|
Whole lotta people in the poll that voted for the arc that doesn't actually progress the plot or advance anyone's character. At least, no one that loving survives the arc.  I do agree it's a fine display of juggling, but it's just that. It's like the loving dancestor arc in Homestuck, it just introduces a metric fuckton of characters, spends way too much time talking about them (Like that one issue/episode where we get the backstory of this crime boss who is immediately eaten), then kills most of them.Gon and Killua each have one advancement over the course of the entire arc, and it doesn't actually change anything about either of them. Gon has a new attack that can kill him if he uses it again (and I'm sure he brought it out at least twice more in the manga since then, but since the anime ended there it was just pointless), and Killua is just... still Killua, but less likely to run away, a thing he literally hadn't done before except when encountering Wing's hostile Nen? Gon's Dad Form is kinda cool I guess, but really it should grow all the hair on his body and his finger and toenails as well. Just an absolutely bushy boy.
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2020 12:13
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 02:22 |
|
|
I can buy those explanations, though my immediate reaction is "getting mad is not character development." Killua getting more independent, sure, I can see that, though it feels like that walks back the general thrust of the series for me, that we're supposed to be watching how these boys grow together and strengthen each other. Going from the dodgeball match and coordinated Bomber hunt at the end of GI to the general solo stagnation in CA felt like a step backwards. Although thinking about it seriously, the only way they could really get more in tune with each other from there would literally be the Fusion Dance. Maybe I'm too used to the infinite shonen progression where they've punched out gods and only ever gotten closer as nakama and the series is still going (Looking at you, One Piece). It doesn't help that I'm thinking about CA after a long period of not reading or watching it (I think I saw the anime in like 2013? And hadn't read the manga for several years before that, I remember they'd just started their assault on the palace and I was reading it as the scanlations were released). When I did a rewatch last year I just stopped at the end of GI, because I remembered I hadn't liked the Chimera Ant arc. So bear in mind I'm coming at this half-remembered and from a less enlightened mindset, so this post is as much reflecting on an old opinion and seeing if it's worth changing as anything else. Like, okay, I'm gonna kind of stop stringing the thoughts I have together, because my thoughts for "arc bad" are not so firmly connected, it's like a stew of things I didn't like. There were a lot of characters introduced on both sides whose primary role was jobbers, including the teleporter guy introduced as a huge badass, who jobbed to the spookiness of being in the same building as the King. The ultimate enemy wasn't defeated by any action of the main characters (Which is okay, they had their own personal antagonist in Pitou, but it still feels a bit like watching the DMPC beat up the big bad). A lot of it felt filler-y, including Netero's backstory, it was eventually just hype to let Cell (I honestly can't remember his name, but I too noticed the resemblance) go even further over. The King's sympathetic character arc felt at odds with the otherwise strong portrayal as an inhuman monster that needed to be removed before he could threaten the rest of the world. A lot of that last is on me, at the time I liked a lot of clear good guys punching clear bad guys (Still do somewhat, but I'm more inclined towards nuance than before), if you give a bad guy a redemptive story line, he should be standing with the heroes by the end, not dead. Thinking about it, it's actually all pretty well done from a writing and technical stance, if not to the taste of younger me. Barring that entire episode dedicated to the crime boss that gets eaten. The action was all very good. I still think getting so mad you decide to kill yourself to beat one dude is stupidity, not character development. I mean, by a strict definition okay, but it's regressing, not progressing. Eh, falls are part of an arc too. Literally.  Conclusion: Arc... not? bad. I'm not gonna go rewatch it immediately, but at least next time I feel like a rewatch, I'll include it.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2020 18:52
|
|
|
No Wave posted:You saw characters growing apart and decided it's not development because that's the wrong direction?  I was dumb then. Probably still dumb now, but I clearly let my opinion devolve into something you could put on a bumper sticker and it needed the reexamination, so thanks for the wakeup call.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2020 19:20
|
|
|
gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i'd prefer for the manga to continue with togashi writing and drawing, but at this point i'd take whatever i could get. A finger on the monkey's paw curls, and Rob Liefeld sits bolt upright in bed.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 11, 2020 03:53
|
|
|
I'm starting my rewatch, and, uh, I noticed there's a whole arc I never saw?  Like I had been 100% sure the anime ended after the Chimera Ant arc, Gon's recovering from his more-ridiculous-than-normal Forbidden Ultimate Powerup technique, he finally meets Ging, Ging shows him a bigass tree and they do this pullback that sure reads like a finale before the ED rolls. And that's where my source ended it, they had no further episodes (Maybe I was watching it as it released and caught up at just the wrong time?). But I picked up from y'all talking about it that there was more beyond that, and sure enough, Crunchyroll has more past that episode.My complaint about the Chimera Ant arc feels even dumber now. Like not only did I completely misread the character arc Gon and Killua were having, I mistakenly believed that's where the series ended, with no resolution beyond "We found Ging! That is entirely what we wanted to do, nothing else needs resolving." I do still feel like that entire episode about how evil this crime lord was, that just ended with the shaggy-dog of "And now I'm in an ant, welp," was entirely unnecessary. But that's the only part of my complaint that still holds water. Also Crunchyroll keeps serving me ads for IUD birth control and I'm like bitch, I got a wang and I'm watching anime, you've completely mistargeted. Plus they served me nine identical political ads in one episode.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2021 07:57
|
|
|
I assumed Gon's recovery happened like basically one or two episodes after Meruem died, then. Ah well.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2021 11:42
|
|
|
Nah, I totally watched the election arc, I just got confused because it's been like 8 or 9 years since I watched the whole series and I was scrolling on my phone so it looked like there were more episodes than there actually were.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2021 12:13
|
|
|
"I was attracted to their fighting spirit, and that's why I had a visible boner at the dodgeball tournament, your honor."
