Hunter X Hunter goes into its darker side, which is great… but can I please get a new opening theme?

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Episode 47

The long awaited fight between Kurapika and the Genei Ryoudan started off with a fight against the monster Enhancer, Uvogin. Episode forty-seven is the most action-packed episode to date with beautiful animation to back it up. The fight didn’t last long, but for its entire duration, it was one of the biggest highlights of the series thus far. We got a bigger exposition of Kurapika’s abilities and just how much he’s willing to sacrifice to achieve his goal for vengeance against the Spiders and redemption for his slain clansmen. Kurapika’s jump in power to that of easily suppressing Uvogin is made believable through the conditions he’s set to multiply his power as we’re exposed to another part of Nen.

The way in which Kurapika had enhanced his own abilities will be a key point in the rest of the main cast developing their own nen abilities down the line. What is remarkable about this episode is the dark nature it reflects by the colour scheme of the episode — lots of blue to highlight the mood. Kurapika’s character himself showed how far he’ll go to get his revenge as he steadily lost his humanity in this episode and brutally killed Uvogin, who did have it coming. Still, this is something you don’t see too often in shounen anime.

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Episode 48

Following the dark nature of episode forty-seven, we’re treated to a more light-hearted episode with episode forty-eight. This episode centers more around Gon, Kurapika and Leorio in their bid to gain further information on the whereabouts of the Spiders, while raising money to purchase Greed Island at the upcoming auction. We’re introduced to a new character who will aid them in their quest in Zepile and he’s quite the interesting one. He’s got an assortment of items and uses those skills to appraise the character of Gon. While not being an essential episode to watch, the episode does delve a bit more into the world of auctioning and does provide some points of interest that will play a factor later on in the series, but it does feel awkwardly wedged in at this point. Episode forty-eight is still an entertaining episode nonetheless, but coming off the high that was forty-seven, this slows down the pace and the mood of the series. 

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Episode 49

Moving on to episode forty-nine, we finally got to see how Gon and Killua factor into this arc. Despite previously being in on the search for the Genei Ryoudan, here in this episode, they did end up confronting members of the troupe while ending up captured by them. The majority of the episode is the duo tailing two members (Nobunaga and Machi) and it winded up being a tense game of cat and mouse with Gon and Killua falling into an unforeseen trap. Right off the bat, we saw the difference in strength between the two groups as Gon and Killua are easily outmatched, but are captured anyway for questioning. It lead to a point of not knowing their own fates and added tension to the episode. This episode also serves as a bridge between Gon and Killua’s story with Kurapika’s, as the fallout of Uvogin’s defeat and death are beginning to show their repercussions.

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Episode 50

And finally, the series hits a milestone with its fiftieth episode. There’s a lot to be said about the series thus far, with stretches of interesting episodes followed by stretches of sub-par ones. Luckily, episode fifty manages to maintain the momentum set by the last stretch of episodes with the tension of having the two leads taken prisoner in the lair of the Spiders. Despite the threat of death, Gon’s character came through against his arm wrestling match with Nobunaga, who we learned in this episode was good friends with Uvogin. There’s a bit of development here and despite the messed up nature of the troupe, they do have members with a sense of camaraderie. This makes them a bit more interesting on top of their own quirky personalities. Eventually, though with clear headed and calm thinking, the duo managed to escape the clutches of Nobunaga, who wants to keep them around as members, and now they’re off to make contact with Kurapika to finally bridge the two sides together in this current arc. 

GO Rating: 3.5/5 (Average)

It’s a good thing they ran away to fight another day.