Hunter × Hunter

Setting In the world of Hunter × Hunter, are licensed, elite members of humanity who are capable of tracking down secret treasures, rare beasts, or even other individuals, and can also access locations that regulars cannot. To obtain a license, one must pass the rigorous annual Hunter Examination run by the Hunter Association, which has a success rate of less than one in a hundred-thousand. A Hunter may be awarded up to three stars: a single star for making "remarkable achievements in a particular field"; they may then be upgraded to two stars for "holding an official position" and mentoring another Hunter up to single star level; and finally upgraded to three stars for "remarkable achievements in multiple fields". is the ability to control one's own life energy or aura, which is constantly emitted from them, knowingly or not. There are four basic Nen techniques: maintains the aura in the body, strengthening it for defense; shuts the aura flow off, useful for concealing one's presence and relieving fatigue; enables a user to produce more Nen; and is a person's specific use of Nen. Nen users are classified into six types based on their Hatsu abilities; strengthen and reinforce their natural physical abilities; project aura out of their bodies; control objects or living things; change the type or properties of their aura; create objects out of their aura; and have unique abilities that do not fall into the previous categories. A Nen user can enter into a where, by pledging to follow certain , their abilities are strengthened in relation to how strict they are. An example of this is Kurapika who, in order to have an unbreakable chain that will fully restrain members of the Phantom Troupe, offered his life, should he use it on anyone other than its members. Plot The story follows Gon Freecss, a young boy raised believing both his parents were dead. After discovering from Kite, an apprentice of his father Ging Freecss, that Ging is alive and a renowned Hunter, Gon leaves his home on to undertake the and follow in his father's footsteps. During the exam, Gon befriends three other candidates: Kurapika, the last survivor of the Kurta clan seeking vengeance against the Phantom Troupe for slaughtering his people; Leorio, an aspiring physician pursuing the financial benefits of being a Hunter; and Killua Zoldyck, a former assassin from the infamous Zoldyck family. Later, the group reconvenes in , where they clash with the Phantom Troupe. Kurapika kills two members and seals their leader Chrollo Lucilfer's powers, but is forced to abandon further pursuit to rescue Gon and Killua. Gon and Killua later play Greed Island, a Nen-infused video game created by Ging, seeking clues to his whereabouts. Under the tutelage of Biscuit Krueger, they refine their Nen abilities. Killua briefly departs to retake and pass the Hunter Exam before rejoining Gon to complete the game, earning artifacts that lead them to Ging. Instead, they reunite with Kite, who is researching a man-eating Chimera Ant queen in the Neo-Green Life (N.G.L.) Autonomous Region. The queen's offspring, having learned Nen by consuming Hunters, overthrow the nearby . Despite the efforts of the Hunter Association, including its president Netero, the Ant King Meruem proves formidable. Netero ultimately defeats Meruem with a suicide bomb, while Gon, driven by vengeance over Kite's death, overexerts his Nen to kill the Ant Neferpitou, leaving him critically injured. After the Chimera Ant crisis, the Hunter Association's Zodiacs, including Ging, seek a new chairman. Killua retrieves his sister Alluka to heal Gon, overcoming his family's resistance and Illumi's interference. Gon eventually meets Ging, who reveals the purpose of his journey: to travel to the forbidden . Later, Netero's son Beyond organizes an expedition to the Dark Continent, backed by the Kingdom of Kakin. The world's major powers permit the expedition under strict oversight, with the Zodiacs supervising Beyond. Kurapika and Leorio join the Zodiacs, replacing Ging and Pariston Hill, who form independent teams. Meanwhile, Chrollo regains his Nen and battles Hisoka, who, after being revived, begins assassinating Phantom Troupe members aboard Kakin's ship. Kurapika, aboard as bodyguard to Prince Wobble, seeks to reclaim the Kurta clan's stolen scarlet eyes from Prince Tserriednich. ==Production==

Author Yoshihiro Togashi stated that his hobby of collecting various objects inspired him to create a manga about collecting, initially conceptualized under the title "(something) Hunter". The final title, Hunter × Hunter, was conceived while Togashi watched the television variety show Downtown, where hosts often repeat phrases for comedic effect. As with his previous series, YuYu Hakusho, Togashi used drafting ink and Kabura pens for illustrations, but began employing an eMac software for coloring. Togashi typically works with few or no assistants; however, fellow manga artist and future wife Naoko Takeuchi assisted in applying screentone to single-color pages for the first volume. The birth of their first son early in the manga's publication led Togashi to believe his personal life would significantly