horrible low-quality filler are past and the anime team came up with some very entertaining short side-stories. Some were very inconsequential, like Bang stalking Saitama or a hot springs trip for most of the prominent S-Class heroes (with a silly murder mystery thrown in), though all contain some really fun character moments – and I love seeing Child Emperor getting all bossy and playing detective.

But others really gave more depth to the characters, especially the first one dealing with Saitama getting his uniform. Fubuki really gets some good moments in the fifth OVA as well, adding more to the rivalry story between her and her sister Tatsumaki that has underpinned all her appearances.

Some of these episodes are a tad lazy. Not as much hard work and love goes into them as the main series. But then again, that’s par for the course. And the fact is that there’s an audience still very keen for more Wan Pan Man, so they’re a very good way to tide the fans over until the second season begins. Though personally, I’d like to see much more of the webcomic!

とある魔術の禁書目録 / To Aru Majutsu no Indekkusu / A Certain Magical Index

The To Aru series has been enduringly popular, but I never felt much desire to pick them up. There was something old-fashioned about the designs – especially Touma, with his early-2000s spiky anime hair. But more and more things made me inclined to check it out. Probably the main one was a huge poster in Akihabara when I was there last year, with lots of much cuter characters than I expected to see. Another was the fact that I got into the mobile game Million Arthur, which had its scenario written by Kamachi Kazuma, the To Aru light novel creator.

I’m glad I gave the show a chance...but I have to say, overall I was disappointed.

One thing I can say clearly: Index is totally adorable. Probably the cutest female character in any anime I’ve picked up since The Idolm@ster. Her stubborn, childlike and impetuous personality is adorable and the fact that she’s a nun is hilarious. I could probably do without the show’s endless fanservice and how much she ends up whoops! naked again, but she manages to stay on the right side of annoying with her clinginess over Touma.

So, other than having a nun involved, what is the story here? Well, the series is set in a near-future world where both magic and advanced science live side-by-side. Magicians make use of magic, while Espers have impressive powers through either scientific experimentation or by impressive natural talent. 

In the university-oriented Academy City lives Touma, the boy with the old-fashioned spiky hair who also has a bit of a tedious power, the same that makes everyone think so highly of the central characters of Gakuen Alice and...well, Twilight. 

Touma can nullify all other powers, be they magical or scientific. His right hand, for whatever reason dubbed the Imagine Breaker, stops powers from working, reveals magical tricks and apparently also saps kinetic energy from anything magical that’s moving at speed – though I think that might just be for effect.

Into his life comes Index, a cute young girl and a nun who is essentially a tool for the Anglican church. With the power to memorize vast amounts of information – in a strange robotic mode – she has been implanted with over 100,000 mystical grimoires, which she carries in her mind. This makes her a valued commodity to the church as well as a target. Oh, and her clothes are magically enchanted, so if Touma’s Imagine Breaker touches them, they fall off. Oh my! Et al.

I like the concept, especially the elements related to the Church, even if that’s common in anime and manga – from Hellsing to D.Gray-Man. But To Aru does a whole lot wrong, which is partly why I got bored and took a very long time to finish watching. 

For one thing, it seems like the writer gets bored of Index, and for most of the second half of the show she’s stuck at home while Touma interacts with more interesting characters like Misaka, or ‘Railgun’, who has a long line of sacrificial clones designed to power up the extremely powerful Esper named Accelerator – until Touma intervenes. 

Rather than concentrating on even these two main girls, the plot bounces around – now Touma has to deal with a magic spell that swaps people’s appearances; now all the psychic energy in the city has coalesced into a big-boobed girl who Index has befriended; now we’re following Accelerator as he gains a human side through bonding with a cute loli version of Misaka. 

It’s too much, and other than some vague guff about Aleister Crowley floating upside-down in a giant tube orchestrating everything, there’s no sense of an overarching plot here. The result is that the tension is very low, and the usual tired setpieces of Touma having to pose as Misaka’s boyfriend or walking in on Index changing a million times gets old very fast.

