Monster Hunter Orage: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Orage is french for thunderstorm
• Author: Mashima, Hiro
  • Apparently self taught like a chad
  • Absolute workhorse
• Author’s other works:
  • Fairy tale
  • Edens zero
  • Ravemaster
  • Also streams
• Run dates: Apr 4, 2008 to May 2, 2009
  • I was wrong last ep this was his only focus at the time
• Chapters/Volumes: 14 double chapters / 4 volumes
• It premiered in Monthly Shonen Rival which no longer exists
  • 666 Satan, Getbackers and MAgiCo also ran
• Nothing replaced it as magazine was full?
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About the Manga

• Plot
  • Hey do you guys like the video game monster hunter cuz I’ve never played it so I’m assuming this is extremely faithful. As I’m sure all Monster Hunter fans are aware, the main character is Shiki Ryuuhou, a dumb guy with two swords with wind powers. I guess you could say his swordsmanship really blows right David? Anyway he got the swords from his master who wanted to kill a really big bad dragon named Mogaruna or something but then he died when he fucked up crafting gunpowder. Shiki goes to get a new quest in the obligatory Tavern and reveals a tattoo signifying that he is a forbidden hunter; someone who is certified to go anywhere he damn well pleases in order to bring down Mogaruga.
  • There’s a girl in the tavern named Ieri who just wants to be alone but unfortunately the video game world is not immune to misogyny (us gamers right?)  so Shiki and a big douchebag named “the Prince” or “Kowloon” or something both try and recruit her. Shiki follows her when she goes hunting and saves her from a surprise dragon so she follows him and discovers that Shiki’s idiot master was her idiot father!
  • The two meet a girl named Sakuya who’s the daughter of a blacksmith and wants to kill a dragon for revenge purposes. They kill the dragon and Sakuya uses her level 20 skill to enhance their weapons with an additional slot for materia and she joins up with them. Meanwhile that Kowloon guy is grinding his levels when he wanders into a random encounter way above his level. Thankfully though a dude with Ivy from Soul Caliber’s whip sword shows up to save him. He reveals that he is the ultimate lifeform named Shadow and tells Kowloon to join a monster-killing tournament with the prize being a map to Monaruga. The tournament is called the Starbreaker which is a great Judas Priest song.
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  • Irie then has a bunch of PTSD flashbacks about how all her friends stopped talking to her cuz she snitched on them and the gang meets the author of the manga.
  • The gang gets on a pirate ship because this didn’t remind me of one piece enough, and Irie is transphobic to a really weird comic relief character because this didn’t remind me of One Piece enough. Honestly none of this shit matters or comes back, it’s mainly notable because the pirate ship rulebook arbitrarily demands that all the girls wear bikinis because this didn’t remind me of one piece enough.
  • Then they go to a new town and meet another old black smith who upgrades their weapons with additional buffs while remembering when he met Irie’s stupid dad who revealed that his cool tattoo was just sharpie. Shiki and the gang kill a leopard mutant or something when he suddenly remembers that he’s an orphan.
  • 
    
  • Flash cut to Kowloon who has finally become a forbidden hunter and does the Starbreaker tournament. After he wins it however, Shadow reveals that he ran the contest and it’s all a trap to make money or something. But actually it’s a double trap because Kowloon wore a wire and the cops jump in to arrest him so I guess there was nothing to worry about with him.
  • The gang meets Zack and Emil, two hunters who do nothing and I honestly don’t know why I even brought them up
  • Everyone thinks they have a lead on Masharona so Shiki, Sakuya, and Irie storm a bunch of old ruins and Kowloon shows up too to prove he’s cool and they fight a normal dragon. But then they kill the normal dragon and there’s only one chapter left so suddenly Macaroona appears and they kill that thing too.
  • Then the author wrote a really popular manga about it that went for 13 volumes and was read by everyone. Or something. The end.
• Characters
  • Shiki
    • MC
    • Very emotional
    • Drifter
    • Dual weilds wind swords which is a very big deal?
    • A forbidden hunter, can go into any hunt
    • Clone of luffy
      • Except horny
    • I think his name roughly translates to “hopeful rider of the dragon phoenix” or something which is rad but I could be very wrong
    • Kind of a dick. Makes a bunch of jokes about Irie not knowing her dad. But I’m kinda okay with it because he’s clearly not doing it on purpose and she gives it back to him?
  • Irie
    • Tsundere probably
    • Doesn’t take shit from people
    • Father was Shiki’s master
    • Clone of nami
    • Banned from becoming a forbidden hunter cause she a snitch
      • Is she a snitch I have literally no idea
    • Her being greedy makes
  • Sakuya
    • Was sick now thicc
    • Gunner
    • Thought she had a deadbeat dad but it turns out he was just dead
    • Token sweet girl with big titties
  • Kowloon
    • Blatantly evil
    • Wants to literally ruin the food chain
    • People call him prince
    • Kwloons Tower defense
    • Was like fuck you evil dude then did his own thing
  • Shadow
    • Big bad guy
    • Wants the wind weapon
    • Obliterates everything that’s not his friend
    • It’s his world
    • I think he was one of the guys in Irie’s flashback?
    • Goes ABSOLUTELY nowhere

