I'm actually ok with the stretching they're doing here. In the original anime, there was a point where Gon was mad at some guy who was insanely powerful while he was essentially the Gon you know now. Gon grabbed the guy's arm, squeezed it like he was crushing an orange, and actually hurt him. That seemed to come out of the blue to me back then. But with these exaggerations, that kind of think will make more sense.