There’s charm here and I probably will watch the rest. The first episodes remain very engaging and most of the storylines that involve the Church were enjoyable. Misaka’s story, especially with the moral question of her clones, has some brilliant moments, but I wish it could have been better-integrated into the existing plot or a completely separate anime. The problem here was that the series felt like it was a new spin-off with every new arc, rather than part of one coherent world, and that was why for all I found the eponymous character adorable and liked most of the other major players, I didn’t feel at all engaged by To Aru Majutsu no Index. 

ソードアート・オンラインII / Sword Art Online II

By the time SAO’s first season ended, I had gone off it in a big way. At the start, pretty-faced Kirito was an underdog I rooted for, sweet-natured and ostracised in an unoriginal but interesting world. By the end, he was the undisputed master swordsman of all the universe, replete with powers that were his alone and not just a beautiful and adorable – if rather dull – girlfriend, but a whole harem of girls to suit any taste. Including those who like the idea of their sister having a crush on them. He was no longer in any way an underdog, the way situations resolved themselves were very contrived, and the cloying way everyone worshipped his every action – including pseudo-government types taking him on as a kind of consultant – became annoying. Kirito became far too like a male Bella Swan, who everyone also loves for no reason.

For all that, though, I was willing to give the second season a chance. There was a lot of talk about the later arcs being much better from fans of the books, and it was after all a cover of Kirito with a mysterious cute boy that drew me into the series in the first place...though the boy, Eugeo, has yet to appear. Guess I’ll have to see in season 3.

Sword Art Online’s big problem is Kirito, and this season doesn’t quite deal with that problem – though the second arc here finds an interim solution. Kirito is just not very likeable, nor identifiable as wish fulfilment. His skills continue to be a cut above, and he seems just a little smug about that, and more crucially the stakes are very low now. He’s in online games, not fighting for his life. Plus he is pretty enough that when his character gets long hair, people think he’s a girl. Perhaps that’s meant to make him the butt of a joke, but its effect is to make him seem yet more perfect and beautiful. And it’s annoying!

The reason he has a new avatar is that he’s sent into a new game to track down a killer. A mysterious figure seems to have the ability to shoot a gun in the game and kill someone in real life. Of course, Kirito is the one to be sent to sort this out. Though this is an American shooting game, Kirito of course not only adapts to it immediately but decides to use a lightsaber and charge down all the campers and duellists. Because he’s super special.

Of course, he finds a new girl whose deep mental issues he manages to solve with a few platitudes, so he can add one more to his harem. Sinon is a sniper and using the game as therapy. By sheer coincidence she has a personal connection with the bad guy in the picture, and super Kirito figures everything out.

After a brief and not very interesting side-quest wherein Kirito and the gang finish a quest that might have destroyed their whole world and of course rewards Kirito with Excalibur, Best Sword in the Game, the final arc begins – and yes, it’s the best arc since the first one. That’s largely because Kirito is taken out of the picture – a little like how the best part of the Suzumiya Haruhi franchise is when she disappears. Instead, Asuna is placed centre-stage when an incredibly good swordswoman takes an interest in her and recruits her into defeating a boss with just a small but elite party. Not only does Asuna figure out why the party had been failing until that point (they are being spied upon) and lead them to final victory, she comes to understand the swordswoman well. Yuuki and her friends have come together because they are all terminal patients with extremely weak bodies, eager to make a lasting impression at least on a virtual world, which will record their names. Some parts of the story I find rather weak and exploitative, with overwrought sexual tension between the two girls screaming fanservice rather than something sweet, and the set-up being blatantly contrived to have an attempted tear-jerker ending. As a result, I found it rang a bit false.

But overall, it was beyond a doubt a breath of fresh air. Asuna may not be a very interesting character, but she was given some new dimensions here. The scenes in the real world were quite delicate and sweet, especially when Asuna fixed it so that she could take Yuuki’s virtual presence with her for an ordinary day at school, and I’d quite like to know more about the other group members...especially the cute boy whose name – a little gratingly for me – was Jun. Perhaps they’ll crop up in future episodes.

