Television series

Hunter x Hunter

Hunter x Hunter starts like a straightforward shonen adventure — a boy chasing his absent father through a licensed profession of monster-hunters, treasure-seekers and assassins — then keeps quietly rewriting its own rules. The power system is unusually rigorous, the villains disturbingly reasonable, and the story is patient enough to let dread build across entire arcs. It rewards viewers who like their action thoughtful, even slow, and their morality genuinely uncertain.

TVMaze rating8.6

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood2009

The gold standard for shonen anime that treats war, grief and ethics as seriously as its fight scenes — every power has a cost, every villain a philosophy, and the emotional throughline never slips.

But It commits fully to melodrama and body horror alike; if you want subtlety over sincerity, the volume can feel like a lot.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood poster

Mob Psycho 1002016

From the creator of One Punch Man, it uses absurd power to ask a quieter question — what do you do with strength when kindness is the harder skill? Gorgeous, inventive animation throughout.

But Its earnestness about self-improvement and friendship can read as saccharine if you came purely for spectacle.

Mob Psycho 100 poster

Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files1992no page yet

Same creator, an earlier canvas — scrappier, funnier, and packed with tournament arcs that clearly seeded half of Hunter x Hunter's DNA, right down to enemies who become uneasy allies.

But The animation and pacing show their age; it's a rougher, faster ride than the shows that followed it.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Seven Samurai1954

Both are, underneath everything else, about assembling a found family of specialists for a dangerous task and discovering a quiet moral code beneath the violence — Hunter x Hunter's Hunter culture is Kurosawa's ronin code with superpowers.

Kurosawa's original team-of-specialists epic — strangers with different skills banding together for a dangerous, underpaid job, discovering loyalty and sacrifice along the way. It basically invented the genre Hunter x Hunter still runs on.

But It's over three hours, black-and-white, and asks for old-fashioned patience with slow builds and long silences.

Seven Samurai poster
More like this (8)

Attack on Titan2013

Starts as monster-horror survival and spirals into a bleak political epic where nobody's hands stay clean — the kind of tonal escalation Hunter x Hunter fans will recognise instantly.

But It's considerably grimmer and gorier, with little of the warmth or humour that softens Hunter x Hunter's darker turns.

Attack on Titan poster

Death Note2006

A cat-and-mouse duel of geniuses where every episode is a chess move — closer to Kurapika's standoff with Chrollo than to a typical shonen brawl, and just as addictive.

But There's almost no action in the usual sense; it's all dialogue, deduction and dread, which some viewers find slow.

Death Note poster

Jujutsu Kaisen2020

Modern shonen at its sleekest, with a bench of villains as memorable as Hunter x Hunter's and fight choreography built to make you rewind and watch again.

But It leans harder into pure spectacle and less into the slow character studies Hunter x Hunter is known for.

Jujutsu Kaisen poster

One Piece1999

An absurdly long-running adventure built on the same bedrock — found family, a wildly imaginative power system, and a hero whose kindness is his actual strength.

But It's over a thousand episodes; the commitment required is genuinely enormous, even by anime standards.

One Piece poster

Naruto2002

The other great coming-of-age shonen about outcasts finding family through danger, with a similarly patient willingness to let backstory and grief slow the plot down.

But The filler episodes and repeated flashbacks test patience in a way Hunter x Hunter mostly avoids.

Naruto poster

Demon Slayer2019

If you want the visual side of the genre pushed to its absolute limit — animation so fluid it barely looks like TV — this delivers spectacle Hunter x Hunter never quite attempts.

But The story and characters are far simpler; it's closer to a beautiful roller coaster than a puzzle box.

Demon Slayer poster

Oldboy2003

Kurapika's vow and Gon's terrifying late-series transformation both ask what revenge costs a good person — Oldboy answers the question without any of the shonen safety net.

A brutal, elegant Korean revenge thriller about what obsession does to a person chasing justice — it answers, unflinchingly, the question Hunter x Hunter only lets its darkest arcs whisper.

But It's genuinely violent and disturbing, with a twist that lands hard; not a comfort watch by any measure.

Oldboy poster

Squid Game2021

Both build entire seasons around a deadly examination that forces strangers into alliances and reveals character under pressure — Squid Game just removes every ounce of fantasy comfort from the premise.

Strangers thrown into a lethal competition where survival depends on wit, alliance and nerve — the Hunter Exam stripped of magic and dressed in real-world desperation and class rage.

But It's far bleaker and more explicitly violent, with none of Hunter x Hunter's humour or hope to cushion the blow.

Squid Game poster

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