How do the 1999 and 2011 Hunter x Hunter anime differ?
Two complete adaptations of Togashi's manga exist because the first one ran out of manga. The 1999 series, produced by Nippon Animation and directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi, aired 62 episodes from 1999 to 2001 and then continued in three OVA series through 2004, reaching the end of Greed Island. The 2011 series, produced by Madhouse and directed by Hiroshi Kojina, restarted from chapter one and ran 148 episodes to 2014, finishing with the Election arc. Between them they animate the same first acts at two different speeds with two different temperaments.
Coverage is the headline difference. The 1999 production lingers: it adds filler scenes and short original episodes, deepens the Exam's atmosphere and gives Yorknew, handled in the OVAs, a shadowed, filmic treatment many fans still prefer. The 2011 production trusts the manga's structure, moves briskly, and reaches two arcs the earlier version never touched, the Chimera Ant and Election arcs, which now define the series for most viewers worldwide.
One character marks the adaptations' philosophies. Kite, Ging's student, appears in the manga's first chapter and triggers Gon's whole journey. The 1999 anime includes him at the start; the 2011 anime omits him from its first episode and introduces him later with a flashback, a economy that streamlines the opening but softens the Chimera Ant arc's emotional detonation for manga readers, the single most debated edit between the versions.
Tone and craft differ by era. Furuhashi's series is moodier in color and pacing, scored by Toshihiko Sahashi with a melancholic orchestral palette; Kojina's is brighter, faster and more faithful panel for panel, scored by Yoshihisa Hirano. Voice casts are entirely different between versions in Japanese, a fact that dates merchandise and drama CDs precisely.
The practical guidance: watch 2011 for the complete available story and the Chimera Ant arc; watch 1999 afterward as the connoisseur's alternate take on the early arcs, especially its Yorknew OVAs. Neither is a sequel to the other, and a collection that holds both holds two legitimate editions of the same unfinished book.
