Forum

Honestly, I find that Hunter x Hunter's arcs are hard to rank from best to worst. They're too different. Each one feels like its own sort of genre or setting. Yorknew is a revenge tale, Greed Island is a fun adventure game, Hunter Exam is... the closest thing this show gets to a tournament arc or a contest arc, Heaven's Arena is just a glorified training arc, the Chimera Ant arc is a war arc, finally, the Chairman Election arc is about Hunter politics. Hunter Politics is less interesting to most than a war or an adventure, but to others it gives the show a more mature aura.

That said, in my opinion... my least favorite to favorite arcs would probably go something like this...

7. Zoldyck Family arc
6. Heaven's Arena
5. Chimera Ant Arc (ran too long and had too much pointless "Gyro" nonsense)
4. Chairman Election arc/Greed Island arc
2. Hunter Exam arc
1. Yorknew City arc

It's true that it takes a while for Hunter x Hunter to really shine, so for those who didn't make it to episode 40, you missed the good stuff. Wink

I'd rank the different arcs as follows:
1. Yorknew City
2. Chimera Ants
3. Hunter Exam
4. Greed Island
5. Chairman Election
6. Heavens Arena

@Louis6578
I'm not sure what you mean by the "Zoldyck Family arc". Are you referring to the testing gate episodes at the beginning of the Heavens Arena arc, or the Alluka incident during the Chairman Election arc?

^

Referring to the Testing Gate arc.

You know, I noticed, Hunter x Hunter's arcs always end in anti-climaxes, but they're fitting anti-climaxes. I'm not saying anticlimax as a bad thing. I mean it in the same way that a lot of Fate/Zero's fights end with an anticlimax.

Also, I think that the Chimera Ant arc was way too long. They took a 20, maybe 30 episode arc, and milked it for all it was worth. Although, I loved Meruem and Pitou, along with Kite and Morrel. Meruem's little thing with Komugi was sweet, though personally, I think they were trying a bit too hard. If you cut out all the parts where The First Church of Gyro keeps talking about how amazing Gyro is, it would have been great to me.

Am I the only one who noticed that, if you simply write around one or two scenes, every single character that had anything to do with Gyro is inconsequential and could have been removed from the plot entirely. spoiler[Sure, Ikalgo saved Killua and helped Palm sneak in, but Killua could've saved himself and Palm could have snuck in alone or with Knov's help. Wolfin called Neferpitou's phone to trick hir(?) into thinking that Komugi was safe, but since Pouf could change his voice anyway, he could have played both Wolfin (or any old random henchman if we wrote Wolfin out) and Komugi at the same time.]

I get the feeling that the mangaka needed a kidney, and a fan gave him their's, but DEMANDED that their fan character, Gyro, be artificially written into the story and talked about like he's the next Chuck Norris. Heck, maybe the fan's name WAS Gyro.

Aside from that, my only real complaint about Hunter x Hunter is the fact that Leorio and Kurapika aren't in as many arcs as I'd like. Especially Leorio. I don't know why, but my favorite characters are always the weakest of the group with the hearts of gold despite being kind of thickheaded. I attach to them quickly in Shounen. Polnareff, Usopp, and especially Kuwabara.

louis6578 wrote:

Hunter Politics is less interesting to most than a war or an adventure, but to others it gives the show a more mature aura

I didn't care much for the election, but I loved the incident with Alluka.

louis6578 wrote:

Also, I think that the Chimera Ant arc was way too long.

I didn't like the annoying narrator explaining every little thing happening on screen in extravagant detail. Chimera Ant arc was fantastic when it got going, but sometimes it got very tedious. 2011 version also did a bad job fleshing out the relationship between Kite and Gon. Though I didn't mind that all that much since I had seen the older version.

louis6578 wrote:

Aside from that, my only real complaint about Hunter x Hunter is the fact that Leorio and Kurapika aren't in as many arcs as I'd like. Especially Leorio. I don't know why, but my favorite characters are always the weakest of the group with the hearts of gold despite being kind of thickheaded. I attach to them quickly in Shounen. Polnareff, Usopp, and especially Kuwabara.

I on the other hand never really liked Leorio, probably because he didn't get his own arc like Kurapika and Killua. Killua is prevalent in pretty much every arc which was great for me since Killua is easily my favourite character. Heck Killua gets as much screen time as Gon does.

Ever since GameFly started doing movie rentals last year I took that as a chance to catch up with most of the Ghibli movies I hadn't seen since that was luckily around the time they were all coming out on Blu-Ray in English. I only recently decided to watch Porco Rosso (on DVD) and thought it was pretty great.

I guess I went in expecting, y'know, and adventure movie, but instead got some kind of noire movie. Like a lot of see from Ghibli the plot also seems to pretty much just be about character development without any really big stakes involved (like Totoro and Ponyo). I'm also only now starting to notice how Ghibli movies tend to have a young "pure" female character who ends up redeeming a gang of ruffians.

