The Gon being powerful enough to never face consequences is something I hadn't considered as part of why he is the way he is. Because while he is never actually is the strongest in the room no matter where we are in the story, and not just by like 1 or 2 people either, he never acts as though that is the case. Logically he may admit that he isn't stronger than Hisoka, Knuckle, or Kite, but he never adjusts his actions because of it, as if subconsciously he doesn't accept that. He always just goes about thing based on the results at the end, never thinking about what's going on in between, and it always works out... until it finally doesn't.
This also ties back to the Hunter exam and the question on who would you rescue. At that point it was right to not answer and wait it out, but while Gon then was used for the "but what if you had to decide?!?" bit, so far I don't see him having been forced into a situation where that was the case.
His dad seems to understand the sentiment. He tells gon that he should apologize for being weak (i haven't seen the whole vid idk if he talks about this), but at first glance this is bad advice because Gon's mistake wasn't being weak, he couldn't have faced Pitou and rescued Kite like he wanted to, but Ging tells him "you have to promise him to never make the same mistake again" and that Kite thought Gon was strong enough for the mission regardless, as if saying that he should never throw his life away like that, just because both him and Kite survived the encounter
Who knew Meruem, the even younger, stronger, greener, hungrier, Born Better wild child who sits in a pose mirroring Gon wondering if using strength to satisfy impulses might be bad, was implying something.
They also both blow off their birth moms to chase their impulses. Since all the way back in YYH, Togashi's loved pointing out his protags think closer to monsters and should get called out by regular humans.
Neither did Meruem. He never forms a relationship with his mom and instead bonds with others. It doesn't make a difference- the Queen Ant was an inhuman xenomorph everyone needed dead, but just the fact that she cared about Meruem made his disregard for her inhuman. We don't know what Gon's mom thought of him, because he also ignores her entire existence. Meruem doing an impromptu cesarean makes him worse, sure, but he's also the one who learns his actions and ignorance have consequences. Gon might never reach that level of introspection. He just turns off the tape recorder and runs off to go eat.
@@kestral63 Gon has a mother. It's Mito. He was not obligated to learn about his birth mom. She could've been a deadbeat like ging. She could've been a saint. Gon didn't care because he's a kid and to him, Mito is the one he cares about. Gon still has the rest of his life to introspect. Meruems life started in CA and ended in CA and it was only natural for a hyper intelligent being who must now face death to realize his mistakes. Meruem learns of his mom's unconditional love when his soldiers were in the fire sacrificing their body for him due to loyalty and love. Context is key. Finally, for all we know the Queen could've loved her son far more than Gon's birth mother.
With the comparison between strength and humanity, i think its sweet how Leorio is shown to be the most compassionate and kind person out of Gon's friends. He's also the only one who developed a Nen ability with the idea of saving other people's lives with it. Despite being the weakest of the 4, he was able to live the happiest life so far. I haven't read the manga yet so i dont know how that develops later though
@@Disir-Elizbt As shown by Ging, his power is best in enclosed spaces... like the entirety of the ship he's in right now. He's gonna be so goated by the time he gets to do anything lol
The reason Gon was able to ace the Greed Island test was because nobody else in the game played the game as intended. Everyone except Gon (and Biscuit, I guess) either left the game at some point (including Killua), took a shortcut to get the cards (the bombers/resistance) or didnt last until the end. So between him and Biscuit, one of them was bound to be the one to ace the test. I suspect since the game had Ging's grubby fingerprints all over it, Gon paid particular attention to everything, but that's just speculation on my part.
Well that and he was incredibly lucky. He could have gotten taken out by Genthru like the rest of the people, or by a random monster he wasn't prepared to take on. Bisky even makes note of Gon and Killua's prodigious talent on more than one occasion (stating that Killua could manipulate Nen in a way she wasn't able to till she was over twice his age). Even if others tried playing as Gon and Killua did did they wouldn't have been enabled in the same way because they weren't born with unnatural talent.
@@ajregalia1334 Others wouldnt progress at the same rate as Gon and Killua but if you play the game as intended, you will still grow stronger than you are
@@aceclover758 You forget that the only reason Bisky trained Gon and Killua is that, as Wing put it, they are one in a billion talents. Their growth is so unnatural that to any experienced nen user it's actually terrifying. They pick up concepts that take most others years to learn in hours. Most people trying to play the game normally also likely got in before Tzeuguerra starting vetting them as ruthlessly as he did so they already weren't as skilled as they actually needed to be. Many probably tried playing normally and found themselves totally out of their depth struggling to get D rank cards and even surviving the weaker monsters. And with no way to then get out of the game (recall that getting people stuck in the game out was how Gon and Killua got a lot of rare cards) they had to play for survival.
I'd thought of Gon as an impulsive simple minded animal that pretty much lumps people into "benefits me" "doesn't benefit me" But for some reason I never made the connection that spending his formative years as a super human is probably what made him that way
No what made him that way is that… HES….A….KID…. Go up to any 12 year old RIGHT NOW. And tell me they won’t for the most part define life as “benefits me and those I love Vs Doesn’t benefit me and those I love” TOGASHI WROTE HIM LIKE AN ACTUAL CHILD… but with the caveat of this child being as strong as or stronger than 70-80% of the world. He’s not the way he is because of his strength… he’s the way he is because he’s never experienced actual life and knows nothing about the world… so he basis most things on “good for me & friends” vs “bad for me and friends” gusss what…. Just like a child would think. You guys really gotta re watch the show, but this time plug in your brain please
@@jpnoir4807 The reason the events of the Chimera arc didn't affect Killua so hard is because Killua already went to hell and back in life. When it comes to the darkest life can be. Killua already experienced punishment normal people would never feel in their entire life. Gon is not only a kid. He's a kid that grew up his entire life in a small island, with little to no connection to the rest of the world suddenly thrown in a world he couldn't imagine. At some point he was going to break.
Although he is naive and impulsive which leads to him being selfish at times, he is not entirely selfish. From the very beginning he is shown to be compassionate. On the ship in the first arc he was the only one trying to help the others on the boat who got sick. He likewise assisted a worker who was going to die during a storm and even helped him before the storm. Not of those charitable acts were motivated by seeing it as benefiting himself. In that sense, I think it is a little simplistic to say that he only acts on impulse or only wishes to have power for selfish purposes - since even in the earliest episodes he was considered strong yet helping the weak. He was also the one that wanted all four people in the group to pass with no reason other than that they had gotten so far together as friends. He risked his own life to get snake venom only to help a friend. Yes that was impulsive, but not always for selfish reasons. He also cared about Killua simply for not wanting to see him manipulated by his brother, and went through great lengths to rescue him from his own family. In fact it is because of the people he helped along the way that he was saved when he did temporarily fall into darkness.
You know it was as you were breaking down the fight in Greed Island that it really set in for me "yeah, Gon losing his nen really is the first time he was forced to deal with consequences of his actions."
@@haroldnecmann7040 plague explained it perfectly but basically if you see an animal do something stupid you don’t usually have an emotional reaction because you know that they don’t and can’t know better.
@@Ybereza69 Hm, actually, if you get into it, "nature" is a human concept, and over the last 5 centuries at least there have been thousands of pages written by very bright people about it. Questions like the above are almost never as stupid as they appear at first glance.
@@johannalvarsson9299 I think the stupid part is how the dude asks to explain a quote in the video the quote is from. Like, watch the video, figure it out from the context.
@@johannalvarsson9299it was a stupid unclear question put in a way meant to annoy. Everything you as a human can understand and explain is a human concept doesn't make it smart or kind or right just human so saying nature is a human concept and has been written about means nothing dude what are you even trying to say with this comment don't pretend to understand stuff lol
this show was my, not sure how to phrase it, narrative awakening. i was really bothered that the story was contradicting itself because gon wouldnt flip his shit like this with the catgirl because hes a good hearted person but i tried to look at things from other perspective until it clicked. its not that story is contradicting itself, its that gon IS a hypocrite. i was so used to seeing protagonists being goodie lil too shoes who's only flaws are superficial crap that i couldnt phatom the idea of a geniunly flawed protagonist. suddenly, everything made sense. all the contradictions in the story made sense. thats why the scam artist had that confused expression when gon wanted to team up with him. gon is a fucking kid and hes acting like one
Yu Yu Hakusho did a way better job in writing characters and establishing meaningful relationships. All the main cast are very likeable in their own way, and Botan is best girl ever, especially with that quirky, part English accent the dun actress did, all the English dub cast did a great job. The ant arch in HxH is incredible but YYH wins for me due to a great cast of characters.
@@enoch13th85YYH is just average shonen it does nothing better than togashi superior work H x H. No it did not do a better job at writing characters, it’s literally the average shonen garb. Hxh actually established that the world doesn’t revolve around the MC.
As others have said, Gon's short relationship with Kite makes more sense than you'd think because he was probably quite desperate for a male role model. However, there's two points I haven't seen anyone mention: -First, this was after Kite saved him from getting mauled by a massive fucking bear. Like, yeah, you're not likely to remember any given three hour stretch of time from when you're 11, but that one time you were in a gnarly car wreck that killed three people but you survived probably sticks out in your mind, even if it was only a few seconds. -And second, Gon's age. He hasn't even hit puberty yet. As we get older, time means less and less. We start thinking of time in chunks of weeks or months, with landmarks to designate important points (ie, my next paycheck, my next gig, how many years married, etc.). To a kid, sitting and talking with someone for several hours is, like, actually a big deal.
Third. Just like Ging saved Gon back in whale island... he also did here... And lost an arm for this, then his life. Gon feels responsible for Kite death. I wouldn't say guilt. But he feels he owned Kite a debt he will never be able to pay back. remember how STUBBORN he was in giving Hisoka his number back. How can he repay kite for saving him from pitou? He wanted Kite to live so he could give back to him. wich a very gon thing to do..., But he can't. Kite is dead. Yes, Gon cares about Kite. but there is way more in his rage against Pitou than Kite. its also against himself, for failing Kite.
A positive adult male role model who has enough of a power imbalance over Gon for Gon to respect him. Since Leorio is just another kid, how many father-figure type people does Gon have? ... just Kite?
@@yusukeelricI don’t think it had anything to do with their relationship. Gon has barely ever failed at anything in his life and any time he does he flies off the handle, like not wanting to accept his hunter license just because he didn’t win the way he wanted to, breaking Illumi’s arm when not listening to him, or sacrificing his hand and windpipe just to land a hit on Genthru etc. He basically looses control any time something doesn’t go his way. Leaving Kite behind was a failing on his part he couldn’t accept and coped himself into insanity thinking he could fix it because of course he can, he is Gon after all, nothing ever remains unresolved for him. So when Pitou revealed to him that his mistake of leaving Kite to die (even tho he would be no help at all) is unfixable he flies into an absolute rage at the person he holds responsible for causing it all, Pitou and himself, causing him to self destruct in a blazing murder suicide attempt he barely gets out of. Then he gets healed and literally doesn’t care about Kite ever again, because he never actually cared
Uhh, Gon catching the big fish, the king of the lake, isn't (just) because he's so strong. The literal first panels we see of him is him sitting still as a statue, a dead look in his eyes, covered by leaves and surrounded by animals. The implication is that he's so focused and in tune with nature, that he's been sitting perfectly still for hours, to the point that neither the animals nor the fish notice him.
@@grqfes It's implied several times, his life in the wild gave him a natural state of zetsu, That's how he stole Hisoka Emblem without even knowing Nen.
I love to talk about Nen and wanna invite everyone to discuss it more. Im really not picky at all with the topic but may i suggest everyone give me feedback on some thoughts i had? Here we go: What about a catalyst-ability whose sole purpose it to be Useless and even HIGHLY Restrictive and then multiple more Abilities that all have the teeny tiny Restriction 'Can only be used while the useless Ability is active'. I can think of countles ways how this will not work but a few where it would actually work: You just gotta have 3+ Ability-Slots and the Useles Ability should be Mono-Type but more importantly have Restricttons that 'act on you' as long as its activated or even outright all-the-time. Kurapika, i think, gave me the idea cause i wondered if Emperors Time extreme Cost only helps Emperor Time or them all - and f this is exploitabe! Heres the kicker: Dowsing-Chain is pure Conjuration but its direclty stated to get a (Slight) Boost when Kurapika is in Emperor Time, so all you gotta ask is where this comes from. Cause its a slight improvement, it cant be all of Emperor Time's Life-Burning, so the only logical conclusion is some 'left-over' gets to Kurapikas other Hatsu. Guy's, its not rocket-science, all you gotta remember is he decreased his Efficiency to 80% and then up to 100% and all that's on you is remember ""Hey, wait, isnt that how he started as?" So what i say is throwing Money into a Campfire can be of Benefit for moe Abilities than actually have the Activation-Requirement 'Burn Money'' IF you pul it off
I always felt that Nen itself is a physical manifestation of 'nature'. It amplifies the person's strengths, but more important than anything else, it amplifies their weaknesses. This is the first time I saw a video that gave me a similar take. Loved every second of it.
Makes sense, if your getting a power directly based off your personality (basically) it fundamentally becomes limited, and not just by the power rules. Its harder to change yourself if you’re fundamentally being rewarded for acting a certain way, especially if you sort of can’t. So you say…. A ENEMY STAND USER?! Had to my bad.
@@sevenclovers7 For a lot of characters, that's actually their downfall. Remember that guy with the clone that Hisoka clowned on? His own flaws as a person were physically reflected in his nen abilities. Shortsighted, arrogant, overconfident, secretly afraid of failure, all of his flaws as a person came out in his technique, a move that was basically all bark and no bite once you figured out how it worked and more importantly how _he_ worked. This is also shown in the nen chart, and I think it was Wing that explained that certain personality types couldn't accomplish anything nen-wise with categories that were considered their opposites (and opposite their nature as people).
I think that's just a natural set point for people. Killua starts to feel more human and seems to be driven almost entirely by good sentiments by the end of HxH where as Gon is more focused on growning than anything else.
I am totally agreeing with you on the "nature is so beautiful, humanity is a cancer"-stance. People really do seem to ignore the living hell nightmare realm that's the insect world.
Indeed, nature isn't beautiful because it's somehow more pure and better than humanity. It's beautiful in its totality, all the cruel and horrifying parts included. Same goes for humanity, just because those cruel and horrifying traits exist in us doesn't mean it is any less beautiful.
His whole talk about how Gon is pure of heart in the way a Wolf is Pure of Heart actually reminded me of of something Issac Asimov pointed out once. That evil only exists in those that can perceive it. A Tiger is not evil for killing and eating someone but a Human would be evil if they did that same thing. A Tiger who kills is following its nature and Human who kills does it knowing all the taboos that action breaks. Nature is cruel but it’s not evil because it doesn’t know what evil is.
Nothing in nature comes close to humans in terms of pure cruelty and malice. We are literally destroying the environment, wiping countless species off the face of the earth all to acquire colored paper which has no real value.
@@Jontman42 Nobody ever sees a wolf ripping flesh from a calf and calls that "beautiful." No one sane, anyway. Trees, sunsets, waterfalls, stellar gas clouds, those are the things that get called "beautiful." Saying that nature is beautiful in totality, if we're being honest, is overselling things. Beauty exists *in spite* of the "cruel and horrifying" parts, not including them.
27:10 I for some reason never thought of it that way but yeah, Gon does take advantage of Killua’s emotional dependency on him to make him do a bunch of fucked up shit that serves Killua basically no benefit, and the end of Killua’s character arc is him moving on from Gon
It’s powerful when u think about it. Bro literally based the rest of his life on being gons fanboy. The character progression was crazy when he left him for alluka. He really just wants to be a protector overall.
@@SupremePapi_OLyes they will obviously reunite back in some way but this wasn't my point the way y'all described their Friendship i fully disagree with Friendship? Idealisation? Obsessiveness? a fanboy?? Do you mean the author just want to tell us how you can worship your best friend to the extent you develop a toxic friendship, sticking to him and think he's like some deity of light, and once you found he could actually be a jerk sometimes you suddenly don't want to cling to him anymore, but neither mature much either and.... simply switch from being clingy to your best friend to sticking with your sister? Well, what an impressive character arc! There were subtle implications all over the place in Togashi's work and the fact that this is a ROMANTIC attraction in chapter 286 in the manga killua wanted to commit shinjuu AL (shinjuu) is a specific kind of suicide pact, or 'double suicide'. It's made up of two characters that mean "heart/soul" and "through/center". Especially in Japanese literature, it is typically used to refer to people who commit suicide out of love.
I still maintain that Hisoka's easily the most evil character in the Hunter X Hunter. A psycho-sexual-sadist, who's guiding purpose is maximum hedonism. Only reason he don't kill people outright is because the man likes edging. He has no true ally's since he actively plans to murder them all for that NUT. No line is to far for him; he don't even see the line...He's my second favorite character behind Leorio.
That’s because Hisoka is a possible future Gon he’s the strongest there is and his bored. So in order to get any kind of meaning in life he lust for violence and seeks out the strong. A wall he can’t easily break down just turns him on, because it’s something he’s not used to dealing with. It like the old saying it’s lonely at the top, and there’s nobody more lonely than Hisoka
People don't understand Netero's punch scene. He wasn't doing it to become stronger or perfect himself, he had already reached the highest level of perfection in body and soul that he could think of, so the only answer he could come up with to "do something" was to express gratitude to martial arts and those years of penance granted him his ability. It's based on mythological stories form various eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism where a character undergoes severe penance on mountains for 100s of years and eventually Gods (here Boddhisattva) pleased by their sacrifice blesses them with a boon. And for those people who want to know the reason Gon was so angry after Kite's death, he spells it out explicitly in the last 5 minutes of ep 78 (although not canonical there in the manga), while talking with Killua on the blimp. The reason he was so obsessed with healing him. It is a case of a hurt ego for having failed to protect Kite. All in order to prove to Ging, the hunter and cope with his abandonment issues.
30:49 why would I scream when you're right. This is exactly what I love about Gon's arc. He's a self-destructive stubborn bastard that got away with it for too long until he didn't.
Right? Who is watching/reading Hunter and thinking Gon is this super compassionate super justified, super good boy? For me, my brother, and my close friend, it was clear just how much of an overpowered arrogant psychopath he could be when he was about to hop the fence of the Zoltik's estate to go and get Killua despite being told repeatedly that he'd get eaten alive, cause a ton of problems, and all his friends would be devastated. Watching his ego spiral more and more out of control until he finally loses was incredible.
It saddens me a bit how much people don’t appreciate that about Gon. Also how much of Greed Island is really one last chance to show just how messed up Gon’s thought process is before the Chimera Ant arc
@@psycholuigiman If Gon was anything like your description he would be exactly like Hisoka and that's not interesting, he still had a positive impact on others even far gone people like the Phantom Troupe, so he has positive traits due to his upbringing but that internal craziness always being on the edge with him makes it interesting you never really guess which path he chooses until the consequences actually catches up to him.
