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astra-le · 4 years

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I have three questions that are kinda related to the same topic. 1) What did you make of Killua's reaction to Gon saying "sure I have" about being on dates (like a rock drops on his head or something)? was that supposed to be disappointment? 2) Do you think Gon's "dates" were just him being confused about what a real date was? 3) Killua stalking Gon and Palm read like a romcom moment. Do you think Togashi did that intentionally?

This chapter gave me whiplash, honestly XD.

So if the question is whether Killua is intentionally supposed to be jealous of Gon and Palm’s “date” then the answer is yes, absolutely, this is intentional. A lot of things happen in a short amount of time in this section of the manga, including the “Gon you are Light” speech which is the moment where for many people, a line is crossed and it becomes harder to see Gon and Killua as just friends without any other subtext going on.

Then if “Gon You are Light” wasn’t enough, a couple volumes later we get in short succession 1) Gon and Killua talking about dates and dating, 2) Gon going on a “date” with Palm, and 3) Killua following along jealously. And yes, there’s some reason given in canon for why Killua ‘has’ to follow Gon to protect him, but honestly? I think it’s a bit of a narrative convenience. Killua can tell himself that he is motivated purely by the desire to protect Gon from the Ants (which is true), and Togashi can tell his editors See, It’s Not Gay, They’re Just Good Friends.

(Or alternately and more probably, the editors can be satisfied knowing that ‘fanservice’ between the main characters is very good for business, but they still have plausible deniability with the straight male segment of their audience.)

I mean, if you ask me whether something in HxH is intentional, the answer will almost always be yes. For example, Killua didn’t have to point out to the audience that he looks like a stalker following Gon and Palm… but he did.

Here’s what restekova says about HxH:

you know what i like about hunter x hunter? you wanna know why it’s one of the best shonen manga of any generation? togashi makes choices. okay? he makes choices consciously. when he writes. kurapika’s powers— chains. the symbolism. it means something. the— the manga— encourages you to think, while reading it, on an extremely basic level. it doesn’t assume that your synapses stop firing when you start consuming media. that’s how low the bar is. fuck. guys, i hang out in independent bookstores sometimes. i’m tired

From here. I hope I’m not stepping on any toes with this BTW, I just like it.

But saying it’s intentional doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to criticize. Personally I find a lot of things in this chapter extremely awkward, LMAO.

For example, in the CA arc Killua suddenly has an eight-pack… this is just straight-up fanservice right?

And beyond that he’s drawn differently from how we was at the start of the series, his jaw is squarer, and he’s broader… Personally I think Togashi is trying - again intentionally - to show that since the beginning of the series this character has grown up, not just emotionally, but physically.[1]

So why do I bring this up? Well personally, I think starting the series with Gon and Killua both 11 was a deliberate choice, so they could be close without really raising questions in people’s minds about whether this was “too close” for two dudes to be, or not. You have to remember, this is an old series and even today it’s not really OK to have outright gay content in a Weekly Shounen Jump (WSJ) manga.

And I think Togashi actually wanted, when the Chimera Ant arc came around, to show a gradual shift in their dynamic, and to start to bring up this potential issue of romance or at least romantic crushes for both Gon and Killua. It’s not a huge stretch to think this was the intention, BTW, because lots of WSJ manga with teen protags bring up the issue of crushes, and liking other people, usually in that unbearably awkward teen way.

As far as like… the specific form this content takes in HxH… with Palm being so much older, and the supposed “cougars” on Whale Island (or I think in Japanese they’re called “maniacs”)…. There’s the in-canon explanation for this, and the out of canon explanation for this, or what fans call the “Holmesian” and “Doylist” explanations.

So the in-canon, Holmesian explanation is that Palm is kind of unhinged, so, at the start of this chapter, Killua thinks “forget the enemies - I have to protect Gon from Palm.“ Basically, he already doesn’t like her and thinks she’s dangerous, and his priority is to protect Gon, who is innocent, from her, because she’s an unstable maniac.

But the twist is that Gon is actually pretty good at dealing with Palm, and doesn’t need Killua’s help at all:

And I mean, is it really that surprising that Gon doesn’t need Killua’s help? Sure, he doesn’t have nen…but he also didn’t have nen at the start of the series. We already know he has no problem with danger or dangerous people, and he’s also is very open-minded and doesn’t tend to judge people’s actions as right or wrong (as Zepile pointed out).

