Metallica Metalluca: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• About the manga title:
  • The first word is pretty obvious as being the Latin for  “pertaining to metals” and being reminiscent of the famous band. The second word makes more sense in Japanese, since the English word “metal” is pronounced as “me-ta-ɾɯ” (see the new reference notes below for more info about these symbols!), and slapping on a “ka” at the end to match the first word makes it contain the name of the protagonist, Luca (or ɾɯka, as it’s pronounced in Japanese.).
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• Author: Mizuno, Teruaki (Mee-zɯ-no, Teh-ɾɯ-ah-kee)
  • Who they were assistant to:
    • Shohei Ishioka (Belmonde le Visiteur)
    • Toshiaki Iwashiro (Psyren) - apparently a lot of people we’ll likely cover worked for him
    • Yuki Tabata (Black Clover) - Tabata is really good about giving credit, what a chad as maxybee says
  • Who they had as assistants:
    • Kentaro Sato (Magical Girl Site)
    • Atsushi Namikiri (Switch, Red Blue)
    • Naoya Matsumoto (Kaiju no.8)
• Author’s other works:
  • Metalica Metaluca is their debut serialisation, but Mizuno has had some one-shots published from 2001-2008, so it took a while for the man’s career to launch.
  • Chosoku Henkei Gyrozetter
  • Marvel’s Future Avengers
  • Good Morning! Poop-sensei
  • They make a lot of adaption manga
• Run dates: May 17, 2010 to Sep 13, 2010
  • Series it replaced:
    • Super Dog Rilenthal by Daisuke Ashihara (of World Trigger fame)
  • Series that replaced it:
    • Light Wing by Hideo Shinkai (of Earthchild fame)
• Chapters/Volumes: 17/3

About the Manga

• Plot
  • The entire world revolves around rare metals which are sought after by these people named Mineas. Mineas are heroes who can go anywhere and do anything like Hunters from Hxh as in literally the same. Luca is a kid who wants to be a Minea, and after saving a town from some jerks who want to take rare metals for themselves, he reveals that he’s a member of the Metallica clan, a mostly extinct tribe with the power to bend and shape metal with their bare hands. Luca sets off for metal city so he can become a Minea. On the way, Luca runs into a brilliant treasure hunter named Shino who the author constantly reminds us has big boobs and a butt. Like Bulma. Again, literally the same as Bulma. After arriving to metal city the two split up and Luca meets Gatou, a blacksmith who wants to be a metal sculptor but his dad doesn’t like it. Luca and Gatou break into the mayor’s house so Luca can forge his name on the hunter exam list because he didn’t realize you had to sign up a month before the exam (I’m not even gonna call it the minea exam because it’s such a shameless ripoff).
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  • Unfortunately he’s too late but in a shocking twist of fate, Shino is the daughter of the mayor and uses the power of nepotism to try and convince her dad to let him take it. The mayor is hesitant until he discovers that Luca’s dad is the legendary minea “Balk” creating a rare double nepotism combo that the mayor can’t defeat, so Luca is allowed to take the exam. He is conveniently allowed to bring two assistants with him so he grabs the only two other characters, Gatou and Shino, to join him. What separates the minea exam from the hunter exam is that mineas have arm bands that create safety bubbles if they’re ever in danger in order to reduce the stakes so the reader doesn’t get too excited. Luca, Shino and Gatou make it through a dangerous forest with electrical beasts (the jolteons of let’s play) and make it to the next round where a minea who can smell metal tells them to look around a volcano for rare metals in order to advance. Everyone else goes for the easy grade C shit, but Shino convinces Luca to get some some of that loud grade B metal inside of the volcano. While there, a strong friendly idiot taking the exam removes some metal that was plugging up the volcano, causing it to erupt.
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  • Luca and the gang escape by helping a wounded baby dragon and following it to its parent who is conveniently hanging out around some rare metal. Uh oh tho cuz an evil candidate named Gein who is just Hisoka appears to take it all for himself. He then reveals that the Metallica clan has a really really stupid weakness where if they’re not touching rare metal at all times they will petrify into metal. So Gein burns away Luca’s shoes with rare metal in them and he starts to petrify, but as time runs out on the test Luca appears on the dragon’s back with some invisible rare metal that conveniently was right next to it the whole time. Round 2 of the exam has them trying to escape from a prison made from a memory alloy which causes it to move all over the place and shift around. They get around this by crafting a complex key which somehow makes everything work I didn’t really get it. Then we flash forward a bunch of years and Luca, now an experienced minea, is climbing up a huge mountain to meet his dad who has used an ultra rare metal to literally become metal. Apparently he’s not “really” his dad maybe. I think. That’s seriously the end.
• Characters
  • Luca
    • Gon. But dumb?
    • Got dem special boots
    • Super strong
    • Special mallet hand that can reshape meta
    • His dad inspired him to be a hunter are you kidding mel
  • Shino
    • Good shot
    • Cares for animals
    • Has magic sleeping stuff
    • Cowardly
    • Dumb
    • Nami ripoff
    • The series really sexualizes her for no reason like it goes out of it's way
    • Grandpa runs the mineia
    • Uses her boobs to convince people of tbings
  • Gatou (Gah-toe)
    • Hoverboard guy
    • Punk kid
    • Liar

