Hunt the Red List
Long, long ago, dragons flew these skies. But we exterminated them. Five hundred years ago... we killed the last one.
The Hunters Guild: Red Hood (レッドフード, Reddo Fūdo) is a manga by former Kōhei Horikoshi assistant Yuki Kawaguchi that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from June to November 2021.
Velou is an idealistic young boy living in Kasoka Village, a small hamlet with frequent werewolf attacks. It's gotten so bad that the mayor decided to hire a hunter from the Hunters Guild, an agency that specializes in hunting monsters of all kinds. The hunter who arrives, Grimm, doesn't seem like much, but proves to be very good at what she does. After assisting her in killing the werewolf, Velou is offered the chance to join the Hunters Guild himself, and help them bring about a day when werewolves are nothing but myth.
Red Hood is Yuki Kawaguchi's first series in Weekly Shonen Jump, and is based on a one-shot which won the 14th Gold Future Cup rookie manga competition. Chapters are officially released in English the same day they are published in Japan, on Manga Plus
(website and app) and Viz Media (website and Shonen Jump app).
The series was canceled in November 2021 due to low readership, ending at 18 chapters.
Tropes:
- Absurd Phobia: Merriopios has a crippling fear of leftovers for some reason.
- Achilles' Heel: You would think silver would be the werewolves' weakness, and indeed it can slow down their regeneration ability, but it turns out there's another metal far deadlier to them called wolfonium.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- As seems to be increasingly common in modern media, Cinderella gets this treatment, here portrayed as an evil witch. However, in the last few chapters, she ends up joining forces with the Hunters Guild out of necessity to stop Horlock/Geppetto. She still promises to fight Grimm again afterward, though.
- Geppetto becomes the overarching antagonist of the series, having created Velou as part of a convoluted plan to destroy the entire world.
- Always Chaotic Evil: All werewolves are man-eating monsters lacking any redeeming qualities, justifying the need to exterminate them...at least, until Lycaon showed himself.
- And Show It to You: Dodou demonstrates to Velou and Grimm how werewolves' weakness is their heart by ripping out Naraoia's heart and crushing it, killing Naraoia instantly.
- And the Adventure Continues: The book that dictates the world is destroyed and the world's fate is left to whatever its inhabitants make it out to be. But werewolves are still a thing, so Grimm and Velou get ready to go on the hunt.
- Artistic License – Marine Biology: In Chapter 8, a gigantic manta ray appears and tries to swallow the Ironworks. In real life, manta rays are filter feeders that live off plankton, similar to baleen whales.
- Artistic License – Physics: The Ironworks is a giant box-shaped building sitting on top of a train car. The building is supported entirely by beams, and there's even a gap in between the building and the car. Somehow, it doesn't collapse under its own weight, it doesn't capsize when it makes a turn, and the giant box doesn't appear to have any aerodynamic issues. In Chapter 8, the Ironworks is briefly shown crossing a high railway bridge without any problems.
- Author Powers: The mayor may have these, as Cinderella and Lycaon alluded to in Chapter 8
- Badass Decay: Intentionally invoked against Grimm. As part of the villain's plot, Grimm slowly became slower on the uptake and less capable the more time she spent with Velou.
- Bait-and-Switch: In chapter 4, when Lycaon and Cinderella first arrive in his hamlet, Velou narrates that he could never forget that day, when so many lives were lost and everything he knew was reduced to ash. It sounds like the two of them are going to massacre the entire village save Velou, but in chapter 5 Velou and Grimm are able to evacuate all the villagers away from the hamlet, which is instead burned down to the ground by Cinderella's flames on Lycaon's request to make a fitting funeral pyre for his sons. However, with no homes and no way of sustaining themselves, the villagers are forced to leave to find new livelihoods elsewhere effectively killing the village without any loss of life. Grim does comment that some villagers are missing in the chaos, but it's left unconfirmed if they died or wandered off elsewhere to seek shelter.
- Base on Wheels: Technically on tracks, but the Hunter's Guild training facility Ironworks trundles along under its own power.
