AWTY 240 - Lots & Lots of Stairs! (Hunter x Hunter)

Education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, tess Dugan.

I'm your anime expert, D Hollander Gonzalez.

And I'm Brendan McCullough. Your better anime made by the same creator called Yu Hakusho.

Damn.

Coming out swinging.

Coming out hot.

You saw the episode's title. You know what show we're watching.

You know, out newsflash. Brendan likes yu hakusho. Were not aware.

It's so good, though.

The opening is the best.

Those boys are so gay for each other. Some of them. You get the pairing. You got Yurameshi, Kubaru. You got HIE and Kurama. They're a quadruple.

That's not the thing. Maybe I haven't watched enough of it to get that feeling, but Yusuke feels so straight to me.

He does. Yeah, he does. Kuwabar is gay. Kuwabar is so gay for Yusuke.

Kuabar is struggling with something.

You don't just bawl your eyes out at your rival's funeral like that and not feelings.

Yeah, exactly.

Anyway, I lost the plot.

So you you hakusho. Have you seen this? We're watching something familiar. How so? Have we watched it before? No dare say we're the reason it exists.

Finally playing our hand.

Yeah, we're watching Hunter Hunter, which was a show we worked on. I scheduled a lot of the dub sessions. I would say maybe not half, a little less than half, but sorry.

Flashback, remember?

But yeah, this is a series that came out in 99 and then was remade in 2011. And everyone was like, yeah, this one. So, yeah. What is your familiarity with this series?

I know it exists. I've never watched it. My claim to fame is that I'm in one of the movies. I'm in Hunter Hunter, the last mission, I play a newscaster with a name. Her name is yeah, if I've never seen it, my performance because I don't want to watch the whole movie and I can't find it within the movie. So if you she says her name. And I remember because the director wanted me to say it many, many times, and then I had to come in and say it again because he had me saying it wrong. Lol.

And I certainly scheduled both those sessions.

Hey, if you watch the movie and find that, clip it for me and send it, I don't know, tweet it to the podcast, Twitter so I can watch it. It's not good. Don't expect it to be good. I don't think it was a very good performance. It's my only one. So long story short, I've never watched Hunter Hunter.

My claim to fame with the show is I got water for the people recording it.

Hey, I'm sure I did.

Also, at some point, I also have just a mountain of free time and have watched all of this series. So I'm ready to explain a lot. We might need a safe word for when I ramble because it will happen. Because it's a lot going on in this show.

The safe word is stop.

Cease.

Jesus, God, please. Yeah, I started watching it when I was like, yeah, I care about things. Well, now I care about things I work on. But at the time when I was lying to myself, I was like, oh, hey, this show, I'll watch it a little bit. And then I got like three or four in and stopped. That was like, most of it.

Right.

This isn't notably 140 something episodes.

Yeah, this one's a tight nine.

Just knock it out on a long weekend.

Yeah. In the spirit of jumping around with Future Diary last week, I wanted to do some messing around as well because this show is notable for just several tone shifts as the arcs of the narrative change, you get. You got your phantom troop, you got your greed city, you got your notable chimera ant arc. And yeah, I wanted to do a little sample test like Brendan picked out for one piece. It was so well, yeah, the best. So, yeah, we're watching episodes 480 and the finale 148. And why are we so obsessed with finales, do you ask? The last few weeks. And that's because the objective fact that 250 is a nice round number. And this is episode 240 of this podcast. So, yeah, we're going to start winding things down. Hey, you've listened to us for the last, like, three years because we've been doing it for about five we've been struggling that entire time. We're bad.

Life'S. Hey, hard life's. Got stuff going on. It's not always about podcasting. And sometimes that takes priority.

Yeah, I think we've done what we set out to do, which is find out if we can make tests like anime. And the answer is no. And that's fine.

Yeah, that answer is very clear.

And in the meantime, I look forward to recreationally watching only anime that I actually want to watch. But hey, I said this when we made this decision. I'm not going to get too sentimental about it right now. But I have had a very nice time these last five years, and I think 250 is a great time to bring it to a close. So thanks for sticking with us. And we'll get sappier about it later.

Listener, you might be thinking, why ended at 250? Why not go for 300? Listen, it's been five years. I'm going to need you to get off our back. We've done time. Tess forever. Forever tainted from anime. We'll never watch another one after this podcast. D made it into a job and probably has disliked anime for the most part of the last five years. Me, I'm still force feeding that shit to myself. It's bad. It's unhealthy for me, but I know nothing else.

It doesn't matter. But I definitely don't dislike anime. I just only want to watch stuff I'm actually interested in.

I feel like your sense of what you like now is much heightened because you're oh, yes. You see the red flag? It's like, no. Immediately not that one.

Precisely. So this show's taught us all something and that's great. And we love you guys. Thank you for listening.

Thank you for putting up with us for this long.

Sorry.

Warning. I'm going to be sassy this episode.

Yeah, sorry. If we shit on a show you like, if you like X Hunter, you won't like this episode because Brendan doesn't like Hunter Hunter.

Spoiler my opinions.

Spoiler. Brendan doesn't like hunter. Hunter? Maybe we should watch it.

Yeah, I'm already getting rambly.

