Togashi in Hunter x Hunter does a very neat worldbuilding trick over and over again. Most times, the concepts behind everything he makes up are actually very simple and sometimes even clichĂŠ, but the rules and systems behind them are complex to the point of being convoluted at times. And I think thatâs one of the core illusions that makes the Hunter x Hunter world feel so real despite being fundamentally absurd.
Because Togashi rarely invents concepts that are hard to grasp emotionally. What he invents are systems of administration around those concepts. And thatâs what reality actually feels like.
Real life is full of simple things buried under layers of arbitrary procedure, classifications, loopholes, etiquette, legalisms, ranks, and exceptions. Money is just fake paper, but banking systems are labyrinthine. Sports are fundamentally âput ball in goal,â but then there are hundreds of pages of regulations. Governments are just âpeople organize society,â but bureaucracy becomes incomprehensible. Religion, school systems, property law, immigration, stock markets, etc etc etc. Theyâre all based on relatively simple premises wrapped in massive procedural complexity.
Togashi replicates that feeling constantly.
Nen is probably the cleanest example because, as I said, the core idea is almost embarrassingly broad: âLife energy can manifest as powers.â
Thatâs it. Basically just an excuse to make any kind of superpower possible, and the foundation of it is already tied to the concept of aura, something that already exists in real life spirituality and pseudoscience. But then Togashi layers an insane amount of systems on top of it.
There are categories of Nen tied to personality. There are principles and techniques with their own terminology (Ten, Ren, Zetsu, In, En, Gyo, Ko, Shu, etc etc). There are clauses and negotiations regarding the kind and amount of power you can have. There are restrictions, vows, conditions, Nen-infused objects, genius exceptions, training methods, and weird anomalies like post-mortem Nen or Nen beasts. And all the manifestations of Nen can get incredibly bizarre, but they still fit naturally into the world because the original concept is so broad and flexible that you can justify almost anything through it.
And what makes Nen feel believable is that it never feels airtight. It feels like an actual field of study. There are rules, but also myths, anomalies, folklore, edge cases, and things people themselves donât fully understand. That messiness is what makes it feel real instead of just âa hard magic system.â
But Togashi does this with everything.
Greed Island is literally just a game about collecting cards, but it has this absurdly over-engineered system behind it. How can you obtain cards, how many times can you use them, what rarity they are, what hierarchy they belong to, what cards counter other cards, which cards canât leave the island, restricted slots, spell cards, loopholes, transport limitations. And the funniest thing about this is that all of it is technically still just functioning through Nen lol.
Heavens Arena is just a place where people fight, but then you learn the entire procedural logic behind it. You earn money until a certain floor. You can only lose a certain number of times. You can win by knockout, points, default, or death. Thereâs a limit on how long you can wait between fights. The rules and rewards completely change after the 200th floor. The place starts feeling real because it operates like an institution instead of just âthe tournament arc location.â
The Chimera Ants are another good example because their biology is basically built from two intertwined systems. The hierarchy of the ants themselves and how that hierarchy shifts depending on the existence of a Queen or King, and then the second system where the Queen absorbs traits from whatever creatures she consumes, which affects the antsâ personalities, strengths, instincts, and even designs. The concept itself is simple, âants that inherit traits from what they eat,â but the systemic consequences become incredibly complicated.
The Zoldyck butlers, Nanikaâs rules, the Hunter Association election system, the Hunter Bylaws, all of them work the same way and exist to make the world feel more real and complex. The base concepts are easy to grasp, but then Togashi adds layers of procedures, conditions, social structures, loopholes, and technicalities until they start feeling like real systems people have been dealing with long before the protagonists arrived.
And my favorite example is the Yorknew Bull Market because it's kinda unnecessary and thatâs why I love it and it makes me laugh because it just goes to show how often Togashi pulls this trick and how he applies this philosophy to everything, not just powers.
The street auction rules and antique forgery stuff are basically pure atmospheric systems. Theyâre not there because the plot desperately needed them. Theyâre there because Togashi understands that places feel real when they have procedures, insider knowledge, scams, jargon, etiquette, niche expertise, black markets, and social hierarchies.
Yorknew stops feeling like âanime mafia cityâ and starts feeling like an actual underworld ecosystem with its own logic and culture. Gon and Killua suddenly have to become streetwise. They need to understand how illegal auctions function, how people authenticate objects, how scams work, how the underworld talks and negotiates. The city feels like it existed before they arrived and will continue existing after they leave. It's alive.
And one thing Togashi is especially brilliant at is sneaking in just enough payoff to retroactively justify exposition. Gon using the appraisal and fake item knowledge to trick the Phantom Troupe is enough to make your brain go: âOh, okay, that mattered.â
Even though emotionally, the bigger purpose of all those scenes was slowing the protagonists down, delaying their reunion with Kurapika, immersing you in Yorknewâs underworld, teaching Gon and Killua street smarts, and making the arc feel wider than the protagonistsâ immediate concerns. It also helps a lot to build up Kurapikaâs badassery. Heâs not there for most of it, but through what we see him go through and what we see Gon and Killua go through separately, we understand that Yorknew is a complicated city and that you need to be prepared, adaptable, and smart to survive there.
Thatâs ultimately the trick Togashi keeps pulling. His worlds feel grounded not because the concepts themselves are realistic or complicated, but because the systems surrounding them feel administratively real. The protagonists donât enter empty settings built solely around their goals. They enter worlds already full of procedures, loopholes, institutions, etiquette, and weird technicalities that people have clearly been dealing with long before the story started.