Hunter x Hunter is one of the most popular, Shounen franchises often celebrated by its community for its cerebral narrative, exceptional action, and subversive writing. And while several arcs in the series have been incredible within their own right, one arc stands out as almost a non-sequitur compared to what's been established with the rest of the world.
That would be the tonally and aesthetically dissonant world of Greed Island, the infamous game for Hunters and one of the series' most exciting yet incredibly strange stories. While there were certainly plenty of fun and memorable moments across the arc, a lot of its content and intent were left with very minimal explanation. In dissection of the Hunter game, here are 10 things that still don't make sense about Greed Island.
10 Ging's Friends Are Kind Of Just Left Behind
Greed Island is a massive, passion project by Ging and some of his closest friends. The game itself wouldn't be possible without some of his personal friends managing the game, controlling who gets in and out, and defending the island.
And while it's touching to see such dedication go into the game, it's still strange that some of his friends would seemingly dedicate the rest of their lives to game whose partial function is to entertain and train Ging's son. Didn't these people want to do anything else? They're capable of crafting a functioning, realistic island and society with their own powers. Why isn't that being used for anything more constructive than a game?
9 Selling The Game
While its price point was an obstacle during the arc's early stages, it's still often understated that Greed Island, the game of Hunters that kills people, is a consumer product. Not including the auctioning of old copies within the modern day, Greed Island was once sold as an actual product by the company Marilyn, Inc. that had people pre-ordering it.
Considering that it's an actual place, why did Greed Island need to be a product? Who is getting the funds from the initial purchases and the shops of the in game world? Also, as a product/business, is Greed Island also liable for the various deaths that come as a result of the game? While killing is legal for Hunters (which is baffling within its own right), why is it legal to market an entire safety hazard to people?
8 Making It A Game
While profiting from the game already seems like an unnecessary detail to the world, the most strange thing about its premise and intent is still the fact that it's an entire game meant for fun. It's a niche experience using tons of resources, labor, and time that is only appreciated and enjoyed by a select few or, in the story's case, the one team that actually won it.
Having persisted for as long as it has, has Greed Island actually contributed anything to society or entertained anyone? Why couldn't it have just been an infamous test for Hunters that they could travel to instead of an excuse to rent out an old, game console?
7 Being A Test For Gon
As stated earlier, an underlying factor going into the creation and maintenance of Greed Island was the fact that it would one day stand as a test for Gon once he started his journey to become a Hunter. And, to be fair, Greed Island did provide an array of challenges and experiences that did help Gon advance his Hunter training. However, it was an incredibly convoluted and dangerous way to go about it.
Beyond just potentially being able to kill the kid, the rules and culture of Greed Island aren't exactly 1-to-1 with how Hunters work and function in an actual society, with much of its creatures and the rules of Book and Gain never again making an appearance in the series. If anything, the only real value that Gon got out of it was from his training with Biscuit Krueger and interaction with Razor, people that could've just trained him from the get go.
6 The Game Is Terrible At Discouraging Cheating
A huge element going within the Greed Island Arc was the fact that the game had persisted for so long that Hunters had actually begun to get desperate and started killing one another for cards. In the lightest of terms, this is seen as a betrayal of the spirit of the game. This is exemplified best within Greed Island's endgame, a quiz that actually tests whether or not players have actually experienced the entire world.
However, as interesting as a method for punishing cheaters as this is, why wasn't this rule or endgame made blatant at the beginning? If the point was for people to just explore the island, why not make that understood instead of risking people stealing and killing one another for cards? It kind of seems like they understood that this was a possibility but did nothing to actually fix it.
5 It Uses A Real Island
As the arc goes on, it becomes apparent to some of the characters that Greed Island is not, in fact, an isekai-esque simulated world but a real island within the world that's simply outfitted with Nen based simulations. So, when someone dies in the game, they're really just dying in real life.
However, beyond the strange semantics, it's strange that Ging and co. used an entire, real world island to host their project. They couldn't have just streamlined these experiences and challenges within Heaven's Arena or some other buildings and meccas in the world. They had to use an entire island and its resources.
4 Its Only Defense Is One Guy
When the Phantom Troupe tries to invade the island's shores, only to meet Razor, one of the game's founders, come in and destroy their boat. Looking back, this kind of seems lackluster and even inefficient of a defense for a supposed mystery island.
What this proved was that 1) There is nothing actually hiding Greed Island's location from people with a basic grasp of geography. 2) People can physically, maybe even accidentally, get close to it. and 3) Its only defense is one guy and not an entire security system or military. How has this place remained a secret for so long?
3 The Game For Hunters Includes A Dating Sim
While Greed Island is infamous for being a game for Hunters, one of its strangest and most dissonant areas is a stray, dating sim city. In it, all manner of dating sim tropes ensue, almost randomly and without any organization, and the player simply just has to play a long.
No actual skill beyond just experience with other dating sims seems to be in play here. It's essentially just there to round out the arc's video game tropes.
2 One Of The Final Challenges Uses Regular Prisoners
When Gon and friends reach one of the island's final tests, a town being ransacked by pirates, they find that their final opponents are actually comprised of real world, death row inmates. And while this may be intimidating to some, this actually comes out a little disappointing in the series.
Even within the Hunter Exam, death row inmates got a pretty bad wrap for being weak as compared to everyone else and quite a few within Razor's group even seemed to lack Nen abilities. For a game meant to test out Hunter's skills, why did it get a group of people just slightly tougher than the one's used in the Hunter Exam?
1 It's A Collectothon
When Gon and Killua first entered Greed Island, they learned that the main objective was to be the first to collect all 100 cards located across the game. And while this is an interesting mechanic for a regular video game, it kind of seems weird as a way to gauge a Hunter's progressive, especially considering that the endgame quiz doesn't even require players to have every card.
If the point was to just test people and give them an experience, why not have the final endgame be a secret location or boss within the world, something that innately funnels both the toughest and most complete players to the end? While the cards were integral to giving players a prize at the end, there probably could've been some other way to do that or reward people besides limiting an entire experience to just a collectothon that more cowardly and evil players often abused.