Ti moved into mid-May.
After several months of serialization, the Ant Arc of Hunter × Hunter finally reached one of the darkest monts in the entire original work.
A character whose debut had been filled with overwhelming charisma, Gon’s ntor, Ging’s proud disciple, a man who made countless fans believe his strength could surpass even the Troupe Leader and perhaps rival Zeno Zoldyck himself,
Kite.
He was instantly killed by the Royal Guard Neferpitou.
That Friday beca the darkest day in the reading history of countless manga fans who had followed Hunter × Hunter for two consecutive years and grown accustod to its seemingly lighthearted tone.
"Is the protagonist’s group going to die in this manga?"
"No... Kite isn’t part of the protagonist group, right?"
"Gon’s ntor, Ging’s disciple, why did he die just like that? Teacher Shirogane’s handling of him feels way too casual! If he had fought seriously with the Cat Girl, lost, and escaped, I could’ve accepted it. But this?"
"Sensing the three of them spying from several kiloters away, flying over in seconds, scaring Gon and Killua off with a single glance, then staying behind to cover their retreat, only to have his head taken directly by the Cat Girl... This is just a Royal Guard ant!"
"The Ant King hasn’t even been born yet, right? According to Teacher Shirogane’s setup, who’s supposed to defeat the King after it’s born?"
"How is Kite not weaker than Razor from Greed Island, yet he gets instantly killed?"
"The manga kept hyping how terrifying these ants were. I thought it was just exaggeration, but now it looks like they’re truly monstrous. How is anyone supposed to fight the King?"
"Don’t panic..."
"If one Cat Girl is this strong, and there are three Royal Guards, then aren’t all the strongest Hunters from earlier arcs weaker than her?"
"I cried. Kite just died like that... Gon and Killua still don’t know anything. They still believe Kite is alive and are preparing to go get reinforcents to save him."
"I don’t even want to imagine how Gon will react when he finds out Kite is dead."
"Wasn’t this supposed to be a lighthearted manga? Why has the Ant Arc beco so bloody and dark?"
"Lighthearted? That’s just your illusion. Gon isn’t so innocent idiot. He’s actually a naturally dark character. He doesn’t care that Killua’s entire family are assassins, and he himself is a warmonger. You empathize with Gon, so you think it’s fine, but the Hunter worldview has always been extrely dark."
During the early stages of the Ant Arc, the popularity of Hunter × Hunter had remained relatively stable.
Long-form manga are often like this, rarely delivering sudden, violent twists.
But Kite’s abrupt and brutal death completely marked the end of the buildup phase and the official arrival of the arc’s turning point.
Just as Rei had anticipated, his personal account was bombarded that day by furious and grief-stricken Kite fans.
Kite was handso, charismatic, and imnsely popular. While he wasn’t yet on the level of Hunter’s three legendary handso n, Illumi, Hisoka, and the Troupe Leader, he still had an enormous female fanbase.
Countless fans demanded that Rei find a way to revive Kite later.
But what could he say?
"He’s alive... but not in the way you imagine."
Rei’s greatest guilty pleasure was actually reading the comnts left by ani and manga fans after they were emotionally devastated by these plot developnts.
Every day after work, he would spend half an hour scrolling through them.
"But at least," Rei exhaled slowly, "the Ant Arc’s buildup is finally nearing completion."
As the largest arc in Hunter × Hunter, the Ant Arc wasn’t just massive in scale, it required an extrely long setup.
In the original manga, the birth of the Ant King alone took dozens of Chapters to build toward. Even though Rei had slightly refined the pacing in his adaptation, there was no way around it: the early buildup focused heavily on the protagonists, with dense character developnt and world-building.
It still took several months of serialization to reach this point.
To be honest, Rei found drawing these early buildup Chapters rather dull.
While long-form manga from Japan in his previous life excelled in many areas, there was one thing Rei absolutely couldn’t stand.
Whenever the protagonist encountered an insurmountable enemy, the story would inevitably insert a series of inexplicable training sequences.
In Naruto, for example, hundreds of Shadow Clones would train simultaneously just so Naruto could master a new move.
Ichigo, in Bleach, trains under Yoruichi’s guidance, defeats his inner spirit in a hidden underground cavern, and awakens Bankai.
While imprisoned, Luffy masters Advanced Armant Haki (Ryuo), which later allows him to realize how to use Advanced Conqueror’s Haki during his battle against Kaido.
And Hunter × Hunter follows a similar path. In order to save Kite, Gon, together with Killua, will also undergo trials and training, growing stronger in a short period of ti.
In these stories, the protagonist trains for two or three days, or at most a week, and the result sohow equals, or surpasses, the enemy’s decades of cultivation.
Perhaps even the authors themselves felt this was too illogical. That was why, later on, many works introduced so-called "bloodline patches" or hidden talents to justify the sudden leaps in strength.
In his previous life, Rei usually skipped such sections when reading manga. He found it difficult to imrse himself in storylines that blatantly defied internal logic.
But now, he was a manga artist himself.
He had no choice but to draw them.
Still, Rei believed that a large portion of readers also disliked these segnts. As a result, he planned to omit whatever could reasonably be omitted over the next few weeks of serialization and focus directly on advancing the main plot.
Otherwise, once he started recalling those long-running works from his previous life, who knew where it would end?
Recalling just one, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, or Dragon Ball, would require years of painstaking serialization.
Recalling all of them?
That would take ten or even twenty years to finish.
Rei couldn’t afford to spend three to five years on Hunter × Hunter alone.
"After all," Rei exhaled slowly, "life is short."
He closed the fan-comnt page on his computer and opened another folder.
Inside was his self-made animation release plan for Demon Slayer: Kitsu no Yaiba.
After the TV ani premiered next January, If nothing unexpected happened, the early broadcast would likely receive only a lukewarm response. The initial plot was, after all, fairly conventional.
It wouldn’t be until the Mount Natagumo Arc, when the Hashiras officially appeared, that popularity would truly surge.
Then, by the following sumr...
The Mugen Train Arc theatrical film would be released.
And further ahead, during the next Spring Festival holiday...
Rei’s eyes narrowed slightly.
TV ani broadcasts, no matter how popular, were still largely confined to the ani fanbase.
But once an animated film entered theaters and achieved both popularity and box-office success, the IP would officially break into the mainstream.
For most creators, a work with guaranteed popularity would naturally lead to five-year or even ten-year developnt plans.
But Rei didn’t have that kind of stamina.
He had too many works he could produce.
For him, a three-year plan already felt like dragging things out. There was no need to milk a single IP for a decade just to squeeze out more money.
It was already May.
Rei ntally recalculated the schedule.
"I should probably increase the investnt and have Himari recruit more people," he muttered. "For an animated film, the tiline is tight. Normal production almost always leads to embarrassing flaws."
"In the end, quality can only be stacked with manpower."
His mind drifted to the disastrous production of One-Punch Man Season 3 in his previous life, especially that infamous scene where Garou floated downhill.
That kind of thing, would never appear in an animation Rei invested in.
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