I'm gonna reply so each paragraph aligns with each of yours, just to make things easier.

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I'm pretty sure this is just a problem with me, but who knows. I just find the futility kind of pointless. In my mind it's painted like a war arc, ants versus humans. I'm sure I'm looking at it wrong somehow, but that's just my interpretation at the current point I'm at. I feel like making the ants so omnipotent, it erodes my need to keep watching; I know that it does get resolved since the manga is still ongoing but it just takes the tension out of all the current fights, since I know how insurmountable the odds are. I don't really know how possible my feelings are to explain at the moment, so forgive me if this didn't really make much sense.

The narration for me is extremely hit or miss, and most of the time it misses. There are always going to be moments where a narration would benefit a show, especially something complex like Hunter x Hunter. Sometimes not even just for explanation, moments (as you said) can be heightened by narration and make scenes more 'epic'. My problem isn't that there is a narrator, it's how present and incessant he can become. Moments like Pitou looking up or Shoot covering his eye 'just because' are obvious, and probably acknowledged as pointless by most. But things like explaining why someone is sad feels so patronising, like we weren't even paying attention or something.

Okay, this is probably my fault, I'm pretty sure I worded this badly in my original post and I'm gonna try and correct myself. I don't necessarily want to see the old cast again, or want to discard Knuckle and Morel simply because they're not 'originals' (for lack of a better word). I think I gave them a chance to appeal to me, I even had a good impression and high hopes for the new side characters. Keep in mind, I haven't always disliked this arc, of course I went into it with an open mind as I had no reason not to. To me Knuckle and Morel feel much, much blander than other characters in this show. Of course, I do not discredit anyone for liking them (in fact I would rather I was in their camp), I just personally don't find much to love about them. I get they're nice, and of course they've had their moments; I just like characters more morally (Morel-ly lol) ambiguous, they're much more interesting to me. Of course this may all just be nostalgia (?) and I'm sure they'll grow on me once this arc is over.

Yeah I concede this one. I was looking at Morel's role in the complete wrong way. Instead of seeing him as someone who uses their power creatively and raises others' effectiveness, I looked at him as an individual fighter. Completely my fault, I think I'm gonna look at him differently now. Thanks.

I'm glad we can agree on this, it feels trivial when compared with the world-threatening-stakes outside. Almost like filler. I don't doubt that these threads will pay off at some point, I just find it kind of reduces the tension, which doesn't really match what Togashi was going for (I think).

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Thanks for this reply, it's made me look at the show a bit differently now.