I don't think a Deus Ex Machina subverts Shounen norms much. It's what the genre thrives on. I'm constantly surprised that reveal doesn't get more backlash.
Meruem's ultimate fate? Sure, didn't see that coming.
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LTTP: Hunter x Hunter 2011 animation Chimera Ant arc
- Thread starter Trojita
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I don't think a Deus Ex Machina subverts Shounen norms much. It's what the genre thrives on. I'm constantly surprised that reveal doesn't get more backlash.
Meruem's ultimate fate? Sure, didn't see that coming.
Deus Ex Machina's, like cliches, are not a bad thing especially when executed well and Togashi pulled it off great. He made Meruem basically unstoppable and wanted to make a point about humanity being more than just super Nen users, we're far more dangerous than that because our cruelty and will to succeed out classes pure brawn and physical power.
Recently (in the last few months) watch HxH 2011 for the first time, and my one regret is that I can't watch the series for the first time again. So many twists, incredible hearts, and heartbreaking moments...
's death made me cry, but I was almost bawling after that when
Beautiful writing throughout, though I can definitely see where people think it drags near the start of the arc. But it's nowhere near as bad as any DBZ arc, especially Namek.
Meruem
the child ant was returned to her village and recognized by her original mother.
theCalamity
Member
The entire arc was building up to that moment. The king believed himself to be the pinnacle of evolution capable of dominating the world but he
dies from radiation from a budget nuclear bomb showing that the ants still have quite a ways to go before reaching humanity's level.
Forgetting the "how" of how things went down, the "why" also came from left field as well. The darkness and cruelty of the human race were, at best, a weak motif in the arc anyway. Are people bad, sure. Are groups of people bad, sure. Humanity having a bent towards darkness? Not so much. The kind of Kojima, MGS cut away to real world atrocities was completely outside of the story telling styles established to that point.
Even ignoring how the theme came about. Where else is it used or explored in the arc (or other arcs for that matter)? It really felt like a quick hit that was used to give some complexity to the human race so the lines in the man vs monster battle would be blurred a little.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Everything involving the Phantom Troupe is good, but there's so much fluff and unnecessary narrator exposition that it kills the show for me. And the Chimera Ants designs are t r a s h .
I quite liked them. They were all unique and catered to their personalities. That said, I'm biased as HxH is my favorite anime of all time, and Chimera Ant is my favorite arc.
JadedWriter
Member
Don't you insult my cat waifu NYAA!!
The most obvious thing would be
how Meruem is a monster turned human and Gon is a human turned monster
Conkersbadfurday
Member
Huh. At one point I had thought of making a thread with that same title, but the content would have been, "boy was it bad. Talk about a sixty episode slog of bad pacing, characters acting out of character, and Nen bullshit."
Mereum and Komugi are fucking awesome though.
Mereum and Komugi are fucking awesome though.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
You could cater to their personalities without having them come out in thongs and bras; that was cheesie as shit imo lol.
Neferpitou is an awesome character, but I can't get over how dumb it was she was born wearing a fucking business suit lmao. That being said, when she got serious.... DAMN! I n t i m i d a t i o n .
who acted out of character? what nen bullshit?
JadedWriter
Member
Youpi was the only one that didn't know how to be born with a full wardrobe... Pitou is great though.
Nen bullshit and Stand bullshit are the best kinds of bullshit.
Conkersbadfurday
Member
Pitou
going from sadist to going along with Gon and being nice to him for no real reason. Once Komugi was healed, she should have dropped the act and fought.
Gon
threatening to kill Komugi or not caring if she died. I'll chalk the rest up to his mental breakdown I suppose (though I didn't like it), but that moment before stood out as completely out of character
As to nen bullshit, basically at that point every nen ability was magic. Knuckle's abilities required like a five minute explanation ffs. It was a mess.
The whole point of the arc was ant learning their humanity and Gon desperation making him more dire. It was characters reacting to the situation they were in. In the case of the ants, they were newly born and reacted out of instinct but changed as the interacted with the world around them. Also she did drop the act, that's why you brought Gon to different location, to kill him. Where you paying attention?
Nen has always had shit like that, nothing was new and everything was within the established rules of it.
Conkersbadfurday
Member
That change made since with Merum, but not Pitou who was half cat and took great joy in actual fighting. She literally followed Gon a few miles away to check on Kite, which was completely unnecessary if she was just going to stab him in the back.
There was no point in doing Gon that kindness.
And I'd say no, it was around that arc or maybe the one before it (also a slog) where Nen jumped the gun and got overly stupid. Kurapika had some OP powers, but at least they sorta made since. Not like Cheetu's "we go into a pocket dimension and I have to catch you!" or those fish people playing darts.
It was silly.
Really? The darkness and cruelty bit was a huge part of the arc. Hell the Ants becoming as fucked as they are is because they eat fucked up humans and take on both the best and worst traits of those they devour. Hell the York New City arc is also about this a lot though not as much as as the Chimera Ant arc.
Not too mention the story touched on the real world stuff with the fact that New Gortneau is basically North Korea, the world governments directly contact Netero over the situation and so on. Hell HxH has all kinds of stuff from the real world whether its mundane stuff like Play Stations and Cell Phones to the darker aspects like the mafia.
It's one of the defining themes of the arc. I find it a little absurd that you make this claim when many of the biggest events in the arc are tied to the idea that humans are often the real monsters or turn into them while the Chimera Ants slowly become more human both in a negative and positive fashion. Gon is like the literal example of this arc considering what happens to him and what he does.
The guards becoming more human and acting that out was a big part of the arc. Pitou was the Royal Guard who seemed to change the most and was the most in favor of supporting the more human side of the King and the actions related to that. Whereas Pouf became ever more conniving and treacherous.
Also Nen was always crazy or do you not remember stuff like the dude eating direct hits from rocket launchers and getting shot in the head by a sniper rifle acting like it was nothing. You know that or the lady who could predict the future perfectly or the woman who had a super vacuum cleaner called Blinky.
What kindness? If she tell Gon there that she can't heal Kite, then he goes batshit and puts Kogumi at risk. She was fearful of Gon, and stated as much. She knew something was up.
All of Greed Island is pretty much Nen, and what's wrong making more creative powers it's within the rules the series established?
Pitou was always the most "human" of the Royal Guard.
She was the one looking out for Komugi and wanted Meruem to grow in that sense too. She was also being cautious around Gon and took pity on him, especially after he complied to her demands and allowed her to heal Komugi. I don't think that was out of character at all.
I also don't mind the over the top rules of Nen at all. In fact I think they make the story all the more interesting. Just like a lot of people point out, Jojo's Stands and HxH Nen are perfect in-universe powers that allow whatever the author thinks fits better and goes with it. If your criticism boils down to "It's silly", I don't think you have much to say actually.
I also don't mind the over the top rules of Nen at all. In fact I think they make the story all the more interesting. Just like a lot of people point out, Jojo's Stands and HxH Nen are perfect in-universe powers that allow whatever the author thinks fits better and goes with it. If your criticism boils down to "It's silly", I don't think you have much to say actually.
theCalamity
Member
If you think crazy powers are silly, then stop watching shonen.
Pitou
Didn't want to take that risk. She saw Gon's Jajanken. He could easily kill Komugi with that thing, even if she was fully healed.
Besides, her own arm was broken too. Why fight Gon in that condition?
That's why she played along with him. She got to heal her arm, and get him as far away from Komugi as possible. Then, she could proceed to kill him.
it all worked out in her favor.
Besides, her own arm was broken too. Why fight Gon in that condition?
That's why she played along with him. She got to heal her arm, and get him as far away from Komugi as possible. Then, she could proceed to kill him.
it all worked out in her favor.
Humanity being shit is a weak motif in the Ant arc?
the Ants are literally mad and crazy killers BECAUSE they ate humans and took on their traits.
They basically got into HxH's North Korea, managed to overthrow the local secretive government that was a bioterrorist group that got money from drugs and then the King just went to another HxH's North Korea to establish its kingdom.
It's pretty well established that NGL people were a bunch of really shitty people that didn't deserve any kind of redemption (and got none anyway).
From the start of this arc, the hunters are dealing with an out of control pest that is dangerous because they were gaining human traits.
I always liked that about this situation.
Ultimately she won. She accomplished her goals (got him away from Komugi and even the King. She thinks at this point Gon is powerful enough to take the King. It being true or not is a different story.) while Gon didn't and basically got nothing positive out of it. It can be argued he eventually loses Killua (who benefits in the end) as well because of what his actions set in motion. I was not expecting the outcome of that fight to be what it was in the end.
JadedWriter
Member
Dude like 50 eps into HxH we are introduced to Blinky. A Nen powered vacuum stand that could suck up anything. Nen has always been bullshit.
