NBA Star Shouts Out ‘Hunter x Hunter’

Anime fans come in all shapes and sizes, but sometimes famous fans can take you by surprise in seeing where they come from. There are anime fans all over various avenues of professional sports, but very few of them give shout outs to Hunter x Hunter.

But one NBA player showed his anime fandom and love of Hunter x Hunter all over his Instagram page recently and fans are loving it.

Steven Adams, center for the Oklahoma City Thunder, recently gave a shout out to Hunter x Hunter by posting an image of Uvogin, one of the Phantom Troupe villain group, to his Instagram page.

Fans are delighted by him posting this image, and even compare Adams to the character since Adams is also built like a tank. Adams has given shout outs to the series in the past, even posting an image of Meruem and Netero.

He’s also shown his anime fandom in the past by sharing a picture of Goku’s Ultra Instinct Kamehameha Wave in Dragon Ball Super and an image of Naruto and Sasuke’s final fight in Naruto: Shippuden.

For those unfamiliar with Hunter x Hunter, the series was originally created by Yoshihiro Togashi. The story follows a young boy named Gon Freecss, who discovers that his previously thought to be dead father is in fact alive. Not only is he alive, he is a famous Hunter, a professional traveler who specializes in finding rare treasures, exploring unidentified lands, and hunting down dangerous individuals. Gon then decides that in order to meet his father he has to become a licensed Hunter, but in that journey gets wrapped up in way more strangeness than he ever could have anticipated.

The series first ran in Shuiesha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in March 1998. Unforunately, the series has gone on a number of hiatuses ever since 2006 which were most likely incurred by bouts of illness Togashi experienced when publishing his last work, Yu Yu Hakusho. The series has run for 360 chapters, and been collected into 47 volumes as of 2017. It’s one of Shueisha’s most successful selling series with over 66 million copies sold in Japan.

Hunter x Hunter was then adapted into two different anime series. One series ran from 1999 to 2001 from Nippon Animation and lasted for 62 episodes. The second adaptation, produced by Madhouse, ran from 2011 to 2014.

Premium Bandai is currently selling a replica set of its Greed Island card game. It runs 8,800 yen (about $78 USD) and Premium Bandai will be taking orders through February with shipment beginning in April. If this seems like it would be too cumbersome but you still want to show off your love of Hunter x Hunter, you can do so with Premium Bandai’s other replica offering, the Beatle 07.