Hunter X Hunter (2011) Animation Analysis

So after quite some time we're gonna take another look at the quality of the animation in the current Hunter X Hunter series. So since last time we've reached at the time of my writing of this post, episode 125. So yeah, Madhouse is a ridiculously consistent studio even when working on a long running series. I mean good lord, they have 2 animation directors who produce excellent animation consistently, 1 other who gives us generally good animation, 1 who gives us great art despite stiff animation and the rest who give us average animation with generally no off model shots. For this post I'll go through the work of the main 4 AD's (Animation Directors) and finish off with a summation of my view overall on the animation and show in general. So lets start off with a video by fellow sakugang member AnimeBlue.

So the first AD we're gonna talk about is the absolute best one working on the show Tomoko Mori. Mori has produced the absolute best looking episodes of the entire show and works with the best animators which include Hidehiko Sawada whose work you can see in the above video and occasionally Kazuto Nakazawa.

Sawada and Nakazawa can always be counted on to produce some great looking animation and I'm glad we have them on staff. Mori uses Sawada to great effect as since he is an exceptionally talented character animator he gets a range of different types of fights and character movements to animate. One of my favourite pieces of animation from last year was this Sawada animated sequence.

Sawada is one of Madhouse's best assets at the moment and you can tell from his work that he puts in as much effort as he can to make it look great. Just from an animation basics standpoint his work looks incredible. Then we have another animator whose work was on my list from last year. Kazuto Nakazawa s quite possibly one of the best animators currently working with an near spotless track record on the animation front. Last year he even directed a 30 minute OVA called Vassalord with some of the best animation I've ever seen and oddly enough also featuring animation from Hidehiko Sawada. Its worth a look for the animation alone. His work on Mori's episodes has been very solid as well with my favourite being this sequence.

The way Mori's episodes adapt the material is just so much more dynamic than some of the episodes of the original anime with the Gon VS Hisoka fight being the prime example. There's really not much else to say about Mori's work without just gushing for several more paragraphs so I'll end it here.


The next best AD would be Yoshihiro Kanno (formerly known as Yoshihiro Sugano as the surname can be translated both ways). The thing about Kanno is that his episodes tend to focus on and showcase his animation very well while overshadowing  everything else completely. However while i like his character animation, where he really shines is with his effects animation. These two factors combined makes him one of the best animators let alone AD's working on the show. The art in his episodes also always seems to be good as well as the images portray the characters emotions very well. I particularly love the way Characters like Pouf loos in his episodes as they tend to be very detailed and show interesting but realistic looking facial expressions. I also love that Pouf is drawn to look quite refined with a very sharp chin and very detailed but straight hair which makes him look quite similar to Light from Death Note at times which works well for his character. You can look at some of his work in the video that i put together below.

This gif below from the most recent episode shows off why i love his work well well. His action sequences can be so incredibly dynamic and fluid and that coupled with the amazing rubble and smoke effects makes every strike look grandiose and makes it all look that much more epic. 

Then finally besides the effects animation and character animation, the other thing Kanno episodes feature that i greatly enjoy is the morphing sequences wit Youpi. You can see a couple in the video above but here is another memorable example.

The next AD would be Takahiko Abiru who besides Mori and Kanno produces some of the best character art of all the AD's. The animation in his episodes however is generally quite stiff but not distractingly so. I enjoy the art in his episodes quite a bit because he makes the characters look quite unique from the other AD's while never looking off-model at any point. The main way he seems to accomplish this is the unique way in which he uses shading and highlights which is best shown in the images below.

Closer to the start of the series though Abiru would have some really good animators like Akira Hamaguchi work on his episodes but lately Hamaguchi has mostly been working on Magi. The episodes Hamaguchi worked on with Abiru were 29, 36 and 43. Here's a link to a video of Hamaguchi's work.

So these days his episodes are known mostly for having good art. Abiru also has a regularly updated twitter account where he posts his key animation drawings and other art. Here are a couple of my favourites.

The other 2 AD's of note would be Mai Ishii and Mika Takahashi. Their episodes tend to be of a similar quality and like Abiru they had access to more talented animators early on as Akira Hamaguchi also worked on episode one which was a Mai Ishii episode. These days their episodes don't really stand out from that much but do have more movement than the episodes that are outsourced to South Korea. So besides some Hamaguchi scenes early on there isn't much to focus on in terms of the style of their episodes because they tend to just be fine overall. But that's all I'm gonna cover for now. At this point I'm gonna give the show's animation a score of 4/5 overall. When i next cover the show it'll be when its ended so we can look more in depth into the work of the less noticeable animation directors so bye for now.