Discussion Best Arc in Manga (Upto Now)

[syx]

Yorknew City Arc for me, there is no doubt. Too much awesomeness on Kurapika's and Phantom Troupe's side. Badass villains always make a great arc. The Phantom Troupe reminds me of the early Akatsuki from Naruto. Mysterious, powerful, smart, cool characters, nice set of abilities, loyalty (of course there are exceptions) and so on. Not to mention all the fights/skirmishes between the Phantom Troupe and Kurapika, the Shadow Beasts, Gon/Killua and Zeno/Silva. Hell, I'm still watching Chrollo vs. Zeno/Silva when I'm bored. Even though it was pretty short, there is something special about this fight.

Overall the plot, twists, turn of events, characters and fights were fascinating. Despite so much going on, it never felt fast or slow-paced (as far as I can remember though). The whole arc was structured brilliantly.

 

[Phantron]

I think the Ant arc gets unfairly praised for people who are being different just for the sake of being different. The arc was certainly very different even by HXH standards and a lot of people hated it but just because a lot of people hated it doesn't mean these guys are necessarily wrong. Even without the external factor (the hiatus) the ending was not really satisfactory and several good opportunities were missed (Meryem was born prematurely and this seems like it'd have played a signficant role in defeating him, except that turned out to be irrelevent).

Overall I think Yorknew has the highest qualty but it has the same problem as the Ant arc in that everything is resolved either in a bogus way or just postponed elsewhere. In fact this is a pretty consistent problem with HXH in general.

 

[Rica_Patin]

Chimera Ant Arc>Chairman Election Arc>York Shin Arc>Greed Island Arc>Hunter Exam Arc>Heavens Arena Arc>Zoldyck Family Arc (I don't even really consider this an arc though).

 

[shionoro]

i cannot decide, honestly.
The arcs build onto each other, it is very hard to see themseperated.

But i think i will go with the hunter exam.

Everything was so new and fresh, and i was young and absolutely shocked because i'd never read a manga or seen an anime in which human life counted so little and people were killed right and left (mainly by hisoka).
That scared me but also fascinated me back then.

on the other hand, i DO think that togashi got better and better, objectively speaking.

 

[Nii]

I think the Ant arc gets unfairly praised for people who are being different just for the sake of being different. The arc was certainly very different even by HXH standards and a lot of people hated it but just because a lot of people hated it doesn't mean these guys are necessarily wrong. Even without the external factor (the hiatus) the ending was not really satisfactory and several good opportunities were missed (Meryem was born prematurely and this seems like it'd have played a signficant role in defeating him, except that turned out to be irrelevent).

Overall I think Yorknew has the highest qualty but it has the same problem as the Ant arc in that everything is resolved either in a bogus way or just postponed elsewhere. In fact this is a pretty consistent problem with HXH in general.

Well would you list why exactly one should hate the Chimera Ant arc? I wasn't a big fan of the arc either, but rereading most of it and actually thinking about some things made me realize that my judgement was too shallow.

The only thing I would put against the arc is the power levels going nuts. It's the first time we actually saw villains on a level that even the best tactic can barely beat them. It looks like no one could beat Meruem in terms of power, so that made everything a bit too non Hunter x Hunter-like. Still that's the first look. In the end the King was still taken down by a trick and tactics proved to be useful in the war against the ants. I feel like Togashi had to make them this powerful, to deliver his messages.

1. Power way above anything/anyone else makes you conceited, loosing or just not building empathy. If Meruem hadn't found an equal (Komugi) on a certain aspect, he would have never started to develop so much.
-> obvious comparison to (early) human civilization

2. Even if power overwhelms you and everything seems to be lost, there's still a way to win if you use your brain.

Ofc there's other stuff, but that's regarding what I see most people complain about it.

And Meruem born earlier just served the purpose of him actually getting born, otherwise Netero would have killed the Queen in time. Maybe he would have been even stronger if he didn't force himself out, but who knows, on his power level it didn't really matter.

 

[Phantron]

Well would you list why exactly one should hate the Chimera Ant arc? I wasn't a big fan of the arc either, but rereading most of it and actually thinking about some things made me realize that my judgement was too shallow.

The only thing I would put against the arc is the power levels going nuts. It's the first time we actually saw villains on a level that even the best tactic can barely beat them. It looks like no one could beat Meruem in terms of power, so that made everything a bit too non Hunter x Hunter-like. Still that's the first look. In the end the King was still taken down by a trick and tactics proved to be useful in the war against the ants. I feel like Togashi had to make them this powerful, to deliver his messages.