Why it failed

• So much white in the pages
• Art has weird proportions
• I think this manga is secretly libertarian with anti regulation
• This is somehow lower effort than build king
• Ugh why does every series have 2d bad guys
• Lucas power legitimately trivializes the entire power system
• What is the point of any of this
• Is there any actual character agency? Every event is due to something happening to a character
• Why do examines need assistants? If it's just as dangerous just do the exam yourself
• The paneling is so bad I barely can follow it
• In true togashi style the artwork even falls apart

What it did well

• Art is ok? It kinda looks like if zan artist could draw
• Rarely there's good art but the artist is very lazy or something
• I liked that they used a rail gun to defeat the tigers that was kinda the only interesting thing to happen in the manga

Where it could have gone

• Ok what if the mc got eaten by the bird and got reincarnated into a better manga series. Actually the idea of a poorly written character being reincarnated into a more interesting world sounds cool
• What if they actually applied these magic materials to the industrial revolution or something idk just show how super materials sped up development like korra
• Have him not become a hunter it could have been like what's it like to be a non hunter in hxh and deal with those limitations which adds impact later on
• Introduce the metals and find interesting uses, it's so lazy to introduce something for when it's exactly needed

Misc Thoughts

• Is this opening a ripoff of hunter x hunter?
• Lmao people say this is a op ripoff and it has Luffy on the cover
• How did the crossbow lady already have an appropriate dose of sleeping medicine in her crossbow for an animal they weren't hunting for
• This mf legit got transparent aluminum
• It's interesting how dumb authors think everyone is as unintelligent as him like the president fake out in chapter 4
• It's so weird being dropped from an airplane during an exam arc is a trope
• Maxy Bee thoughts:
  • The one-shot for this won the 2009 Golden Future Cup, continuing that award’s legacy of failure. Seriously, like two successes have come directly out of the cup since its inception almost two decades ago.
  • Minea might seem like a typo of ‘miner’, but it’s written as ミネア, which is said like the first half of mineral with an ah at the end. It’s also written as 鋼探索士 (Hagane tansaku-shi), which is just ‘steel explorer’, in case you wondered what a minea even is.
  • Starting a new test stage with only a couple chapters left kind of gave away that we were getting a King Crimson effect, and so time skips forward to a completely fucking bananas ending.
• Twolf Notes:
  • iron is either fairly soft or really hard so the hammer Luca made would either bend or shatter upon being used
  • phylomium has the ability to be stretched into wires when really hot... just like all metals
  • they used silver bromide in old photography to make photographs. could have said that instead of making up photometal
  • bit of "realism" with the solenoid. it checks out, wish there was more of this
  • Gransten does exist in our world but with a different name; Wolfram aka Tungsten. It's used a lot for its extremely high heat and wear resistant properties but is also extremely heavy

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker: Manga about minor miner, my nerd
    • Maxybee: Did not rock, a lead balloon
    • Twolfwood: Magic metals pales compared to metallurgy
    • Thores: Goku, Bulma, and Yamcha’s Hunter Exam
    • Meru: Metal shoes go brrrrrrrrrrr
    • Chicken Warlord: Essentially Hunt Ore X Hunt Ore
    • Duderocks: Dull, unrefined, ain’t no hidden gem
    • Orange: look at this trashinium i found
    • Riel: Just listen to the band instead.
    • Cram: generic x bland: a dull story
    • Glowstickpopper: How to Draw Anime: The Manga
    • Yeti: Mediocre manga misuses magical metallurgy melodramatically.
    • Tree: Female? Sexualized. Shonen? Jumped. Publication? Axed.
    • Joman: I’ll be king of the blacksmiths (with help from Duderocks) | Just go watch Forged in Fire
    • RileyOfPi: A manga as solid as mercury
    • Resident Warhammer Nerd: Just go listen to metal instead
    • Lia: A lot of metal but no punch.
  • David:
    • Album title: Death (of creativity) magnetic
    • Ok, what if you ripoff hxh this time?
  • Jordan:
    • Oh yeah it’s a load alright
    • Hunter x hunter x build king
  • Guest:
• Flop or not
  • If flop, what they could read instead
    • Hxh lmao
    • Actually witch hat altier
  • If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about