influence the work, particularly its theme of a young boy searching for his father. Additionally, the serialization of Hunter × Hunter has been frequently interrupted by hiatuses since 2006, with long intervals between chapter releases. After a two-year hiatus ending in June 2014, and joining the English-language Weekly Shonen Jump, the series entered another hiatus two months later. Serialization resumed on April 18, 2016, but another hiatus began on June 4, 2016. The manga returned on June 26, 2017, only to go on hiatus again on August 31, with plans to return by year's end. It resumed on January 29, 2018, before another hiatus commenced on April 9. After a five-month hiatus, publication resumed from September 22 to November 26, 2018, before another hiatus began. In May 2022, Togashi created a Twitter account and teased the manga's return. In July, he revealed that back and hip problems had prevented him from sitting for two years, forcing him to draw while lying down; in August, he announced an increase in staff, noting that background effects for chapter 399 were completed per his instructions and that chapter 400 would follow. The series resumed on October 24, 2022, after a hiatus of three years and eleven months—the longest in its history. On December 26, 2022, the manga entered another hiatus. The Weekly Shōnen Jump editorial department stated that, after consulting with Togashi, it was decided the manga should not continue a weekly serialization format; future details would be announced in the magazine. On March 9, 2023, Togashi tweeted that chapter 401 was completed, though the publication format remained undecided. On October 1, after nearly seven months, Togashi tweeted the phrase "Start over" alongside an image of a page corner with a ruler. On May 1, 2024, he shared a page numbered 5, indicating work on chapter 405. On July 22, he stated that background instructions for chapters 409 and 410 were ready for his assistants and teased progress up to chapter 416. The series resumed in Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 7 to December 9, 2024, before entering another hiatus. In November 2023, on TV Asahi's variety show '''', Togashi announced via a handwritten letter that he had planned four possible endings for the series. Only the fourth abandoned ending ("ending D") was revealed, intended as a contingency should he die before completing the manga. This ending features a time skip with Gon's granddaughter, Gin. Togashi expressed a desire to create a satisfactory conclusion to avoid using endings A, B, or C. He estimated reader reactions would be 80% positive for ending A, evenly split for ending B, and 90% negative for ending C. While acknowledging ending A as a safe choice, Togashi stated a personal preference for ending C, despite anticipating significant fan criticism. ==Media==

Manga Written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi, Hunter × Hunter started its serialization in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump on March 3, 1998. Shueisha has collected its chapters into individual volumes, with the first one released on June 4, 1998. As of September 4, 2024, 38 volumes have been released. The series has also been published in a edition that aims to recreate the manga as it was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump in the same size and with the color pages. Eleven volumes were released between December 9, 2011, and April 18, 2014, covering up to the Election story arc. In April 2005, Viz Media began publishing the manga in English in North America. They market the series as part of their "Shonen Jump Advanced" line for older teens and young adults. Thirty-seven volumes have been released in North America as of October 3, 2023. On April 22, 2014, it was announced that Hunter × Hunter would be joining the digital English magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. In May 2024, Viz Media announced a 3-in-1 edition, with the first volume released on February 18, 2025. Spin-offs , a two-part manga Togashi wrote to act as a prequel to the first animated film, Phantom Rouge, was published in the December 3 and 10, 2012 issues of Weekly Shōnen Jump. The two chapters were collected into a single , numbered Volume 0 of the series, that was given to the first one million theatergoers of the film. Viz included the ''Kurapika's Memories chapters in the December 17 and 24, 2012 issues of their digital English magazine Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. Tokyo Ghoul author Sui Ishida created a 69-page storyboard of a manga chapter depicting the past of the character Hisoka. The storyboard was released digitally via Shōnen Jump+'' on June 2, 2016. Anime 1999 series A 62-episode anime television series adaptation, produced by Nippon Animation and directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi, was broadcast on Fuji TV from October 16, 1999, to March 31, 2001. Original video animations The Nippon Animation series was followed by three original video animations (OVAs) that total 30 episodes. The first OVA series was directed by Satoshi Saga and comprises eight episodes across four volumes, released from January 17 to April 17, 2002. The second OVA series, Hunter × Hunter: Greed Island, was directed by Yukihiro Matsushita and comprises eight episodes across four volumes, released from February 19 to May 21, 2003. The third OVA series, Hunter × Hunter: G.I. Final, was directed by Makoto Sato and comprises 14 episodes across seven volumes, released from March 3 to August 18, 2004. 