Jujutsu Kaisen Fixes a Big Flaw With Hunter x Hunter’s Most Iconic Arc

It should be obvious that Jujutsu Kaisen is heavily influenced by Hunter x Hunter, but it actually surpasses that iconic shonen series in one respect. Jujutsu Kaisen is a manga written by Gege Akutami that is one of the most popular series currently in Shonen Jump. Many of the elements that have contributed to its success, like its innovative power system and fights, were found first in Hunter x Hunter.

Hunter x Hunter is a manga by Yoshihiro Togashi that follows Gon Freecss as he becomes a hunter to track down his absentee father. One of that manga’s most iconic arcs is the Chimera Ant arcs, in which the hunter association try to eradicate a powerful race of monsters called the Chimera Ants. The arc is one of the best stories in both Shonen Jump and manga in general, a meditation on the destructive potential of humanity. While the arc is generally well-loved, it has drawn criticism for its massive length and for its overreliance on narration. Jujutsu Kaisen drew a lot of inspiration from that arc for its Shibuya Incident arc, its longest and greatest arc so far. Both arcs are long, featuring epic battles between powerful adversaries with death around every corner. While it is debatable which arc is better overall, Jujutsu Kaisen does objectively improve on the Chimera Ant arc in one respect.

Since the actions in the Palace Invasion section of the Chimera Ant arc occur so quickly, Hunter x Hunter relies heavily on narration to let the reader know what is happening. And since multiple different events are occurring around the same time, a timer is used to display how much time has elapsed since the start of the invasion to establish when events happen in relation to each other. While the rapid pace at which everything occurs emphasizes the power levels of the various combatants, everything elapsing over the course of a few seconds makes it rather hard to conceptualize what is going on.

The Shibuya Incident arc also takes place over a relatively short period of time and relies on explicitly mentioning the time that different events occur. However, both aspects are much more naturally implemented in Jujutsu Kaisen than in Hunter x Hunter. While the totality of the Shibuya Incident arc takes place over only one night, that requires much less suspension of disbelief than the fights against the Chimera Ants taking mere seconds. Additionally, while the timer in Hunter x Hunter had no in-world explanation, the times presented in Jujutsu Kaisen are part of an official report made after the events of the arc, giving it a natural reason for being there.

These differences may seem minor, but they make a major difference in the readability of the two arcs. While the Chimera Ant arc is superb, it can be very confusing at times. The Shibuya Incident arc gives a glimpse of what it could have potentially been like if it was better paced and relied less on out of universe gimmicks to tell its story. In this way Jujutsu Kaisen shows that it has not only been influenced by Hunter x Hunter but that it also has grown past it in some respects.