The fact is, I’m fairly sure there’ll be more Sword Art Online, and that I’ll watch it. But I can’t say it will be with much enthusiasm. The series outstayed its welcome, and thus far not enough has been done to make it better. It’s one of the success stories of recent years, but really it’s a show that’s still trading on its strong opening episodes and cute designs...

That said, it surprises me that Kirito remains a very popular character. There’s still a very loyal fanbase to this series! I guess there are people who don’t want to root for the underdog – but want their avatar in a story a bit overly perfect. Which I suppose would also explain No Game No Life.

ナルト/ Naruto (manga)

It finally ended. After fifteen years, and overstaying its welcome by at least eight, one of the pillars of anime and manga of the last few decades has come to an end. Shounen Jump has lost one of its more recognisable figureheads, and I no longer feel compelled to complain every week about a new chapter of rushed plotting or emotion-free battles between giant blob-creatures.

As I mentioned in my review of the pre-timeskip anime series, Naruto is deeply unfashionable. But I will defend it to the ground. Of its fifteen years, I’ve been following it for twelve-ish. Twelve years of my life with these characters, at least once a week, and most times two. That’s pretty remarkable. A large chunk of the crowd at any anime crowd will have been learning to spell ‘cat’ when I started to read Naruto. So my perspective is a little different from the average, I guess.

That, I think, is why I’m keen to defend it. Or at least, what it was. Post-timeskip, Naruto was largely an emotionally flat, highly contrived, rather ugly series of battles between uninteresting men with an inflated sense of self-importance. But it wasn’t like that to begin with. Which is why, once again, I think that in a few years’ time it will be rehabilitated and remembered fondly – just as happened with Dragonball. When I first joined the anime fandom, Dragonball was hated for GT and the prolonged screaming matches of Dragonball Z. Now it’s largely adored, primarily on the strength of the first series and the early parts of Dragonball Z. I expect the same will happen with Naruto when its best parts come into focus again.

Because I maintain that early Naruto was genuinely good. It was about ninja kids who were weak but ingenious, and who had people ready to push them, challenge them and if need be, protect them. Back then, it was largely a school drama.

Naruto himself was an intentionally annoying brat, while Sasuke was uppity and smug. Yet both were likeable and oddly cute. What made Naruto huge was the quick succession of two story arcs that blended cuteness and silliness with genuine emotionally heavy-hitting moments: first, the battle against Zabuza and Haku, which brilliantly had the enemies be sympathetic thanks to their deep bond and also immediately pitted the kids against someone genuinely dangerous. Naruto had a lot to prove and did it well – even if it had to rely on the cheesy ‘he didn’t really die!’ moment. Kishimoto proved this wasn’t just a one-off by following up with the chuunin exam arc – first, with the compelling character of Gaara, who was tortured, antisocial and merciless. The idea that this was a world of incredibly powerful warriors was cemented, and Orochimaru was a genuine threat in the background. While there was a certain laziness to then going into a tournament arc, as so many series do, Kishimoto did these battles better than most, with almost all of the fights between low-level opponents being won thanks to some genuinely clever little trick. Itachi was an enigma, part of an organization that seemed genuinely threatening and cool (back then), and the summons of the sannin seemed like absurdly powerful, more or less exclusive talents.

It all fell apart around then. Big summons led to bigger and bigger ones, and then the use of tailed beast powers, ending up with dull fights between big blobs. There was a time skip and the characters were no longer underdogs. The tricks were no longer clever because the stakes had to constantly be upped. Naruto couldn’t get away with being annoying because he was adorable any more, and Sasuke just became annoying. Akatsuki were revealed to be largely ridiculous and could mostly be defeated by being made to realize their evil actions were – gasp! – evil. Itachi was given redemption, but not before being made to look completely ridiculous in what should have been a series highlight. The final battle with a very old man and some almost random summoned goddess woman was entirely without tension and the last clash of all, prefigured for fifteen years, was rushed into very unconvincingly, over very quickly and entirely without emotional weight.

