Scan barcode
A review by chlorentine
Hunter x Hunter, Vol. 33: Threats by Yoshihiro Togashi
2.0
Not trying to be a traitor. I love HXH. First read it at age 11, rediscovered as an adult. What I say, I say out of a desire for improvement in this manga.
This arc sucks. It's so boring that the war arc of Naruto held my interest longer & that's saying something. I know this is par for the course for Togashi's writing style. He spends a lot of time and energy building things up so that the payoff can blow you away. But I'm so. tired. after the Chimera ant arc and that dry ass chairman election arc (which was entertaining and hinted at a lot of emotional moments, but was undermined by how much filler talk there is. i read like half the pages in that arc, and I still understood everything.), that all I want is a fun adventure a la Yorknew City. The text-to-illustration ratio has gotten so poor over the years (including the parts where Togashi wasn't able to submit more than sketches in the Chimera Ant Arc), and there are whole pages of solid text. This isn't a novel. It's a comic. I know his health has been suffering & impeded his work for something like ten years, but I'd rather wait a few years more for well-illustrated content than this. Lately, I skip every page that doesn't have a main character in it, and I barely need any context from the pages and pages of dialogue to understand what's going on.
Togashi's detailed worldbuilding was charming, helpful, & enchanting when the series was young and developing its identity, but at this point he needs to pivot off worldbuilding and lean into the strength of his characters. I like that Gon & Killua aren't the center of the universe. It's a great subversion of the shounen genre. But there has to be SOMEONE I care about. I like Cheadle well enough, and Ging and Pariston are interesting to read about, but the characters I REALLY want to hear from about are the main four plus a few stragglers that came along the way (the Zoldyk family, the butlers, Morel, Knuckle, to an extent the Spiders). & in this arc, Leorio and Kurapika only show up after chapters and chapters of meetings & straight dialogue from the Zodiacs (whom I'm simply not invested in enough to listen to them talk). As many complaints as I had about Killua overthinking during the Chimera Ant Arc, this is like 20 Killuas all overthinking OUT LOUD. Where is that dumbass Yorknew energy...that was spicy....
I love the Chimera Ant Arc despite its downright awful pacing, but I'm not ready for another one. I don't want to sit through it. Patience is a virtue, but so is brevity. Togashi is the Victor Hugo of manga in terms of sheer long-winded-ness.
I'm still going to hold on because the best moments of HxH far outshine the worst, but it's pretty damn frustrating.
This arc sucks. It's so boring that the war arc of Naruto held my interest longer & that's saying something. I know this is par for the course for Togashi's writing style. He spends a lot of time and energy building things up so that the payoff can blow you away. But I'm so. tired. after the Chimera ant arc and that dry ass chairman election arc (which was entertaining and hinted at a lot of emotional moments, but was undermined by how much filler talk there is. i read like half the pages in that arc, and I still understood everything.), that all I want is a fun adventure a la Yorknew City. The text-to-illustration ratio has gotten so poor over the years (including the parts where Togashi wasn't able to submit more than sketches in the Chimera Ant Arc), and there are whole pages of solid text. This isn't a novel. It's a comic. I know his health has been suffering & impeded his work for something like ten years, but I'd rather wait a few years more for well-illustrated content than this. Lately, I skip every page that doesn't have a main character in it, and I barely need any context from the pages and pages of dialogue to understand what's going on.
Togashi's detailed worldbuilding was charming, helpful, & enchanting when the series was young and developing its identity, but at this point he needs to pivot off worldbuilding and lean into the strength of his characters. I like that Gon & Killua aren't the center of the universe. It's a great subversion of the shounen genre. But there has to be SOMEONE I care about. I like Cheadle well enough, and Ging and Pariston are interesting to read about, but the characters I REALLY want to hear from about are the main four plus a few stragglers that came along the way (the Zoldyk family, the butlers, Morel, Knuckle, to an extent the Spiders). & in this arc, Leorio and Kurapika only show up after chapters and chapters of meetings & straight dialogue from the Zodiacs (whom I'm simply not invested in enough to listen to them talk). As many complaints as I had about Killua overthinking during the Chimera Ant Arc, this is like 20 Killuas all overthinking OUT LOUD. Where is that dumbass Yorknew energy...that was spicy....
I love the Chimera Ant Arc despite its downright awful pacing, but I'm not ready for another one. I don't want to sit through it. Patience is a virtue, but so is brevity. Togashi is the Victor Hugo of manga in terms of sheer long-winded-ness.
I'm still going to hold on because the best moments of HxH far outshine the worst, but it's pretty damn frustrating.