Anime

Exposition X And X Narration X The X Anime

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For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Anime Hunter X Hunter, the title of this blog post is reference to how the show titles all of their episodes. And also a reference to the two biggest parts of the show that might as well be characters. In terms of story, Hunter X Hunter is an adventure show about a young boy joining an elite group of dangerous people called “Hunters” in order to find his father who abandoned him when he was a baby. Gon, the abandoned hero, makes a few friends along the way and constantly impresses people with his superhuman strength and sense until he complete his exam, becomes a hunter, and is introduced to the world his father inhabits, a world filled with people far stronger than him which exists a step removed from the world he used to know. To be specific for those wanting to look up this anime, I’m reviewing the much longer series that premiered in 2011, rather than the earlier and shorter series. That’s the one my roommate introduced me to, the same roommate who introduce me to My Hero Academia, so I’m not entirely sure what to make of his taste in Anime anymore.

Now, to be entirely fair, he didn’t talk Hunter X Hunter up nearly as much as he talked up My Hero Academia. He admitted there are some serious issues with the later episodes and that it isn’t as strong as some of the other ones he’s recommended, but it has held a special place in his heart for a long time and it’s actually pretty fun to watch. It has frequently defied my expectation when it comes to the story and I’ve enjoyed watching a large number of the crazy characters in this show wind up being surprisingly sane. An assassin bonds with his son, a martial arts instructor acts to help a pair of young fighters who are in over their heads, and two incredibly strong children are actually children who play around and get up to trouble between being ridiculously overpowered. It’s very refreshing to see it stray away from a lot of the more frustrating adventure anime tropes and to create an insane world occupied by sane people.

If it weren’t for two things, I’d love this anime. As it is, they are making it difficult to enjoy the show at times. If it weren’t for the constant exposition, often delivered by going over events that just occurred multiple times, and the steadily increasing amount of narration, I’d definitely recommend this anime to everyone who doesn’t mind ridiculous fights, stupidly powerful characters, and a hero whose main weapon is a fishing pole with an apparently unbreakable line.

While the show is rather complex, introducing some really fun concepts like the Hunter organization, a plethora of unique animals who inhabit an incredible dangerous world, magical beasts of all kinds who live in the same step-removed world as the incredible strong people, and some rather complicated and open-ended powers called “Nen,” it gets really bogged down in the details. When Nen is introduced, they just go over it countless times. While initially peppered my roommate with questions about how Nen works and what it means, the Anime answered all of those questions and more. Multiple times. In one episode. There’s literally a point where we watch a fight, get one guy’s ability explained to us in exhaustive detail by his foe as a means of psychological warfare, see the end of the fight, get the other guy’s powers explained in excruciating detail as a flashback aside by a mysterious healer who came to fix him up, and then go over them again as the hero and his friend learn about Nen from the kind man who has taken them under his wing. I was so bored and the flashback felt like it took an entire episode. If this was the first time this had happened, where the show went over ground it had just covered, I’d forgive it, but this is becoming a theme.

In the same vein, the amount of narration is getting tiring. While there is a narratorial voice who sets up and concludes each episode, the show itself does a ton of narration through the characters. In writing, there’s this phrase, “show, don’t tell,” that’s supposed to help people keep in mind that they should show the characters acting rather than just narrate through a scene. This anime does both. It shows and then it tells like it didn’t show you just a minute ago. This is heavily tied to the exposition I mentioned since the worst of it, the flashback exposition, is handled by a character narrating whatever happened. There are much more natural ways to show what happened. Heck, if they’d just gone over the fight as the two young heroes learned from their teacher and explained it all that way, it still would have made sense and then it would have been explained in a place it made sense to talk about what happened. I’ll admit that I just watched this happen a couple of hours before writing this review, so I’m still a little frustrated and steamed with the show.

I’m still going to watch more of it, though. I’m willing to sit through some odious exposition and unnecessary narration in order to find out what happens next. While the characters motivations are fairly basic–finding a father, getting revenge for the death of your family, financing your education so you can become a doctor, and trying to find meaning outside of what you’ve always been told you’re meant to be–the show explores them in a rather novel way. Gon wants to find his father, but he’s not in a hurry and he is very much committed to living his own life even if that means setting aside his quest to find his father for a while. Leorio, the teenager who looks like an adult, is willing to risk his life and harm people in order to become a doctor who can afford to freely give out the medicine that would have saved his childhood friend’s life. The child assassin, Killua, will kill whoever he needs to in order to explore life as a normal kid with friends. Kurapika, the last surviving member of his clan, will sacrifice his own life if it means getting a shot at a member of the band of thieves called the “Phantom Troupe.” Of them all, Kurapika’s story is the most cliché and ordinary, but he’s an angry child trying to take out a group of the strongest people in the world and the show has already proven that it’s not afraid to let the stars get the crap kicked out of them so I have high hopes he’s not just going to “fighting spirit” his way to victory. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I’m a little bored of the trope. Just a personal preference thing, but it feels like it’s often used to let a character set up to be weaker than someone else win a fight they shouldn’t be able to.

I’d recommend watching the show for the characters, the interesting world, and the plot, but make sure to keep the remote handy so you can skip forward a bit once the boring exposition and narration shows up. Also maybe don’t watch every episode because I’ve heard the narration gets terrible toward the end. I don’t know for sure yet, since I’ve only watched thirty-four episodes. If the show changes a bunch before I stop watching, I might do a second review. There’s certainly been enough show in the episodes I’ve seen so far to justify doing a second one once I’ve watched more. I barely touched on the Hunter organization, the crazy exam people need to take in order to become Hunters, and the insane people who run it in a surprisingly formal and normal–if deadly–way. Let me know if that sounds interesting to you. I always need more stuff to review.

