Whenever Hunter x Hunter returns to the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump, it feels like an event. Yoshihiro Togashi hasn’t been able to draw on a regular schedule due to health issues since at least 2006, but chronic back pain has resulted in extremely long gaps between chapters starting in 2014. Hence why his message to attendees of the PUZZLE exhibit in 2022 was simple: “Everyone, I sincerely ask you to take care of your backs and hips.”
To make matters even worse, the manga’s current arc isn’t exactly one that benefits from long breaks in serialization. Despite technically being nothing more than an adventure on the way to an adventure on the Dark Continent, the Succession Contest arc is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious and most detailed stories in all of Hunter x Hunter, if not the whole of shonen manga. The sheer amount of characters, plotlines, secret alliances and special abilities on display here is truly mind-boggling, hence why it’s always worth going over what happened and why whenever we get a chance.
This article contains spoilers for the entirety of Hunter x Hunter up to chapter 410.
If anything seems to have stuck from this latest batch of Hunter x Hunter chapters, it’s almost definitely the scenes between Borksen and Morena Prudo. While the last spurt of serialization between October and December 2022 will probably be remembered for exploring the origin story of the Phantom Troupe, nothing seems to have captured the imagination of fans as much as the insinuation that two girls kissed. Across all of the various social media platforms, the amount of fan art has been overwhelming, but perhaps that was Togashi’s plan all along.
Despite literally planning to destroy all of humanity, Morena doesn’t come across as a homicidal maniac. Her wild aims actually seem to contradict her calm and collected personality, even if her tendency towards violence crops up every now and again in the form of threats. In this sense, you could say that readers have been manipulated into overlooking Morena’s true nature just like many characters within the story itself, but fans still shouldn’t get too carried away with the shipping and end up overlooking everything else that made this latest set of chapters so exciting.
One of those things is small but interesting: Togashi returning to the world of card games for the first time since Greed Island. Although the “negotiation game” played by Borksen and Morena definitely isn’t as complicated as Hunter x Hunter’s most famous take on the concept, it features just as much intrigue as a second game is essentially being played around the negotiation game where Borksen attempts to find out where she is and what Morena’s true intentions are. Much like the rest of this arc, there’s lots of layers.
At this point, it’s unclear just how important Borksen’s recruitment to the Heil-Ly cause will be to the overall plot. She could just be another pawn in Morena’s plans, although her hidden potential as a Nen Specialist could end up having a large effect on the balance of power between the various factions. Nevertheless, one development that will almost certainly change the very face of the Succession Contest is the “death” of Ninth Prince Halkenburg and subsequent fallout.
Back in chapter 382, it was revealed that Halkenburg's Nen ability was to fire an unavoidable arrow of aura when surrounded by his followers and swap the consciousness of the target for a random person in the group. Although the prospect of taking on a trusted ally’s face seemed like it could prove decisive in the claustrophobic environment of the Black Whale, Halkenburg ended up accidentally swapping bodies with Balsamilco in chapter 403, who was actually on the way to kill Halkenburg with the TSK-17 poison on the orders of First Prince Benjamin.
To cut a long story short, Halkenburg ended up making the most of this unexpected situation by faking his own death and forcing Benjamin to play his hand. Using the pretext of Halkenburg’s death, Benjamin has now declared special martial law, but Halkenburg is alive and well in the body of his most trusted subordinate. Not only will this sow chaos in Benjamin’s camp, the other princes will most likely be forced to make their move after this show of force: this could actually mark the end of a period of set-up for the Succession Contest and instead send it towards an eventual climax.
All of that is just speculation on my part, however. Things rarely go the way you expect in Hunter x Hunter, which is one of the reasons why it’s so great. One particular plot element that’s incredibly hard to predict is something that was revealed in the very first chapter of the latest batch: the fact that Beyond has multiple offspring embedded in the Kakin Royal Family, including perhaps one of the princes themselves.
Looking at the bigger picture, Beyond is perhaps the most important in the story of the Succession Contest: without him, there would be no expedition to the Dark Continent, meaning that the Seed Urn Ceremony wouldn’t have played out on board the decks of the Black Whale. Nevertheless, he has been relatively inactive since the beginning the voyage due to his confinement in the upper decks. Is he finally going to make his move?
Other plotlines have seen further progress in recent chapters. Zhang Lei is now more or less aware of what his ability does, Kacho has increased the places she can visit using Magical Worm, and Tseiderrich continues to improve his mastery over Nen at a frightening rate. Perhaps most importantly, however, the Phantom Troupe are now also aware that the Hisoka they’ve been tailing for the entirety of the voyage so far is nothing but a fake.
When considering the sheer amount of storytelling going on and the series’ spotty schedule, it’s easy to give in to despair and simply assume that nothing will ever get resolved. Even so, Togashi’s official Twitter account has proved a great deal of comfort as he confirms that chapters in the future have already been planned out and that he’s undergoing procedures to potentially alleviate his health problems. All of this, plus the fact that the series is finally available on the Shonen Jump app, makes me truly believe that there’s never been a better time to be a fan of Hunter x Hunter.
You can read Hunter x Hunter for free via VIZ Media’s Shonen Jump.
