Jex
Member
The problem with the way Togashi wrote this arc is that he didn't decide what element of the story was important. Is it Gon and Killua's training and experiences? Is it Gon and Kite's relationship? Is it about the Queen? Or about Ramont seeking to be a powerful warrior? Colt's attempt to find some humanity? What about Palm, Knuckle, Shoot, Morel, Knov, Meleoron, Cheetu, Kougami and Welfin etc etc etc.
Togashi tells this story as if each of these characters is equally important and awards them insane amounts of storytime but when you're trying to tell any kind of story you can't simultaneously tell the tale from the perspective of 40 different characters. You actually have to chose which story and which characters are really important and worth focusing on but Togashi refuses to do that this arc and instead tells the story of every single character who happens to be involved.
But that doesn't work, not all the characters are created equal and you can't make us care about all of them, nor should you try to. We've all reacted very well to the 'big' events in this arc but they're few and far between because the story is filled with enormous amounts of dead weight. You can cut half these characters/fights out of the arc and it would make no difference to the major events involving of Gon, Killua, the King etc. We actually don't need to see what the Phantom Troupe are up to, or Morel vs Cheetu or Leol and we definitely don't need to see Ikalgo vs anyone. It's all part of the bloat that seeps from every pore of this arc.
Not that the story itself has much momentum anyway considering how uneven the pacing is. We move from a lengthy investigation phase, to a build of tension, to training, then fighting, then lots more training to the infamous attack on the palace.
The anime adaptation, of course, certainly hasn't helped matters by dragging out dozens of episodes with really obvious padding e.g. flashbacks, scenes that go on about 10 seconds longer than they need to, more pointless narration then you can waive a stick at etc etc. Last week 16 or so pages of manga (which takes about 1 minute to read) became 20 minutes of anime. That was just one example of many unnecessary steps taken with this adaptation.
