The auction is close to kicking off and everyone has their plans in motion.
What They Say:
The auction has been rescheduled, and the Mafia expects the Phantom Troupe to attack again. The Ten Dons have hired multiple assassins to deal with the Phantom Troupe. Light Nostrade sends Kurapika to join the assassins in dispatching of the Troupe.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While things have moved around a bit in the show recently, events are starting to solidify now, especially since Killua and Gon have escaped while gaining a bit more understanding of the Phantom Troupe. The focus now begins to shift to trying to take down the Phantom Troupe, but the trap being set is coming from the Ten Dons themselves since they’ve been taken advantage of and that simply cannot stand. So setting up the rescheduled auction again and using it as bait an trap for the Troupe, the hope is to bring them into it with lots of things that they may want. Of course, there’s a few wrinkles in the plan along the way that has to be dealt with.
One of those is that Neon has managed to sneak away from her bodyguards, which will certainly cause a problem. Her father has certainly put good people on watching her, but she’s mildly tricky enough to get what she wants done. She does follow after her father, who gets some good screen time here in the first half as we see how he and the others are setting up some really good assassins to deal with the Phantom Troupe should they fall for the trap (or, as will be the case, willingly step into it since they can deal with a lot). Light Nostrade certainly has the cool and calm collected nature down in doing what needs being done and he provides some good little bits here and there with Kurapika in tow to show just how slick he really is.
What becomes interesting is in seeing how the Phantom Troupe moves to secure its position and plans in things, moving quietly and using Neon in order to get inside and closer to things. Not surprisingly, because of his relation with her, Nostrade takes a more emotional approach. But it’s Kurapika that sets him on the right path, understanding what the Phantom Troup is doing and making sure that Nostrade doesn’t go the wrong way. Similar to the beginning of this whole arc cycle, what we get here is mostly setup as we see the Phantom Troupe putting its players into place and the mafia thinking they have things covered. But now we have Kurapika running things and with a certain intensity on his side.
In Summary:
Hunter x Hunter has a decent episode but it’s one that does largely feel like it’s spinning its wheels a bit. We get some movement and placement of characters for the situation that’s about to develop with the trap put in place, and some decent material with Neon as she’s used to gain access, but it feels a bit stretched out and empty. Not forced, but it just comes across as little is really happening even as events do slowly but surely move forward. I continue to like seeing Kurapika’s role in things as he takes on a more commanding role, one that will put him up against those that he wants to take down the most, but something about the episode just left me feeling somewhat disconnected from it.
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.
