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Chimera Ant

Chimera Ant

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Hunter x Hunter Chimera Ant arc (manga)
Hypocrisy, corruption, genocide, discrimination/racism, psychology, philosophy. All these heavy themes are all smoothly dealt with in Togashi’s Hunter x Hunter as a part of the Chimera Ant arc.
Hunter x Hunter, a story about our four main characters who have taken the Hunter Exam and have become qualified Hunters.
Gon and Killua end up in the NGL: Neo Green Life to become part of an investigation squad that’s been investigating the possible existence of a Chimera Ant queen. This hypothesis turns out to be true and the queen gives birth to a whole colony while preparing herself to give birth to the king and the royal guards. Chimera Ants is a species that can learn, and with the availability of nen-possessing Hunters it wouldn’t take long for them to be able to use nen as well. The ants become formidable enemies and it is up to the Hunter squad consisting of Gon, Killua, Knuckle, Shoot, Morel, knov and the chairman to exterminate them and to prevent the birth of the king.
This sounds like a typical shounen arc, but its execution will leave you dazzled. As stated before there are some heavy themes and society criticism. But unlike Oda, who criticises mankind in a very straightforward way to make it clear, Togashi handles his like a professional poet. It’s full of sayings, symbolism and metaphors handled so beautifully and indirectly without becoming cheesy or repetitive. “Did you ever lend an ear to cows or swine that begged for their lives?”; a simple line of the Chimera ant king that gives us the first subtle hint why, out of all species, Togashi chose his superior race to be ants.
Having 132 chapters, the Chimera Ant arc is one of the longest shounen arc ever to date. So of course, there is a lot more going on than that little summery. And -being a shounen- there’s a great deal of fighting going on too. However, the fights in Hunter x Hunter almost never rely on power, but on tactics.

14-Jul-2012 15:48:25 - Last edited on 14-Jul-2012 15:51:23 by Chimera Ant

Chimera Ant

Chimera Ant

Posts: 218 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Which makes all of them really exciting to read: how will the character get through this without some deus ex machina, what will he do? The answers will not disappoint and the antagonist are mostly well designed and believable, amusing characters. A striking fact about the characters in Hunter x Hunter is that they get their development as they progress through the story, instead of some cheesy background story, and that´s the case here as well. Noteworthy is the Chimera Ant king whose very existence contributes to the overall quality a lot. The relation between Gon and Killua is thrown into a new perspective as well and both characters improve a lot, ability-wise and personality-wise. As an exception, the character Gyro is cloaked in a past story solely while his existence remains a mystery until the very end, becoming only more interesting as the story progresses. One of the exposures to look out to in the future.
The story in this arc is built up like the series itself. It starts kind of light-hearted and funny only to unexpectedly turn into something more dark and deep than any other series. And when this clim(censor)ax approaches Togashi suddenly chooses to switch the comic dialogue driven style that you find in most manga, with an almost only narrative driven way of writing that makes us read with a suspenseful new perspective while giving a lot of attention to the psychology of the characters and the agonizing situation they are in.
The hot blooded war against the ants soon escalates with a lot of casualties on both sides. Togashi managed to create a situation where the protagonists are totally powerless against the villains- a situation that you’ve never seen before like that. While doing that, Togashi puts a praiseworthy amount of effort into expressing that powerlessness through angst and fear.

14-Jul-2012 15:48:29 - Last edited on 14-Jul-2012 15:52:33 by Chimera Ant

Chimera Ant

Chimera Ant

Posts: 218 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
That´ll might make you think: But how the $%&# will they get out this @!$#? The conclusion to the war may not be as epic as the way to it, but instead of making us feel bad about it, Togashi puts more and more emphasis on the context and the characters so that it eventually doesn’t matter at all; with an ending that’s so full of feeling and emotion and written so beautifully that you just can’t keep yourself from shedding a tear for the character you despised the entire arc.
And if that’s not all. after this, we are offered a post arc wrapping up of things with an ending that makes you reconsider the meaning of life.
My apologies for the wall. :) If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Don´t forget to check out the last post on the prev page.

14-Jul-2012 15:48:38 - Last edited on 14-Jul-2012 16:17:31 by Chimera Ant

Dynamic Hawk

Dynamic Hawk

Posts: 12,770 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Is anyone going to watch the second season of Dog Days which has just been released? =)
EDIT:
Before I forget, has anyone seen the anime "Monster"? I had started on it about 2 weeks ago and am watching episode 27 as I type this. Kinda slow anime.
Can people tell me their views on it if they have seen it?
EDIT2:
OMG, so many grammar issues!

15-Jul-2012 07:50:21 - Last edited on 15-Jul-2012 08:46:43 by Dynamic Hawk

i Revive

i Revive

Posts: 3,806 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Yep, I'm watching Dog Days 2.
Watched the first 20 episodes of Monster about a year ago and just kinda forgot about it. Still have it on my hard drive but I just don't really feel like picking it up again even though I thought it was really good from what I saw.
I might consider finishing it soon but ehhhhh there's so much to watch. Kinda hard to decide what I should watch next after I finish something.

15-Jul-2012 08:17:13

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