So, this weekend the new Hunter x Hunter anime started up. It's a complete reboot of the series, starting from the beginning of the story and following up to at least the Chimer Ant arc.

As most people who read the manga know, the series has been constantly going on hiatus for extended periods of time. The first time the author was ill, and the second time his wife was pregnant. Since then, the series goes off and on for hiatus. The manga is only just finishing up the Chimera Ant arc; it's been a grueling wait to finally see the end of it.

Anyway, in regards to the anime, it seems like a pretty good remake. Since I've seen the original anime (which did not diverge off from the manga like the first FMA anime), it doesn't feel like something brand new. Regardless, it's enjoyable and a great chance for new fans to get into it and older fans to get a recap of the story.

Opening Theme: "Departure" by Galneryus
Ending Theme: "Just Awake" by Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas

They rebooted the anime? This is the first I've heard of this really. I quite enjoyed the anime, and followed on to the manga. And yeh the current arc has been on hiatus on and off so much, and a deterioration of quality it's not much worth to keep up with it anymore.

Will have to hunt this new one down.

Yes. The reboot was announced with the manga's latest return to Weekly Jump back in August. I agree that the deterioration in quality got really annoying. The good news is that he goes back and redraws it when the graphic novel is being published, but seeing it unfinished it a blow to fan morale.

Knowing the mangaka, I expect it will go on hiatus again in the next 5-15 weeks (if he keeps up his current trend of 10-20 chapters before going on hiatus again). Still, I'm hoping he won't keep this up and will finish up the manga. I still enjoy it, despite my distaste for the author's attitude toward fans of his work.

I pretty much stopped when one chapter looked like rough sketches. And the past few chapters devolved to bubbles going "these guys did this" "and these guys attempted this".

Even anime is doing reboots now?

Though I heard Evangeleon did it first.

Actually, Astro Boy did it long before Evangeleon did. And Kimba was remade in 1989.

Also, it's not an uncommon practice. Fullmetal Alchemist did it with FMA: Brotherhood, and DBZ did it with DB Kai.

DBZ Kai is not a reboot, its an HD remastering of the series with all the filler edited out.

A lot of the time, it's sequels really. Remakes aren't as common as you'd think.

The only other hgih profile remake as you mentioned was Evangelion 2.0, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

I still believe that Hunter x Hunter is the definitive shonen manga. The quality dips are a nuisance, but at least the tanks are high quality.

I'm glad they're redoing the anime, what the OVA's did to the Greed Island arc was horrendous! Not to mention it will mean going through York Shin again, the best story arc I've seen, ever.

Edit: I have heard some disturbing reports that the character of Hisoka might be censored a bit, but the ED seems to be keeping to his personality, so I guess I'll need to wait and see.

It was a manga that grabbed me till the end that's for sure. I've moved on tho to One Piece at this stage tho. And Fairy Tail.

Fair point, though the last Astro Boy show came out before the whole 'reboot' was a thing. I dunno, usually I associate 'reboot' with what you do with a franchise when it's become too bloated and full of bullshit to go anywhere with and you need to start from a clean slate. Astro Boy is such an old franchise now it's more like just another iteration.

And Kai is more of a Director's Cut than anything.

Normally it would be, but then we have that Spiderman reboot upcoming and its barely been a decade.

Fair enough. I was simply trying to point out that reboots/remakes do happen. The other examples I gave were better examples.

This doesn't surprise me if it's true, though I wouldn't expect any big to come off it. It's not like he ever did anything over the top for an anime. The only major editing I could see is them taming down the violence during the beginning of the Chimera Ant arc, such as the young hunter's encounter with Pitou.

Ok, finally got a chance to watch the first episode, and I quite like it. Much more fast paced than the original. Pretty sure the original anime took several episodes to cover just the one in the new one. Gon sounds a bit younger but still fits his character, as do the rest of the main cast so far.

Faithful adaptation for a new generation really. Also, heavy japanese metal outro. Win.

Well, in all fairness, most anime titles follow the trends of 1 chapter per episode for the first 1-3 episodes, at the very least the first, in order to give the anime its proper introduction. However, since this is a reboot, it looks like they're speeding up the beginning so it doesn't the give the older audience an "I've seen this all before, so what's the point?" vibe.

Reruns in Japan are very uncommon in regards to an anime series (which is why you see fillers more often). So since the Japanese audience isn't used to reruns, speeding up the beginning of a reboot makes sense. FMA: Brotherhood did the same thing early on.

That or a different times. The first anime was in the 90's after all.

Yeah, I think a lot of people have gotten sick of the glacial pace that most anime has stereotypically taken to get any plot resolution- again, see DBZ Kai.