Why it failed

• The writing just feels kind of frantic and very “anime” with big emotions all the time
• The pacing of this chapter feels very slow like they talk a lot about how they won’t work together
• This first chapter just felt very bland, almost nothing happens besides characters heavy handed showing their personality and exposition
• I dislike the character designs they just feel very busy
• The writing is inconsistent, like the author wants to attribute some joke where the MC is dumb and takes malice as positives but it only happens once with the blinding thing
• I get it’s the artist’s style but this just looks like he’s photoshopping fairtail art
• All the videogame mechanics are not explained in the actual world
• Holy shit does this author pad things out to be 40 pages
• It’s crazy how blatant the fan service is or how sexist it is
• How are you already having two part fights in the second chapter of a monthly series
• Irie backstory sucks
• This series has the general problem where characters and plot elements only exist as needed, like Iries entire plot arc about ratting out her friends exists for 2 chapters
• Why is there 2 different upgrade focused chapters in 7 chapters
• I literally don’t know the point of the plot of this manga
• It has so much action but it’s boring the art is just visually interesting it’s just the MC charging at opponents
• This series literally shortcuts every plot element and I don’t know why
• The author def thinks he’s a better author than he is, like the writing cannot hold up on its own
• I’m so sick of video game mechanics in manga. There’s never a good explanation for them it’s entirely based on the reader’s prior experience with video games. I have to give this one a bit of a pass because it’s literally based on a video game but it still drags the manga down because I’ve never played monster hunter.

What it did well

• Art’s competent? Some splash pages look solid
• I can appreciate sakuya being dumb shonen protag but female
• I like how prince was like fuck you blatantly evil guy
• Skipped the hunter exam
• What’s interesting to me is how, while this is not a good manga, it is still leaps and bounds above a lot of the shit we read.
• It shows that even in his sleep a talented author just knows how to keep his work from being totally unreadable trash.

Where it could have gone

• Make this normal 20 page chapters
• Talk more about environmentalism, that’s a reasonable excuse for hunting licenses and whatnot
• Have some sort of ramping of monster danger this is golem hearts all over again
• I like the idea of them making weapons from the monsters they fight lets see more of that! Shit be like fantasy engineering manga, maybe about protags that are too weak to fight otherwise. Imagine delicious in the dungeons but about weapons
• Have some fucking structure and purpose, this feels like the worst of stardust crusaders roadtrip
• Show the actual fauna behaving besides being monsters like show how it's a delicate balance to maintain and they still need to be respected

Misc Thoughts

• One dude just has a giant gun I guess?
• Oh wow a cowardly artist with weird tools, where have I seen that before
• This series has monsters not in MH which is weird
• Maxy Bee thoughts:
  • Came out a month after freedom unite on PSP, which sold crazy good
  • The protagonist follows Mashima’s seasonal naming conventions, but instead of being a clear season like Haru (spring) or Natsu (summer), he’s literally just Shiki (seasons). Mashima must have like the name, as he reuses it in edens zero for that series’ main character.
• THE MASTER’S GUNPOWDER MIXING NEVER COMES BACK
  • IRIE TALKS TO SOMEONE AT SOME POINT AND IS LIKE “damn don’t you think it’s weird that my dad died via gunpowder mixing?” AND IT MEANS NOTHING

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker: All the excitement of plain porr-age
    • Maxybee: Pre-insect glaive monster hunter? No thanks.
    • The laughing fool: Who did he plagiarize this time?
    • Duderocks: TRIes & Fails to RISE from mediocrity
    • 
      
    • 
      
  • David: orang juice not worth the squeeze
    • It’s contractually required to hunt monsters
  • Jordan: look, a paycheck is a paycheck
    • Manga hotties taking down bad dragons
  • Guest:
• Flop or not
  • Flop, go read HxH inb4 jordan
  • Flop, go watch Pokemon
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about
  • Na it’s mid

Shoutouts

• Thank the guest, guest plug
• Props to Jordan for making the opening and ending theme, being a great co-host, and helping with editing
• Props to Mer Liel for the awesome cover art, you can find her online at liel_mer, and Nigel for being our generous art benefactor
• Thank you Dylan for assistance with editing, you can find his podcast Anime Out of Context at animeoutofcontext.com
• Thanks to Tucker and MaxyBee for assistance with pronunciation, translation, and other miscellaneous research
• Thanks to T-root, Ozyrat, and Twolfwood for being our awesome transcription volunteers, you can find them on our site as they become available
• Jordan thanks David for editing, anything else Jordan wants to talk about
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