Can anyone tell me what's so special about Hunter X Hunter and the Chimera Ant arc?
>"Hunter's aren't heroes, they're selfish",
That's just being human. It's not grey morality, it’s being a person. Superman is a hero and he’s selfish, he will go to extreme lengths to protect his cousin and keep her close even if the best thing for her is to be elsewhere. Selfishness is not speaking to grey morality because good characters do selfish things. Most series has people doing good deeds, bad deeds, good deeds for bad reasons, or bad deeds for good reasons.
>“Everyone has their own unique thoughts, feelings and goals”
Yeah, as all stories do. Voldemort had all of those things, Darth Vader had all those things, Cell had all those things, so on and so forth.

So how is it different?

Wing, a teacher of nen and its techniques, explains that forcibly opening nen can be dangerous and if you have even the slightest bit of ill intent you can kill someone doing it. All the ants have theirs opened up in this fashion and none have any repercussions. This could be explained with their bodies being tougher or acting differently but that's just speculation on something that was defined earlier. They also are able to instantly control their nen which means opening and closing their nodes so they don't harm themselves.

The King is evil for the sake of being evil. It's not like the queen was especially cruel. I'd say this is a nature vs. nurture theme if the ants remained static but some ants are born bad, others are born neutral, some are shaped into being better people (the King himself). If this was a theme he was going for it's muddled by the characters action and growth (or lack thereof) so, I have to ask, why is the King evil to begin with?

It hurts the concept behind the nen system. The system is that there's classes you have an affinity for and you can spec into other classes but it won't be as strong as what you're naturally inclined into. It also says that Class A of equal strength could beat Class B of equal strength (there's a whole thing of attack and defense points) while Class A might lose to Class C under the same conditions. It makes it so that you might not really need to have more nen (in comparison to a Dragonball where your bigger number means victory most times). This makes it seem like the class system will be important but The King simply has more nen, the ants abilities aren't ever really counteracted, and the ants are inherently "stronger". It made me realize how little this actually comes into play.

The monster becomes a man; the man becomes a monster.

That's the theme.

Dark does not equal quality. I see too many times how much people applaud this arc because of how dark it gets. To me it detracted because it felt very try hard with the kid killing and brain eating. It never really hit that height again but I found myself kind of turned off by it. Not because of it being dark but because how hard it tried to establish itself as dark.

Too many awesome powers are barely showcased or dismissed quickly. Knuckle is the key offender here as he has an amazing and unique ability, he uses it in his fight against Gon, attatches it to Cheeto (who gets it removed by another ant somehow), and against one of the Royals. Kite has a 9 slot weapon, we see 3 slots (2 being bad draws) and never get to see the others. The ant that could borrow abilities for an hour showcases 2 (maybe 3) abilities and then dies in his first fight.

Why did the bird attack Komugi? That was so forced. Komugi is an established klutz, she could've banged into something and go bird seed in her hair, she could've opened the window and the birds nest be outside, something, ANYTHING.


That's the stuff I remember off the top of my head. To me this is when HxH started to become "worse JoJo's" to me and from what I hear is going on in the manga that's looking to be the case more and more.

Togashi creates an entire card game with a history for an arc and, like, 13 cards see any use out of the dozens presented. Togashi creates an intriguing power system that goes nowhere in terms of "class x could beat class y even if they're weaker". Togashi presents themes like the darkness of humankind but it is against people eating monsters that are farming humans and, in general, the humans do almost nothing that constitutes "darkness".
>>281180192
It's a misconception that Meru was becoming more human, let's not forget that right before fighting Netero he said that he no longer wanted to wipe out humans, he wanted to farm them like cattle. Make no mistake, Meru was still a monster even if he was less so than the beginning of the arc. Also, how does this counter me saying "it worked out for the heroes" All three of the royal guard are dead, the King is dead, who is roaming? Do you not remember the little ant child being brought back to its human mother for a reunion and the one that brought them back being offered a place in the village? The ants are classified as a new mythical breed of creature and humans just accept them.

>>281180122 (OP)
Who tf are you arguing with? HxH general will be active WHEN he finishes the DAMN chapters.

>>281180122 (OP)
>So how is it different?
Nobody tried to explain to Komugi that she was basically a hostage kidnapped by psycho ants. Also the annoying narrator and grandpa's dragon dive.

>>281180122 (OP)
HxH is entry and exit level shonen, I think one if its strongest points is the fact that it manages to be fairly long while never getting bogged down in the repetitive shonen formulas - it never really does the same thing twice and every arc is distinctly different from one another.

>>281180122 (OP)
For shonentards if it's edgy it's deep. See how they praise misery porn like Takopii or CSM.

>>281180195
That bird was being manipulated by nen and Netero sent it there to check some stuff out

>>281180804
That's headcanon and never explained in the story.

>>281180664
Killua Arc - Rescue Arc
York Shin - Rescue Arc
Chimera Ants - Rescue Arc
Alluka Arc - Rescue Arc