@@islandboy9381 I dunno. Gon's desires kinda just line up with good morals accidentally when they do appear to be good. I feel like you've read something extra into my view, cuz it's not like I think Gon has zero positive traits. It's just that the more you watch him, the more you realize it's all about what he wants. He wants something, he'll try and get it, even at great peril to himself, his friends, and even if it means leaving his family behind without anything. It takes an absolutely unreasonable amount of persuasion to convince him to at least try a different approach, and most of the time you just can't convince him, because then he wouldn't be doing exactly what he wants. He's a child, and children are freaking psychopathic sometimes when they do stuff like take great pleasure in overpowering the weak, put others at risk for their own goals, and put themselves in a huge risk for extremely minor and unimportant goals,.And, you know, they're just kids. They don't know better. Part of the fun of watching kids grow up is watching them learn how not to be crazy. That's a big part of what was fun about Hunter x Hunter to me. Watching Gon and Killua grow up, and Gon was looooong overdue for the hard lessons he learned in the Chimera Ant arc. That's all I'm saying.
Really agree with most of your points, but I still feel like you are underplaying Gon's relationship with Kite and the narrative importance of showing it earlier in the story, before Gon became a Hunter. If a fatherless child was saved from death by a Firefighter and then got to spend a few hours with them for a single afternoon, that alone would probably still color how the child would view Firefighters for the rest of their lives. And in Gon's case, Kite is more important than that, since he was also the person who told Gon the truth about his dad, and more than likely also painted how Gon would have imagined Ging to be like and what being a Hunter is like. Since there are so few Hunters out there Gon probably never met any other before the Hunter Exam years later. And that basicaly means there is NO WAY Gon isn't thinking about Kite whenever he says that he wants to become a Hunter because Kite would have become his definition of what a Hunter is like. And by not making Kite the first Hunter we meet, or at least one of the first, the 2011 anime deprives that experience from the watcher. If you read the manga first, you DO constantly think of "Gon wants to be like Kite" during the Hunter Exam because he is your only real sample for 5 chapters. If you start watching the anime, you already know over 20 Hunters by the time Kite is introduced, and that greatly diminishes his impact and your connection with Gon.
You know how netero is considered a monster ever since he came down from the mountain tops? Gon already went through that before the series started. He spent his 10 years on the mountain since a child. And ging did the same thing before him. I only just made this connection after rewatching ep 111.
Thing is, most shonen protagonists are fucked up in the head one way or another. HxH is just one of the few instances in which this element gets explored to the point of becoming a central plot point instead of getting ignored or brushed aside each time the new big bad becomes the more urgent issue.
Gon always had a problem conceptualizing good and evil correctly. He outright asked Chrollo why he did horrible things because Gon doesn't understand evil. This is further emphasized by the fact he was able to ignore that his best friend was previously an assassin and likely killed innocents. Gon never thought about that; he couldn't. Killua was 'good' in his mind, and that was all. So when faced with an adversary he has already deemed to be absolute evil, (someone he has decided to kill) but sees them in the process of saving someone else, while being told to allow them to do so for the 'greater good'.. his simple mind broke. It couldn't do anything else, because he is incapable of seeing the shades of gray that make up the world. This was even alluded to earlier in the series with how upset he got when arm wrestling Nobunaga. That was my take away.
@@samditto I've only heard his opinion on this once during an art stream he uploaded here, and I recall him focusing on Kite and how weird it was that Gon "got that angry over someone he hardly knew". I don't know if his opinion has changed since that, but I don't believe Kite was the reason. Kite just happened to be the fuse that highlighted a major problem with Gon that would have inevitably revealed itself in some other way over time.
@@picsl8ed867This a Problem with the Madhouse anime adaption. In both the manga and the old anime Kite shows up early. He saves a younger Gon from a bear(or a monster I don’t remember ) and he’s the one tells him his father is a hunter, so he’s the reason Gon becomes a hunter at all
@@lalilali3750 Gon also raises the cub of the bear to atone for making Kite kill its mother to save him. The cub later grows up and has a cub of its own that Gon and Killua save from poachers and accidentally(?) open its aura nodes while using nen aura to try and heal it and it learns nen as a result but this never comes up again(or at least as far as i've seen. My memory is also a little bit rusty on some minor details around it though
I thought it should have been somewhat obvious that Gon's hysteria in relation to Kite's death was never really about Kite as an individual--although that does play a part. Kite was simply a tangible avatar of Ging, who was still somewhat of an apparition. He was a stepping stone to fulfilling Gon's wild goose chase hyperfixation, his reason to live. Gon's dedication to Ging is so irrational I don't think you could call it anything other than an idealistic/curious hyperfixation, which is absolutely spot-on given his age. It's great child characterization. Gon sees the world through archetypes which interact through predictable and predetermined pathways, simple cause and effect of animal instinct. in a funny way he's almost solipsistic. He very rarely concedes that other humans possess individuality or rational self interest. He's conveniently hypocritical by assigning higher values of consciousness/3 dimensional personalities to people like Killua and Kurapika with whom he has been quite close, but once that sheen of proximity fades its as if he sees other people as bestial flesh puppets. He can ignore this subconscious discrepancy when interacting with neutral and friendly parties, but as soon as one comes into conflict with him he is incapable of squaring his preconceived notions with adult human psychology. The Phantom Troupe, and more importantly Pitou, really are full inversions of his entire psyche.
I don't think that the hysteria is monocausal, yes, what you say is the biggest part of it, but there is also - albeit minor - Kite as a person, self-blame and the fact that Pitou lied to him, which is the first thing he mumbles after the revelation "liar". ALL of that together goes in there.
@@johannalvarsson9299 What did Pitou lie about? The only one I can think of is how long it would take to heal Komugi which I don't see upsetting Gon that much. Gon was too pissed to ever actually explain what he wanted from Pitou so I wouldn't count her not telling him Kite was dead earlier as lying. Also, the first thing he mumbles is "died?" followed by Pitou elaborating, after which Gon just starting dissing himself. The first time he says anything about lying is when he is delusional after seeing Pitou start healing and thinks "oh thank god, that was a lie! she's healing Kite!" and says liar only when he starts exploding. At that point Gon was totally deranged so it's no wonder that claim doesn't hold up.
@@phobics9498 he convinced himself pitou was gonna heal kite after healing her arm, and when seeing her going to attack him he goes "liar", that's what they're talking about
I think its a little unfair to claim that Togashi doesn't realize that Ging's personality is a bad thing. Most of the characters in the setting are shown to dislike Ging precisely because he's a self-centered douchebag.
Yeah, as a fan of Yu Yu Hakusho & OG anime of HxH, he's a good writer who knows what type of character he's making. How others within the creation of the story have their own perspective, the man doesn't spell out things, which is why I had little to no reason to dislike any of his characters of the series I read.
I'd also like to point out that people who personally know of Ging idolize him. Those who have spent a significant amount of time with him only speak the world about him. Then again, Hunters, or just some of the people that Ging personally knows, aren't exactly normal. A normal person from an outside perspective (which is the majority of the Hunter's Association), acknowledge that he's a dipshit. Ging also doesn't sugarcoat his faults and has been honest about himself from the start. He's a self-aware asshole.
@@swordcollectorvalon7997 Nope, he definitely and irrefutably did no such thing. His first video was "Japan Doesn't Like Tien [DBG #1]" in 2017. That launched his career as an expert on anime in the RUclips community.
I remember reading that Gon was supposed to be the opposite of a general Shonen protagonist because togashi needed a reason for a boy with a perfect loving childhood to want to abandon it and go adventure. Normally this would be the "call to action" but Gon's was an intrinsic self fulfilling call. Everything else was a secondary justification for his want to see the world. Because nothing on whale island could challenge him. The way i always saw it was that Gon wants a challenge, but ultimately wants to win. When faced with Kite's death he realized it was actually over, there was no overtime, there was no tie breaker, he lost, and he couldn't handle that, so he cheated. He went to the other teams locker room and massacred them. He didn't care about anything after that, just wanted revenge for someone beating him. The sorest loser in all of anime
How was killing Pitou sore losing? Pitou killed his friend and then tried to kill him so he killed Pitou. Just about as fair as you can get. And im sure most people would do the same.
That stuff about Gon following what Kite said or wanting to be a hunter because of his Dad sounds perfectly reasonable actually. He had no father figure, or male adults to look up to at all, except for the idea of his Dad all the way until he met Kite, who was also a hunter. And there was barely anything to do in his home town so of course he'd make being an adventurer/hunter his goal. Now being capable of it at 11 years old on the other hand is real damn extreme. I don't even remember why he took the test at that age. Was it because that's the minimum age? Because if so, that's crazy fucked up for the organization. Which is perfectly on brand.
As far as i remember, there isn't age restriction for the test at all, and that isn't a problem because a kid who is not as capable as Gon won't even find where exam is to begin with, or will get sea sick immediatly from the boat trip. Also for Gon the age was 11 because that was when he managed to fish the king of the lake or whatever it was called, it was the condition Mito had on him to do the exam.
Yeah, I mostly agree with the essayist's conclusions, but dismissing the interactions that the characters had as kids is where his bias is showing. He seems like the kind of person who was very logical and analytical from an early age and takes for granted how impressionable children can be in a very fickle and irrational way. They will form obsessions and attachments over the most trivial things, especially where role models are concerned. Someone as impulsive and starved for male role models as Gon would definitely form a deep emotional connection with Kite, but not in a way that he would be consciously articulating.
You missed a few things, or probably don't remember them. He became a hunter solely to see why his father left him to be one. Which sounds extremely sad on paper, but Gon saw being a hunter was something so grand that his father left to become it and he was curious. And then, like you said, he found Kite who also was a hunter just like his dad. It's not that he found his home town or island boring or there was nothing for him there, he loves his home. He loves the family he has there. He even brings Killua back there. Again, he left because he was curious about his dad and Kite. His only goal was to find Ging. Which ended up being pretty anticlimactic in the end, imo as Ging ended up being a pretty boring dude
@@jase276I read a similar comment somewhere, years ago, that went something like, "Hunter x Hunter is the story of an infant whose deadbeat father went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. Now ten, he embarks on a dangerous journey into the wider world, intent on discovering just what makes cigarettes so great."
10:48 this actually makes a lot of sense to me. Gon has always been someone who deeply cares about the connections he’s made with people an probably sees no need to learn about his real mom because he already has a “real”mom
Funny how the character who played a big part in breaking Gon's worldview was a cat. An animal well known for torturing and playing with their pray instead of eating them right away
Even then there's nuance because they do that in order to avoid injury by tiring their prey out, since even a slight wound for an animal can get infected and lead to death
Constantly seeing this stupid projection. To torture requires intent to cause suffering. That is not the intent of the cat. As the other commenter pointing out, the intent is to strategically kill their prey.
@@Liliquan It's not projection. Some animals really do engage in torture and even indiscriminate killing due to bloodlust. Heck, dolphins and killer whales have been known to bully animals that aren't even prey sometimes. Why can't cats be the same way?
Zephile was the first to notice Gon’s conception of good and evil. Biscuit commented on Gon too. Gon was too naive for the world. Many said Kurapika would be the one to self destruct but imo, I always saw Gon as the one that would do it.
Even so we the audience should have noticed first as Gon never bat an eye at all the people being killed during the Hunter exam. Bro even just let people fall to their death when he could have saved them, but only saves Leorio.
Their is a line about one of the Allies of Kurapika analysing him and comming to the conclussion that, maybe unbeknown to Kurapika himself, their core isn't just about revenge. Emperors Time is a weapon against the source of his Trauma, but it is not a pure death weapon ether.
In the HxH, I saw Gon as a selfish kid. During Greed Island, especially during the battle with Genthru; it was clear he is insane and will do anything to fulfill his selfish desires, even if it can cost him his life.
Gon and Killua are for sure an example of the loved and the lover. Killua's role in their relationship is to give of himself where as Gon's is to take.
A fun thing to note about Gon is that Togashi's motivation for writing him amounts to showing that "innocent boy" main characters are actual psychopaths.
I love to talk about Nen and wanna invite everyone to discuss it more. Im really not picky at all with the topic but may i suggest everyone give me feedback on some thoughts i had? Here we go: What about a catalyst-ability whose sole purpose it to be Useless and even HIGHLY Restrictive and then multiple more Abilities that all have the teeny tiny Restriction 'Can only be used while the useless Ability is active'. I can think of countles ways how this will not work but a few where it would actually work: You just gotta have 3+ Ability-Slots and the Useles Ability should be Mono-Type but more importantly have Restricttons that 'act on you' as long as its activated or even outright all-the-time. Kurapika, i think, gave me the idea cause i wondered if Emperors Time extreme Cost only helps Emperor Time or them all - and f this is exploitabe! Heres the kicker: Dowsing-Chain is pure Conjuration but its direclty stated to get a (Slight) Boost when Kurapika is in Emperor Time, so all you gotta ask is where this comes from. Cause its a slight improvement, it cant be all of Emperor Time's Life-Burning, so the only logical conclusion is some 'left-over' gets to Kurapikas other Hatsu. Guy's, its not rocket-science, all you gotta remember is he decreased his Efficiency to 80% and then up to 100% and all that's on you is remember ""Hey, wait, isnt that how he started as?" So what i say is throwing Money into a Campfire can be of Benefit for moe Abilities than actually have the Activation-Requirement 'Burn Money'' IF you pul it off
that trait can get obscured if you come into Hunter X Hunter after having read through other shounens, where you're kinda trained to interpret the protag as inherently selfless (especially when they keep receiving praise from the side characters, ala Gon and his three amigos). Even in One Piece, where we can point to many instances of Luffy being selfish ("MEEEAAATT!"), the guy always seems to knock over the worst tyrants and leave everywhere he's visited better for having had him. So, it can be difficult to spy. I think one of the biggest points that might go over readers' heads is how the world does NOT change thanks to Gon. Neither Gon nor Luffy are directly interested in changing the world as much as they are in adventuring and seeing new things, but Luffy leaves a noticeable impact just about everywhere he goes. Gon, though? Idk, the world of Hunter X Hunter never seems to get any less dystopic. That might be because the world is simply far more difficult to change, but it might also be because Gon never tries to change it because the world of Hunters already gave him free reign to pursue his desires. For Luffy, the World Government is a direct threat against the freedom he values for himself and others. Therefore, he constantly challenges the status quo, whereas Gon has never had to.
They explicitly say how selfish he is like 40 times throughout the show lol. Also he was raised like a literal animal. "when netereo came down from the mountains, he had become a monster" Meanwhile gon and ging literally GREW UP ON A MOUNTAIN. Before the series begins, he had already was half way between man and beast.
It is pretty obvious, but it is *also* pretty easy to ignore for a lot of people even when not being disingenuous just because so many perceive Gon as cute and nice and innocent and nothing more than that.. As in real life, it's very difficult for many people to accept heroic or otherwise good characters/people they like as having (notable) flaws that actually negatively impact other characters/people--much less intentionally. So it's easy for people to perceive Gon as "merely" driven the typical shonen protagonist even though Gon is also pretty capricious. The contrast to Luffy is fitting since for all Luffy's selfishness, as already said, he and his crew tend to still help other people intentionally and directly when they can. Gon just...doesn't. Of course, to be fair to Gon, it helps Luffy *a lot* the literal government of the world is one of Luffy's main opponents and the _One Piece_ setting's main villainous forces. While the overall governments of _Hunter x Hunter_ are arguably *even worse* on some levels just from the snippets we see of them, Gon simply...doesn't interact with them, especially since Hunters are largely automatically above them. The closest we ever got to Gin having to interact with a government was with the NGL infiltration that began the Chimera Ant arc and was *always* about those entities rather than the entire nation being a drug-producing factory ruled by tyrants (bordering another country ruled by an even worse tyrant).
“The series paints this as good and wholesome” It definitely doesn’t, Ging is perceived to be an asshole by just about everyone. In fact, he’s so universally disliked that when Leorio punched him everyone applauded and he become a contender for chairman despite in no way being qualified
How others perceive a character doesn't necessarily reflect how the story wants us to. There are narratives where a character is hated by the people around them yet they are framed in a way in which we can sympathise with or find likeable. Hunter X Hunter writes this as quirky rather than a strong criticism against the character. It still encourages us to see him as a knowledgeable adventurer with romanticised ambition.
@@shadowmaydawn I can't believe they wrote a character with flaws and virtues. I'll contact the Emperor of Japan immediately and get him to correct this. I wonder if sometimes the flaws can be more apparent, and other times the virtues can be more apparent. Based on the context of the situation or something. I don't know. CAN a person be a terrible father but a knowledgeable adventurer with romanticized ambition? A multidimensional character that is perceived a variety of different ways by a variety of different people in universe and out of universe? Not after I mail this letter.
@@shadowmaydawnI dont really get your point. There are real people who have done great deeds and are idolised even though they were assholes. That doesent change the things they did were great and inspiring. Why would ging being a asshole suddenly have to make it so togashi has to write him as clearly evil like gyros father who doesent do anything good?? Why does every character have to have their one personality written on their face as a law they completely follow so people dont have to judge them themselves.
@baizuo_6246 But it doesn't overlook their bad behaviour, especially if they are egregious. People will often place greater weight on it when it comes to judging another person. If some great inventor murdered their whole family, you are not going to say: "Think about all the things they have done." I am not saying that Ging needs to be made evil. Rather, I'm saying that this negative characteristic should be presented as a real flaw rather than a funny quirk.
I like to think Gon's story kinda intersects in a way that he becomes what Killua is trying to get away from. For example during their journey Killua becomes more and "human" less emotionless super assassin due to his friendship with Gon and crew. When in contrast Gon slowly loses his mind/innocence as hes exposed to the real world with real consequences this really kicks off during the york new arc and then comes to a head during the chimera ant saga where just being strong doesn't cut it.
Absolutely, and I think that's all 100% completely intentional. Gon's entire arc is all about losing his innocence and realizing the darkness of the world, while Killua's arc is about fighting against his past demons to overcome his family's trauma and learn to open up to people again. The two really do complete eachother and it's just so cool to see a series where the overly optimistic shonen protag archetype both is dangerous as an unrestrained mindset while also being something Killua needs to learn to tap into to learn to be an empathetic functional human being.
I've always liked the idea of purity in the sense of Goku or Gon. It feels like, intentionally or not, it asks questions about what purity really is and whether or not it is a good thing. Innocent things are often the most cruel, because if you don't really have any concept of pain or sorrow. Then how could you possibly feel anything when you inflict it. Its like the fairy children from berserk Tldr: I love how much of a little psycho Gon is
Sadly in Goku's case it is almost purely glorified. Even if not 100% of the time by the writer (Though it is most of the time) it definitely is glorified by the fanbase. Gon is appreciatable a lot more in that facet, but it is written at a level of subtlety where it can be interpreted either way to some extent. Like despite Plauge framing a lot of Gon things as bad, the show, nor the characters, nor the world they live in, especially do. Enough to where I personally feel unsure how much was intended of this overall message. But it sure does make a Lot better sense whollistically explained as Plauge did.
@@JammyJam5588 Difference is Goku has long since grown past his original pure innocence. In fact compared to Gon, he was still more human. Goku understood the idea of compassion and empathy even as a kid, he was just a mountain baby who didn't understand social norms. As he got older his love of fighting blended with his desire to protect people who couldn't fight back. Gon is purely one track, like what Goku could've been if he didn't bump his head or if his drive to fight was so strong he actually couldn't comprehend people outside of that goal. Jokes aside, Goku is pretty well rounded and emotionally stable. Maybe as Gon grows he can go on an arc like Plague mentioned that helps him become a man.
