Hunter X Hunter Anime Celebrates 10 Years With New Artwork

New art has been released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the premiere of the 2011 Hunter X Hunter anime adaptation.

The new image, which shows Gon and Killua creating a number 10 with their powers, was posted online by the Twitter account Shonen Jump News Unofficial. The image was released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original broadcast of the 2011 Hunter X Hunter anime series, which ran for 148 episodes and concluded in 2014. That series was the second adaptation of Yoshiro Togashi's long-running and frequently delayed shonen manga. The original anime aired from 1999 - 2001 and concluded after the series adapted all of the available material from the manga. The second series was produced by Death Note and One-Punch Man animation studio Madhouse and was directed by The Vampire Dies in No Time's Hiroshi Kojina. The 2011 series was originally promoted as a more faithful adaptation of Togashi's original manga that the first series.

Hunter X Hunter was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1998 and tells the story of Gon, a young boy who learns that his missing father was a member of an organization known as the Hunter Association, which employs gifted individuals and tasks them with completing a variety of fantastical missions, such as tracking down mythological beasts, hunting for lost treasures, exploring uncharted areas of the world, and tracking down wanted criminals. When Gon learns that his father is still alive, the young boy dedicates himself to becoming a Hunter himself and finding out what happened to his parents.

The manga series is still currently on-going, though it has been subject to constant hiatuses since 2006, which in certain situations, resulted in years passing in between the release of new chapters. The last new chapter of the series was published in Nov. 2018, and the series has officially been on hiatus ever since. Togashi's health problems, namely a chronic, severe back condition, have been cited as the reason for the series' numerous lengthy breaks. Togashi is married to Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi.

Despite the series' frequent, years-long hiatuses, Togashi's work remains one of the most popular shonen manga franchises in the world, with almost 80 million copies in circulation worldwide as of Nov. 2019. The series has been cited as an influence by many modern manga artists, including Naruto's Masashi Kishimoto and Jujutsu Kaisen creator Gege Akutami, who recently had to put their own manga on hiatus due to health issues.

Source: Twitter