Hunter x Hunter Episode 33
So I should probably begin this by saying I'm not gonna drop HxH. I've been more or less told that I should stick around by Toonami-gaf, that it picks up soon. That things look better retrospectively eventually. That said, I can't escape the feeling the first 1/5 of this show is, I don't know, sexless? Like there's no meat on it at all. There's no moment that surprised me for long or blew me away. That's probably because of the characters to be honest. What makes or breaks a show like this for me is the characters, and as soon as the show is about to dive into one of the characters, I feel like it pulls back. I don't feel like I know Gon and his friends at all. Their relationship with one another is this vague sort of friendship that makes me feel like I missed an arc somewhere where they all bonded together. While hunter license arc had a few interesting character moments in of itself, but I don't think it ever gave me a good reason to care for these characters. The Zoldyck Family arc by contrast felt like it was entirely set up for future events. I feel like nothing of immediate note happened that arc. Felt like the show was basically just introducing the family, saying "Yo, these guys are gonna matter later." Now in the most recent arc we're learning about Nen, which does give the previous arc a few moments of "Oh, so that's how that worked huh?" Outside of that tho, I feel my attention slipping.
I feel like the show dodges a lot of issues associated with this genre, but it doesn't have anything to immediately draw me in. There's no interesting character dilemmas and the world itself hasn't been explored at all. (What the hell were those talking fox yokai things back at the beginning? Why does this world feel like it alternates between the real world and one piece?) HxH so far has been consistently okay to watch, and just that. Never amazing and never terrible. It's this kind of flat experience I have every Saturday night that I don't think on once it's over.