Yeah, we're going to watch these episodes while we still can. All right, see you soon.

See you soon.

At.

I want to be the very best to find my absent dad. Hello, we're back.

Applicable to both shows, this one and.

Hunter hunter or you hakusho Pokemon. Oh, I thought you meant our podcast show. So we're all trying to find our absent dads.

No, I know where mine is. I'm not trying to find him.

Mine's around. He's not absent. My dad's pretty cool.

I spoke with my present father five minutes before this record.

Hey, I called mine earlier. He's not absent, he's just Republican, which is maybe what's his name?

Bob. Bob.

I remember Bob. You got to do better.

Well, speaking of doing better, let's weed out the woosies with episode four of Hunter Hunter.

Yeah.

Also, we haven't mentioned it. There's an X in there.

Yes.

I was going to say Hunter x hunter. Just to piss off the weebs listening, because it's very annoying for them.

We're taking a very aggressive route in these last ten episodes.

No one hates weaves more than weaves.

That's true.

This was honestly my objective with the podcast. It was. I need to build up my portfolio so I can be hostile to anime and just be like, hey, I put in the time.

I've done my time.

Who are my two friends who like anime? I'm going to turn them against each other. Actually.

Tricks on you. We bonded through trauma now.

So we start episode four. First few episodes. Everyone's just going to the Hunter exams because Hunters are basically the registered adventurers in this world. That's the concept. That's the thing. Yeah. So we got our couple main characters who are going to meet up in this first little chunk. So they start the exam and this very dainty mustachioed man named Santos, I think, who cares? He's like, all right, the exam starts now. Follow me through this tunnel and just starts, like, skipping. But it's a full sprint speed for everyone there, so they have to jog after him. And yeah, they start the test. They're just running along. It's a physical, if you will. And we see one nerd pulls out his computer and he's like, yeah, by my calculations, this will be a compared to previous years. So he's like, all right, I can do that much. And we see our main gang in this first chunk of episodes, or first whenever there's too much of this show. So we see Leorio Matt Mercer, he's running along, he's in a suit, he looks like a businessman. And we see one of our other mains killua on a skateboard.

Hell yeah.

Just chilling, not putting in the energy like everyone else. And he's like, hey, have some respect for the test. We're all being trained and watched right now. He's like he just said, Follow me. It's not an endurance thing. And our other main Gon, is there. And he's like, yeah, we're just following. Oh, hey, do you want to be my best friend for life? Cool. And then they do.

I do appreciate that because that is how twelve year olds bond. Hey, you look cool. You want to be best friends forever? It's like, done. It's like, all right, yeah, that works.

Want to tell off that older guy? Sure. Yeah. They keep moving. So they get to the they're still going they're at they're going much farther than previous years, so you can't train up your stamina. So we start seeing people drop out, including the fat nerd with his computer.

We hate fat nerds.

Yeah, go to hell. You'll never be a hunter.

That's a joke.

By the way, I'm a fat nerd.

Same.

We see a few people say, like, I don't think I've seen anyone drop out this early in the contest. It's like, we saw 20 other people before this nerd dropped out. Like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, some people showed up and were like, oh, I thought it was going to be mental exams first. All right, goodbye.

Yeah, they just wanted to point and laugh at that guy.

But yeah, we see Leorio slowing down, too. But killuan Go and slow down a little bit. Killuan's like, no, leave him behind. Only real hunters are going to make it through. But Leorio gets a burst of energy. Just some like, fuck it, this is my one chance. And just sprints up and Gon grabs his briefcase so they get to the end of the tunnel. Oh, great. It's stairs. It's lots and lots of stairs for about the same distance.

You said that, and it just made me think of lots and lots of trains. The VHS tape. God, it's lots and lots of stairs. Staircases here, staircases there, staircases everywhere.

I can't imagine why, but I haven't thought about lots and lots of trains in roughly 30 years.

Paul and I like to watch compilations of old commercials sometimes.

So, yeah, they start climbing those stairs, and that's harder than running on a flat surface. So more people drop out, and we see Leorio is going up with one of the other mains, Kirapika. And he's like, hey, what's your motivation to be a hunter? And Kirapika is like, well, boy, do.

I have something to tell you.

Do I have some just trauma to unload on your strange ass.

You see my beautiful eyes? Well, they're so beautiful that when we get riled up, they turn a brilliant scarlet. So beautiful. They're insanely valuable on the black market. So my entire clan has been hunted for their eyes because the color is pretty.

I have a question. I believe Kurapika says that it is considered one of the eight most beautiful colors in the world. I would like to know what the other seven are. I'm very curious about this world where there's a designated most beautiful eight colors in the world.

There's an objective list of most beautiful things. Yes. I imagine one is, like, the flash of green of a sunset over the ocean, but then I want, like, number two to be, like, blue cheese. What? Just like a very mundane object.

Beautiful blue that runs through the blue cheese. The gorgonzola.

I just love if he just listed just fancy names for all the rainbow colors. He's like, the most beautiful colors in the world. Scarlet, copper.

Can't even think of one for yellow.

Just thinking of a different language, he's got just thesaurus out.

I mean, that's what I was about to turn to.

How you make any DND?

