Book Reviews: Monster Hunter Legion

The Story

About a year after the events of Monster Hunter Alpha, Owen and the rest of MHI are in Las Vegas for the first international monster munters convention. While there they meet hunters from all over the world, all who have been noticing strange happenings across the world. After Owen has a dream about the strange symbol his father told him about, the monster hunters are approached by Stricken, the enigmatic leader of Task Force Unicorn, who sets up a competition for ten million dollars for the first who takes out an unknown monster that massacred a Nevada town. This first encounter pits MHI and their new allies against old and primeval fears as they face their greatest foes yet.

The Review
There's something to be said about waiting until several books in a series are out. As soon as I finished reading Monster Hunter Alpha, I couldn't stop myself from diving right into the E-ARC of Monster Hunter Legion. Unfortunately, now I have to wait even longer for the next book.

Book Reviews: Monster Hunter Alpha

I don't review books anymore. Part of the reason for this is because reviewing books is hard while reviewing manga and anime is easy. Okay that's not the real reason, I've just been narrowing my focus down to animation and comics, as such book reviews have been cut from my roster. It didn't help that my book reviews always underperformed in the views department. Guess the people that find their way here for the cartoon reviews aren't interested in books.

But there is one series I will always make an exception for, and that's the Monster Hunter series, by Larry Correia. It's easily one of my favorite series, if not necessarily my favorite. I don't really do favorites, instead I have a blob of stuff I really like, and what is on top tends to depend entirely on whatever was released most recently.

Monster Hunter Alpha is the first Monster Hunter book that does not follow Owen Pitt. Instead it focuses on Earl Harbinger, the werewolf leader of MHI. When Earl's old army commander finds him, and tells him about an old enemy becoming active again, Earl drives up to (location?) where he becomes involved in a supernatural attack on the local community. Without his professionally trained team to back him up, Earl has to rely on himself and the locals to face a threat unlike any he has ever encountered.

Manga Reviews: Monster Hunter Orage Volume 1

If there is one thing I can't stand, it's manga or graphic novels adapted from another source. My general experience with them has been that they either lack substance, or just copy and paste text from the original source over some pictures.

Because Monster Hunter Orage is an adaptation of a video game, rather than an existing story, the danger it ran was lacking substance, rather than a lazy story adaptation. Instead of retelling an existing story, Hiro Mashima had the creative freedom to do whatever he wanted with the story and characters. And unlike many other adaptive storytellers, Mashima knows how to make a story fun.

On the surface Monster Hunter Orage is a basic shonen story. Shiki is the typical shonen hero, with the weirdness ramped up to twenty, on a quest to defeat the strongest legendary monster, that most don't believe exist. The story isn't delving into deep new territories, but considering this is a video game adaptation, I think a simple, serviceable story works to the manga's advantage.