Its basically a 13 year old committing suicide because of his horrific depression and terrible rage. I love how it makes going "Super Saiyan" seem like such a horrible and destructive thing. I don't ever want to see Gon do that again it was so crushing even if he was uber bad ass for 15 minutes.
Come on, not anything.
Only stuffs that are not made of nen..
And apparently it's a common power...which makes sense in a way
Yup. Normally powerups in shows like this a a great thing. A triumphant moment. It was clear from the jump this was not that. The whole thing was sad and wrong..
This is a little hard to explain but, I think there is a huge difference between a character or a group of characters showing that they have the capacity for darkness and having those individual actions building up to be a systemic force that drives nations and countries to pursue evil actions.
Having bad guys do bad things is so small time compared to indiscriminate nuclear bombing, Tienamin Square allusions and Nazi Germany(*edit* ?). The later carries soo much weight, cursory connections to people or things being bad doesn't cut it.
I take it you mean that Gon
lost Killua because he had to go after his sister/brother to fix Gon and that eventually became his new purpose?
We had a group that committed genocide for fun and money in the third arc who murder thousands of people in the middle of a city to get revenge for one members death and a pedophile clown murderer as a main character. The HxH world has always been a dark and fucked up one. The entire third arc focuses around a mafia who basically own a city to the point the cops work for them willingly and auction off items like said genocide garnered eye balls and other organs and body parts of famous origin or extreme rarity. Though to be fair the 2011 anime starts as a kids show so it gets censored and toned down a lot so the shift in the third arc to a much darker tone does seem a bit jarring.
JadedWriter
Member
So shoes are made of Nen? Ok nevermind I read it properly this time.
theCalamity
Member
That will always be funny to me. It stayed in the kids slot well into the Chimera Ant arc, IIRC.
I mean it got really fucking dark and fucked up in the third arc.
There isn't any blood but there is no shying away from the fact a guy just got a third of his head bitten off.
JadedWriter
Member
Uvo biting a dudes head in half...for kids.
But it's a waifu?
Ah, I was rewatching some scenes from HxH and the end of this arc always leave me sad ;_;
Oh come on there's a whole chapter dedicated to a guy we have only heard about so far who was basically the head of a terrorist group that used the front of ecology to pursue drug dealing, slave trade, terrorist attacks and so on.
From what we know of them, they're probably one of the main users of the little rose even.
They're as evil as you can be in HxH world.
On a global scale the ants were not the bad guys here either.
theCalamity
Member
I mean it got really fucking dark and fucked up in the third arc.
There isn't any blood but there is no shying away from the fact a guy just got a third of his head bitten off.
This is exactly what I want to see on Saturday mornings. This and Indoor Fish.
Namek time is far worse, so yeah they should lol. At least in HxH, time actually feels compressed during moments like the Palace Invasion. It only made the sequence feel more epic and tense IMO.
JadedWriter
Member
Indoor Fish is fucking great. It's the kind of attack you use on someone solely because they pissed you off during the fight. Could've just pen stabbed the dude, but nope. Chrollo was like "suffer motherfucker."
Togashi makes a thing to mention it directly.
Netero "clap" was so damn fast it compressed even the King's sense of time which is saying something as he is basically off the charts in terms of "stats"
Edit: I will say I am still not a huge fan of most of the random low level Chimera Ants that become a big part of the Invasion Arc. Some of them felt a bit forced into things and the pay off wasn't really worth it. Like the little Koala dude gets an episode long redemption moment and he was just a mean bitter little piece of shit.
Novel Mike
Member
I think the first part and final part of the arc are excellent but the middle was poorly paced at times and I didn't like how some things were ultimately resolved (except for how Meruem actually bites it in the end) and I really didn't like Gon's power up, it just looked so damn stupid >.>
JadedWriter
Member
This will always be a no, but I don't care. Even Zazan is technically a male.
woopWOOP
Member
Apparently I never posted in this February thread
CA arc the best, despite slowdown at the start of the invasion
I fucking love that narrator
Too bad I can't convince anyone else I know to watch this show because it's 148 episodes long and it more or less starts out as a kids show, lol
CA arc the best, despite slowdown at the start of the invasion
I fucking love that narrator
Too bad I can't convince anyone else I know to watch this show because it's 148 episodes long and it more or less starts out as a kids show, lol
You can always try telling them to start the original anime which is much more somber and darker in tone.
Even the part where the guy got his head bitten off is actually more violent there...
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