Hunters are a special breed, dedicated to tracking down treasures, magical beasts, and even other people. But such pursuits require a license, and less than one in a hundred thousand can pass the grueling qualification exam. Those who do pass gain access to restricted areas, amazing stores of information, and the right to call themselves Hunters.
SHIP OF FOOLS On their voyage to the Dark Continent, the Hunters get tangled up in a war of royal succession. The 14 princes of Kakin, protected by Nen-powered Guardian Beasts, must assassinate one another until only a single heir survives. Infiltrating as bodyguards, the Hunters join a deadly game of intrigue. But the most dangerous prince may be the one they least suspect...
Yoshihiro Togashi (冨樫義博) is a manga artist. Credited in Chinese translations as Fu Jian Yi Bo.
He began drawing manga at an early age; while he attended college, the publisher Shueisha recognized his talent. Togashi has authored numerous manga series in different genres during the past three decades. He is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating the YuYu Hakusho and Hunter × Hunter series, both of which have been published in the popular Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. Togashi is married to Naoko Takeuchi, the author of Sailor Moon.
Not really a fan of this one I'm afraid 8'D Not sure quite what it is, but something is bugging me :| Possibly the fact that so far during this arc there has been zero Gon or Kil, who I love and miss dearly? 8'D
It's interesting seeing what lengths Kurapika is going to in order to protect the prince that he has been assigned to guard but uhhh... most of it doesn't really interest me I'm afraid. As great as Kurapika is... I want more of Gon or Kil or Leorio or Hisoka or any of the Spiders... I like the resurgence of characters that I love (...or hate sometimes honestly) and with the millions of new characters being introduced (...and for many, killed off) so quickly in this arc it's massively bugging me ._.'
I was initially put off by how wordy this book was at well. It eventually won me over with a number of cool moments, though. The deal with possessing the cockroach reminded me of Death Note's mind games, Oito has been growing on me, Kurapika's new ability is an excellent ticking clock, and the complex web of who knows what is interesting.
There is a thrilling game of espionage here. When you can get past that layers of over explanation and characters over-thinking situations, you'll find a tense powder keg just waiting to blow. It's just a matter of time before one of these princes gets pissed off enough to blow the lid off of the ship and declare all out war. Will it be over the others learning too much Nen? A botched assassination attempt? Chrollo going berserk? Mounting frustration from both the covert and overt spying? Will the nen beasts do something unpredictable? Will the first prince get tired of finessing the situation and resort to force? Will Kurapika be able to remain patient while his lifespan slowly drains away? There are a lot of moving parts here and each one could be the piece that brings this whole machine crashing down. It's a very difficult story to write, and if over explaining things is the price we have to pay, I'll take it. Like Chimera Ant, I get the sense that this slow build of less interesting stories will lead into an explosive climax that retroactively justifies all the buildup. But for now, I'm enjoying what this has to offer.
One volume left until I join everyone else at The Great Boat Hiatus Arc 2.0
THIS ARC IS SO INTERESTING! It's so fascinating following all the different people with their own agendas. And then there's Kurapika trying to hold his own against them while pursuing his own agendas.
Kurapika is such a fun character to follow because he's so smart and one step ahead of the game. Although I do worry about him because the restrictions he places on his nen abilities are rather concerning. The way he takes so much risk on his shoulders to achieve his goals makes me a bit sad I wish he would let other people in more.
I'm really excited to see where this is going with all the princes scheming against each other... who will come out on top? I have seen some people criticising this arc and saying that it's a yapfest. I do acknowledge that it takes a very different turn to the previous arcs in this story and might not be for everyone. However this is exactly the sort of thing I like. I love the political intrigue, I love how complicated the various plot threads are, I love the yapfest... let Togashi cook.
Phenomenal phenomenal writing, art and attention to detail. Togashi is a genius and I think anyone who is interested in the art of making a comic should read Togashi's work. My only regret is that I didn't read the manga before bingeing the anime - I would have probably enjoyed that a lot more. The issue with Togashi's work is that his Manga is extremely rule and character based - this leads to the anime being forced to deliver tons of exposition which can be incredibly off putting in a visual medium - on the other hand the manga does this wonderfully - the previous volume with Hisoka and Chrollo's fights actually had a bloody flowchart in the middle of the fight - depicting Chrollo's sequence of abilities. Togashi also has an amazing commitment to his ideas - he looks at the nen powers and really takes them to their logical extreme - how would two nen users battle things out, how would this power affect the user, in Kurapika's case, he creates amazing tension with the use of EMperor Time - it must be seen to be believed - the succession arc ramps up nicely and it great to see Kurapika in action. The Phantom troupe is in deep shit . This is also a book where the story gets a lot more dense - there are several named guards, named consort, named princes and it becomes incredibly difficult to keep track of them all. Togashi manages to give all these people distinctive personalities, motivations and draw them distinctly as well - no wonder he gets burnt out in between the publication of his work! Every review of Togashi's continuing work is proabbly going to be as effusive as this one so please bear with me - it's worth it. And I , for one am willing to let him take as long as he sees fit to chirn out his manga, as long as it is all of this superb quality.
