Hunter x Hunter

Hunter x Hunter is a nice and cool Japanese comic/anime! It is about Gon Freecss (the boy dressed in green), who one day discovers that the father he had always been told was dead is actually alive and well. He learns that his father, Ging Freecss, is a legendary, top-notch Hunter. The fishing rod (see picture) belongs to his father and is quite useful to Gon throughout his journey to look for his father.

Gon leaves home to take the Hunter qualification exam, where he meets Kurapika (the chain dude), Leorio (with tiny black specs) and Killua (white-haired). The four of them become good friends, while going through the grueling exam to get a Hunter license. Each year, less than one in a hundred thousand can pass the exam.

Kurapika has scalet eyes which are very powerful and will automatically surface when he is agitated. He wants to kill the Phantom Troupe for some reasons that are too long for me to narrate here. He looks like a girl but is a boy.

Leorio wants to be a doctor and loves money alot. He is kind of dumb and loves to shout and quarrel with Kurapika. He hates Tonpa, the Rookie Crusher, whom he met in the Hunter exam.

Killua is from a family of elite assassin. During the exam, he plucks a criminal's heart in a split second and crushes it. He says his skill is only elementary and that his father can take out the heart without any traces of blood. He is the only one of the four good friends to fail the exam in the final phase as he kills someone on impulse, agitated by his brother (Illumi)'s taunting remarks.

There are so many things to say about this story with its many fascinating characters (e.g. Hisoka the creepy magician, Illumi, Chairman Netero, Honzo the baldie etc) and unique storyline. So just go and watch or read it. It is really a very absorbing story. Even my mother is addicted to watching it. Of course that includes the 3 of us.

Above picture: Hunter x Hunter DVDs and comic books which we borrowed from the library. Each DVD has 5 episodes in it and each DVD box contains 3 DVDs. We had borrowed volume 1 and 2 from the library (the only 2 the library has) which totaled 30 episodes, from the beginning to the end of the Hunter Exam. That is from comic book 1 to half of book 5. But the DVDs have extra scenes that the comic book does not have. The library has up to book 25. The beginning (1st episode) is kind of boring but from the time when Gon begins to journey towards the venue of the Hunter exam, it gets very exciting and entertaining. When we went to Jurong Regional Library to borrow, initially we couldn't find the DVDs in the Young People DVD anime section where other anime such as Inuyasha and Naruto were located. But later we found the Hunter x Hunter DVDs in the Adult DVD section, which was kind of wierd!!

(posted by Lim Min)