Adaptation is the name of the game these days, especially when it comes to video games. Despite this, and its previous ventures into anime and manga, One of Japan’s biggest video game franchises seems shy to participate.
Monster Hunter is a juggernaut in more ways than one. Sales wise, Monster Hunter World became Capcom’s best-selling game of all time, and the series as a whole is only second to Resident Evil on Capcom’s sales charts. Culturally, it’s had a big influence in Japan for years, being a favorite portable option for commuters and inspiring an entire sub-genre of games. So, it would seem like a prime candidate for the anime world. Yet, while it has played with the idea, it has never fully committed.
Monster Hunter In Manga
A little-known fact, even within the Monster Hunter community, is that the series actually had a short manga based on it. Monster Hunter Orage was released in Shonen Rival magazine in 2008, and ran until 2009. It was only 14 chapters and 4 volumes long, but had the clout of being written and illustrated by Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima, who seems to be one of many Monster Hunter fans in the manga world.
Since Monster Hunter games star creatable characters, they lack a definitive protagonist. This allowed Orage to create its own protagonist, Shiki Ryuho. Much like your average shonen protagonist, he’s a young man with a strong will and a desire to protect and honor those close to him. The short series sees Shiki building a small hunting party of his own, in his goal to find a legendary monster that his deceased master was seeking. It takes a lot of liberties from the source material, inventing new monsters, concepts and even a new weapon. For whatever reason though, Orage didn’t seem to be popular or interesting enough for Capcom or Kodansha, leading to its extremely short run.
Monster Hunter In Anime
The major discussion topic here is the Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On! Anime series that was released back in 2016 and produced by David Productions of Jojo fame. While the idea of a Monster Hunter anime produced by David Productions seems like exactly what fans might want, there are several caveats. Firstly, Ride On Isn’t actually based on the main series Monster Hunter games. It follows the plot and characters of Monster Hunter Stories, a turn based RPG spin-off. Whereas the main series follows Hunters protecting the ecosystem and human settlements from monster activity, Stories follows Riders who form Pokemon-esque bonds with monsters, and fight alongside them in battle.
Unlike Orage, Ride On did get a lot of support. It aired a total of 48 episodes, full-fledged length for your average lengthy anime. In fact, some anime are lucky to get 12 or even 24 episodes, meaning that Ride On had a serious budget put into it. And there are signs it may have been planned to receive as many as 75 episodes. Much like the game it was based on, Ride On follows a very Pokemon-esque formula, being a cartoony show mostly marketed towards children; a far cry from Monster Hunter’s usual teen to adult audience. Despite the release of Monster Hunter Stories 2 however, we haven’t heard anything about a sequel series to Ride On, implying that Capcom may have not wanted to continue the series, possibly due to low ratings or some other factors.
While it technically doesn’t count as an anime, Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild is also worth mentioning, as it is the latest attempt to adapt the series into an animated format. Produced by Pure Imagination Studios and released on Netflix, Legends of the Guild was originally teased in 2018, and scheduled for 2019. For unknown reasons, the movie ended up being pushed back all the way to 2021, with little explanation as to why. It is the closest the series has come to a direct adaptation, featuring characters from the games instead of new ones, and following events that are canonical to the main series. The protagonist of the film, Aiden, was an NPC in Monster Hunter 4, Monster Hunter Generations and M onster Hunter World, making him the most relevant NPC in the series. Legends of the Guild tells the story of how Aiden became a Hunter, and pays detailed homage to many aspects of the games, making it quite popular with fans despite its poor production value.
Will We Ever Get A Full Anime?
Orage has a compelling goal for the characters, but lacks much intrigue. Ride On has a wonderful artstyle, but has a much different feel to the main Monster Hunter games. Legends of the Guild had the tone and characters right, but its animation quality and length leaves a lot to be desired. All the anime and manga avenues the series has gone through all have a portion of what would make a great Monster Hunter anime, but also something that held them back.
It also seems like Capcom itself is unwilling to commit to a proper anime series. They held back on all 3 of these projects, and right now we don’t have any information on whether they will try again. However, with the success of video game adaptations like Castlevania and Arcane which are more adult in tone, they might see the potential for success with the right showrunner. Castlevania’s creator has been working on a Devil May Cry anime, so if that series is a success, the door might open to even more of Capcom’s properties to hit the animated sphere.