Can't blame him. Anime. Yeah. So they are hunted for their eyes and sold on the black market, and them Kirapika is going to avenge them and collect their eyes back so they may rest in peace. And Liario is like, oh, cool, I'm in it for money.

I respect it.

But Kirapika's like, but no, you're like an anime protagonist at this point. At this point, any of us could be the lead. So, like, no. What's your real motivation? He's like nothing. It's just money. So I could have prevented the preventable death of my best friend as a child. Oh, wait, I do have a motive. Okay. But, yeah, his childhood friend died from a curable disease. He's like, oh, I wanted to get into health care to cure this disease from the world so no one else would suffer. But capitalism got to be rich to do doctor stuff, so I need that money.

Sorry. I was going to say, I kind of love that it's specifically that he wants to use money to get into the medical field, and not that he wants to give money to the families of people who have that disease. I just think that specifically is so good that it's like, I need money to go to medical school.

Yeah. He wrote down, to become a doctor, you already have to have an obscene amount of money. I was like, what a wild fantasy world where that's super not true and doesn't happen. Doctors aren't mostly rich because they already are rich from an established family. That's not at all the case. Don't look up those statistics.

No.

Yeah. I also like how he said, I'll be a doctor and do the surgery, and then I'll tell them, it's free. You don't have to pay. I'm like, Good luck at any hospital. The doctor doesn't own all that equipment.

So Killua and Gon are going up the stairs, and Killua is disappointed the test isn't harder and says, oh, I'm not here to be a hunter. I just heard this was a really difficult test, and I wanted a challenge because I'm the Edgy. I'm going to be great one and Gon, it's established in the first few episodes and just reiterated their dad was a hunter and abandoned them. So he needs to follow in his footsteps. And the not at all sad goal of seeing what's so great about being a hunter that you would abandon your family. And he says it like that a lot.

It must be awesome.

It must be great. God knows my aunt, who raised me single handedly, she can eat shit. She's dead to me now, just like my father was. I got to see what he's all about.

So they get to the top of the stairs, and yeah, they finally get outside. They're like, all right, don't get too restful. We still have a ways to go because we're at the edge of Swindler's Swamp, and we just see a big old big old mucky lake place. And he's like, oh, yes, we got to go through this swamp. It's full of notorious trickster animals and creatures, and they're going to try to lure you away and kill you. This is not from the hobbit. Don't look it up. And then we see a beat up guy poke his head around the corner. And he's like, no, don't listen to that thing. I'm the real instructor. That's one of the trickster monsters that's trying to trick you. Look, I have a corpse of one, and it looks like this ridiculous clown man. And it does.

I wanted to say real quick with the instructor. He's got like a big curly Q mustache. No mouth, no mouth, no mouth. No one talks about it. Never addressed.

Yeah, it's very like my hero. Academia of everyone has their own gimmick. Don't examine it too much unless it's plot relevant or tragic backstory relevant. But you get your classic, no, they're the clone. Shoot them. No, I'm real. Don't shoot me. And one of the hunter trainees throws out some killer playing cards. Santos is able to catch them, but the other one can't. Only a real hunter would be able to dodge an attack like that.

Got him.

And Santos is like, yep, so don't fuck with me because I'm a real hunter. Hey, dude, you attack me. Don't do that shit again. All right, let's go.

You're all dead, ice clown boy.

And then they run into the swamp. And that's where we end episode four. Will they make it through the swamp? We won't find out this episode. I assume, so skip ahead 80.

Some episodes, so probably. Did you like Leorio, Karapika, killawa and gon all hanging out together? Cool. This is the only arc that happens. They immediately break up and never hang out again. Oh, that's not a joke, Jonan. Killua versus the world. And then Karapika and Liario fuck off and do the thing.

They still pop in. I was in later episodes and I was like, yeah, Kirapika's around a lot, but yeah, no, just doing their own stuff on the side.

The Phantom Troop arc is just Karapika, and then everything else is going in killawa and then Liario shows up at the very end of the series. It's wild.

Fascinating.

Yeah. So jumping ahead, episode 85. As is tradition, we get a little recap starting off the episode. We're in the midst of the Chimera Ant arc. For those of you who don't know, this arc alone is half the series. So oh, boy. We see some chimera ant. These are creatures that eat animals and adapt some of their abilities, the Chimera part of their name. And we see some of them around being introduced to Neferpito. Enjoy me saying that name now because it's only going to get worse. Introducing themselves, saying that's the name the Chimera Ant queen gave them. And then we get the Chimera ant opening, and then we cut back to the ant hive. They're all having a big meeting. I like that they have an intercom system. And they're calling everyone to the break room to talk about the new recruits.

Hey, guys, you really got to put your names on the food in the fridge and remember to put the dates on them.

And then when it's old, to throw it out.

It's a mess in there, you guys. Come on.

Pengan keeps eating old stuff and his body changes into the old food. We are chimera ants. That's how we work.

Oh, and don't forget, we're having a human for Dave's birthday. That's Buffalo Dave, not Baboon Dave.

Dave B. So they're talking about their new leadership and how there's like a new hierarchy within the Chimera Ants under I'm already struggling. Nefer.

Pizza girl.

Neff.

