Plenty of anime shows nowadays have the budget to pull off mind-boggling battle sequences. JuJutsu Kaisen’s epic Sukuna vs. Jogo showdown is a shining example of pure spectacle and visual experimentation that showcases the evolution of modern anime choreography (despite having production issues at the time). But it pales in comparison to a fight over a decade old: Isaac Netero vs Meruem from 2011’s Hunter x Hunter. This sequence doesn’t have the production value to pull off the same level of choreography, but it’s a marvel nonetheless, and it’s all thanks to the use of voice-over narration.
Hunter x Hunter didn’t start to use a voice-over narration until season 6 (the Chimera Ant arc), where a narrator would explain stakes, battle strategies, and other details with a third-party perspective that elevated the series’ storytelling. It makes the arc a standout, not just within the series, but in all of shonen, and it all coalesces at its best during this brief two-episode fight.
The Chimera Ant arc focuses on the evolution of ants as supremely powerful beings and their king, the strongest of them all, Meruem. Hunters (elite members of humanity recognized by the Hunter Association) are dispatched to take care of this threat before the ants get too powerful and take over the world. Neturo is the 100+ year-old chairman of the Hunters Association, and although we’d never seen him in action up to this point, he is the strongest Hunter alive. He’s also the only one who could stand a chance of taking out the ant king, and so they finally meet and do battle.
It starts as a grueling battle of attrition. Netero must perfectly anticipate Meruem’s lightning-fast counters because one mistake could prove fatal. Arrogant yet impressed, Meruem commends the old man for matching his pace. Refusing to be belittled, Netero summons his signature technique: a towering gold Hundred-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva that strikes with blinding speed each time he clasps his hands in prayer. All the while, composer Yoshihisa Hirano’s hauntingly beautiful score, The Last Mission, swells with a full choir, underscoring the clash of titans and mirroring the divine presence of the figure Netero commands. The narrator tells us that, despite its power, the Bodhisattva is doing “next to no damage” and “the king has no cause for fear.”
We’re also told that “after hundreds and thousands of strikes, the King was beginning to feel the faintest hints of dull pain in his body, ” a revelation that makes it clear Meruem still holds the advantage, just before he effortlessly slices off Netero’s leg. But instead of faltering, Netero seals the wound instantly and pushes harder, earning even greater respect from his opponent. What began as a war of attrition now shifts into something bigger: a battle to decide whether ants or humans are the superior species. According to the narrator, their clash “did not even last a minute,” but within that minute, Netero’s sharpened resolve fuels an exchange of over a thousand blows. Rather than render every strike in detail, the anime conveys this flurry through a dazzling montage of light and hands, the combatants silhouetted against a cosmic backdrop and blooming flowers. Where most modern anime would obsess over each frame of choreography, Hunter x Hunter instead finds elegance in suggestion, relying on narration and imagery to capture the overwhelming scale of the fight.
Then Netero loses one of his arms.
Meruem asks Netero to say his name, as a way of finally acknowledging the king of ants and his kind as the superior species. He believes that without one of his arms, Netero is powerless. However, it turns out this was just a ploy to get Meruem to drop his guard and allow Netero to unleash his ultimate technique: Zero Hand. The way the narrator describes this attack frames it as the most beautiful, yet devastating, maneuver I’ve ever seen in an anime. It’s an attack that sees “a Buddha appear behind an enemy, gently enveloping the target” in its hands “with an indiscriminate love” before blasting its target with all of Netoro’s aura.
The narration alone sells the attack long before a single beam is fired. No amount of on-screen action could convey its impact as effectively. It captures the deadly elegance of the blast — its sheer power, its lethal intent, and the utter devastation it would bring to anyone caught in its path. So when Meruem walks away from the attack nearly unscathed, we know Netero, now completely shriveled up and exhausted, stands no chance against the ant king. Meruem speaks of his birthright to rule over all life, a legacy passed down by the ants before him and forged through his own evolution, insisting that no single human could ever hope to achieve such power alone. Ants worked together to bring about Meruem, something humans with their individualism could never accomplish. But because he is struck by Netero’s ability to transcend human limitations, he declares that humans will be allowed to survive, confined within a designated internment zone.
Netero appears utterly broken — until he begins to chuckle and utter Meruem’s name. The once joyous, carefree old man now radiates lethal intent, his gaze as murderous as his resolve. He warns that he is not alone, and that “you understand nothing of humanity’s infinite potential for evolution.” In that instant, the narrator tells us, the king feels fear for the first time as Netero plunges his finger into his own heart.
A flashback reveals Netero on a surgical table, surrounded by doctors, told that if his heart stops, something will activate. Like Meruem, the audience realizes Netero has planted a bomb within himself, designed to annihilate both him and the ant king. The narrator explains it’s called a “poor man’s rose,” named for the shape of its smoke cloud, a device once favored by small dictatorships. It goes off and successfully catches them both in the explosion.
In the original manga, Netero instead says, “Do not underestimate humanity’s infinite potential for malice.” It’s a more effective statement, given humanity’s use and creation of bombs. It’s a testament to their fight about ants and humans. Even if ants are stronger than humans, humans are such that they will destroy everything, even themselves, in order to retaliate for a loss or for an outcome where nobody wins.
Netero vs Meruem has it all: personal grudges, a clash of philosophies, amazing action, and a poignant conclusion, but it’s the narration that propels the moment beyond the threshold of just another anime battle. The narration contextualizes the stakes, captures the emotions of each character from a broader perspective, and conveys a scope far beyond what internal dialogue alone could achieve. To me, that matters far more than flashy visuals or technical feats.
Hunter x Hunter is available to stream on Crunchyroll
