The Hunter Exam is the main feature of the first arc in Hunter x Hunter. Both viewers and contestants alike can agree that each phase of the exam is exceptionally brutal. However, the final phase is spectacularly so, combining intense mental and physical challenges together. Inherently each phase is designed to thin the crowd of potential hunters, but each focuses on something unique that that particular examiner finds important. This means that contestants can never truly be prepared for the exam as the examiners change from year to year, and therefore so too do the challenges. Although Killua demonstrated that sometimes the other contestants are an even bigger challenge than the exam itself.
Hunter x Hunter follows the story of Gon Freecss as he tries to find his absentee father Ging. His first step in this process is to become a hunter, as this is one of the very few things that he knows about his father. When he arrives at the hunter exam he finds that it is nothing like he expected and that there are many people who have tried and failed multiple times. He bonds with three other hopefuls, Kurapika, Leorio, and Killua, and together the four of them make their way through the exam.
How Does the Hunter Exam Work
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Even getting to the exam location is almost a test of the exam. Navigators are hired by the association to guide hopefuls. They are authorized to test them and trim the fat so to speak. Therefore only 1 in 10,000 hopefuls even make it to the exam proper. Once they have made it to the exam location there are either five or six different phases of the exam. The precise number and difficulty of each phase varies from year to year.
Anyone who passes the third phase is automatically invited to join the next year's exam. While the actual scoring criteria of an exam is secret it is known that they are judged in three categories, physical ability, mental ability, and overall impression. Most judges seem to take this final category most seriously.
The 287th Hunter Exam
Gon and his friends participated in the 287th hunter exam phase, which had only 5 phases. Each of the four of them progressed to the final phase, and all but Killua passed the final phase. The first phase was purely physical, an extremely long timed run, and then a long flight of stairs. The second phase, a hunting/cooking test, also largely physical. The third phase held an aspect of mental testing with the labyrinth aggressively testing their group dynamics and personality, though it still contained quite a bit of physical fighting. The fourth phase was a battle royale with a minimum point total that was again largely physical. The final phase however was presented as a physical contest, but quickly was revealed to be almost entirely a battle of wills and mental capacity.
The Final Phase
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In a tournament setting the contestants are forced to battle one another until one yields. No candidate may be killed, using whatever means necessary they must force their opponent to yield. Hanzo and Gon are paired together first and quickly demonstrate why this is no ordinary challenge.
Hanzo outmatches Gon physically and beats him up aggressively, at one point even breaking his arm. Gon however refuses to give up. No matter what physical pain Hanzo threatens him with, even with proof that he will follow through, he knows that Hanzo cannot kill him and so he refuses to yield. His sheer stubbornness forces Hanzo to yield himself as he recognizes that he will never change Gon’s mind.
Hanzo’s next opponent is unwilling to suffer the same kind of physical torture and yields quickly. It is an important note that they only fail the exam if they yield twice. You must only force one opponent to yield in order to pass. In this way Netero only intended to have one contestant truly eliminated. Unfortunately, due to interference from Killua, both Killua and Bodoro failed the exam. Bodoro having been killed by Killua at the behest of his brother Illumi was deemed a victory for Leorio.
Why is it so Brutal?
By forcing candidates to face off, but preventing them from killing one another they had to resort to other means in order to convince them to yield. Threat of harm was a go-to obviously, but when faced with an opponent who was willing to deal with any amount of pain contestants had to decide whether or not to try to call that bluff or resort to another tactic.
For example, an opponent with enough means matched up against Leorio likely could have simply bribed him to give up as all of his motivation was financial. However, due to the nature of the previous phases, each of these candidates was proven to be physically capable, and physically inclined. This final challenge being almost impossible to physically resolve was a cruel twist by the Chairman. This is even remarked upon by the other examiners as the phase is going on.