Thursday 6 December 2012

Hunter X Hunter (1999) VS Hunter X Hunter (2011)

For today's post I will be putting forward my opinion on which of the two adaptations has better animation. First of all i ain't hatin on either one and this is just my opinion so yeah. Here is the first video then.




As you can see the original show had a host of well animated scenes and I only used the ones available to me for the video. My favorite sequence in the video is the the opening one with KA by Norio Matsumoto. The dude is a beast when it comes to action sequences and his work on Birdy the Migty: Decode and Naruto Shippuden is some of my favorite action sequences ever animated. My second favorite sequence is the Kurapica VS Uvo sequence that peppered throughout the video which if i remember correctly has KA by Akira Matsushima. Matsushima did work for the old show and a lot of shows the director went on to do. His action scenes have more realistic movement in the characters than I'm used to seeing and he makes the characters look on-model all the time which is a plus. The Gon VS Hisoka sequence is one of the more memorable confrontations in the original series and while it is well done here, i feel that the new series did the fight so well that it makes the older version look tame by comparison. Finally the Zoldycks fight with Chrollo is obviously way better in the original show. Its a proven fact and even a monkey would be able to tell. Its fluid, dynamic and very entertaining. The video below will show you other good scenes from the new show.


Here is the proof that the Zoldycks fight is way better in the original show. The new version of the fight while decent, is very low frame-rate. There is not much in the way of fluid movement but its not horrible. Its just that the fight in the original show had way more attention put into it because it was the final aired TV episode so it had to look good. The only problem i have with it though is that Chrollo's character design is fucking awful. With the tree branch hair and the pointy ass nose, it just looks fucking weird (Its a good thing they have fixed it since then). Hidehiko Sawada and Akira Hamaguchi are the stand-out animators in the new show because their stuff is just so fucking entertaining to watch and i can't wait to see what stuff they do in upcoming episodes.

To conclude though i would say that the new show is generally better animated as you would expect (ITS FUCKING MADHOUSE), but the only fights the original show did better were the Gon VS Hanzo and Chrollo VS The Zoldycks and that is all for now.

Score for 1999 series 2.5/5.
Score for 2011 series 4/5.

1 comment:

  1. I watched until the 'final exam' at episode 20 in the new one, and then watched a few of the old one for comparison (until episode 30). My impression this far

    New one:
    -consistent quality
    -detailed backgrounds
    -facial expressions: sometimes painfully awkward (like gon's face in the beginning of the opening), faces cut right out of a pattern and too big anime eyes sometimes
    -colors are fine but sometimes to over saturated (the prisoner who gambled with Leorio was painful to look at)
    -fights are decent but nothing has satisfied me yet. 60% are images with flashy backgrounds. Let's say the rest is not my taste
    -it feels quite rushed, as if we are jumping from one plot point to the other
    -kurapika vs hisoka was excluded (big minus)
    -opening sounds to familiar, don't even make me talk about the ending


    Old one (like i said i only watched a few episodes)
    -colours are under saturated but for some reason i just love it that way
    -facial expressions:i can't describe it other than they are drawn from free hand and less like they are from a pattern, just changing the degrees of eyebrows Ave how far the eyes are open(i think you can see that in the opening, this also applies to Boy movements)
    -dat stunning fight with gon vs hanzo, kurapika vs hisoka didn't quite meet the quality of norio's animation but i feel that they put all they have into that fight, they didn't skip any animation work by making them just exchange normal blows and leaving it to that, they fought about 5 minutes without wasting time
    -gon took half an episode getting over the humiliation by hisoka. I don't know if that much was necessary but i love how it was made. It had so much feels to it. None of that in the new version
    -after the exam killua's brother was about to attack gon. He was building up freaking tension to attack him. None of that in the new version
    -after that when gon went to search for killua, and the other to had their own story to follow and then gradually decided to follow gon, that part had such a natural feel to it. The new version made that part forced and childish.



    In general i would say that the guys making this, how do i put this, appreciated what they were doing and made the best out of it, taking their time and effort. The new one, also being rushed, fails to deliver atmosphere in some parts that were necessary.
    I know these are all just examples and i might be moaning about things that aren't that important, but i think that there is a huge difference in the direction, and that the new version suits me much more.
    Adding to that I feel much more comfortable with the asthetics of the old show. That's just my taste. I will definitely watch the old show for now.

    What do your think? Am i exaggerating things to much? Do these points change in the shows? Let's put it that way, will norio show up? :D

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