Neff.

Also, fun thing from casting cat person, this was early non binary representation.

Cat person.

Yeah, because there was real confusion of people being like, they what, because they're like an alien? And it's like, I didn't know that.

I will now respect their pronouns. Yeah, it's that easy, everyone.

It's that easy.

I refer to them as they them in all my notes because I think in a lot of the written stuff, it's he, but they are very female presenting. And also they're a weird alien thing. Like, fuck if we know what gender is for them. And this series actually does that respectively. Small tangent. There's stuff like in one piece where they're like, look, a trans character. I'm like, don't give him that respect. Like ODA the author. Don't give him that respect. I don't trust that with this series. Actually pretty good with representation and being respectful to it. So cool point for that. And they find out that the Chimera Ants, now, they ate a human that knew how to do Nen, which is the magic in this world, and they have adapted that ability so the Chimera ant can now use Nen, which is bad for everybody.

The Raccoons learned how to pick up handguns. It's over for basically yes, that's it's.

A very good comparison for it. So we see them trying to awaken the Nen in each other, cut away to killua Gon and Kite, who is their new Nen instructor. He is a friend of Gon's dad. And they tagged along with him on this mission to try and exterminate the chimera ants because they're an invasive species in this country that can do catastrophic damage to it. So they're tracking a group of ants back to their nest. Kite is very powerful and can sense them, so he's following behind, leading them. The boys are impressed by the control of Nen that Kite has. He's the strongest they've ever seen. He must be a Nen master, maybe even stronger. And we get a little flashback of all the characters they've met up to this point, being like, no, he's stronger than all them too. Like, wow, we've got to learn a lot from him. And then already lost my notes.

They reminisce, did they mention how strong and good at fighting he is?

He's so strong. He is a god to them. Nothing will go wrong ever.

Nothing will happen to this man.

I'm immortal. They reminisce how they met Kite. They stumbled upon him, like, when he was fishing, from a letter of introduction that Goen's dad left them, basically. And Kite reiterates to them what they're getting into with the Chimera ants and how dangerous it is, and that his group of like kite's group has been tracking him this whole time. He says there isn't time to train these two boys. This isn't a training session. They're in it. They got to win it or they're dead. That's all it is. And he brought them along because he thought they'd be useful. And then Kite reminds him that first tenet of being a hunter is they got to hunt their prey until the hunt's over. You can't bail out on it. Once you start a hunt, you got to continue. He used to be a hunter, x hunter. Gon asks Kite if that's why Kite hit him the first time he met, when Gon was like, even a smaller bab. And we get a flashback of Goan, like, wandering around the forest like, oh, boy. And Kite just comes out and soccer punches him. And Kite shows him that it's like tiger bear season and there's a mother nearby and you're an idiot, and this is the law of nature, and just being like, hey, there's some crazy animals, like, be on your toes.

Don't you know this child, itty bitty boy child that I just punched in the face. Oh, you're crying freak.

And Go and Reminisce is saying Kite taught him the laws of nature you know, in Gene's place, his father, who wasn't there for him ever, because Gene is a shitty, shitty dad. And then Kite gives Gon Gene's Hunter license because Gene was like, Give this back to me when we meet up. And Kite was like, we'll do. And then forgot for like, 20 years. And he's like, hey, you're hunting after your dad. You'll see him before. I will give this back to him. And Go and takes it, says he'll give it back to him after he finishes this job so he can become stronger to meet his dad. And then we cut back to the ants. They're fighting, trying to awaken the Nen in each other. And Neferpito senses something of like, oh, something's on the perimeter. I'll be right back. You guys keep training. And they run off. And as they run off, we cut right back to Kite, who senses Neferpito's movement, tells the boys, Get out of here. A monster is approaching. It's dangerous. And of course, being two little boys, they go, Whoop. And Neferpito just appears in front of them, just, hey, like, 20 miles away from the ant hill. They just flew over and goose diving right in. And Kite pushes them out of the way, saving the boys and losing his arm. Arm is gone, just completely severed in one shot.

But he's so strong and powerful. They established that, how could this happen?

He'll live forever. Neferpito sees new prey, and Goma starts freaking out. He's charging up, he's getting ready for a big old fight. And he sees Kite's severed arm and starts freaking out more. Killua, being a little more rational, knocks him out and runs because this is not a fight they can win. So Killo runs off while Kite fights Neferpito. And again, this was shown earlier. We missed that episode. Kite's weapon of choice is a weird sentient clown that randomly changes into different weapons.

Cool.

So, yeah, it's really weird looking. Yeah, it starts raining, which is always good and not foreboding at all. We see Killowell running back, thinking they got overconfident because they beat some weaker ants and they thought they were hot shit. And then he found out they're worth even less than a one armed kite. That's why Neferpito stayed to fight him. And he's realizing he got humbled. He's realizing how weak they actually still are. And we see the sun rising. So it's been like a full night of Killua running back. And we see him escaping the country. He gets to the border of this country we saw in previous episode, and Gohan still passed out on his back. And Killua calls up Kite's group who were coming to meet them, saying tells him what happened and that Kite got left behind and lost his arm. And they said they're on their way with reinforcements. Sure enough, they show up right after that. And we see three new characters step out of the truck or, well, two new characters. One of them is the chairman of the Hunter Organization. He's a little old guy in a bunch of robes. He's crazy. And then we got Moral, which is a big older guy with sunglasses, and NAV, who is the EDA of the group, he's a black haired, glasses, straight lace businessman.

