A blog I made specifically so I could reblog a bunch of hxh shit, but I might post little snipits about the new chapters, and maybe some ideas for shitposts that I can't make myself, idk. Feel free to ask me about my opinion on things from the series and all that jazz!
I'm seeing people in the hxh fandom changing their icons for pride month and was like "Oh yeah, I should do that too!" And then I remembered...I already have one that I haven't changed for years because I'm too lazy...
i always liked the little parallel of gon's fight with hanzo vs gon's fight with canary a few episodes after
during his fight with hanzo, gon confirms the extent of his determination for his goal : becoming a hunter in hopes of finding ging, even if this aspect of his personnality was already show throughout the hunter exam. for example we already understood how persevering he was while he trained to get hisoka's badge. however, this fight is more brutal, bc it shows how much he is willing to sacrifice. (also tells us he has very low self worth but that's another topic). he doesn't give up, even while facing possible death. he takes everything in, bc all he wants is to find ging.
what's interesting to me is that his "fight" against canary is quite similar : there is a clear level difference, canary has much more strenght and straight up anihilates gon to be honest. however he keeps getting hit, for actual hours. it pretty much goes the same. he shows the extent of his determination, until his opponent who's supposed to be stronger, ends up surrendering.
but the only difference between those two fights is the goal gon has in mind. in the first one it's ging, in the second it's killua. in both of these, gon seems almost insane, as if the amount of pain he's taking in to get what he wants is overexaggerated (is it really spelled like that?? what the hell idk). the opposition between ging and killua here is cool bc it kinda reminds me of what ging told him : that what's truly important is not the goal but the journey. now, i'm not saying that the only good thing that happened to gon during his quest was killua : he also made plenty of friends, learned new things etc. but to me killua is probably the best thing that has happened to him since he started looking out for ging. this makes what ging says to gon kinda killugon coded to some extent, like "you were so focused on the idea of finding me that you almost forgot that your b(s)f was always what was most important to you" and idk i just like it. the entire zoldyck family arc just shows gon's deep deep love for killua a million fucking times and i just love it so much \(≧▽≦)/
i'd also like to add that even if you might argue that "gon would've done this for any of his friends" (which would not make killua anything more than his friend) : i think so too. gon has a good heart and great determination, i believe that if something similar had happened to leorio or kurapika, he totally would've tried very hard to get his friend back anyway. but maybe not with this intensity of anger (that he showed during the whole zoldyck family arc. he was like fucking furious). however the thing is, this is not what happened : the narrative chose for gon to rescue killua, and enhance the deep friendship/feelings he feels for him : not for like kurapika or smth 🥀 this duo is important and it's not bc gon is very kind generally speaking that we should dismiss the way he feels abt killua since the beginning.
(i'm rewatching the show and i'm currently at heaven's arena arc so i just want to yap abt stuff :p i may be making some bs up tho idk)
i see so many people on tiktok saying "why are you blackwashing gon he isn't brown 🙄" to hxh fan artists and omfg gon is canonically tan chat. he grew up on an island, outside 24/7. what's not clicking???
this post has been rattling around in my head for a while, so! (disclaimer: i did not do any additional research for this, it is all from memory, my quotes are definitely paraphrased, etc.) why do so many people come out of the hxh experience feeling like killua cares more about gon than gon cares about killua? (this might not be you! but it was me tbh. on bad days it can still be me!)
first off, listen, i see you, i hear you, i agree with you that gon loves killua as much as killua loves gon. BUT my argument here is that the thing that makes so many people leave the manga/anime feeling otherwise is that the narrative choices literally push that reading.
(this got….so long)
within the story we do not get the moments of interiority with gon re: killua that we get with killua re: gon. and that’s an intentional choice that togashi is making.
we get multiple moments of killua’s internal thoughts about gon throughout the manga/anime where he EXPLICITLY states how much gon means to him and how much he wants to remain a part of his life. the greed island “no, i’m lucky to have met you” moment, the “you are light” moment, the gym after gon agrees to go out with palm, etc. i think the only vaguely equivalent moment we get of gon’s internal thoughts mentioning killua is right after they split in the CAA where gon thinks “i hope killua is okay, he was acting weird.” he is then immediately distracted by a fight and we don’t get anything else from him on the subject.
sure, we get moments throughout the show where gon verbally expresses what killua means to him: the dodgeball game maybe most significantly: “it has to be killua”. no one else is killua’s equal in gon’s eyes and killua is gon’s equal. and we can read so much into that! but even so, it’s not framed in the same way as us bearing witness to killua practically realizing he’s in love with gon (or whatever you think they feel about each other) after gon tells him kite is still alive and they have to get stronger to save him. we don’t get gon thinking about all the ways this is only possible because of killua and that killua is the fulcrum for their ultimate success. hell, at the end, we get razor thinking that because someone had to do it AND later we get tsezguerra rebuking gon for NOT thinking of killua at all after the game is over and gon is trying to challenge the bomber and his crew. why are we getting razor’s thoughts on killua instead of gon’s?? why include that moment of tsezguerra reminding gon that his best friend is in no condition to fight right now unless we are meant to notice how much gon is NOT thinking these things.
