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Out of the shonen on Toonami that nobody watches...


Zenigundam

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(Talking about Hunter x Hunter, Naruto, and One Piece really)

 

...I think One Piece is the easiest one to get into. I'm thinking about watching it online from the beginning of the Funi dub. Shippuden and Hunter x Hunter don't seem worthwhile. I only watched the first fifteen or so episodes of HxH and it sucks. People say it gets better in later arcs, but a good anime doesn't take sixty episodes to be enjoyable. Shippuden is a lot like HxH with characters spending entire episodes explaining something instead of getting along with the action and plot.

 

 

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Do you really think that a show with 776+ eps, that adapts a single manga chapter per episode now, has a number of different filler arcs and budget animation up the wazoo is easier to get into over the other two shows? Notice that I didn't mention the actual quality of the series just the barriers for the average watchers.

 

I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, but c'mon, at that point just read the manga if you want to experience the story. But early One Piece (where ever Enies Lobby ends) is definitely worth watching and hits all the right notes if you're looking for a good shonen even if it had most of the mentioned problems which makes it nearly unwatchable today.

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At some point, you'll probably have watched so many episodes of a shonen that you'll feel fatigued by it. That's me with One Piece right now. It's aired close to 150 episodes since I started watching the meat of Toonami. I know it's apparently good right now, but I just can't be assed enough to watch it because it just feels like a slog, especially with the slow pace of the latter half of Thriller Bark.

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Do you really think that a show with 776+ eps, that adapts a single manga chapter per episode now, has a number of different filler arcs and budget animation up the wazoo is easier to get into over the other two shows? Notice that I didn't mention the actual quality of the series just the barriers for the average watchers.

 

To be fair Naruto has the same issues, only with FAR weaker source material.

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The HxH anime is kinda iffy in some respects.  The first 2 atcs are leaps and bounds better in the old school 1999 version. 2011 feels like they were saving it for the post-Heaven's Arena arcs. Like, I'd argue '99 is immediately genuinely good, but makes some strange missteps in later arcs (namely Heaven's Arena and Greed Island).

 

But between the listed shows, HxH is easily the best, even with the failings of early arcs in this version.

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The HxH anime is kinda iffy in some respects.  The first 2 atcs are leaps and bounds better in the old school 1999 version. 2011 feels like they were saving it for the post-Heaven's Arena arcs. Like, I'd argue '99 is immediately genuinely good, but makes some strange mussteps in later arcs (namely Heaven's Arena and Greed Island).

I'd  agree with this.  The Hunter Exam in particular felt a lot more compelling in the 1999 version, and the bits of filler content that were added did a lot for fleshing out the characters.  I've wound up feeling very similarly about this series as I did Brotherhood vs. the original FMA anime: the later adaptations breeze through the early material too quickly and take some time to find their legs, but they  definitely become worthwhile after that.

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I'd  agree with this.  The Hunter Exam in particular felt a lot more compelling in the 1999 version, and the bits of filler content that were added did a lot for fleshing out the characters.  I've wound up feeling very similarly about this series as I did Brotherhood vs. the original FMA anime: the later adaptations breeze through the early material too quickly and take some time to find their legs, but they  definitely become worthwhile after that.

I'd say '99 holds up most of the way through Heaven's Arena, too. They minimally handled the censorship creatively (albeit.... choppily). Even HA felt like it had better character growth in the old version, to the point where most of my hesitation toward that version comes from switching the order of the last 2 fights, which makes the end putter. Could've done fine had they simply omitted the rematch, imo.

 

Yorknew is great in both versions and it's a shame people would miss it by writing off the 2011's start. Almost like a completely different show.

 

The FMA:B comparison is fair. One I've made as well.

 

But yeah, Hunter Exam was surprisingly good in the first adaption. Some of the filler was absolutely how it should be done, especially with the section where Gon has to get by through several days of paralysis.

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Have fun slogging through literally HUNDREDS of episodes at a glacial pace! wink

 

One Piece is fine to watch if watched in spurts.  Yes, the pacing per episode is still terrible, but it's much better when you watch 4 or 5 episodes a day as opposed to, say, 1 episode per week.  Back in August I watched from the point One Piece was at on Toonami at the time all the way through to the episode that aired last week (I think).  I got fatigued, yes, but I also effectively took a six month break from it before I started up again. 

 

So, in short, the pacing is terrible, but there are ways around that.

 

So because of that HxH is more watchable for me.  I can actually sit and watch an episode a week, instead of feeling like I watched 15 minutes of recap and 5 minutes of content.

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It's ironic that HxHs anime is preferred, because manga wise, HxH is terrible. Lmao.

 

The art is often mediocre, and thats even if its being released.

 

And, in all honestly, it will never finish, which is a big blow against it.

 

For as much fun as we poke fun at OP never finishing.... giving current story developments with the manga, the ending might actually be nearer than we thought.

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In other words, Hunter x Hunter is mediocre and forgettable.

 

Mediocre is being generous. The last episode was about buying a video game. There was that episode about opening a door. There was that episode where they spent half the episode on the phone. Then there was that recap episode. I remember a fight with a guy dressed like a Snifit.... and a fight with a guy in a wheelchair that had ... electric eels... or something?

 

The stuff this show thinks will interest people just isn't interesting. I never thought I'd see a Shonen on Toonami that has zero memorable fights.

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Mediocre is being generous. The last episode was about buying a video game. There was that episode about opening a door. There was that episode where they spent half the episode on the phone. Then there was that recap episode. I remember a fight with a guy dressed like a Snifit.... and a fight with a guy in a wheelchair that had ... electric eels... or something?

 

The stuff this show thinks will interest people just isn't interesting. I never thought I'd see a Shonen on Toonami that has zero memorable fights.

 

 

Hahahaha I haven't watched an episode in about two months, and the only battle I vaguely remember was the one with the time limit against the guy who made the glasses guy tell if he was lying or not. I can't even remember who won that "battle", so the battles are, indeed, woefully forgettable.

 

Hunter x Hunter feels totally out of place on Toonami. I would expect it to be an early Saturday morning cartoon or something off of the Disney Channel. 

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Hahahaha I haven't watched an episode in about two months, and the only battle I vaguely remember was the one with the time limit against the guy who made the glasses guy tell if he was lying or not. I can't even remember who won that "battle", so the battles are, indeed, woefully forgettable.

 

Hunter x Hunter feels totally out of place on Toonami. I would expect it to be an early Saturday morning cartoon or something off of the Disney Channel.

 

Lmao HxH gets darker than any of the shonen currently on the block. Saturday mornings would not work.

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Lmao HxH gets darker than any of the shonen currently on the block. Saturday mornings would not work.

 

That's the other thing, the tone is just so.... inconsistent.  One minute they're two kids buying a video game, next minute Killua is ripping a guys heart out or ambushing a fellow hunter test taker from behind and murdering him in an unprovoked attack.

 

And nothing explains why Gon the young happy go lucky kid is ok with seeing all this death at such a young age, or why he doesn't have second thoughts about being best buddies with a mass murdering assassin.

 

I mean, the show goes out of its way to tell us how special Gon is at every opportunity, but apparently this includes the ability to be unphased by seeing massive amounts of death at a young age.

 

So on top of being boring and mediocre at its very best.... the storytelling is just bad.

 

How is it they all live in this wacky world where everyone can murder everyone without any repercussions? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but the author never even tries to explain.

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Hahahaha I haven't watched an episode in about two months, and the only battle I vaguely remember was the one with the time limit against the guy who made the glasses guy tell if he was lying or not. I can't even remember who won that "battle", so the battles are, indeed, woefully forgettable.

 

Hunter x Hunter feels totally out of place on Toonami. I would expect it to be an early Saturday morning cartoon or something off of the Disney Channel.

Stay tuned for more Hunter x Huner, only on Disney

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And nothing explains why Gon the young happy go lucky kid is ok with seeing all this death at such a young age, or why he doesn't have second thoughts about being best buddies with a mass murdering assassin.

 

I mean, the show goes out of its way to tell us how special Gon is at every opportunity, but apparently this includes the ability to be unphased by seeing massive amounts of death at a young age.

...because he spent the majority of his childhood running around in the wild dealing with wild animals and thus implicitly understands the principle of kill-or-be-killed?  Seriously, this takes about five seconds of thought.

 

How is it they all live in this wacky world where everyone can murder everyone without any repercussions? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but the author never even tries to explain.