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2021 01:25
|
|
|
I mean, I definitely watched it wrong and expected bog-standard shonen throughout. The fight and the bomb were both really great, I was just hoping for a redemption arc.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2021 08:32
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:Oh I'm a frigging moron you miss the part where a Japanese guy succeeds thanks to his knowledge of preparing sushi. Seriously, that was the best loving part of the cooking test, and they just skipped it completely.
|
|
#
¿
May 15, 2021 03:58
|
|
|
macabresca posted:Now I'm curious, when did you guys had this yelling-to-others-how-good-this-show-is moment with HxH? I think for me it was the end of Zoldyck arc when I finally stopped subconsciously expecting the series to settle in standard battle shounen formula, and then at some point in Yorknew I thought 'Holy poo poo, this is pretty great'. Probably after Kurapika vs. Uvogin For the manga, it was probably around the fourth phase of the Hunter exam, where we start to see how tactically the characters are capable of thinking. I never really thought much of the amount of blood or death in HxH, though I did notice 2011 toned down the blood a lot (Where did Killua get that bag to put the dude's heart in?). On the topic of 2011, I didn't really get very much into the anime beyond "Yup, that is mostly a faithful recreation of the events of the manga" until Greed Island, and even there I was a little annoyed they glossed over some of the mechanics explanation, but the better visuals for fights and such made up for it.
|
|
#
¿
May 16, 2021 05:14
|
|
|
Leorio For Chairman: Because Look At The Other Options, Jesus
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2021 18:22
|
|
|
CubeTheory posted:edit: Killua is the main character, isn't he The main character is Gon's fishing rod, because every arc the fans asked "Where's Gon's fishing rod?"
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2021 01:41
|
|
|
CubeTheory posted:Chimera Ant arc complete. Yeah, this was my main problem with the arc. Much of value was lost, the villain could probably have been redeemed but was killed anyway, Killua removed a problem he hadn't been having (I concur with the idea that he had been slowly overcoming the conditioning, but we hadn't even been seeing it that much to begin with), Gon became (more of) a hot mess... It's not typical shonen, I understand that, it's like... noir shonen. And as I rewatch, they're clearly starting to set up for the idea that this is noir, any happy endings will be almost completely coincidental, it's just slow and subtle, perhaps too much so. A few more bad things happening in Greed Island would have prepared me more for the rapid-fire gut punches in Chimera Ant. I think Gon getting fully healed just kinda kicked me back into "this is typical shonen, nothing will change significantly for the worse for our protagonists." when I saw it first. CubeTheory posted:Also, they kinda just let Komugi die to please the king, huh? I mean, sure she was all like 'Then I'll die too!', but again, she seems to be like 10 years old.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2021 07:32
|
|
|
Where y'all reading it, anyways? I've been meaning to pick the manga back up once I finish this rewatch, but my main source jumped from the middle of Chimera Ant to way past it.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2021 02:07
|
|
|
The volleyball game is still one of my favorite scenes, but on a third watch it's like "Oh... oh yeah, that's really self-destructive behavior they've both got going on, and they're both acting like it's a good thing and literally no one else is." And every so often they'll cut to Hisoka who is obviously rock loving hard.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2021 05:45
|
|
|
I think part of my dislike of the Chimera Ant arc is it's a sudden hit of the brakes, you go from the dodgeball game and the fight with the Bombers to two entire episodes of gushing about King of Assholes Ging and a screeching halt to the action. Yorkshin to Greed Island was at least a gradual transition and they kept the action at a moderate level while they introduced the new mechanics, GI to CA is a sudden shift to a new scenario and a gradual buildup of tension from there, and the biggest fight is a kid with a stick versus a snake. Not even a Badass Anime Stick or Badass Anime Snake.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2021 23:29
|
|
|