(i also want to be clear that i don’t think this makes gon a bad friend, or that their friendship is lopsided or “toxic”. true friendships are not perfectly transactional. there are times your friend will be selfish because they are going through something and you choose to support them anyway. that’s life. obviously in hxh the stakes are somewhat different than in real life, but it still applies. the things that gon is tacitly asking of killua are things that killua is happy for the chance to provide. i think the only time they are not on the same wavelength about this is in the scene i talk about in the next paragraph, and then during the CAA where gon tries to shut killua out rather than dragging him with him to almost certain death against neferpitou.)
then gon saying he’s lucky to have met killua at the beginning of greed island (sorry these are not chronological) is genuine, but it’s immediately contrasted by the significance of killua’s internal response. the anime really plays this up. gon’s words are genuine and heartfelt, but they read as so much more casual than the same words that killua can’t even say out loud. and we could read that as gon not having the same hang ups about his emotions that killua has, which is totally valid and probably true! but it doesn’t change the fact that the framing puts the emotional weight of that moment on killua’s feelings in response to what gon says. imagine for a second if we had gotten the internal process leading up to gon saying that! he is clearly going through something in that moment, with the group of greed island players badmouthing his dad’s game, which he hates, but they also offered to give them info on the spell that was cast on killua. i think gon walks away with the expectation that killua won’t follow (again, the only time they are out of sync in that way, and it’s so important that killua is like no, i go where you go). i think, if we had gotten to be in gon’s head when he realized killua was following him anyway, it would change the moment significantly. but we don’t! we only get to be in killua’s head! we only get to really feel what it means to killua.
we also get gon telling bisky that he wants to take killua with him, his best friend in the whole world, to meet his dad for the first time. the culmination of this entire journey, and he wants killua there with him to experience it! but even this is classic best friends on a journey together stuff. i do think it would be weirder if gon was like, sorry killua, no, you can’t come with me to meet ging, but it’s definitely also significant that gon specifically states that he wants killua there. and then, at the end, when gon does meet ging, it says something that killua is not there. this is the kid who doesn’t compromise ever. but he doesn’t fight killua on not coming with him. and that’s super fascinating to me. (the argument could be made that this lessens the impact of him saying he wanted killua there, but i think it’s the opposite. i think this is maybe gon’s first real sign of growth. after so many moments where he insists on having his way and nothing less and even says to others that killua will go along with what gon says even if killua doesn’t like it, gon understands that this is not the moment for that. he stops being selfish despite how much he wants killua with him and he lets killua go. their friendship is healing, etc.)
and the whole zoldyck arc after the hunter exam - gon would have done that for anyone he cared about. because that’s who gon is. gon literally jumps off a boat in the middle of massive storm to save someone he just met and we never see again in the first episode. i agree that he cares more about killua than he does about anyone else, but that doesn’t change the fact that he would have done that for any of his friends. so it’s not really a great example of gon cares for killua as much as killua cares for gon. it’s a great example of the lengths gon will go to for someone he considers a friend. (the whole show is killua doing things for gon that he wouldn’t do for anyone else and gon doing things for killua that he regularly does do for anyone else, which in turn is good!! it teaches killua how to be a friend to other people! ikalgo!) but it’s also like, gon never has to think about killua because gon never doesn’t have killua. and the one time he doesn’t have killua, he immediately goes and gets him, which is paradigm shifting for killua, but just another tuesday for gon, who, again, would do that for any of his friends. (also at the end of the anime, we finally do get a gon who doesn’t have killua, and of course we don’t get to spend any time with him to know what he’s thinking/feeling.)
it’s the same deal in the cell with nobunaga. killua is in crisis because he thinks he needs to try and die for gon to prove he cares for him (thanks, illumi), and gon is like hey no, only i get to say that crazy stuff. that’s a me thing. which is just true. that is a gon thing (because gon’s self worth is in the ground, but that’s a different post), but it’s not evidence that killua is any different than any of the other friends gon would get upset with for trying to risk their life. what gon does do in that moment is impose a responsibility on killua - which is to be his voice of reason. and i think that is the most telling because again, that is gon letting killua know that he and gon are equals. gon crucially does not cede that kind of power to anyone else in the anime/manga, adult or otherwise. gon doesn’t trust anyone in the world the way he trusts killua. but that’s not the point. the point is that the narrative is focusing on killua’s crisis re: proving he cares about gon by dying for him. in light of that, gon’s words are read more for comedic effect to lighten killua’s dramatic moment.
