‘Hunter X Hunter’ On Toonami This April: Popular Anime Receives English Dub, Fans Go On ‘Indefinite Hiatus’ To Protest Manga Creator Yoshihiro Togashi?
Gon and his crew are back! Hunter X Hunter will be coming to Cartoon Network’s Toonami channel.
Hunter X Hunter has been widely popular in Asia for the past decade. Though European and U.S.-based fans have gotten the chance to watch the anime series via online streaming, this will be the first time Hunter X Hunter will receive an official English dub.
According to Crunchyroll, Hunter X Hunter will be released on Toonami’s Adult Swim block. The animation network will be featuring the 2011 adaptation of the anime created by Yoshihiro Togashi.
Bang Zoom! Entertainment will be the one to produce the anime’s English dub. According to Anime News Network, Viz Media, North American anime and manga distributor, announced that the Toonami versions will cover the storyline from 2011 to 2014.
The English lead voice actors for Hunter X Hunter include Erica Mendez as Gon Freecs, Cristina Vee as Killua Zoldyck, Matthew Mercer as Leorio, and Keith Silverstein as Hisoka.
Last year, Viz Media announced they had secured the license for releasing Hunter X Hunter during the New York Comic Con panel. During the announcement, they said that they will also be producing Blu-ray and DVD versions of the show. All of the licensed Hunter X Hunter products that Viz Media will be producing are already converted into English.
All in all, there are 148 episodes for the 2011 version of Hunter X Hunter. It was also streamed on Crunchyroll live when it aired in Japan. Hunter X Hunter is the anime adaptation of Togashi’s manga creation of the same name. The story focuses on Gon Freecs and his passion to follow his father’s footsteps as a professional hunter.
However, becoming a hunter is not easy. Comparable to passing a law or engineering board exam, the hunter license is hard to get. Gon then meets his best friends Killua, Leorio and Kurapika.
The story will also feature the other three supporting characters’ background stories. In their journey, Gon will discover bits and pieces of answers to the question as to why his father left him and his mother.
Fans Retracting Their Support For Yoshihiro Togashi? ‘Indefinite Hiatus’ In Place
On the other hand, Yoshihiro Togashi’s fan base is announcing their “indefinite hiatus.”
According to Milluki Zoldyck, writer for Hunter Hunter News, the official moderators of the popular Reddit space for Hunter X Hunter will be taking a break from covering Togashi for an indefinite time.
“According to sources, the users and moderators of /r/HunterXHunter have decided to go on an indefinite hiatus in order to punish Yoshihiro Togashi for his own constant hiatuses and meager releases throughout the years.”
The note added that the manga creator had been so complacent over the past years that he has failed to stay true to his purpose of adding value to his manga series which include Hunter X Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho. They added that it has been so dramatic to follow Togashi to the point that his lifestyle is even more intriguing than the storylines.
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This hiatus will have a massive effect on the Reddit space considering that the Hunter X Hunter subreddit is placed on the top five Reddit Anime Stock Exchange.
“We feel as though, like, if we go on hiatus, we can punish Togashi and hurt him just like he has hurt us all these years,” one moderator is quoted as saying. “So now we’ll drop Hunter X Hunter and instead just become Yu Yu Hakusho fans. As bad as its ending was, at least it had one.”
To temporarily support the users of the subreddit, the moderators noted that the first 100 commenters on the announcement would become moderators for the Reddit space for only 24 hours. There are no reasons given about the restriction on the moderator access.
In the meantime, Toonami’s Hunter X Hunter broadcast will start on April 16.