But just because he’s open minded and trusting, it doesn’t mean he’s vulnerable to being taken advantage of… because the thing about Gon is he judges people based on how they act toward him personally and not on social expectations or social rules. (If he judged people based on social rules, he and Killua would not be friends probably.) Plus, Gon has good instincts about people and high social intelligence, and he knows when to NOT say what he’s thinking, and just keep his opinions to himself.

Killua is impressed with how Gon handles Palm and her nuttiness, and then that sets the stage for the conversation about dates, and dating, which leads to Killua thinking about himself and Gon along the same lines:

As for the out of canon, Holmesian explanation… as I think other folks have already said, the purpose of Gon and Palm is make the readers start thinking about Gon and Killua. Palm is just a narrative convenience in this sense, to force this subject to come up, since Togashi wants to bring it up. And really, there’s just no good way to segue into the subject of dates, and dating, at this point in the story, because as Killua says, they spend all their time together, and have since the beginning of the manga.

But let’s be real here, it’s not really an appropriate crush that Palm has on Gon, and it’s just a super awkward way to introduce the subject in general. Wouldn’t it have been better to introduce someone the same age as Gon and Killua? That’s how a normal manga would have done it, right?

Except, obviously, that the readers (and especially the shippers) would have hated that. Togashi knows shippers, and he knows fanservice. There was fanservice in Yu Yu Hakusho too. Shippers don’t want a real romantic option on the table, because they are invested in the relationship between the main characters.

And why not? Killua and Gon’s relationship is way more developed at this point in the manga than anything that could be suddenly introduced… it’s more developed than almost any other relationship in shounen manga, period. The entire manga is about Gon and Killua and their relationship (mostly); even when Alluka came in, some people didn’t like it.

So I think Palm is the vessel here, because Gon/Palm is just not going to happen, ever. It’s not a threat to the main pairing (however you want to interpret that), even though it’s awkward and weird.

And perhaps it was always going to be awkward to bring up the subject of Gon/Killua, because teen crushes are awkward, and gay crushes on your best friend are doubly awkward, and TBH most weekly shounen jump preteen romances are awkward. Also the issue of the adult fanbase of Hunter x Hunter that is invested in Killugon (raises hand) is potentially awkward, especially with a lot of people thinking it’s not appropriate to bring up the issue of gay crushes at all, and seeing all gay relationships as inherently sexualized and inappropriate, in a way that’s just not true for straight relationships.

But yes… because the intention here is to force you to really admit that these two kids might like each other, as more than friends, personally I think the conversation in the gym and the ‘date’ with Palm is there because it’s the only way Togashi could think of to somewhat ‘naturally’ bring up the romance angle, without it really coming totally out of the blue.

(And who knows, maybe it’s a call out to the older fans too.)

Finally, let’s be real here… it’s not super appropriate, but it’s kind of funny. As you said, it’s a romcom… In the middle of this super grim arc about being forced to grow up too fast, and war, and trauma, and all the rest… for Killua to think that Gon is ‘experienced’ (in Japanese I believe the phrasing is ‘he’s an adult!’) while Gon talks about ‘Cougars’ or ‘Maniacs’ with his baby face on FULL BLAST… it is a joke, we’re supposed to laugh. The rock falling on Killua is a visual gag, it’s a punchline.

But no, I don’t think the dates on Whale Island were real dates. I don’t think the date with Palm is a real date either. Killua has all kinds of experiences he shouldn’t have had at his age, but he hasn’t had this particular experience and neither has Gon, at least in my opinion. Gon isn’t as innocent as he looks, neither is Killua, but at the same time they still are actually innocent in some ways.

Plus, I think we currently bring all kinds of baggage to these chapters that just didn’t exist in their original context. Folks in English-speaking fandom online are way more sensitive to the issue of potentially inappropriate relationships, than the readers in Japan would have been in 2007. Overall I’d say this chapter is, besides being in character for both of them, really just supposed to be a bit of a breather from the heavier stuff… It’s supposed to be a joke and it’s fanservice. I know many people won’t laugh (which is valid), but that’s honestly the intention I think.

[1] Talking about how the character designs are gradually changed though… it’s clearer in the 2011 anime, actually, since in the manga Gon and Killua’s character design varies a lot from chapter to chapter, and even panel to panel. For example, when Gon is crying he looks SUPER young, and Killua when he’s watching Gon cry looks young too. There’s also the weird thing where in the first volume, they are drawn like teenagers, even though they’re supposed to be eleven.

But yeah disregarding all that other stuff, Hunter x Hunter is a series about growing up. So you can see Gon and Killua growing up over the course of the series, and that shows in the character design as well as the emotional arcs, I think.

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