@@JammyJam5588goku has learned more about empathy and good and evil than many of us gives credit for. Gon doesn't seem to learn those things and that's dangerous.
I've always thought of Gon as the son of a dictator. He is so kind and good to everyone...while he has his way, when things don't go his way he will throw a tantrum, heads will roll, people will be sent to the dungeons and ultimately he will have what he wants, so then he can go back to be the shiny precious boy Kite's death was the first big NO he received, something that there was no arguing, no tiptoeing, no getting stronger and coming back later, simply an unfixable situation. And he threw the mother of all tantrums because even his daddy couldn't do anything about it
Only watching the anime up to the Ant arc, I thought Gon's dad was just an even stronger Gon. Strong enough to have not have any "NOs" to the point he doesn't really care when his son was hospitalized.
Gon is probably my favorite topic of HXH, how people understand and perceive him, what they draw from Gon as both a character and person, and what they think of his journey.
Me miserably pointing the 12 gauge at my son when he couldn't do 50kg weighted one arm push ups, run 60 km, push a 4 ton door and reach floor 200 on a fighting arena at 11 years old (Project Gon) :
I really like the note you ended this video on. It really makes hunterxhunter feel like a natural thematic extention of the themes Togashi was exploring in YuYu Hakusho. I always liked that Yusuke's strength didn't come as a result of him just training his muscles good, but rather he grew stronger by getting in touch with his emotions and becoming a more understanding complete person. With that being reflected against Toguro who quite literally tried to get gains so big that he'd never have to feel an emotion again. It feels like HunterxHunter just takes that idea of strength vs humanity even further. Maybe strength isn't always desirable.
> Yusuke's strength didn't come as a result of him just training his muscles good Yes, it came as a result of him being half-demon. I hate the finale of Chapter Black Saga. Togashi was too much of a pussy to give other character a spotlight and instead resurrected Yusuke when he should've died for good.
@@KoylTrane I'm not a fan of Yusuke being part demon either, but at that time he was fully human and his growth in power was directly tied to his emotional maturity. The way the demon gene works is that it's completely dormant until you reach a certain power threshold, so his previous achievements are still attributed to him as a person instead of him just being a demon.
@@KoylTrane I've run into explanations about the writing process for Chapter Black and the Three Kings in the years since. Togashi was done with the story he wanted to tell with Yu Yu Hakusho at the end of the Dark Tournament. Chapter Black is a radical departure from what he was doing in Yu Yu Hakusho up until that point because he was done with the story he had been writing and was ready to move on to something different and to explore different themes. So, Chapter Black and the Three Kings were intended to try exploring some of the themes he goes into in Hunter x Hunter. The plan was to start deconstructing the characters, to have them start making the wrong choices. Yusuke coming back to life as a demon wasn't supposed to be an automatic thing. Originally, it Yusuke was supposed to have a choice in the matter. He could die as a human or come back to life as a demon. And by choosing the later, he fails his test of character by making the same decision that Toguro did. You are right to be upset that Yusuke came back and Kuwabara wasn't allowed to end it. Because choosing to let go, choosing to pass the torch, that was the choice that would have been in line with what Genkai wanted him to learn from Toguro. Yusuke coming back would have been a failure. Likewise, during the Three Kings arc, Hiei was to have gone back to his old ambitions seeking power for its own sake, and Kurama was to have ultimately abandoned the humanity he had come to value. This was not something his editors were comfortable with letting him explore in Yu Yu Hakusho, so the idea of Yusuke coming back as a demon got reworked into a more typical shonen power-up. Likewise, while you can see the echoes of the others' planned character arcs, with Kurama being conflicted about his human and demon sides being present, things became much more simple and straightforward, with the characters making more or less the right choice in the end. Though he does have Yusuke admit his plan for the demon world tournament was reckless and put a lot of innocent lives in danger if things hadn't worked out, and had been done in pursuit of his own desires rather than being a plan geared toward protecting the innocent. Personally, I am very fond of what Chapter Black ended up becoming, and am glad he didn't get to implement these deconstruction arcs. I don't think it would have worked with the characters that were already well established by that point. Hunter x Hunter being a completely different series than Yu Yu Hakusho left him with more room to build his story around these themes and ideas from the start.
@@YouthRightsRadical thanks for the reply, I'm feeling more justified in my anger now. I hear people praise Yu Yu Hakusho so often without addressing it's issues, I felt alone.
An important element I think you missed is Gon viewing Kite as a positive male roll model. Children will latch to anything for any reason partly because they're kids. Gon didn't have a father figure then obtained one with Kite.
@@lcg3092 a good point. However, I disagree because the camera never made a point to distinguish any of those relationships. It's made clear in the first episode Gon is "different" than the others. Kite is one of the first people he may actually live up to.
@@lcg3092 This is true but you're forgetting he's born special. He was stronger than all of those men by like age 7. How is he going to view them as anything close to a father figure. Where as Kite, he actually knows Ging, he's stronger than Gon and he cuts an impressive figure. I don't think it's far fetched to think Gon viewed him as a father figure.
Excellent analysis. You know this is good when it holds weight outside of the anime, as the entire Dark Continent arc revolves around these themes. Kurapika has basically been cornered by his desire for revenge and been hindered by his own powers. The princes seeking strength end up developing monstrous powers that can only be used for bad things, since almost all of them are bad people. Chrollo kills what is essentially an entire stadium of innocent people just to kill Hisoka. Power is seen as either monstrous or a burden. Only Kurapika has decided to use his powers for something more than animalistic urges, and it seems to be redeeming him. However I also want to turn over to Hisoka in this discussion. In many ways Hisoka is very similar to Gon, an animalistic being that is ruled by lust and fantasies of carnage. What I like about Hisoka is that he's so obsessed with fighting that he sets up these weird rules for himself in order to make fights more special... with the expectation that he will win. He never says it, but its evident in the outcome of his and Chrollo's fight that Hisoka genuinely thinks he will always win every fight he takes. So what does he do when he loses? He tosses the rules aside and kills the Spiders out of frustration. His fight ruleset was never there to make things more fair or enjoyable, it was there to give him the opportunity to play with his targets before killing him. When that ruleset is turned against him by an opponent who has no interest in fighting him "legitimately" and will use anything in his arsenal to live, Hisoka snaps and becomes a full on monster.
I mean he just wants to fight his opponents at their strongest. So he will let them have every advantage they can have, or let them live until they've "ripened" and at their prime. His self imposed handicaps are just theatrics against weaker opponents to amuse himself and to draw out any hidden potential they might have. He's like an evil Netero basically.
I cant remember where I saw it, except that it was in a comment section on some platform, but somebody said(paraphrased): "Hisoka is one of those anime characters that is just 'Fight-sexual', it's all he cares about." And boy is it a perfect description of him and lots of others lmao
@@DragoonBoom I agree, but that's not quite what I was getting at. Similar to Gon, Hisoka thinks he's the strongest guy in the room. His weird battle stuff is there to facilitate a fair fight in his mind, as he always believes that people at their strongest will lose but give him some fun. Hisoka cannot conceive that he will lose, unlike a lot of other fight-centric characters. Chrollo then (pretty solidly) beats him. I'd argue Hisoka never really stood a chance when the fight started since Chrollo had overwhelmingly planned the fight in his favor. Hisoka's reaction to this is to just go and kill all of the Spiders in sneak attacks to bait them into trying to kill him all at once. The point is that Hisoka embodies a lot of negative things about the HxH world and how it portrays power. Hisoka's set up and "toy" mindset means that he doesn't really have an option if he loses a fight. Hence why he seemingly throws it all away after losing. All of the structure was just there to facilitate killing, which I'd argue makes him more callous overall. I think its kind of fitting that the series will likely end in a duel between Hisoka and Chrollo. A monster masquerading as a human, vs. A human trying to be a monster.
"So what does he do when he loses? He tosses the rules aside and kills the Spiders out of frustration. *His fight ruleset was never there to make things more fair or enjoyable, it was there to give him the opportunity to play with his targets before killing him*. When that ruleset is turned against him by an opponent who has no interest in fighting him "legitimately" and will use anything in his arsenal to live, Hisoka snaps and becomes a full on monster." What's that saying about truer words?
Its not so much that you love your anime videos, but more so your breakdown of the writing. You clearly understand what makes stories work and we appreciate your breakdowns on it
10:50 That old lady was the one that always talked about ging. Mito tried to minimize hus presence as much as possible fearing gon would be influenced and leave as he just did.
"Animals kill and torture for fun" Some of them do. Dolphins are an example, and famously cats, but most do not. Most of them don't think in complex enough ways to take pleasure in it.
Animals are either hedonistic and amoral little shits (like cats) or so strict and instinctually dogmatic that they kill their own babies because they take too long for their liking to learn to fly and so they assume they never will (example, hawks). Humans are a rare example of something that's usually in between these two extremes.
I love when writers actually write characters with the intention to be flawed, interesting cases of being inhuman while not falling for the trap of making your character "something to aspire to be". Many people seem to the think the protagonist must do no wrong and should be idolized. It has its place but I find story's that actually frame characters actions to only be justified within their own fucked up mindset that you've seen take shape throughout the story to be far more interesting, its almost more human in its own weird way.
48:36 I have seen far too many people misunderstand where Gon's character arc is going at but you get it 100%. Gon is not to become Ging 2.0 because it's those same characteristics he shares with him that have made him end up nenless. Ging may be able to get away with it because he self-regulates his impulses a bit better and just doesn't care about anyone, but Gon isn't like that and that's the key difference that will push his character development.
using every version of the character so you can pull lines of dialogue from each to paint the picture you want is a very good rhetorical device. you truly make coherent statements that hold up under mild scrutiny
@skoomatroll I'm in agreement with you then. I thought the video was dogwater and stopped watching halfway through. Started looking through the most recent comments to see if anyone shared the same opinion. It just felt like dude had a bone to pick with the show in general because of an ex or something.
I'm glad to hear that i'm not the only person who uses "whoha" in place of vagina. Also on the subject of Gon freaking out over Kite's death, I always saw his freak out as guilt. I didn't see it as they were so close and that's why he freaked out. He said more than once "He died because of me". I know that feeling...I've lived that feeling. It made sense to me.
What's genius about it is that other anime would be completely oblivious at this characterization and we get a fake hypocrite protagonist. Gon's hypocrisy is actually acknowledged and subtlety foreshadowed
@@soultheconfusing9563 no shit. Did I say storytelling? No. He has his flaws. YYH was heavily underdeveloped n HxH be all over the place at times. But they’re still loved because he did things very & still unique with them. I’m saying he set the groundwork for Shonen tropes. Look at Naruto. Kishimoto took HELLA stuff from togashi. Look at JJK. They took stuff from bleach, which was ALSO inspired by togashi. He’s the goat.
Very interesting. I always found Gon to be a bit psychopathic. Thought the same of Luffy until he showed actual empathy and affection for his friends. Gon never seemed to care particularly about anyone or anything that wasn't right in front of him, and even then, Kilua ironically seemed to be the more emotionally intelligent of the pair. Also it bothered me that Leorio wants to be a doctor and is the first one to implore that they murder a guy in the hunter trials lol. Maybe doctors in the hunter x hunter universe don't have the Hippocratic Oath.
I saw another video put it really well as "Gon only cares about things that are useful to him". This is a kid that trained against a horrible serial killer for three days and just kind-of let him go. He didn't reform. Gon never worries about what happens next. He just met a guy, they helped him get stronger, and now that they've been helpful they can leave. 100% pure give and take.
Technically, being a hunter don't let you go murdering people or stealing. The goverment won't judge you, but the hunter association will. If it's a minor felony, you may lose your hunter license. But if is something severe, you most likely will be on the black list and all the hunters in the world would be looking for you alive or dead. There is a blacklist hunter for a reason.
Why is nature evil? Why is killing evil? We all kill. We just call evil what we don't want to see or don't like or don't agree with. There are some valid points in there, but it gave me the same feeling that you get when you catch someone giving a reach around to someone else.
@@danieltodorov7753humans kill all the time, for necessity or otherwise, and most don't pat an eye over it, it's only when it happens to humans or other animals we find cute that it becomes "evil", when is the last time you shed a tear over a forest being destroyed by humans? Do you know how many creatures die as a result of it? No because you don't care.
@@Multienderguy37 The man is part of nature and can not escape it, the different is that we are self-aware to an extent that can mentally cripple us so we engage in rational ingnorance. How do we know if a plants feel pain, what about the germs we kill everytime we wash our hands, how do we even know when a human fetus is considered a life? We ignore these questions simply to continue on with our lives.
Okay. About the bear eating a deer thing: Bears will maul you to leave you just a hair away from death and then bury and hide you. This way, your meat will rot way later than it would otherwise. They do worse things than described, but only because they need to for their food preservation technique to work.
I always attributed selfish obsessions to be a hallmark of the strongest nen users, and the number one factor in shaping their abilities. Even the more practical characters like Killua have unreasonable idiosyncrasies like their unconditional loyalty to the family members that abuse him. Netero fostered that mindset to create the strongest nen users possible.
Gon is just a kid in tantrum. A selfish obnoxious stubborn kid who think he can solve anything by being positive. And if something don't go his way, he gets angry, cry in self loathing and seek vengeance.
Vid went where I expected it, but in a bit more Gripey than I expected. Overall agree with what you're saying. Tho I completely understand the anime's deceptive masking of scenes that objectively shouldn't be considered emotional- these are very unusual people we're focusing on, and if they're feeling and displaying them as they are, regardless how insane it may be- that is what HxH is ultimately about. The various amounts of human in the various amounts of inhuman, and vice versa. So yeah we can chalk up a lot to anime bs, and you say Gon winning Greed island is some level of bs. When you also can bring it around to Gon being just like Ging, for whatever reason, and caring specifically for the playground that was (wether indirectly or not) built for him.
Also wanted to add: yes Ging is very clearly a flawed person, but I feel the specific bit you deem a flaw "I don't think Togashi knows that isn't a good characteristic" I wonder why you see that so negatively? From personal experience I have friends I haven't seen in years yet we feel no need to contact eachother or really do anything, but when the paths intersect we connect back pretty easily. You say he "uses people for the experience" when that's just the extremes Gon displayed, and even then I feel Gon's examples are more complicated than just vampiric. I feel those are just examples of the CORE of HxH. The x. While it's an in universe space substitute, I believe it can easily represent what I mean. The main characters are a quartet, and the crossing paths of 4 points make a 5th. The journey, the detours yada yada. And how the main cast isn't always the main focus. On top of that, Ging clearly mentioned he cared about the tomb thing, just that it paled in comparison to what really mattered to him- connections he made with people to reach that goal. He even said he stays in contact with the non-profit. It's that he just makes more of those, or at least looks out for the experiences he can gain along batshit journeys he can go on by being so (presumably) strong. That's in no way a bad thing though. It's the most positive trait, or at least most normal thing about him. And hell you can even see he gave his son his phone number, even anwsered a call, that's at least a step in the right direction. Idk I completely feel with Togashi on this matter, feel you griped on that aspect a little much. Guess it's either from your own personal experiences or perspective, personality type (however bs or not those are)? Regardless an interesting vid. That's about the only part that really bothered me about it.
@@CrashBandicootFan100 honestly think Ging's personality is neither good or bad, it just depends on your own perspective of relationships. Some people have the need to have a constant connection with friends rather than seeing them only a few times a year, others prefer doing there own thing until something interesting comes up. Neither are really bad unless those two types of people cross, then it just becomes incompatible. Somebody would get hurt, most likely the one with the want for those connections. Like if Gon wasn't Gon I doubt he would want anything to do with a father that wasn't present in his life. Ging's attitude doesn't work with being an attentive father, so i think the problem is more that in the light of being a parental figure Ging's want to always look for a new experience makes him a shit dad, and in real life, he would most likely be a bit of a shit person to be around. I cannot see that dude settling down in any way, and for a lot of people that thought process just isn't the vibe.
@@burningtrash6330 Liked your comment back then, and with rereading now for a refresher: Completely agree. Wanna respond cause I came back to this comment thread wondering if I was being an ass. Not sure. The second comment I made was more emotionally charged. Wonder why that frustrated me? Guess because I enjoyed this aspect of Ging for being so mundane. At least compared to what I'd expect from the guy.
I thought Gon was just like this because of Luffy. Because the entire point of Luffy's character, and One Piece in general, is about doing what you want 100% of the time, all the time. That's what a pirate is, someone who refuses to follow any rules of society so they can be completely free. That's also why you get a scene where Dr. Hiriluk breaks into someone's house to stab them with needles as they beg him to stop: because the story's not about what other people feel, it's about how much he wants to be a doctor. I always assumed Gon was a commentary on that, but in an environment that doesn't hide how completely incompatible this is with any concept of morality or decency.
I hope In the final arc oda touch’s on this more. Yes luffy doing what he wants helps people but nearly every other pirate doing it has drastically hurt people like Kidd or Blackbeard or kaido. I hope oda expands upon it more directly that what he has been doing. Unlimited freedom is so horrible
@@ashleighdyson2733 Hahaha no. I'm calling this shot right now: the world Luffy wants to create is "a world where everyone is free". Luffy is exactly the same as everyone other pirate, greedy, selfish, and arrogant, but One Piece does and will portray those qualities as good things. That's the definition of a pirate, one who refuses to follow rules in order to seek their own desires.
"His mother is also his cousin which is a little fucked up." You're getting twisted up in your own words, there, grape. His *adoptive* mother is his cousin. That's not even a little bit weird.
I get that it can be hard to tell what’s a joke and what’s commentary when the speaker is doing both… but yeah it’s just a joke. He also said it’s fine.
I really like his anime analysis videos. One of my all-time favorites is the Naruto one. It made some die-hard fans upset, but I agreed with basically everything he said. It was also hilarious. For example, he called Naruto a heroic traffic cone. 😂
Theres alot in this video I don't super agree with. Its not WRONG but just kinda weak and surface level... but the core of the video is true: People misudnerstand Gon. And I'm not sure WHY they misunderstand Gon, because nothing to do with Gon or Hunters in general is like... subtext. There is no mystery here. HxH states things plainly, all the time, whenever it can: Hunters are not good people. You do not BECOME a hunter if you are a particularly good person. They are people who are so damn determined to reach some ambition that they cannot be stopped - only reasoned with, distracted or watched. The reason the Hunter Association exists is because, in this world, it is possible to get so powerful that you are unstoppable. So how to you try and put a lid on that...? You make a honeypot to attract these strong people, so you can try and intimidate or bribe them away from committing mass atrocities... or simply have the ability to record who is where. This isn't subtext. this is TEXT. This is ~the story~ and yet so many fans treat the Hunters like... like I don't even know, super heroes...? I really don't understand why people can seriously believe Gon is some shining beacon of Good amongst a sea of nasty hunters, who are assassins and creeps and murderers and jerks. Gon gets what he wants no matter what. He has always gotten what he wants by pushing his whole being against the wall of impossibility - hard enough to shatter his own bones or tramples his friends - and it has ALWAYS worked out for him. He ALWAYS gets his way. If the world won't bend to your whims then you get strong enough to bend it yourself. That is like... the mantra of being a hunter. It is Gon's mantra. It is a basic rule of the world he believes in wholeheartedly. It is a mantra that seems shining to Killua, who is trying to bend the impossibility of escaping his family and becomming more than what he was born to be. I'm not a big fan of your 'human vs nature' analogy for Gon, but the basic symbolism is not wrong. Kite dies. Gon did not want Kite to die. Gon can always get his way by pushing himself against the wall of impossibility. So he pushes. He pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes - and he doesn't get his way. There are forces in this world beyond him and leave him powerless... and if he is powerless, then he cannot push hard enough to reach his ambition. I'm not going to go even more into an essay - thats your job and you did a pretty decent job - but Gon IS misunderstood even though there are multiple angles you can view him from that are ALL right and ALL make sense, and its baffling because so much of it isn't even subtext.
tbf, kaite did save his life, which might be why he places so much value on kaite. the 2011 anime glosses over this, which might be why he cares so much. kaite, his only link to his father, who also saved his life when he was a kid, is brutally murdered and toyed with by this creature. which also explains part of his breakdown later on when he see that same creature healing a child. it breaks **HIS** black-and-white "my friends are good and anybody who opposes them or me is bad" because a bad person is doing a good thing and his moral compass cant comprehend that level of complexity. edit: grammar fix in the last sentence
First arc: sees people die. No reaction Second arc: hears people get eaten by a giant Monster. No reaction Next few arcs: doesn't care about the actual chaos just how the troupe can hurt people they don't know yet says nothing on kurapika doing the same thing with the people he works with Greed island: same thing. Sees it as a game Chimera ant arc: abusive towards killua and throws a baby rage at one ant wasting everything he could have been. Gon was always mental. He's a kid and would have ended komugi just for talking. Scared chimera ants and so on. Gon was never sane
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr as I age I come to see how people really over romanticize something and can have a double standard with the villain and hero doing something Villain does something. It's something you can forgive. Hero does it. It's a good thing and hype. Gundam basically throws this at our face of the MC's being wrong like ibo and 00 Gon is rabid and his actions are like Naruto releasing the 9 tails seal to defeat kakuzu or Ichigo using mugetsu to beat Ulquiorra. It was a selfish act and togashi showed it well and it took a literal plot device to save him from his consequences
The topic of Son Goku's innocence always makes me think of chapter 70. Two dudes in flying machines are shooting at Goku so he punches them out of the sky and they explode. Bulma goes "You didn't have to go that far..." but Goku doesn't really care and goes back to his jolly old self. I mean, it was self defense and so arguably justified, but being unfazed after murdering people is typically not an innocent trait.
I won’t ever understand the hate for him. It’s a great subversive and gradual shift he goes through. People get angry when shonen aren’t different yet also when they are different.
Yep, that's always been an occupational hazard when it comes to making art/media for others. People can sometimes be fickle, and what has worked at one point may not always work a second time (and, it's not unheard of for something people liked at one point in time can change in what feels like an eye-blink). That's why one variation of self-care that helps most artists is making art for just themselves, and art/media for other people comes later. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@lightspaceman5064 ppl usually hate who reflects them the most and idolize who doesn’t. Naruto & Sasuke opened my eyes to that. Naruto is more so inspirational while Sasuke is more so relatable.
I think you are imagining two entirely separate groups of people as the same. Ultimately, hxh is one of the most highly popular and highly praised anime of all time.
Gon making Killua help him catch the dodgeball in greed island makes sense. It was explained in York new city that an Enhancer’s abilities are strengthened when the nen user is with someone they care a lot about. Gon probably knew that him working with Killua would maximize his potential to punch the ball
Correct me if i'm wrong but it's not so much that an enhancer is stronger with someone to protect, it's just specifically Uvogin who is an enhancer was stronger that way. Either way, i do still think it makes sense Gon would want Killua only to hold the ball, as morally ambiguous as it is lol
Gon losing his mind is not just rage -- it's guilt, a very human emotion. Before this arc, when bad things happened, they didn't matter much for Gon: they could be fixed, they were acceptable casualties and/or they were according to plan. Even the way he sees his own case of child abandonment is okay because there were no consequences to it (for him) as his Aunt served as his mom anyway. But Kite's death is purely and simply something Gon feels responsible for, and he was powerless to stop it and he is powerless to fix it. He is a feral child feeling an emotion too human for him to comprehend so he chooses to indulge in a self-destructive rage to cope with it.
One thing I'm surprised I never hear mentioned in these analyses, and especially in this video, is the two pieces of advice Gon recieves after he recovers at the end of the Election Arc. He pours out his heart to both Ging and the reincarnated Kite, and they both give him pretty predictable and terrible advice. Kite tells him he just needs to be stronger next time so that he can protect whoever needs protecting, basically the opposite of what PlagueOfGripes is saying he needs. It's pretty on the nose and not that deep I guess, but many other authors would just have the final moral lesson received by the main character be something that they themselves believe, rather than just the realistic thing the selfish jerks he seeks out would actually tell him, so in that sense I always thought that was interesting.
? Pitou didn't apologize for killing Kite, it apologized that he was already dead and couldn't heal him. Also, it was Killua who made the Pitou=Mom protecting kid analogy not Gon. So much more but it's pretty clear you weren't really paying attention to the show.
>Pitou didn't apologize for killing Kite, it apologized that he was already dead and couldn't heal him what? that is barely any different from one another, and why does it matter in the context of this video or anything? Not like this nuanced reason changes anything whatsoever about anything. >So much more but it's pretty clear you weren't really paying attention to the show. I mean, you literally picked one phrase from an almost hour long video, as an excuse to get mad at it. Are you genuinely autistic? You need to turn off your computer sometimes.
If you give something to a pawn shop and get money for it they are not allowed to sell it for an agreed amount of time. While it's pawned you can buy it back anytime for the agreed amount. Only after the timespan has passed the ownership goes to the pawnshop and they can do with it what they want. @@nerdbutgangsta1816
@@nerdbutgangsta1816 It means if he doesn't pay the money back by a certain point, they'll keep his license. In other words it's being used as collateral.
How is the start any different ? The writing has always been good, it's just that it spent a lot of time laying fundations so arcs like season 3 and 5 are possible
Ya Gon is pretty sociopathic, completely true. I remember in the earlier episodes during the exam, Gon just going "wee ya, yeah!!!" playing in the wind seconds after a bunch of people just died infront of him.
To be fair to Goku, The Red Ribbon Army all collectively mag-dumped a 12 year old, the fact that it didn't work doesn't give them a pass, if Goku had been a regular kid the story ends with a kid riddled with bullets, it's not particularly hard to see how killing the Red Ribbon Army soldiers wasn't exactly morally grey, they tried to kill him, and failed, should he spare them simply because the power difference between them is far greater than they thought when they opened fire on him? would they have spared a weaker kid in his place? Probably not. It doesn't suddenly STOP being self defence just because the guy trying to kill you sucks at it.
the whole video im thinking "this guy logic is weird and very internet-like" but at the end of each chapter he loops back to what kinda makes sense (sometimes), nice vid.
I hate how people immediately think you dont enjoy the show while you go on great detail about what the show makes you think and feel and the conclusions that you take from that, something that no one would care to do if the show wasn't interesting to them
One day I saw my sister's friend playing Skyrim, and I pointed out a few flaws that I consider the game to have, but also that I've played hundreds of hours of it. She just didn't seem to get it, that I could enjoy something while also criticizing it.
I think Gon wanting to see his dad is one the most real things in the show. I'm not in that position myself, but many people who were adopted often want to reconnect with their birth parents, regardless of the circumstances behind their abandonment. So why doesn't he want to meet his birth mother? This is purely speculation, but Mito filling the role of his mother, nurturing and raising him, has likely left him satisfied when it comes to wanting a mother figure; what he's missing is a father figure, someone to teach him survival skills and how to live his life. This is exemplified by his relationship with Kite, someone who for a very brief period filled that role. That's what I assume to be going on in his head subconsciously anyway.
I never thought you'd make another amazing anime video again. This was fantastic, and genuinely improves my re-watching experience. Thank you so much for making this and I hope you cover more
The world of Hunter x Hunter is so fucked up, but the characters we focus on often already have that normalized for them, to varying degrees: for example, nobody batting an eye at all of the accidental deaths as well as very intentional murders going on during the Hunter Exam. It's why I love the moments when somebody actually does stop and comment on the horror that is so casually displayed around them. Like Tsezguerra, if I recall correctly, noticing that Killua's powers necessitate building up an extraordinary tolerance to electric shock, and inferring, correctly, that he had been tortured with electricity since he was a small child as part of his assassin training. You know someyhing is unjust when even a Hunter recognizes it.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the line where Gon essentially tells Killua "You're lucky you don't care" in the room where Pitou is healing Komugi. One of my favorite scenes.
Hunter x Hunter messes with people because it's so confusing the first time you consume it, but not in a stupid way. It's unique and disturbing. It takes the young anime protagonist boy trope and makes it too real. Gon is probably the most realistic example of the trope we've seen, and it's gut wrenching. And that's just Gon. There are other characters just as interesting and upsetting.
I think the initial connection to Kite, despite being such a minuscule amount of time, is meant to be operating loosely on the idea of a "Ring String of Fate". Anime does this a lot, with a surprising amount of characters remembering some totally innocuous event in their past brought them together with a person through fate and that every such connection is important, even if only in some very minor way. That leads to a lot of fast and loose setups for stories and there's flaws to that, but it's a common enough trope for me to have just always took it that way.
Except that it actually appears in the very first manga chapter of HxH. But the 2011 anime didn't for some reason. The anime didn't show it until much later, so the vast majority couldn't sympathize with Gon. That was a really stupid decision.
I don't agree. Gon and kite's relationship doesn't just rely on a "red string of fate" narrative, if it did, Gon wouldn't have lost his mind so much. The reason gon completly went berserk is bcs like said in the video, he was powerless and couldn't get what he want as usual, because he deluded himself into thinking Kite was still alive, and because Kite was THE male figure of his life. He's the one that talked to him about hunters, that told him the truth about his dad, that SAVED HIS LIFE. He was a admirable male figure for Gon who so desperatly needed one (i have 2 braincells rn so i can't explain how very well) Anyway my point is. As much as this video tries to make it be, the relationship between them isn't just anime trope bs. It makes sense, and yes it would have been different if the 2011 anime animated Kaito's scene. Because kaito was also the first hunter gon ever met so it was impossible for him to think about Hunters without thinking about his dad AND kite
Nah, you're throwing away Gon meeting Kite when he was younger way too easily. It was the one time in his entire life where he was taught about the value of life and gave him his goal of finding his father. It's not that Kite was important to Gon and that he really cared for him, but that Gon's interaction with him changed his life and thus Gon associates Kite with a good emotion.
I think Togashi is making a point with Gon's obsession over Kite and Ging: exceptional talent, skill, strength, and beauty are things that people idolize, right or wrong. It also doesn't take a deep knowledge or exposure to that sort of talent to leave a lasting impression. If someone meets the leader of their country, this informs their life going forward. People idolize musicians and celebrities despite never meeting them, and a non-zero portion of them are then motivated to write fan mail and buy back-stage passes and even stalk these celebrities. Gon happens to be one of these impressionable people with the talent needed to seek out one of these exceptional people. Gon doesn't care about his mother because no one has told him that she was exceptional or special. He cares about Kite because Kite is clearly special. This memory is burned into his brain, and he cares about Kite because of the impression of strength that he made. If it had been any other Nen user who had even a cursory knowledge of Ging, Gon would care about them too. Gon, like many people, idolizes talent.
I think you are missing the point about Kite criticism in the 2011 anime. Yes in real life Kite probably wouldn't have that kind of impression upon Gon but I doubt he'd forget about someone who saved his life regardless contrary to what you say. Do you honestly believe you would forget about someone who saved you from a grizzly bear sized animal? The point is it's more impactful for the reader to know who Kite is long before he dies. For those who read the manga or saw the original anime Kite's return is a huge bait a switch that actually pays off since we the audience actually have a closer connection to Kite then Gon's dad. Furthermore his death and Gon's emotional attachment makes more sense even if it was brief because we aren't experiencing the fiction the same way the fictional characters hypothetically would. Good video overall though.
Innate talent is actually a thing in real life. People don't like to acknowledge that, because we love to make-believe that all men are created equal, but the fact is that the most motivated quadriplegic cripple with Parkinson's will always lose a game of ping-pong to a person with an outstanding talent for ping-pong and mediocre motivation - assuming they both actually try to win and you discount freak accidents like a meteorite landing on the latter guy's head. If you don't think that there are some people who are born with special physical and mental talents (and, by necessity, some people who are born _without_ those talents) then you don't really understand what it means to be human: you're just imagining the world that you _wish_ was real. Of course, since innate talent is a thing, we're going to see depictions of it, including exaggerated depictions, in fiction. That's not bad and that's not good. That's just that.
i think you're misunderstanding the "all are equal" thing. we're all equal in that we were born, we're here, we're all equally humans. other than that, can't say you're wrong.
I was born "better" and "worse" in many respects. Traits like that get amplified and selected for in evolution, bladdy blah blah. It's absolutely a thing, otherwise we wouldn't exist. But I'm talking about narratives. I like seeing characters establish their limits and then work around them or figure out a way to the top. Just showing up and instantly being better I don't find all that interesting.
@@PlagueOfGripes Having a preference for a certain type of story is fine - still - there are lots of real-life stories that go, _"And then he won because he was born with talent and the other guy lost because he wasn't, the end."_ Personally, I don't think that makes a story uninteresting. Stories like that are _real,_ in more than one sense of the word. But hey, not everybody has to like everything, different strokes for different folks.
@@migarsormrapophis2755except those stories are not real. HxH itself has a whole aside where Biscuit explains how idiotic that idea is when going into fights. Yes, some people at the peak of their performance might be leagues ahead of you but will they always be at the peak of their performance? No. Obviously. And winning a professional fight in the real world comes down to figuring out how to erode that peak performance. That's what all of the most successful boxers do. Ali taught himself to do it after his prison stay dulled his reflexes. Mayweather made it his entire boxing ethos. Very few elite fighters actually get by for long by "just being more gifted."
The Gon being powerful enough to never face consequences is something I hadn't considered as part of why he is the way he is. Because while he is never actually is the strongest in the room no matter where we are in the story, and not just by like 1 or 2 people either, he never acts as though that is the case. Logically he may admit that he isn't stronger than Hisoka, Knuckle, or Kite, but he never adjusts his actions because of it, as if subconsciously he doesn't accept that. He always just goes about thing based on the results at the end, never thinking about what's going on in between, and it always works out... until it finally doesn't.
This also ties back to the Hunter exam and the question on who would you rescue. At that point it was right to not answer and wait it out, but while Gon then was used for the "but what if you had to decide?!?" bit, so far I don't see him having been forced into a situation where that was the case.
Gon had never gone the route of self-awareness. Instead, he'd simply "gone freaks" 😔
His dad seems to understand the sentiment. He tells gon that he should apologize for being weak (i haven't seen the whole vid idk if he talks about this), but at first glance this is bad advice because Gon's mistake wasn't being weak, he couldn't have faced Pitou and rescued Kite like he wanted to, but Ging tells him "you have to promise him to never make the same mistake again" and that Kite thought Gon was strong enough for the mission regardless, as if saying that he should never throw his life away like that, just because both him and Kite survived the encounter
@@bwackbeedows3629W HYLICS PFP
@@bwackbeedows3629wrong😂
Who knew Meruem, the even younger, stronger, greener, hungrier, Born Better wild child who sits in a pose mirroring Gon wondering if using strength to satisfy impulses might be bad, was implying something.
Dang I didn't
They also both blow off their birth moms to chase their impulses. Since all the way back in YYH, Togashi's loved pointing out his protags think closer to monsters and should get called out by regular humans.
@@kestral63 I thought that Gon never knew his birth mom. Mito is Ging's cousin and Gon's foster parent.
Neither did Meruem. He never forms a relationship with his mom and instead bonds with others. It doesn't make a difference- the Queen Ant was an inhuman xenomorph everyone needed dead, but just the fact that she cared about Meruem made his disregard for her inhuman. We don't know what Gon's mom thought of him, because he also ignores her entire existence.
Meruem doing an impromptu cesarean makes him worse, sure, but he's also the one who learns his actions and ignorance have consequences. Gon might never reach that level of introspection. He just turns off the tape recorder and runs off to go eat.
@@kestral63 Gon has a mother. It's Mito. He was not obligated to learn about his birth mom. She could've been a deadbeat like ging. She could've been a saint. Gon didn't care because he's a kid and to him, Mito is the one he cares about. Gon still has the rest of his life to introspect. Meruems life started in CA and ended in CA and it was only natural for a hyper intelligent being who must now face death to realize his mistakes. Meruem learns of his mom's unconditional love when his soldiers were in the fire sacrificing their body for him due to loyalty and love. Context is key. Finally, for all we know the Queen could've loved her son far more than Gon's birth mother.
With the comparison between strength and humanity, i think its sweet how Leorio is shown to be the most compassionate and kind person out of Gon's friends. He's also the only one who developed a Nen ability with the idea of saving other people's lives with it. Despite being the weakest of the 4, he was able to live the happiest life so far. I haven't read the manga yet so i dont know how that develops later though
Nothing bad has happened to him yet, he is part of the current arc but hasn't had a prominent roll atp
@@Disir-Elizbt As shown by Ging, his power is best in enclosed spaces... like the entirety of the ship he's in right now. He's gonna be so goated by the time he gets to do anything lol
Seeing him punch Ging in the face and flip him off in front of the crowd was one of the most cathartic things in the series
Leorio is the GOAT
In the manga he started out as the strongest physically aside from killua
@@mk_-8794his stamina beg to differ😂
The reason Gon was able to ace the Greed Island test was because nobody else in the game played the game as intended. Everyone except Gon (and Biscuit, I guess) either left the game at some point (including Killua), took a shortcut to get the cards (the bombers/resistance) or didnt last until the end.
So between him and Biscuit, one of them was bound to be the one to ace the test. I suspect since the game had Ging's grubby fingerprints all over it, Gon paid particular attention to everything, but that's just speculation on my part.
The game is made to make anyone stronger if they play the game as intended
Gon is just one of the few that did
Well that and he was incredibly lucky. He could have gotten taken out by Genthru like the rest of the people, or by a random monster he wasn't prepared to take on. Bisky even makes note of Gon and Killua's prodigious talent on more than one occasion (stating that Killua could manipulate Nen in a way she wasn't able to till she was over twice his age). Even if others tried playing as Gon and Killua did did they wouldn't have been enabled in the same way because they weren't born with unnatural talent.
It's writing convenience
@@ajregalia1334 Others wouldnt progress at the same rate as Gon and Killua but if you play the game as intended, you will still grow stronger than you are
@@aceclover758 You forget that the only reason Bisky trained Gon and Killua is that, as Wing put it, they are one in a billion talents. Their growth is so unnatural that to any experienced nen user it's actually terrifying. They pick up concepts that take most others years to learn in hours.
