Hunter X Hunter to Return in March!

But For How Long is Anyone's Guess...

Weeks ago, Japan's Jump Magazine made an announcement in their weekly publication that Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter X Hunter is going to return on March 3rd. On March 4th, the 25th volume of the manga will be re-released. There was an article announcing this on Yahoo Japan, however it has since been removed. Fans wanting to read the article still can, as many websites,blogs and boards have copied the text of the article. While this is all great for Hunter X Hunter fans, we still question how long the manga will return for (and whether or not it will finish). Canned Dogs reports of reading a rumored leak from an internal memo saying that the manga was supposed to return in June, and if this is true, we wonder what made them hurry up the return three months earlier. When the manga returned last October after a very lengthy hiatus, only ten chapters were published before Yoshihiro mysteriously disappeared again. As of this writing, there has been no word from Viz if they plan to release the rehashed version of Hunter X Hunter, however Volume 19 is set to be released here the same day Volume 25 comes out in Japan.

However, there is but a tiny light at the end of the tunnel for you North American fans. Viz presented Hunter X Hunter at the NATPE Conference and Exhibition at the end of January. As of this writing we are unsure if anyone has picked it up. Hunter X Hunter lasted 62 episodes in Japan from 1999-2001, and was almost as popular as the manga. It has been dubbed into 7 languages already, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Tagalog and Dutch. What we'd hope in our minds is that things are done right with this series, and that it is marketed and handled a lot better than Sailor Moon ever was. Perhaps the right kind of success of this series might have a hope of Naoko Takeuchi willing to let Sailor Moon come back to the world. There is still no word on a possible expansion of Toei's AniBB service to North America.