2011 series A second anime television series adaptation, produced by Madhouse and directed by Hiroshi Kōjina, was broadcast for 148 episodes on Nippon TV from October 2, 2011, to September 23, 2014. Films Before the first anime television series was created, a short film adaptation of Hunter × Hunter was shown as part of the 1998 "Jump Super Anime Tour" alongside similar adaptations of Seikimatsu Leader den Takeshi! and One Piece. Produced by Studio Pierrot and directed by Noriyuki Abe, it depicts the early events of the manga up to Gon's ocean voyage from Whale Island. A film adaptation produced by Madhouse, titled Hunter × Hunter: Phantom Rouge, featuring an original story, was announced in March 2012. It was released on January 12, 2013, by Toho. It centers around Gon and his friends efforts to retrieve Kurapika's eyes which were stolen by Omokage, Hisoka's predecessor in the Phantom Troupe. The film is based on an unpublished manga story creator Yoshihiro Togashi wrote around 10 years before. A second film, titled Hunter × Hunter: The Last Mission, was announced following the first one's debut. The film focuses somewhat on Netero, the chairman of the Hunter Association, as Gon and his friends discover the dark secrets behind his past. The movie was released on December 27, 2013, and the DVD and Blu-ray edition was released on July 23, 2014. At the Japanese box office, Phantom Rouge grossed $12,595,288, and The Last Mission grossed (), bringing both films' total Japanese box office gross to . CDs The background music for the first Hunter × Hunter anime and three OVA series was composed by Toshihiko Sahashi. A large number of audio CDs for the franchise have been released by Marvelous Entertainment. The three-volume soundtrack for the anime television series contains 129 instrumental and vocal songs. The Original Video Animation Hunter × Hunter Sound Trax for the first OVA series contains 18 songs and the Original Video Animation Hunter × Hunter: Greed Island Original Sound Tracks for the second OVA series contains 30 songs. In addition, character-specific and story arc drama CDs and a 17-volume radio drama titled Hunter × Hunter R have been published throughout the anime adaptations' release period. Musicals and stage plays A musical, titled , was performed at the theater in Tokyo from December 2000 to January 2001. It is an original story that appears to take place between the end of the Yorknew City story arc and the beginning of the Greed Island arc. A second musical, , was performed during August 2002 at the Space Zero in Tokyo and at the Sankei Hall in Osaka. It is a retelling of when Kurapika, Leorio, and Gon go to fetch Killua back from his family estate after the end of the Hunter Exam arc. Both musicals have received separate DVD and audio CD releases, as well as a dual DVD release from Marvelous Entertainment. A stage play, titled , was performed 16 times at the Theater Sun-mall in Tokyo during August 2004. The play is a retelling of the Phantom Troupe finale in the Yorknew City arc. It received a DVD release in Japan on December 10, 2004. A second stage play, Hunter × Hunter: The Stage 2, was performed at the Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo from March 16–31, 2024, and at the Umeda Arts Theater Dramacity in Osaka from April 16–14. A third stage play, Hunter × Hunter: The Stage 3, is set to run at the Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo in May 2025 and at the Sky Theater MBS in Osaka in June. Video games There are ten Japan-exclusive video games based on Hunter × Hunter, many of which were either developed or published by Konami or Bandai. They range from role-playing and strategy games to action and adventure games. These include titles for the WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2. A game based on the second anime adaptation was released on the PlayStation Portable on September 20, 2012. Characters from the franchise have appeared along with other Weekly Shōnen Jump properties in the fighting games Jump Super Stars and Jump Ultimate Stars for the Nintendo DS, J-Stars Victory VS for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, and Jump Force for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. In December 2023, Eighting and Bushiroad Games announced a 3-on-3 tag team-based fighting video game based on the manga, titled Hunter × Hunter: Nen × Impact. It is set to be released for the PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Windows (via Steam). A demo was available to play at the Evo Japan 2024 event on April 27. Arc System Works will publish the game in North America. It was planned to be released in 2024; however, it was delayed due to the implementation of rollback netcode in the game—a mechanism that avoids the lag during online matches, and was released on July 17, 2025. A mobile game, titled Hunter × Hunter: Nen × Survivor, developed by and published by Bushiroad, is set to be released globally for iOS and Android devices on February 17, 2026. Other merchandise A series of three film books based on the first anime series and authored by Nobuaki Kishikan has been released by Shueisha from December 3, 1999, to August 24, 2001. A guidebook to the anime titled was published by Shueisha in January 2001. A guidebook to the manga titled was published by the company on June 4, 2004. There is also an extensive trading card game by Bandai, action and trading figures, and various other collectables. ==Reception==