Like so many shounen titles – particulary Dragonball and Reborn – as well as a fair number of Western kids’ stories (like Harry Potter), the big problem with Naruto is that it started fun, jokey and cute, then tried to take itself too seriously. It lost the balance and became largely tedious, and unable to have much emotional impact.

Thus, which the classic ‘see-them-as-adults-with-their-kids’ ending of Digimon and yes, Harry Potter had some small smiles in it, mostly for minor characters, I can’t say I’m sad to see this era come to a close. But I remember that Naruto was once great, and that’s the main thing I’ll always take from it.  

HunterxHunter (2011): Election Arc

Well, I don’t think that when they revived it, Madhouse thought that in the time it would take to animate 16 years’ worth of HunterxHunter manga, Togashi would only have managed about 40 chapters.

So, well...the inevitable has happened. With the end of the Election arc, HunterxHunter is over once again. And I’m sad, because watching that final episode, which is actually a good place to end because it marks the culmination of Gon’s emotional arc with him getting to hand over Ging's Hunter licence and accomplishing the goal established at the very start, I’ll realised a few things.

I realised that even if One Piece is consistently better and I enjoyed Naruto more in its first 40-odd episodes, HunterxHunter is the Jump action property I care about the most (and second overall only to Hikaru no Go). Gon is by far my favourite of the action protagonists, much more pure-hearted and less annoying than Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo, Goku, Tsuna, Allen Walker, Yugi, Yoh or any of the rest of them, as well as going through far more harrowing experiences. HunterxHunter does darkness far better than any of the others ever did, and I’m going to be sad if Togashi is demoralised by the end of the anime and stops again for another long hiatus. Money isn’t going to motivate him – I’m sure that with his titles and the money the new Sailor Moon is bringing in for his wife, the only motivating factor is gonna be love of the piece. Is it still there? It feels like it, when he’s writing, but then for months and months he won’t do a thing.

Anyway, inception aside the Election Arc, while short and almost entirely lacking the protagonist of the story – another bold decision you won’t see from other Jump writers – is actually a very satisfying one. It reintroduces the long-absent character of Leorio and makes him look pretty impressive (setting up his role in the next arc), it despite a magical solution illustrates that the power-up Gon received was not a typical shounen ass-pull but genuinely put him and those close to him through significant pain and suffering, and with the parallel story arc for Killua, it further fleshes out his relationship with his family and fills in some important blanks.

But best of all, we get introduced to the Zodiac. Some are absurd, and some uninteresting, but Pariston is one of the most brilliant creations in any manga I’ve ever seen – and I detest him. But to have such powerful feelings about a fictional character who is only ever seen on the surface and who is named after Paris Hilton is quite the accomplishment. Pariston is an utterly brilliant depiction of a smarmy, insincere politician type. He’s slick and polished and knows that everyone hates him, but has an incredibly deep cunning under the surface and runs intellectual rings around the others – especially poor likeable Cheadle – while making it all look accidental or idiotic. Bringing Ging to the fore – and having him a foil to Pariston yet not entirely able to deal with him – is the most wonderful, watchable dynamic and again, sets up the next arc.

But fun though the election story is, the real emotional heart of these episodes was of course Killua’s rush to save Gon. Gon turned himself into something horrific in exchange for the power to defeat Pitou, and Killua can only think of one way to save him – the fearful power of his little sibling (most likely biologically male but identifying as female) locked up in the Zoldyck household.

With a set of strange rules, Alluka – or the other personality residing within, known as Nanika – can grant wishes when various demands are met. But failing to meet those demands brings horrific consequences. It’s the furthest HunterxHunter delves into horror territory, and it works really rather well. What Togashi does best is show that Killua actually sees Alluka as human, which none of the rest of the family do, and their bond is quite touching.

