Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter x Hunter

Reviewed by Anson Leung

(Viz Media, 2024)

Togashi’s Hunter x Hunter is a story that mainly features a 12-year-old named Gon Freecss, who is an extremely gifted boy in terms of combat prowess. He is fun-loving and wishes to become a “hunter,” a person who participates in exciting adventures across the world. As a side note, hunters are officially recognized by the government as an elite class of humanity. Along the way, he meets his friends, and progresses as a person as he struggles through emotional heartache and enjoys the wonders the world has to offer. But he is not the only focus on the story. He does get the most screentime, but the story is an ensemble cast. His friends, and even enemies, also take up some of the spotlight.
 
Why do hunters exist in this universe? Firstly, hunters are the top of humanity, as they encompass the peak physical abilities a human can possess. For reference, superhumans do exist, as Gon’s first big feat at the beginning of the series was pulling out a gigantic whale-sized fish from the swamp in his hometown of Whale Island. Gon only needed to use his fishing pole, and no special fishing boat, to pull this feat off. As the top of humanity, they get special privileges, such as: being able to gain access to most public services for free, gaining lucrative job offers, and gaining the ability to get away with murder. Yes, Hunter x Hunter is a rather dark universe under a façade of adventure and happiness. Hunters vary from being fun-loving, to being very serious. In the “fun” category, a “gourmet hunter” fits the bill. This type of hunter is devoted to hunting down a wild array of exotic and unique animals for the purpose of discovering new gourmet food upon harvesting these animals. Another “fun hunter” is a treasure hunter, who wishes to travel the world to find expensive and rare treasures. Bounty hunters also exist, and yes, they are a type of hunter, too. These are the more serious ones, and kill evil members of society for money. An evil person can be a hunter, too. Hisoka, a fan favorite of the series, is both a mass murderer and a licensed hunter, who took the pains of becoming a hunter for the sole purpose of being able to kill people without hassle. While he is an anti-hero and an occasional ally to the protagonists, it is important to note that he is indeed a serial killer, and a constant reminder that Hunter x Hunter always has darkness underlying its charm, which will progressively reveal itself more and more as the story unfolds.
 
The characters of Hunter x Hunter are varied in personality. Gon is the seemingly normal 12-year-old who seems like a standard shonen protagonist that never gives up and always helps his friends in need. Until later on in the story, when it deconstructs his personality and we see foreshadowed hints we missed the first time. Killua Zoldyck is a boy who is an assassin raised by an infamous family. Ironically, he is one of the more “pure-hearted” characters, and is relatively well adjusted, all things considered. Hisoka is a whimsical clown who is one of the most powerful humans in this entire series. He also delights in murdering those he finds “strong” to satisfy his libido. As an occasional ally to the group, he will also go against them if it suits his needs, such as finding a way to empower Chrollo to regain his former strength. This is all while Gon and his allies are trying to stop it because Chrollo is dangerous to society and needs to be taken down. Chrollo is a charismatic leader of the Phantom Troupe, an incredibly powerful and dangerous group with each member capable of killing an average hunter. By reference, Shizuku, the physically weakest of the group and the one responsible for killing murderers, would be able to qualify as a “world class arm wrestler” and kill full-grown men in the blink of an eye. Chrollo himself is most likely the most powerful human being in the series, with access to an assortment of different powers he gains from torturing people into submission and extracting them by force. The Phantom Troupe steals rare treasures from the world, including body parts if they qualify. Which brings us to Kurapika, who wants to avenge his clan because Chrollo killed them to take their scarlet eyes. A friend to Gon from the hunter exam, he goes off on his own and has his own adventures trying to kill the members of The Phantom Troupe.

A complex and interconnected world awaits those who read Hunter x Hunter, and a prime example of character nuance is Gon’s “shonen protagonist” personality being “overly nice and overly determined”.
 
See, Gon will treat his allies nicely like any other shonen protagonist because he treats his fellow human beings as if they, and himself, were animals. In other words, he will have no problems treating anybody he loves with the utmost respect and kindness, to a fault at times. But he will have no qualms over hurting others outside his inner circle. He still has morality and will not go out of his way to harm strangers. But he will not hesitate to do so if his own inner circle is threatened. Not even a perfunctory thought, nor a shred of morality, to provide a moment’s worth of hesitation. This might not seem like a problem, but as he shows later on in the story, he will not hesitate to endanger a stranger if it means the slim possibility of saving a person he considers family. No matter how much more good he can do helping a stranger over his inner circle, he will always prioritize his inner circle first. He will normally help strangers, but never if it means ignoring his inner circle.
 
Another issue with his mindset of being like an animal is his lack of self-preservation. He will injure himself to great lengths to achieve a goal. In the hunter license exam arc, he was willing to suffer a broken arm to achieve his goals, when he could have waited for another chance a few minutes down the road. He doesn’t give up like a normal shonen protagonist, but he also takes it to extreme lengths, when he simply doesn’t have to. Initially a small problem, the series builds upon it with foreshadowing, until it festers and becomes something the audience cannot ignore. The culmination is a dangerous and tense standoff with a major enemy of the series. The enemy in question is arguably the second strongest Chimera Ant, the major antagonists of a later arc. These Chimera Ants are a threat to the entire human race. But in Gon’s case, he is only interested in his personal vendetta. He is willing to sacrifice his entire lifespan for the sake of his revenge, when there were more than enough members of the military left to fight the enemy had he failed to kill the Chimera Ant Royal Guard in question.
 
Regarding the fight scenes, the best example is Hisoka vs Chrollo in Chapter 351. Lasting several chapters, it is a high-intensity and high-IQ fight that the audience will have to reread several times in order to grasp the nuances. A truly tense back-and-forth, and a master class in writing. They are playing high speed mental chess while trying to figure out each other’s strategies in hopes of killing the other.
 
There are quite a few emotional scenes. Right off the bat, Gon wants to be a hunter because he wants the benefits, but because his father left him to pursue the adventures of becoming a hunter, and Gon wants to see why being a hunter is so amazing that it’s worth his own life. Rather than being justifiably mad at being abandoned, Gon misses the point and dives into being a hunter, so we feel sad on his behalf. Kurapika wants revenge for his clan, whom the Phantom Troupe murdered. After murdering one of their members, the same group invites him to become one of them, as per their tradition. Kurapika’s family, and everyone else he knew, was murdered ruthlessly by these monsters, and the Phantom Troupe doesn’t even care about it. They don’t care about Kurapika’s revenge quest, they take what they want and move on. Rightfully, the audience should be mad at this sheer callous indifference to life, not relieved that Kurapika will not be actively hunted down by the Phantom Troupe, who outnumber him 12 to 1. And yet the same group shows they do care about their hometown, are human after all, and are willing to stand up to the Chimera Ants for endangering their town. And we feel excitement because this incredibly dangerous group that the audience has always hated on some level is now allied with the heroes, fighting an even more dangerous threat. We also feel hyped, since they use an assortment of cool powers to kill the Chimera Ants. All of these are a few of many emotional moments that Hunter x Hunter is known to do well.
 
Hunter x Hunter has amazingly nuanced characters, amazing fights, and emotional scenes to engage its audience. It’s no wonder Hunter x Hunter is considered by some to be among the greatest manga of all time.

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​Anson Leung is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s Bachelor of Commerce program. He is an Alberta-based writer who loves all forms of writing, including poetry and article writing. In his spare time, he loves playing tennis and board games.