the audience experiences all of the emotional weight and tragedy of gon and killua’s relationship via killua’s internal thoughts and feelings (and other people (but never gon) witnessing killua’s internal thoughts and feelings in CAA - specifically shoot and meleoron). and that’s the energy people are picking up on when they read/watch it. it’s by design.
so my question is, why did togashi make the choice to tell the story that way? why do we specifically get killua’s internal feelings about gon, but we never get gon’s internal feelings about killua? like that is an intentional choice that leaves people feeling a certain way.
i like to think it’s because we are going to get gon’s interiority when he shows up again in the manga. maybe we’ll get to see what a gon without killua looks like. what sort of things he thinks about. i think we already get a hint of this when gon is talking to mito about ging and says “maybe i’m not cut out to be a son” (again verbal, but it hints at what his thoughts lately must have been like). i think what we got of gon and killua’s relationship up through the CAA is establishing the stakes for killua and what killua would do for gon. i hope that what we get in the future is an exploration of what gon would do for killua. but who knows!!!
tl;dr - gon loves killua, but the narrative intentionally focuses on killua’s feelings for gon and as a result people can come out of manga/anime feeling like killua got the short end of the relationship stick. imo because the story of their friendship is only half finished.
• kinda controversial opinion time? please don't assassinate me
i've heard many people who criticize killugon say that the ship "waters down" killua's character to romance, while he is so much deeper than that. i've actually found myself to quite disagree with this take. the reason is that killugon shippers love both gon and killua : and understand why they're so perfect for each other, when it comes to their arcs, past, etc. i think that part of killua's character is inherently romantic : and there is nothing wrong with that. people obsessed with killugon (like myself) don't think that this is all that's interesting about him, at ALL, but acting as if killugon wasn't a thing makes people miss out on important aspects of who he is : not all of them, but some of them. killua is a deeply traumatized person who was abused and manipulated by his family his entire life, before he got the courage to simply leave. he soon met gon : who showed him what it was like being truly loved. gon saved killua from the life he never wanted : if it wasn't for gon, who knows how he would've ended up.
gon's presence in killua's life is incredible : it helped him understand many things about himself, and his love for gon helped him TAKE OUT THE NEEDLE. aka the metaphorical representation of all the manipulation he endured. gon's love just as well as the love he developped for gon, helped him grow as a human being. and was many times related to many other aspects of who he is. his relationship with gon can of course be separated from who he is and what his past was like in certain conversations : however when it IS brought up, it's for a reason. the author also made that clear through killua's birthday for example : the tanabata myth retracing he and gon's story. the point of their relationship is romantic. gon saved killua's life in a way, therefore it is completely understandable that gon is often brought up when we talk about killua. even if we mustn't forget the credit killua deserves for how far he's come : gon's existence is crucial in killua's journey to self-worth.
Thank you, I thought it was hilarious. Unfortunately, I think the worldplay only works with Killua. I have no creative names for mii Gon or mii Alluka or anybody else, so it's just Miillua :(
saying gon doesn't gaf about killua is most stupid fucking thing ever bc 99% of the time he's like
i'm worried about killua... killua is so impressive omg... i'm going to risk my life climbing up the gate of the world's greatest assassins property and get beat up for hours by a guard just to find killua.. killua you're not allowed to die but i am... i'm worried about that card the guy used on killua when we got here... killua's the only one for me... that guy almost killed killua i'm boiling inside... killua is my bsf in the whole while world... i'm so glad i met killua... i'm worried about killua... why did killua go alone i wish i went with him i'm worried... where's killua he's not answering the phone... ik that i just woke up from a coma 5 minutes ago but where's killua i need to apologize asap... sorry killua we're about to seperate and i should go now or else i'll..........
no matter where we go we'll always be friends killua.. killua killua killu-
i don’t think discussing “who’s the girl” wrt to killugon as if either of them could ever actually be a female character makes sense. they literally could not be genderswapped and exist in the same story. they’re so purposefully written as young boys struggling w/ masculinity + the power they’re told they’re supposed to wield by the grown men in their life trying to take advantage of their insecurities.
killua is not “like a girl” just because he’s more clearly sensitive; the entire point of killua’s arc is about deconstructing the idea that young boys need to repress their emotions, especially young gay boys coming to understand their sexualities. even the pressures of escaping his role as his family’s heir is clearly gendered. i Beg if you want to read about women just read about women. queer coding does not necessitate one of the guys involved taking a “woman’s” role.
