LogFAQs > #901924743

Episodes 54-55

Recap: Chrollo shows off his new fortune-telling technique, and Hisoka manipulates his own to convince the Troupe to stay around and exterminate Kurapika. Kurapika meets back up with G/K/L, makes peace with himself, and finally invites them into his plan to capture the mind-reading cleavage woman.

Here are two slower-paced, calmer episodes. One of my favorite parts of this is Gon and Killua's sheer joy as they have an eating contest, Gon accidentally spits in Killua's face while talking, and then Killua puts a pie in Gon's face. It's an incredibly dark world with some real monsters, but our protagonist is twelve years old - so why not reap the emotional rewards of that?

But I'm also really happy with Gon's effect on Kurapika. Alone, Kurapika's clenched butthole is his defining characteristic. But the moment he lays eyes on Gon, his jaws loosens, his eyes soften, and he's opening up again. With Kurapika facing an existential crisis, Gon immediately reminds Kurapika that he has another mission - one that heals and redeems, rather than drenches you in blood. We eventually wind up finding out about the false intel again, of course, but Kurapika's cleansing has already been established. Now that he's seeing his friends in person again, he's entirely unable to resist letting them into the fold.

We'd heard a little bit about Meteor City before, and I'm embarrassed to admit I forget in what context. Anyway, that is fleshed out a bit - the Spiders come from there, and the Mafia actually has a relationship with their people. The silent cold open with Chrollo's childhood fading into sunrise - fantastic directing.

Part of the reason for this double-feature's slowness is again the same reason ASOIAF can be slow at times - informational asymmetry. I'm certainly let down that there's no Hisoka/Nobunaga showdown as teased, but it's clever how Hisoka manages to turn the tide of public opinion by using his Bungee Gum technique. Though now that I think about it, wouldn't using Gyo reveal this deception? Or would each prophecy already have Nen on it from the fortune-telling technique itself? No matter the case, Chrollo falls right into Hisoka's trap, and I'm sad that Hisoka's going to kill him (and Hisoka will kill him - he's the only one on Chrollo's level, and this alliance with Kurapika will make no sense if Hisoka doesn't get his wish).

Finally, Killua is hilarious in the way he butts heads with Kurapika. Love how he first wants to kill the surviving Troupe; then when he discovers that they're still whole, wants to back out. Guy is pragmatic and his quiet hoping is hilarious. Need lots more of that.

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* I'm now all-in on the OP. Sometimes they just need to grind you down. It helps that it had so many episodes - FMA03's OP3 is such a letdown relative to OP2 that I never got into it, but perhaps its biggest sign is appearing in only 13 episodes so that I'm not forced to like it.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness