How the Chimera Ant Arc Climax Makes Hunter Hunter a Masterpiece: An Educated Guide
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- Опубліковано 20 січ 2024
- After a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time and a whole lot of work, we are finally ready to tackle the ending of the Chimera Ant arc, which I think most people would say is the most memorable part of the story. But is it any good? Yeah, its great. We all know that already, but maybe you don't know why...which is why I'm here to lecture you about it. Hope you enjoy, like and subscribe and all that if you do, and feel free to leave a comment down below. I will respond, and that is both a promise and a threat.
Thanks for checking the video out. Until next time... - Фільми й анімація
huge disagree on your points about the narrator, the narration felt like reading a really good book and the wording of everything is perfect. it lays out indescribable (from the perspective of the characters) emotions happening too quickly for the characters to even think about it. to me the arc would be worse without it and it’s one of my personally favorite elements.
I've heard a lot of disagreements over my opinion towards the narrator, and a large part of it is definitely my own personal opinion. I think he works fine some times and would have been great in more moderation, but as it stands he's a bit distracting to me. Not a major complaint towards the arc, but one I still felt worth bringing up. I also definitely played up how much I dislike narration in the script for a joke, so the video isn't fully representative of my actual feelings towards it. Thanks for watching!
@@extraguy790 ofc! you’re allowed to feel that way we all got different tastes and opinions. it was a good video, I enjoyed your analysis!
This video is extremely well made, nice job!! Deserves many more views
Thanks for the kind words! Glad you were able to enjoy it. Maybe someday I'll get more eyes on my videos, but for now I'll be satisfied just by finishing them
I'm not sure if you've done a ton of rereading or rewatching, but I found that personally, the vast majority of the pacing complaints were essentially entirely undone by a reread or two. I hope you read all this...sorry for the length.
So...I disagree with the first part of this video, is what I'm saying. I think what Togashi does here with the narrator and pacing - while, for sure, a bit exhausting - is actually really refreshing and unique in my opinion. I think that Shibuya, for example, actually comes across as more exhausting to me if anything, because the fights are nonstop...and many of them are just uninteresting. Like be real, was Yuji vs Grasshopper even remotely okay? Did it add anything at all? What about Mahito vs Mechamaru? Did you really feel like you knew Mechamaru with any sense of depth that could make you care? How about Mei Mei vs the disease curse?
Chimera Ant, meanwhile, succeeds in hype climactic fights, while also grounding itself in the characters' psychologies. Yes, it does spend half an episode with Killua running down a hallway...but take a step back, and this run through the hallway reveals a lot of things about Killua's state of mind that we wouldn't have known otherwise. It's genuinely a fantastic scene, and though it could've certainly been done in less time, I don't think that dragging out the tension during this scene was a mistake...because it does, indeed, add something that would be lost without it.
That's why I think the narrator is genuinely good. It's an interesting storytelling structure, that I think makes everything feel almost like a Shakespearean Epic in a sense. It makes everything "long and flowy," which I really enjoy. It is certainly a contentious point though. The point is, though, that the narrator DOES step back when he needs to: during the most emotional scenes. I've warmed to him, even in the anime, over time. I think he brings a lot more to the table than he subtracts.
Genuinely, I think that a significant amount MORE episodes could be subtracted from the Shibuya arc without losing anything than could be subtracted from the CA arc's finale. I wouldn't say that "adding more fights and speeding through them back to back" does anything to fix any of Chimera Ant's problems at all...in fact, I think it would worsen them. That's why I kind of hate that the Shibuya arc is compared to Chimera Ant at all. It feels much more similar to Yorknew...except Yorknew rises above and beyond it because it actually pauses between climactic fights to let the characters breathe.
The Chimera Ant arc takes, if anything, the opposite approach. It lets the characters breathe in the first half, letting us get into their heads a bit, learn the ins and outs of their techniques and mindsets, and see them form meaningful relationships with each other. Then, it throws them all in the lion's den where it can methodically pick apart their psychologies in front of the audience. It's something that I've genuinely never seen any other story try to do, and I think that's awesome.
