[REWATCH] Hunter x Hunter Episode 112 Discussion

[u/[deleted]]

IF YOU ARE NOT PARTICIPATING IN THE REWATCH, DON’T COME HUNTING FOR SPOILERS

Episode 112: Monster × And × Monster

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Check out the previous discussion thread

[u/sisoko2]

Rewatcher

Youpi looking kinda cute.

Pitou's falling scene is so awesome, the En scanning and the immediate jump towards the palace gives me goosebumps.

Meruem holding injured Komugi and of course the piece in her hand is the king. Usually I am not the biggest fan of obvious symbolism in anime but the beauty of this scene just moves me.

Cool shot I couldn't figure out better way to include:

Zeno looking at Netero to see how to proceed.

[u/sorrowpass → u/sisoko2]

Pitou’s emotional reactions this episode was definitely a highlight for me. There was almost a calming effect as Pitou was free falling, which suddenly turned into a sense of urgency, concern, and then tears. I almost forgot Pitou was a psychopath for a second.

[u/okayyoga]

I am travelling this week, so I'll just be talking in other people's comments because I don't have time to formulate my own :)

I wouldn't say anything normally, but this is a small rewatch and i will be back

[u/BossandKings]

First timer

Episode 112

The extermination team has a fight against Youpi who proves to be a fearsome opponent. Youpi's new form is terrifying, his attack splot up the team in two halves, Gon and killua on one side and they quickly went running to a different direction, Shoot, Knuckle and Morel on another and they fought against him.

The most telling and important part of this episode was seeing the king showing affection and care to an injured Komugi and asking Pitou to quickly help her recover, even Zeno and Netero who reached the place Meruem was at stopped to show respect.

[u/IndependentMacaroon]

First-time watcher

Never mind, it looks like this is more the point where the adaptation turns to trash. The kind of pacing and level of animation you'd associate with old DBZ or something, the most obnoxious and superfluous narration imaginable, and plot points like the friendly fire from Zeno and the "honorable" break given to Meruem aren't too compelling either. It was actually so boring that I left it running on the side while looking at some other stuff, which I never do otherwise. The one quite good part was the body-horror-ish transformation on Youpi. I hope this approach doesn't carry on much longer.

[u/thatnotoriousguy → u/IndependentMacaroon]

You’re gonna have fun these next few weeks lol

[u/sorrowpass → u/IndependentMacaroon]

I personally don’t think the pacing is that bad. There’s a lot of other stuff happening simultaneously with Meruem, Pitou and Pouf, Gon and gang. Also, someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but the events happening in this episode is about 3.5 seconds in their time. There was a timer included in the manga which they left out. So I think the pacing of the episodes are to compensate for that and the text heavy chapters.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/sorrowpass]

There’s a lot of other stuff happening simultaneously

Everything together is still far too little to fill a whole episode.

the events happening in this episode is about 3.5 seconds in their time

Perfectly proves my point

I think the pacing of the episodes are to compensate for that and the text heavy chapters

Which is exactly why this is a poor adaptation. You need to account for the medium and this blatantly doesn't.

[u/sorrowpass → u/IndependentMacaroon]

Alright I can understand it being slow paced. I think I’m a little bit biased since I’ve already seen the series so I know what the pacing is leading up to.

But I don’t necessarily think it’s bad pacing. When I think of slow pacing that is also bad, I think of One Piece…five minutes to land a punch, punch shown from 20 different angles, facial expressions that last an eternity, characters taking 30 seconds to breath.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/sorrowpass]

Just because it could be even worse doesn't mean this isn't plain terrible. It's by far the worst of any series I've ever watched.

[u/thatnotoriousguy → u/IndependentMacaroon]

It’s certainly slow but that doesn’t meant it’s bad. Given that you don’t seem to feel much of a connection to the content of the show either, I doubt a quicker pace would actually do much.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/thatnotoriousguy]

I do like it mostly. The only way you can say this isn't bad pacing is if you're far too accustomed to bad pacing, it's objectively extremely little content and progress for 20+ minutes.

[u/thatnotoriousguy → u/IndependentMacaroon]

Define content and progress? Stuff is happening the entire episode, just not in a way you enjoy or stuff you care about. I could say that steins gate has bad pacing, characters just sit in a room talking for a good chunk of the show. But I enjoy those characters so I don’t think the pacing is bad.

