Adaptation is the name of the game these days, especially when it comes to video games. Despite this, and itsprevious ventures into anime and manga, One of Japan’s biggest video game franchises seems shy to participate.
Monster Hunteris a juggernaut in more ways than one. Sales wise,Monster Hunter Worldbecame 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’shad a big influencein 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.
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Monster Hunter In Manga
A little-known fact, even within theMonster Huntercommunity, is that the series actually had a short manga based on it.Monster Hunter Oragewas 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 byFairy Tailcreator Hiro Mashima, who seems to be one of manyMonster Hunterfans in the manga world.
SinceMonster Huntergames star creatable characters, they lack a definitive protagonist. This allowedOrageto create its own protagonist, Shiki Ryuho. Much like your average shonen protagonist, he’s a young man with a strong will and a desire toprotect 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,Oragedidn’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 theMonster Hunter Stories: Ride On!anime series that was released back in 2016 and produced by David Productions of Jojo fame. While the idea of aMonster Hunteranime produced by David Productions seems like exactly what fans might want, there are several caveats. Firstly,Ride OnIsn’t actually based on the main seriesMonster Huntergames. It follows the plot and characters ofMonster Hunter Stories, a turn based RPG spin-off. Whereas the main series follows Hunters protecting the ecosystem and human settlements from monster activity,Storiesfollows Riders who formPokemon-esque bonds with monsters, and fight alongside them in battle.
UnlikeOrage,Ride Ondid 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 thatRide Onhad 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 Onfollows a veryPokemon-esque formula, being a cartoony show mostly marketed towards children; a far cry fromMonster Hunter’s usual teen to adult audience. Despite the release ofMonster Hunter Stories 2however, we haven’t heard anything about a sequel series toRide 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 Guildis 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 Guildwas 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 inMonster Hunter 4,Monster Hunter GenerationsandMonster Hunter World, making him the most relevant NPC in the series.Legends of the Guildtells 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?
Oragehas a compelling goal for the characters, but lacks much intrigue.Ride Onhas a wonderful artstyle, but has a much different feel to the mainMonster Huntergames.Legends of the Guildhad the tone and characters right,but its animation qualityand 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 greatMonster Hunteranime, 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 likeCastlevaniaandArcanewhich are more adult in tone, they might see the potential for success with the right showrunner.Castlevania’s creator has been working on aDevil May Cryanime, so if that series is a success, the door might open to even more of Capcom’s properties to hit the animated sphere.
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