Hunter × Hunter
Written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi, the "Hunter × Hunter" manga began its ongoing serialization in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" magazine on March 3, 1998. Shueisha has compiled most of the chapters into 36 "tankōbon" volumes as of October 2018. In December 2011, Shueisha began republishing the manga into a magazine-styled "sōshūhen" format. The company published one volume per month for a total of six volumes, covering up to the end of the Greed Island story arc. In December 2012, Togashi wrote a two-part manga titled to act as a prequel to the first animated film. "Tokyo Ghoul" author Sui Ishida created a 69-page storyboard of a manga chapter depicting the past of "Hunter × Hunter"s Hisoka. The storyboard was released digitally via "Shonen Jump+" on June 2, 2016.
Hunter × Hunter
Author Yoshihiro Togashi explained that one of his hobbies was collecting objects of all sorts, so he was inspired to create a manga involving collecting titled "Hunter". He came up with the final name "Hunter × Hunter" while watching the television variety show "Downtown", in which the hosts often repeated what they said to make the audience laugh. The "×" in the title is silent. As with his previous series, "Yu Yu Hakusho", Togashi used drafting ink and "Kabura" pens for his illustrations but began using an eMac to color them. Togashi uses few or no assistants in the manga's production; however, fellow manga artist and future wife Naoko Takeuchi assisted Togashi in adding screentone to single-color pages for the first volume. With the birth of their first son early in its publication, Togashi felt that this personal aspect of his life would be a great influence on his work, particularly the manga's theme of a young boy searching for his father.