He looks exactly like Kyohya from or On High School Host Club.

Yep, that's the, but even more. And they tell him like, oh, you got a couple of kids out here. This ain't a game, kid, you gotta go home. They're like, oh, stop teasing them. They're probably out here for good reason. And Killawat tells them about Neferpito, saying how strong they are, and saying like, ever since he is able to sense Nen, he's never sensed anyone stronger as strong as Neferpito, including the Chairman. So it's kind of like, oh shit. And he's worried about them even fighting him. And NAV is saying like, oh, you're just panicking because you're in a state of worry. You're in shock, so you're probably just exaggerating. Moral says you can't predict Nen battles. They're unpredictable. You never know what will happen. So just having power levels isn't enough to determine a fight, especially because Nen have some crazy ass powers. Killawat tells the Chairman he not going out to stop him from fighting. Chairman says they have to stop Chimera ants from eating humans, because then they grow more powerful, adapting their abilities. So that's why they're only sending in three of them instead of like a whole army, because they don't want to throw 20 guys at an ant. They all get eaten, and that ants 20 times stronger. So they got an elite task force going into the before he leaves, the Chairman throws Kilowatt two tokens or two tiles and says, there's two assassins in a nearby city. Why don't those boys go there, take on those assassins, and prove themselves strong enough to be in this fight against the ant? So killawa does just that. He goes to the town. Gon is still knocked out. He thinks about what Moral said about him running away from a fight and being worse than a loser, because he just gave up on the fight and didn't even try. And then Gon wakes up and thanks Killua for knocking him out, because he knew he wouldn't be able to control himself and would be hindering Kite in that fight. Last thing you want to do.

Sometimes the best support for the Homies is no support for the Homies.

Damn that's.

To show true love, you have to abandon the ones you care about. Just like gon's. Death. Killawat that. They abandoned kite. He's like, kite's probably dead. And Gon is like, no way, kite's immortal. He's still alive. He probably fought them and just got really injured, and now is in hiding, trying to recover his power. So we have to go back in there and we have to find Kite and bring him. Back, because there's no way he lost that fight. He absolutely won that fight. So they have to go find these assassins, get stronger, and then rescue Kite. Reflecting on what he said, Killwell falls more and more in love with Gon, and truly, he wonders if he can stay by Gon's side for all they go through. And we see, like, a little message board at the beginning of the city that Killua came into with a message from the assassins, basically saying, like, we welcome your challenge. Like, come and find us. So they're ready to fight these boys. Cut to the battlefield between Kite and Neferpito. We hear one of the Chimera ants talking about building a freezer chamber for all the new experiments and trinkets that Neferpito's been acquiring. And Neferpito's sitting by a tree, stroking the severed head of Kite, saying, yeah, I guess I've gotten pretty strong.

What? He's dead. What?

We don't even see the fight. That's how fast it was.

What the hell? Bump bump, bum bum. Hey, there's that human they got for Dave's birthday.

I wasn't gonna say hi to him, but you got a human.

I might swing by now just for a bite.

A little nibble.

All right, so, from episode 85, we're going to the end. 148, baby. You think there's going to be, like, a cool fight in this one big finale? Yeah.

I mean, there's got to be.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's fighter X. Fighter.

There's no opening at the beginning. That's how you know it's serious.

Real serious.

We need all the time we can get.

Yeah. There's a lovely island, a house, a voiceover of Gon and his aunt. I was like, his mom. And then I remembered when you said his aunt raised him.

Yeah.

Not a chimera aunt, though. Relational.

Who's his mom? Truly, no one knows or cares. It's never addressed, ever.

Great.

Yeah.

And, yeah, they're talking about him wanting to be a hunter. And we hear Gon say, it must be so cool if he left me to do it. Yeah, and I think his aunt is like, wow, just like your pappy and his dad. Jing jing. Jean.

Jean. But it's like, Jean the dumbest way.

Okay. It is just Gene, though.

It's just but it's okay. This show gets real fast and loose with how words exist.

Great.

I think it's spelled ging.

Yeah, that's how it's spelled. Yeah.

So, yeah, his dad Gene did become a great hunter. And we see him. He turns to the camera and says to come find him. Gon wakes up in his bed. Turns out it was a dream. He stares wistfully out the window, and he's like, I got to find my daddy.

Dad.

It's time.

It's time. He is going up a very long path. He has memories of all of his little adventures. Look at what the boy has been through. Aren't you proud of him? And I'm sure I'd be going crazy and crying if I were someone who watched the whole show and super cared. Like, I see that for them, you.

Get what they were going for.

Yeah. And then I was like, oh, this is just like episode four. Using his endurance.

Yeah, kind of. Yeah.

Climb up this tree full circle. At least for us. We got something.

There was a weird amount of overlaps between 85 and this episode. I was like, oh, that ties together.

