I know Hisoka loves that fanservice.
For those of you who wondered why Scamp hired two writers who made a lot of hoopla and then proceeded to do fuck all afterward, it’s because Inushinde and I have been at Anime Expo all weekend! I’ll be hitting the convention center for the final day and acting as the cameraman for my buddy zzeroparticle‘s panel. Check it out if you’ve been going to the con!
Also, a couple of quick plugs before I get started here: Scamp has thoughtfully imported every Hunter x Hunter post I made at my old site if you’re curious about my thoughts on the series thus far, along with some of the subtle differences between it and the ’99 anime. He also imported a large project I started at the old site and plan to continue here: a ranking of all the terribad anime we watch in our elitist group sessions (this is where ol’ Scampy watches many of the shows he looks at in his own terribad anime reviews). If you’re interested in the wide world of awful (and awfully awesome) anime, then give it a read!
Anyway, Hunter x Hunter time!
One line really stood out to me in this episode: when Mito tells Gon about Ging coming back to Whale Island after a decade, she says that he won’t say anything about Gon’s mother, except to say they were separated. In the original series, it’s made explicitly clear that Gon’s mother is dead; I suppose this is so that the story would not get necessarily complicated since they didn’t have too much to work with at the time. However, here the door is left open for Gon’s mother to be alive, unless there’s some subtlety of language the Crunchyroll subs did not catch. I wonder if Gon will ever meet his mother along the way and what type of person she is. Note that this is idle speculation, so please do not confirm either way if there has been any movement on this front in the manga.
Though I do wonder if Gon even cares to meet his biological mother. It’s made clear that he thinks of Mito as his mother because, after all, she is the one who has raised him all his life. He’s not even interested in meeting Ging so that he can get to know him as a father figure; that’s basically the point of Gon calling him “Ging” rather than “father.” Ging is the ultimate figure in a world into which Gon is only now taking his first steps. He is someone who has carved his own distinct path in the world. It doesn’t matter to Gon that Ging has been a mostly terrible dad (at least in terms of, you know, being around); he has all the familial love he needs already. This is likely why he barely gives a thought to meeting his mother, as well.
This moment is pretty great, but I’m a total sucker for good parental bonds, so this would make things a bit dusty in my room no matter what. I’m sure it impacted people who may be watching this series for the first time, but I think it’s more meaningful in the ’99 series, mostly because Mito is given more time to spread her wings as a result of the original needing to fill time so that it didn’t overtake the manga too quickly. But however it came about, there was still more development in Mito and Gon’s relationship. You get the quick beats here and of course sense that they have a tight bond; however, it’s not quite the same because we’ve seen so little of Mito since the beginning of the series.
But I totally went “Mitoooooooooooooooo ;_______;” anyway because I’m a sap like that.
I wonder if we’ll get to Kurapika’s part of the story next episode? All that’s in the preview is Gon and Killua listening to more of Ging’s tape, but there’s not much more of that that I remember. Maybe we’ll get to see Gon and Killua hop onto that crazy new invention: the Internet. I love that stuff in the original because it’s all late ’90s Internet and late ’90s computers. Old technology is hilarious.
One last thing: I would be remiss if I didn’t end my first Hunter x Hunter post on The Cart Driver with . . .
Hisoka’s glowing cock! Get used to seeing this a lot, folks. Hisoka is the greatest.
The Cart Driver 
yay
Scamp dropped HxH and I never felt like leaving this turf to read about it while I watched.
I am glad to fulfill a service for you.
Also Scamp is a doo doo head.Finally a write-up on some good franchise on Scamp’s blog? Shinmaru, your title shall be “The ELITIST Cart Driver” hereafter. Hail to thee! (Scamp, I’m playing favorites with your writers now, how does this make you feel?!)
“so please do not confirm either way if there has been any movement on this front in the manga.”
Hold on… you don’t read the manga? Ah, what a shame. Then again, I guess not catching up with it isn’t that bad after all. With the damn thing being on hiatus for ever and ever there wouldn’t be too many merits to it.
I also think that it’s only logical for Gon to call Ging just “Ging” rather than to think of him as his father. He hasn’t seen him for years and to him, Ging is nothing more than a fascinating person. When you think about it, Gon doesn’t even have a good reason for searching for him. It’s more a matter of curiousity.
“I wonder if we’ll get to Kurapika’s part of the story next episode?”
Eh, I don’t think so, at least not very much of it. Also, I’m betting all my money on episode 39 being a recap episode. It would make sense since it’s wrapping up a whole arc and there’s this 13 episode pattern for recaps in this show. So yeah, there probably won’t be any spiders for the next two weeks.
I feel more awesome already!
I am terrible about reading manga. I don’t like reading them on the computer screen, but I’m also a cheap fuck, so I tend toward shorter series. I’ve made do with the anime for now. And, yeah, all the hiatuses don’t help either. That’s part of why I haven’t read Berserk, too, despite me loving the anime.
Yep, spot on with Gon’s reasons for searching for his father. Even if Ging weren’t Gon’s biological father, I think Gon would search him out, anyway, simply because he’s such a huge figure in the world of Hunters.
And, yeah, I think I heard about a recap episode coming up soon. Damn you shonens and your penchant for recap eps.
okay let me ask you a question i was watching this but then i went to colleg and dropped it but i got like 7 episode in is it totally worth it to catch up because i kinda just want to for leorio okay leorio was one hot piece of ass mmmmmm
Hmm, if it’s just Leorio you like, you might want to watch through about ep25, which is around when Leorio leaves the main group and does his own thing, and then drop the show afterward. He comes back later briefly, but he is definitely the odd one out from what I’ve seen — the next arc focuses heavily on Kurapika, and the story as a whole is centered on Gon and Killua. Poor Leorio. I like him, too.
Hisoka’s glowing cock is a miracle of the universe.
It’s been forever since I read this part of the manga so I’ve forgotten what else is on that tape.
The greatest miracle. If Kyubey knew of that cock he would go after that instead of the souls of little girls.
It’s true, old technology IS hilarious. When I was in middle school, I used to have this pocket electronic organizer that had a full qwerty keyboard and an lcd screen like those you see on texas instruments graphing calculators. Except with like, only four lines displayed at a time, hahaha!
God, I used to think that thing was so cool… I would put in my classmates’ addresses & phone numbers and proceed to never call them out of fear. I’d also put like, birthdays, and set alerts for them. Not that I’d ever go to parties. But man that thing was so cool.
It was something suuuper similar to this actually:
Man, getting crazy nostalgic over here…
I love that you use an Angelfire link for that. The only link more appropriate would have been Geocities.
I just started reading HxH recently and WHAT? IT’S DROPPED??!!! ahhhh btw Hisoka’s hot. He keeps the yaoi mood rolling ~~~