Hunter x hunter manga incomplete

I, among many other anime fans, have Hunter x Hunter (2011) on my weekly queue. Hunter x Hunter is a high quality series, which is to be expected because the 2011 version is a reboot. But there’s a “dark side” to this series. And that is the manga it’s based on. I switched to the manga after this week’s episode and read it all in one day. Now “all” isn’t really accurate since the story is incomplete and has been on a two year hiatus. But I have read all that’s available. Should you? Does reading it take too much away from the viewing experience?

With the material presently available, Hunter x Hunter‘s anime won’t return soon. An episode generally covers two to three manga chapters. Given 61 chapters, fans could only expect 20 to 30 episodes, and most would be adapting an incomplete arc with no end in sight. Making matters worse, Hunter x Hunter has officially left weekly serialization. On the bright side, Togashi is , meaning we may see more development and fewer, shorter hiatuses overall.

Similar to George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the Hunter X Hunter manga is infamous for its long hiatuses. And while Book 6 of ASoIaF not being written caused Games of Thrones to have one of the most hated final seasons ever, the Yorknew City Arc being incomplete in the early 2000s resulted in Nippon’s HXH concluding with a sloppily put-together adaptation of the anti-climactic Greed Island Arc.

Adapting an incomplete story will always be a difficult task, especially with giving it a satisfying ending. Had more of the Hunter X Hunter manga and A Song of Ice and Fire been completed in time, their first television adaptations both could have cemented their legacies as all-time greats. While Togashi’s manga is still ongoing, the 2011 adaptation of HXH could thankfully at least have a sense of closure, as it brought Gon’s story to a satisfying end.

Both the Hunter x Hunter manga and anime series have been left incomplete for the past few years due to certain reasons, and fans have been eagerly waiting for them to return from their hiatus. And while the manga returned in October 2024 after a two-year hiatus, the Hunter x Hunter anime series had no plans of making a comeback until now.