Hey. So he gets to a kiosk at the top of the path, and the guy tells him that anyone under 18 cannot pass, but Gon's got to climb the top of the big tree, the world tree. I liked that the man in the kiosk was reading.

Little Easter Egg.

Yeah. Gon shows this guy his pro hunter license, and the guy is very apologetic, completely changes his tune about letting Gone climb the big tree. Gon stares wistfully again out into the valley before he starts the climb. And the guy recommends just free climbing instead of using any footholds or anything. That's how the guy that's at the top right now did it. Who could that be?

Real quick. It adds truly nothing to the conversation. This guy's got a vest and a big old hat and looks like toad from Mario.

Mario, you want to climb the tree? Okay. Sorry. I could do a better one, but it would have to be so loud.

And I just not going to do.

It isn't for the sake of everyone.

Yeah. So he jumps up here. He goes climbing the top of the big tree. The view is nutty. The boy is gripping onto nothing and pulling himself up. It's very funny looking. He feels the life in the tree. He feels all the connections within the tree. He just needs to follow the tree's guidance. I will say, through these three episodes we watch, the music is very nice, the background music. He comes across someone on a leaf asking for help. Gone presses the help button on the guy's bracelet. He also got one, too, with the kiosk, but we know that he doesn't need that.

He's strong.

He's a strong young lad.

He's gone through so much.

And yeah, we see someone come get the guy who's asking for help, and Gon waves him off. Gon is almost at the top, and he thinks it looks weird. It's a nest. He's looking at it from the bottom, and it's the bottom of a nest. He gets up there, and there's a bunch of goofy, big old goofy baby birds.

Just angry birds themselves.

I like them. They look like little Easter eggs. Cute colors.

You think it'd be like a thunderbird or like a phoenix. A legendary bird at the world tree. And it's like, this is a dumpy. Little peep marshmallow.

And his dad's there, and I hate this man. As soon as he arrives, it's literally.

Just going with, like, stubble.

That's what I was going to say. I especially hate that he just looks like Gon, but disheveled Gon. After a rough three years, he doesn't even look old. If his face was more angular and maybe had some wrinkles, that would make me feel differently. But he literally it's just Gon's head on. A taller body with stubble.

This is just a different anime protagonist from a different show. Still a teenager, but he has stubble, so he's a man.

This is Gon trying to sneak into an R rated movie. Yes.

And he's like, oh, you're finally here. I got tired of waiting. And Gon just looks so happy to see him. This silly little boy is so happy to see his papa. His dad gives him an apple, and they look out at the view again. They're above the clouds. Wow. And then Gon asks his dad what he wants, and his dad says, I want whatever I don't have. Son. Cool.

I think I'd like a daughter.

The rest of the episode is just them having a conversation. So he says he wanted to become a hunter because it could get him to a place he really wanted to see, a royal family's burial ground. And he tells the story of how he became a pro hunter so he could get the money that he needed to do the research in there. And when he was 15, he set up a nonprofit to do research and repair the tomb. Okay.

There is a lot of discussion in this series finale about nonprofits.

Yeah.

It's a lengthy talk.

He's like, I just needed a bunch of weirdos who wanted to know the truth of the tomb and could keep my secrets.

I don't need the strongest. I don't need the wealthiest. I needed the freaks. It's like, kind, I guess.

Great. And he's like, I'll do anything to get what I want, but then I completely lose interest in what I'm doing, which is why I abandoned you. I guess that makes sense. And he made a lot of friends through this project. They were all a lot older than him, but they helped him create the nonprofit and even gave donations. And they got into the tomb eventually. And he was so happy. But not because he got to see the tomb. Because he got to see the happy.

Faces of his colleagues, the friendship.

It's all about hey, I'm not going to say it yet. We got to hold off on the platitude.

Hold on.

So he says that all these people still work for the company for free. Okay. And he says this is the most important thing. Wasn't the tomb and what was inside. It was the friends he made along the way. And I put in my notes, wow, 148 episodes for this?

Listen and remember, he made friends in episode four, meaning we could have skipped 140 stuff if him and Killawa were like, hey, fuck this. What if we want to play video games? Yeah, same results. A lot less traumatic.

Yeah. I just am like, I can't believe this is the last episode. Why, this could have been, like, halfway through, and then there could have been cooler stuff.

Don't worry, I'm quick to abandon any of those friends they met along the way immediately after meeting them, because, like.

Hey, he says there's a lot cooler stuff out there too.

Yeah. So we'll get there. Gon remembers his buds. His eyes sparkle. It truly is the friends he made along the way. So now what? Dad asks gon. His dad says that that'll take some time to explain. And he talks about the world tree and about how the one that they're on isn't even the actual thing. This is just a sapling that stopped growing, and it could have been way bigger. A fully grown world tree would reach outside of the atmosphere, and it's outside of the world map that Gon is familiar with. Gene tells him about the ants, you know, from the chimera arc, and says they're essentially aliens. And that's the truth. They don't tell you in school. I love that because yikes.

This boy has never been to school a day in his life. He hasn't learned anything in school.

I also just don't trust I hate that phrase.

Anyone that says that.

Yeah.

It's either a worldly traveler who's, like, everything I've experienced is the true world, or a conspiracy nut who's, like, the shadow government's hiding the truth.

