Well, in fact while it’s Kurapika’s past that directly triggers the events that drive the plot, this is very much Gon and Killua’s movie in terms of screen time. When I originally saw Phantom Rouge I thought (based on the advertising) that this was effectively Kurapika’s story, with the others as supporting players. There are many different things happening in the film, which does take on an epic feel that belies its short length (about 95 minutes, with credits). Phantom Rouge is very good – it’s just not as good as an 18+ episode arc in the TV series. This may not be the best album in the catalogue, but it sure as hell isn’t a cover band. In some respects I suppose the movie could be said to have a more traditionally shounen feel than the series, but there are still elements that are so uniquely Hunter X Hunter that you never feel as if you’re watching an imitation. As such it obviously feels rushed by Togashi’s standard, and the character drama by necessity plays out in broader terms. With a movie like this you’re talking about effectively four episodes of anime, which would place it as considerably shorter than the "Zoldyck Family" arc, the shortest true arc in H x H – and Phantom Rouge is telling a much bigger story. Here’s the hard truth: Togashi-sensei is a writer who scripts almost exclusively in long arcs, with astonishingly detailed plots and subtle character progression. In fact, it could even be said that Togashi uses it to fill in some gaps in the series’ backstory (and what will later become backstory, once later arcs run their course). The biggest uncertainty I had was Phantom Rouge’s place in the series timeline, but with subs it’s very clear – this is between "York Shin" and "Greed Island". I saw the movie in a theatre when it came out and wrote a short review at the time – in short, I liked it a lot – and it turns out that I was able to follow along well enough to guess most of the major plot points accurately. And it’s clear very early on that this is a Togashi work – the themes he loves from the manga are dominant in the film, if in a slightly different form than we’re used to. In the first place, Togashi-sensei himself wrote the scenario – if there were any doubt in your mind about that, he kills three kids in the first scene just to make sure you know it’s him. I prefer to take each one of these as it comes, and there are some contrary currents with Phantom Rouge. ![]() I think there are a number of reasons for this, starting with the fact that a simple line of reasoning is, "If it was good enough to be in the original series, it would have been in the original series." There’s a reflexive revulsion against anything that has a whiff of "filler" to it that poisons the well before a lot of people take a drink, and in truth the track record of side-story movies of long-running shounen classics isn’t exactly a stellar one.
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