hxh 1999 just works so, so well as a trauma study. one of my absolute favorite aspects of it is how it handles gonâs reaction to hisokaâs harassment. after gon is hit by hisoka and told his life now belongs to him (and hisoka also licks gonâs blood from his fist in this version), we spend the next fifteen minutes with gon throwing up, crying for his mother, almost drowning himself in a river, self deprecating about his weakness, screaming at thoughts of hisokaâs face, etc.
this is very much the reaction of a victim of childhood sexual assault. and this coding makes a lot of sense, because we know what hisoka gets sexual gratification from generally is physical combat. the punch is metaphorically a very intimate act, albeit a violent one. when killua asks gon about what happened, gon plays it off as something that killua doesnât need to know about, because heâs too uncomfortable and embarrassed to discuss it.
gon keeps saying and thinking âi couldnât do anything against himâ multiple times over. heâs struggling with a realization of a loss of autonomy emphasized by his extended reaction to the incident added in this version. itâs not just literally the action of being hit that gon is struggling withâitâs the way hisoka has been objectifying him the entire exam. itâs hisokaâs declaration of ownership over him and this sexualization of gon that gon, as a very young and naive boy, does not have the words for. the 1999 version in general introduces multiple scenes to show how willing the adult men in the series are to take advantage of gon.
hereâs a further example from the hxh musicals that were based on the 1999 adaptation specifically:
the attention paid to this detail, that exists within the canon but is taken a step further by the 1999 adaptation, makes gonâs eventual conversation with kurapika all the more heartbreaking. itâs the first time heâs trying to explain what hisoka has been doing to him to a trusted friend.
i really like the translation here. the vagueness with which gon is describing the incident (âwhen i told him i didnât want itâŠâ) leaves a lot of room for the double entendre of the punch as sexualized violence. and of course as the series continues, there are multiple other instances of hisoka dehumanizing/sexualizing gon (and sometimes even killua, particularly when heâs in proximity to gon) and even referring to gon as a toy or delivering lines like âgon is mineâ / âgon belongs to meâ.
gon is so used to having an obvious breakdown and then immediately trying to force the issue away.
1999 shows us the full extent of what one of these breakdowns can look like years before we even had a whiff of chimera ants where all of gonâs coping mechanisms shatter at once. with hisoka and gonâs relationship specifically, there are four arcs straight of hisoka using gon for the purpose of sexual gratification. and this clearly scares gon, but he doesnât seem to have the words to be able to verbalize exactly why heâs so uncomfortable.
this is why i take gon very seriously when he says he has experiences with older women that âtaught him a lot of stuffâ. i donât think gonâs naivete comes from inexperience, but rather the experiences he does have made the way hisoka (and eventually palm) treat him seem at least somewhat normal. i talk more about how gon rationalizes adults abusing and manipulating him here. the hxh world at large seems to have zero protections for children but they are also not taken seriously as humans.
hxh just has so much to say about the adultification of children in all sectors of society whether that be through sexual or war or other forms of violence and i really appreciate how 1999 handled this particular element.
