Hunter x Hunter 2011

[Kraco]

this uber tense atmosphere has vanished. remember when every episode ended making you feel like "goddam, fuck, fuck, fuck, this is so hopeless! please dont die, guys!"? It´s not there anymore.

It can't be helped with the royal guards and also the king getting so much screen time plus human nature. The dread was there only when they seemed both unstoppable and totally vile and inhuman, like back when Pitou captured what's-his-name-hunter and poked his brain with the antennae. Now they have even concretely got quite human indeed, so they are just regular if strong enemies at this point. They have even been having conversation with the humans.

The fight between King and Netero looks quite promising. Coming up with the mystery of the unknown name to put some fight into the King was a good detail.

[Edort4]

I liked that the battle between Netero and the King is started. The king feels so op that I dont know how Netero is going to make it through this. I liked that comment about the king having his ant and human sides paired I think that pouf is going to try to get the ant side to prevail. Maybe using false information about Komugi but Im just running some wild asumptions cause this series has really surprised me with unexpected twists.

Maybe for once we could get some classic shounen ending like The king winning but ending badly injured and Netero passed out almost dead then Pouf tries to get his chance and kill Netero casue he left the king in that state and the danger he poses and Youpi kills Pouf, after seeing how he tried to manipulate him to get into the ant side, in some kind of respect fighters code defense that the king values to.

[Kraco]

Although I'm not normally one who would crave minute explanations about everything, but this time I'd actually like to know why Netero, after making such a sound looking analysis of the King's mental condition, thinks it's still no good and the King must die. I've hard time believing the flashback we got was too relevant: Netero doesn't look like a man who would kill somebody just because some man in a suit in his comfortable office told him to do it. So, does Netero believe an ant's physiological needs will still always prevail in the end, even if the human side seemed to be winning? The previous queen certainly was highly dangerous, but, considering the pace of development, if the king bred with a human woman, the next queen born from that union might be basically just a really powerful human, not a voracious beast like the previous queen.

[Buffalobiian]

Well, let's just say they're genetically predispositioned to like eating humans and that it would be troublesome. It's like vampires - you have the good ones who have a cultured mind, but by default they should be naturally hungry for people. I don't think any amount of breeding is going to change that.

btw, this week's preview was hilarious.

[DarthEnderX]

Manga writers sure love to give giant buddha statue powers to it's powerful old guys.

I liked that comment about the king having his ant and human sides paired I think that pouf is going to try to get the ant side to prevail.

Well, if you can believe what they said last week, Pouf and Youpi shouldn't be able to get there in time effect the outcome of the fight.

Unless all this philosophising with the King has drawn out the fight longer than Netero expected it to take.

[Kraco]

Well, let's just say they're genetically predispositioned to like eating humans and that it would be troublesome. It's like vampires - you have the good ones who have a cultured mind, but by default they should be naturally hungry for people. I don't think any amount of breeding is going to change that.

Based on what? We have seen the king doesn't even enjoy eating humans unless it's a nen user. His offspring would be one step further from that, and the steps these ants are taking are huge. Also, now that the king realised he would rather keep many humans alive and not kill everything in sight, he might even ponder before every meal if it might be better not to eat, after all.

The are lots of different kinds of ants in the world, anyway. Some of them like to eat fungus and sap from plants. Youpi is half a horse these days, it seems, so he might want to eat grass from now on. Puff is like a butterfly, so sucking nectar out of flowers is probably more to his liking.

[Buffalobiian]

He's just high headed. He doesn't like them, but he needs to eat. He also said that some humans are worth keeping. I don't remember him saying that he's completely removed the label of livestock from humans either.

Which ones eat fungus?

[Kraco]

Which ones eat fungus?

Oh, I was referring to real world ants, since I was getting an impression from you that ants can't ever eat anything but meat and these chimera ants nothing but human meat. I disagree on that. I think they can eat whatever they want, though I guess they prefer meat, but so do many humans. Let's just say their upbringing had them eat only humans and consider humans the best livestock since the queen was such an abomination. Now the king has clearly noticed humans aren't food, per se. Hard to say about the royal guards, but two of them made a deal with humans, after a fashion, and I don't know anybody who would negotiate with food. Some of the random ants are of course in even better terms with mankind.

[shinta|hikari]

Maybe Netero really is just forced by his current standing to kill the king. Those dudes in black suits may have more clout than we think.

I actually find the situation to be quite interesting. The king who everyone hates is suddenly willing to negotiate and wants to save humanity, while the hero we were rooting for is now influenced by politics to kill the changed king.