Yes. So he's just talking a bunch of silly shit. It's just all silly. He's just platitudes he's just saying the world is much bigger than what everyone here knows. There are books of people traveling to beyond where we are, and again, the thing I always want is what I don't have. And I said in my notes, you waited your whole life for this. Gone. Is it worth it? Is this what you wanted?

Is this the reunion he craved?

Yeah.

And apparently the answer is yeah.

Absolutely.

Real quick, I'd like to share an image with you too. I wanted to get the live reaction. A friend of mine who has bad taste is still reading this manga, and they show a panel in it of what the scale of the world is outside of what Gene's talking about. And I just wanted to hear your reaction to what it was, because it's nutty that the entire series of Hunter Hunter up till this point is this small microscopic collection of islands in the middle of this gigantic lake, which is surrounded by another continent that no one's ever seen. The sigh is what I expected.

That's quite there's a lot more.

It sounds like when I played Witcher Three, I spent too long in the starting tutorial world being like, yeah, this is a large place that surely more of the game will be in. Right?

Crazy geez. Gene is like, I don't have everything I need to do my beyond traveling, though. I need the means, permission, qualifications, and a contract. I don't have any of that yet, so in the meantime, I'm just going to keep going, keep trucking, enjoy the ride. You know, kid, that's life. That's not exact, but it's pretty close.

Pretty close. There's apparently a lot of bureaucracy in this worldly, adventurer world, where even this world traveler who's abandoned all meaningful things in his life still needs permission, qualifications, and the contract to do anything.

Yeah, I think making a world where adventurers are licensed is interesting. But also it maybe would be interesting to have something about the adventurers being like, why is it like this? Hey, maybe it doesn't need to be like this. And then maybe the show could be about that question that ever happened.

No.

Okay. He tells Gon to enjoy the side trips. Things that are more important than what you're hunting for could be there on the side of the road. And then the mommy bird comes back just as the sun sets. And Gon gives Gene his pro hunter license, the one that we saw Kite give him in episode 85. Wow. Serendipitous incredible. They sit up there, gon tells Gene about his adventures. Gene tells his son about his father son know. And then we see the sun rise over a mountain and the opening song plays. And then the credits roll. We see Gon's aunt gets like a postcard from him. That's nice. And we see clips of other characters, businessmen doing business things. Looks like the chairman died.

He dies fighting the Chimera Ant leader.

Okay, rip to that guy real quick.

Because it annoys me real quick. He fights the chimera. Ant Leader Everything in the fight is pointless. The way he stops him is by putting a nuclear bomb in his heart laced with poison. So he blows himself up to Kill. The Chimera Ant leader jokes on him, it doesn't work. And the chimera ant leader revives. Fine.

That's just like in Future diary when 9th blows herself up to open the bank and it doesn't work.

Yeah, and then the Chimera dies by the poison, like three days later or something stupid.

Interesting. Yeah, people are like on iPads and laptops. We see Kalua with a girl, Leorio real quick. Yeah, sure.

That's his sister who was born male. So like I said, the representation very respectful of that. Well, Killua is the rest of their family shitty, but Killua teaches them a lesson about respect.

That's good. Is that his name? Leorio?

Yeah.

We see him make a phone call.

He's in an office. I guess he made money.

Good for him.

Business.

Yes. And I cannot reconcile that. We see like a big city and smartphones and I'm like, that's so weird. It's like an Afro samurai where they have flip phones. Oh yeah, it looks like Kurapika found all the eyes or whatever. That's good. Hooray love that for them.

Him karapika is another one where I believe it's him. He him. But then the voice actor is female, so a lot of people get an androgynous mix it, honestly. Could work either way. It could work.

Yeah, pretty much. What I know about Kurapika, I think, is that people ship them with Leorio. Yeah, that's what I know.

They spend about twelve episodes together, so I guess that's enough time.

People ship anybody that's not it doesn't matter. There are some people, two girls paying their respects at a grave. A guy walks up, he turns into, like a bunny deer, werewolf looking thing, and they're going to keep it his secret.

I got to wonder what this looks like for people who don't know the context.

I was like, oh, he's hot. He turned into the thing. And I was like, oh, wow.

So it's Black Canary. That's Kelawaz Butler. The grave she's at is of the guy who comes up because he died. And then that animal is one from the Swindler Swamp who can shapeshift into people, and it just is presumed that he takes on that other Butler's identity.

All right. Yeah, weird. Then in a dark room, we see two hands holding onto each other with coins that say King and Shinobi. I would like to know what this is.

That is the chimera ant leader. After the bomb blows up, he gets poisoned. He goes back to his base, where he continues playing a fictional game. They spend like, three real episodes teaching you how to play. And it's gibberish because he fell in love with the master of that game, who was a blind girl. And when he goes back, he plays with her because he's in love with her. And then the poison from him kills her as well. So they die together in this room playing the game.

Hey, I like that. That's nice.

It could be nice if it didn't take 64 episodes to do.

I was like, God, this cast of characters is wild. There's so much happening, and then it ends, and we hear this dad say the same thing before, as if we didn't just hear it about the thing about what you're looking for might just be on the side of the road. So keep your eye out. And that's the end of X Hunter.

That's the end of the series. Real quick, another addendum. We see Kite's gang of friends like, watching the sunset as well. There's a small redheaded girl with him now. That's Kite. He got reincarnated into her somehow.

Hell yeah.

Sick.

And then Killua and his sister are out exploring the world. Fun fact, his sister houses a crazy wish granting demon, and Killua is the only one who's able to keep her common.

The demon at makes yeah, of course.

Standard.

Yeah, I also do that, and my brothers help me control it.

Also, I don't have a sister, so.

Maybe that's everyone who is born a younger sister has that the burden you must bear. Yeah.

So are we weebx weeb yet.

Well, seeing how we finished this entire series and I'm going to claim that for the rest of my life. What a lovely show. Honestly, seeing these side by side, the tone holds up a little bit. It definitely gets more serious, as you would expect a coming of age series two, but it doesn't feel, like, completely disparate. I know that's also not in the depth of that arc. That gets very dark. So I don't know if there are just like, oh, yeah, these kids are going through pure torture stuff. But yeah, I don't know. It's fun, it's cute, it's good.

Yeah. I have no context for any of, like, watching the last episode just because we have seen what we've seen and we're seeing it through the perspective of Brendan, who didn't get a lot out of this program.

Don't look through my perspective. I will ruin everything.

But like I said when I was saying the stuff about seeing all the little memories, I can see how this ending would be exciting for people like, oh, gon, finally got to meet his dad. The whole reason he wanted to become a hunter in the first place. I don't know if people like his dad. I would hope not.

He's so shitty.

Yeah, he was not good. But I mean, this type of show just isn't for me in the first place. Like, I'm not a huge fan of action type shows and also it's very, very long, which is also not something I enjoy in an anime against it for you, but I can see the appeal for the people who do like it. I made this comparison while we were in the break that it's kind of like a haikyuu. And I've compared things to haikyuu in this way before where it's just like, there are so many characters that if you don't like one character, you can attach yourself to another. And whoever you enjoy, you love them and there they are. So, yeah, good for you if you like it. I see nothing wrong with it, especially because there's good trans representation. That's really cool.

It's very rare.

It's cool that there's a show that has like I mean, maybe it has other problematic qualities, but from my eyes, I don't see anything wrong with it. So I say good for you, continue enjoying it.

So, I mean, there's some.

Admit it.

That'S my biggest thing.

Tess is right, it is anime. So, like, there being a pedophile in it isn't too weird.

But again, as long as you can be like, yeah, that's weird and bad, that's fine. You're allowed to keep enjoying things.

Yeah, I watched it because I loved IU Hakusho and I've heard people praise the series so much and it's got such a big fandom. I'm like, it's gotta be great. And I fully acknowledge that. I've made myself watch all of it and I easily could have jumped ship when I started not liking it, and then I kept watching it and any of my exaggerated feelings for it are my own fault. Very aware of that and fully acknowledge.

That you're just resentful.

Not even resentful, because it's like, I could have been doing something better. No, my free time is useless. I exist to consume media. I would have done nothing else with it. But it's a big problem that Tessie pointed out with other series where it's like they go into very intimate detail about the nen system and then you meet Killawa'sister, who's like, hey, I just grant wishes that defy everything. It's like, okay, fuck it, I guess I guess this means nothing now. And stuff like that, where I'm like, it's just real backslidy. A huge problem I have is the Chimera arc being 61 episodes and the whole series being 141 arc being half of a season is insane to me, regardless of the quality. Even though I do specifically hate the Chimera arc for different reasons. But yeah, it's not bleach. Bleach has a fire in my soul of hatred. I definitely acknowledge good stuff in Hunter X Hunter killuan Cohen's relationship. It's just real fun and pure. They're real great together, so I fully see people loving them and attaching to those characters. It's wild to me that it's like, here are the four main boys, cool, Krapika, and Leorio. They can go fuck off. Krappica will come back for one season. Liario comes back to punch Gon's dad in the face. That's cool. Nice. And that's it. That's all they do. It's like, what? So that just blows my mind, writing wise. But yeah, I won't get too into it. I got a fair amount of complaints with series overall. I'm not a huge fan of it, but there are definitely good stuff in it to enjoy and there are great moments, so I'm not surprised. It's popular, but it definitely flabbergasted me after watching it all. Also, I watched it all in like, two weeks or something. Like, I could have easily spaced this out.

Yeah, you're a glutton for punishment, I guess.

I have so few hobbies I need to go outside someday.

Let's get Brendan into knitting.

If you have a hobby recommendation for Brendan, honestly, bring it to our social medias. Are we there yet? At gmail is our email. Whatever. Yeah. TikTok tumblr. You'll find us there.

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Honeyperiood or on Tumblr at Honeydee. Honey spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. As I said, we're.

Wrapping up the podcast, so stop telling us to watch stuff.

Yeah, sorry.

Can find me on Twitch. Are we there yet? I moderate for a few streamers and cause a whole lot of shenanigans over there for them. It's fun.

Thank you to Camille Ruley for our artwork. And thank you to Louis Zong for our theme song stories. You can find all of Louis'music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Bye, x bye.