Because clearly every fictional universe abides by the same ethical standards as our own, right?  Combat to the death is a ridiculously common trope.  And just where have we seen "everyone murdering everyone"?  The vast majority of the people in the HxH universe live perfectly normal, mundane lives.  The people we've spent time with throughout the course of the series thus far represent what could euphemistically be described as its fringe: mercenaries, trained warriors, assassins.  Last time I checked, those types tend to do a great deal of killing and dying in the real world too.

 

Like, if you're going to troll, at least be mildly entertaining.  This shit is just boring to debunk.

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Top Gun, that was probably the worst defense of this show that I've ever heard.

 

He spent a lot of time in the wild running around, therefor he is naturally unphased by massive amounts of humans dying in a variety of brutal ways? That's what you're going with?

 

He lived in a house with his Aunt. He wasn't raised by wolves. I've seen nothing in Gon's childhood that leads me to believe he was living a life where he could possibly become numb to human death by the age of 12 or whatever he is. 

 

IRL soldiers trained to kill often end up with PTSD due to traumatic battlefield experiences.

 

But Gon? Water off a Ducks back. Guy gets his heart ripped out? Meh no biggie. I'm 12 after all.

 

Yes, so apparently just taking the Hunter exam gives you a licence to kill whoever you want whenever you want. Seems reasonable. Why are we giving these insanely powerful licences to mass murderers again? Did they explain that part?

 

If you want to establish a world where constant death makes sense and people don't even bat an eye at it.....  you have to actually give some information about the world. On a show like the Walking Dead, it's a zombie apocalypse so the main characters are expected to be hardened to people dying, due to the fact that they've seen it happen so many times. And yet when someone dies they still show more reaction than any of the characters on HxH.

 

By the casual reactions people have to the deaths of others in HxH, I'd assume they were living during an apocalypse of some sort, or in some kind of horrible dystopia. But it seems like a fairly normal world, with cities, functioning governments, police... and everything else.

 

The only way the world even makes the slightest sense at this point, would be if the Hunter org was actually running whatever country the story  currently takes place in, and had the power to do whatever they wanted. And that still wouldn't explain the casualness everyone in HxH has about death.

 

Don't get me wrong, you can create a believable world where the characters act the way they do in HxH, but the Author hasn't even come close to doing that. Long story short, it's bad writing that you fans of HxH have chosen to overlook for some reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Not to mention, murder is still not legal. The show later makes a big deal out of Gon coping with his moral compass. He's shown to get upset when innocent people are killed in cold blood, from his interactions with the Phantom Troupe to fighting the villain of Greed Island to his conflict with Pitou. But Gon isn't supposed to be morally superior like most shonen protags and they make a point out  it. When Gon is unphased by death, it's because he doesn’t really have a perception of right and wrong beyond a somewhat off-center approach. Characters like Kurapika and Leorio have clearer moral grounding, and were visibly more disturbed by the heart thing, but in the end, Killua killed a serial killer that would've mutilated him without hesitation had he not murdered him (because it was literally death match).

 

The Hunter Association is presumed a part of the government, given they are shown to have very far governmental reach. It's shown repeatedly, including within the Hunter Exam, that most people don't agree with how Netero operates without any real ethical conduct, and at the same time, it's not like they can really stop him. Even if they tried, Netero is crazy powerful and not especially concerned with keeping his hands clean.

 

And lol at the "license to kill means they can kill anyone" thing. That's still not what a license to kill actually means. There's a literal part of the show where they send a group of Hunters after another Hunter for killing civilians.

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You need to learn to quit applying real world logic to shonen anime. It's painfully clear that you're having a bad time.

 

Creating a work of fiction doesn't mean you should have characters in your work of fiction act in incredibly illogical ways. It's off putting and completely ruins the ability of the reader/watcher to enjoy it. I honestly can't think of any other anime or work of fiction where the attitude towards death is this cavalier.

 

Even anime like AOT.. characters generally display an appropriate reaction towards the deaths of their comrades. And this is a show where all their friends are constantly dying.

 

I don't buy the "hey it's shonen, it's ok for everything to be an illogical asspull" argument. If you want to set up a world where the characters act like this, then you have to actually do the world building to create it. But in this case there isn't a reason. The author just forgot to include appropriate reactions and moved on.

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You're totally wrong though. DBZ is the COMPLETE opposite of what it should be. They SHOULD be cavalier about death because they have the ultimate do over button and death is meaningless.

 

When Goku dies vs Raditz... its all emotional even though they literally tell him as he's dying they'll bring him back with the balls.