Man, I had completely forgotten all the ridiculous poo poo that happened with Palm. loving metronome of characterization, every time it seems like she might become interesting if she goes down this path a little more, she just yoyos back across the line. When I first saw it, I thought Shoot's battle upgrade was dumb, but on this rewatch it is clearly cool as hell. It's weird that Netero vs. Meruem only gets like two episodes where Youpi gets 5+ and even Morel staring at Pouf's cocoon gets a solid 3. The scene of the Royal Guards feeding themselves to Meruem is uncomfortably close to fetishized. Adorable chibi Pouf makes a sort of sense with his design and personality. Adorable chibi Youpi is an abomination, he should look like a hunk of meat with a grimace all the time.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 25, 2021 19:28
|
|
|
Chimera Ant arc done, and while it is a lot better than I initially gave it credit for, I still prefer Greed Island. I still think it introduced way too many characters purely to kill them off, and some of the ones that survived have less characterization than the dead. Gon-san is still a completely ridiculous upgrade, and not only because all his nails and body hair should have grown as well. But it does make sense for a twelve year old who needs more power. Who has more power? An adult! I do feel that we got cheated out of, like, three fights and a satisfying resolution thanks to that and the bomb, but that's entirely my standard shonen rear end. I still cried at the end, though. What we got was well done, even if I might have wanted something else. I mentioned that GI to CA felt like hitting the brakes, but the transition into the Chairman Election feels like CA was slowing down way before it needed to make the turn, so it's not such a jarring transition.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2021 03:14
|
|
|
Man, I do not remember anything of substance about the Chairman Election. I remember the tree at the end and the old lady that turns into a motorcycle and a jet, but nearly every single story beat has been a complete surprise. I think I've only got a few more episodes to go, then I can start reading it again and get into whatever's left until Togashi went on infinite hiatus.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 2, 2021 06:56
|
|
|
Last Celebration posted:You don’t remember the punch? I remember most of the Killua/Alluka-centric stuff, the punch, and that’s basically it besides the end but that’s still like 2/3 of the arc. It's weird. Clearly I watched it, because I remember the ending, and everything had that "oh yeah, that happened! That was awesome!" quality of something I've seen before and only vaguely remember rather than whatever reaction I have to a completely new occurrence. You'd think I'd remember the punch.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 2, 2021 10:21
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:The ant arc was definitely togashi teetering on the edge of his skill as a writer, and a good portion of the tension in the arc comes 'well how could this this story possibly be resolved' And it could very easily have been resolved with the actual power of friendship, Meruem was at the tail end of his redemption arc when the fight happened. The only reason I think the nuke was used was because society as a whole demanded the Ants be wiped out and Netero was not quite enough of a badass to kick capitalism's rear end instead.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2021 05:44
|
|
|
ThatBasqueGuy posted:Having just rewatched the Chimera Ant arc, I can confidently say that the arc was about the power of gamers excuse me but it was clearly about an octopus wanting to be a squid so badly that he befriended literally everyone
|
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2021 14:30
|
|
|
When your power depends on outlasting the opponent, getting them to sit still for a while is a great side hustle. And Gon's a polite kid, he's generally not gonna interrupt someone's monologue... yet.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2021 12:34
|
|
|
pull up, thread, pull u
|
|
#
¿
Feb 22, 2022 06:53
|
|
|
I think Bakugo from MHA would roundly kick Genthru's rear end, though. In a straight fight, at least. I think the countdown would be trouble for him.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 17, 2022 22:08
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:It’s nearly been four years, so here is the chart for those who want a refresher. The gently caress
|
|
#
¿
May 24, 2022 23:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 02:22 |
|
|
Bad Seafood posted:Also, since I posted the 1999 and 2011 versions, here's the manga version: I thought the 1999 reaction shot of Killua's face before he crushes the heart looked weird, I'd completely forgotten that for that one panel in the manga he looks like he's drawn by Yoshitaka Amano. I still feel like having the heart in a bag in 2011 was a weird choice (There's not enough shirt missing for it to be that), but giving it back at the end was a better character moment for how Killua wound up than the original crushing.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2022 11:05
|
|
