Hunter X Hunter Episode 89
What They Say:
Gon, a young boy who lives on Whale Island, dreams of becoming a Hunter like his father, who left when Gon was still young.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The fight against Knuckle is one that has certainly been amusing to watch as it’s progressed since it’s gone a few different ways before ending up where it is now with Gon facing off against him. Of course, it just goes comically wrong from the start with a game of Janken being mistakenly called Jajanken when Gon stutters, but Knuckle has no clue and starts to make a whole new game up on it in a way in order to challenge him. There’s a good bit of danger for Gon in all of this as Knuckle has made it clear that he’s aware of a real flaw in the way Gon handles his abilities, but it’s something that Gon can’t see or really deal with in a way because of how he approaches fights in a very natural and fluid kind of way. When the two go at it at the start here, the commentary from Knuckle is certainly interesting, but it’s balanced out with some really fluid and engaging animation.
There’s a lot of fun with this fight, especially when Gon realizes that Knuckle really is trying to teach him how to be stronger and more capable, since the better quality there are among the pro Hunters, the better things will be when dealing with difficult situations like what’s going on with the Chimera Ants. There’s some good internal stuff that comes from all of this with how it’s done, from both of their points of view, but as it shifts more to what Gon is going through and what he’s learning from his fight with Knuckle, it serves to improve and impress overall. Gon’s the type that definitely does his best training while actually involved in the real thing, and as goofy as Knuckle is, and the Jajanken aspect here, it’s what’s needed to help him excel and grow.
While the show goes in some pretty expected directions here, it does turn interesting towards the end when Shoot finally comes out of the shadows and we see him interact with Knuckle again, something they haven’t done all that much of over the month that this part of the arc has taken place in. Especially since Shoot has just been stalking them at that. Thankfully, the episode doesn’t focus exclusively on the fight, though it dominates it, and Killua gets some decent time towards the end here as he trains with Bisky in her normal mode, which is pretty freaky for Killua and he takes quite a beating from it. But she also imparts some information on him about his future with Gon, and Gon’s future at that, which will potentially cause a lot of problems between the two.
In Summary:
Hunter x Hunter does do anything bad here, but it’s starting to feel more drawn out than I care for and it’s not hitting the material I really want to see yet. While there’s certainly something warranted about getting them trained properly to handle the NGL and those that are going in to clean it up, I want to get to that phase since I’ve seen so, so many training aspects. That can be an interesting angle to things, but it’s just been such a constant in this series that it can, at times like this, wear me down. The challenge the boys face is certainly one worth doing, but it’s just reaching that point now for me where I’m definitely ready to move on, but suspect we have a good bit more to go before it gets back to where I want it to be.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.