Something been bugging me about Genthuru for the longest time
I've been thinking about it again since I saw some new posts about him, but... he is weird. Not in that as a character he is weird, but his existence is just off to me.
Like he is so... random. I say he is probably one of the worst executed villains Togashi made and to me it's because of several factors honestly. One of which is lack of any meaningful build up. The arc of Greed Island doesn't really feel like it needed a villain like him and the story did not focus on him well enough for me to even get that he is meant to be some super powerful nen user who is danger to Gon and the team.
I get the themes Togashi was going for here about the kind of player Genthuru is meant to be, but that aspect is not explored that well and Genthuru and his group of boom booms is just not interesting enough for me to say anything about them. They just have no personality at all. Their powers are something that has already been done MUCH better in other series like Jojo, their role in the story is very minimal and Razor himself beats them by a WIDE margin in any story significance.
And he is just... random. He is just a dude who happens to be some very strong nen user with boom boom nen. Compared that to Hisoka who from the start stood out from every other character before we knew anything about him or Illumi and how Killua reacted to his presence at first and we dig deeper and deeper into that manipulative monster. Or Meruem and how much of the build up in CA was his birth. Or Phantom Troupe and significance to Kurapika or Tserri and his... everything.
Genthuru compared to all of them just feels very random, not build up well in any capacity and his role feels redundant. Like Togashi had this plan for this gamey arc, but realized he had no major antagonist Gon can be hurt against to foreshadow his deep flaws that would come to be his downfall in CA and so he quickly scribbled Genthuru and other schmucks. Best I can compare the two in terms of my investment in them is Boom Boom Family from Steel Ball Run.
My favorite manga of all time. They suck balls. Their powers are highly specific, are pretty damn boring and in the end the role they serve is to be showcase of Johnny's stand. And their role I blame on Araki still being in Shonen Jump at the time and needing to make villains. I would not be surprised honestly if they were the reason he switched.
And it is telling that when Togashi started to take longer breaks his writing also GREATLY improved. Both shows how damning weekly deadlines are for writing quality sooner or later and also how it can affect how memorable characters become. Genthuru I think is the moment when Togashi was kind of losing steam which he had to get back through his more or less mandatory longer breaks.
I think Genthuru stands out to me because his plethora of problems do feel unique to him which may make him memorable in some way and some may argue that this was on purpose, but I do not think it was. I think Genthuru was simply Togashi just having some serious problems as a writer and needed longer times to think over what he writes. Which worked... well in CA... although that arc is also REALLY inconsistent with villains, but the constant high quality of Succession War I think is showing how those breaks while painful work wonders for the story. There is no Genthurus in sight and I love it.
Sorry if you like Genthuru btw.
Posted Jul 6, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC