1. Hyori Ittai - Hunter x Hunter 2011 ED5
(HxH theme 5 of 5)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/hunter_x_hunter_2011/ED5-NCBD1080
Version with intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riufO6yAgHo
Just Awake is the best song, but Hyori Ittai is the best outro. At this point in the show we're fully invested in Gon and Killua (which also helps out REASON lower on this list). And man, this probably has my single favorite intro of any ED - that piano part is so great, and during this arc the narrator - who gets in the way of the story a lot - is always saying some cool shit too. It brings me an unbelievable amount of hype, especially since this arc has soap opera stakes and presentation with massive melodrama. This arc is crazy-long and that gives us many times to appreciate this ED.
The slowness of the
Castle Invasion
arc in HxH allows for some really fun storytelling but to me it's quite tedious as well. Lots of interesting things come from this storytelling method, but overall the message you take away is one where violence really fucking sucks, that glorification of battles is all well and good but is more of a game than a government system, that pride is a ridiculous reason to fight but that that doesn't mean it's not worth it, and that primal evils can be redeemed. It's kind of annoying and slow how it's revealed, but Palm's horror that the King
really has decided not to slaughter everyone
is really powerful. Like why does this have to be so horrific? And then there's Gon's antiheroic arc - the kid is our protagonist but he winds up detaching dramatically from the main thrust of the story. It's all insanely unconventional for a shounen, which we maybe should have expected after the Phantom Troupe arc.
But in the end the singular reason that Hyroi Ittai ED hits so hard, of course, is the final scene with the arc's villain. It emotionally devastated me in a way I either didn't expect or didn't know was possible at the time. It was a strange phase in my life - my relationship was running its course, my company I'd been at four years was shutting down, I was considering moving cities, and my parents were aging. I didn't know it at the time, but less than a year later my mom would die. But somehow it just killed me to watch - and listen to, once it gets dark -
a tyrant and this blind girl who just keep talking to each other to hear they're alive, but knowing that at some point, one or the other will no longer be
.
I haven't tried doing any sort of anime rankings in a long time, and so many of my favorite series are in the deeper recesses of my memory if they're anywhere at all at this point. I doubt HxH would be #1, but it would certainly chart if only for the way it handles this arc.
yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness