Jae :3

Not that I know someone named Sidney

You know I do know someone named Sidney and I actually have someone quotes of him that are quite poetic

mini comic of the lore

mini comic of the lore

mini comic of the lore

Moblit: Would never stab anyone.

Miche: Would stab someone in retaliation.

Hange: Yells "I won't hesitate, bitch!" first.

Erwin: Would stab without warning.

Gon is a kid who is driven by his need to prove himself and he ends up neglecting his safety in the process, while Killua is a kid who comes from an abusive family and has no identity and goal outside of Gon, so he shapes his value around his relationship with Gon.

I think this little addition in 2011 anime adaptation sheds a lot of light when it comes to their inner feelings.

This scene indicated that despite Gon wanting Killua to be with him, he also feels guilt because from his perspective he is making Killua follow him until Killua finds his own goal, but Killua at that point has turned being with Gon into his own goal, and neither of them has any idea how the other feels.

Killua's secretive nature and lack of expressing his feelings collide with Gon's guilt-driven tendencies and blind them to the fact that they both want to be with each other, in the end they end up in a situation where Killua decides to part because in his opinion it's the best for them. Mind you, he had decided that before Alluka came into the picture. Gon, despite being the one who initiated the promise of staying together and even declared to Illumi he would never allow him anywhere near Killua, does not object to Killua going on his own way , because once again the guilt of how he treated Killua during the war eats him up from the inside, and that is also the case with Killua's insecurities.

The thing is Killua is not the only one who feels insecure. Gon feels unowrthy of things too which is why he has tried so hard throughout the story, the one thing he seemed to feel secure in was his relationship with Killua (aside from his relationship with Mito), but if Killua can start getting insecure the moment Gon is lost in his grief, Gon can feel unworthy of Killua when he has never heard Killua sharing openly anything about how he feels about their relationship, especially when their relationship is affected by the things that start to change due to various factors outside of their control.

Their biggest tragedy is the lack of communication, they love each other but they never asked one another how each of them wants to be loved. Killua decided for himself that separating from Gon was the best thing, but he did not let Gon have a say in it. Gon went off to fight Pitou on his own, carrying the whole responsibility on his own shoulders without thinking how that made Killua feel, and it did not occur to him that his death would ruin Killua the same way Killua's death would ruin Gon.

REDEMANCY

for those who read pregnancy ily lmao

i would honestly argue that hxh 1999 understands hxh’s themes better than 2011 does and the filler only enhances the story. 1999’s filler is primarily focused on character & trauma study. we get a much clearer look at leorio and kurapika’s trauma responses and how kurapika works through his first kill. killua’s character arc surrounding his breaking from being an assassin gets the elaboration it always deserved but that togashi did not have time for. there is an absolutely heartwrenching scene after hisoka punches gon in the exam that establishes gon’s suicidal ideation extremely early. it establishes relationships like pokkle and ponzu’s, pakunoda’s and chrollo’s, and kurapika and hanzo’s which would not exist for many more years in the manga. it touches on killua and gon’s class distinctions much more. 1999 literally gave us kurapika vs hisoka!

not to mention it’s just a gorgeous artistic endeavor that really enhances the dark fantasy aspect of hxh, with one of the finest anime soundtracks ever produced. the yorknew music is insane. kanako mitsuhashi is a fantastic killua. yes, it’s a bleaker adaptation, but that is not bad, and it was developed specifically as the yorknew arc was being produced so the tone is matched to yorknew. hxh is about the exploitation and abuse of children first and foremost. it’s not bad that the 2011 version takes a longer time to get into this explicitly and introduces a much more romanticized world in the beginning but you can’t fault 1999 for leaning into this theme and it does so because it understands the purpose of hxh as a character study. ironically, despite coming out as yorknew was still ongoing, the characterization 1999 provides for gon and killua would’ve made for an even better version of chimera ants.

honestly, i feel like hxh was always bleak, and people only argue otherwise because the 2011 anime is generally people’s introduction to the material. but the 2011 anime cuts almost the entirety of the first chapter which sets up gon’s emotional complications in a pretty bleak way! hxh begins itself by talking about abandonment, genocide, poverty, assassination, and the climax of the first arc involves a child being brainwashed and tortured. the discordant tone of 2011 can be fun but it’s not necessarily better.

1999 handles yorknew much better, full stop. its coloring, its music, its stylization, is genuinely untouchable. it takes kurapika and leorio as characters much more seriously whereas 2011 cuts a lot of their content/doesn’t emphasize them very much, probably because at the point 2011 began development kurapika and leorio had been gone from the manga for about a decade. but that doesn’t make them any less worthwhile to the canon. 1999 understands so thoroughly the importance of the relationship of the core four and their emotional reliance on one another.

i love a lot of the 2011 creative decisions and in particular the water color but i do think it often gets caught up in aura farming rather than engaging with hxh as a character study. that’s why it’s so comfortable cutting small moments like leorio getting involved in the arm wrestling in yorknew, or kurapika being there to defend killua when he first interacted with leorio and gon, or has major cuts like removing kite from the first episode which is still one of the wildest adaptational decisions of all time. 2011 does take some creative liberties i appreciate (like gon chasing after ging in his dream and the pathway crumbling) but overall it seems to take away from the material whereas 1999 adds to it.

1999’s lore isn’t completely accurate (like changing around the freecss’ family tree, which i’m not a fan of tbf) but we need to remember it came out literally a year into hxh’s publication and was attempting to fill in gaps. people also forget togashi was heavily involved in 1999–having multiple voice cameos and approving/rejecting filler based on how it fit into his larger vision. 2011 had the benefit of hindsight and still made major mistakes. 1999’s biggest problem is literally that it’s an older piece of art so its sound design and animation isn’t as good as an anime that came out a decade later but you can really, really feel the adoration and respect the crew had for the source material.