The whole notion of going after Youpi instead of waiting him out in foolish to begin with, and Knuckle knows it. An idiot? Maybe – but one who knows he’s being an idiot and can’t stop himself anyway. Knuckle is impossible not to love – he’s just such a straight-up guy. But for Ikalgo a major problem remains – he knows now that “Hagya” (which Borovda himself uses to refer to Leol after he blasts Flutter to scraps) is wrong, but not what the new name is.Īs usual, the episode saves the biggest drama for last. He does “kill” Flutter, not realizing the real turncoat remains behind – and Borovoda seems to have made a huge mistake in descending Bizeff’s elevator without knowing about the passcode system. The more immediate problem is Brovoda, who unwittingly tips off Ikalgo to the mistake he’s made because he assumes it doesn’t matter, as he’s about to kill Flutter anyway. The quest for Palm nets nothing more than a message from Palm ( written in Nen) that confirms she’s fled Area B and headed for the palace – the most-expected result, but not what Ikalgo was expecting to see. Ikalgo has no way to know where he slipped up, so he’s really flying blind here. Ikalgo continues his quest to locate Palm, and Brovoda has followed him to the basement to confirm his suspicions. On the other side we have Ikalgo and Knuckle, who’re so alike in many ways – so human despite the fact that one of them isn’t actually a human. What goes around comes around, and old themes repeat themselves. Still – one could argue that it was Youpi’s inexperience in deception that allowed him to be deceived in the act of deceiving – and it’s impossible not to think all the way back to the Hunter exam, when Gon (still new at all this himself back then) was ambushed while in the act of ambushing Hisoka. I thought to myself that the fact that he was so new at this subterfuge business might be his undoing, but I’m not sure anyone could have anticipated the attack that thwarted his plan. But here he recognizes an opportunity that requires a skill that’s completely different than his usual repertoire, and he actually pulls it off brilliantly. Youpi has always been the most direct of the Royal Guard, never asking too many questions and intentionally avoiding overthinking. Could any human go from being controlled by their own rage to controlling it for purposes of deception as quickly as Youpi has? Of course not. What did this episode tell us about Youpi? Well, for starters I have to give him credit for adapting with incredible speed – obviously a frightening hallmark of his species. But it was really about Youpi – up until the last few eps by far the least explored of the Royal Guard – and the Bro Squad. Yes, we saw others – Morel and Pouf’s battle was looked in on, and much to my surprise Killua played a small but crucial role in the end (kudos to last week’s preview for being unusually circumspect in not tipping us off that it was coming). This episode largely played out through the perspective of three characters – Youpi, Knuckle and Ikalgo. And yes, that includes the Chimera Ants.Īnother product of this approach is that it really plays up the strengths and weaknesses of each character – their thoughts and feelings giving us a greater understanding than the characters have themselves. In hindsight I think a large part of that tension spring from how much of the narrative is playing out inside the characters’ heads – the “Narrator” role gets all the pub (and hate) but the internal narration of the cast is even more important to keep the audience in the loop, and at the same time make us feel the extreme agitation and unease they’re feeling.

And damn, was it tense – though pretty much every episode lately has been unbelievably tense. I would hope that an episode like this one would be more satisfactory to those dissatisfied with the approach Togashi and Madhouse have taken, for while it wasn’t wall to wall shounen battles it was largely action-driven. But those opinions are no less valid than mine – just as different as they could possibly be. I’ve religiously avoided reading H x H until after the relevant chapters have been animated and I consider these last two months as good as any the series has had, so for me the complaints seem to be a product of false expectations of what kind of writer Togashi-sensei is more than anything. I suppose it’s a testament to how faithfully Koujina-sensei is adapting that the complaints are largely the same now – it’s rare that you see an anime criticized for adapting a manga too faithfully.

In fact, it goes back to the days when the manga first introduced this part of the story. It’s hard to believe that there’s been complaining about the latest run of episodes of Hunter X Hunter, but there has. That apology didn’t really sound sincere to me…

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