There's a lot going on in these Succession Contest volumes. A lot more wordy and requires you to think a lot more to keep up. I'm already feeling like a reread of this arc after it's finished will do wonders, because I'm very confused. 😅
(No spoilers here, either for earlier arcs or this one)
Man, Hunter x Hunter really dos know when to come back when I most need it, huh? There's a certain amount of liberty you always have to take when talking about something thats still ongoing, as in the case with the Succession Contest arc, this wild political drama that Togashi has thrust HxH's unbelievably versatile literary universe into over the past near decade. New batch of chapters included, we're only around 50 chapters into this expansive narrative, and it only feels like we're wrapping up act one now, and considering the frequency of hiatus, we're going to be invested in the happenings aboard this deadly ship for awhile. Will Togashi finish Hunter x Hunter? I don't know, his health comes first in any case, and I'll move along to whatever beat the man himself is comfortable with. But in any case, this arc is not only shaping up to be Hunter's finest moment, but maybe a peak of manga's narrative heights if this thing manages to reach it's full breadth. Hunter x Hunter is back for now, and Togashi is at the height of his powers already, without a doubt in my mind.
The main thrust of conversation (and criticism) around this arc has been it's overwhelming complexity, it's vast universe of character perspectives and motivations spiderwebbing over each other and the dense walls of text and hyperspecific dissections of every miniscule building block of everything going on which Togashi uses to portray this story. And yeah, it's not easy to read. There is so much working at once, along the lines of so many different points of view and allegiances, that there are times when I was brain fried with info overload, and going back and rereading to trace plot lines is necessary. This isn't a comic you can just breeze through one volume of quickly, you really gotta buckle down and pay attention to get on Togashi's wavelength here.
But oh, when you do. What's really impressive about this, I think, beyond everything else that makes it so visionary, is that Togashi isn't working on a particularly abstract level here. It isn't plotless, like many "confusing" structurally innovative narratives are accused of being, it's -full- of plot, and an unbelievably engaging one. The story itself is linear, just disseminated over a labyrinth of perspectives, each with their own ability, goals, developments and motives, so the difficulty comes more from following every thread at once. It's a political drama and a tournament arc, a vast conspiratorial mystery and a meticulous psychological battle manga, all at once, and all of it ripe with character depth, textural detail and an insane attention to said detail, a twisted mass-scale mind game chess match between a family of bourgeoisie colonizers and passengers (as well as, like, nine other major factions, each with their own respective dozens of named constituents) who are sucked into this political death tournament unwittingly. Like, just as a sell or a hook to a story, you can't get much better than that, right?
But much like the Chimera Ant arc before it, an arc also full of risky and subversive narrative flourishes, Togashi has already went waaaaay beyond just an interesting premise here. The story is SO well written and well conceived. Once you slow down, you suss out all the little details and the subtle and textural characterization, and everything starts to click into place. It just builds and builds and the momentum is fucking palpable, the amount of engagement to these characters, including many never introduced until this arc, is more magnetic with each page, and every damn panel progresses the plot, oftentimes in enormous ways and often without ever feeling like everything is being piled on in grand revelations. The art and paneling is Togashi at his best - of all the discussion the idea that this arc is "under drawn" is just one of the more absolutely absurd criticisms tbh, this is the most creative, grotesquely beautiful, and wild Togashi has ever gotten stylistically (I love the Nen Beasts, every single one). There's so much going for this whole story, and oh my god even if it takes another ten years I cannot wait for this tale to reach it's incredible zenith that's been set up perfectly as the dominoes have been falling one by one.
There was a time when I was a bit down on plot when it came to art, especially books, and I've been known to say sheer story matters less to me than the more intuitive mechanics of writing - character, atmosphere and tone, prose, the works. But between this arc and my favorite maximalist novels, I'm thinking that maybe it's more that I love things that are so elaborately conceived and crafted that trying to summarize the entire scope of events is what ends up incoherent, rather than the text itself being supposedly "confusing". But also, this arc opens itself to a near endless amount of discussion and thorough dissection, the same way many of Togashi's characters operate psychologically here, precisely because of how clearly passionate the man himself is on the obsessive details - he gets you to think as hard as his characters as they do whatever they can to survive and prosper on a doomed vessel in the ocean damned by th's violent carnival tour of the powerful. If anything, Ive accepted now I DO love plot - it just hits the spot for me most when plot is as byzantine, ambitious, and spectacularly detailed as the Succession War.
