Hunter X Hunter is atypical compared to many of its shonen contemporaries, as it doesn't have a single protagonist. While Gon Freecss is the face of the series, his best friend, Killua Zoldyck, and his greatest enemy, Hisoka Morrow, receive nearly as much focus; in several arcs, the role of main character is filled entirely by Kurapika Kurta.
While Gon is the protagonist of the Hunter Exam, Zoldyck Family, Heaven's Arena, Greed Island, and Chimera Ant Arcs, Kurapika is the protagonist of the Yorknew City, Dark Continent Expedition Arcs, and the presently ongoing Succession Contest Arc. Killua leads the 13th Hunter Chairman Election Arc, but his time as the protagonist is brief and not truly comparable to Gon's or Kurapika's. Gon, on the surface, is a typical shonen hero who stars in action/adventure stories, but Kurapika wears his darkness on his sleeve, and stars in thriller narratives steeped in crime and politics. Both Gon and Kurapika make excellent protagonists in Hunter X Hunter, but which fills the role better?
Gon is a Subversion of Shonen Heroes
At the beginning of Hunter X Hunter, Gon is introduced as a cheerful 12-year-old boy with immense strength and sensitivity toward nature. Like many similar heroes, Gon has a longtime dream he wishes to fulfill: becoming a Hunter. However, his motivation for desiring this makes it immediately clear that Gon is more troubled than he seems, as he believes being a Hunter must be great if it was the career his absent father abandoned his family for.
Throughout the first several arcs, Gon endears himself to fans through his constantly positive attitude, naivety toward many subjects, his warm friendships with and dedication toward Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio, and his clever streak and refusal to ever give up. The latter is an especially crucial aspect of Gon's character as, unlike most shonen heroes, Gon is almost always one of the weakest characters at any given time and very rarely wins fights.
Gon is never a bastion of purity, as shown through his lack of care for the many who die around him during the Hunter Exam, but the true cracks in his personality begin to show themselves during the Yorknew City and Greed Island arcs. Gon is enraged by The Phantom Troupe for crying over their lost friends while they simultaneously kill countless people, but he's shown to be much the same way — Gon also hates those who act against himself and his friends, while more than happy to befriend villains just as evil as the Troupe if they help him.
The Chimera Ant Arc is the final arc where Gon is the protagonist. Broken by the looming, unstoppable threat facing him and the death of the man who inspired him to become a Hunter, Kite, Gon loses all sense of morality and humanity; he hurts his best friend when all he wants to do is help him and threatens to kill innocent people, not caring about anything but getting his revenge on Neferpitou. Gon's actions bring him to the peak of his power, as he finally goes from one of the weakest characters in the series to the most powerful before crashing back down, destroying his own body, losing his Nen entirely, and losing his role in the series for good.
Kurapika Changes the Tone of the Series
Kurapika Kurta is initially presented as a stoic and polite young man with more knowledge about the world than his new friends, Gon and Leorio. Kurapika is driven to become a Hunter out of a desire to gain the strength and connections he needs to exact his revenge on The Phantom Troupe for massacring his clan. His inner darkness and rage are made far more apparent than Gon's in the early arcs, but he's kept grounded by his friends, and his compassion and intelligence are his most defining traits.
The Yorknew City Arc peels back the layers on Kurapika, as he's pitted directly against The Phantom Troupe. Kurapika's desire for revenge takes him over, with his friends trying to stop him before he does something he can't come back from. This arc establishes both Kurapika's greatest strengths and weaknesses, with his laser-focused goal of revenge shown to be both. His Nen Chains represent how revenge proves to be both a strength and a weakness, as they make him unstoppable against the Troupe but vulnerable against anyone else.
After being almost entirely absent from the Greed Island Arc, Chimera Ant Arc, and 13th Hunter Chairman Election Arc, Kurapika returns to replace Gon as the protagonist for the Dark Continent Expedition Arc and the Succession Contest Arc. Now the de facto leader of the mafia, Kurapika is wholly consumed by his new mission to collect all of his people's scarlet eyes. With no regard for his own life, he enters a deadly political game he could have easily stayed out of, armed with a technique that drains his own lifespan each time he uses it.
The Strengths and Weaknesses of Gon and Kurapika Compliment Each Other's
Gon's Journey is Polarizing
The intention of Gon's character is to be a subversion of typical shonen heroes — or, at the very least, a more realistic take on how possessing the traits commonly attributed to shonen heroes would cause someone to behave. Gon is hot-blooded, passionate, accustomed to being stronger than everyone around him, grew up with little supervision or formal education, and is still only twelve at the start of the story, so it should come as little surprise that he's also emotionally immature, selfish, recklessly impulsive, over-confident, naive, and easily shaken by traumatic events.
