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Episodes 85-91

Recap: G/K and Kite exchange philosophy, but their advance on the Chimera Ant stronghold ends brutally when Neferpitou senses them from miles away. Kite loses an arm and must fight her just to allow G/K to escape. Killua has to KO Gon to make the escape, and he encounters Netero along with two other high-skill Hunters, Morel and Knov, who are planning a punitive foray into NGL. It's back to training, and Gon has a mission - save Kite.

From here, we follow three storylines that eventually merge, FFVI-style. The punitive party posts up outside of Pitou's scouting range and starts picking off the chimerants squadron-by-squadron, which starts to bother Colt.

The second and third Kingsguards hatch, followed by the King, whose birth nearly kills the Queen, and who seems to have little use for her. The King splits with his Kingsguard to hunt rare human meat, and aside from Colt's faction of loyalists, the power void is resulting in different claimants. Colt seeks the aid of Netero's company in order to help his queen. Neferpitou zombifies Kite.

And finally, in G/K's storyline, they train with Bisky to defeat two of Morel's students, Knuckle and Shoot, so they can earn entry into the hunting party. While Knuckle befriends G/K and the duo gets much stronger, they are unable in the end to overcome the experience and strength differential. Gon loses and is cut off from Nen for thirty days.

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This is the stuff.

It's been true since the very first arc: action-packed, emotional climaxes in Hunter x Hunter often happen off screen and require us to fill in the gaps after the fact. This includes episode-long and arc-long resolutions. The show usually employs steady pacing, both fast and deliberate, but in more than one high-leverage spot - say, the result of the final exam in the Hunter tournament - we wake up, and it's already over. The real drama is in the fallout.

In the span of seven episodes, that happens twice here. The buildup to Kite's demise is there - that conversation about "what do you do if Kite is in danger?" wasn't just sitting around taking up space. Kite also lets us in on his philosophy - that in the end, it's about resolve, tells us that he won't be training them - foreshadowing, anyone? But in an inversion of the show' tendency to draw out decisions in agonizing length, it's resolved in a flash: when they hesitate in listening to Kite, his arm is immediately lost, before the battle begins. As predicted, there's no decision to be made for Gon - he immediately fires up the Ren. But Killua, more of the face of the internal struggle, also acts without thinking, forcing the retreat.

And the show is particularly sadistic afterward. With Gon down and out, Killua becomes our POV character, and we see how he sees Gon, who won't even blame Killua for injuring him in saving him. It's too much for Killua to try to dispel Gon's optimism in Kite's survival, but the internal monologue lets us know just how pure Gon has to be to have this type of hope. You are light... sometimes you shine so bright, I must look aside. But even so, is it okay that I stay by your side? And then before the episode ends - bam - Kite's head sitting in Neferpitou's lap.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness