It drags you back to Heaven's Arena, and that alone does something to you. This is the movie that puts a price tag on Netero's past: the Hunters who got buried so the Association could keep its clean face, and the survivors who came back wielding On, the black-hearted mirror of Nen that runs on hate instead of aura. Jed's grudge is a straight revenge plot and it does not pretend otherwise, but watching Gon, Killua, Kurapika and Leorio stand in the same frame again, with Retz and her puppets caught between both sides, is the whole reason you pressed play. The animation is a genuine step up from the 2011 series and the score knows exactly when to swell. Yes, it leans on friendship-as-firepower harder than the Chimera Ant arc ever would. You will still get chills when the arena lights come up.

Decades ago, Isaac Netero, chairman of the Hunters Association, sealed away Jed, a Hunter who wielded On, the dark counterpart to Nen that draws its strength from hatred at the cost of the user's life. Now a band of On users strikes during the Battle Olympia tournament at Heaven's Arena. Gon and Killua, in the stands to support Zushi, join Kurapika, who is on duty guarding his boss Neon, in tracking down the source of the attack on the tower. Their enemies want every Hunter dead, and as the fight unfolds, crimes committed by Netero and the Association come to light. An action fantasy film set in the Hunter x Hunter world.