- Chekhov's Gun: The gas shells Grimm uses as a smokescreen to blind Dodou's eyes and nose in chapter 3 get used to turn a nearby house's chimney into an improvised cannon to blast Dodou with in Chapter 4.
- Cut Short: It's obvious the manga was aiming for a longer narrative, but the cancellation forced the author to fast forward to the final encounter and wrap up things prematurely.
- Deconstructed Trope: Silver as a werewolves' weakness. Silver does indeed have a use against werewolves like the usual legends say as it prevents them from regenerating, but as the actual precious metal isn't very dense, it isn't a very effective weapon against werewolves' hide and flesh (which are much tougher than humans, hence why they're a threat). Thus, Hunters instead use the heavier wolfonium in their anti-werewolf weapons.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo:
- Cinderella and Lycaon suddenly show up at the end of the fourth chapter and attack Kasoka Village. Chapter 8 revealed they intentionally Invoked this to achieve the Doomed Hometown portion of Velou's tale necessary to galvanise him to join the hunter's guild, as whatever changes Horlock made to their plans by including Dodou and the rest in the tale ended up leaving all 3 werewolves dead and nobody else from the village harmed, saved the Mayor, who had faked his death at that point, thus Velou had no reason to start his journey.
- Monsters have a tendency to just show up out of the blue. So far, Chapter 6 had the Giant Enemy Crab, and Chapter 8 has a giant manta ray.
- Didn't See That Coming: Dodou's plan in the second chapter was to slip in among the humans while Naraoia acted as a diversion. He didn't count on Velou knowing everyone in the hamlet, and thus being able to realize that he wasn't from around there.
- Fairytale Motifs: The series is based on Little Red Riding Hood as the title and main antagonists being (were)wolves makes clear. Had the manga not been forced to end early, it's fair to assume that other fairy tales and works of The Brothers Grimm would have been brought in, what with a protagonist named Grimm, a person named Red Hood who founded the Hunters Guild, and a witch named Cinderella in it.
- Fat and Skinny: Naraoia and Dodou, the two werewolves who threaten the hamlet in Chapters 2-4.
- Festering Fungus: Merriopios the Mycologist's weapons are the variety of slime moulds he keeps on his person that have various effects dependant on the type used, from rusting metal, to rapidly growing hair, to making frictionless goo or rock-hard sealant. He also notes that they double as his research subjects and friends as well.
- Friendly Fireproof: Averted. Debonair put herself through Training from Hell to master her curse and use it as a weapon, but part of the reason she's the conductor of the Ironworks is that it's only in wide-open spaces away from people that she can display her full power, like the sea, otherwise she risks roasting those around her. The exam-takers actually use this against her, mobbing her with their larger numbers in tight spaces because if Debonair actually tried to fight back against them seriously, she'd likely kill them by accident, forcing her to flee or hold back to avoid killing them and giving them an opportunity to steal the handcuffs she's using to arrest them.
- Giant Enemy Crab: While en route to Hunter's HQ in Chapter 6, Velou and Grimm are attacked by an armored crab that wears a tank as a shell. However, the actual attacker is a smaller crab that mans the still-functioning cannon atop the tank against them, and wears a human skull as a shell.
- Godzilla Threshold: After learning what Horlock's true plan is, Cinderella immediately goes to warn the Hunters Guild and form a truce with them, playing a role in his ultimate defeat.
- Healing Factor: Werewolves are able to regenerate from their wounds, which means ordinary weapons can't kill them. Dodou even uses this to his advantage, pointing out how muscles fibres grow back stronger once they're broken and damaged, shredding himself with his claws and letting his own healing factor regrow the muscles back twice as strong to turn himself into a super-buff version of his normal form. He notes the only downside is that it makes him incredibly hungry from the energy drain needed to power his healing abilities.
