Character writing is arguably the most impactful aspect of fiction, and writing interesting characters is incredibly important when trying to retain your audience's attention. Many of the most renowned characters in fiction are protagonists: Batman, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter; these are insanely well known characters who we all root for and want to see succeed. Well I assume that most of us want to see them succeed.
And while a strong protagonist is absolutely essential for almost any story to achieve lasting success, a story gains significantly more depth through the addition of supplementary fleshed-out characters who exist within the same space that the protagonist occupies. Any protagonist's character and story can noticeably benefit from interacting with and being challenged by a strong and memorable antagonist. Think of the antagonists that come into conflict with the famous protagonists I mentioned previously.
Batman has the Joker, Luke Skywalker has Darth Vader, and Harry Potter has Voldemort. In some ways, these antagonists have become even more iconic than the protagonists of their respective franchises. I mean think about it, if you ask someone to name a character from Star Wars the first one that would pop into many people's minds would be the menacing and iconic Darth Vader.
Or maybe baby Yoda I mean just look at how cute he is. Of course it's great to have one memorable character but if you can add even more depth to the world around your protagonist then it makes the story you're trying to tell so much more valuable and thought-provoking than it would have been otherwise. Today I want to talk about my personal favorite character and antagonist of all time: Chrollo Lucilfer from Hunter x Hunter.
I love Chrollo's character, and he's easily one of the most memorable parts of hunter hunter as a whole. In this video I'll explain why I believe Chrollo is one of the most unique, iconic and intriguing antagonists in all of anime and manga. Now there's a huge variety of fantastic antagonists from the Hunter x Hunter universe alone: Hisoka, Illumi, the rest of the Phantom Troupe, the Royal Guard, Meruem, this manga-exclusive character whose name is apparently "tse-ri-do-ni-hi".
And. . .
Genthru? Okay maybe not that one, but this story is packed to the brim with antagonists to become attached to and be fascinated by. Yet despite this I still believe that Chrollo stands out among all of them due to his memorability and importance to the central themes of Hunter x Hunter.
Right about now you might be thinking, "Hey, Chrollo was in like 15 episodes how is he better than all of the other iconic characters that I've mentioned so far? " After all, plenty of those antagonists have been fleshed out way more than Chrollo has. Meruem is the perfect example: at the end of the Chimera Ant arc the story was focused just as much on him as it was on the climax of Gon's character arc.
And while I love Meruem's character and the Chimera Ant arc in general, what I want to prove today is that an antagonist's impact and memorability isn't necessarily correlated with the amount of screen time that they get. See, Togashi is an absolute master of character writing and he uses many techniques, both subtle and overt, to keep his characters in your head for months at a time. Metaphorically of course I don't think anyone wants Youpi sticking out of their skull.
Togashi does a couple important things to keep his audience intrigued by Chrollo: he designs Chrollo to be an iconic character right from the start and gives the audience an incredible long lasting first impression of him, he generally keeps Chrollo a mystery to the audience and keeps us guessing about what's going on in his head at all times, and finally he gives Chrollo his own unique philosophy and set of values and makes the reader want to discover what exactly those values are. This quality of Chrollo distinguishes him from so many other well-known antagonists and cements him as one of the greatest antagonists ever. So first of all, Chrollo leaves an extremely long lasting impression on the audience despite having less screen time than plenty of other characters in the hunter hunter universe.
The impression that we get of Chrollo during the Yorknew City arc is important for this exact reason; it's the only time that anime only viewers even see him so he needs to leave an impression immediately or else he'll never get the chance to leave one at all. In a Shonen series like Hunter x Hunter there are three main traits that make a character memorable: an eye-catching visual design, unique and fascinating abilities, and a personality or character arc that intrigues the audience and makes them want to continue following this person's story. Of course Chrollo possesses all of these traits in abundance.
While his visual design isn't as overtly eye-catching as those of some other villains, Chrollo's design demands attention in a more subtle way. This perfectly suits his character. He isn't an eccentric hedonist like Hisoka is, and he's often much quieter and more reserved than villains from other series, such as Doflamingo or Gecko Moria from One Piece.