For many fans, Gon's negative character arc is well foreshadowed, nuanced, perfectly executed, and serves the Chimera Ant Arc well by directly paralleling Meruem's journey from a monster to a man. Others, however, find Gon's shift in the Chimera Ant arc to be unjustified and too sudden. They love Gon best in the early arcs as a kind-hearted hero and loving friend who still has enough flaws to be complex; these fans hate that Gon's story ends with him becoming a horrible enough person to threaten to murder an injured, innocent woman and to savagely murder Neferpitou in the most violent scene in the series.
Also of importance is Gon's relationship with Killua. As the only two characters consistently present from the Hunter Exam Arc through the Chimera Ant Arc, their friendship forms the backbone of the series and is one of the most popular aspects of it. Their friendship in the early arcs is defined by each of them being the other's first real friend, their mutual playfulness, immaturity, competitiveness, desire to grow stronger, and their love for each other, with Killua at times implied to see Gon as something more than a friend. The Chimera Ant Arc destroys their friendship irreparably, portraying Gon as a harmful and toxic influence in Killua's life whom Killua needs to break away from.
Gon as the main character typically fails to function in the role in the way fans would expect. He rarely wins fights, he only defeats the main antagonist of a single arc and, except for the Greed Island Arc, his presence changes little about what would have otherwise happened in an arc. Gon's influence is instead felt on a microscale, as he makes a difference in the lives of his friends and the various allies he meets on his travels, rather than his actions affecting the world at large. This ties into the themes of the series spelled out during Gon's conversation with his father, Ging, about valuing the journey and experiences of life.
Kurapika's Story is for Older Fans
Where Gon's story starts with a positive tone before shifting into something darker, Kurapika's story is grim all the way through. While Gon grew up without his biological parents, he still had a largely happy and carefree childhood, and his Aunt Mito stepped into the role of his adoptive mother. Kurapika, meanwhile, is the lone survivor of the massacre of the Kurta Clan and was forced as a child to see the gruesome carnage The Phantom Troupe unleashed upon his people.
Hunter X Hunter enjoys shifting genres and tones from arc to arc, and when Kurapika first takes the leading role during the Yorknew City Arc, the series transitions from the light, tournament arc of Heaven's Arena into a noir thriller. Contrasting Gon's tendency to jump head first into conflicts, this arc sees Kurapika plotting and scheming to position himself where he wants to be, planning how he will kill each member of The Phantom Troupe, and finding himself frustrated when his plans don't go as he expected them to. At the same time, while Gon is largely a static character until this point, Kurapika undergoes an entire arc in this story, realizing getting his revenge won't bring him peace. Kurapika even defeats a major villain before Gon ever does, and his murder of Uvogin shakes not only himself but all of Yorknew City.
Kurapika is at his best in the still-running Succession Contest Arc. Engaged in a political thriller, Kurapika is thrust into a situation where fighting isn't an option, and he can only rely on his mind. This is a story where only Kurapika could function as the lead, both because of his ability to strategically think quickly on his feet and his understanding of the political landscape he's stepped into. The tension in this arc is palpable, as any wrong move can cost Kurapika his life. The main villain of the arc, Prince Tserriednich, is infinitely more powerful than Kurapika. Kurapika's most useful technique for staying alive drains his own lifespan, and with the series having already written out Gon and Killua, Kurapika has no plot armor, and fans have no way of knowing if he'll survive.
For all that he brings to the series as its lead, Kurapika isn't without his flaws, either. His portions of the story are largely humorless and are reliant on the supporting cast to bring any form of relief to his endless drama. Kurapika's stiff and aloof persona won't appeal to everyone, and it's easy to find him boring if someone isn't interested in the inner workings of his psychology. He isn't at all what fans would expect from a shonen protagonist, better suited for a seinen series, and this has caused many to long for the days of Gon and Killua as the manga's ever-present, rambunctious leads. Similarly, with its lack of physical action and focus on long-winded dialogue and politics, the Succession Contest Arc doesn't appeal to a large portion of the fanbase, who'd prefer the series to stick more closely to its roots.
The brilliance of Hunter X Hunter has never wavered, and that wouldn't be possible if both Gon and Kurapika weren't fantastic protagonists. For those who prefer the series when it's closer to a typical shonen anime, Gon will be favored as the protagonist, while those who enjoy the darker and more serious places Hunter X Hunter goes in its story will likely favor Kurapika. The best way to look at it may be that while Gon represents the series' innocent and unassuming roots, Kurapika represents the mature and complex story that Hunter X Hunter has evolved into.
