A man from Gon’s past surfaces once more, with new ties that were previously unknown.
What They Say:
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The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the Greed Island arc had its moments, even some surprising ones when it came to enjoying it, it’s an arc that definitely overstayed its welcome once it became clear there were no real answers to be had there for Gon in regards to his father. That it was a place to enjoy for him was the main thing, and you can see the way Gon did get a thrill from it, but in regards to that aspect there wasn’t much else to really latch onto. The main piece that helped the arc was the acquisition of the cards and the general growth that we’ve seen in how both Gon and Killua use their nen abilities, which are pretty impressive at this point. But now we have both of them moving on, through the use of the cards, to the next phase of the series.
And that phase kicks off with a good bit of violence as they think they’ve found Ging only to end up coming across Kite, who takes their appearance as a threat and attacks them with an interesting if comical weapon. But like so much of the series, things aren’t what they seem and the reveal of what Kite is up to only serves to make him look even cooler as he deals with the real threat there, a Chimera Ant. This introduces us to the dangerous creature, but also gets us a bit closer to Kite as it turns out that Gon had encountered him ages ago on Whale Island, though he didn’t know who he was. Bringing another connection to Ging into the picture, one that Gon actually knows, is a welcome little twist and makes for some easy conversation between the two, especially since Gon has grown so much and is even a pro Hunter now.
Kite gets to bring a bit of his background into the picture as they simply talk for awhile, a welcome aspect in this series, and we see how he was as a young man and growing up while dealing with Ging and the way he operated at the time in such a stealthy and hard to find way. It helps to tie things together back to Gon in the end, which is pretty nice and creates a small but easy and understandable bond between the two. All of this and the additional background we get, including a few scenes with Ging and the Greed Island aspect, is pretty fun since it builds a bit more of the overall background of the friends that he had when he was younger and the kinds of relationships that they had. The attentive nature of Gon and Killua here is pretty interesting as well, especially since it is made clear that the entire Greed Island game was created just to train Gon, should he follow in the same path.
In Summary:
With a few hints as to what’s to come with the Chimera Ant arc in the background, the main focus here is to introduce us to Kite and get familiar with him and his connections to both Ging and Gon. The show has a touch of action at the start, mostly to make it clear what the danger of the Chimera Ant is, but mostly it’s all about sitting by the campfire and recounting various tales from the past for Kite. There’s a real ease about Gon when it comes to dealing with Kite and even Killua is impressed as it seems like Kite may be the first Hunter that Gon has come across that he really respects. Getting the look at Kite’s past is definitely interesting as it covers a good bit of ground in brief, and I definitely like how it ties things to Gon well enough and clears up a few other little dangling things that have been talked about, which are now safely tucked away so the series can move forward again.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.