Chrollo's visual design indicates his character traits just as well as his actions do. He wears his signature jacket most of the time, and while its dark color may come off as being understated and somewhat reserved, the unique design and shape of this jacket attracts plenty of eyes regardless of its hue. Chrollo's other main features also reflect this dichotomy: his hair is often slicked back and generally non-descript, yet his forehead features a prominent tattoo that you can't help but pay attention to.
I'm not quite sure if this crosses any particular meaning, it's quite possible that it's some form of religious imagery as the upside-down cross on his jacket would suggest, but regardless of any extrinsic meaning this design element simply makes Chrollo look cooler and feel more memorable as a character. If we analyze Chrollo's combat abilities then we come across what is possibly the most memorable aspect of his character: the Nen ability Skill Hunter. This ability conjures the book Bandit's Secret, which Chrollo can use to steal and replicate the abilities of other Nen users.
While being able to steal another person's powers is interesting within and of itself,I don't think this concept alone makes Chrollo memorable or iconic. After all, Togashi himself has created other characters who have the same ability. What makes Skill Hunter such an intriguing power is how well it represents one of the key aspects of Nen and Hunter x Hunter in general: fights are as much about wit as they are about pure strength.
Chrollo is incredibly strong, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't approach important fights simply by relying on brute physical strength or aura. If that was the case he wouldn't stand a chance against top tier fighters like Zeno, Silva and Hisoka. Also if that was the case he'd be in Bleach and not Hunter x Hunter.
Sorry Bleach fans. Instead, he uses his impressive intellect and strategy in order to outwit and overwhelm his opponents. We see this on full display during his fight with Hisoka.
Chrollo isn't gonna beat Hisoka in a fist fight, so he uses the environment and his wide array of Nen abilities to maintain his advantage over Hisoka. Additionally, Chrollo doesn't gain these abilities through brute force training or by being inherently overpowered physically. Although being a specialist is pretty [ __ ] busted in the series so there's that.
He has to fulfill a relatively complicated set of requirements in order to steal someone else's ability, and so to obtain the powers that he has he still can't rely on pure strength or physical power. Although I'm pretty sure he beat up that Owl dude a little bit to convince him to go along with the whole power stealing thing. Chrollo's abilities are really a miniature representation of one of the series' most important themes, and because of him this theme is planted in our minds long before we see it fully come into fruition during the Chimera Ant arc.
That's a video for another day though. So we've seen how Chrollo's visual design can immediately give us some glimpses into his personality and character in general, and how his abilities are both intriguing on their own and also present to us one of the most central themes of Hunter x Hunter. I mentioned both personality and character arc as aspects of creating a lasting impression and I haven't gone into depth on those aspects of Chrollo yet because the rest of this video will focus on his unique personality and how it contributes to his status as an iconic antagonist.
However, before I discuss what we do know or can reasonably infer about Chrollo as an individual I want to talk about the mystery surrounding this character. There's so much that we don't really know about Chrollo and what's most blatant is that we don't know what his true motivations are. Not only that, but we don't even know if he has any overarching motivations or goals in the first place.
Here's a question you may not have pondered before: what is the purpose of the Phantom Troupe? Why do they exist in the first place? Pakunoda's flashback in the 2011 anime gives us some brief insight on the formation of the Troupe and its ideals regarding the chain of command, but a clear sense of purpose is never truly established.
The Phantom Troupe seems to steal valuable items and resell them soon afterwards, but we never see what they actually do with the money they raise from these endeavors. It's possible that they use it to support their hometown of Meteor City but there's no way to confirm this theory with what little we currently know about the group. So why does Chrollo want to do something like steal from the Yorknew auction?
Is it greed or maybe a Robin Hood complex? Is it for entertainment or possibly to fulfill some deeper sense of purpose? These questions are never answered and their overbearing presence and the minds of the audience make every appearance of Chrollo that much more exciting, especially in the manga when he makes his first appearance after hundreds of chapters of not being featured in a single panel.
And while it may be obvious to virtually anyone that the audience doesn't particularly know that much about Chrollo, what is not as obvious is that Chrollo likely doesn't know much about himself either. One of my favorite moments in hunter hunter is in chapter 111 when Gon asks Chrollo why he's okay with killing complete strangers. Here is Chrollo's defining character moment.