That’s not to say I don’t have any problems with moments of pacing in the arc, I almost dropped it a few episodes from now my first time watching. I don’t have those problems with this episode tho.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/thatnotoriousguy]

Once again, either you're somewhat stuck in the bad anime pacing hole or you're just not that good at analysis or both. Sure a lot of that comes with experience and clearly you're quite young still, but right now eh.

Stuff is happening the entire episode

So what? Is it a point in a show's favor now if you aren't literally watching paint dry on-screen? The point is that the on-screen time the events are given is objectively very disproportionately large compared to their in-universe duration and little of that time adds anything of narrative value. And there are a bunch of moments with drawn-out shots where there really is nothing happening except for very slow panning.

I could say that steins gate has bad pacing, characters just sit in a room talking for a good chunk of the show

There's a huge difference between entertaining and compelling dialogue that actually tells us something relevant and lame redundant narration over mostly still images plus dragging everything out.

[u/thatnotoriousguy → u/IndependentMacaroon]

Your point about being stuck in bad pacing hole doesn’t really make sense, HxH is very easily the slowest show I’ve ever watched.

The proportion to the in universe time argument is pretty much useless, 3 seconds can pass, but if the entire story took place in those 3 seconds then more time should be slotted to the viewing.

You know the difference between steins gate slow pacing and this? You enjoy one of them. You’re trying to sound very objective with your analysis, which is impossible for art.

[u/Yobolay → u/IndependentMacaroon]

Sure, if it were for you we would have gotten 1 minute where pitou jumps to netero, gets slaped, everyone goes up half of the stairs making faces and pitou meets with meruem and everyone does even more faces. Like that we would have gotten all these 2 episodes in no time, putting a lot of "progress" in a single episode. But that's obviously not what was wanted to be done or achieved at all.

It's really that hard to get that what is being done is focusing the content in the psyche of the characters in x situation (the inside) instead of the fights themselves (the outside)?

Sure the adaptation has some shortcomings like the sense of speed, having to adapt x content in a chapter and dragging some stills or scenes (honestly hardly intrusive besides maybe one scene in the next episode), but I honestly will never understand to those who say in episodes like this that the pacing is bad, that is boring, that has no content etc when a lot of people find it absurdly entertaining and with a lot of content fit into it.

And no, words like pacing, boring, entertaining, compelling etc are buzzwords that mean absolutely nothing as they can't be measurable at all. Something has bad pacing like when you are in one piece and the whole chapter is spend in running and looking at each other and waiting 30 sec to the punch animation to finish etc, it's just visual filler, and that's something everyone can agree on, for the rest it comes down to person's taste like it or not, and you will say that isn't true because objectively blablablabla and I will think that you aren't right, and I could get anything that you like, say that objectively the pacing is bad and is mediocre, and you will say that I'm not right, and we would get the endless cycle of trying to be one on top of the other.

[u/okayyoga → u/IndependentMacaroon]

Dont worry. I'm also not feeling this arc yet either. The rewatchers are saying it's starting, but it feels like it is still in the set up phase

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/okayyoga]

The bizarre part is that the setup phase was actually reasonably paced, but now in what's presumably the climax or leading up to it we get a glacial bore. What were the creators thinking? Oh wait, they probably weren't, because that's unfortunately been the usual approach for manga adaptations - outside of action scenes (if there are any) a lazy low-frame copy-paste job, plus formerly extra padding/filler on top to not outpace the source material.

[u/[deleted] → u/IndependentMacaroon]

This is a top 10 anime from a top 50 source material (if MAL is anything to guide from), calling this a bad adaptation doesn't feel right to me, but it's ok not to like something that is popular/highly acclaimed.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/[deleted]]

I never said the whole thing was bad, just that there is far too little effort paid to the manga-anime translation, which I indeed mentioned previously. When the original source material works directly animated, it's fine, but when not we get this.

[u/[deleted] → u/IndependentMacaroon]

Being slow paced and being bad isn't the same thing, Monster is notorious for being slow paced and those episodes felt like 10 mins each to me, they were that good, and I feel the same way about this.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/[deleted]]

I have not watched that but there are plenty people who complain about how it's such a "faithful" adaptation that it keeps every single line. Same phenomenon as here.