A Deconstruction of the Shonen Family
So, in the long line of things Hunter X Hunter deconstructs, it is perhaps fitting that the thing it began with, was the basic family structure that a lot of Shonen Protagonists have at the start of their journey.
Gon's journey begins with a family structure with the obvious hole of a missing father figure, but a loving mother, starting off in a more mundane setting before traveling off into the more fantastical as he leaves his mother's care, searching for his lost father.
Anyone who has read any number of shonen will recognize this setup in some way or another, wheter played straight, or subverted or played with.
Except in this case, it's a complete and total deconstruction of pretty much everything about this basic, stock setup.
Starting off, Mita, Gon's mother figure, is not his mother, nor grandmother, nor his father's wife, nor a sister even. She is his father's cousin.
Nothing inherintly wrong with that at first glance, but thw more you dig into this, thw more apparant it becomes that thia entire family dynamic is far more dysfunctional and problematic than the surface lets, on.
At the end of the first chapter of the story, Mita reveals to Gon that Ging didnt abandon him per se, instead SHE forced him to give up his son, and according to supplementary material, she took him to court over this, and won.
On the first reading, the implications here is that Mita thought that it was for the best that she took Gon away from Ging, and given Gon's own feelings on the matter, its easy to sympathize with her, especially given what we later learn about Ging himself as a person... But when one digs deeper, it's so much more problematic than that.
When reading through the manga, it is so obvious that the young Mita had incestous feelings for Ging, that the anime actually censored it be rewriting it so she was the sister of Ging's actual lover, Gon's mom, thus making her his actual aunt by blood.
Now this, younger kids developing a crush on their direct relatives is a thing that happens in both real life and fiction... But generally, people grow up, and move on.
Mita never did, still probably pining for her cousin all these years later. And it REALLY paints what actually happened when Ging returned home after leaving, his baby boy in tow, in the worst possible light.
When Ging finally returned home, it wasnt as some grand plan to leave Gon here while leaving breadcrumbs for him to find in a long and adventurous chase.
His actual reason for coming home was to leave his young son(Not a baby, ill get back to this) in his gran and cousin's care for a while, while he presumably went off to do something important, or at least something dangerous.
In response, when hearing that he and his girlfriend had broken up, his gran was about to say "sure" when his cousin spoke up, and railed against him, yelling the question of what the hell was wrong with him?
Then, she took him to court and won custody. Not Gon's mother or his current partner, his younger cousin.
Then, once he left she screamed at him to never come back.
This is not the actions of a concerned relative. Its the actions of a jealous, spurned(in her own opinion), angry young woman who just learned the target of her affections had hooked up with another woman, had a kid eith her, and was now leaving said kid off with his gran while he went off on business, and wanted to hurt him as she herself felt hurt.
I also wanted to highlight anotger detail. Gon was NOT a baby when Ging came home with him.
He was a very young child, yes, and probably didnt understand much of what was going on around him, but the infantile state that Mita tries to rewrite into history/want to believe was the case, just wasnt.
Clearly, Ging, despite his many, many failures as a father later in life, took the time out of his busy and dangerous life as a hunter to care for his son in his most vurnerable and critially dangerous part of his life, at least for a few years, and once his son was old enough to be with someone else, he returned home with him to leave him with his relatives for the moment.
Then his cousin exploded at him, and took him to court(which given this was a local court, and how Ging pretty much makes either friends of enemies everywhere he goes, he obviously lost) and stole the custudy from him.
I cannot stress that part enough. Mita had no business doing any of that... In fact, Ging actually coming to drop off Gon at home rather than take him with him into fangerous business, was probably a better argument that he was acting as a responsible father should than anything else he would do later in life.
It was a vindictive, spiteful move, that she rightfully feels guilty for for years, adding unto the fact she followed up on that bit of assholishness by flat out lying to her new ward for years about his father and the circumnstances of why he is where he is.
However, there is more too. Because while Mita stole any and all chance both Gon and Ging had at having something resembling an actual Father-Son relationship, Mita actually turned out to be a good mother figure for Gon... Even if she utterly failed to handle or rein in his more negative aspects.
Which is the ultimate deconstruction of this entire thing, and a testament to Togashi's skill as a writer.
Gon had, as best could be regarding his circumnstances, a decent and happy childhood... But it was built upon a shitty courtroom drama that shouldnt have happened, a father who's response to losing custody of his son was... the most unintentional toxic relationahip path he could have made, a mother figure who's love and kindness kindness was built upon a foundation of total vindictive selfishness and lies, and his absent father meant any chance he had to learn about the world from the person who could and should have taught him about it, Nen, the world's politics and the dark continent, was completely abscent from his life.
And all that lack of guidance and a wish for a father-son relationship he never had, all lead to the fateful night he had to truly face peraonal loss, and dealt with it by burning himself out completely.
However much love and compassion Mita gave Gon, she didnt prepare him, not for the outside world, but for the simple realities that she herself had to face as one after another, almost her entire family died, leaving only her, Ging and their nan.
And that, more than anything else, is the most bitter part of the way HXH deconstructs the classical Shonen family set up.
It simply isnt healthy. Familial Love can often be tainted by uglier and darker realities, while we often idolize living the basic, normal life as an origin point, the reality is that there are often more depressing realities of how and why your family lives that way, and Love and kindness by itself do not forge a healthy and emotionally balanced individual, who is ready to handle the problems of the world.
Wheter it's taught by a male or female parent, a child needs a role model in their lives that can teach them the darker parts of life, in a way that they can handle it when they are young, so it doesnt crush them later.
And the reality is that as HXH shows the Standard, stereotypical Shonen family set up doesnt provide that at all.
