Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge is based on a manga series created by Yoshihiro Togashi of Yu Yu Hakusho fame. Just like the recent slew of movies based on Weekly Shonen Jump titles, Togashi is involved with the movie's production and story.
Kurapika's scarlet eyes are stolen by the mysterious Omokage, Phantom Troupe's former #4. With the help of Gon and Kurapika, they begin their search for Kurapika's lost eyes. While they are searching for Kurapika's eyes with a little help from the clues they have, they end up bumping to a girl named Retz, who happens to be a puppeteer. With Retz in the party, Killua is having doubts of having her in the team, which then leads us learning bits of his past and how he was conditioned as an assassin. Back to Kurapika, we also learned his past and what he lost thanks to Phantom Troupe.
Before talking about the movie's plot, I'll first talk about the technical stuff. Because this movie has Togashi's involvement, fans wondered where this movie takes place. Much to my surprise, it seamlessly fits between the events of the Yorknew Arc and Greed Island Arc. As we all know, there is a short space between those two that can be exploited since it is focused more on Gon and Killua finding ways to earn money to buy a copy of Greed Island. What made it more interesting is that they showed some dead characters being turned into puppets just for us to have this impression that it indeed takes place in between those arcs!
More on the technical side, the animation is above average from your standard anime episode. The fight scenes are amazing and really well done. But there are times that some fight scenes bored me, especially the climax scene. Maybe it has something to do with the music. The music is my biggest issue of this movie. There are times that the music fits well to the scene and there are times that it ruined one epic or emotional scene, especially in the film's climax. Lastly, the film's pacing and to be honest, it feels like watching 4 episodes of the anime less the commercials, the opening credits (ugh) and the ending credits. Heck, I was expecting that the narrator's voice will just pop out of nowhere to tell us that "this is only the beginning of their adventure" or something like that.
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Now that I am done with the technical stuff, it is time for the plot. The movie is advertised as a movie focused on Kurapika and for some reason; it feels more like a Killua movie. I will get into that later because I will talk about the Kurapika bits in this movie. For starters, the reason why we have this movie is because someone stole Kurapika's eyes. As the series progressed, it starts to connect with the rest of the characters of the movie as we learned that the ones responsible to this mess is Omokage, Phantom Troupe's former #4. Because of this connection, we learned more of Kurapika's past.
Kurapika's flashback is kinda pointless if you look at it in a much broader perspective, but if you look it on Kurapika's perspective, it established the connection between his childhood friend, Pairo and how he ended up becoming interested in the world outside his village. It is because of Pairo that Kurapika became an adventure; it is also because of that bond that he wanted to find a cure for his friend. Their bond is what makes Kurapika's bits of this movie interesting. Aside from that bond, another thing interesting in the movie is the Kurta tribe's traditions when it comes to sending someone outside the village.
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The said traditions gave me an impression on how they want to blend into society without someone noticing their special traits, and that includes their scarlet eyes. Heck, part of the tradition includes that once humans saw your scarlet eyes, s/he must return to the village as soon as possible. In short, they don't want outsiders to be interested with their eyes and as we all know, we know how it turned out. The Phantom Troupe attacked their village just to get their eyes. So yeah, that's basically all the Kurapika parts in this movie, because it is more focused on the Gon and Killua friendship.
As for why I think this movie is more of a Killua movie, aside from the opening flashback scene featuring Killua's brother, Illumi talking to him about having friends and getting betrayed by them and vice versa, the movie tends to focus more on Killua's trust issues. This then lead us to essentially the focus of the entire movie, friendship; to be more specific, the friendship between Gon and Killua and how the events of this movie tested it. With the introduction of Retz, we saw more of Killua's bad people skills as he doubts Retz's sincerity in making friends... and he is right about that. I will not reveal the twist because you'll just easily figure it out when you watch it.
Even if Killua thinks that he betrayed Gon in some point of the movie, that's not the case with Gon. He is still the carefree friend that we know and love. He didn't mind that Killua runs away from time to time, because he trusted that Killua will return somehow. Same goes with Retz, he knew that there is something wrong with her, but he trusted her at the end. Speaking of Retz, her issues with the film has something to do about her doing what she wants and living life to the fullest. It's an interesting motivation, but it feels kinda rushed. But as for how she is connected with the plot, I am not surprised with it because they hinted it a couple of times in the movie.
Finally, about Omokage, he is one creepy dude, seriously creepy. But as the movie's villain? I find him too generic. His motivations are something that can be expanded but they just lack the time to explain it, which is why I think he didn't left any impact in the movie. All we know is that he is also involved with the Kurta tribe massacre, but he is not the one who initiated it even if part of his motivation is looking for the perfect eyes for his puppets. Killua's issues about trust and how Gon sees his friends are things that left a lot of impact to me in this movie, along with Kurapika's backstory.
Overall, even though there are problems along the way, such as the music and some of the action scenes,
Phantom Rouge is one enjoyable movie to watch. The introduction of Omokage is interesting and expanded the Phantom Troupe's roster of past members. Speaking of which, even though the Troupe is promoted along with Kurapika as the main focus of the movie, they just appeared briefly in most part of the movie.
Finally, to those who are non-Hunter x Hunter fans and decided to watch the movie without any knowledge about it, the movie begins with an introduction of the characters before proceeding with the dark and heavy stuff. Funny, the movie's introduction scene featured SD versions of Gon and Killua and the official start of the movie featured one of Killua's assassin jobs. As for Hunter x Hunter fans, the final scene of the movie featured cameos from two prominent characters in the next two story arcs.
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