Hunter x Hunter 2011 – 09 Review

Look ma! I’m blue!
I think you know when your plastic surgery had gone terribly wrong when you walk out looking blue. =P

Episode 09 – Careful x of x Prisoners

The battle continues with Gon and Kurapica stepping up to the plate this week.

At this rate, this segment of the tower would be over by the next episode with Killua and Leorio being the only ones left to battle.

Review

This episode covers another 2 chapters of the manga (17 and 18) and covers 1 episode of the 99 series (14).

I really don’t think that I have too much to talk about in this episode. The episode was as usual – true to the original manga and had played out in the way that I would have expected it to be – many panning scenes and long silences.

The Pacing

What I would like to highlight as the best part of the episode for me would be the scene where Kurapica gets riled up. The amount of focus placed on the change in his breathing and the shivers in his arm really made it visually more impactful and definitely attracts the audience’s attention more than the execution of the other scenes. I would love if the same amount of detail in the animation was done for the rest of the scenes as well. It is really quite sad that most of the time, the animators rely on lazy animation techniques by settling for panning still shots.

If you were to read that couple of chapters in the manga, one would realise that the manga progresses at a pretty fast rate with each panel progressing the plot further instead of dragging things out. This episode did what the ’99 version had done, which was to slow things down to fit into an episode and to play the tension up. What had happened for me was that the dialogue became very obvious and I was once again getting partially bored of all the visually boring framing of the scenes. I don’t think that atmosphere is simply build by dragging out an important scenes. If you were to compare the pacing of a series such as Fate/Zero to this, the amount of content covered in an episode is more than what was covered in this episode. I have no clue why the story is continuously cut off at the “perfectly timed” (and convenient) parts instead of pacing the episode faster and having the episode end at a cliffhanger moment.

This well rounded single episodes are starting to form a trend in this series.

The Smurfs

Majitani is blue!

What is with the colour of these characters? They are still human right? I was actually hoping that the shock Leorio had shown was due to the colour of Majitani and not due to his muscles. =P

During that scene, Majitani’s laughter was played out as we are shown his inner thoughts. Did you guys feel that it was a tad weird how much the guy had to laugh in order to cover the length of his thoughts? =P I found that pretty comical. but probably not for the right reasons.

This scene is the first time we are shown a detailed portrayal of Kurapica’s reaction to the Phantom Troupe and how they are branded.

What this scene made me question was how some characters can appear so strong despite their scrawny frame (Kurapica). I was shocked when Kurapica had lift Majitani up in the air using one hand. =P

I had really enjoyed the insight to Kurapica’s nature and his hatred for the Troupe with him stating that he gets angry at the sight of any form of spiders. That was a nicely executed joke that wasn’t over-the-top in the same way last week had played out the “Dragon Ball Z” moment with Tompa.

The Extras

[Section removed]

My bad, seemed to have not noticed that part in the manga.

Thanks to Glossa Bingo for pointing it out.

Overall

Well, it was another true-to-manga week for HxH and despite Gon’s childish personality having shined through in this episode, Kurapica’s agitation had brought some of the darkness back into the series. I can’t wait to see more of Gon being less like an annoying brat and more like a sociopath. =P (Hey, what else are you meant to call a guy who seems pretty unaffected by death)

Episode Rating: 7/10 – 2011 version wins this week.

-ra

Hunter x Hunter Question of the Week:

It’s time to test your memory and hearing!

I had thought that this sound effect in this episode had sounded odd and inaccurate. Can you guess what this is meant to be?

I will post the answer up in a couple of days. So start guessing away! =)

Here is the answer!

=P It is when the Gon places the candles down on the ground. That is the sound of the candles coming into contact with the floor.

Honestly… That sounds way too solid for candles. Then again, I don’t go around playing with candles all day long so I could have a very twisted impression of how a candle sounds like in contact with the floor. (I feel that it should have been more muted. =/)

So how many of you got it right?

See you next episode!