What They Say:
Gon, a young boy who lives on Whale Island, dreams of becoming a Hunter like his father, who left when Gon was still young.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With some really slick looking animation in places in the previous episode, we got to see what some of these characters are capable of. The fight between Gon and Killua with Knuckle and Shoot has been building for a bit and there’ve been the few skirmishes, but it’s mostly been a drawn out affair to try and boost the boys once again so they can fight on the level needed for the NGL and what’s involved there. Unfortunately, it’s been going on for so many episodes now on top of all of the other challenges and storylines that we’ve had involving them getting more and more powered up that it’s pretty much gotten dull for the most part in how they do it, at least with certain arcs. This one included since it continues to come across as a time waster filler.
Sadly, the first half of this episode gets even more problematic and annoying as we see how Knuckle has worked things to mess and help Gon with some aura transfer. This slows eveything down immensely from the get go and then it throws a ton of math and dialogue at the viewer, and Gon, and it’s amusing for at least a moment or two where Gon is just incapable of handling it. For me, it just bored me to tears and made the whole segment simply uninteresting and overly drawn out until it finally just takes Gon down as math is a brutal attack on him.
The second half gives us time with Killua and Shoot, which is a bit more welcome since Killua has pretty much played second fiddle for awhile now and has felt more like a hanger-on than a participating member. With Shoot not being the same style as Knuckle, it provides for a bit more of a challenge and a little more diversity since we haven’t seen as much of him as we have Knuckle. And he works well in getting under Killua’s skin with the whole running away thing, which goes back to his family side decently enough. Seeing how Bisky called him out on it when she gave him the special training is nice and it does make things clear as to what kinds of challenges Killua has to face overall that are more internal than anything else.
In Summary:
While I like Hunter x Hunter overall and have enjoyed the series in general, this arc is one that is really killing my interest for the duration. After the slower in the videogame by not arc that we had before, things picked up in a big way with Kite and the Chimera Ants, but now it’s taken that lengthy side quest to build up power and ability and it instead just turns into a series of episodes that you have to judge sludge through in order to get to the better stuff. There are good moments along the way, some fun things and some solid animation, but it’s something that just grinds away at me and leaves me less and less interested in the show as a whole due to its execution.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