I mentioned at the beginning that a reread essentially erased almost all of my problems with this arc, because when you're able to see that development that Togashi set up for each character...it feels genuinely impossible to me for it to be done in much less time at all. We have the first segment, which establishes Kite as a figure for both Gon and Killua, as well as the ants themselves and how they function. This is necessary.
We have the second segment, which establishes all our supporting characters: Knuckle, Shoot, Palm, Netero, Morel, Knov, Pitou, Pouf, Youpi, Meruem...while also giving much-needed development to both Gon and Killua. Establishing complex relationships between all these characters requires a lot of time and effort, and I don't see how it could be done in any less time...especially when that time is used doubly as a short training arc (for believability's sake), and to set up a lot of the cast's abilities.
Then we have the third segment, which focuses on the ants themselves...essentially everything from episode 103 (Komugi's introduction) onward is RIDICULOUSLY important. And the rest of that time, from episode 98-102, is spent introducing characters like Meleoron and Ikalgo, while also laying out the foundations for the coming battle. Very little of this could've realistically been cut.
And then we have the final act, discussed in this video, the pacing of which depends solely on whether you enjoy how much the tension is drawn out...none of the actual content could've realistically been cut.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the arc as a whole, regardless. There's certainly something to be said for a concise, tense, thrilling climax, like Yorknew. We know that Togashi can do that well. And you may simply enjoy those sorts of stories more. But I also don't think it's possible to tell a story as impactful as the Chimera Ant arc without the amount of thoughtful setup that Togashi put into it. The long, drawn out field of character development really is a necessity for this type of thing, I think. There are some things that I genuinely don't like; Ikalgo's introduction feels unnecessarily cheesy and forced, the Phantom Troupe interlude feels oddly out of place, and I think there are one too many fights in the third segment (i.e. Morel vs Leol). In the anime, I think the first segment is too drawn out, as well.
But the Chimera Ant arc stands as my single favorite story arc in...well, anything. I really do think it's just that good. Nothing comes even close.
Thanks for watching all of that. I have rewatched and reread the Chimera Ant arc, and unfortunately I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think the value of rewatching is a little overstated in the first place, seeing as how of course a rewatch will be more enjoyable because every time you hit a rough patch, you already know its going to get better. In that scenario, you aren't gambling with your time on whether or not the story ever recovers.
Also, my point has never really been that anything should be cut out, but more that everything could have been trimmed. It's kinda like how Martin Scorsese releases four hour long films that could probably be two and a half without losing anything significant if you just shorten the scenes and minimize stuff. I also think that that kind of pacing doesn't work very well in the context of an action based arc. The succession war has basically identical pacing except it needs it to accommodate the insane levels of depth and political maneuvering. When everything contained is just action scenes, which don't contain the same level of development, it becomes just a bit tedious for me. I end up just waiting for something amazing to happen again since so many amazing things have happened before, whereas with something like Shibuya, there's something of interest going on at every moment.
Its a little too late for me to be thinking this hard, so maybe none of this makes sense anyways. In the end, none of my pacing issues are enough to seriously dampen my love for this arc. Its still amazing, but I feel like its better for people to be aware of its issues beforehand so that they know to not quit before the payoffs arrive.
@@extraguy790 That's all fair. I definitely think that Succession War is on a trajectory that could surpass CA as my favorite, if it's ever completed. I agree that what we have so far is far, far better than the stuff before the climax of CA - or at least before Komugi's introduction, which I think is where the CA arc starts to really shine - courtesy of SW's depth and complexity.
Personally, I guess the climax just SO heavily dwarfs everything else for me that it doesn't matter and the CA arc gets a big fat 10/10 with a few gold stars to boot from me. It helps that I enjoy the drawn-out tension that the narration adds. I'm the type of guy who really likes long, drawn-out, detailed arcs to begin with...like, I kinda hate Demon Slayer (for many reasons, but at least some of those are relevant here), and I think even the Shibuya arc from JJK is maybe a 7/10 at best. But I know that the narration is probably a common complaint for a reason, even if I love it and can't really understand why other people wouldn't.
I also just wanted to say that I really appreciate this video because you bring up both your complaints with the arc...and everything that it does so, so well. Way too often, I just see posts going "wahhh narrator bad" or "wahhh pacing bad" with no other substance, and it gets tiring. So, thanks!