Illumi and Hisoka end up giving chase, another interesting dynamic – and Hisoka is enigmatic as ever, though brutally effective in his battle with Gotou. There are also some interesting new Zoldyck butler characters, though I think Tsubone’s goofy, rather embarrassing-looking ability was a waste – especially since she herself is awesome. It’s a pretty classic chase storyline, but wrapped up with all sorts of family drama, as well as Killua’s love for Gon and conflicted feelings.

The big climb to finish the arc is very sweet. Not only is that kind of ascent an old classic of shounen stories – most notably Dragonball – and finished off with trademark Togashi silliness with the nest, the conversation Gon finally has with his father is done brilliantly – it’s not too saccharine or emotional, but the message that Ging imparts, that the journey and the people you meet on it are more important than the goal, comes over very nicely.

I’ll very much miss my weekly dose of HunterxHunter. But I have every faith that it will come back again – someday. And until then, well, there’s always the manga. Sometimes. 

ソウルイーターノット! / Soul Eater Not!

Though I started to read Soul Eater Not! as soon as it began back in 2011, I didn’t really stick with it. It was probably because I was – yes, despite the title – expecting more Soul Eater, but what I got was a spin-off about three new characters who I never really got to know, plus occasional cameos from the major cast of the original series. Especially since at the time, the original manga series hadn’t even finished.

Somehow, I found myself liking the anime adaptation of Soul Eater Not! much more. I was even sad that it ended, wanting more than just twelve episodes. It may have had much to do with the fact I wasn’t expecting anything else. While it’s never been a problem in any other series I’ve watched, perhaps in anime form the girls’ colourings and their seiyuu’s assured voice performances contributed. Either way, I found myself far more engaged and eager to watch every episode.

In the original Soul Eater series, we see the adventures of the elite students of Shibusen – some incredible fighters are partnered with living weapons able to transform perfectly. But what of the other students? What of the ones who aren’t very good at it yet? Perhaps the living weapons can’t fully transform – or found out about their abilities late in life?

This is the NOT class – who are expected to Normally Overcome Target. Hey, English isn’t Oukubo’s first language! New student Tsugumi, cute and impressionable, has just started learning to use her powers. In the NOT class, she finds herself getting close to two other girls her age – the bizarrely forgetful and well-endowed Meme and the privileged, standoffish Anya, who is one of the better recent examples of a tsundere who’s actually likeable. It becomes apparent that both of these masters want to form a partnership with Tsugumi-chan, but how can she decide?

The kids learn to deal with their weird loli dorm mistress, with the totally reformable bully extortionist Kim (probably the character with the biggest role in both series), with part-time jobs in the local cafe and the brash sisters Liz and Patti they meet there, and in the end with a witch causing mayhem. The mystery of Sid’s death is made clear, there are cameos from characters as major as Maka, who is a kind of mentor figure to Tsugumi, and as minor as Ox Ford, who is treated with rather more reverence and respect in this series. We get more of the sweet chalk-and-cheese relationship between Kim and her rival/admirer, the ‘straight-laced chick’ with the incredible name of Jacqueline O. Lantern Dupré. She does not play the cello, at least as far as we were shown.

But while I never really grew to like Meme, whose entire personality seems to revolve around being forgetful, I really liked Tsugumi and Anya by the end of this. Tsugumi’s determined, innocent personality and Anya’s snootiness along with her fixation on things ‘commoners’ like were marvellous. There were other very funny parts of this season, like the guy who can transform into a dagger – except for his head, which stays there – and the poor bookish girl who Kim decides should be called ‘Eternal Feather’, a name that sticks.

The scale is small here, and the ultimate ‘Why not have both?’ moment is a bit unconvincing, but the journey was very satisfying and the characters very likeable. The occasionally clunky pacing of the manga was fixed, and the simple but effective animation was cute. A fun series – even if I’d much rather just have more Soul Eater. 

