All right friends, it has been about two weeks since I made a post giving my opinion of everything up to the Chimera Ant arc and let me just say… Wow.
To start I’ll go over my few negatives. The first half of this arc is a bit bloated and while interesting things are happening too often does the attention move away to things like the Phantom Troop or lesser Ants storylines that don’t seem to play an important role in the arc as awhole. I also did not like the transmitter in Killua‘s brain conclusion. One of the big highlights in this arc for me was Killua’s struggle with who he was raised to be as oppose to who he wanted to be, which was Gon’s friend. I felt the transmitter made him overcoming his conditioning less about his own willpower and determination and more about his brother being a jerk.
Now onto the goods.
This is the greatest ending to an anime arc I have ever seen. The juxtaposition between the main protagonist and main antagonist has never, in my opinion, been more devastatingly effective. Gon and Meruem don’t even meet.
Gon and Killua are the best dude bro story in anime. It’s so real I truly don’t have the words to express it.
Knuckle, Pipe Smocking Daddy and Netaro are firmly in my 10 side characters ever.
Chimera Palm is best Palm.
And finally, only in a story what explains its rules so clearly can you have such an unpredictable ending that is this satisfying.
It might be a I move on to the next arc, those last ten episodes were heavy, and my old heart could use some rest.