The birthdays that we get in Hunter X Hunter are very funny. Gon is born on 5/5, Kurapika on 4/4, Killua on 7/7, and Leorio on 3/3. Hisoka is born on 6/6 and Chrollo on 11/15. There is a fan speculated birthday for Illumi, which is 1/1, but it isn’t canon.

Typically, with anime character birthdays and ages, we take a look at how old a character is when either the manga or anime came out and we calculate the birth year. This gives us two different versions of the characters, one based on manga and one based on anime. Let’s use the manga birth years for this, for the sake of authenticity. This means that Gon and Killua were born in 1987, Kurapika in 1982, and Leorio in 1980. Hisoka would be born in 1971 and Chrollo in 1973 since he is two years younger than Hisoka.

This means that Gon is either a Cancer or a Leo Moon, most likely a Leo Moon since the Moon entered Leo pretty early on May 5th 1987, and that Killua is a Scorpio Moon. Kurapika is also a Leo Moon, Hisoka is a Scorpio Moon and Chrollo is a Cancer Moon. Leorio appears to have been born on the Virgo Full Moon.

Now, the world of Hunter X Hunter is very much not our world. This means that none of the planets that we have in our solar system exist in Hunter X Hunter. Their world is flat and we have no idea what their solar system looks like or how it works. Obviously, the appearance of nen in their world will also change their cosmology.

But I still think that it is significant to take a look at the astrology, our astrology, of Hunter X Hunter. Why? Because Togashi is married to Naoko Takeuchi.

Naoko Takeuchi is literally the creator of Sailor Moon and, almost singlehanded, brought astrology into the twenty-first century. Why do so many younger generations like astrology? It’s because of Sailor Moon. Takeuchi assisted Togashi when Hunter X Hunter was coming into creation and the main character shares at least a Sun sign with Togashi himself, who happens to be a Taurus with a Cancer Moon, if not both Sun and Moon together. The two main character’s Sun signs, Taurus and Cancer, are the creator’s Sun and Moon signs. One of the arcs is also called the Zodiac arc, with several characters taking on the appearance of animals in the Asian zodiac wheel.

Yeah, there’s some astrology in Hunter X Hunter. We were given character birthdays for a reason—so that we could read into them.

Jupiter and Saturn, Father and Son

Part of the story of Hunter X Hunter is the story of a son who hunts for his deadbeat father. Now, we don’t have Ging’s birthday. We know that he was born in 1967. Saturn left Pisces for Aries in 1967 while Gon has Jupiter in Aries. It would be interesting if the two of them had a Jupiter and Saturn conjunction.

But Ging is not the only Saturn figure in the story. When we meet Hisoka, he is actually going through his Saturn return. He is twenty eight at the beginning of the show and we watch him grow into his thirties.

At the same time, both Gon and Killua start the show at twelve years of age and in the middle of their Jupiter returns. Jupiter returns are when you feel really lost in the world and when you are just beginning to get your bearings around what you believe in and what you don’t.

This is the context in which we meet our characters during the Hunter Exam: Gon and Killua are beginning a new journey. They are Jupiter people who are just starting out in an important life experience. Hisoka is there for a very different reason. Hisoka is going through his Saturn return. He is there to prove his experience.

And this is how we meet them—Gon and Killua are untrained and naive hunters. Hisoka is depicted as a very experienced killer. When Gon snatches Hisoka’s badge off of him, his triumph is that he is able to rise up to the challenge of Saturn in a way that makes Saturn notice him. A lot of how Gon’s actions are driven in the earlier episodes are about rising up to the challenges that Saturn figures in his life give to him. He takes the Hunter Exam at the same age that his father took his and he trains at Heaven’s Arena so that he can fight Hisoka. In mythology, Jupiter defeated Saturn. Gon doesn’t want to become his father—he wants to defeat him. That’s what the impending fight with Hisoka made him realize.

Hisoka is actually having a really nice Saturn return when we meet him. He is driven to the Exam by his bloodlust, because he wants to be able to kill with impunity, but he ends up kind of mentoring Gon. His friendship with Illumi appears to already be established since they communicate with walkie talkies in the earlier episodes but it’s possible that they get married sometime while the story is being told. Hisoka also gets a chance to feel as though he is part of a team during the Greed Island arc, which is something that this character has always had an issue with. According to the unofficial backstory, Hisoka was adopted into a group of circus performers but ended up killing the leader of the troupe. He is driven to kill another troupe leader, Chrollo, but while he is waiting for Chrollo to regain his powers he ends up finding himself on a team playing dodgeball with Gon and Killua.

Unfortunately, Hisoka doesn’t learn from this experience. He still wants to fight Chrollo despite his experience of being accepted into a group. He doesn’t rise to mentorship and, instead, lets his old desires rule him.

While Hisoka is learning all about group participation and self acceptance through community, Gon and Killua are learning about power. They are just getting started with learning about nen and about the art of aura fighting. The Hunter Exam started a long training process. They train with Wing and then with Bisky before putting that power into practice in the Chimera Ant arc. They see what it’s like to gain power and they also feel what it is like to lose power.

And Gon and Killua’s journeys have a lot to do with independence. Killua is trying to emancipate himself from him family while Gon is looking for answers about his father. They become enmeshed at some point in the story but, then, they have to realize that they are ultimately looking for different things.

Killua’s Scorpio Moon

Killua is a fucking Cancer! He cares about his family, he is strongly influenced by his mother, and he inherits a family legacy. Killua’s Sun is ruled by his Moon in fall. He happens to come from a family of assassins who keep a tight leash around their children and trains them to kill through torture.

The Zoldyck family estate is a metaphor for Killua’s Scorpio Moon. There are many gates around the estate, each of which weighs several tons. You must enter through the gate or you will be eaten by a giant beast. Once you have gotten past all of the gates, you are likely to be killed by one of the family’s highly effective butlers. Killua’s Scorpio Moon has almost no way in. It’s an obstacle course and it’s designed to keep all but the most daring out.

Chrollo happens to be a Scorpio Sun with a Cancer Moon—the reverse of Killua. What is interesting is that Killua’s mother, like Chrollo, is from Meteor City. From what we know about the inhabitants of Meteor City, they all seem to yearn for family. Killua’s mother is much more obsessive about her children than Silva is. She has spies that keep an eye on them and wears glasses that allow her to oversee the entire estate. Chrollo became a cult leader and formed a chosen family of sorts in Meteor City. Chrollo and Killua are both characters who are known by their relationships with family but, while Killua seeks to liberate himself from his family, Chrollo’s main goal is to protect and keep his family resilient.

While the Zoldycks seem to keep their family intact by protecting it with fortress after fortress, Chrollo’s protection of family is interesting. When Kurapika captures him, he is completely calm. He tells Kurapika that the spider protects itself by sacrificing its own members. The spider is not threatened by the loss of its leader.

While the Moon is about belonging, it's a planet that changes face every night. The Moon’s resilience is not earned through gatekeeping but earned through adaptation. Killua experiences his family’s protection as control. He is not allowed to change and he isn’t allowed to explore. Chrollo, having a domicile Moon, constructs a family that he expects to change, to shed when it needs to, and to heal itself perfectly after loss.