The quest for the 200th floor is reached, but the pair may not have what it takes yet to make it.
What They Say:
As Wing explains the tenants of Nen to the boys, Killua believes that they aren’t being told the whole story. After a meteoric rise from the 1’st floor to the 190’s, they finally get their chance to register for a fight on the 200th floor. But just stepping off the elevator, the murderous intent is unlike anything they have experienced.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Hunter x Hunter didn’t exactly introduce anything radical in the previous episode but rather started to draw back the curtain on an aspect of the series that was evident during the Hunter Exam but not explicitly stated with how some of the Examinees operated. Within the Heaven’s Arena, their coming across Zushi brought them into contact with his master, Wing, who is a teacher of the arts of Nen and Ren, a form of chi in essence that allow people to fight in creative and intense ways with a strength and fortitude that can shock. Killua really got this understanding while fighting Zushi after knocking out all previous opponents with just one hit but finding himself really taken aback by how Zushi survived and performed. And that was more than enough incentive to seek out his master and express a desire and need to train under him.
While Wing and Zushi are in the Heaven’s Arena for the long haul to train and explore his abilities, Wing also gets to look at teaching these two as an interesting challenge because of how quickly they take to things and their different mindset and approach to manipulating the Ren and Nen. The two of them aren’t interested in the spiritual side of it and that’s a small conflict, but one that he nudges enough with them to try and get them to learn a different aspect for now with Ten. A challenge neither of them can really just let sit there without doing anything about it. So while there is this background element going on, the training of Zushi continues and both Killua and Gon have their matches to face, which is really just fun to watch when it comes to Gon and the way he smiles at just about everything.
Their progress has been fun to watch and their arrival on the 200th floor is pretty much what you’d expect with something fancy, though Killua is seemingly immune to its charms and ornate nature. But there are things that get to him, both of them in fact, as those on this level are quite powerful and bring something much different to the table. Everything changes at this level, from there being weapons involved and the lack of financial prizes now as glory is the currency here. But there are also some other surprising threats that come into play that really changes just how intense everything is about to become. All of it serves the ultimate purpose here though to get the pair to really begin their training with Nen in order to achieve the levels they need to play with the big boys, something that both are willing to do even without it, but won’t fare well.
In Summary:
While it may not seem like an episode that moves through a lot of material here, it does shift the story dynamic a fair bit and rather intensely with some useful compression. The whole realm of Nen does feel a little more compressed than it should be, but it gets a lot done here without making it a whole lot more than it should be. It’s an important component of the characters growth here and what they need to truly move forward, but it’s not about to derail the forward progression of the storyline itself. With the introduction of the 200th floor and the little grin that it produces because of what’s there, Hunter x Hunter hits some very fun stuff here and continues to do what it does best in always moving and always going forward.
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.