1. Power way above anything/anyone else makes you conceited, loosing or just not building empathy. If Meruem hadn't found an equal (Komugi) on a certain aspect, he would have never started to develop so much.
-> obvious comparison to (early) human civilization

2. Even if power overwhelms you and everything seems to be lost, there's still a way to win if you use your brain.

Ofc there's other stuff, but that's regarding what I see most people complain about it.

And Meruem born earlier just served the purpose of him actually getting born, otherwise Netero would have killed the Queen in time. Maybe he would have been even stronger if he didn't force himself out, but who knows, on his power level it didn't really matter.

Netero would have an awfully hard time getting past just the 3 Royal Guards. They're not even capble of fighting the lesser Ants head on in the numbers they typcially travel around, which is why Morel and Novu are needed for their ability to separate the Ants. The point is that you shouldn't be able to attack even a relatively vulnerable target if it's protected by someone who has an En radius of a couple kilometers. Whatever attempt to attack will get intercepted, until the equally bogus 'jump down from the air' solution came out. It took an act of unbelievable luck (Komugi) to even penetrate Pufu's En. Without it, there wouldn't even be a story and that is just getting past Pufu's En.

The whole notion of tactics is bogus given that first, the point is that when you're powerful enough tactics don't matter, and second, the strongest Ants tend to have far superior tactics anyway. Nobody on the human side was a match for Pufu in terms of tactics and it's implied Meryem is obviously even better than Pufu, though he probably doesn't care for using little tricks given his power.

Trickery would be like say Komugi was actually a sleeper cell Hunter planted in the nation a long time ago for an unrelated mission. Trickery is not 'use nuclear bombs in case of emergency'. The antagonists of the Ant arc are far too powerful to be defeated and no amount of handwaving is enough. The logical outcome of this arc is that humanity gets wiped out by Meryem (or locked up in zoos) and the end of HXH. Even with the unfathomable amount of good luck, there was no way the Ants should've lost this battle. Even though a squad leader can pick up a book to find out that there are weapons call 'guns' after seeing a grunt got shot by one, apparently a Royal Guard never even heard of the Rose. Not even Pufu, who is the most obsessive about conquering the world out of the Royal Guards, has never thought of the possibilty that humans might use bombs. The funny thing is that Yupi thought Potclean was a timer for a bomb at first, so they obviously know bombs exist! It's especially problematic in HXH because all the characters are presumed to be intelligent. It's not like the average shonen where everyone has roughly the intelligence of a rock on both sides so if one guy forgot to breath and died it's something you can almost accept as possible.

The Ant arc was also needlessly long, compounded by the hiatus, and the 'clever' solution is more like Togashi couldn't possibly figure out how to deal with these super powerful and intelligent opponents so he had to get rid of all of them with a nuke. Sure if Killua turned into Super Killua and started fighting Yupi, that'd be pretty lame too, but I think it'd still be better than this 'we totally can't beat them but good thing we got bombs'.

 

[Django]

Trickery is not 'use nuclear bombs in case of emergency'. The antagonists of the Ant arc are far too powerful to be defeated and no amount of handwaving is enough. The logical outcome of this arc is that humanity gets wiped out by Meryem (or locked up in zoos) and the end of HXH. Even with the unfathomable amount of good luck, there was no way the Ants should've lost this battle.

The antagonists of the Ant arc are far too powerful to be defeated by individual Nen users. Why did they went through the entire "selection" process to create an army ? Why did Pitou feel the need to manipulate East Goruto's leader to make it look like nothing was wrong ? Why didn't Meryem declare war on the entire world ? Because they knew that for all their power, they just couldn't hope to match humanity's nukes, biological weapons and the like. I don't see why the "logical outcome" would be humanity's defeat when it's explicitely said that an international military intervention would defeat Meryem. Had the selection been a success, then yes humanity would have been in trouble, but without an army Meryem couldn't have done anything against humans without having a nuke go off in his face. It isn't "trickery", it's just humans having superior firepower.

Even though a squad leader can pick up a book to find out that there are weapons call 'guns' after seeing a grunt got shot by one, apparently a Royal Guard never even heard of the Rose. Not even Pufu, who is the most obsessive about conquering the world out of the Royal Guards, has never thought of the possibilty that humans might use bombs. The funny thing is that Yupi thought Potclean was a timer for a bomb at first, so they obviously know bombs exist! It's especially problematic in HXH because all the characters are presumed to be intelligent. It's not like the average shonen where everyone has roughly the intelligence of a rock on both sides so if one guy forgot to breath and died it's something you can almost accept as possible.

So, if the Ants think of the possibility of humans using nukes, what do they do about it ? How can they prevent the outside world to use nukes ? How can they defend against a nuke ? Pufu, being knowledgeable about politics, probably thought that there was no way the outside world would dare to use a nuke on a foreign country which didn't directly attack them, even if the Hunter Association told them that the country had been taken over by Chimera Ants. At least, he thought that it would take some time for them to realize how bad things were and decide themselves, and that they could use said time to end the selection. Turns out he was wrong.

