And so we meet again, Dear Reader. 22 months after the last time, which by historical standards is not even that long a hiatus for Hunter X Hunter. Togashi Yoshihiro is once again back. And the signs are actually somewhat encouraging this time. If you follow his Twitter you know he’s working on at least 30 chapters this round, after the last couple had been ten and done (which is not coincidentally enough for one volume). You can smile again.

It’s certain that Togashi-sensei is still in pretty bad shape physically, his spine pretty much wrecked. But he’s clearly still into this series and wants to finish it, by any means possible. He’s trying to make adjustments to his work routine to allow him to keep drawing. The editors at Weekly Shounen Jump are going to decide the release schedule based on his schedule – they’re not listing HxH as a weekly serialization, which I think is wise. So while I wouldn’t use the term “optimistic”, I’d say at least there’s more reason to feel hopeful than there has been in a long time. Hope is not expectation – and it would behoove fans to remember the difference, I think.

As for content, we’re of course still smack dab in the middle of the massively Byzantine Succession Arc. Which is itself a subsection of the even more convoluted Dark Continent Arc. I would be lying if I said I remember a lot of details from 2022 – or that I felt up to reading encyclopedic plot summaries to get back up to speed. I would also by lying if I said I feel as emotionally invested in this arc as I have in Hunter X Hunter’s previous major arcs. It’s a fascinating exercise but it hasn’t really come together for me. Like “Chimera Ant”, though, it can only really be assessed when it’s finished (so let’s hope one day it actually is). That’s just the sort of writer Togashi is.

I did remember that Kurapika didn’t appear until literally the last panel of the previous 10-chapter batch (never mind the series’ theoretical protagonist and deuteragonist, who seem a million miles away), which struck me as a quintessentially Togashi move. But he’s on center stage from the get-go as we restart the action. He’s interviewing/training bodyguards, weeding out the Nen users from the chaff, and trying as ever to keep his sense of control over events surrounding him and spiraling out of his control (yes, Kurapika is definitely a control freak).

The focus for much of the chapter is Longhi, basically a new face and one of Tubeppa’s bodyguards. She’s a Nen user and obviously a pretty proficient one, as she’s able to hide it from Kurapika. Her ability is “Moonlight Act”, which allows her to reward or punish a fellow Nen user with whom she signs a temporary contract. One reward she can offer is a one-time use of her ability – there may or may not be others (though it’s hinted there are). Which is all very interesting, but not the most important part of her testimony.

Kurapika of course has means of detecting truthfulness, so we have to assume Longhi is being honest when she says she’s Beyond Netero’s daughter (or at least, that she believes she is). Beyond’s role in the succession battle has always been somewhat murky (like the man himself), but if Longhi knows her stuff it starts to make a lot more sense. As for her part in all this, Longhi was Nen-cursed by Beyond, along with her half-siblings. And she says her current aim is to find out which of the princes (at least some of which she believes to actually be Beyond’s children, not the King’s) Beyond wants to win the succession was and assassinate them.

At this point there’s no reason for Kurapika to make an enemy of Longhi. He’s allied with Tubeppa, and both of them are operating under a truce it makes no sense for them to break (at the moment). Whether he endorses her ultimate goal remains to be seen, but for now isn’t the critical question. As for Beyond himself, he’s still more or less biding his time and playing the model prisoner. But there’s no reason to think that will continue for much longer, and I pity whoever is in his path when he decides the time has come.