As usual with Ghibli movies I watched this dubbed, and was really impressed with Michael Keaton as Porco. He pretty much nailed the feeling the movie gave off of Porco as a noire protagonist.

With this done, all that's really left are Cagliostro and Kiki's Delivery Service.

RedSwirl wrote:

Ever since GameFly started doing movie rentals last year I took that as a chance to catch up with most of the Ghibli movies I hadn't seen since that was luckily around the time they were all coming out on Blu-Ray in English. I only recently decided to watch Porco Rosso (on DVD) and thought it was pretty great.

I guess I went in expecting, y'know, and adventure movie, but instead got some kind of noire movie. Like a lot of see from Ghibli the plot also seems to pretty much just be about character development without any really big stakes involved (like Totoro and Ponyo). I'm also only now starting to notice how Ghibli movies tend to have a young "pure" female character who ends up redeeming a gang of ruffians.

As usual with Ghibli movies I watched this dubbed, and was really impressed with Michael Keaton as Porco. He pretty much nailed the feeling the movie gave off of Porco as a noire protagonist.

With this done, all that's really left are Cagliostro and Kiki's Delivery Service.

I have to agree about Keaton; he was quite good as Porco, which is funny because I had a vision on how Porco should sound, and Keaton wasn't it. Not that I had any certain loyalty to the original Japanese version or Jean Reno (I had only seen the former a long time ago prior to seeing the Disney dub and have never seen the latter), but Keaton surprised me. I underestimated him.

All right. Done with Fire on the Mystic Island. It depicts such a random, out-of-the-blue incident wherein a lot of random, out-of-the-blue events occur, that at first, it seems difficult to place it anywhere. It definitely occurs after episode 157, when spoiler[InuYasha learns the Adamant Barrage, which he uses in the film twice.] What confirms its placement is the appearance of spoiler[Kikyō, who has both locks of her hair and appears in better health than she did while taking on the alias of St. Hijiri]. Being that these characteristics could already be noted in episode 166/167, I have no choice to but to conclude that Fire on the Mystic Island does, indeed, occur between seasons 6 (the "end" of InuYasha in the mid-2000's) and 7 (The Final Act).

Well, I hope this thread helps everybody else in future Google searches. Have fun!

Things I finished this week:

-Noein: The second half finally managed to have some focus, but the pacing was still obnoxiously slow. The last six episodes and final battle were quite solid. That twist of who Noein really was I found to be a rather great surprise. Not much else to talk about aside from Atori having multiple personalities was weird, but at least they turned him into a giant monster in the last episode to be a hammy hero.

-The Mysterious Archives of Dantalian: Loved it, best anime from Gainax that wasn't in the mecha genre: Lots of monsters, good music, nobody was annoying, no fanservice crap, good twists, good action, good pacing (at least until the last two episodes), good art, good atmosphere, and pretty much solid all around. I will have to check out the OVA at some point.

-KanColle: Everything that made Girls und Panzer bad except worse. Too many characters, a bad opening theme, too much gibbering, not enough action (although the final battle was good like GuP), kind of sexist, slow pacing, etc. However, unlike Girls und Panzer not only were antagonists never explored or even given decent explanations, but they never even bothered explaining the history of their wargear! A series aimed for military enthusiasts and they skip this? What fail! Nobunagun did the same thing and did it very well, what happened here? The only character names I remember aside from Bucky are Yamato, Mutsu, and Nagato, mostly because everyone else looked and dressed too similarly; also my roommate is an ecchi hound and sees the last two mentioned as one of the best yuri pairings ever. Bleh. The saddest part about this is, like GuP, the ending theme is actually really great, so much so that it deserved a better anime. Somehow this trash is getting a second season and was the biggest anime that was airing that season. *shrivels*

-Vampire Knight: Sort of solid all around, the biggest issues were the slow pacing and the lack of build up for the main villain. Other than that it slowly got less comical, the art was still nice, nobody was annoying aside from Yuki's dad, the music was okay, and it had decent suspense. I will be seeing Guilty sometime down the line.

-Dungeon Girl Pick Up with a question mark/Familia Myth: What's the appeal of Hestia? She is easily the worst character in the series and easily kills serious moments with her failed attempts at comedic relief. Aside from that, this series was kind of bad with only the action scenes slowly getting better over time (they deserved a better anime) and fanservice moments being mostly reduced as time went on (which is a good thing). Bell wasn't a bad protagonist or at least on paper, but him leveling up that fast I found odd, especially when his main weapon is just a knife. Not a sword, a gun, an ax, a hammer, an arrow, just a knife. I was also irked that one blue haired woman in black (whose name I forget, I think she was a goddess) who appears to be a villain, yet does nothing.

With all those anime series out of the way I can finally catch up with Aquarion Logos, Ushio and Tora, and Kamen Rider Drive!

Watched The Third: Girl with the Blue Eye. This was on my watch list for years and I finally watched it when I saw that it was on Hulu.

What a great series! It has numerous qualities that I find appealing: interesting characters (Honoka's a badass), good action scenes, some comedy, and an engaging world. I'd love to read the light novels. I'm definitely going to get this while the Rightstuf sale is going on.

Last edited by Jose Cruz on Wed Jul 22, 2015 11:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

Finally finished Noir. The show was very good overall and the character development was very strong. I have some misgivings regarding the quality of the animation/art which is far bslow some other series (Fate Stay Night UBW comes to mind, I think that watching it has ruined the experience of watching lower budget shows). Still it is a show that also demostrares why it's worth to watch anime in the first place.

Finally finished Nanatsu no Taizai. It's a really fun show with great characters, and I hope it gets a second season once there's enough material to animate.

Finished season one of Crayon Shin-chan. By season one, I refer to the Funimation version. Great dub. There's no Japanese track on the DVD, so I can't really compare the original, but I can say that this gag dub is hilarious. Up next for me is Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki and Pom Poko.

So...Fate zero is my favorite thing I'm watching right now. Specifically, I stopped at Episode 18, which would be Kiritsugu's backstory episode. And oh God, do I have words. Many words.

This is the story of how Kiritsugu Emiya lost everyone he ever loved because he couldn't kill the right person when he needed to. Well, that, and his awful dad. It's a tale of well-crafted tragedy, hitting just the right notes. This is definitely one of the best episodes of one of my new favorite series.

So, we see Kiritsugu (or Kerry, as Shirley likes to call him) living a perfectly normal life in a remote village in the Phillipines. He actually seems very well-adjusted, compared to the cold and self-loathing adult we see in the present. Everything seems to be so peaceful and happy. And then his friend Shirley gets a little too curious for her own good...

spoiler[Yeah, turns out that grand panacea Daddy was making turns humans into vampire/zombies. So Shirley becomes zombies. Then because Kiritsugu couldn't put her out of her misery (even when she asked him too), the entire town becomes zombies. Then Kiritsugu kills his dad, who started the whole damn mess in the first place. It's an Urobuchi show, what do you expect?]

The adaptive script has definitely improved since the beginning, allowing the acting to truly shine in the dub. Carrie Savage is the obvious highlight of the episode, sounding perky and cheerful as Kiritsugu's childhood friend. She even legitimately sounded like she was in pain at a certain point. Bravo, Carrie Savage!

Also, Kalafina's "Manten" is amazing. I'm listening to this song as I'm writing this, by the way.

Aaaand finished Nadia. I watched all the filler. ALL OF IT! And yeeeeh it was kind of lame, in fact once it was over and it entered into its final arc the difference on quality was veeery noticiable, especially in terms of the characters' interactions. But I'll at least say that not everything was awful and at least Marie made the filler much more tolerable, she was the best character back then. But to the point, overall I liked the show and it was fun, but geez yes if I had to recommend this to somebody I'll see if that Hideaki Anno's cut is available instead, because that filler is tough.

So far I'm watching two shows. One is Valvrave the Liberator, like seven episodes in, which is so dumb and stupid yet sincere and serious that it's amazing, there's minimum a twist for episode and it's into that category of so-bad-it's-good, or at least just pure entertainment. I like some delicious trash.
The other one, going ever further to the past, is Rose of Versailles, three episodes. It sure is old and dated (I laugh everytime there is a shocking music effect), but I'm liking it, it's not predictable so far and the aesthetic manages to overcome its limited animation (which, fortunately, doesn't use repeated footage). Oscar is awesome and I like how they frame her gender struggle, as someone who would feel comfortable to have traits of both genders but society forces her to be one or the other, and in this case more "masculine" because of his father and giving up on any feminity trait. I'm intrigued.

Quote:

because that filler is tough.

To be honest I found the filler much better than the entire first half of the series, it just wasn't that good aside from the music.

Quote:

So far I'm watching two shows. One is Valvrave the Liberator

You poor soul, you have no idea what you're in for, do you?

Quote:

like seven episodes in

Congratulations, you saw the one episode that was liked and even then that was mostly the bondage fetishists on /m/. Laughing

Quote:

there's minimum a twist for episode and it's into that category of so-bad-it's-good, or at least just pure entertainment. I like some delicious trash.

And another one for the guilty pleasure crowd (which is more praise than it deserves, but whatever). When you have trauma from finishing it come talk to me, I've been through a depressing fallout after finishing that so badly I literally stopped watching airing anime for five months.

Forum - View topic
What are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)

This Week in Anime - Are This Season's Isekai Anime Any Good?

Tatsuki Fujimoto's 'Look Back' Anime Film Unveils Trailer, Theme Song, More Staff

Voice Actor Dave Underwood Dies at 57

The Spring 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Fans Say Farewell to Yokohama's Life-Size Moving Gundam

This Week in Anime - What Do You Do When Your Fav Anime Isn't Simulcast?

Ragna Crimson Manga Volume 11 Review

Gundam SEED FREEDOM's Rie Tanaka, Sōichiro Hoshi Share Memories at Los Angeles Premiere

Kurayukaba and Kuramerukagari Anime Movies Review

Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)

Forum

Forum - View topic
What are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)