Hunter x Hunter fans could hardly believe their eyes when Yoshihiro Togashi took to Twitter back in May to tease a new chapter of his globally renowned manga series (I remember one of my students running to my classroom during his lunch break to ask if I’d heard the news). Due to the creator’s poor health, the manga has been on hiatus for four years now, with the most recent volume published on October 4, 2018. Since fans have been longing for new content for nearly half a decade now, even the vague implication that a new chapter was in the works resulted in much fanfare.
Unfortunately, these hopes were dashed when a few months later, Togashi shared the poignant update that his health has not improved, leading fans to speculate that perhaps the hiatus would continue indefinitely. By the end of the month, however, an update regarding an increase in production staff reassured fans that Togashi did not abandon the new chapters. Then, to dispel any worries that even adding more staff would not be enough to bring the long hiatus to an end, Shonen Jump (the magazine in which Hunter x Hunter is serialized) announced that not only is a new volume in progress, but also scheduled for release in Japan on November 4, 2022! In just a little over one month from now, the wait will be over at last!
Now the question is: Will the anime adaptation, which hasn’t had a new episode since September 24, 2014 (so twice as long a hiatus as the manga), also return one day? As of right now, there’s no word on this, but hopefully, the renewed interest in the series that comes with the new volume will increase the chances of the anime making a comeback as well.
