Hunter x Hunter has returned with a series of brand new manga chapters after being on
hiatus for 1423 days. That’s almost 4 years without a chapter. After many fans had already
given up on ever seeing the continuation of this fantastic and unique story, Hisoka and
co finally have their big come back. However you might not be aware of the bitter sweet
story behind the long hiatus, how close Hunter x Hunter actually was to being done for good
and how in the end Yoshihiro Togashi overcame the massive odds stacked against him and his
work to actually make it to publication once more. It’s a story of pain, sickness, the
curse of being a genius writer and of a man who has dedicated his everything to his work
and his fans. And while it’s already clear that this new material is seamlessly picking
up with the high quality it left off on, after such a long time, it’s easy to lose track
of what is going on right now in the story, what characters are important and what you
can expect of the upcoming chapters and the overall future of the story. This is everything
you need to know about the long awaited return of Hunter x Hunter.
There aren’t too many stories that can allow themselves to suddenly go on an unannounced
and open-ended hiatus and then come back four years later to an euphoric fanbase that is
more excited and hungry for new stories than ever before. That alone should give you a
taste of how special Hunter x Hunter truly is as a story. After years of complete silence
since it’s last chapter in weekly shounen jump magazine on November 26th 2018, with
none knowing what the status of the story was and why there had been no news for so
long, author Yoshihiro Togashi appeared out of nowhere on a brand new Twitter profile
on May 24th 2022, with the following tweet: とりあえずあと４話 - 4 more chapters
left for now. Togashi must have expected all kinds of reactions to this tweet: Maybe no
one would notice it, maybe people would be angry with him for practically ghosting his
fanbase for 4 years, or even worse: Maybe people had stopped caring for his story all
together and moved on.
What happened next is something that neither he nor anyone else could have ever imagined:
The entire internet exploded. And I really mean that: I have never seen anything like
it happen before. The most unlikely assortment of people you could imagine came together
to celebrate the corner of a manga page with a sketch that looked like someone had played
around with his pen and forgotten to put the cap on it. From massive YouTubers like Mr
Beast to the most random brands like KFC or Axe, everyone was excited about the prospect
of this man’s scribbles. Togashi’s twitter account blasted itself to 2 million followers
in a few days and stands at 3 million only a few months after its launch, where he has
been publishing updates on his progress.
It must have been a true relieve and even overwhelming to him to see all these positive
responses. But what to an outsider must have looked like millions of people going absolutely
nuts about a few doodles badly lit paper, has a very easy explanation. Hunter x Hunter
is a one of a kind story even in the world of shounen, that at the peak consists of nothing
but high quality stories. Togashi took a look at main stream shounen manga and decided to
flip its concept on its head, pioneering a whole sub genre of successful series like
Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen or Chainsaw man. He looked at the established format of
major stories like Dragonball, One PIece and Naruto and wondered what would happen if he
treated these stories realistically. The result is that Hunter x Hunter starts out with as
a normal shounen, but its main character gon goes from cheerfully powerful good boy to
one of the darkest and most disillusioned characters in modern fiction. The story very
quickly becomes very dark and very morally complex. It turns out that a 13 year old who
thinks there are only good and bad people will have a hard time in the real world, filled
with morally ambiguous characters. The story and its world feel incredibly real and refreshing,
as the intricate politics and challenges of the world shape its heroes and not the other
way around. Togashi’s character writing is some of the best, if not the best in all
of manga, each character with incredible depth and moral complexity. Garnish this with a
fantastic power system like Nen, and you have a story that is beloved by millions of people.
And yet, we almost never got this continuation of Hunter x Hunter in the first place.
Yoshihiro Togashi began on March 16 1998 and has produced 36 volumes with 390 chapters
in it. Which sounds like a lot, until you compare it with a story like One PIece, that
released just one year earlier and has published over 1000 chapters until today almost 3 times
as many. The reason for this has been the increasing amount of weeks that Togashi took
off from publishing the story. When you look at the hunter x hunter hiatus chart, which
yes, is a real thing, then you can see how the manga starts out with a lot of blue weeks,
where the manga was published continually growing redder and redder until around 2006
it switches into long streaks of red and blue alternating, where the story would go on a
break for a while and then publish about 10 chapters in a row. These stretches of red
to produce a handful of chapters get longer and longer until in 2018 we finally hit that
big red wall that is the 4 year hiatus we are just coming out of. What in the world
is going on here? It turns out that Yoshihiro Togashi, despite being incredibly passionate
and caring about his work as a mangaka has been fighting with terrible health problems
ever since starting the story, that have made it almost impossible for him to continue his
work. These problems included increasingly excruciating back and chest pain, that made
it very hard for him to move and draw. On top of that he started to sleep poorly, which
soon turned into full blown insomnia, in parts due to this chronic pain, that kept his body
from getting the necessary rest it needed to heal. As a result he became bedridden and
pretty much incapable of working on his story for weeks and months on end. Togashi eventually
decided to share this terrible and exhausting cycle with his fans in a series of author
notes appearing along the few chapters that he still managed to release. We don’t know
for sure, but it’s very likely that his 4 year absence also was caused by his declining
health as he tried to focus on recovery. Some people speculated during that time, that maybe
it wasn’t his health after all. Maybe Togashi had simply written himself into a corner.
After writing a pretty much perfect ending to the adventures of Gon and Killua, he shifted
his focus to setting up the dark continent, a place that has been hyped up with such high
expectations, that it would be impossible to deliver on. And while I’m sure that this
was part of his struggle during that time, Togashi has proven often enough how capable
of a writer he truly is, that wouldn’t shy away from that challenge.
And indeed, with his return to the public world through twitter and sharing his progress
on the recent chapters, fans very optimistic, not only that they would finally get to see
the dark continent, but also that his condition must have been improving, some going so far
as speculating that a continuous weekly release would be possible again from now on. This
couldn’t have been further from the truth. July Togashi admitted was unable to sit upright
and that he was now drawing the line-art for his remaining chapters while lying down. Until
august, his health seemed once again to dwindle, tweeting that he only had finished a single
panel, not having enough strength to keep the grip on his pen. In this moment, the entire
project seemed to be at risk of ending right then and there. However in that moment something
changed. Whether it was his own will to keep writing his story and keep his promise to
his audience or his overall health slowly improving slightly or a mix of both, Togashi
decided to not give up and keep fighting. He worked hard and was determined to finish
the 10 chapters for release, which has now finally happened. And which he must be very
proud of. So with that out of the way, what exactly is going on right now in the manga?
And where are we going from here?
If you only watched the anime or simply need a refresher, here is a quick overview what
happened between the chairmain selection arc and the new chapters: With Gon having no more
Nen and Killua on a wholesome journey with his little sister, the focus of the story
has now shifted to Kurapika, who is the main character now as well as Leorio. Both of them
have joined the Zodiacs, the top 12 hunters, which has started the 9th arc of Hunter x
Hunter known as the succession war arc. Right now everything takes place on a giant boat
shaped like a whale, that is traveling towards the dark continent, which is mostly undiscovered
and filled with powerful nen creatures, such as the chimera ant queen. On this ship is
a battle royal happening between the 14 Princes of the Kakin kingdom for who gets to be king,
each having a nen beast at their disposal for the fight, though the rules really get
quite complicated. The Zodiacs of the hunter association are on board to escort Isssac
Netero’s son on his expedition to the dark continent. Kurapika is there to retrieve the
last of his clan’s missing scarlet eyes from the fourth prince and main antagonist
Tserriednich. The phantom troop is also there, looking for Hisoka, who after a death match
with Chrollo that he had wanted for so long, had killed two of the troops members. As well
as the struggle amongst a number of Mafia families. All on that boat. So you tell me
if that sounds interesting or not.
it seems for now that we will be getting a minimum of 10 chapters and then we can only
hope that Togashi’s health stabilizes, so we will see a continuation of the story after
that, hopefully with less than 4 years of waiting. The new material will continue this
fantastic journey towards the black continent and will give us the return of some of our
most beloved characters, like Chrollo, Hisoka and Kurapika, while also introducing a ton
of new fascinating ones. If you want to know what makes hisoka such a fantastic character
for example, you can watch my analysis of him next.