Most people trying to play the game normally also likely got in before Tzeuguerra starting vetting them as ruthlessly as he did so they already weren't as skilled as they actually needed to be.
Many probably tried playing normally and found themselves totally out of their depth struggling to get D rank cards and even surviving the weaker monsters. And with no way to then get out of the game (recall that getting people stuck in the game out was how Gon and Killua got a lot of rare cards) they had to play for survival.
There's something really beautiful about the way you describe Komugi as "defeating the king, by elevating him to be more than he was born to be."
😂
I'd thought of Gon as an impulsive simple minded animal that pretty much lumps people into "benefits me" "doesn't benefit me" But for some reason I never made the connection that spending his formative years as a super human is probably what made him that way
No what made him that way is that… HES….A….KID…. Go up to any 12 year old RIGHT NOW. And tell me they won’t for the most part define life as “benefits me and those I love Vs Doesn’t benefit me and those I love” TOGASHI WROTE HIM LIKE AN ACTUAL CHILD… but with the caveat of this child being as strong as or stronger than 70-80% of the world. He’s not the way he is because of his strength… he’s the way he is because he’s never experienced actual life and knows nothing about the world… so he basis most things on “good for me & friends” vs “bad for me and friends” gusss what…. Just like a child would think. You guys really gotta re watch the show, but this time plug in your brain please
@@jpnoir4807 The reason the events of the Chimera arc didn't affect Killua so hard is because Killua already went to hell and back in life. When it comes to the darkest life can be. Killua already experienced punishment normal people would never feel in their entire life. Gon is not only a kid. He's a kid that grew up his entire life in a small island, with little to no connection to the rest of the world suddenly thrown in a world he couldn't imagine. At some point he was going to break.
@@jpnoir4807whatever point you wanted to make is ruined by you coming off liking a raving idiot
Although he is naive and impulsive which leads to him being selfish at times, he is not entirely selfish. From the very beginning he is shown to be compassionate. On the ship in the first arc he was the only one trying to help the others on the boat who got sick. He likewise assisted a worker who was going to die during a storm and even helped him before the storm. Not of those charitable acts were motivated by seeing it as benefiting himself.
In that sense, I think it is a little simplistic to say that he only acts on impulse or only wishes to have power for selfish purposes - since even in the earliest episodes he was considered strong yet helping the weak. He was also the one that wanted all four people in the group to pass with no reason other than that they had gotten so far together as friends. He risked his own life to get snake venom only to help a friend. Yes that was impulsive, but not always for selfish reasons. He also cared about Killua simply for not wanting to see him manipulated by his brother, and went through great lengths to rescue him from his own family.
In fact it is because of the people he helped along the way that he was saved when he did temporarily fall into darkness.
You know it was as you were breaking down the fight in Greed Island that it really set in for me "yeah, Gon losing his nen really is the first time he was forced to deal with consequences of his actions."
"Nature is horrible but we don't blame it because nature is stupid."
lmao that's so spot-on.
Nature is stupid? Care to explain to me
@@haroldnecmann7040 plague explained it perfectly but basically if you see an animal do something stupid you don’t usually have an emotional reaction because you know that they don’t and can’t know better.
@@Ybereza69 Hm, actually, if you get into it, "nature" is a human concept, and over the last 5 centuries at least there have been thousands of pages written by very bright people about it. Questions like the above are almost never as stupid as they appear at first glance.
@@johannalvarsson9299 I think the stupid part is how the dude asks to explain a quote in the video the quote is from.
Like, watch the video, figure it out from the context.
@@johannalvarsson9299it was a stupid unclear question put in a way meant to annoy. Everything you as a human can understand and explain is a human concept doesn't make it smart or kind or right just human so saying nature is a human concept and has been written about means nothing dude what are you even trying to say with this comment don't pretend to understand stuff lol
this show was my, not sure how to phrase it, narrative awakening. i was really bothered that the story was contradicting itself because gon wouldnt flip his shit like this with the catgirl because hes a good hearted person but i tried to look at things from other perspective until it clicked. its not that story is contradicting itself, its that gon IS a hypocrite. i was so used to seeing protagonists being goodie lil too shoes who's only flaws are superficial crap that i couldnt phatom the idea of a geniunly flawed protagonist. suddenly, everything made sense. all the contradictions in the story made sense. thats why the scam artist had that confused expression when gon wanted to team up with him. gon is a fucking kid and hes acting like one
Yu Yu Hakusho did a way better job in writing characters and establishing meaningful relationships. All the main cast are very likeable in their own way, and Botan is best girl ever, especially with that quirky, part English accent the dun actress did, all the English dub cast did a great job.
The ant arch in HxH is incredible but YYH wins for me due to a great cast of characters.
i dont see the correlation but thanks for sharing @@enoch13th85
@@enoch13th85 Eh yu yu kahushoo never felt like it was ever anything other than the baseline average of writing
@@enoch13th85YYH is just average shonen it does nothing better than togashi superior work H x H.
No it did not do a better job at writing characters, it’s literally the average shonen garb.
Hxh actually established that the world doesn’t revolve around the MC.
@@plugshirt1762 i feel like thats a bit unfair for what is effectively the first.
As others have said, Gon's short relationship with Kite makes more sense than you'd think because he was probably quite desperate for a male role model.
However, there's two points I haven't seen anyone mention:
-First, this was after Kite saved him from getting mauled by a massive fucking bear. Like, yeah, you're not likely to remember any given three hour stretch of time from when you're 11, but that one time you were in a gnarly car wreck that killed three people but you survived probably sticks out in your mind, even if it was only a few seconds.
-And second, Gon's age. He hasn't even hit puberty yet. As we get older, time means less and less. We start thinking of time in chunks of weeks or months, with landmarks to designate important points (ie, my next paycheck, my next gig, how many years married, etc.). To a kid, sitting and talking with someone for several hours is, like, actually a big deal.
Probably that was the first time he actually was in danger
Third. Just like Ging saved Gon back in whale island... he also did here... And lost an arm for this, then his life. Gon feels responsible for Kite death. I wouldn't say guilt. But he feels he owned Kite a debt he will never be able to pay back. remember how STUBBORN he was in giving Hisoka his number back. How can he repay kite for saving him from pitou? He wanted Kite to live so he could give back to him. wich a very gon thing to do..., But he can't. Kite is dead. Yes, Gon cares about Kite. but there is way more in his rage against Pitou than Kite. its also against himself, for failing Kite.
@ElliotGeltz Very well put!
A positive adult male role model who has enough of a power imbalance over Gon for Gon to respect him. Since Leorio is just another kid, how many father-figure type people does Gon have? ... just Kite?
@@yusukeelricI don’t think it had anything to do with their relationship. Gon has barely ever failed at anything in his life and any time he does he flies off the handle, like not wanting to accept his hunter license just because he didn’t win the way he wanted to, breaking Illumi’s arm when not listening to him, or sacrificing his hand and windpipe just to land a hit on Genthru etc. He basically looses control any time something doesn’t go his way. Leaving Kite behind was a failing on his part he couldn’t accept and coped himself into insanity thinking he could fix it because of course he can, he is Gon after all, nothing ever remains unresolved for him. So when Pitou revealed to him that his mistake of leaving Kite to die (even tho he would be no help at all) is unfixable he flies into an absolute rage at the person he holds responsible for causing it all, Pitou and himself, causing him to self destruct in a blazing murder suicide attempt he barely gets out of. Then he gets healed and literally doesn’t care about Kite ever again, because he never actually cared
Uhh, Gon catching the big fish, the king of the lake, isn't (just) because he's so strong. The literal first panels we see of him is him sitting still as a statue, a dead look in his eyes, covered by leaves and surrounded by animals. The implication is that he's so focused and in tune with nature, that he's been sitting perfectly still for hours, to the point that neither the animals nor the fish notice him.
and maybe he was even in a state of zetsu since he was able to do it in the exam as well. fishing like that probably taught him it.
@@grqfes It's implied several times, his life in the wild gave him a natural state of zetsu, That's how he stole Hisoka Emblem without even knowing Nen.
@@yusukeelricit was straight up stated that he used zetsu while hunting before hunter exams
I love to talk about Nen and wanna invite everyone to discuss it more.
Im really not picky at all with the topic but may i suggest everyone give me feedback on some thoughts i had?
Here we go:
What about a catalyst-ability whose sole purpose it to be Useless and even HIGHLY Restrictive and then multiple more Abilities that all have the teeny tiny Restriction 'Can only be used while the useless Ability is active'. I can think of countles ways how this will not work but a few where it would actually work: You just gotta have 3+ Ability-Slots and the Useles Ability should be Mono-Type but more importantly have Restricttons that 'act on you' as long as its activated or even outright all-the-time. Kurapika, i think, gave me the idea cause i wondered if Emperors Time extreme Cost only helps Emperor Time or them all - and f this is exploitabe! Heres the kicker: Dowsing-Chain is pure Conjuration but its direclty stated to get a (Slight) Boost when Kurapika is in Emperor Time, so all you gotta ask is where this comes from. Cause its a slight improvement, it cant be all of Emperor Time's Life-Burning, so the only logical conclusion is some 'left-over' gets to Kurapikas other Hatsu. Guy's, its not rocket-science, all you gotta remember is he decreased his Efficiency to 80% and then up to 100% and all that's on you is remember ""Hey, wait, isnt that how he started as?"
So what i say is throwing Money into a Campfire can be of Benefit for moe Abilities
than actually have the Activation-Requirement 'Burn Money'' IF you pul it off
@@slevinchannel7589Stop. The. Baseless. Spam!!!
I always felt that Nen itself is a physical manifestation of 'nature'. It amplifies the person's strengths, but more important than anything else, it amplifies their weaknesses.
This is the first time I saw a video that gave me a similar take. Loved every second of it.
I often think of nen like being cursed by your own ghost
Makes sense, if your getting a power directly based off your personality (basically) it fundamentally becomes limited, and not just by the power rules. Its harder to change yourself if you’re fundamentally being rewarded for acting a certain way, especially if you sort of can’t.
So you say…. A ENEMY STAND USER?!
Had to my bad.
@@sevenclovers7 For a lot of characters, that's actually their downfall. Remember that guy with the clone that Hisoka clowned on? His own flaws as a person were physically reflected in his nen abilities. Shortsighted, arrogant, overconfident, secretly afraid of failure, all of his flaws as a person came out in his technique, a move that was basically all bark and no bite once you figured out how it worked and more importantly how _he_ worked.
This is also shown in the nen chart, and I think it was Wing that explained that certain personality types couldn't accomplish anything nen-wise with categories that were considered their opposites (and opposite their nature as people).
Its wild how by the end of this show, i came away with the opinion that Killua is less fucked up a person than Gon
You walked away with the correct opinion
Killua understands social niceties because it allows him to be a better assassin. Most of his family are freaks.
killua doesnt want to be like his family. but his father is right. it is his destiny.
I think that's just a natural set point for people. Killua starts to feel more human and seems to be driven almost entirely by good sentiments by the end of HxH where as Gon is more focused on growning than anything else.
nature versus nurture, literally is Gon and Killua's arcs.
I am totally agreeing with you on the "nature is so beautiful, humanity is a cancer"-stance. People really do seem to ignore the living hell nightmare realm that's the insect world.
Yeah but I have a monstergirl fetish so it's better with the ants
Indeed, nature isn't beautiful because it's somehow more pure and better than humanity. It's beautiful in its totality, all the cruel and horrifying parts included. Same goes for humanity, just because those cruel and horrifying traits exist in us doesn't mean it is any less beautiful.
His whole talk about how Gon is pure of heart in the way a Wolf is Pure of Heart actually reminded me of of something Issac Asimov pointed out once. That evil only exists in those that can perceive it. A Tiger is not evil for killing and eating someone but a Human would be evil if they did that same thing. A Tiger who kills is following its nature and Human who kills does it knowing all the taboos that action breaks. Nature is cruel but it’s not evil because it doesn’t know what evil is.
Nothing in nature comes close to humans in terms of pure cruelty and malice.
We are literally destroying the environment, wiping countless species off the face of the earth all to acquire colored paper which has no real value.
@@Jontman42
Nobody ever sees a wolf ripping flesh from a calf and calls that "beautiful." No one sane, anyway. Trees, sunsets, waterfalls, stellar gas clouds, those are the things that get called "beautiful." Saying that nature is beautiful in totality, if we're being honest, is overselling things. Beauty exists *in spite* of the "cruel and horrifying" parts, not including them.
27:10 I for some reason never thought of it that way but yeah, Gon does take advantage of Killua’s emotional dependency on him to make him do a bunch of fucked up shit that serves Killua basically no benefit, and the end of Killua’s character arc is him moving on from Gon
It’s powerful when u think about it. Bro literally based the rest of his life on being gons fanboy. The character progression was crazy when he left him for alluka. He really just wants to be a protector overall.
in retrospect, gon was a kinda toxic friend to killua
he ain't moving on from gon he is literally sad you guys literally just missed the whole point
@@hellother52 no shit. Togashi obviously just wrote him out of the story for now. It wouldn’t make sense if they never met again.
@@SupremePapi_OLyes they will obviously reunite back in some way but this wasn't my point the way y'all described their Friendship i fully disagree with
Friendship? Idealisation? Obsessiveness? a fanboy?? Do you mean the author just want to tell us how you can worship your best friend to the extent you develop a toxic friendship, sticking to him and think he's like some deity of light, and once you found he could actually be a jerk sometimes you suddenly don't want to cling to him anymore, but neither mature much either and.... simply switch from being clingy to your best friend to sticking with your sister? Well, what an impressive character arc!
There were subtle implications all over the place in Togashi's work
and the fact that this is a ROMANTIC attraction
in chapter 286 in the manga killua wanted to commit shinjuu
AL (shinjuu) is a specific kind of suicide pact, or 'double suicide'. It's made up of two characters that mean "heart/soul" and "through/center". Especially in Japanese literature, it is typically used to refer to people who commit suicide out of love.
I still maintain that Hisoka's easily the most evil character in the Hunter X Hunter. A psycho-sexual-sadist, who's guiding purpose is maximum hedonism. Only reason he don't kill people outright is because the man likes edging. He has no true ally's since he actively plans to murder them all for that NUT. No line is to far for him; he don't even see the line...He's my second favorite character behind Leorio.
😂
Leorio??? Wtf dude I can't understand the mind of someone that likes Leorio and Hisoka at the same time
That’s because Hisoka is a possible future Gon he’s the strongest there is and his bored. So in order to get any kind of meaning in life he lust for violence and seeks out the strong. A wall he can’t easily break down just turns him on, because it’s something he’s not used to dealing with. It like the old saying it’s lonely at the top, and there’s nobody more lonely than Hisoka
Whos More of a sadist Hisoka or Dolfamingo lol
@@ZombieClown he’s literally an evil gon
People don't understand Netero's punch scene. He wasn't doing it to become stronger or perfect himself, he had already reached the highest level of perfection in body and soul that he could think of, so the only answer he could come up with to "do something" was to express gratitude to martial arts and those years of penance granted him his ability. It's based on mythological stories form various eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism where a character undergoes severe penance on mountains for 100s of years and eventually Gods (here Boddhisattva) pleased by their sacrifice blesses them with a boon.
And for those people who want to know the reason Gon was so angry after Kite's death, he spells it out explicitly in the last 5 minutes of ep 78 (although not canonical there in the manga), while talking with Killua on the blimp. The reason he was so obsessed with healing him. It is a case of a hurt ego for having failed to protect Kite. All in order to prove to Ging, the hunter and cope with his abandonment issues.
30:49 why would I scream when you're right. This is exactly what I love about Gon's arc. He's a self-destructive stubborn bastard that got away with it for too long until he didn't.
after putting all his friends into a lawn mower of problems, he gets tossed into an acid bath for such a shit head kid he is
Right? Who is watching/reading Hunter and thinking Gon is this super compassionate super justified, super good boy? For me, my brother, and my close friend, it was clear just how much of an overpowered arrogant psychopath he could be when he was about to hop the fence of the Zoltik's estate to go and get Killua despite being told repeatedly that he'd get eaten alive, cause a ton of problems, and all his friends would be devastated. Watching his ego spiral more and more out of control until he finally loses was incredible.
It saddens me a bit how much people don’t appreciate that about Gon. Also how much of Greed Island is really one last chance to show just how messed up Gon’s thought process is before the Chimera Ant arc
@@psycholuigiman If Gon was anything like your description he would be exactly like Hisoka and that's not interesting, he still had a positive impact on others even far gone people like the Phantom Troupe, so he has positive traits due to his upbringing but that internal craziness always being on the edge with him makes it interesting you never really guess which path he chooses until the consequences actually catches up to him.
@@islandboy9381 I dunno. Gon's desires kinda just line up with good morals accidentally when they do appear to be good. I feel like you've read something extra into my view, cuz it's not like I think Gon has zero positive traits. It's just that the more you watch him, the more you realize it's all about what he wants. He wants something, he'll try and get it, even at great peril to himself, his friends, and even if it means leaving his family behind without anything. It takes an absolutely unreasonable amount of persuasion to convince him to at least try a different approach, and most of the time you just can't convince him, because then he wouldn't be doing exactly what he wants. He's a child, and children are freaking psychopathic sometimes when they do stuff like take great pleasure in overpowering the weak, put others at risk for their own goals, and put themselves in a huge risk for extremely minor and unimportant goals,.And, you know, they're just kids. They don't know better. Part of the fun of watching kids grow up is watching them learn how not to be crazy. That's a big part of what was fun about Hunter x Hunter to me. Watching Gon and Killua grow up, and Gon was looooong overdue for the hard lessons he learned in the Chimera Ant arc. That's all I'm saying.
Really agree with most of your points, but I still feel like you are underplaying Gon's relationship with Kite and the narrative importance of showing it earlier in the story, before Gon became a Hunter. If a fatherless child was saved from death by a Firefighter and then got to spend a few hours with them for a single afternoon, that alone would probably still color how the child would view Firefighters for the rest of their lives. And in Gon's case, Kite is more important than that, since he was also the person who told Gon the truth about his dad, and more than likely also painted how Gon would have imagined Ging to be like and what being a Hunter is like. Since there are so few Hunters out there Gon probably never met any other before the Hunter Exam years later. And that basicaly means there is NO WAY Gon isn't thinking about Kite whenever he says that he wants to become a Hunter because Kite would have become his definition of what a Hunter is like.
And by not making Kite the first Hunter we meet, or at least one of the first, the 2011 anime deprives that experience from the watcher. If you read the manga first, you DO constantly think of "Gon wants to be like Kite" during the Hunter Exam because he is your only real sample for 5 chapters. If you start watching the anime, you already know over 20 Hunters by the time Kite is introduced, and that greatly diminishes his impact and your connection with Gon.
thank you
This a billion times this.
Gon to kite : hey I just met you and this is crazy so I will make my life about u
@@ahsamv1992 thats not how it happened lol
Underrated comment!
Plague using 1% of his power to create a banger once every decade before putting the other 99% back into drawing cat girls
Nefertiti is not a cat girl. Read the manga
Real
@@haroldnecmann7040what does Ancient Egypt have to do with this?
@@haroldnecmann7040 She is... like a mother protecting her child.
@@haroldnecmann7040 stop trolling, it's cringe.
