Why Leorio Paradinight Is My All-Time Favorite Character in Hunter x Hunter

"I want to become a doctor who treats sick kids from poor families and says: 'Don't worry about the fee—this one is on the house!'"

Ask most anime fans to name their favorite character in Hunter x Hunter, and you will almost always hear the same list.

People usually bring up the steadfast protagonist Gon, the cat-like assassin Killua, the sharp-minded Kurapika, the enigmatic Hisoka, or the Ant King Meruem. Standing beside those towering prodigies in a crumpled business suit, tiny round sunglasses, and a battered briefcase, Leorio often looks at first glance like comic relief—the loud older guy complaining about stairs.

Truthfully, on my first read-through years ago, I brushed him off as the ordinary, weaker member of the core quartet too. Yet the older I get—and the more real-world burnout and harsh systems I watch friends navigate—the more I found myself quietly drawn to Leorio above everyone else.

1. The "Money-Obsessed Cynic" Mask Over a Heartbreaking Promise

On the surface, Leorio enters the story making himself easy to dislike. While Gon seeks adventure and Kurapika fights for clan honor, Leorio brashly announces during the shipstorm interview that he wants the Hunter License purely for cash—even drawing a knife when Kurapika calls him shallow.

Then comes the confession that immediately strips away every cynical assumption we made about him:

Think about the contrast among our four leads at the start of the story. Gon is driven by personal curiosity, Kurapika by vengeance, and Killua by boredom and a desperate wish to escape his family. Leorio is the only member of the quartet risking his life in a lethal exam purely so strangers won't die for lack of healthcare access.

And don't forget his canonical age: despite looking and shouting like an exhausted thirty-something salaryman, Leorio is nineteen years old. Being forced to grow up fast after watching a childhood friend die taught him early that noble ideals cannot buy surgical equipment—so he wore materialism like armor over a terribly tender conscience.

2. Quiet Grit and the Forgotten 8-Ton Testing Gate Feat

The first moment our assumptions about Leorio crack wide open happens back in Phase 1 in the Numere Wetlands. Completely collapsed from exhaustion, Leorio could easily have stayed safely hidden—yet the moment he heard Kurapika confront Hisoka, he bolted straight back into lethal danger, ready to swing a wooden club at a mass-murdering Nen master just so his friend wouldn't stand alone.

It wasn't blind bravado without muscle behind it either. Because the 2011 anime streamlined parts of the Zoldyck Family rescue arc, many viewers forget how tough Leorio physically became in the manga. After twenty days of agonizing resistance training under Zebro, Gon (recovering from a broken arm) and Kurapika opened the 1st Testing Gate (4 tons total)—while Leorio planted his feet and pushed open the 2nd Gate, 8 tons total, completely on his own. With zero assassin training or aura awakened yet, he moved 8 tons out of sheer grit so Killua wouldn't stay locked inside.

Later in Yorknew City, while Killua and Gon got tangled up in Phantom Troupe bounties, it was Leorio driving the getaway car, working the auctions, and holding their everyday logistics together. And even when he stepped off the frontlines during Greed Island and the Chimera Ant crisis, Togashi didn't sideline him as irrelevant—Leorio was pulling brutal all-nighters studying for medical school entrance exams to fulfill the promise he made back on the boat.

3. A Punch Forged Not to Kill, But to Heal: The Emission Hatsu Reveal

For every longtime Leorio fan, the pinnacle moment of Hunter x Hunter arrives during the 13th Hunter Chairman Election Arc.

Twelve-year-old Gon lies shriveled on life support, seconds from death, while his biological father Ging Freecss sits nonchalantly inside a political auditorium without once bothering to visit the hospital. As seasoned Zodiacs and hundred-star Hunters trade polite murmurs, Leorio steps up to the microphone, shakes with raw fury, and slams his fist onto the podium floor—launching an Emission warp punch that rips across the hall and decks Ging square in the jaw on live broadcast.

Watching a prodigy-obsessed absentee father take a clean left hook was satisfying enough. What turns that moment into pure writing magic is the private conversation afterward when Ging explains the real origin of Leorio's Hatsu to Cheadle:

• Never Meant for Combat: Ging immediately recognized that Leorio did not invent his portal shockwave to fight duelists.
• Strictly Medical at Heart: He practiced emitting subtle aura waves like ultrasound sonar through solid walls or flesh—all so a surgeon could locate and break up inaccessible clots or tumors inside a patient without slicing them open.

Every fighter around him weaponized Nen to sever limbs, steal powers, or enslave minds. Leorio took the exact same life energy and asked: "How can I reach inside a human body to save someone a scalpel cannot touch?" That single detail sums up his entire soul.

4. Beating Political Chess with Unfiltered Humanity

Throughout the election, Pariston Hill played five-dimensional political chess against the entire Hunter Association. And yet, to Pariston's genuine amusement and alarm, an unranked 19-year-old med student rocketed straight to #2 in the final runoff.

Why did hardened Hunters vote overwhelmingly for Leorio? Not because he promised tax breaks or strategic patronage, but because in a hall full of schemers, he was the only candidate saying out loud what any decent human being felt: "Honestly, once Gon wakes up healthy, I don't even want this job—I just couldn't stand watching people sit around doing nothing!"

And when Killua and Alluka miraculously healed Gon and Gon walked through the auditorium doors, Leorio dropped his candidacy without hesitation, swept the boy into a tearful bear hug, and walked away proud—until Cheadle Yorkshire personally recruited him into the Zodiacs (replacing the Boar) to lead medical support aboard the Black Whale expedition to the Dark Continent.

5. Come to Think of It, My Taste Always Lands Here (Usopp, Yoon Jong & Utility Picks)

Looking back, liking Leorio isn't limited to just one series—I gravitate toward the same kind of character across other stories and even when picking roles in games.

• Usopp from One Piece: Standing next to monsters like Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji, Usopp is the one crewmate who actually shakes like an ordinary human when things get terrifying. Yet when it counts, he stays put and patches the blind spots heavy hitters can't cover.
• Yoon Jong from Return of the Mount Hua Sect: Surrounded by eccentric prodigies like Chung Myung and Baek Cheon, Senior Disciple Yoon Jong is the grounded realist holding the sect together—short on flashy moves, maybe, yet never backing down when someone needs protecting.

My gaming habits follow the exact same pattern. Rather than locking into pure glass-cannon DPS builds or frontline meat-shields, I reach for utility-oriented characters—picks built for healing, support, vision, and shutting down messy variables so the whole team stays upright, even when someone else grabs the highlight reel.

Conclusion: Growing Up Means Seeing Why Leorio Wins

When we are young readers, tragedy and effortless genius feel glamorous. We want to be the lone wolf who never sweats or the brooding strategist who hides every tear.

Then real life hits. We realize how exhausting it is just to show up consistently for school, work, and the people we love. We see how rare it actually is to meet someone who refuses to look away when a friend is drowning, who refuses to sneer at ordinary effort, and who still carries an unashamed desire to heal people free of charge in a world obsessed with price tags.

Among gods, ants, and monsters, Leorio Paradinight stays fiercely, stubbornly human—and that is why he will always stand at the very top of my list.