The Ant arc was also needlessly long, compounded by the hiatus, and the 'clever' solution is more like Togashi couldn't possibly figure out how to deal with these super powerful and intelligent opponents so he had to get rid of all of them with a nuke. Sure if Killua turned into Super Killua and started fighting Yupi, that'd be pretty lame too, but I think it'd still be better than this 'we totally can't beat them but good thing we got bombs'.

Since the HxH world is supposed to be as technologically advanced as ours and since HxH is supposed to be as "realistic" as a shonen world can be, I think that not using a nuke wouldn't have made sense since the survival of humanity was literally at stake. The selection had to be stopped in time, no matter how it was done or how many casualties there would be. That's why they set the Rose to go off once Netero's heart stopped : they thought that if Isaac Netero, Chairman of the Hunter Association, martial arts legend and ultimate badass, actually died against the Ants, then it would be clear that Hunters have no chance of victory and using a nuke would become absolutely mandatory.

 

[Phantron]

Just because there is no defense against nuclear weapon doesn't mean using them is logically correct, because by that logic any problem in HXH world can be resolved by launching nukes since the other side sure isn't capable of defending against that. Instead of having a dragon carry Netero with a bomb they could have just a bomber drop a nuke and it'd accomplish exactly the same thing with far less risk (any high level aura users potentially can be absorbed by the Ants). Why not have Palm carry a Rose too and just blow herself up when she got inside the palace? For that matter if Rose is so small that it can be attached to a guy what's stopping any rogue nation from sending guys with them and just blow up near heads of state?

If you accept the a nonsensical weapon like Rose exists (nuclear bomb like power output, capable of devastating an entire nation due to its poison, is easily mass produceable and probably fits in your pocket), perhaps you can say the real issue is the fact that using the Rose at all may plunge the world into an all out war. That is you might be told the Rose was used because an invading God showed up next door and they got no choice, but do you really think every nation will buy that story? Nations would fear random guys jumping down from a plane and taking out their capital and preemptively strike first and then you'd have a world war that probably wipes out the vast majority of humanity as we know it.

So that could be the deterrent to using such a weapon, except even here the Hunters failed as we know the only reason Meryem did not retaliate is because he didn't actually care much for conquest to begin with. That is, he views conquest as his duty and if he can't do it he doesn't have a grudge against the guys that stopped him because he was never interested in conquering the world. The whole Ants arc is focused around inexplicable luck, from Komugi's appearance to the fact that Meryem did not retaliate after learning about the attack. If you remove all the improbable luck element, the most likely way the story resolves is Netero jumps down from the dragon and then gets killed in midair by the Royal Guards (because he can't fly, while two of them can), blows himself up and takes the palace with him and causing 5 milion deaths. Gon and others will get vaporized as they charge in and wouldn't even have a clue what happened. Now that kind of losses is acceptable for a fight where survival of humanity is at stake, but if your plan is so bad that you need to count on nukes to bail you out, why not just use them directly in the first place?

 

[Django]

For obvious reasons, using a nuke would be a really bad solution to most problems, in the HxH world or in real life. But when the choice is "we launch a nuke or the entire human race gets wiped out or enslaved", then using them is not only "logically correct" but also an absolute necessity. There was literally no other possibility. As for why they didn't have a bomber drop the Rose or Palm blow herself up, it's because they wanted to use the Rose as a last resort, only if the Hunter Association was unable to deal with the problem (and of course, Netero wanted his fight with Meryem). The risk that a high level Nen user could be absorbed by Ants is irrelevant, since Netero has a nuke ready. Even if every single member of the Extermination team got absorbed by Ants, what difference would it make ? Everyone would still get either defeated by Netero or blown up by the Rose. No matter how bad the situation could get, the nuke is there to take care of everything. At the second Netero got into the palace with the Rose, the King and the Royal Guards were as good as dead.

Using the Rose wouldn't cause a world war because the HxH world couldn't care less about East Goruto, just like nobody would care if the same thing happened in North Korea. Well, "nobody would care" may be a little too much, but East Goruto is a small, isolationist dictatorship, with probably not that many allies, if any. The leaders of the most important nations were aware of the situation and were OK with Netero using the Rose (otherwise they wouldn't have let the Association take care of the NGL nature preserve, and they wouldn't have asked them to hunt Beyond Netero). Even assuming some countries don't believe the Rose was used to take care of giant Chimera Ants, they would believe it was an excuse to destroy East Goruto, and nobody would have a problem with that. Even assuming similar dictatorships fear they will be next, they wouldn't dare to strike first, because if they do the rest of the world would retaliate and destroy them.