Gon starts fucked up in the head, we only start noticing later in the series that him and his father were never normal in their universe
This, it's actually a brilliant subversion of the shonen protagonist.
You know how netero is considered a monster ever since he came down from the mountain tops? Gon already went through that before the series started. He spent his 10 years on the mountain since a child. And ging did the same thing before him. I only just made this connection after rewatching ep 111.
or he is autistic
100% gon is an autistic kid. look at how when rules are broken he reacts violently
Thing is, most shonen protagonists are fucked up in the head one way or another. HxH is just one of the few instances in which this element gets explored to the point of becoming a central plot point instead of getting ignored or brushed aside each time the new big bad becomes the more urgent issue.
Gon always had a problem conceptualizing good and evil correctly. He outright asked Chrollo why he did horrible things because Gon doesn't understand evil. This is further emphasized by the fact he was able to ignore that his best friend was previously an assassin and likely killed innocents. Gon never thought about that; he couldn't. Killua was 'good' in his mind, and that was all. So when faced with an adversary he has already deemed to be absolute evil, (someone he has decided to kill) but sees them in the process of saving someone else, while being told to allow them to do so for the 'greater good'.. his simple mind broke. It couldn't do anything else, because he is incapable of seeing the shades of gray that make up the world. This was even alluded to earlier in the series with how upset he got when arm wrestling Nobunaga.
That was my take away.
Spoilers dude i wanna hear plague tell me that
@@samditto I've only heard his opinion on this once during an art stream he uploaded here, and I recall him focusing on Kite and how weird it was that Gon "got that angry over someone he hardly knew". I don't know if his opinion has changed since that, but I don't believe Kite was the reason. Kite just happened to be the fuse that highlighted a major problem with Gon that would have inevitably revealed itself in some other way over time.
@@picsl8ed867Well kite also was the only physical connection of his dad that wasnt at his hometown.
@@picsl8ed867This a Problem with the Madhouse anime adaption. In both the manga and the old anime Kite shows up early. He saves a younger Gon from a bear(or a monster I don’t remember
) and he’s the one tells him his father is a hunter, so he’s the reason Gon becomes a hunter at all
@@lalilali3750 Gon also raises the cub of the bear to atone for making Kite kill its mother to save him. The cub later grows up and has a cub of its own that Gon and Killua save from poachers and accidentally(?) open its aura nodes while using nen aura to try and heal it and it learns nen as a result but this never comes up again(or at least as far as i've seen. My memory is also a little bit rusty on some minor details around it though
I thought it should have been somewhat obvious that Gon's hysteria in relation to Kite's death was never really about Kite as an individual--although that does play a part. Kite was simply a tangible avatar of Ging, who was still somewhat of an apparition. He was a stepping stone to fulfilling Gon's wild goose chase hyperfixation, his reason to live. Gon's dedication to Ging is so irrational I don't think you could call it anything other than an idealistic/curious hyperfixation, which is absolutely spot-on given his age. It's great child characterization.
Gon sees the world through archetypes which interact through predictable and predetermined pathways, simple cause and effect of animal instinct. in a funny way he's almost solipsistic. He very rarely concedes that other humans possess individuality or rational self interest. He's conveniently hypocritical by assigning higher values of consciousness/3 dimensional personalities to people like Killua and Kurapika with whom he has been quite close, but once that sheen of proximity fades its as if he sees other people as bestial flesh puppets. He can ignore this subconscious discrepancy when interacting with neutral and friendly parties, but as soon as one comes into conflict with him he is incapable of squaring his preconceived notions with adult human psychology. The Phantom Troupe, and more importantly Pitou, really are full inversions of his entire psyche.
I don't think that the hysteria is monocausal, yes, what you say is the biggest part of it, but there is also - albeit minor - Kite as a person, self-blame and the fact that Pitou lied to him, which is the first thing he mumbles after the revelation "liar". ALL of that together goes in there.
@@johannalvarsson9299 What did Pitou lie about? The only one I can think of is how long it would take to heal Komugi which I don't see upsetting Gon that much. Gon was too pissed to ever actually explain what he wanted from Pitou so I wouldn't count her not telling him Kite was dead earlier as lying.
Also, the first thing he mumbles is "died?" followed by Pitou elaborating, after which Gon just starting dissing himself. The first time he says anything about lying is when he is delusional after seeing Pitou start healing and thinks "oh thank god, that was a lie! she's healing Kite!" and says liar only when he starts exploding. At that point Gon was totally deranged so it's no wonder that claim doesn't hold up.
@@phobics9498 he convinced himself pitou was gonna heal kite after healing her arm, and when seeing her going to attack him he goes "liar", that's what they're talking about
although i'm not fully sure if it was that shortspanned or if it was about taking the walk all the way there to heal him tbh
I think its a little unfair to claim that Togashi doesn't realize that Ging's personality is a bad thing. Most of the characters in the setting are shown to dislike Ging precisely because he's a self-centered douchebag.
Yeah, as a fan of Yu Yu Hakusho & OG anime of HxH, he's a good writer who knows what type of character he's making. How others within the creation of the story have their own perspective, the man doesn't spell out things, which is why I had little to no reason to dislike any of his characters of the series I read.
I'd also like to point out that people who personally know of Ging idolize him. Those who have spent a significant amount of time with him only speak the world about him. Then again, Hunters, or just some of the people that Ging personally knows, aren't exactly normal. A normal person from an outside perspective (which is the majority of the Hunter's Association), acknowledge that he's a dipshit. Ging also doesn't sugarcoat his faults and has been honest about himself from the start. He's a self-aware asshole.
It's good to see Plague going back to his roots as an anime analyst RUclipsr.
roots 😂
So true.
I'm pretty sure he did animation before that
@@swordcollectorvalon7997
Nope, he definitely and irrefutably did no such thing. His first video was "Japan Doesn't Like Tien [DBG #1]" in 2017. That launched his career as an expert on anime in the RUclips community.
@@LessDevoid
This. We all know the art is just a side thing.
jk
I remember reading that Gon was supposed to be the opposite of a general Shonen protagonist because togashi needed a reason for a boy with a perfect loving childhood to want to abandon it and go adventure. Normally this would be the "call to action" but Gon's was an intrinsic self fulfilling call. Everything else was a secondary justification for his want to see the world. Because nothing on whale island could challenge him. The way i always saw it was that Gon wants a challenge, but ultimately wants to win. When faced with Kite's death he realized it was actually over, there was no overtime, there was no tie breaker, he lost, and he couldn't handle that, so he cheated. He went to the other teams locker room and massacred them. He didn't care about anything after that, just wanted revenge for someone beating him. The sorest loser in all of anime
This is my favorite take about this topic
How was killing Pitou sore losing? Pitou killed his friend and then tried to kill him so he killed Pitou. Just about as fair as you can get. And im sure most people would do the same.
That stuff about Gon following what Kite said or wanting to be a hunter because of his Dad sounds perfectly reasonable actually. He had no father figure, or male adults to look up to at all, except for the idea of his Dad all the way until he met Kite, who was also a hunter. And there was barely anything to do in his home town so of course he'd make being an adventurer/hunter his goal. Now being capable of it at 11 years old on the other hand is real damn extreme. I don't even remember why he took the test at that age. Was it because that's the minimum age? Because if so, that's crazy fucked up for the organization. Which is perfectly on brand.
As far as i remember, there isn't age restriction for the test at all, and that isn't a problem because a kid who is not as capable as Gon won't even find where exam is to begin with, or will get sea sick immediatly from the boat trip.
Also for Gon the age was 11 because that was when he managed to fish the king of the lake or whatever it was called, it was the condition Mito had on him to do the exam.
Yeah, I mostly agree with the essayist's conclusions, but dismissing the interactions that the characters had as kids is where his bias is showing. He seems like the kind of person who was very logical and analytical from an early age and takes for granted how impressionable children can be in a very fickle and irrational way. They will form obsessions and attachments over the most trivial things, especially where role models are concerned. Someone as impulsive and starved for male role models as Gon would definitely form a deep emotional connection with Kite, but not in a way that he would be consciously articulating.
You missed a few things, or probably don't remember them. He became a hunter solely to see why his father left him to be one. Which sounds extremely sad on paper, but Gon saw being a hunter was something so grand that his father left to become it and he was curious. And then, like you said, he found Kite who also was a hunter just like his dad. It's not that he found his home town or island boring or there was nothing for him there, he loves his home. He loves the family he has there. He even brings Killua back there. Again, he left because he was curious about his dad and Kite. His only goal was to find Ging. Which ended up being pretty anticlimactic in the end, imo as Ging ended up being a pretty boring dude
@@jase276I read a similar comment somewhere, years ago, that went something like, "Hunter x Hunter is the story of an infant whose deadbeat father went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. Now ten, he embarks on a dangerous journey into the wider world, intent on discovering just what makes cigarettes so great."
10:48 this actually makes a lot of sense to me. Gon has always been someone who deeply cares about the connections he’s made with people an probably sees no need to learn about his real mom because he already has a “real”mom
Funny how the character who played a big part in breaking Gon's worldview was a cat. An animal well known for torturing and playing with their pray instead of eating them right away
Even then there's nuance because they do that in order to avoid injury by tiring their prey out, since even a slight wound for an animal can get infected and lead to death
Constantly seeing this stupid projection.
To torture requires intent to cause suffering.
That is not the intent of the cat.
As the other commenter pointing out, the intent is to strategically kill their prey.
And its a white haired cat person with homicidal tendencies sounds like Killua.
Ironic since Gon absolutely toys with Pitou before destroying them.
@@Liliquan It's not projection. Some animals really do engage in torture and even indiscriminate killing due to bloodlust. Heck, dolphins and killer whales have been known to bully animals that aren't even prey sometimes. Why can't cats be the same way?
Zephile was the first to notice Gon’s conception of good and evil. Biscuit commented on Gon too.
Gon was too naive for the world. Many said Kurapika would be the one to self destruct but imo, I always saw Gon as the one that would do it.
Even so we the audience should have noticed first as Gon never bat an eye at all the people being killed during the Hunter exam. Bro even just let people fall to their death when he could have saved them, but only saves Leorio.
Their is a line about one of the Allies of Kurapika analysing him and comming to the conclussion that, maybe unbeknown to Kurapika himself, their core isn't just about revenge. Emperors Time is a weapon against the source of his Trauma, but it is not a pure death weapon ether.
In the HxH, I saw Gon as a selfish kid.
During Greed Island, especially during the battle with Genthru; it was clear he is insane and will do anything to fulfill his selfish desires, even if it can cost him his life.
I wouldn’t call him naïveté he is a very very strange person but not naïveté.
Kurapika would have made a better main character. He knew he was a sociopath, but embraced it anyway to accomplish his goal.
Gon and Killua are for sure an example of the loved and the lover. Killua's role in their relationship is to give of himself where as Gon's is to take.
killua sure is ghey
Truly toxic codependent yaoi
@@EdanR ah yes my doomed toxic yaoi
@@thatweirdodaniel It's kind of a Togashi specialty now that I think about it.
waiter! waiter! one shot of my favorite doomed toxic yaoi, please !!!
A fun thing to note about Gon is that Togashi's motivation for writing him amounts to showing that "innocent boy" main characters are actual psychopaths.
I love to talk about Nen and wanna invite everyone to discuss it more.
Im really not picky at all with the topic but may i suggest everyone give me feedback on some thoughts i had?
Here we go:
What about a catalyst-ability whose sole purpose it to be Useless and even HIGHLY Restrictive and then multiple more Abilities that all have the teeny tiny Restriction 'Can only be used while the useless Ability is active'. I can think of countles ways how this will not work but a few where it would actually work: You just gotta have 3+ Ability-Slots and the Useles Ability should be Mono-Type but more importantly have Restricttons that 'act on you' as long as its activated or even outright all-the-time. Kurapika, i think, gave me the idea cause i wondered if Emperors Time extreme Cost only helps Emperor Time or them all - and f this is exploitabe! Heres the kicker: Dowsing-Chain is pure Conjuration but its direclty stated to get a (Slight) Boost when Kurapika is in Emperor Time, so all you gotta ask is where this comes from. Cause its a slight improvement, it cant be all of Emperor Time's Life-Burning, so the only logical conclusion is some 'left-over' gets to Kurapikas other Hatsu. Guy's, its not rocket-science, all you gotta remember is he decreased his Efficiency to 80% and then up to 100% and all that's on you is remember ""Hey, wait, isnt that how he started as?"
So what i say is throwing Money into a Campfire can be of Benefit for moe Abilities
than actually have the Activation-Requirement 'Burn Money'' IF you pul it off
DO YOU HAVE EVEN THE SLIGHETS PROOF FOR THIS STATEMENT
@@slevinchannel7589No. Just. No.
@@aprofessionalgamer5355 you misspelled one word, and therefore have lost all credibility
I thought gons selfish nature was pretty obvious
that trait can get obscured if you come into Hunter X Hunter after having read through other shounens, where you're kinda trained to interpret the protag as inherently selfless (especially when they keep receiving praise from the side characters, ala Gon and his three amigos).
Even in One Piece, where we can point to many instances of Luffy being selfish ("MEEEAAATT!"), the guy always seems to knock over the worst tyrants and leave everywhere he's visited better for having had him.
So, it can be difficult to spy. I think one of the biggest points that might go over readers' heads is how the world does NOT change thanks to Gon. Neither Gon nor Luffy are directly interested in changing the world as much as they are in adventuring and seeing new things, but Luffy leaves a noticeable impact just about everywhere he goes. Gon, though? Idk, the world of Hunter X Hunter never seems to get any less dystopic. That might be because the world is simply far more difficult to change, but it might also be because Gon never tries to change it because the world of Hunters already gave him free reign to pursue his desires.
For Luffy, the World Government is a direct threat against the freedom he values for himself and others. Therefore, he constantly challenges the status quo, whereas Gon has never had to.
They explicitly say how selfish he is like 40 times throughout the show lol. Also he was raised like a literal animal. "when netereo came down from the mountains, he had become a monster" Meanwhile gon and ging literally GREW UP ON A MOUNTAIN. Before the series begins, he had already was half way between man and beast.
It is pretty obvious, but it is *also* pretty easy to ignore for a lot of people even when not being disingenuous just because so many perceive Gon as cute and nice and innocent and nothing more than that.. As in real life, it's very difficult for many people to accept heroic or otherwise good characters/people they like as having (notable) flaws that actually negatively impact other characters/people--much less intentionally. So it's easy for people to perceive Gon as "merely" driven the typical shonen protagonist even though Gon is also pretty capricious.
The contrast to Luffy is fitting since for all Luffy's selfishness, as already said, he and his crew tend to still help other people intentionally and directly when they can. Gon just...doesn't.
Of course, to be fair to Gon, it helps Luffy *a lot* the literal government of the world is one of Luffy's main opponents and the _One Piece_ setting's main villainous forces. While the overall governments of _Hunter x Hunter_ are arguably *even worse* on some levels just from the snippets we see of them, Gon simply...doesn't interact with them, especially since Hunters are largely automatically above them. The closest we ever got to Gin having to interact with a government was with the NGL infiltration that began the Chimera Ant arc and was *always* about those entities rather than the entire nation being a drug-producing factory ruled by tyrants (bordering another country ruled by an even worse tyrant).
@@MusicoftheDamned
but gon does help people even if it slows him down or when he has to fight someone much stronger to save a friend.
By the time he goes all “honey I aged the kid” it feels like that’s the only thing holding his character together.
Just a selfish little kid
“The series paints this as good and wholesome”
It definitely doesn’t, Ging is perceived to be an asshole by just about everyone.
In fact, he’s so universally disliked that when Leorio punched him everyone applauded and he become a contender for chairman despite in no way being qualified
How others perceive a character doesn't necessarily reflect how the story wants us to. There are narratives where a character is hated by the people around them yet they are framed in a way in which we can sympathise with or find likeable. Hunter X Hunter writes this as quirky rather than a strong criticism against the character. It still encourages us to see him as a knowledgeable adventurer with romanticised ambition.
@@shadowmaydawn I can't believe they wrote a character with flaws and virtues. I'll contact the Emperor of Japan immediately and get him to correct this. I wonder if sometimes the flaws can be more apparent, and other times the virtues can be more apparent. Based on the context of the situation or something. I don't know. CAN a person be a terrible father but a knowledgeable adventurer with romanticized ambition? A multidimensional character that is perceived a variety of different ways by a variety of different people in universe and out of universe? Not after I mail this letter.
I disagree for the same reasons as the other commentor
@@shadowmaydawnI dont really get your point.
There are real people who have done great deeds and are idolised even though they were assholes. That doesent change the things they did were great and inspiring.
Why would ging being a asshole suddenly have to make it so togashi has to write him as clearly evil like gyros father who doesent do anything good?? Why does every character have to have their one personality written on their face as a law they completely follow so people dont have to judge them themselves.
@baizuo_6246 But it doesn't overlook their bad behaviour, especially if they are egregious. People will often place greater weight on it when it comes to judging another person. If some great inventor murdered their whole family, you are not going to say: "Think about all the things they have done."
I am not saying that Ging needs to be made evil. Rather, I'm saying that this negative characteristic should be presented as a real flaw rather than a funny quirk.
I like to think Gon's story kinda intersects in a way that he becomes what Killua is trying to get away from. For example during their journey Killua becomes more and "human" less emotionless super assassin due to his friendship with Gon and crew. When in contrast Gon slowly loses his mind/innocence as hes exposed to the real world with real consequences this really kicks off during the york new arc and then comes to a head during the chimera ant saga where just being strong doesn't cut it.
Absolutely, and I think that's all 100% completely intentional. Gon's entire arc is all about losing his innocence and realizing the darkness of the world, while Killua's arc is about fighting against his past demons to overcome his family's trauma and learn to open up to people again. The two really do complete eachother and it's just so cool to see a series where the overly optimistic shonen protag archetype both is dangerous as an unrestrained mindset while also being something Killua needs to learn to tap into to learn to be an empathetic functional human being.
I've always liked the idea of purity in the sense of Goku or Gon. It feels like, intentionally or not, it asks questions about what purity really is and whether or not it is a good thing. Innocent things are often the most cruel, because if you don't really have any concept of pain or sorrow. Then how could you possibly feel anything when you inflict it. Its like the fairy children from berserk
Tldr: I love how much of a little psycho Gon is
Sadly in Goku's case it is almost purely glorified. Even if not 100% of the time by the writer (Though it is most of the time) it definitely is glorified by the fanbase.
Gon is appreciatable a lot more in that facet, but it is written at a level of subtlety where it can be interpreted either way to some extent.
Like despite Plauge framing a lot of Gon things as bad, the show, nor the characters, nor the world they live in, especially do. Enough to where I personally feel unsure how much was intended of this overall message.
But it sure does make a Lot better sense whollistically explained as Plauge did.
Is the age old question, what's better, to know no evil or to know evil but choose not do evil?
@@JammyJam5588plague just jealous of gon "privilege" upbringing.
@@JammyJam5588
Difference is Goku has long since grown past his original pure innocence. In fact compared to Gon, he was still more human. Goku understood the idea of compassion and empathy even as a kid, he was just a mountain baby who didn't understand social norms. As he got older his love of fighting blended with his desire to protect people who couldn't fight back.
