Looking at the beginning of the Dark Continent arc, I’m now deeply conviced HxH is built like a Möbius ribbon, and we are now, and we’re starting, more than a new arc, a new cycle.

Look at the main four. They at the exact place they started. But their situations and motivations have turned, just like they have reached again the starting point on a cycle, but on the other “side” of the ribbon.

Gon is nenless and back at Mito’s house, just like at the beginning. But at the contrary of the beginning, he’s no longer in a situation of control and power, where he had decided his fate. He was the driving force. Now he’s helpless toward his situation, weak compared to his peers, and he can’t keep up with them.

Killua has already passed again the events before we meet him : defied his family, threatened his mother, and ran away from home, followed by illumi. He lives for his family again - but he chose his place and role : Alluka’s protector. He’s no longer the little boy trying to find himself, struggling with inner conflicts. He’s found his balance.

Kurapika and Leorio are where we first see them : on a boat sailing to a mysterious place. Kurapika was willing to get stronger, to avenge death. Now he relies on self-destrucive techniques, to protect a life. Leorio was driven by ambition and money. Even if it was - and still is - for selfless purpose, he now put aside his personal projects for a an extremly cheap reward.

At the beginning of the York Shin arc, the Phantom Troupe was chased down by a unknown person for a massacre they committed. Now they’re chased down by someone they know way too well, who had killed first. Chrollo seems to be eaten away by guilt and revenge, on the exact opposite of his calm and prudence in the York Shin arc.

Hisoka was driven by his own amusement, searching for the strongest ooponents. Now he’s motivated by revenge, to weaken his main target.

The Battle Royale is a mirror of the Hunter Exam arc : a deadly competition, where the protagonists confront new powers and new rules.

Now we can speculate:



The New Continent can be a mirror of Greed Island. They are both islands, and are both meant to be illusions of another world, when they are still settled in the known one.

The Dark Continent itself can be the mirror of the Chimera Ants arc, a confrontation between different sentient species, where the humans take the role of the first Chimeras, the invadors trying to survive.

The known world stands in the middle of the Moebius lake. There is a lot to take off the choice of this name - but I think it is, among other things, a hint from Togashi that a new cycle is beginning.