When Vicers (including Sam) wax rhapsodic about HxH, the praise often seems to center on it simply doing things that other shonen serials generally don’ t do. ..
Would you expect, say, NARUTO to build up the threat of the Chimera Ant King, and consistently ratchet the tension until that big bad’s final showdown with our hero? Well, guess what - - HxH is going to frustrate that expectation. It’ll intentionally side-step into a multi-episode sub-plot where the King plays a board game with this nearly-inconsequential kid with a runny nose, and slow that rising action right on down. Why do that? Well, it illustrates the philosophical conundrum inherent to how this king can slaughter nations with little effort, but somehow can’t win a board game, and so on..
More importantly - - you’d never see Cell or Frieze do that!
== TEASER ==
This episode cements that significantly, and also reaffirms my suspicion that HxH is largely an exercise for TogashI to essentially test the extent he can troll his audience.
“But, Tom!” you shout. “This was a touching, character-based episode. Gon finally reconciles with his estranged his father! They learn that they’ve had the same wishes and values this whole time!”
Well, sure. It does do that. But it does that by rolling through copious clips taken from the shows’ five odd seasons. And there’s something that’s very hard not to notice when you watch these clips...
Remember the earliest episodes of the show? Remember how the intro used to open with a monologue by this foreboding narrator, warning of all the exotic kaiju roaming out there in the world? Well, it took 147 episodes for this show to actually get around to reflecting that intro. The show’s called HUNTER X HUNTER, and it has devoted an inordinate amount of screen time to our heroes paying their dues to be called hunters, but has actually shown very little of them actually, y’know, hunting.
There’s no problem with Gon and Killua quickly moving beyond that premise, sure, but the clip show really puts a point on how this series never even ran through the paces of that premise. We got an arc about these kids getting certified to be hunters, an arc about them training to be better fighters, an arc about them serving as bodyguards in a mob feud, an arc about them training more in a video game, an arc about them electing officials… and then the mess that ‘Chimera Ant.’ But no actual arc about them hunting kaiju.
It’s like Togashi forgot to actually fulfill the premise he was setting up because he got distracted by others ideas. Or as I see it, he’s reached that level of success where it just tickles him to see how long he can get readers/viewers to stick with a series that doesn’t actual reflect its own title. Again, sure, YU YU HAKUSHO moved beyond any ‘Spirit Detective’ stuff fairly quickly, but at least the first arc still dealt with it.
Maybe you’ll say, “But yeah, that’s such a shonen trope. Everybody knows they’re hunters. Let’s get past that, and go to the more interesting stuff.” But see, when you say that, it frames the show as a counterpoint to the other big shonen show - - one that can only be fully enjoyed in context, and by comparison. And that really distills what’s frustrated me so much about this show.
Togashi all but has Ging wink at the audience when, in so many words, he stresses that it’s about the journey, not the destination. Of course, I agree with that to a point, but when you really break it down, it’s like an ad executive’s slick doublespeak - - hiding how HxH has almost always goes out of its way to be obfuscating about its own plot.
And it’s hard to argue with that when it’s taken this many episodes for the map promised in the original intro to actually show up on the show.
Watch "Past x And x Future" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode.
from Anime Vice Site Mashup http://ift.tt/1qu9EV8
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