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)
Some of the smaller side deviations we’ve had so far in this part of the arc have been interesting to watch, but the arrival of Killua on the scene as Youpi was getting all intense made for a great cliffhanger moment in the previous episode since you weren’t sure exactly how he’d handle things. Seeing him just stroll straight down into the crater with him, all powered up and crackling with energy definitely makes for one of those moments where you can just sense the power and intensity but also the amount of calm and control that he has. Which has long been part of what Killua is about. He’s worked to bring that kind of control into what he can do, part of his assassin upbringing, and it’s paid off well after all the training that he’s done. He’s grown immensely since the start of the series and seeing him whale on Youpi, to Youpi’s shock, is a fantastic experience.
There’s some good action at the start here that works nicely and getting a real sense of what Killua is capable of is a big plus as they move to a new area of the palace grounds to get the fight furthered. Where things get real fun, surprisingly, is that when we pull away from that fight, we end up spending time with Ikalgo for a bit. He’s making his way through the palace, automatic weapon in tentacle, and dealing with the challenges that exist there, including the Chimera ant that’s roaming the halls. Ikalgo is a really surprising characters in a lot of ways as I totally expected to hate him, but with the voice performance that’s given and the way he handles situations, with a bit of unintentional humor on his part, he’s crafty and interesting to watch since he’s intent on making sure his friends don’t get impacted by what he may not be capable of doing.
Watching as Ikalgo makes his progress is definitely a lot of fun to have here as he makes good progress and works hard at it. That he uses a few different methods to best his opponent says a lot about him since he’s not someone like Gon or Killua in that he can try several different tactics and abilities. But he’s also like Gon in a way as when it comes down to eliminating his opponent, he has to struggle with it. Gon’s kind of gone around the bend recently with how he’s acting, but you can see what Ikalgo goes through as a representation of what Gon would normally go through at this point in the story since he’s never been one to really go the distance in terms of eliminating opponents.
In Summary:
While we get some good bookend material with what’s going on with Killua and then Morel, the bulk of the episode is Ikalgo focused. And that’s something that’s not surprising since he became a part of the team as you know that they’d use it in order to pad things out a bit and ease the strain of intensity with all the larger fights going on. What is surprising is that I actually find myself really liking the Ikalgo material, something that was entirely unexpected since these types of characters are always predictable and border or cross over into the annoying. Ikalgo is close to it, but something about him lets him pull it off and make it enjoyable.
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.
