The long-awaited return of the Hunter x Hunter manga appears to be progressing smoothly.
The creator of the series, Yoshihiro Togashi, posted a promising update to his personal Twitter account. According to Togashi, he has completed the drafts for the first ten chapters of the manga to be produced since 2018, and they just have to be inked in. In addition to those ten chapters, he has already started work on the next ten chapters of the series. This was welcome news to fans of the shonen manga, who have been waiting for almost four years for a single new chapter.
Togashi first confirmed he was resuming production of the series last May, when he started a new Twitter account to share his work with fans. Unfortunately, fans were initially skeptical that the Twitter account actually belonged to the legendary manga author, as his choice of screen name, @Un4v5s8bgsVk9Xp, made it look like the profile was either a hoax or a bot account. One-Punch Man artist Yusuke Murata eventually reassured fans that the account did indeed belong to his colleague, which was further confirmed by a representative from Weekly Shonen Jump. Since then, Togashi has become one of the most popular manga artists on Twitter, with over 2.9 million followers.
Hunter x Hunter has been on hiatus ever since November 2018. While the current hiatus is the longest in the series' history, the manga had already previously built up a reputation for only being published sporadically. Togashi is said to produce the series entirely on his own, without the help of assistants, though he has admitted to receiving some help from Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi, whom he is married to. In a recent interview, the author explained that the manga's frequent and lengthy breaks are due to a delibating, chronic back problem. According to Togashi, the pain from this condition is so severe that it has even affected his ability to use the bathroom.
In addition to HxH, Togashi is also known for creating Yu Yu Hakusho which ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1990 - 1994. The manga and its anime adaptation are widely considered to be one of the most influential shonen battle series of all time, alongside its contemporaries such as Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Hirohiko Araki's Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Netflix is now producing a live-action adaptation of the series, and recently revealed the first official images of its cast in costume.
The 2011 anime adaptation of Hunter x Hunter is available for streaming on Netflix and Crunchyroll. Both Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho are published in English by VIZ Media.
Source: Twitter