Warning! Contains spoilers for Hunter x Hunter Chapter 396!While Hunter x Hunter's Phantom Troupe is one of the best groups of antagonists in Shonen manga, one of its always felt less compelling than the rest. However, the series' latest chapter is fixing that with a flashback fleshing out the Phantom Troupe's tragic roots. In doing so it is also retroactively improving one of the manga's best arcs.
The Phantom Troupe was introduced in the Yorknew City arc as the main antagonists, but they had been mentioned since the early chapters of the series. Since Kurapika's people were all brutally murdered by the Troupe for their special eyes, they were a major part of his character, with his main motivation for becoming a hunter being a desire to murder all the Troupe in turn. Kurapika took this to the extreme of specially tailoring his Nen technique to fighting the Spiders. In order to show off his technique's power, he kidnaped the Troupe member Uvogin and baited him into fighting him alone. Kurapika easily won the fight, which showed his immense power given Uvogin's own overwhelming strength. But while Uvogin served an important narrative purpose, this also made him more of a plot device than a compelling character. But the series' latest chapters are changing this.
Chapters 395 and 396, finally reveal the backstory of the Phantom Troupe depicting them all as children in the dystopian Meteor City. Uvogin is initially depicted as an aggressive kid always spoiling for a fight, which is largely how he was portrayed in the Yorknew City arc. But in chapter 396, after seeing Chrollo and his friends dubbing over Hunter x Hunter's version of the Power Rangers he realizes that there is more to life than fighting and approaches Chrollo to his acting troupe. However, due to his massive pride he can't directly ask him, which leads to an adorable moment where one of the other children must translate his desires to Chrollo.
The Phantom Troupe Flashback is Finally Humanizing Uvogin
Uvogin's awkward mannerisms and childlike ion for acting makes him a much more compelling character than it seemed he was in Yorknew City. In that arc he was just an aggressive powerhouse looking for powerful enemies to fight. While the seeds of this character are present in this flashback, the extra information that author Yoshihiro Togashi introduces in this chapter makes Uvogin feel like a much more rounded character. This in turn makes his death in Yorknew City feel much more tragic.
The Phantom Troupe flashback has also further developed other dead Spiders, like Pakunoda, which has also contributed to retroactively improving Yorknew City. This shows how an effective flashback should both provide interesting information about a manga's characters and add further impact and context to past events. Hunter x Hunter is pulling this off with ease, making its most recent chapters the most satisfying since the manga’s return.
Hunter x Hunter Chapter 396 is available to read from Viz Media.
