I think that Gon as a character distinguishes himself from other shounen protagonists , but the grey moral themes of Hunter x Hunter ' s story are not exclusive to it as a battle shounen . Naruto for example has a lot of grey morality in itself as well . Naruto Naruto Shippudens The decisions of the Leaf Village and way it operates often spits in the face of the show ' s own preachy central themes of goodness and friendship . Orochimaru being allowed to live and conduct experiments after the events of Shippuden is one such example , the operations and actions of the Anbu Black Ops are also another example . Even the villains of Naruto are often morally grey with good intentions , just with methods considered bad to the main cast . Madara wanted to put everyone into infinite tsukiyomi because that was the only way to attain world peace , Zabuza was just trying to stage a Coup against the Village of the Mist whose practices were inhumane and just happened to be hired to go against Konoha ' s self interests and died in the process . In general Hunter x Hunter did tend to be less preachy , but even it had its moments of one dimensional villains for the sake of preaching , like in the Greed Island arc .