I would have to agree with you that the story really picks up after Komugi comes around, and any complaint I have after that point is pretty insignificant. This is still one of my favorite stories and nothing will ever change that. I do think the Chimera Ant Arc gets more hate than it deserves for some weird reason, so I wanted to give a more complete review that mostly highlights the stuff I love. Now lets both sit around and pray that Togashi can finish the Succession War. I think its already my favorite arc at this point, and I really hope I get to see where its going.
Nothing will ever top the Chimera ant arc finale of meruem and komugi in my opinion. It was perfection
Couldn't agree more. No other story has ever made me feel quite the same way as that final game of gungi, which is why Meruem is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. No amount of small problems or petty complaints can ever change that
Great video! For me the narration really paid off when there was nothing for Gon, because there was nothing he was thinking about besides killing Pitou
I have to disagree with 3 sect structure of Yorknew and chimera ant. Togashi doesn’t really go by a set outline. He is a Gardner like grrm. Pacing is always an issue with them since certain plot points could go to greater heights or ultimately mean nothing.
Another point that I don’t think is really right is that gon is a deconstruction of shonen mcs. Togashi himself loves shonen and his story is never meant to deconstruct it. But he loves to deconstruct his own story, so it’d be more fitting to say togashi deconstructed gon in CA. And while gon does like fighting his not obsessed like other mcs ex: him not wanting to go to higher heavens arena floors or become a floor master.
Thanks a ton for watching the video! I think you've got a fair point about Togashi's structural tendencies as a whole, but I'd have to push back on applying that to the Ant arc. Whether he intended it or not, it very clearly adheres to a classic three act structure, which is why I find it most useful to analyze it that way.
As far as Gon goes, I would never claim that Togashi doesn't love shonen, but I also don't think you have to hate the genre to want to deconstruct it. Gon feels like a very clear twist of a Yusuke like figure to me, and adding in the context of where Togashi was in his career between Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter Hunter, I have a hard time seeing this character without those themes. Its definitely possible that I'm projecting based on my own personal interpretations, but I think I still stand by my points at large.
Either way, thanks again for sticking through the whole thing. I love it when I get pushback and can tell that the person actually watched the whole video instead of deciding to comment after watching just the first 30 seconds.
Great channel, just i love the narrator and i remember when shibuya was about to come out people were begging the hxh narrator to narrate the arc. Togashi is a madter at setup and the narrator didnt bring the arc down for me personally
The narrator is definitely a personal taste thing. I'm not a huge fan of how he's used in this arc, but I can also completely see why someone might like it. Even with my complaint withstanding, I consider it a pretty minor issue anyways. Thanks for watching and for taking the time to comment!
Just found this channel today. Genuinely awesome breakdown of HxH, its cool to see one done by somebody who isn't completely fangirling the entire series. I may not completely agree with you where its ups and downs lie, but I've very much enjoyed watching these so far.
Thanks for watching and for the nice words! I like to highlight Hunter Hunter's flaws along with its successes because I genuinely believe that they're a big part of what gives the series its charm. They're still problems, but I think I'd legitimately like the series less if Togashi didn't have all his little Togashi-isms, and I think anybody who ignores them is missing out.
Hopefully making the Succesion War video doesn't kill me so we can both finish out this review series!
i love how the narrator just stole the mic and went off this season haha
This video is a masterpiece
Even though I disagree with some of ur points about the arc like pacing and narration...I have to salute u for putting this much effort for a video... Timeline for editing this must be a mess... U have put this much effort for a video and give ur honest thoughts... I respect u so much for it.... Chimera ant arc is so close to my heart the storytelling at its peak... it's not just about gon(the MC) every character matters and their actions too ... I just hope u make more Hunter Hunter video arcs after the anime too... Cus current Arc in the manga have chance to surpass even chimera ant arc for me
Thanks for sticking it out for the whole video even though you didn't agree with everything! The editing process for this one was an absolute nightmare, but it was worth every second. I'll definitely be making a video for the manga chapters after the Election arc. Keep this between us, but the Succesion War is easily my favorite part of the whole series, so I can't wait to get there
@@extraguy790 go to hear that...
