Loads of anime reveals these days have the funds to drag off mind-boggling battle sequences. JuJutsu Kaisen’s epic Sukuna vs. Jogo showdown is a shining instance of pure spectacle and visible experimentation that showcases the evolution of recent anime choreography (regardless of having manufacturing points on the time). However it pales compared to a struggle over a decade previous: Isaac Netero vs Meruem from 2011’s Hunter x Hunter. This sequence doesn’t have the manufacturing worth to drag off the identical degree of choreography, but it surely’s a marvel nonetheless, and it’s all because of using voice-over narration.
Hunter x Hunter didn’t begin to use a voice-over narration till season 6 (the Chimera Ant arc), the place a narrator would clarify stakes, battle methods, and different particulars with a third-party perspective that elevated the collection’ storytelling. It makes the arc a standout, not simply throughout the collection, however in all of shonen, and all of it coalesces at its greatest throughout this transient two-episode struggle.
The Chimera Ant arc focuses on the evolution of ants as supremely highly effective beings and their king, the strongest of all of them, Meruem. Hunters (elite members of humanity acknowledged by the Hunter Affiliation) are dispatched to maintain this menace earlier than the ants get too highly effective and take over the world. Neturo is the 100+ year-old chairman of the Hunters Affiliation, and though we’d by no means seen him in motion up up to now, he’s the strongest Hunter alive. He’s additionally the one one who may stand an opportunity of taking out the ant king, and they also lastly meet and do battle.
It begins as a grueling battle of attrition. Netero should completely anticipate Meruem’s lightning-fast counters as a result of one mistake may show deadly. Conceited but impressed, Meruem commends the previous man for matching his tempo. Refusing to be belittled, Netero summons his signature approach: a towering gold Hundred-Kind Guanyin Bodhisattva that strikes with blinding velocity every time he clasps his fingers in prayer. All of the whereas, composer Yoshihisa Hirano’s hauntingly lovely rating, The Final Mission, swells with a full choir, underscoring the conflict of titans and mirroring the divine presence of the determine Netero instructions. The narrator tells us that, regardless of its energy, the Bodhisattva is doing “subsequent to no harm” and “the king has no trigger for concern.”
We’re additionally instructed that “after a whole bunch and hundreds of strikes, the King was starting to really feel the faintest hints of lifeless ache in his physique, ” a revelation that makes it clear Meruem nonetheless holds the benefit, simply earlier than he effortlessly slices off Netero’s leg. However as an alternative of faltering, Netero seals the wound immediately and pushes more durable, incomes even better respect from his opponent. What started as a conflict of attrition now shifts into one thing greater: a battle to determine whether or not ants or people are the superior species. Based on the narrator, their conflict “didn’t even final a minute,” however inside that minute, Netero’s sharpened resolve fuels an alternate of over a thousand blows. Relatively than render each strike intimately, the anime conveys this flurry by a stunning montage of sunshine and fingers, the combatants silhouetted towards a cosmic backdrop and blooming flowers. The place most trendy anime would obsess over every body of choreography, Hunter x Hunter as an alternative finds class in suggestion, counting on narration and imagery to seize the overwhelming scale of the struggle.
Then Netero loses one in all his arms.
Meruem asks Netero to say his identify, as a means of lastly acknowledging the king of ants and his type because the superior species. He believes that with out one in all his arms, Netero is powerless. Nonetheless, it seems this was only a ploy to get Meruem to drop his guard and permit Netero to unleash his final approach: Zero Hand. The best way the narrator describes this assault frames it as probably the most lovely, but devastating, maneuver I’ve ever seen in an anime. It’s an assault that sees “a Buddha seem behind an enemy, gently enveloping the goal” in its fingers “with an indiscriminate love” earlier than blasting its goal with all of Netoro’s aura.
The narration alone sells the assault lengthy earlier than a single beam is fired. No quantity of on-screen motion may convey its impression as successfully. It captures the lethal class of the blast — its sheer energy, its deadly intent, and the utter devastation it will deliver to anybody caught in its path. So when Meruem walks away from the assault almost unscathed, we all know Netero, now fully shriveled up and exhausted, stands no probability towards the ant king. Meruem speaks of his birthright to rule over all life, a legacy handed down by the ants earlier than him and solid by his personal evolution, insisting that no single human may ever hope to attain such energy alone. Ants labored collectively to result in Meruem, one thing people with their individualism may by no means accomplish. However as a result of he’s struck by Netero’s means to transcend human limitations, he declares that people will likely be allowed to outlive, confined inside a chosen internment zone.
Netero seems totally damaged — till he begins to chuckle and utter Meruem’s identify. The as soon as joyous, carefree previous man now radiates deadly intent, his gaze as murderous as his resolve. He warns that he’s not alone, and that “you perceive nothing of humanity’s infinite potential for evolution.” In that instantaneous, the narrator tells us, the king feels concern for the primary time as Netero plunges his finger into his personal coronary heart.
A flashback reveals Netero on a surgical desk, surrounded by docs, instructed that if his coronary heart stops, one thing will activate. Like Meruem, the viewers realizes Netero has planted a bomb inside himself, designed to annihilate each him and the ant king. The narrator explains it’s known as a “poor man’s rose,” named for the form of its smoke cloud, a tool as soon as favored by small dictatorships. It goes off and efficiently catches them each within the explosion.
Within the unique manga, Netero as an alternative says, “Don’t underestimate humanity’s infinite potential for malice.” It’s a simpler assertion, given humanity’s use and creation of bombs. It’s a testomony to their struggle about ants and people. Even when ants are stronger than people, people are such that they’ll destroy every thing, even themselves, as a way to retaliate for a loss or for an consequence the place no one wins.
Netero vs Meruem has all of it: private grudges, a conflict of philosophies, superb motion, and a poignant conclusion, but it surely’s the narration that propels the second past the brink of simply one other anime battle. The narration contextualizes the stakes, captures the feelings of every character from a broader perspective, and conveys a scope far past what inside dialogue alone may obtain. To me, that issues excess of flashy visuals or technical feats.
Hunter x Hunter is accessible to stream on Crunchyroll
