Anime Review: Hunter x Hunter

A Hunter is one who travels the world doing all sorts of dangerous tasks. From capturing criminals to searching deep within uncharted lands for any lost treasures. Gon is a young boy whose father disappeared long ago, being a Hunter. He believes if he could also follow his father's path, he could one day reunite with him.

After becoming 12, Gon leaves his home and takes on the task of entering the Hunter exam, notorious for its low success rate and high probability of death to become an official Hunter. He befriends the revenge-driven Kurapika, the doctor-to-be Leorio and the rebellious ex-assassin Killua in the exam, with their friendship prevailing throughout the many trials and threats they come upon taking on the dangerous career of a Hunter. Based on the manga by Togashi Yoshihiro.

Hunter x Hunter Genres: Action, Adventure

Hunter x Hunter Synonyms: HxH

Hunter x Hunter Studios: Nippon Animation, Viz Media, Fuji TV,

Hunter x Hunter Review

2011 is so obviously less polished, drawn by amateurs, badly directed...

Seeing side by side comparisons just makes it that much more obvious that the 1999 version is superior in every respect. Exactly which scenes did 2011 handle better than 99? If you actually watched the comparisons you would know that 1999 had better storyboarding, art and animation style than 2011 in every important scene. Fluid animation is made possible by 1) a decent frame rate and 2) the use of smears - Norio Matsumoto's animation style is distinctive due to the relatively high FPS his heavy use of smears require. The 2011 version has low FPS and does not use smears but simple motion blurs which make the animation look less fluid. The use of motion blur instead of smears is a telling sign that the animator is an amateur who has no idea what he's doing.

I don't get why people are trying to raise doubts about which series is better. 2011 is so obviously less polished, drawn by amateurs, badly directed, that you really cannot make yourself credible with any kind of argument to the effect of making them seem even remotely close.

Speed lines are another sign you have no idea how to animate fluidity in an action scene. Compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw8Io09FeL4

The 2011 version looks like shit because there's motherfucking speed lines everywhere. The 1999 version by contrast did not use speed lines but instead depicted the actual rotation of the background. This shows the excellent use of camera angles and movement in the 1999 version to show the dynamics of the action. The 2011 version does not rotate the camera, it just cuts from one angle to the next. This is laziness, and it destroys dynanism in the scene. Again, if you don't know anything about animation, don't make silly comments about how 2011 handles some scenes better. It doesn't. Anyone saying that the 2011 version is even remotely close to the 1999 series immediately reveals that he doesn't know anything about animation.

>1999

Faithful masterpiece of an adaptation directed by industry legend Kazuhiro Furuhashi and his team of talented, smear-using animators (with MAYBE an implied gay pairing between Kurapika and Leorio, two adult men)

>2011

Heavily censored, butchered and rushed adaptation directed by some literally who leading a group of pedophile fujoshi animators so busy shipping two young boys together, they had to "animate" the whole thing using glorified stills between speedlines in place of actual animation