User blog comment:AssassinsTears/Episode 18: Self-Preservation FAIL (Review)/@comment-48285-20120207070150

LOL! Good review. "Self-preservation FAIL!" LOL! So true. A couple things to note: I thought the pacing in this episode wasn't all that rushed. I mean, there's only so much you can do in the cave before you run out of things to do. And the episode was basically all in the cave. So, it was kind of slow. But, as you said, we'll skim over it.

I liked that they reminded everybody (the audience) about the ID numbers of everybody (the participants) with background images. Gitakurakur actually spoke to the chairman, which I think was good. To be honest, I was wondering because Netero didn't have the pictures of everybody out on the table (in the first series, Illumi just pointed to the pictures of Kil and Hisoka).

For the spoilers: (IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN/READ TO THE END OF THE HUNTER ARC, SKIP THIS SECTION)

I think spending the entire episode on Gon vs. Hanzo is a good idea. And then in the next episode (the one in two weeks), the reveal of Illumi, as told by Satotz. There really was quite a bit of action between Gon and Hanzo. Actually, I should say, it was more of Gon getting his...um... fishing pole handed to him. (<--- Trying to be nice)

As I said before, I think spending an entire episode on Gon vs. Hanzo is a good idea. Then that leaves Illumi to be revealed when Satotz is telling Gon what happened. And doing what the first series did: end an episode with Gon confronting Illumi about Killua. And doing some awesome one-arm flipping moves while he's at it.

(END SPOILER SECTION)

That's really all I have to say on that. And if we're claiming favorite characters here, mine should be totally obvious. *points to the left* With all the things he's done during the course of the manga (and first series -can't really say that much about this series, but I suppose I could add it in), he has just grown to be pure awesomesauce.