So excited for the upcoming videos
I was expecting the total opposite 😂 cus people complain about too much words
Do u know that togashi challenged himself to make an arc with the most named characters in a single arc of shonen jump that's why there's so many factions in that arc
But togashi's ability to make distinguish character design is something out of this world fr...
Keep up the good work 💪
The amount of words on each page in the Succession War has never really bothered me, although it is pretty funny in a ridiculous way on occasion. I didn't know about that challenge Togashi set for himself, but it explains a lot
Good stuff man
Just want to mention, he does have a nen ability. It's eating nen users gives him parts of or their whole ability. Besides that little bit, I absolutely love this, and it's always nice to see how different people's perspectives on this. One of my friends actually thinks Green Island and Yorknew are both much better than this masterpiece of an arc so it's not too surprising for this to have somethings I disagree with. You worded your points amazingly while not sounding as though you are just reading a script.
Also, one of the only villains I've ever actually cried to, I bawled my eyes out during the King's final game.
Hey, thanks for watching! Man, I legitimately forgot he had that ability. I know I knew about it at one point, but my brain must have simply deleted that information. I would have to agree with your friend on Yorknew being a better arc overall, but me and them might have to have a boxing match over that Greed Island take😆.
Thus video was something else 🐐
glad welfin at least got a shout out. i'm ecstatic to see how his story, gon's, & gyro's collide in...30 years from now ig
I can't wait to think about Gon and Gyro's long awaited collision in my head for the rest of my life and then ultimately die unsatisfied without ever getting to actually read it🙃. Thanks for watching!
zero mention of shaiapouf in a postive review on this arc is beyond criminal
I have indeed committed sins that I will never be able to repent for. I originally was going to go into detail on every individual character featured in the arc, but then I realized the video was going to be four hours long so I decided to cut some stuff
@@extraguy790 how DARE you not sacrifice your OWN time to make MORE CONTENT for COMPLETE STRANGERS. kinda fucked up of you! unsubscribed and whip nae naed
putting it that way you actually did a good job in the time limit of the video
@@extraguy790
I get the part about the narrator for the parts I can remember. Mainly when Gon punches pitoh. Right at that moment, all my mind wants is to revel in that moment. The narrator provides a little insight into it, but it's a very solemn moment that's broken up by talking
I'm usually fine with him explaining stuff like abilities and lore which are too complicated for the viewer/reader to pick up naturally, but I totally agree that I'd rather be allowed to basque in a moment like this which doesn't require any explanation
How the fuck does this have 2000 views only.
Bro good luck catching a wave of attention, you deserve it 🙏.
Thanks for watching and for the well wishes! It'd be awesome for the channel to hit a big upwards streak, but I'm already getting so much more attention than I ever expected right now that I think I'm just gonna enjoy this win
I swear lmao I was recommended this video by youtube and thought this might have millions of views only to check after reading your comment to realize it only had 8.3k views.
However, this might be best history/psychology/culture lesson I received
loved the video!! it's Urameshi and not Yurameshi btw, lol. it's also Yu-ki-na and not Yu-kee-na.
Thanks for watching! I watched Yu Yu Hakusho dubbed, so the pronunciations I used are just way to drilled into my brain to ever be corrected
I gotta say that analysis of Gon's character was more spot on than almost any other I've seen. I'm so so so tired of seeing people misinterpret his character as some sort of sociopathic/psychopathic hypocrite when he's just a traumatized kid put in extreme situations.
Part of the reason I wanted to make these videos is because I disagreed with how people were analyzing certain parts of the series, and I'm really glad I was able to get my perspective across to you clearly. Thanks for watching!
My thoughts exactly
Cool video
cool
21:57 the transition of gon's perfectly chiseled face shape to edwards square ass head made me gag. no hate to edward tho still love him
I had to go watch that back cause I couldn't remember what you were talking about, but you're absolutely right. I almost dropped my phone when the fade happened. Not sure how I made that edit without laughing at it
Great vid, also borderlands 2 music or am I insane??
You're definitely not insane. I believe the song you're referencing is the Borderlands 3 Sanctuary theme, so close enough
I like how the first criticism is "the narrator talks too much" and it isn't brought up until 8 minutes into the video 😂 I'm gonna like this video.
You've just roasted me harder than a thousand blowtorches could. Bravo sir! Bravo!