Like I said, I don't know if Hunter x Hunter will ever be complete. That's not for me to decide, and seeing as Togashi's health and disability comes before his art. But with Togashi's obvious care and committal to this arc, the way he so clearly has the payoff to all this in the bag, I do think this huge and confident thing will see it's end, and I too feel pretty certain saying this is my favorite arc of Hunter x Hunter along with Chimera. I just love all of it - Kurapika's development and underdog status in the war, the guards and Mafia members and Princes who all just ooze personality and verve in so many versatile and often subtle ways, the super detailed nen abilities and seeing what would happen when normal people interact with such things, the increasing pandemonium on the lower floors, it's all so stimulating to my brain in such a satisfying way and the prospect of seeing this eventually boil over and conclude is a reason to survive the 2020s. I'm going to enjoy the new batch of chapters as they come, and not worry about the inevitable break - Togashi has proven beyond a doubt that whenever he comes back, no matter how long a wait, he still knows exactly what he's doing, and a story like this needs its sweet time to unfold after all.
Togashi sets the scene in this Succession War Arc for the next king of Kakin. All aboard the ship to the Dark Continent and with no way out, the 14 princes of Kakin are forced into a political and mystical battle for the crown. This is HxH at its best, a life or death game that its participants must quickly figure out the rules to if they want to stand a chance at survival. The main players, the 14 princes and their guards, the Hunter Association, the Royal Militarya and the Spiders, all with their own loyalties and agendas. Kurapika must navigate this situation while protecting the youngest of the princes. Unknown to anyone with out Nen, the parasitical Nen beasts of the princes engage in invisible combat. Kurapika is forced to let the existence of Nen be known to buy time and have each of the princes scramble to learn of this mystical power. Can Kurapika safely protect his employer while also work towards his own agenda? All the best parts of HxH lead to this dense puzzle that is a pleasure to read, yet sometimes frustrating to keep track of. Endless new faces and the uncertainty of their allegiances make the pressure felt by the characters easily relatable and show off the difficulty keeping track of it all. Arguably Togashi most ambitious arc yet, the levels to this game make each page hold another piece to the puzzle. 9/10 hopefully we will see a conclusion to this War in the future.
Among the characters in Hunter x Hunter, Kurapika is probably my favorite, and I absolutely loved the events that took place in Yorknew City. This particular arc, on the other hand, was quite excruciating to follow. So many characters were introduced in this volume that will probably never show up in later volumes and I sincerely doubt their story matters. A major concern for me was the absence of an interesting villain. In earlier volumes of HxH, we were introduced to compelling characters like Hisoka, Illumi, and the Phantom Troupe, whose rivalries with the protagonists propelled the narrative. However, in The Succession Wars Arc, we encounter numerous unlikable figures who engage in plotting, fighting, and murder, while some key characters are absent, most notably Gon and Killua.
My poor Kurapika. I’m so stressed out, it seems like at every turn the threat of royal spies or the looming danger of the nen beasts, (particularly that of Prince Tserriendnich,) are all closing in and it’s so anxiety inducing!
Emperor Time is confusing. If more than 12 hours has passed… that’s an insane chunk of Kurapika lifespan?!? And it’s still continuing?!? Is this until Queen Oito is done with the borrowed nen ability? I’m a little lost…
I know we're on a boat shaped like a whale, but let's pick up the pace.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure got to the point where a character literally could not walk down a hallway without engaging in a two-episode battle. Brutal pacing. This arc feels like we're headed that way.
After a full volume with approximately zero side plots, we're on day two of a two-month excursion. Meanwhile, Kurapika's handing out Nen abilities like Tic Tacs. At least a prince finally fell to move the plot along.
Also, so many new characters, lawd o' mytee. None of whom were the 30+ characters we met last volume.
Very interesting. The war of succession gets interesting. Sadly, I would like to see more of Gon and Killua or even Leorio. But, I am very very happy to see more of Kurapika, he is my favourite character. I miss the dynamic of Killua and Gon.
ok Im loving the succession arc and kurapika is totally winning me over. As I've mentioned before I just love keeping track of all the schemes and loyalties and politics, just a ton of fun.