#feel free to respond/message if u wanna talk about the arc! no spoilers pls

[oingomyboingos]

HxH ep. 122-124 Reflection

The Chimera Ant arc has been really hard for me to get through. The pacing has been..... for lack of a better word wack. Before we got to the palace, far too much time was spent on fights with unimportant side characters and/or training. I love Knuckle, but his training with Killua and Gon didn’t need to be multi-episodic. Same with Bizeff.

Now that we’re in the palace, my main complaint has been that there’s a lot of telling rather than showing (the narrator butts in wAy too much every single fight). Splitting up the fights between so many different groups inside the palace made the first 10-15 eps of the attack hella slow, and it felt like no single group actually accomplished anything.

That being said, I think slogging through all the eps to get the set up has set up 2 really cool things for the endgame:

1. The climax of these fights, whenever that FINALLY fucking haPpEnS, is going to feel SO GOOD bc the tension will finally be released

2. The interpersonal and individual growth that’s been building from minor characters to more major ones is beginning to pay off in a MAJOR WAY.

Youpi respecting opponents even if they’re human is pretty major when you consider how the ants started off. Ikalgo and Welfin’s fight made me emotional in a way i still need to process. And I’m VERY excited to see what happens with Komugi and Meureum. The biggest payoff for me so far tho is definitely Killua learning how to communicate his emotions. It’s such a logical growing point from removing Illumi’s needle. I dislike Palm, and found her earlier episodes annoying, but the fact that Killua recognizes that someone (who Killua himself hates!) is important to Gon and opened up to her to try to save Gon pain, causing him immense emotional pain in the process, is true testament to his growth! and of course, this line made me WEEP.

I’m excited to see where this goes. I hope this sinks in for Killua, that he gets a chance to have a heart to heart with gon. I’m also hoping Netero loses the fight against Meureum, bc I’d much rather see Meureum and Komugi centered interactions again than Netero win. I’m predicting Pitou is going to get killed soon, which makes me super fuckign sad (shes my favorite ant besides Ikalgo) but I also don’t see where her arc could go besides dying for a human (even if it is just to show full loyalty to the King). I’m doubtful Kite will get healed.