 

Krillin dies? Goku goes Super Saiyan he's so angry.

 

Goku dies vs Cell? All emotional again. He decides not to come back with the dballs. But then comes back years later while still dead to fight in the tourney in Buu Saga. You don't even need the balls you can come visit while still dead.

 

 

 

 

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I've learned that the concept of death and all it's ideals is something shonen series often struggle with.

 

HxH is too nonchalant about death.

 

One Piece and Fairy Tail hardly contain deaths, and many fake outs, lessening tension.

 

(Although OP does contain one of the most surprising deaths in shonen anime that impacted many things)

 

AoT has deaths, but mostly for shock value and usually uses characters you don't give a shit about.

 

Death literally doesn't matter in Dragonball.

 

Etc etc.

 

Ironically, one of the only things I can give Naruto credit for is it isn't shy about killing beloved characters. One thing it did right, at least.

 

 

 

 

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Yorknew, Greed Island, and Chimera Ant didn't exactly treat death nonchalantly.

 

It's more nihilistic than nonchalant and early on that can come off poorly due to some questionable presentation.

 

I really do think watching the Exams in '99 and eventually switching to '11 is the best way to view it. I showed a friend it as '99 until Heavens Arena, but it may have been better to wait until Yorknew for the switch. But then again, both Yorknews are excellent so both are worth watching for their own merits (they're not as identical as people made them out, least not to me). Of course, no network would rven consider doing that.

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There's nothing to contribute since these conversations go around in circles and it ends with the same thing, a lot of ill will and bad ratings.  Hiatus isn't even fun to rag on like OP is.  I'd rather the show left the network and never bothered anyone again but barring that airing at 2:30-3 would be just fine.  No amount of pseudo-intellectual posturing is going to convince anyone this show is must see TV.

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Yorknew, Greed Island, and Chimera Ant didn't exactly treat death nonchalantly.

 

It's more nihilistic than nonchalant and early on that can come off poorly due to some questionable presentation.

 

I really do think watching the Exams in '99 and eventually switching to '11 is the best way to view it. I showed a friend it as '99 until Heavens Arena, but it may have been better to wait until Yorknew for the switch. But then again, both Yorknews are excellent so both are worth watching for their own merits (they're not as identical as people made them out, least not to me). Of course, no network would rven consider doing that.

 

Eh, I dunno. I feel like the differences in the adaptions would be jarring to just jump one to the other.

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There's nothing to contribute since these conversations go around in circles and it ends with the same thing, a lot of ill will and bad ratings.  Hiatus isn't even fun to rag on like OP is.  I'd rather the show left the network and never bothered anyone again but barring that airing at 2:30-3 would be just fine.  No amount of pseudo-intellectual posturing is going to convince anyone this show is must see TV.

 

I enjoy railing on HxH. It's fans seem to think it's some sort of brilliant subversion of the Shonen genre instead of a poorly written and paced Shonen by an author who burnt out years ago and only returns to churn out a few more chapters when his funds are running low. And no it's not because of his back.

 

And you get insane logic defying justifications for the shaky plot points, like Top guns "Well his house is out in the wilderness so obviously that's why a 12 year old is  unphased by the massive body count and seeing hearts ripped out of chests."

 

It's good stuff. Look how much action this thread has gotten! A OP thread wouldn't have gone this far.

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One being cel-shaded and sporting a shitty dub while the other...not.

 

The only time I'd ever advise such a jump is between FMA episode 25 and Brotherhood episode 11.

 

Not to mention the designs are pretty different...

 

Gon and Killua

 

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Hisoka

 

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Leorio

 

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Fair enough. I'm in the minority on preferring a big chunk of '99 over 2011, anyway. To the point where on most arcs, beside Exams ('99 does better) and Greed Island (liked 2011 more), I can't really pick between the better version, since they're both good in different ways.

 

At minimum, though, I would recommend giving the first episode of '99 a shot. It's an important part of Gon's motivation to go on the journey in the first place that got totally omitted from 2011 for some weird reason. I suppose it creates some minor continuity issues when it comes back up, but nothing so significant it can't be overlooked to treat the '99 as canon in those regards (like, literally just a couple lines of dialogue that contradict it and a brief scene added to fill in the missing gap). And it's a pretty good episode in its own right. Even gives Mito a bit of depth despite her lack of presence in the larger plot.

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