The series ranked fourth on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga of 2012. In November 2014, readers of Media Factory's Da Vinci magazine voted Hunter × Hunter as the eleventh greatest Weekly Shōnen Jump manga series of all time. In 2019, the series ranked seventh on Da Vincis 19th annual "Book of the Year" list. On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Hunter × Hunter ranked eleventh. Sales The Hunter × Hunter manga has been largely commercially successful; it has sold over 60.6 million collected volumes in Japan by February 2012, making it Shueisha's eighth best-selling manga series. This number had grown to 66.3 million copies by 2014. The manga had over 72 million copies in circulation by December 2018; over 79 million copies in circulation by November 2021; and over 84 million copies in circulation by July 2022. Several individual volumes have topped Oricon's list of the best-selling manga in Japan during their release week, such as volumes 30 through 36. Volumes 24, 27, and 30 through 34 were some of the top-selling volumes for their respective years. Hunter × Hunter was the eighth best-selling manga series of both 2012 and 2013, with 3.4 and 4.6 million copies sold those years respectively. In North America, volumes 23 through 27 have ranked within the top 300 best-selling graphics novels list of sales estimates by Diamond Comic Distributors. Critical reception Hunter × Hunter has received much praise for its plot and characters. In his 2007 book Manga: The Complete Guide, Jason Thompson described its storyline as "an almost random collection of psych-outs, battles, puzzles, and trickery" that works on both a chapter-by-chapter basis and a larger scale. Thompson elaborated that with all the goals and subplots of each of the main characters, the story could seemingly go on forever and is unpredictable enough to hold the reader's interest. In a different review for Anime News Network in 2012, Thompson wrote that it was hard to summarize the story because "it is every manga in one, with training sequences, tournament battles, a crime-mystery story arc, and a virtual-reality, RPG-style story arc". But unlike most manga, he called Hunter × Hunter "incredibly dense." Examples provided by Thompson include its fictional Nen ability, which he said was explained "so thoroughly that you almost think it could exist," and the challenges and games the characters face; "Over and over Togashi invents some little closed system or rules just so the heroes can break them; if he ever wants to change careers, I'd suggest game designer." Thompson praised the character art as great, pointing out how, instead of alternating between realistic and chibi like other artists, Togashi had cartoony and realistically designed characters interacting in the same panels. Thompson noted how the artwork during its magazine run was often "sketchy" and missing backgrounds, but that Togashi went back and fixed it for its collected tankōbon release. Mentioning Togashi's love of gore, he stated "the whole manga is about the mixture of childish adventure and creepy, adult themes" and noted how some panels later in the manga apparently censor the gore by covering it with screentone. Reviewing the first story arc, Chris Sims of ComicsAlliance called Hunter × Hunter one of the most "fun, ridiculous, and ludicrously violent comics I've ever read." He stated that while it has every manga idea in force, what stuck out the most is the violence. Sims summed it up as "full of clever setups and characters that, while simple to the point of almost seeming one-dimensional at times, still manage to be solid and entertaining based on their reaction to the increasingly strange, increasingly deadly events around them". Charles Solomon, a writer for The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, praised the moral seriousness of Gon, a quality that gave the protagonist "an appeal his relentlessly upbeat counterparts lack". Publishers Weekly gave a positive review to the first volume of the manga, stating that Togashi "shows a deft touch" with its standard story, calling his artwork "clear and graceful", and mentioning that his characters are "endearing and complex". While Rika Takahashi of EX.org and Claude J. Pelletier of Protoculture Addicts found the art style in Hunter × Hunter to be much simpler than Togashi's two previous manga series, Level E and YuYu Hakusho, both reviewers praised the intricate narrative and characters. ==Notes==