Netero is also really smart when he raised the name condition. It not only forced the king to fight, but also handicapped him. A rook and bishop handicap is pretty huge, but that is of course assuming their levels were close in the first place, which does not seem to be the case.

[MFauli]

Regarding Netero´s unwillingness to negotiate: Maybe he just reaaaaally knows the chimera ants. They´re not a complete new species, they were there before. So maybe Netero was in a similiar situation before. He´s that old.

Regarding Kraco´s pro-ant argument: Alright, just let me mate with Pitou or Scorpion girl. :>

[shinta|hikari]

The thing is, Netero said that the king was wavering, and it is possible his human side will win. Then Netero went on to say that it doesn't matter because he has to kill him anyways, before he himself starts to waver upon seeing a noble king.

[DarthEnderX]

His offspring would be one step further from that, and the steps these ants are taking are huge.

I've been saying that for ages now and everyone thought it was stupid.

[shinta|hikari]

But ants eat creatures to reproduce right? If we want them to become more human, we would have to feed the new queen more people.

[Kraco]

But ants eat creatures to reproduce right? If we want them to become more human, we would have to feed the new queen more people.

Perhaps, perhaps not. It would depend on how much of an ant the next queen would be. It's entirely possible it would be so much human already that the offspring wouldn't anymore inherit directly the characteristics of the food. The whole system is kind of weird, if you think about it, because the chimera ants would only remain ants if all they ate were ants. The genealogy might very well always be a dead-end whenever a colony starts to hunt larger and larger prey, culminating in humans. Once they get human enough, they wouldn't necessarily want to eat humans anymore, and so if they still had the attribute of phagogenesis, their offspring would regress due to lesser food. I feel like the King already lost the game. For example if the King mated with Komugi, would Komugi want her daughter to be a cannibal? Phagogenesis turns into a curse if it doesn't disappear.

Actually it would be quite a cool world setting if all the nen users came from families whose ancestors were chimera ants, since the humanoid chimera ants seem to have a very strong natural nen sensitivity.

[shinta|hikari]

I hope all this humanized ant developments lead to Nef not dying.

I could care less if Morel and the others died, except for Killua and Gon.

If Netero really is trying to kill the king because of politics, then I hope he gets beaten. Netero's power is actually pretty OP if not for the absurd durability of the king. It is an unavoidable strike, that would likely kill humans in one blow.

[poopdeville]

I hope all this humanized ant developments lead to Nef not dying.

I could care less if Morel and the others died, except for Killua and Gon.

If Netero really is trying to kill the king because of politics, then I hope he gets beaten. Netero's power is actually pretty OP if not for the absurd durability of the king. It is an unavoidable strike, that would likely kill humans in one blow.

Of course he's trying to kill the king over politics... the ants want to eat the humans. Or, rather, now it seems that the King wants to overthrow the governments of the world.

I actually found it interesting that Netero was unwilling to listen because he thought the King might have good ideas. They are both warriors, but they are also leaders, and understand the unfairness of what they see around them. It is interesting that the King changed his mind about people being livestock, into having ideas about creating equality. Power is for protecting the weak. And that is why Netero has to fight.

Also, Netero's ability is awesome. It's only "unavoidable" because he is so fast -- I get what you are saying about the nen Buddha statute, but it copies his movements. He worked his ass off to learn how to move that quickly. As to whether it is overpowered, there's a reason why he's considered one of the world's top fighters, why Zeno respects him so much, why he got sent to squash the ants.

[neflight86]

I believe the king suggested that Netero was also worthy of being spared, and when Netero asked something like "is that the extent of your offer?", the King said yes and negotiations were off.

[Buffalobiian]

Episode 123 is out!

------------------------

















That episode went by extremely quickly. I thought we still had half an episode to go by the time the credits started rolling. Too bad Palm turned into some ant-hybrid. I don't know why I feel that way though since I didn't even like her.

[DarthEnderX]

It's just insane how Ikalgo keeps inexplicably getting all of the most interesting encounters in this story arc.

It's just weird that one of the weakest and presumably least important characters gets to do all the cool shit.

[Kraco]

Too bad Palm turned into some ant-hybrid. I don't know why I feel that way though since I didn't even like her.

It seems like she also lost her old personality. Considering how many ants have started to abandon the original "all humans are nothing but food" way of thinking, I don't immediately see why ant-Palm should be overly hostile, though, especially since there's nobody around anymore to teach her that. She should remember something from her human days and act accordingly.