ハンター×ハンター / HunterxHunter: Chimera Ant Arc

Though I normally only review full series and this arc will actually have a few aftermath episodes, I feel that after the latest episode, the time is right for a second post about the 2011 HunterxHunter. The arcs are so long that it doesn’t feel so different from a post about one of the other big shounen series up to a timeskip. That said, I probably won’t do the next post until both the election and the new world exploration arcs are over...unless the anime stops again.

I had problems with this arc as a manga devotee. Not just because Togashi had his breakdown during it and we had to deal with chapters that were embarrassing scribbles. Not just because HiatusxHiatus meant that the arc stretched out over, what? Four years? Let me check. Hmm. It was more like nine. Nine years to finish an arc. Mostly, I simply had problems with the fact that in aiming for his usual starting-with-something-silly-and-then-transcending-it way of working, Togashi ended up making the arc look pretty goddamn goofy.

Yet seeing it all together as the arc finally, finally had its last chapters, I realised Togashi had planned it brilliantly all along, and did a lot of things no other shounen writer does. He broke the conventions and defied the cliches, and he made the dubious-looking characters the ones we truly cared for. If the York Shin arc is a masterclass in clever shounen writing with remarkably sympathetic antagonists and enemies that the good guys genuinely couldn’t hope to overcome through lame random power-ups, the Chimera Ant arc is a tortured, uneven yet brilliant experiment.

The anime had none of the big superficial problems of the manga. It did not have scribbled first-draft artwork, and it did not have enormous and frustrating breaks. It had Madhouse’s above-par animation, some superb voice work and some very clever stylistic decisions, and true to its source, it did things that no other series in its position does. What other big shounen has a whole episode based a single scene in which on a minor antagonist is confronted by his vastly superior leader and has to contemplate his mortality, divided loyalty and subservience? What other anime has the young protagonist set out with a clear goal, only to find that goal was never possible and that the one he wanted to save is beyond help already, only to sacrifice everything he has for a power-up...in order to kill a second-in-command figure? 

And what anime leads its antagonist not to a big showdown, but beyond that, to contemplation of the nature of humanity, mortality and inner peace not in using his ultimate power but sharing a game with the only person he ever cared for, a weak, blind, feeble-minded and yet hugely gifted player of a board game? Giving the ostensible bad guy a dignified, peaceful, bittersweet exit while a previously unseen character in exile muses on the unpleasantness of human nature in creating weapons of mass destruction is not what one expects from a Jump show. My only disappointment was that the brutality of Pokkle’s death was sanitised.

But defying expectations is what I keep coming back for. Superficially this arc is a hard sell: it’s about scary bugs who absorb the characteristics of any creature they consume. When they eat humans, they become a truly formidable threat to the rest of mankind and must be dealt with. The newborn bugs start looking like various animals – bulls, bugs, cheetahs, penguins – and it’s all very much like furry fanart. Then the three royal guards are born, a big meathead, a ridiculous fey poet type prone to histrionics, and a cheeky androgynous catgirl. The king himself, once born, is a clear tribute to Cell from Dragonball Z. None of these elements seem very mature, and a cutesy octopus joining the rebels doesn’t help. Once a big fight scene became about fish men throwing teleporting fish-darts, I thought the series was in big trouble.

And then somehow, Togashi brings it all together and exceeds all expectations. His human characters make big sacrifices and have to face the possibility of their own deaths and the deaths of their friends. The little octopus becomes heroic and bizarrely manly. Old favourites reappear – and the side-story with the Ryodan remains one of my favourite parts of the series, planet summonings and silly clothing removal scenes included. But the real winner of the idea is the anticlimax, the ultimate warrior who transcends the desire to fight and subjugate, and becomes wise as humans seek to kill him.

This arc is what HunterxHunter is all about: surprising even its core audience. Togashi seems to make mistake after mistake...yet unlike Naruto or Bleach, it turns out that’s all building up to something deep and challenging. What more can you ask for in a shounen? Bring on the election arc – and Beyond!