I just finished episode 2. They followed the manga for this episode almost point for point without making it seem like it was going too fast or too slow. Unlike the first episode, nothing was cut out or changed to speed it along. If the rest of the anime can keep the pace of this episode up, I'll enjoy it.

At this rate, we'll get to the main exams in time.

So far I think they've gotten the feel of the characters just down to a T, Kurapika especially, if you don't know already you just can't tell if he's a guy or a girl.

Good to know they've already decided on a conclusion point as well, the main drawback that anime adaptations of ongoing long-running manga is that the fillers must appear at some point to slow the anime down and give the manga a chance to barrel ahead. Sometimes, when there isn't a convenient place to put a filler, they simply pace the show as slowly as they can get away with, which is arguably more painful to watch, since when watching fillers you are left with the consolation that one week the 'proper' show will come back on. When even that is dull... Certainly good to know that they will not have any legitimate reasons to do either. Here's to a faithful and enjoyable adaptation of HxH!

This week's episode was noticeably slower than the last two. This week's covered 1.5 chapters. Anyway, Hisoka doesn't appear to have changed much yet; we'll see how he is in the upcoming episodes. Killua's first episode has him as less-threatening and more child-like. Again, we'll have to wait until the upcoming episodes to really gauge his character.

AGH THEY CENSORED HISOKA CUTTING OFF THAT DUDES ARMS ADJKGHKJADHGKJ

To be fair, they did show a lengthy effect of the rest of his arms dissipating into clovers immediately afterwards.

I guess you do wonder about any other bloody bits later on. If they cut out Killua taking out a heart and destroying it I will be quite disappointed.

Not to mention all of york shin and greed island. The gore hits a high point there.

Greed island wasn't that bad. The worst of that arc was with two bomb incidents. I thought the beginning of the Chimera Ant arc and some other incidents in the manga greatly topped Greed Island on that meter.

I'll take your word on that cause I don't remember anything about the arcs you just mentioned.

You should do a re-read, the series is just amazing

Maybe, it has been a while. Or I can just wait like most and watch it like its new.


EDIT 23/10: Still can't stop comparing it to my memories to the old anime, but at least I'm enjoying this remake a lot more.

Also, reaffirming why Gon and Killua are equal ranked first as my fave HxH characters.

I just finished watching the new episode as well. This episode went back to the 2-chapter pace, which is nice. I really don't like going any slower than that when an anime is not anywhere near the manga's current chapter, and HxH usually has enough going on that it doesn't need to go any faster than that pace.

As for the episode, I enjoyed it. Apart from the small bit of blood, the episode kept Hisoka's personality intact. Next week we'll have a much clearer idea on how he was changed. Only thing I disliked is how they didn't make the guy with the laptop the first to fail. It made it seem like the group as a whole was impressive than it's supposed to be.

Hisoka is deadly as ever, and disturbing given his facial expressions. He was always a weird but interesting character given he has the dual role of antagonist and protagonist.

And now we have the cooking challenge next week. That will be interesting.

The violence was definitely toned down a bit. The mushrooms didn't explode and were changed to release those spores instead, for example. Also, the new Hisoka seemed less threatening to me, but at the same time he was more disturbing, so it balanced out. It was enjoyable nonetheless.

I thought the episode was pretty good, I can understand the censoring, but I don't have to like it, hopefully its bloody in the BDs/DVDs. I hated that bit with Gon panting, the voice acting just isn't that great, it all felt so bloody awkward.

You talking about this new series voice acting or the old series voice acting?

This series'. I dunno, they just don't fit my idea of the characters very well, I think the only character they helped was Kurapica, he sounded so feminine in the first anime.

Kurapika was supposed to sound feminine. His gender was supposed to be hard to determine, as pointed out during his encounter with Kuroro.

I think they sound fine to me and fit the characters.

EDIT 06/11: We are flying by, seems to be a phase an episode. They cut out the sushi test and just rolled both examiners decision into one. The rest played out the same tho. Can't wait to see next week's episode, only because the preview weirdly has Killua all happy happy joy joy for some reason.

I've been following this reboot too... I'm a huge HXH fanboy, really. I've been a little disappointed by how they cut down on the violence & gore - though one must admit, they did it with style. Killua ripping off Jones' heart and PUTTING IT INTO A PURSE, then giving it back, was almost more badass than the source material.
I know this weeks' episode is a recap, so I won't bother downloading it. And overall... well, I like the new music, the animation is good, but I really don't see where this is going. If they cut down the gore on York Shin City too it'll just be lame.

I'm more surprised we're still doing recaps this day and age. I always considered it an element of the 80-90s, even tho I understand the reasoning for such things.

I think in this case the reasoning was: "well it's Christmas week, we gotta air something for some reason but no one will watch it anyway, so let's just recycle some clips to remember people what they've seen in the last three months of the series".