Random rant. HXH fans of western origin are absolutely the worse fans in all of manga, even worse than the big 3. I don't know of anyone thinks they're a smarter person for reading the big 3, but a lot of people seems to think they're a better person for watching HXH. This is despite the fact HXH is focused on mostly cultural stuff that most western based guys would never get because it's too far away from the mainstream culture. HXH sold almost as much as Naruto, so it's not like it's the Panzer Dragoon of manga. You're not even a very special guy for following something that's like #2.5 on the popularity list in its place of origin. It's probably a good thing the Anime doesn't get to the controversial arcs (at least not for a long time), though without the Ant arc HXH is no different than your generic action shonen + MMORPG simulator.
It's just really, really sad when you hear people talk about what kind of awesomeness you'll see from the new characters in the new arc. When you got 5 out of the 5 most powerful characters in the HXH world either dead or hospitalized, it's hard to get excited about combat. There's really no way to feel excited about a guy with an aura power level of around 50000 after you see the million vs million AP fights in the Ant arc. Unlike Dragonball and most manga, the AP level doesn't go strictly up as the story progresses. 100K is pretty much the limit of humanity and then in one arc you got like 5 guys over half a million and now they're all dead or incapaciated, so you've already seen what the end game of HXH looks like, and it's not like anyone is even remotely close to breaking the 100K barrier in the world of HXH. How can there possibly be another combat technique that's even remotely as useful as Pitou's Black Dream Dance? Why do people think Netero's supersonic fist is fast when Pitou versus Gon features 3 guys who move at sublight speed? Did they not realize once Pitou enters Black Dream Dance mode she goes from sonic to sublight speed, and miraculously for the good guys, she faced against the only two human characters who can hit sublight speed too. How can you even go back to a subsonic world after the Ant arc? Yet this must happen because HXH isn't a world where if you train for 10 months you can go from a nobody to stronger than Aizen. This is why crazy overpowered abilities like Absolute Time or Black Dream Dance is rarely used, because there really isn't anything interesting about seeing someone use a level 100 aura ability to completely crush anyone with AP under a million.
I think people said Full Metal Alchemist has the same pattern, i.e. the most powerful characters appeared early and there's no inexorable progression toward more and more powerful characters. But it is a bit unsatisfying to know that you've already seen one of the most powerful ability that will ever occur in HXH by volume 9 (Absolute Time). I mean, even the name itself sounds powerful, and it's as powerful as it sounds. It's this empty feeling knowing that you might never see another character hit AP level one million, let alone have two characters at that level fight it out.
