Still too different to be visualized as similar. I have watched the 2011 anime and read the manga and after the hunter exam(around the first 20 episodes) its just exploration of the wonderful world Togashi created and the various characters in it.
Okay, but people are clearly comparing to specifically the Hunter Exam, not the entire series. I mean, when people compared Naruto to Hunter x Hunter, they were saying the Chunnin Exam arc felt similar in ways to the Hunter Exam, not that the two series as a whole were pretty similar.
Even if there are major differences, there can still be significant similarities, I mean that's even how you phrased it. For example, I think X-men and Harry Potter have a decent amount of similarities. Specific people are born capable of special powers the rest of humanity does not have, the heroes attend a special school led by one of the most powerful of them on the planet, and the main villain and his followers believe humanity is beneath the ones with special abilities. Now if somebody starts saying, "but mutants have genetic superpowers that vary among them, while wizards can learn potentially any spell! Also, there's no tournament held for the students at Xavier's! And furthermore-", well, they're missing the point. Yes, there's obviously going to be plenty of differences, it would be possible plagiarism otherwise, but that doesn't override the fact that there are some similarities.
It's not like we're saying the more recent work should be dismissed because it has similar elements to the older work. After all, even most things people believe are "totally original" actually draw inspiration from even older works if you just look further in the past. Hell, I had a friend who was the biggest Star Wars fan I ever knew personally, and even he admitted that he thinks the Star Wars OT has quite a few similarities to the Lord of the Rings books that preceded the SW movies.