togashi does so much work to include queer stories in his shounen at a time where it was heavily discouraged and yet fans continue exporting stereotypes onto this very delicately crafted narrative. sometimes boys like boys; togashi frames this as such a natural inclusion within the story (like alluka’s transness, morena kissing women, and other hxh characters’ gender nonconformity), as queerness itself is natural.
there’s a lot of things one needs to understand about gon freecss but principally it must be understood that gon freecss’ life was pretty much the exact opposite of easy and care free even when he was on whale island. gon’s mentally ill tendencies don’t just develop once he’s left whale island, and they don’t exist in isolation because of some predetermined “insanity”. toddler gon was caught in a custody dispute between his teenaged aunt and his father that built a death game for him because his plan for him was always for his son to take the same self-destructive, irresponsible path of a hunter ging himself had.
mito, who couldn’t have been older than fourteen at the time, got custody, but what we know about gon is that he was basically raised by the forest and hid at least some of his adventures and revelations about ging from mito. he didn’t have any friends his age and was more entrenched within the animal kingdom than humanity. and this makes sense, because he had a very young mother who under no circumstances should be expected to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and no father. the animal kingdom is one in which violence frequently occurs, but we see through gon’s rescuing of kon that he believes even this can be rejected (i go into gon’s morality and rejection of a lack thereof here).
he was poor, lonely, getting taken around his island older women with a “mania” (as in the original japanese) for “young boys”, his best friends were literal animals, he thought his father’s occupation was more important than caring for him, and he was constantly exposed to the violence of nature and this naturalizes him to the violence of the hunter world especially early on in the story (before yorknew, before he really begins to start developing stronger questions about moral sensibilities). mito tried her best but there’s no getting rid of the fact that gon was dehumanized from a very young age—knowing he was sort of just an inconvenient thing to his father and taking more solace in nature than humans. it’s easy to see how gon, who sees himself as Thing (shown in how easily he disregards his body and well being and never considers his safety or well being) would get attached to and feel deep empathy for killua and develop a desire to save him.
however, all killua sees of gon’s life is the kindness of gon’s mother, gon’s adoration for her, and the extent of his loneliness is only briefly expressed. even in the scene where gon opens up about his difficulties on whale island he’s still proposing his friendship as the solution to killua’s woes and we see her the kernel of their codependency. gon knows killua has been tortured by his family; killua has been able to verbalize that it makes him miserable. but when gon describes the adults in his life that have failed him, like ging, it’s always with flowery and adoring language. so both killua and the audience are lured into the idea that gon is a perfectly happy, stable child that can act as killua’s savior.
gon is honestly a very dissociative character (i go into his romanticization of the troubling mentors in his life here) and speaks with a lot of blind optimism because getting realistic about his circumstances isn’t generally something a 12-13 year old can bear. “my dad isn’t in my life because being a hunter is more important than me” transforms into “being a hunter must be awesome enough to abandon your son”, “i’m responsible for kite’s arm getting sliced off in front of me” becomes “kite is alive”, “grown men keep beating the fuck out of me” becomes “i’m glad to get stronger”.
it’s confirmation of kite’s death that breaks not just one illusion but all of the illusions he relies on to carry on. his protective shell shatters and the entire philosophy with which he approaches life is invalidated. as how he lives becomes worthless, he becomes worthless, and then goes on to commit what can only be called a suicide attempt. as i’ve said before, traumatized little boys can’t save other traumatized little boys and shouldn’t be expected to. gon does not suddenly become a bad person because he didn’t fulfill a savior fantasy, because he wasn’t perfect, because he carried out the sort of violence practically everyone else in his life has.
even after being healed gon is doing better than he was at the climax of CAA, yes, but he’s clearly internalized some troubling ideas about himself (“you were weak. never make that mistake again.” “maybe i wasn’t cut out to be a son.”) and all i have to say to anyone who sincerely thinks gon had a good normal life and just went crazy for no reason is this:
back on 2020 hxhtwt people would come for mito’s throat for allegedly being neglectful and i still see the idea perpetuated that mito was somehow smothering gon but to be honest i think it’s perfectly legitimate and defensible for a woman who has lost almost all of her family to not want a twelve year old to go chase after a job that could easily result in his death (and almost does), but even besides that if you do the math she started raising toddler gon on her own when she was thirteen years old so i never wanna hear any mito slander at ALL. she did not raise him perfectly but it’s unfair to say both that she didn’t protect him enough and that she protected him too much. whale island doesn’t even seem to have a school; all of gon’s development was completely up to her and her grandmother. she was just doing her best in extremely imperfect and not to mention impoverished circumstances. she was quite literally a baby with a baby.
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