(no subject)

[sigmaleph]

Hunter x Hunter: The Last Mission is not a very good movie

So there used to be a 'shadow' hunter organization who did I guess black ops? Except they eventually decided they should not have a black ops branch, so they stopped having one. Probably because they realised they were totally capable of doing shady shit without a dedicated branch for it, but potentially also because the leader of the Shadow was evil. So Netero killed him.

Fast forward to the present. It's the Battle Olympia, the tournament between Floor Masters at the Heaven's Arena! Gon and Killua are there, taking a break from their naturalist work with Kaito to go support Zushi, who is a Floor Master now (i.e., this takes place after Greed Island but before the Chimaera Ants show up). Kurapika is here, because Neon wanted to watch and he's still bodyguarding. Leorio is here, because... Wing hired him to be Zushi's medical staff. Yes, really. That's the best excuse they could think of. Oh, and Biscuit and Wing are in the same place at the same time, I guess, that's noteworthy. Also Hisoka is hanging around for no good reason other than fanservice probably.

The tournament's about to start, but Gon and Killua, who theoretically were here for Zushi, decide they're entirely OK with missing Zushi's fight and go hang out with Netero, who is also here. So when Netero's room is attacked by a mysterious figure, they are there. The mysterious figure uses a mysterious power to incapacitate Netero, oh no! We learn this is called On and is basically ~evil~ Nen and way more powerful and fuelled by hatred.

On is a bullshit concept that you'd expect to find in a teenager's first fanfic and not a dubiously-canon-but-still-official movie. Nen is not some inherently good force that needs an evil counterpart; it already perfectly accommodates the idea that you can get a power-up by using your hatred and desire for revenge to fuel it. On is not necessary, it comes across as an excuse for the main villain to be Very Powerful, but you can just not put Netero in your movie and suddenly you don't need an excuse for your villain to be the strongest guy around. You can just have a Gon-and-Killua-focused movie with Gon-and-Killua-sized challenges.

Oh also the evil On-using villain, Jed, is the reincarnation of the guy Netero killed at that flashback in the beginning of the movie. Why is he reincarnated? Because, uh, he was so full of hatred the afterlife wouldn't take him apparently. Who knew hateful people were immortal. Why not just not have him die at the beginning, saving yourself the need for nonsensical resurrections? I haven't a clue.

Anyway while all of this is going on in Netero's room, Zushi's first fight is going to start. Except instead of his opponent, there's some other person there, who's one of the villains. Who beats up Zushi, and the whole Arena is taken hostage by random mooks with guns. Also yet another villain has used evil hacker On to seize control of the Arena's command center. Turns out Heaven's Arena has automated guns and poison gas sprinklers, for some reason.

Anyway the villains (not the Main villain, but the guys working for him) turn out to be the children of the people in the Shadow organization. Who, for some reason, after being disbanded were given a village to live, but then later for no clear reason the Hunter's association started rounding them up in trucks and presumably murdering them or something. They want Revenge, and also for the Hunter's association to release their records of all the bad things they did to the Shadow members and their descendants, that's the demand they make while holding Heaven's Arena hostage.

Are we gonna explore why the hell the Hunter's Association did this, or if it is even right to keep those atrocities hidden? Nope. We don't negotiate with terrorists I guess.

Anyway, yeah, there's a bunch of fights, not terrible but not amazing. Since this is pre-Chimaera Ant, Killua doesn't even have Godspeed yet :(On users are not limited to one type and can use Enchancement and Emission and Manipulation and so on, because of course they can, why not.

(you might be thinking "but isn't that what Kurapika's Emperor Time does, why is it bullshit when the villains do it but it's ok for one of the main characters?" and like first of all Emperor Time is more complicated than that and the movie does not go into enough details to tell if On has the same limitations, and second Kurapika would be a massive Mary Sue if he was the protagonist which is why he isn't).

One of the villains notices that Kurapika is a Kuruta survivor and basically goes "Hey, you are full of hatred and a desire for revenge for the horrible crimes committed against your people, we are full of hatred and a desire for revenge for the horrible crimes committed against our people, why don't we team up" but Kurapika says no. Ostensibly because he wants to overcome his hatred, but imo because 'revenge' is not a team and y'all want revenge against entirely different groups of people, it doesn't really work as alliance-building material.

Gon at one point decides to use On against Jed, it doesn't really help him win, he overcomes all the hatred with The Power of Friendship and forgiveness and all that good stuff. The secrets of what the Hunter's Association did remain secret, nobody thinks this is a problem, the end.