- The Hero: Velou, as a young, naive but idealistic youth starting his life as a trainee hunter. However, it's deconstructed, as it's revealed that Velou is intentionally being made into this, being secretly trained to make his body combat capable without him knowing, being left a Tragic Keepsake of his father figure that's secretly made of the monster's Achilies Heel as his Signature Weapon, and with Grimm being summoned to the village right as it's under attack from multiple werewolves, and eventually Lycaon and Cinderella who raze the village to the ground, leaving Velou Homeless and with his father figure apparently dead as the only casualty of the attack— except That's a lie. Thus motivated by anger against the Red List, Velou decides to join the hunter's guild—which is exactly what Horlock, Lycaon and Cinderella wanted all along, to craft the story's narrative around him. For her part, Grimm can tell something's up with all the suspicious Contrived Coincidence occurring around Velou since her arrival, and takes him along with her mainly because she wants to find out the truth about him and what was going on with his hamlet.
- The Hero's Journey: Chapter 8 reveals that This is apparently being invoked by Mayor Horlock in conjunction with Lycaon and Cinderella, in order to achieve a shared goal that apparently requires Velou to join the hunter's guild. They even use terms like 'editing the script' 'adjusting the story for coherence' and 'wasting precious page space' to refer to Horlock's actions in modifying Velou's origin story to include Dodou and the other werewolves, which was apparently not the plan they had before hand, and Cinderella outright asks Horlock what he's trying to do with Velou's 'story' outright implying that they're intentionally manipulating Velou into becoming a standard fairytale fantasy hero for their own ends.
- Horse of a Different Colour: The guild owns giant hermit crabs with carriages acting as their shells, allowing humans to ride them. The one the main characters ride, named Amber, is
surprisingly adorable for a giant crustacean. - Hungry Menace: Werewolves have to eat humans to survive. When Velou denies the possibility that one of the villagers is werewolf because everyone in the village is a good person Grimm points out that morality has nothing to do with how werewolves operate, if they don't eat humans they'll die.
- Improbable Weapon User: Grimm uses a bell as a weapon in the second chapter.
- Just a Kid: Despite Velou best effort to protect and support his village the rest of the village views him as a naive child and doesn't take him seriously. Ironically, it's Grimm, the harden hunter, who sees potential in him and is adamant that he join the hunter guild. The rest of the villages comes around once they see him take on and defeat a werewolf.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Grimm has a nihilistic view of the world, and spends much of the first chapter going on about how justice and heroism don't factor into her job. But, her werewolf-slaying efforts still save lives.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Bonkers, one of Velou's teammates in the hunter trainee exam, has this as his Dark and Troubled Past. He came from a rich family in a town that happened to be devastated by a giant, destroying half the place before being driven back by hunters. His family used their large house to provide shelter for the homeless, with Bonkers giving up his own room to two strangers when there was almost no room left. However, that night, Bonkers discovered the strangers were really thieves who were planning to rob them, and attempted to kill Bonkers himself when he confronted them. In self-defence, Bonkers hit his attacker with the lamp he was holding, setting both their clothes ablaze. In agony, the thief jumped out the window into the pouring rainstorm and died from the fall, where he was found by the rest of the villagers. The surviving thief blamed Bonkers for attempted murder on himself, with the civilians finding a gold watch on the dead thief and thinking that Bonkers had set him on fire and pushed him out the window for stealing a petty trinket. His throat too damaged from the heat of the flames to properly speak and defend himself, Bonker had no choice but to flee from home from the angry mob, taking odd jobs wherever he could to get food and shelter for a night thereafter.
- Lack of Empathy: Grimm doesn't bat an eye at Dodou killing his own brother because she was going to kill him anyway. Likewise, Dodou and most other werewolves shown so far don't give a damn about human life, seeing it only as food.
- Little Red Fighting Hood: Red Hood, the founder of the Hunters Guild, was a legendary monster hunter. The guild's members all don her iconic red cape.
- Literal Metaphor: The gun series that's powerful enough to fire the wolfonium bullets needed to kill werewolves is called the Chekhov series, making them literal Chekhovs Guns.