Gon is purely one track, like what Goku could've been if he didn't bump his head or if his drive to fight was so strong he actually couldn't comprehend people outside of that goal. Jokes aside, Goku is pretty well rounded and emotionally stable. Maybe as Gon grows he can go on an arc like Plague mentioned that helps him become a man.
@@JammyJam5588goku has learned more about empathy and good and evil than many of us gives credit for.
Gon doesn't seem to learn those things and that's dangerous.
I've always thought of Gon as the son of a dictator. He is so kind and good to everyone...while he has his way, when things don't go his way he will throw a tantrum, heads will roll, people will be sent to the dungeons and ultimately he will have what he wants, so then he can go back to be the shiny precious boy
Kite's death was the first big NO he received, something that there was no arguing, no tiptoeing, no getting stronger and coming back later, simply an unfixable situation. And he threw the mother of all tantrums because even his daddy couldn't do anything about it
his tantrum was the equivalent of your dictator's son getting the launch codes
Only watching the anime up to the Ant arc, I thought Gon's dad was just an even stronger Gon. Strong enough to have not have any "NOs" to the point he doesn't really care when his son was hospitalized.
@@chrisdaughen5257if you think about it, Gon was hospitalized and came out of that "just fine", so that's still a fixable situation for Ging
Gon is probably my favorite topic of HXH, how people understand and perceive him, what they draw from Gon as both a character and person, and what they think of his journey.
Me miserably pointing the 12 gauge at my son when he couldn't do 50kg weighted one arm push ups, run 60 km, push a 4 ton door and reach floor 200 on a fighting arena at 11 years old (Project Gon) :
I really like the note you ended this video on. It really makes hunterxhunter feel like a natural thematic extention of the themes Togashi was exploring in YuYu Hakusho. I always liked that Yusuke's strength didn't come as a result of him just training his muscles good, but rather he grew stronger by getting in touch with his emotions and becoming a more understanding complete person. With that being reflected against Toguro who quite literally tried to get gains so big that he'd never have to feel an emotion again.
It feels like HunterxHunter just takes that idea of strength vs humanity even further. Maybe strength isn't always desirable.
> Yusuke's strength didn't come as a result of him just training his muscles good
Yes, it came as a result of him being half-demon. I hate the finale of Chapter Black Saga. Togashi was too much of a pussy to give other character a spotlight and instead resurrected Yusuke when he should've died for good.
@@KoylTrane I'm not a fan of Yusuke being part demon either, but at that time he was fully human and his growth in power was directly tied to his emotional maturity. The way the demon gene works is that it's completely dormant until you reach a certain power threshold, so his previous achievements are still attributed to him as a person instead of him just being a demon.
@@Substantial-hf1rm if it was revealed in the later episodes, then it's fair. I was so pissed off, I dropped the series right there
@@KoylTrane I've run into explanations about the writing process for Chapter Black and the Three Kings in the years since.
Togashi was done with the story he wanted to tell with Yu Yu Hakusho at the end of the Dark Tournament. Chapter Black is a radical departure from what he was doing in Yu Yu Hakusho up until that point because he was done with the story he had been writing and was ready to move on to something different and to explore different themes. So, Chapter Black and the Three Kings were intended to try exploring some of the themes he goes into in Hunter x Hunter. The plan was to start deconstructing the characters, to have them start making the wrong choices.
Yusuke coming back to life as a demon wasn't supposed to be an automatic thing. Originally, it Yusuke was supposed to have a choice in the matter. He could die as a human or come back to life as a demon. And by choosing the later, he fails his test of character by making the same decision that Toguro did. You are right to be upset that Yusuke came back and Kuwabara wasn't allowed to end it. Because choosing to let go, choosing to pass the torch, that was the choice that would have been in line with what Genkai wanted him to learn from Toguro. Yusuke coming back would have been a failure.
Likewise, during the Three Kings arc, Hiei was to have gone back to his old ambitions seeking power for its own sake, and Kurama was to have ultimately abandoned the humanity he had come to value.
This was not something his editors were comfortable with letting him explore in Yu Yu Hakusho, so the idea of Yusuke coming back as a demon got reworked into a more typical shonen power-up. Likewise, while you can see the echoes of the others' planned character arcs, with Kurama being conflicted about his human and demon sides being present, things became much more simple and straightforward, with the characters making more or less the right choice in the end. Though he does have Yusuke admit his plan for the demon world tournament was reckless and put a lot of innocent lives in danger if things hadn't worked out, and had been done in pursuit of his own desires rather than being a plan geared toward protecting the innocent.
Personally, I am very fond of what Chapter Black ended up becoming, and am glad he didn't get to implement these deconstruction arcs. I don't think it would have worked with the characters that were already well established by that point. Hunter x Hunter being a completely different series than Yu Yu Hakusho left him with more room to build his story around these themes and ideas from the start.
@@YouthRightsRadical thanks for the reply, I'm feeling more justified in my anger now. I hear people praise Yu Yu Hakusho so often without addressing it's issues, I felt alone.
An important element I think you missed is Gon viewing Kite as a positive male roll model. Children will latch to anything for any reason partly because they're kids. Gon didn't have a father figure then obtained one with Kite.
I mean, even that would be questionable, is not like he was alone with Mito, there were other men that knew and cared for Gon in the island
@@lcg3092 a good point. However, I disagree because the camera never made a point to distinguish any of those relationships. It's made clear in the first episode Gon is "different" than the others. Kite is one of the first people he may actually live up to.
@@lcg3092 This is true but you're forgetting he's born special. He was stronger than all of those men by like age 7. How is he going to view them as anything close to a father figure. Where as Kite, he actually knows Ging, he's stronger than Gon and he cuts an impressive figure. I don't think it's far fetched to think Gon viewed him as a father figure.
Excellent analysis. You know this is good when it holds weight outside of the anime, as the entire Dark Continent arc revolves around these themes.
Kurapika has basically been cornered by his desire for revenge and been hindered by his own powers. The princes seeking strength end up developing monstrous powers that can only be used for bad things, since almost all of them are bad people. Chrollo kills what is essentially an entire stadium of innocent people just to kill Hisoka. Power is seen as either monstrous or a burden. Only Kurapika has decided to use his powers for something more than animalistic urges, and it seems to be redeeming him.
However I also want to turn over to Hisoka in this discussion. In many ways Hisoka is very similar to Gon, an animalistic being that is ruled by lust and fantasies of carnage. What I like about Hisoka is that he's so obsessed with fighting that he sets up these weird rules for himself in order to make fights more special... with the expectation that he will win. He never says it, but its evident in the outcome of his and Chrollo's fight that Hisoka genuinely thinks he will always win every fight he takes.
So what does he do when he loses? He tosses the rules aside and kills the Spiders out of frustration. His fight ruleset was never there to make things more fair or enjoyable, it was there to give him the opportunity to play with his targets before killing him. When that ruleset is turned against him by an opponent who has no interest in fighting him "legitimately" and will use anything in his arsenal to live, Hisoka snaps and becomes a full on monster.
I mean he just wants to fight his opponents at their strongest. So he will let them have every advantage they can have, or let them live until they've "ripened" and at their prime. His self imposed handicaps are just theatrics against weaker opponents to amuse himself and to draw out any hidden potential they might have.
He's like an evil Netero basically.
@@DragoonBoomnowhere near as strong tho
I cant remember where I saw it, except that it was in a comment section on some platform, but somebody said(paraphrased): "Hisoka is one of those anime characters that is just 'Fight-sexual', it's all he cares about." And boy is it a perfect description of him and lots of others lmao
@@DragoonBoom I agree, but that's not quite what I was getting at.
Similar to Gon, Hisoka thinks he's the strongest guy in the room. His weird battle stuff is there to facilitate a fair fight in his mind, as he always believes that people at their strongest will lose but give him some fun. Hisoka cannot conceive that he will lose, unlike a lot of other fight-centric characters.
Chrollo then (pretty solidly) beats him. I'd argue Hisoka never really stood a chance when the fight started since Chrollo had overwhelmingly planned the fight in his favor. Hisoka's reaction to this is to just go and kill all of the Spiders in sneak attacks to bait them into trying to kill him all at once.
The point is that Hisoka embodies a lot of negative things about the HxH world and how it portrays power. Hisoka's set up and "toy" mindset means that he doesn't really have an option if he loses a fight. Hence why he seemingly throws it all away after losing. All of the structure was just there to facilitate killing, which I'd argue makes him more callous overall.
I think its kind of fitting that the series will likely end in a duel between Hisoka and Chrollo. A monster masquerading as a human, vs. A human trying to be a monster.
"So what does he do when he loses? He tosses the rules aside and kills the Spiders out of frustration. *His fight ruleset was never there to make things more fair or enjoyable, it was there to give him the opportunity to play with his targets before killing him*. When that ruleset is turned against him by an opponent who has no interest in fighting him "legitimately" and will use anything in his arsenal to live, Hisoka snaps and becomes a full on monster."
What's that saying about truer words?
the line "his hands are my favorite hands" was delivered perfectly lmfao
Its not so much that you love your anime videos, but more so your breakdown of the writing. You clearly understand what makes stories work and we appreciate your breakdowns on it
@@AmrithKrishnaChanakyaNadendla yes most definitely
@@AmrithKrishnaChanakyaNadendlafunny because most of the things are outright wrong which is ironic he used "everyone misunderstood" in the title
@@haroldnecmann7040 nah
@@haroldnecmann7040 nice bait
10:50 That old lady was the one that always talked about ging. Mito tried to minimize hus presence as much as possible fearing gon would be influenced and leave as he just did.
I WAS GONNA SAY BRO he gets so many things wrong about mito and ging’s mom it pisses me off
"Animals kill and torture for fun"
Some of them do. Dolphins are an example, and famously cats, but most do not. Most of them don't think in complex enough ways to take pleasure in it.
Ive seen a cow eat a squirel cant tell me it wasnt getting off on that.
@@TheKnizzine How does that even work bro cannot get sustenance from meat
@@someguy4405it was for the fun of it ig
Animals are either hedonistic and amoral little shits (like cats) or so strict and instinctually dogmatic that they kill their own babies because they take too long for their liking to learn to fly and so they assume they never will (example, hawks). Humans are a rare example of something that's usually in between these two extremes.
@@TheKnizzine most herbivores will eat meat from time to time
I love when writers actually write characters with the intention to be flawed, interesting cases of being inhuman while not falling for the trap of making your character "something to aspire to be". Many people seem to the think the protagonist must do no wrong and should be idolized. It has its place but I find story's that actually frame characters actions to only be justified within their own fucked up mindset that you've seen take shape throughout the story to be far more interesting, its almost more human in its own weird way.
He said Kite looks like a bird that wished he became a boy 😂
Yutuber is talking a lot of s-it about Kite,
going into some wild b.s nonsensse
Ok, gon @@slevinchannel7589
48:36 I have seen far too many people misunderstand where Gon's character arc is going at but you get it 100%. Gon is not to become Ging 2.0 because it's those same characteristics he shares with him that have made him end up nenless. Ging may be able to get away with it because he self-regulates his impulses a bit better and just doesn't care about anyone, but Gon isn't like that and that's the key difference that will push his character development.
using every version of the character so you can pull lines of dialogue from each to paint the picture you want is a very good rhetorical device. you truly make coherent statements that hold up under mild scrutiny
Are you saying that he's a bad video essayist? Because it seems like it, just want to make sure.
@@Tilearian I don't think this video was very good, I haven't watched his others so i couldn't say
@skoomatroll I'm in agreement with you then. I thought the video was dogwater and stopped watching halfway through. Started looking through the most recent comments to see if anyone shared the same opinion.
It just felt like dude had a bone to pick with the show in general because of an ex or something.
I'm glad to hear that i'm not the only person who uses "whoha" in place of vagina.
Also on the subject of Gon freaking out over Kite's death, I always saw his freak out as guilt. I didn't see it as they were so close and that's why he freaked out. He said more than once "He died because of me". I know that feeling...I've lived that feeling. It made sense to me.
What's genius about it is that other anime would be completely oblivious at this characterization and we get a fake hypocrite protagonist. Gon's hypocrisy is actually acknowledged and subtlety foreshadowed
That’s why yoshiro is and will always be many mangaka’s inspiration. He played a big, if not, the biggest role for how anime are written today.
@@SupremePapi_OLyu yu Hakusho changed A LOT
@@BigPanda096Yeah Making Anime worse 😂😂😂😂
@@SupremePapi_OLtogashi is not the pioneer of good storytelling anime is written well today because there’s authors that know how to write lol
@@soultheconfusing9563 no shit. Did I say storytelling? No. He has his flaws. YYH was heavily underdeveloped n HxH be all over the place at times. But they’re still loved because he did things very & still unique with them. I’m saying he set the groundwork for Shonen tropes. Look at Naruto. Kishimoto took HELLA stuff from togashi. Look at JJK. They took stuff from bleach, which was ALSO inspired by togashi. He’s the goat.
Thanks for having me on to edit! I had a great time!
Thank you. You did a good job
"i'm not going to get analytical"
1 minute later explains the exact speeds usain bolt runs over a specific distance and talks about Gons 80Km marathon
People also don't understand that Light Yagami was a megalomaniac from the start.
Very interesting. I always found Gon to be a bit psychopathic. Thought the same of Luffy until he showed actual empathy and affection for his friends. Gon never seemed to care particularly about anyone or anything that wasn't right in front of him, and even then, Kilua ironically seemed to be the more emotionally intelligent of the pair.
Also it bothered me that Leorio wants to be a doctor and is the first one to implore that they murder a guy in the hunter trials lol. Maybe doctors in the hunter x hunter universe don't have the Hippocratic Oath.
I saw another video put it really well as "Gon only cares about things that are useful to him".
This is a kid that trained against a horrible serial killer for three days and just kind-of let him go. He didn't reform. Gon never worries about what happens next. He just met a guy, they helped him get stronger, and now that they've been helpful they can leave. 100% pure give and take.
@@dracocrusher he’s literally the best depiction of a little boy I’ve ever seen 💯
Luffy is dumb but also charismatic and will die for his bois
Technically, being a hunter don't let you go murdering people or stealing. The goverment won't judge you, but the hunter association will. If it's a minor felony, you may lose your hunter license. But if is something severe, you most likely will be on the black list and all the hunters in the world would be looking for you alive or dead. There is a blacklist hunter for a reason.
I didn't think Hisoka is on this list so what could you possibly do to make it on the list?
Why is nature evil? Why is killing evil? We all kill. We just call evil what we don't want to see or don't like or don't agree with. There are some valid points in there, but it gave me the same feeling that you get when you catch someone giving a reach around to someone else.
You really don't get how killing is evil ?
@@danieltodorov7753humans kill all the time, for necessity or otherwise, and most don't pat an eye over it, it's only when it happens to humans or other animals we find cute that it becomes "evil", when is the last time you shed a tear over a forest being destroyed by humans? Do you know how many creatures die as a result of it? No because you don't care.
@@danieltodorov7753Ah yes, like every good person in the world never ate meat or killed insects.
@@Multienderguy37 The man is part of nature and can not escape it, the different is that we are self-aware to an extent that can mentally cripple us so we engage in rational ingnorance.
How do we know if a plants feel pain, what about the germs we kill everytime we wash our hands, how do we even know when a human fetus is considered a life? We ignore these questions simply to continue on with our lives.
Okay. About the bear eating a deer thing:
Bears will maul you to leave you just a hair away from death and then bury and hide you. This way, your meat will rot way later than it would otherwise. They do worse things than described, but only because they need to for their food preservation technique to work.
I always attributed selfish obsessions to be a hallmark of the strongest nen users, and the number one factor in shaping their abilities. Even the more practical characters like Killua have unreasonable idiosyncrasies like their unconditional loyalty to the family members that abuse him. Netero fostered that mindset to create the strongest nen users possible.
Gon is just a kid in tantrum. A selfish obnoxious stubborn kid who think he can solve anything by being positive. And if something don't go his way, he gets angry, cry in self loathing and seek vengeance.
Gon is a goated character. One of my favorites in all of anime.
Vid went where I expected it, but in a bit more Gripey than I expected.
Overall agree with what you're saying.
Tho I completely understand the anime's deceptive masking of scenes that objectively shouldn't be considered emotional- these are very unusual people we're focusing on, and if they're feeling and displaying them as they are, regardless how insane it may be- that is what HxH is ultimately about. The various amounts of human in the various amounts of inhuman, and vice versa.
So yeah we can chalk up a lot to anime bs, and you say Gon winning Greed island is some level of bs. When you also can bring it around to Gon being just like Ging, for whatever reason, and caring specifically for the playground that was (wether indirectly or not) built for him.
Also wanted to add: yes Ging is very clearly a flawed person, but I feel the specific bit you deem a flaw "I don't think Togashi knows that isn't a good characteristic" I wonder why you see that so negatively?
From personal experience I have friends I haven't seen in years yet we feel no need to contact eachother or really do anything, but when the paths intersect we connect back pretty easily.
You say he "uses people for the experience" when that's just the extremes Gon displayed, and even then I feel Gon's examples are more complicated than just vampiric.
I feel those are just examples of the CORE of HxH. The x.
While it's an in universe space substitute, I believe it can easily represent what I mean. The main characters are a quartet, and the crossing paths of 4 points make a 5th. The journey, the detours yada yada. And how the main cast isn't always the main focus.
On top of that, Ging clearly mentioned he cared about the tomb thing, just that it paled in comparison to what really mattered to him- connections he made with people to reach that goal. He even said he stays in contact with the non-profit. It's that he just makes more of those, or at least looks out for the experiences he can gain along batshit journeys he can go on by being so (presumably) strong.
That's in no way a bad thing though.
It's the most positive trait, or at least most normal thing about him.
And hell you can even see he gave his son his phone number, even anwsered a call, that's at least a step in the right direction.
Idk I completely feel with Togashi on this matter, feel you griped on that aspect a little much.
Guess it's either from your own personal experiences or perspective, personality type (however bs or not those are)?
Regardless an interesting vid.
That's about the only part that really bothered me about it.
@@CrashBandicootFan100 honestly think Ging's personality is neither good or bad, it just depends on your own perspective of relationships.
Some people have the need to have a constant connection with friends rather than seeing them only a few times a year, others prefer doing there own thing until something interesting comes up. Neither are really bad unless those two types of people cross, then it just becomes incompatible. Somebody would get hurt, most likely the one with the want for those connections.
Like if Gon wasn't Gon I doubt he would want anything to do with a father that wasn't present in his life. Ging's attitude doesn't work with being an attentive father, so i think the problem is more that in the light of being a parental figure Ging's want to always look for a new experience makes him a shit dad, and in real life, he would most likely be a bit of a shit person to be around.
I cannot see that dude settling down in any way, and for a lot of people that thought process just isn't the vibe.
@@burningtrash6330 Liked your comment back then, and with rereading now for a refresher: Completely agree.
Wanna respond cause I came back to this comment thread wondering if I was being an ass. Not sure.
The second comment I made was more emotionally charged.
Wonder why that frustrated me?
Guess because I enjoyed this aspect of Ging for being so mundane.
