Friday Hunt – Hunter X Hunter challenge week 11

What!? Now I have to choose a single scene!!?? How in the..just kidding, I had this one pegged from the beginning. I know exactly which scene to go for and I’m right about it. You’ll see – it’s the best scene!

1. How did you find HxH?
2. Favorite main character
3. Favorite supporting character
4. Favorite Chimera ant
5. Least favorite character
6. Favorite Zoldyck Member
7. Favorite Villain
8. Favorite Nen type
9. Favorite Nen ability
10. Favorite episode
11. Favorite scene
12. Favorite opening animation
13. Do you ship anyone
14. Saddest scene
15. Favorite non-nen ability
16. Favorite ark
17. Least favorite ark
18. Favorite type of Hunter
19. Favorite character outfit
20. Funniest scene
21. Who would you cosplay as
22. Friendliest character
23. Least friendly character
24. Best main character family member
25. Favorite character backstory
26. Worse main character family member
27. Manga or Anime
28. Most relatable character
29. What got you hooked on the show
30. Why do you love HxH

Favorite Scene

I don’t know if you’re like me but I’m a big baby. I’m immature and fragile and I have a hard time letting go of things I love. This is why I tend to like seasonal (this doesn’t mean Christmas themed – I learned this recently) shows, because the wrap up neatly and I don’t have time to get **too** attached. When long running shows that I love are about to end, I get into this weird headspace and go through this sort of emotional rebellion. I start to draw shows out. Watch single episodes over the course of several days or sort of just push them aside. I also put together this preemptive post-mortem of the series in my head, cataloging everything I want an answer to and everything I would like to see recounted. I take all the expectations derived from a story I adore and then double them. It is essentially impossible for a show I love to end in a satisfying way for me.

I can really only name one long running series that has managed it.

For many of us, Hunter X Hunter is the story of a friendship between two odd, isolated boys trying to save each other from growing up into absolutely horrible men. I know that the power of friendship is one (if not the one) of the most overplayed tropes in anime but I fall for it every time and rarely has it been done as well as in Hunter x Hunter. As such, you would think that the scene of Gon and Killua parting ways would have been awful for me. I was dreading it. There really was no way to make it work after all.

The options were limited. They could keep it light and funny and sort of trivialize the importance and impact of their friendship and by extension the entire show. They could make it dramatic and risk becoming hackneyed. I have very little patience for duh-rama. They could have easily manipulated our feeling and given us an emotional but ultimately painful scene which would have probably been critically praised and left us all on a downer or they could have copped out and decided to keep adventuring together super happily ever after (which I probably would have liked) and cheapened the entire finale. So yeah, this was an impossible scene.

Killua and Gon said their goodbyes as we do with our best friends who are moving away after college. We laugh, we hug, we joke around and talk about the good times. We make plans to see each other again real soon. We tell each other that we will always be friends and we mean it 100%. We part with smiles. And we hold back that odd bubble swelling in the back of our throats, we push away that feeling of our hearts getting squeezed, we try to ignore the fact that things will never be the same again.

Things between Gon and Killua had already changed, something had already been broken beyond repair but this was the goodbye that made all that tangible. This was their acknowledgement of growing up and away. Their banter was pitch perfect. It was finally a return to my beloved friends as they were before the horrors of the chimera arc. It was sweet and heartwarming but at the same time Gon was a touch more reserved and Killua a bit more open, they had both matured. The laughed, and hugged and made plans to see each other again soon. As they waved goodbye they swore they would always be friends and they meant it. As they turned away from one another and faced their separate paths, just for a second, each let their smile slip just a tiny bit. For several reasons I often watch anime standing up. This is possibly the first time in my life I actually had to sit down due to emotion.

The farewell scene between Gon and Killua is not just good, it’s unconceivable, absurd, perfect.

You know you’re drunk when you lose arguments with yourself

Suggested drink: Farewell Paradise

• I can’t, just have a drink you guys. In fact, call your buddies and have a drink with them.