I'd be willing to explain thoroughly what I mean by calling the 1999 series a "bishonen show," but it would take a long while for me to detail both context and evidence. And let's be real here--how many people actually read my walls of text?
*groan* Damn it I lost my post curse you backspace key ~_~
Gist of my post since I am not in the mood to retype that wall of text.
A) Bishounen show how can you expect otherwise in terms of that given that HXH is a product of the period which was defined heavily by a bishounen vibe (e.g. Fuushigi Yuugi, Rurouni Kenshin, Weiss Kreuz, etc) that it would be silly to consider otherwise. However it did deviate from the norm in that...
B) It was the most 'faithful' of anime adaptations during the period and even went used OVAs to supplement missing content due to chapters and releases.
C) No duh pacing would be slower given that they sure as hell had far less chapters to work with, of course this also went in line with Nippon Animation pacing in general. But whether it is an aesthetic choice or not doesn't change the fact that they more or less would have to use a much slower pace given that they did aim for more fidelity than the rest of the animes, and were not necessarily chock full of fillers. The new one has a bulk more of chapters to work with, but surprisingly not THAT far ahead of NA given that we only have the ant arc added (yay for Togashi and his hiatus). Still more stable though compared to worrying about whether you'll catch up with Togashi or not.
D) Its apples and oranges to compare stills of the new and old anime details given that production values from that period AND studio are vastly different. Moreover, stills NEVER tell the true story of something in a MOVING IMAGE (i.e. the value added of an anime) that what may seem like a big deal in a still because you notice all these small things is actually just a very short timespan that more often than not we won't notice due to the time. Moreover, the point of anime production values of both 1999 & 2011 were that they sure as hell are still an improvement over the manga art, but lets face it not very many manga start out 'pretty' or 'well drawn' in the earlier chapters. But HXH in particular was never that good in terms of the art department. Sure they're imaginative at times but that doesn't translate to clean or polished the way both animes add value to the artstyle. Sure there are few instances, ant arc may have upped the ante, but by and large that is not the norm.
E) Speaking of detail I do question at times the amount of emphasis people put on comparing again scenes that are apples and oranges given that the 1999 & 2011 had very different emphasis on certain scenes. Case and point is the Hisoka fight scene at the prison tower clearly 1999 did not emphasis on it much since guy was just fodder while 2011 is praised for making it stylistic. In retrospect how big of a deal was that scene actually? Honestly it was pretty forgettable both in manga and 1999 adaptation only the 2011 decided to use it to show off what they could do but is it necessarily the case that they'd be doing that at everything - I can't tell not enough episodes to judge. Point is though they brought attention to something that never necessarily precluded it in the first place. So that we do have an apples and oranges scenario.
Original post was different but this would be the gist of it. I'm not trying to be an apologist but I'm just not happy with the comparisons being done. One thing I do have a qualm with this adaptation so far is that I’m just not seeing much value added in the animation department. While its nice and all to be faithful I’m not really too fond of adaptations where the director doesn’t really try to infuse their own style into the material. A good comparison would be Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei 1st season VS Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, both are good but I’d easily pick out Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei 1st season over FMA:Brotherhood for the reason that I do like how the director still managed to put himself into the material rather than the other one where I really don’t see the director at all but a very solid yet safe adaptation of the work. I think that as both a viewer and reader that this is one factor to consider, so far I’m seeing this as a pretty safe adaptation for both good and bad.
