An Exam That Kills People On Purpose
Roughly 400 Applicants In, A Handful Out
Hunter x Hunter
ハンター×ハンター
Action
Adventure
Martial Arts
Fantasy
Details & Synopsis
Gon Freecss is twelve years old and lives on Whale Island with his aunt, who tells him his parents are dead. They are not. His father, Ging Freecss, is one of the greatest Hunters alive, and he left Gon behind to be one. Gon decides to become a Hunter too. Not to confront him. Not out of anger. Out of curiosity. He wants to understand what was worth more than he was.
This is the emotional engine that drives everything. The show never loses it even when the scale inflates to something unrecognizable from that island and that question.
Based on Yoshihiro Togashi's manga and produced by Nippon Animation, Hunter x Hunter aired on Fuji Television from 1999 to 2001. Sixty-two television episodes. The Hunter Exam that opens the series is one of the great gauntlets in shonen anime, brutal, inventive, and built to introduce the cast through situation rather than exposition. Killua Zoldyck walks into it from an entirely different world than Gon and the contrast between them, the boy who was loved too freely and the boy who was never loved at all, is the real subject of the series.
The Nen system, aura categories, hatsu types, the specific logic of how will and personality shape power, is the most carefully engineered ability framework the genre had seen to that point. It rewards attention. It punishes shortcuts. Nippon Animation kept pace with Togashi's serialization as long as it could, but the manga's recurring hiatuses eventually caught up to the show. The Yorknew City arc, and the Phantom Troupe conflict at its center, is still unfolding when the series ends on episode 62. There is no finale. There is a cliffhanger, and then nothing, because that is genuinely where the anime stopped.
The 1999 version is darker and slower than the 2011 Madhouse remake. Both are legitimate. This one came first, and it is the version the fansub community built itself around before HxH became a property anyone outside of dedicated anime spaces had heard of.
This is the emotional engine that drives everything. The show never loses it even when the scale inflates to something unrecognizable from that island and that question.
Based on Yoshihiro Togashi's manga and produced by Nippon Animation, Hunter x Hunter aired on Fuji Television from 1999 to 2001. Sixty-two television episodes. The Hunter Exam that opens the series is one of the great gauntlets in shonen anime, brutal, inventive, and built to introduce the cast through situation rather than exposition. Killua Zoldyck walks into it from an entirely different world than Gon and the contrast between them, the boy who was loved too freely and the boy who was never loved at all, is the real subject of the series.
The Nen system, aura categories, hatsu types, the specific logic of how will and personality shape power, is the most carefully engineered ability framework the genre had seen to that point. It rewards attention. It punishes shortcuts. Nippon Animation kept pace with Togashi's serialization as long as it could, but the manga's recurring hiatuses eventually caught up to the show. The Yorknew City arc, and the Phantom Troupe conflict at its center, is still unfolding when the series ends on episode 62. There is no finale. There is a cliffhanger, and then nothing, because that is genuinely where the anime stopped.
The 1999 version is darker and slower than the 2011 Madhouse remake. Both are legitimate. This one came first, and it is the version the fansub community built itself around before HxH became a property anyone outside of dedicated anime spaces had heard of.
Alt Title
ハンター×ハンター
Studio
Nippon Animation
Network
Fuji Television
Aired
1999 - 2001
Episodes
62
Genre
Action, Adventure, Martial Arts, Fantasy
Status
Completed
The Hunter Exam
Five Phases, No Safety Net
Phase 1: The Navigation Test
Examiner: SatotzA brutal, unannounced long-distance run through hostile terrain led by an examiner who never explains what he's actually testing for. There's no puzzle here, no trick, just raw endurance filtering out anyone who came into the exam unprepared for how physically punishing it actually is. This is where the show quietly establishes who's serious.
Phase 2: Menchi's Cooking Trial
Examiner: MenchiA Gourmet Hunter sets an absurdly specific culinary standard and disqualifies anyone who doesn't meet it, triggering a near-riot when the applicant pool realizes how many of them are about to fail on a technicality. THE BREAKDOWN: this phase isn't really about cooking. It's about whether you can perform under a standard that refuses to lower itself for you, which is the entire philosophy the exam runs on.
Phase 3: Trick Tower
A Descent With a Hostage Problem Built InApplicants descend through a tower of branching, deliberately confusing paths, and the phase ends with a moral trap: a hostage situation where the group has to decide, together, who gets to continue. THE BREAKDOWN: Trick Tower isn't testing physical skill at all, it's testing whether a group of strangers will cooperate under pressure or turn on each other, and the show uses it to quietly start sorting its cast by character rather than ability.
Phase 4: Zevil Island
SPOILER! Survival Tag Hunting, No Rules Against KillingCandidates are dropped into a jungle and told to hunt each other's numbered tags to advance, with no rule stopping anyone from doing it violently. THE BREAKDOWN: this is the phase where the mask comes off certain applicants. Hisoka and Illumi both operate here exactly like the predators they are, and the show doesn't soften either of them for it.
Phase 5: The Final Matches
Examiner: Chairman Netero, One-on-One CombatRemaining applicants are paired off by lottery for direct combat at Hunter Association headquarters, adjudicated personally by the Chairman. This is where Gon fights Hanzo and loses on points while winning the room, and where Netero hands out licenses based on more than just who won their bracket.
Why the Exam Structure Matters Later
Every phase of the Hunter Exam is quietly training the audience how to read this show: physical tests aren't really about physical ability, group tests reveal character faster than solo ones do, and the people who seem calmest under pressure are usually the ones worth watching most closely. Heavens Arena and Nen training both build directly on lessons the exam already taught you.