@@extraguy790it was a good cohesive video overall, i disagree with you from time to time, but nobody alive should ever agree on everything that's discussed over the course of an hour.
Fully agreed. The world would be a boring place if nobody ever challenged my perspective or forced me to think about things in new ways. Thanks for the kind words and for watching!
STONE OCEAN OST DURING HXH VIDEO POGGGGGGG
Also, of course Stone Ocean OST! How could I not? It is the best Jojo part after all
I'm pretty sure that's the only time in my entire life that I laughed at a nermal joke, so, if nothing else, you have that as a win from me here. Although it may at least partially be due to your decent impression of Lorenzo Music to go with it. I'm not sure how many people are really going to get that joke so I felt like I should let you know that I not only got it I appreciated it, which is funny, since most of Garfield isnt (although the funny part entirely came from the show anyway 😂)
Honestly, I think you understand my jokes even better than I do. Maybe you should be the one behind the keyboard. Thanks for checking out the video!
So I started the video yesterday and finished it earlier today, pretty interesting and I like the humorist side of it.
So here are some of my thoughts
At times for 2-3 minutes straight it’d feel like the script avoids the core point of the video, spending a lot of time giving definitions to certain concepts but not really going deep into it unfortunately
I can see the comparison with the shibuya arc but not really farther than it being a war and the way scenes are connected to each other (not even that much either).
You rate the build up of the first act a 8/10 and a 5/10 but give credit to the fulfilment that is later found in the third act?(everything involving palm, knuckle, shoot, ikalgo, welfin), It’s not at all like a Martin Scorsese movie, what I mean is that you can’t just shorten the arc because here you have an arc in a story that will have a permanent impact on the rest of the series, if it’s Koala, Welfin, Brovada, Gyro, Palm. You can delete so much stuff but it will kill so much potential in the process right?
Let’s take Welfin’s character as an example, at first you see him during the war and you’re not interested in him at all because you want to see the squad’s pov, theoretically deleting all his moments doesn’t really change the scenario that much. Except when he says Komugi but that’s a way to show how Meruem has evolved so it’s irrelevant. Experiencing the fulfilment of his conversation with Brovada is magnificent! But again without the « deletable scenes » it would’ve been meh whatever, and that’s also what’s missing in other war arcs!
Another one is Koala but there’s no need to develop you get my point surely
It feels like during the entire video you point out what Togashi does and is saying that it’s objectively a strong point or a weak point.
The addition of the narrator really ascends a lot of scenes in the arc and without him we would barely catch what’s going on. I can give so many examples that develops x and y ‘s relationships.
Whether it’s Shoot, Welfin, Ikalgo, Netero, Meruem and especially Killua, who at that time couldn’t even speak because of his mental state regarding Gon.
Hearing a monologue is much less emotional than what the narrator brings.
The stair scene is the perfect example of what Togashi does perfectly in the arc and it wouldn’t be as good without the fact that it’s slow.
This is what is missing in most of the war arcs including shibuya, a war brings immense and terrifying stress to the human body that will bring a million thoughts at once, here you feel that it’s the case with how you explore every characters mental state.
I feel like you don’t really explore that part of the arc in your video. (How you can make a video on what’s happening in a chronological order during the war)
All in all the video is good, you just flew past the « flaws » and made it sounds like it’s objectively bad when it isn’t
Im looking forward to the Election arc guide
Thanks for taking the time to type out your thoughts! You made a lot of points, so I'll do my best to hit them all, but I'll probably miss some.
I agree with you on the point about over explaining. I definitely have a tendency to go overboard. For the narrator, I agree that there's plenty of very necessary information in his words, but I feel like most of it could have been communicated in a different way that's less intrusive on the atmosphere of scenes like Gon's battle with Pitou. There's plenty of occasions we're I'm completely okay with the narration though. It only sometimes becomes a problem for me.
When I criticize the buildup to the climax, I don't mean that anything should be cut entirely (with a few rare exceptions). I more meant that every individual plot point probably could have been shortened to increase the pace and not much meaning would have been lost. I don't really remember what my exact words were in the video, so I might just be repeating myself here. I think I went into that kind of stuff more in the other two Chimera Ant videos on my channel, which I'm not sure if you watched. If some things were unclear or unaddressed, it might be because this was meant to be the third part of a series.
Either way, thanks a ton for taking the time to watch and comment! The Election arc guide is in production, although it's gonna be a bit of a wait. There's some other videos and also just real life to get to first, but hopefully we'll be there soon enough.
You definitely have a talent for making videos, bro. Hope the algorithm bumps you up soon, so you get the view count you deserve.
Thanks a ton! Feels great to know that some people are appreciating my work. Maybe I'll get more views someday, but for now I'm just hoping my work ethic holds out long enough to finish this series
What if “that thing never got tired” 😭😭😭😭😭😭
I've been looking for an excuse to use that clip for like half a year at this point, and the time finally arrived
@@extraguy790 I had to sub after that.
The talking points were great, but I literally bust out laughing at parts I had to show to someone twice. That’s exceptional at that point
Well, I'm glad that my jokes make somebody laugh besides myself!
song name in 1:11 please great video btw 🙏
I believe that song is "Weather Report Theme" from JJBA Stone Ocean. Thanks for watching!
The chairman did nothing wrong and Slender you are saying about him hurts me to my very core, so what if we're brutal and sacrifice anything to win without it we would be dead and no one could complain.
Jojo part 5 video?
I'm actually planning to make Jojo's my next big long series after I finish up the last two Hunter Hunter videos, so I will be getting to part 5 eventually, but it may be a while. Thanks for watching!
Am I the only one who likes yorknew better
Why do you sound like the guy on tiktok that comments on indian cooking😂
Not familiar, so I guess now I've got some research to do. Who knows? Maybe my second personality picked up a new hobby or something
Nah hating the narrator is just your personal failure to suspend your disbelief. I love how poetic he talks most of the time it's so fruity and fun. It's like complaining about the trope of characters explaining their powers to each other cause its way more fun when they do gloat boast and waste time
I'm also not a fan of the explaining powers trope and I tend to think shonen are much more interesting when it isn't used, but neither that nor the narrator thing are enough typically enough to ruin a series. It's more of a minor annoyance than anything, but I still thought it was worth mentioning as I believe there would have been better ways to communicate a lot of that information. There is definitely a fair amount of my own personal preference mixed into that criticism too, so not everyone is going to share my perspective.
Thanks for watching!
since you keep making comparison to jujutsu kaisen and demon slayer, i just want to highligth the major flaw those 2 anime have that HxH didn't, because sometime you can learn from you predecessor mistake, but sometime you can create new mistake:
-for Demon Slayer, i haven't been able to watch it, the first episode is absolutly horrible, so much drama for character i don't even know, yes maybe there's important backstory here, but you should never start with such a bad first episode, in comparison, the HxH2011 anime even drop the backstory with Kito because it only get relevent 100 episodes later and it would make the first episode more boring.In HxH you get hook really fast, in Demon Slayer you get repulse really fast.
For Jujutsu Kaisen, it's very different, the action start very fast, it's not overlly dramatic or boring, it's really good, and it keep going, but... there's too much character introduce all at once, it's very hard to get a grip of them, the story didn't take the time to introduce them properly. in HxH you start with 3 of the main character and after 1 episode you kinda get a grip on their character already, and then you have Tompa, Kirua and Hisoka that came a little later in a second wave, every character of HxH are well introduce.
I don't disagree with either of the two criticisms you present here (or at least the broad strokes of them), but I think its a bit of an apples to oranges situation. If I were to evaluate all three series in their entirety, Hunter Hunter would come out on top for me, but I'm only comparing their individual arcs. I happen to think that both of the individual arcs I highlighted from JJK and Demonslayer do a better job with certain aspects Hunter Hunter attempted, which doesn't determine the quality level of those series on its own. Even terrible series (which I don't think any of those three are) can have standout elements worth using as examples.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
@@extraguy790i know it's not the same context, it just hit me because i can't understand your comparison for those 2 reasons, but overall i agree, Chimera's arc is a masterpiece, but there's still some major flaw to improve on
videos gud but can u be more straight 2 da point ?? please
I have a pretty hard time shutting the hell up most of the time, but I'm working on it. Hopefully I'll never make a video this long or bloated ever again. Thanks for watching!