Hunter × Hunter
The "Hunter × Hunter" manga has received much praise for its plot and characters. In his 2007 book "", Jason Thompson described its storyline as "an almost random collection of psych-outs, battles, puzzles, and trickery" that works on both a chapter-by-chapter basis and a larger scale. Thompson elaborated that with all the goals and subplots of each of the main characters, the story could seemingly go on forever and is unpredictable enough to hold reader interest. In a different review for Anime News Network in 2012, Thompson wrote that it was hard to summarize the story because it is every "shōnen" manga in one, with training sequences, tournament battles, a crime-mystery story arc, and a virtual-reality, RPG-style story arc. But unlike most "shōnen" manga, he called "Hunter × Hunter" "incredibly dense." Examples being its fictional nen ability, which is explained "so thoroughly that you almost think it could exist," and the little challenges and games the characters face; "Over and over Togashi invents some little closed system or rules just so the heroes can break them; if he ever wants to change careers, I'd suggest game designer." Thompson praised the character art as great, pointing out how instead of alternating between realistic and chibi like other artists, Togashi has cartoony and realistic characters interacting in the same panels. Thompson did note how the artwork during its magazine run is often "sketchy" and missing backgrounds, but that Togashi goes back and fixes it for its collected "tankōbon" release. Mentioning Togashi's love of gore he stated "the whole manga is about the mixture of childish adventure and creepy, adult themes" and noted how some panels later in the manga are apparently censored for gore by being covered with screentone.
List of Hunter × Hunter characters
is a Chimera Ant resembling an anthropomorphic lion, originally a lion named in a past life. Preferring to called by his original name, Leol was among the Chimera Ant officers who were eating humans meant for the Queen and later developed an interest in Nen users when Colt confronted him of his actions. Leol then targeted Gon, Killua, and Kite when they were approaching the Chimera Ant nest, only to cease his hunt upon seeing their power first hand long after the majority of subordinates he sent after them were all wiped out by Kite. After awakening his potential as a Specialist Nen user, Leol can use his Hatsu to create an iPod-like device to borrow another's Nen ability for the duration of an hour on the conditions of fully knowing the ability itself and getting his target to comply of being indebted to him after doing them a favor. During Morel and Knov's primary infiltration of the king's palace in East Gorteau, Leol faces Morel in combat. He assumes to be victorious after submerging Morel in an underground church using a stolen ability, but dies from CO2 asphyxiation as part of Morel's cunning strategy to remove all oxygen in the church.