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NEWS: Yoshihiro Togashi Teases Hunter x Hunter Manga's Return with 4 New Chapters

I haven't read the Manga, so I must ask. Does Hunter X Hunter strike anyone as having an end goal in mind or does it just feel like a story arc by story arc type of Manga, where the ending can be inserted at any point.

Look, Togashi. I know you do Hunter x Hunter now whenever you just feel like it. But it be nice if you could do it at a consistent rate.

"whenever you just feel like it" is sure a weird way to say "when you're physically able to draw for a period of time without subjecting yourself to severe and debilitating back pain". Like of all the famous mangaka who deal with health problems, Togashi has been perhaps the most open of any of them in discussing why the physical act of making manga is excruciating for him and takes a ton of time to produce anything. You'd think people would stop acting like that's some kind of laziness.

But I've never seen it fully confirmed one way or another beyond rumors. I think it's more likely that he just doesn't want to ever again suffer the sheer burnout that he got at the end of Yu Yu Hakusho,

The worst part of back pain is that it's only after it gets a little better that you can go to the hospital

Stuck in bed -> crawl on all fours -> Find help -> Struggle to get up and go to the hospital

Then you apparently haven't been looking very far, because Togashi has been remarkably public about his health problems over the years, especially about his back issues. Multiple times in his own author comments he mentioned severe, debilitating back pain. To quote some of his comments from HxH chapters in 2016:

Along with those are multiple comments about being bedridden and unable to even sit up to use the toilet. At the start of one hiatus, he said outright that the break was for him to undergo back surgery.

So yeah, I think it's a whole hell of a lot more likely that over a decade of chronic, debilitating pain and disability are the cause of Togashi's output, not him only working on it "when he feels like it."

Zeino wrote:

Look, Togashi. I know you do Hunter x Hunter now whenever you just feel like it. But it be nice if you could do it at a consistent rate.

"whenever you just feel like it" is sure a weird way to say "when you're physically able to draw for a period of time without subjecting yourself to severe and debilitating back pain". Like of all the famous mangaka who deal with health problems, Togashi has been perhaps the most open of any of them in discussing why the physical act of making manga is excruciating for him and takes a ton of time to produce anything. You'd think people would stop acting like that's some kind of laziness.

lossthief wrote:

Zeino wrote: Look, Togashi. I know you do Hunter x Hunter now whenever you just feel like it. But it be nice if you could do it at a consistent rate. "whenever you just feel like it" is sure a weird way to say "when you're physically able to draw for a period of time without subjecting yourself to severe and debilitating back pain". Like of all the famous mangaka who deal with health problems, Togashi has been perhaps the most open of any of them in discussing why the physical act of making manga is excruciating for him and takes a ton of time to produce anything. You'd think people would stop acting like that's some kind of laziness.

He has options to continue the manga's story at a much more consistent pace. Sure, his health is of the utmost importance, but you can't make a promise about giving us a story, then be so inconsistent about it, and then having people like you expect us to not say anything, no matter how justified the reasons are for his hiatuses.

He could outsource the drawing, since his art has been so bad given his health reasons, that anyone he could bring in to draw the manga could only be an improvement, like how Toyotaro has been drawing Dragon Ball Super while Toriyama writes the story; I don't think said artist could have much input in the manga's story, so it's safe to say Togashi would still retain creative control if that's why he's so adamant to keep up drawing the story at this horrible pace.

I just can't have respect for an author that has all kinds of options to continue his work in his lifetime and doesn't want to compromise in a half-stubborn belief that the only good art is the one he makes in the way he makes them. Neil Gaiman ruined it for everyone who asks for closure on narrative stories by saying gEoRgE rR mArTiN iS nOt yOuR bItCh, since apparently as a fandom, we can't be critical for author's behaviour or their way of making a story.