At least compared to what I'd expect from the guy.
I thought Gon was just like this because of Luffy. Because the entire point of Luffy's character, and One Piece in general, is about doing what you want 100% of the time, all the time. That's what a pirate is, someone who refuses to follow any rules of society so they can be completely free. That's also why you get a scene where Dr. Hiriluk breaks into someone's house to stab them with needles as they beg him to stop: because the story's not about what other people feel, it's about how much he wants to be a doctor. I always assumed Gon was a commentary on that, but in an environment that doesn't hide how completely incompatible this is with any concept of morality or decency.
I've always wanted an anime that picked apart the Goku mentality
Thing is luffs learned to democracy a little
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69And that's the reason that i loved HxH. The adult Gon scene is like a super saiyajin that went really wrong
I hope In the final arc oda touch’s on this more. Yes luffy doing what he wants helps people but nearly every other pirate doing it has drastically hurt people like Kidd or Blackbeard or kaido. I hope oda expands upon it more directly that what he has been doing. Unlimited freedom is so horrible
@@ashleighdyson2733 Hahaha no. I'm calling this shot right now: the world Luffy wants to create is "a world where everyone is free". Luffy is exactly the same as everyone other pirate, greedy, selfish, and arrogant, but One Piece does and will portray those qualities as good things. That's the definition of a pirate, one who refuses to follow rules in order to seek their own desires.
"His mother is also his cousin which is a little fucked up." You're getting twisted up in your own words, there, grape. His *adoptive* mother is his cousin. That's not even a little bit weird.
He mentioned that later in the video, I think he was saying that it was fucked up that it had to come to that
Guys... its a joke
@@gh0stbehindU your *face* is a joke, haha got em.
im sorry. i shouldnt have lashed out like that.
I get that it can be hard to tell what’s a joke and what’s commentary when the speaker is doing both… but yeah it’s just a joke. He also said it’s fine.
its a joke, carl.
I really like his anime analysis videos. One of my all-time favorites is the Naruto one. It made some die-hard fans upset, but I agreed with basically everything he said. It was also hilarious. For example, he called Naruto a heroic traffic cone. 😂
I didn’t really agree with some things in that video but meh I’m curious what he thinks of certain things.
i had some problems with the video personally, but it was still hella funny lol
I'm the unbiased type. It’s always refreshing to see different takes on things… even my favorite ones.
Theres alot in this video I don't super agree with. Its not WRONG but just kinda weak and surface level... but the core of the video is true: People misudnerstand Gon.
And I'm not sure WHY they misunderstand Gon, because nothing to do with Gon or Hunters in general is like... subtext. There is no mystery here.
HxH states things plainly, all the time, whenever it can:
Hunters are not good people. You do not BECOME a hunter if you are a particularly good person.
They are people who are so damn determined to reach some ambition that they cannot be stopped - only reasoned with, distracted or watched.
The reason the Hunter Association exists is because, in this world, it is possible to get so powerful that you are unstoppable. So how to you try and put a lid on that...?
You make a honeypot to attract these strong people, so you can try and intimidate or bribe them away from committing mass atrocities... or simply have the ability to record who is where.
This isn't subtext. this is TEXT. This is ~the story~ and yet so many fans treat the Hunters like... like I don't even know, super heroes...?
I really don't understand why people can seriously believe Gon is some shining beacon of Good amongst a sea of nasty hunters, who are assassins and creeps and murderers and jerks.
Gon gets what he wants no matter what. He has always gotten what he wants by pushing his whole being against the wall of impossibility - hard enough to shatter his own bones or tramples his friends - and it has ALWAYS worked out for him. He ALWAYS gets his way.
If the world won't bend to your whims then you get strong enough to bend it yourself.
That is like... the mantra of being a hunter. It is Gon's mantra. It is a basic rule of the world he believes in wholeheartedly.
It is a mantra that seems shining to Killua, who is trying to bend the impossibility of escaping his family and becomming more than what he was born to be.
I'm not a big fan of your 'human vs nature' analogy for Gon, but the basic symbolism is not wrong.
Kite dies. Gon did not want Kite to die.
Gon can always get his way by pushing himself against the wall of impossibility.
So he pushes. He pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes - and he doesn't get his way.
There are forces in this world beyond him and leave him powerless... and if he is powerless, then he cannot push hard enough to reach his ambition.
I'm not going to go even more into an essay - thats your job and you did a pretty decent job - but Gon IS misunderstood even though there are multiple angles you can view him from that are ALL right and ALL make sense, and its baffling because so much of it isn't even subtext.
tbf, kaite did save his life, which might be why he places so much value on kaite. the 2011 anime glosses over this, which might be why he cares so much. kaite, his only link to his father, who also saved his life when he was a kid, is brutally murdered and toyed with by this creature. which also explains part of his breakdown later on when he see that same creature healing a child. it breaks **HIS** black-and-white "my friends are good and anybody who opposes them or me is bad" because a bad person is doing a good thing and his moral compass cant comprehend that level of complexity.
edit: grammar fix in the last sentence
Ok but like, can we also get a real analytical video from you about Nen? Cause that would be awesome.
First arc: sees people die. No reaction
Second arc: hears people get eaten by a giant Monster. No reaction
Next few arcs: doesn't care about the actual chaos just how the troupe can hurt people they don't know yet says nothing on kurapika doing the same thing with the people he works with
Greed island: same thing. Sees it as a game
Chimera ant arc: abusive towards killua and throws a baby rage at one ant wasting everything he could have been.
Gon was always mental. He's a kid and would have ended komugi just for talking. Scared chimera ants and so on. Gon was never sane
Your comment is the most truthful whenever it comes to Gon as a character.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr as I age I come to see how people really over romanticize something and can have a double standard with the villain and hero doing something
Villain does something. It's something you can forgive. Hero does it. It's a good thing and hype. Gundam basically throws this at our face of the MC's being wrong like ibo and 00
Gon is rabid and his actions are like Naruto releasing the 9 tails seal to defeat kakuzu or Ichigo using mugetsu to beat Ulquiorra. It was a selfish act and togashi showed it well and it took a literal plot device to save him from his consequences
hes a literal people meat grinder and gets upset at someone for showing basic human empathy, unreasonably upset.
them sparing and healing Genthru isn't about the Bombers being good guys, it's about Gon and Killua being bad guys, and real recognizes real.
The topic of Son Goku's innocence always makes me think of chapter 70. Two dudes in flying machines are shooting at Goku so he punches them out of the sky and they explode. Bulma goes "You didn't have to go that far..." but Goku doesn't really care and goes back to his jolly old self.
I mean, it was self defense and so arguably justified, but being unfazed after murdering people is typically not an innocent trait.
I won’t ever understand the hate for him. It’s a great subversive and gradual shift he goes through. People get angry when shonen aren’t different yet also when they are different.
Yep, that's always been an occupational hazard when it comes to making art/media for others. People can sometimes be fickle, and what has worked at one point may not always work a second time (and, it's not unheard of for something people liked at one point in time can change in what feels like an eye-blink).
That's why one variation of self-care that helps most artists is making art for just themselves, and art/media for other people comes later. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
People hate Gon? Why? Because his actions have consequences and moral ambiguity? I thought people hated paragons.
@lightspaceman5064 That's what they say, but thier actions speak otherwise.
@@lightspaceman5064 ppl usually hate who reflects them the most and idolize who doesn’t. Naruto & Sasuke opened my eyes to that. Naruto is more so inspirational while Sasuke is more so relatable.
I think you are imagining two entirely separate groups of people as the same.
Ultimately, hxh is one of the most highly popular and highly praised anime of all time.
Gon making Killua help him catch the dodgeball in greed island makes sense. It was explained in York new city that an Enhancer’s abilities are strengthened when the nen user is with someone they care a lot about. Gon probably knew that him working with Killua would maximize his potential to punch the ball
Correct me if i'm wrong but it's not so much that an enhancer is stronger with someone to protect, it's just specifically Uvogin who is an enhancer was stronger that way. Either way, i do still think it makes sense Gon would want Killua only to hold the ball, as morally ambiguous as it is lol
Gon losing his mind is not just rage -- it's guilt, a very human emotion.
Before this arc, when bad things happened, they didn't matter much for Gon: they could be fixed, they were acceptable casualties and/or they were according to plan. Even the way he sees his own case of child abandonment is okay because there were no consequences to it (for him) as his Aunt served as his mom anyway.
But Kite's death is purely and simply something Gon feels responsible for, and he was powerless to stop it and he is powerless to fix it. He is a feral child feeling an emotion too human for him to comprehend so he chooses to indulge in a self-destructive rage to cope with it.
Chef's kiss analysis
One thing I'm surprised I never hear mentioned in these analyses, and especially in this video, is the two pieces of advice Gon recieves after he recovers at the end of the Election Arc. He pours out his heart to both Ging and the reincarnated Kite, and they both give him pretty predictable and terrible advice. Kite tells him he just needs to be stronger next time so that he can protect whoever needs protecting, basically the opposite of what PlagueOfGripes is saying he needs. It's pretty on the nose and not that deep I guess, but many other authors would just have the final moral lesson received by the main character be something that they themselves believe, rather than just the realistic thing the selfish jerks he seeks out would actually tell him, so in that sense I always thought that was interesting.
Never seen someone shit on a character that I love so hard. And still love it at the same time.
? Pitou didn't apologize for killing Kite, it apologized that he was already dead and couldn't heal him. Also, it was Killua who made the Pitou=Mom protecting kid analogy not Gon. So much more but it's pretty clear you weren't really paying attention to the show.
>Pitou didn't apologize for killing Kite, it apologized that he was already dead and couldn't heal him
what? that is barely any different from one another, and why does it matter in the context of this video or anything? Not like this nuanced reason changes anything whatsoever about anything.
>So much more but it's pretty clear you weren't really paying attention to the show.
I mean, you literally picked one phrase from an almost hour long video, as an excuse to get mad at it. Are you genuinely autistic? You need to turn off your computer sometimes.
He pawns his licsense. He doesnt sell it...
What's the difference? Genuinely curious.
If you give something to a pawn shop and get money for it they are not allowed to sell it for an agreed amount of time. While it's pawned you can buy it back anytime for the agreed amount. Only after the timespan has passed the ownership goes to the pawnshop and they can do with it what they want. @@nerdbutgangsta1816
@@nerdbutgangsta1816 It means if he doesn't pay the money back by a certain point, they'll keep his license.
In other words it's being used as collateral.
The difference in quality of writing between the start of HxH and the end is staggering.
Also, this is easily the best HxH analysis video I've seen.
How is the start any different ? The writing has always been good, it's just that it spent a lot of time laying fundations so arcs like season 3 and 5 are possible
Ya Gon is pretty sociopathic, completely true. I remember in the earlier episodes during the exam, Gon just going "wee ya, yeah!!!" playing in the wind seconds after a bunch of people just died infront of him.
I will always appreciate Plague's ability to speak his mind, regardless of how others may perceive/take it.
I love when you tell everyone how wrong they are. You're so big and smart and strong and cool and bald
To be fair to Goku, The Red Ribbon Army all collectively mag-dumped a 12 year old, the fact that it didn't work doesn't give them a pass, if Goku had been a regular kid the story ends with a kid riddled with bullets, it's not particularly hard to see how killing the Red Ribbon Army soldiers wasn't exactly morally grey, they tried to kill him, and failed, should he spare them simply because the power difference between them is far greater than they thought when they opened fire on him? would they have spared a weaker kid in his place? Probably not. It doesn't suddenly STOP being self defence just because the guy trying to kill you sucks at it.
the whole video im thinking "this guy logic is weird and very internet-like" but at the end of each chapter he loops back to what kinda makes sense (sometimes), nice vid.
I hate how people immediately think you dont enjoy the show while you go on great detail about what the show makes you think and feel and the conclusions that you take from that, something that no one would care to do if the show wasn't interesting to them
One day I saw my sister's friend playing Skyrim, and I pointed out a few flaws that I consider the game to have, but also that I've played hundreds of hours of it.
She just didn't seem to get it, that I could enjoy something while also criticizing it.
People seem obsessed with the idea of Gon being some sort of sociopathic asshole that doesn't show empathy.
Don't get it but you do you.
Yeah, he is a kid with trauma
I think Gon wanting to see his dad is one the most real things in the show. I'm not in that position myself, but many people who were adopted often want to reconnect with their birth parents, regardless of the circumstances behind their abandonment.
So why doesn't he want to meet his birth mother? This is purely speculation, but Mito filling the role of his mother, nurturing and raising him, has likely left him satisfied when it comes to wanting a mother figure; what he's missing is a father figure, someone to teach him survival skills and how to live his life. This is exemplified by his relationship with Kite, someone who for a very brief period filled that role.
That's what I assume to be going on in his head subconsciously anyway.
I never thought you'd make another amazing anime video again. This was fantastic, and genuinely improves my re-watching experience. Thank you so much for making this and I hope you cover more
The world of Hunter x Hunter is so fucked up, but the characters we focus on often already have that normalized for them, to varying degrees: for example, nobody batting an eye at all of the accidental deaths as well as very intentional murders going on during the Hunter Exam. It's why I love the moments when somebody actually does stop and comment on the horror that is so casually displayed around them. Like Tsezguerra, if I recall correctly, noticing that Killua's powers necessitate building up an extraordinary tolerance to electric shock, and inferring, correctly, that he had been tortured with electricity since he was a small child as part of his assassin training. You know someyhing is unjust when even a Hunter recognizes it.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the line where Gon essentially tells Killua "You're lucky you don't care" in the room where Pitou is healing Komugi. One of my favorite scenes.
Gons main character mentality has got more people killed than half the zoldyk family
Hunter x Hunter messes with people because it's so confusing the first time you consume it, but not in a stupid way. It's unique and disturbing. It takes the young anime protagonist boy trope and makes it too real. Gon is probably the most realistic example of the trope we've seen, and it's gut wrenching. And that's just Gon. There are other characters just as interesting and upsetting.
5:30 "Average human mother sized" is a phrase that gives me goosebumps every time I hear it
I think the initial connection to Kite, despite being such a minuscule amount of time, is meant to be operating loosely on the idea of a "Ring String of Fate". Anime does this a lot, with a surprising amount of characters remembering some totally innocuous event in their past brought them together with a person through fate and that every such connection is important, even if only in some very minor way.
That leads to a lot of fast and loose setups for stories and there's flaws to that, but it's a common enough trope for me to have just always took it that way.
Except that it actually appears in the very first manga chapter of HxH.
But the 2011 anime didn't for some reason.
The anime didn't show it until much later, so the vast majority couldn't sympathize with Gon.
That was a really stupid decision.
I don't agree. Gon and kite's relationship doesn't just rely on a "red string of fate" narrative, if it did, Gon wouldn't have lost his mind so much. The reason gon completly went berserk is bcs like said in the video, he was powerless and couldn't get what he want as usual, because he deluded himself into thinking Kite was still alive, and because Kite was THE male figure of his life. He's the one that talked to him about hunters, that told him the truth about his dad, that SAVED HIS LIFE. He was a admirable male figure for Gon who so desperatly needed one (i have 2 braincells rn so i can't explain how very well)
Anyway my point is. As much as this video tries to make it be, the relationship between them isn't just anime trope bs. It makes sense, and yes it would have been different if the 2011 anime animated Kaito's scene. Because kaito was also the first hunter gon ever met so it was impossible for him to think about Hunters without thinking about his dad AND kite
Nah, you're throwing away Gon meeting Kite when he was younger way too easily. It was the one time in his entire life where he was taught about the value of life and gave him his goal of finding his father. It's not that Kite was important to Gon and that he really cared for him, but that Gon's interaction with him changed his life and thus Gon associates Kite with a good emotion.
I think Togashi is making a point with Gon's obsession over Kite and Ging: exceptional talent, skill, strength, and beauty are things that people idolize, right or wrong. It also doesn't take a deep knowledge or exposure to that sort of talent to leave a lasting impression. If someone meets the leader of their country, this informs their life going forward. People idolize musicians and celebrities despite never meeting them, and a non-zero portion of them are then motivated to write fan mail and buy back-stage passes and even stalk these celebrities. Gon happens to be one of these impressionable people with the talent needed to seek out one of these exceptional people.
Gon doesn't care about his mother because no one has told him that she was exceptional or special. He cares about Kite because Kite is clearly special. This memory is burned into his brain, and he cares about Kite because of the impression of strength that he made. If it had been any other Nen user who had even a cursory knowledge of Ging, Gon would care about them too. Gon, like many people, idolizes talent.
I think you are missing the point about Kite criticism in the 2011 anime. Yes in real life Kite probably wouldn't have that kind of impression upon Gon but I doubt he'd forget about someone who saved his life regardless contrary to what you say. Do you honestly believe you would forget about someone who saved you from a grizzly bear sized animal? The point is it's more impactful for the reader to know who Kite is long before he dies. For those who read the manga or saw the original anime Kite's return is a huge bait a switch that actually pays off since we the audience actually have a closer connection to Kite then Gon's dad. Furthermore his death and Gon's emotional attachment makes more sense even if it was brief because we aren't experiencing the fiction the same way the fictional characters hypothetically would.
Good video overall though.
Innate talent is actually a thing in real life. People don't like to acknowledge that, because we love to make-believe that all men are created equal, but the fact is that the most motivated quadriplegic cripple with Parkinson's will always lose a game of ping-pong to a person with an outstanding talent for ping-pong and mediocre motivation - assuming they both actually try to win and you discount freak accidents like a meteorite landing on the latter guy's head.
If you don't think that there are some people who are born with special physical and mental talents (and, by necessity, some people who are born _without_ those talents) then you don't really understand what it means to be human: you're just imagining the world that you _wish_ was real.
Of course, since innate talent is a thing, we're going to see depictions of it, including exaggerated depictions, in fiction. That's not bad and that's not good. That's just that.
i think you're misunderstanding the "all are equal" thing. we're all equal in that we were born, we're here, we're all equally humans. other than that, can't say you're wrong.
All men are born equal means our rights are what make us. Not individual gifts that make us better or worse.
I was born "better" and "worse" in many respects. Traits like that get amplified and selected for in evolution, bladdy blah blah. It's absolutely a thing, otherwise we wouldn't exist. But I'm talking about narratives. I like seeing characters establish their limits and then work around them or figure out a way to the top. Just showing up and instantly being better I don't find all that interesting.
@@PlagueOfGripes Having a preference for a certain type of story is fine - still - there are lots of real-life stories that go, _"And then he won because he was born with talent and the other guy lost because he wasn't, the end."_
Personally, I don't think that makes a story uninteresting. Stories like that are _real,_ in more than one sense of the word. But hey, not everybody has to like everything, different strokes for different folks.
@@migarsormrapophis2755except those stories are not real. HxH itself has a whole aside where Biscuit explains how idiotic that idea is when going into fights. Yes, some people at the peak of their performance might be leagues ahead of you but will they always be at the peak of their performance? No. Obviously. And winning a professional fight in the real world comes down to figuring out how to erode that peak performance. That's what all of the most successful boxers do. Ali taught himself to do it after his prison stay dulled his reflexes. Mayweather made it his entire boxing ethos. Very few elite fighters actually get by for long by "just being more gifted."