Hunter X Hunter: Phantom Rouge

The movie is really a split bag. It's made by a different studio to a mostly successful degree. The action is much tighter and fluid and most characters retain their looks with almost no clear failure. The one character they do fail to represent is wildcard Hisoka. Instead of the fun sexually creppy hisoka from the series. We now get a more serious and way too much tongue Hisoka.

While it has the characters and dynamics or earlier arcs in the series with the phantom troupe being involved and having the classic foursome with Leorio and Kurapika. The tone and pace are entirely derived from the latter arcs with less of a focus on action and fighting minutia and more of a focus on drama and characters dynamics. So expect to think about deep themes and cry is what i'm saying.

The new characters are great (except the villain). This movie resolves one of the show's biggest problems with it being mainly a huge sausage fest. This is also a very Kuripika focused plot with his childhood best friend being another fantastic addition. Everybody gets their due and again it will mostly hit on an emotional level which is really where hunter x hunter has excelled.

There are huge flaws however. Chronologically it seems to be before the series finale but that's only learned at the end so it makes the preceding events somewhat more confusing. The villain gets the shaft in the character development. He's mainly a background villain and his story and arcs are pretty bad. But that's mostly to leave more screen time for the other 2 main new characters.

Kiliua's brother Illumi also shows up in an extremely confusing fashion and he also brings the baggage of an issue that was resolved in the main series (killua's flee or fight problems). Also a long scene is spent on a previously though dead phantom troupe character that really dragged since we in no way wanted to see him back. The worse flaw is it's use of music. Though it's the same music from the series hearing the same tunes multiple times in weird moments and scenes that just didn't match the mood.

As my scores shows none of the flaws really took away from the pure emotion this film gave me. It easily rivals the chimera ants biggest moments mostly because it will happen multiple times in you're 1h30 watch. The ending is satisfying, all the old and new characters shine equally and in potent ways. As always Hunter X Hunter Delights and surprises you with wonder and feelings you wouldn't think you'd feel. So find it and watch it.

This was a green review