Monster Hunter: Legends Of The Guild - What We Know So Far

By most fans' estimations, Capcom's "Monster Hunter" franchise had a rough go of things during its 2020 big screen adaptation. Sure, there were big swords and marginally bigger monsters, but the better part of two decades' worth of in-game universe building was largely scrapped in favor of a story about people from Earth being transported to an unfamiliar world for the sake of audience surrogacy. All the giant cutlery in the world can't save a potential franchise from narrative parallels to the "Super Mario Bros." movie.

Luckily, we live in an age where an underwhelming critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes is just the universe's way of saying "try again later with an animated Netflix project," and the world of "Monster Hunter" is set to return in a shiny new CGI format. "Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild" brings visual effects veteran Steve Yamamoto into the director's chair, with a script from "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" scribe Joshua Fine.

So what do we know about the film so far? Let's take a look.

The first trailer for "Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild" hit the internet like a very large sword hitting a very large monster in July of 2021. Even better, it brought good tidings: Fans wouldn't have long to wait before the animated story was available to stream.

Currently, "Monster Hunter: Legend of the Guild" is slated for an August 12, 2021 Netflix debut. While it's the only original production scheduled to hit streaming on that particular date, it does put the animated feature on course to compete with a few other big name Netflix projects arriving around the same time. August 4 sees the premiere of the streaming service's "Cooking with Paris," in which celebrity guests help Paris Hilton as she works her way around the kitchen. On August 11, season three of "Kissing Booth" hits the platform. A week and change after "Monster Hunter" becomes available, the Netflix original thriller "Sweet Girl" starring Jason Momoa debuts, currently eyeing an August 20 premiere. Luckily, few if any of these will offer up the same level of monster huntery that "Monster Hunter" brings to the table, although the Paris Hilton show has the potential to take a sharp left turn and surprise all of us.

Looking to find out who stars in Netflix's "Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild?" Well, look no further. The hour-long animated film features a bevy of voice talent. You want Ben Rausch? You've got him. Erica Lindbeck, who worked on Netflix's "Pacific Rim: The Black" as Loa and voiced Black Cat in the Playstation "Spider-Man" game? Also very much accounted for. Brando Eaton, perhaps best known as the son of Arthur Mitchell on "Dexter," voices a seasoned hunter named Julius here, and Stephen Kramer Glickman of "Oishi: Demon Hunter" voices Nox.

Ubiquitous voice and character performer Karen Strassman adds another notch to her nearly 600-strong list of IMDb credits, playing Genovan in the film. Katie Leigh, who has absolutely done other things besides voicing Rowlf on "Muppet Babies" but bringing them up would be gilding the lily, plays Elder Daazel here. Thanks to an impressive resume of work voicing American dubs of Japanese animes, with credits including "Blue Exorcist," "Sailor Moon Eternal," and "Sword Art Online," Brian Beacock returns to the recording studio to play Navid. It's a veritable who's who of voice actors.

So what's all this monster hunting about, anyhow?

Like any hero's journey, "Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild" kicks off with a young, adventurous spirit, comfortable but possessed of dreams unbefitting of their station in life. Aiden, a villager with a penchant for hunting small things, finds himself and everything that he loves in the path of a terrifying Elder Dragon whose migration path has it on a collision course with the young buck's home.

Luckily, Aiden comes across Julius, an established member of the Hunter's Guild with the rad armor and swords to prove it. Alongside a crew of colorful characters, they'll have to find the weapons, defenses, and courage to slay this terrible beast. If bipedal anthropomorphized cat-people Felynes and a fair number of Kut-ku show up along the way, so much the better. Maybe there's even room for a message about the importance of preserving the balance between man and nature, too. If being more at one with the ecosystem means shooting a dragon to death for an hour, then so be it. "Monster Hunter" has always been pretty clear on that point.