On the Return of the Hunter x Hunter Manga...

Considering how huge this news is - the Hunter X Hunter manga is returning after quite a lengthy and mysterious hiatus - we were surprised to only encounter three articles. We expected to see a whole bunch of news outlets respond to this. But we're not that surprised considering when the petition broke none of the news media really cared. Two of them are about the manga's return and what fans can expect, but the one we were really surprised to read revealed a few hints for why the hiatus may have happened. It turns out Yoshihiro Togashi may not have been ill the whole time after all?! Fans may recall how when PGSM came to the airwaves, the manga was re-released and some frames were redrawn and all of the comics were rearranged differently. This article says that when Hunter X Hunter first came out , the art was often drawn very roughly and quickly and sometimes there were squiggles and ommisions and other cover-ups. Of course, this was widely criticized. So Yoshihiro decided to fix every imperfection in the manga, and this took time. The article also acknowledges and confirms that he was also ill , but not for how long. A lot of the comics had to be fixed, and it was getting to be too much to correct the comics and put out new material, so this is the reason why the hiatus was so long. The serialization resumed today, but a few days ago all of the previous volumes were re-released in their new and corrected form. At the end it makes a small mention of his marriage to Naoko Takeuchi in 1999 and of the collaboration that was published by Kodansha in 2005, Ooboomee and Chiboomee. Jay Navok has written a review of this here. Of course though the writer of this article couldn't be bothered to put in another small mention of what Naoko is up to for all us wondering fans all over the world! But we're not complaining.

The other article we found is here. This one talks about how long the manga was on hiatus for and talks a bit about volume 24, the "Chapter of Chimera Ants". Yoshihiro has also written a message to fans saying that he is well now in the book's introduction. He is happy that he has no more worries of his illness and that he is excited about the restart. There are a few pictures of the new volume in this article too. The third one comes from shady Japanese pop culture site New Akiba - and we warn readers that the ads on this site are definitely NSFW. This one reveals that the serialization in Jump vol.45 has 17 full color pages, and that the manga will be serialized for the next ten issues - leaving many fans wondering what is going to happen at the end. Yoshihiro said that he was troubled and anxious during the hiatus, and he gave thanks to everyone who waited in this issue. It also links to several blogs at the end of the article which show the the different changes just for all you die-hard fans of the series. From the blogs we have read so far, fans generally approve of the restart and the new manga. Viz currently holds the rights to the Hunter X Hunter manga, but as of this writing we do not know whether they will be releasing the new version of the manga, or any newer volumes.