This Superhero Anime is a Smash Hit

Chris 1 Comment

One of my roommates recommended that I watch My Hero Academia since I was looking for something to watch while I was on vacation. We both expected me to sit down and watch two to five episodes at a time, like I’d down with pretty much every other show I’ve watched, but that is not what happened. I got sucked into the show immediately, lost track of time, and watched the first whole season that afternoon and evening. The following day, I spent the entire day watching all but the last five episodes and I would have watched those if I didn’t have an event the next day that required I get up early. It was close. I almost decided to just stay up so I could watch the last few episodes even though it would have left me bleary and exhausted for the day of watery adventure.

My Hero Academia is, on the surface, your basic action anime that hits all the requirements: teenage male protagonist, male rival who is both a friend and enemy, the hero has a great power he can’t properly wield, he’s in training to be some kind of action hero, and there’s some vague threat looming in the background that slowly becomes more apparent as the series goes on. The protagonist even has the same personality markers as all the other male protagonists of similar anime: a heart of gold/unwavering belief in his peers, the drive to work harder than everyone else, a casual disregard for his own well-being when it comes to protecting people, and a hair color that stands out from his peers and elders (with exceptions for genetics). If all you do is look at the surface, it is simply a fill-in-the-blank action anime with a delightful superhero twist.

The minute you start to look beneath the surface, which is actually easy to do because the show does a masterful job of peeling back the layers for viewers of all ages, there is a startling amount of complexity to all of the characters. The protagonist, Izuku, is not only a hard worker, but he’s also very clever. His analytical abilities lead to more victories (and often less costly victories) than the use of his potentially overwhelming power. His inventiveness, when it comes to finding ways to make use of his rather unreliable powers and applying the powers of his teammates, is unmatched. If he seriously tries, he can usually find a way to make use of the “quirks” (the special powers that most people in the world develop before they’re four) of his peers to defeat whatever foe or obstacle he’s facing. Not only is he intelligent, he’s actually pretty in touch with his emotions and good at reading people, so he has a tendency to find ways to help the other conflicted teenagers he attends Super Hero High School with.

All of his classmates at U.A. High School are heroes in training as well, and a lot of them are still working on why they want to be heroes or what kind of hero they want to be. There’s a guy with engines in his calves, a woman who can turn things she touches weightless, a dude that sweats explosives from his hands, some guy with a tail, a woman who can create objects which pop out of her body (which is most of the cheesecake in the show, since her costume is revealing so as to not tear when she pops out a cannon), an invisible girl, and a guy whose whole body hardens into some kind of metallic-y stone substance, and so much more! The personalities of the cast are, for the most part, just as diverse as the powers. Sure, the explosives guy has anger issues, the invisible girl is constantly afraid of being overlooked, and the dude with engines in his legs is incredibly driven, but they’re also more than just that facet of their personality. Explosives guy wants to be the top-ranked hero and proves his drive despite appearing to be a villain-in-waiting. The invisible girl is a solid hero who wants to keep her friends safe and isn’t afraid to do whatever she needs to in order to succeed. The drive young man is also willing to learn, sharing a surprising depth of wisdom with his classmates and proving to be a capable leader in the few instances he isn’t overshadowed by the protagonist and his rival.

Even the teachers aren’t the rather shallow caricatures they appear to be. Each of them gets their time to show the various aspects of their characters, the wisdom and strength they’ve attained throughout their lives as heroes, and the strength of their conviction when it comes to their pupils. Even the hero who is passing his power onto the protagonist, All Might, shows a surprising depth of character considering his surface-level is just some big muscle-y dude who punches stuff really hard while shouting the names of states or cities in the US while smiling. It turns out he carefully crafted the image of himself as the ultimate hero, the “Symbol of Peace,” in order to discourage villains from attacking all the time and to give the non-hero populace someone to believe in, even going so far as to sacrifice his physical health in order to stay that symbol when he probably should have retired.

That being said, the plot is actually pretty standard. The protagonist wants to be a hero, gets a one-in-a-million chance to become a hero, constantly throws aside the rules in order to do the right thing, and continuously overcomes all the boundaries between him and his goal by trying harder. The big change comes in how the other people in the world react to that and the consequences he faces. It is illegal in his world for people who don’t have a hero license to use their quirk to hurt someone, and he almost goes to jail for doing just that. His super-powered attacks take an incredible toll on his body and, while there is a certain amount of  “Ta-da! You’re magically healed!” there’s also a point VERY early on where he learns that he will eventually suffer irreparable harm if he continues to damage his body and have it healed. Most of his cleverness goes into figuring out how to use his powers while minimizing their impact on his body. Unlike most similar protagonists, Izuku actually has the potential for serious consequences and, even when he tries to “technically follow” the rules, he almost gets in a huge amount of trouble. Even his mentor takes him to task for being reckless.

I would recommend watching My Hero Academia because it is a really fun action anime with depth of character and actual consequences for being a reckless moron (I’m looking at you, Naruto). Finally, you can watch something about a kid who just wants to be a hero and succeeds by trying hard without feeling the little bit of guilt you (or at least I) always feel when watching adults just let kids get away with some really dumb shit. It’s a responsible action anime!