If you're looking for a boring, generic anime movie with no real plot, character development or anything mildly interesting or unique then look no further. After watching the anime, I was eager to see more of Hunter X Hunter, and I was surprised by the relatively high ratings this movie was given. Unfortunately, it's nothing short of a disappointment. Don't expect too much.

Hopefully this won't be the last hunter x hunter film since it left a sour taste in my mouth especially after watching their great first feature film Phantom Rouge (which i also reviewed).The good is mostly the cast. The foursome is back as well has their past masters with Wing and Zushi from the heaven's arena arc and Biscuit from greed island. Hisoka is also here but in a mostly forgettable fashion once again. The action is still great and there is a lot of it. Unlike Phantom rouge this film has the tone of the early series so more of a focus on combat minutia and abilities and less on emotion.Now the flaws which are many. The biggest of which is the complete misdirection of the plot. Early on it seems like it's gonna be Battle Olympia which was my most anticipated thing in the series that actually never came to fruition. And right when your at you're at peak excitement for this tournament it instead goes into another boring villain with boring revenge scheme.The worst part of that is who the revenge is for. It's for Netero so chronologically speaking this film happens before the Chimera Ant arc. Which removes all of the stakes. The villains are a little fleshed out but not anywhere close to where it needed to be. The film's focus was on their combat prowess and reasons for revenge so falling at both these goals is pretty sad given what we could've had instead.Score is still favorable since it's use of music is much improved from their last film and the action is as fluid as ever. Plus for every frustrating moment like Leorio mostly getting the shaft there was a great moment in classic hunter x hunter fashion.So i would watch this first and then Phantom Rouge unless you like the tone of the earlier arcs instead of the more deep and emotional later arcs.This was a green review

It was a textbook shonen: kindness trumps evil, friendship fixes anything, stupid power boosts with no consequences blah blah blah (look at what happened to Gon in the Ant arc). Even though madhouse animated the movie it looked.... wrong in some places, I cant explain it, it just looked funny... It's clear the movies had lower production value than the anime because the fight scenes didn't look balanced, they pulled powers out of their ass and it seems that the floor masters should be these incredible fighters that even Hisoka fears (or gets off to, depends)and should be built up to more than this. Overall I didn't like it, its so not HxH, its what hxH would be if Madhouse made filler if they were to continue the anime while the manga goes on.

Its plots isn't up to my expectation but that doesn't matter much to me. The development of the characters from the anime and manga series makes this movie very well worth to watch. Lots of reminiscent from the good old friendship time of Gon, Kirua, Kurapica and Leorio. A must watch for HxH fans! The only unfulfilling part of this movie for me is there are not enough fighting scene but I never get enough of nen-fighting excitement anyway =P As usual near the end there are a lot of 'lessons of life' moments, with the very best scene of the movie being at the end, cliché but still great. Last but not least, it did remind me to always do my best in life, don't leave any regret!