When faced with this question someone like Blackbeard from One Piece might claim that anything is fair in the world of pirates, while an antagonist like Griffith from Berserk or Aizen from Bleach may cite the importance of fulfilling their lifelong dreams. However, Chrollo doesn't even present a real answer. He seems to question himself in conjunction with Gon's inquiries and ends up stating, "the reason is the key to understanding myself" To me this confirms that Chrollo has been attempting to discover and understand his true motivations and values all along, and that he truly does not understand why he does what he does.
Rather, he is searching for meaning and a proper sense of self through each one of his actions. This mystery and search for meaning explains why Chrollo is so invested in the Phantom Troupe, a group that he leads and which is essentially an extension of himself and his will. His membership within the Troupe is the most distinguishable aspect of his character despite not being an actual personality trait in and of itself.
The Troupe is Chrollo and its existence is the key to understanding who Chrollo is as a person. Chrollo is a man shrouded in mystery who seeks to understand himself yet has never truly been able to do so. We know this is true because we see it reflected in every aspect of his character.
Chrollo even confirms these suspicions through his interactions with others. He doesn't understand why he does what he does, he's fascinated by others and why they do what they do, and places no importance in his own survival but rather places it all in this intangible spider that he created. These ideas all tie into the last point that I want to discuss: Chrollo's unique values and philosophy.
These aspects of Chrollo's character are what I feel make him truly stand out as an antagonist. While so many other antagonists are blatantly selfish and have motivations only pertaining to their own survival and prosperity, Chrollo aims for the survival of the whole rather than only himself. And while this may, on the surface, seem unrealistic for a character with such high status and so much power, now that we've analyzed Chrollo's character in depth we can completely understand why this is the case.
It's not because Chrollo's a good guy deep down and he's just looking out for his friends, Chrollo finds purpose and meaning through the Phantom Troupe and only the Troupe. What would be worse: dying with your identity intact or surviving only to see everything dear to you shattered in front of your eyes? Chrollo clearly understands what he wants even if he doesn't fully understand himself yet.
And while I believe that there are some clearly selfish motivations behind the Troupe's importance to Chrollo, he doesn't strike me as an antagonist without any empathy. His sadness in the moment he learns of Uvogin's death as well as his seemingly inconsolable rage at the deaths of Shalnark and Kortopi suggests that Chrollo has deeper personal connections to his companions than many antagonists ever would. While Chrollo does not seem to care much about those he has no connections to, that doesn't mean that he places no value in life in general.
Especially the lives of his companions who he's known for so long. Just like his Nen abilities, I think that Chrollo's personal philosophies are central to the larger themes of Hunter x Hunter as a series. He's not a one-dimensional villain who's simply pure evil; rather, his actions and words challenge the more simplistic perspectives of our protagonists and cause them to develop further as characters.
Gon and Killua's moralities are challenged by much more than just Chrollo's ideals so I won't focus on them too much, but I think Kurapika is just as pertinent as an example. We're introduced to Kurapika as this character who effectively has one goal in mind and who seems to view the entire Phantom Troupe in the same light: evil, money-hungry, bloodthirsty criminals. And while this is a completely reasonable belief for him to have based on his experiences, his encounters with the Troupe demonstrate the group's camaraderie and sense of honor, even if that honor only really exists within the boundaries of the Troupe itself.
And it seems that Kurapika's interactions with Chrollo and Pakunoda in particular truly baffled him and made him shift his focus to gathering the Kurta eyes rather than actually defeating the Troupe. I think I've laid out enough solid reasons in this video that you should be fairly convinced of Chrollo's merit as an antagonist. The only conceivable criticism of his character that I could envision is that he doesn't get enough screen time, but I think the amount of impact he has in the Yorknew City arc really makes up for his absence up until the Succession War, and I think his presence in the succession war really elevates the series.
He's one of the main reasons that I want Hunter x Hunter to keep on going and continue through the Succession War; because I want to see what the Troupe is going to do with all of Chrollo's anger and all the motivation that he has to kill Hisoka. Chrollo is one of the most memorable antagonists I've encountered in any form of media, not just manga and anime, and he's a huge reason why Hunter x Hunter is my favorite anime and manga. If you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for watching.
Please leave a like on the video if you enjoyed and subscribe, this is a completely new channel and I'm gonna be releasing a lot of content that is mainly focused on anime and manga. Expect a new Hunter x Hunter video soon, and see you then!