- Meta Twist: After the manga wound up suffering from poor ratings, it was revealed that The Conspiracy are aware that their species is being observed by a group of gods they call "The Readers", and that if they are not entertaining enough, they will be eradicated. Essentially stating that because the manga did not do well in ratings, it was cancelled.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: They're ravenous, cannibalistic monsters, bringing them closer to wendigos than traditional werewolves. They also possess a healing factor that makes them difficult to kill. They also tend to be really freaky looking.
- Red Herring: The first chapter tries to set up the mayor as the werewolf that's been attacking people. It's actually the old grandma. Then it turns out she wasn't the one that attacked and killed the mayor, because her werewolf form was toothless, and there were teeth marks on the bones left behind once they were done with the mayor's body, so there's actually more than one werewolf attacking the hamlet. Then it turns out that the mayor isn't even dead, and may have been orchestrating the attacks on the hamlet to galvanise Velou to go on a hero's journey from the shadows.
- Red Riding Hood Replica: Grimm wears a red hood and her enemies are wolves. See the resemblance yet?
- Refusal of the Call: Velou initially refuses to go with Grimm to join the Hunters Guild because he wants to stay and protect the hamlet and he doesn't believe the Hunters Guild's plan to exterminate all the werewolves is even possible. Chapter 8 reveals that Cinderella and Lycaon's subsequent attack was specifically to motivate Velou to accept the call, destroying the Hamlet to give Velou no choice but to accept Grimm's offer.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: After the first werewolf is killed, two more show up in the very next chapter. Then in Chapter 4, the instant those have been finished off, an even bigger one appears with a witch in tow and destroys the whole village.
- Spoiler Opening: The first chapter's color pages show off Grimm's adult form well before it's formally introduced, and the chapter still treats it as a surprise toward the end.
- Stupid Evil: Rather than just attack and eat the hunters when he has the chance, Dodou decides to exposit about werewolves' regenerative abilities, and demonstrate exactly how to kill one by ripping Naraoia's heart out. Because of this, the hunters are able to escape, and they now outnumber him 2:1 when they go after him again.
- Swallowed Whole: Happens to Grimm, and almost to Velou, in the first chapter.
- Talking Is a Free Action: In the middle of a fight with a werewolf, Grimm and Velou discussed a plan of how to defeat it in which they exchanged well over 240 words. What makes it even more ridiculous is that the werewolf has Super-Hearing, yet didn't hear any of this. It could be slightly justified in that Doudou implies that he needs to focus to use his hearing to its full potential, and he was too distracted by the smoke fouling up his eyes and nose to listen properly until he'd calmed down a little from losing sight of his prey along with some of his senses. This is the same reason why Velou was able to sneak into the house beneath him to fill it up with gas long enough to blast him with— just because he has super-hearing, doesn't mean that he's using it all the time, especially if his focus isn't on listening.
- Tragic Keepsake: Mayor Horlock's weapon was a small hatchet that he used to chop wood and apparently kill the werewolf that ate Velou's parents. He would often let Velou use it to help him chop wood blocks for the village, and when grimm is swallowed by the Granny werewolf, Velou seizes the Axe after blasting her through the roof of her mouth as a distraction and splits her stomach open chest to groin in a single blow to pull Grimm free, taking it as his own weapon going forward.
- Training from Hell: The three month training camp to become a Hunter is extremely intense. As Tylty and Mylty noted, as many as 200 can enter, but only a few pass. Even the two of them couldn't make it and it's established that they're already highly skilled.
- Unflinching Walk: Grimm after blowing up the first chapter's werewolf is able to walk away from the explosion like a badass, Velou, not so much.
- Was Once a Man: It's unknown how werewolves came into being but what is known is that there were all normal people at one point who suddenly got the urge to eat human flesh and after that they turn into cannibalistic monsters.
- Wham Episode: As early as chapters 7-8, but yes. Not only is it revealed Mayor Horlock is alive, but he's revealed to be in cahoots with Lycaon and Cinderella, in order to achieve the goal of the Red List, which he has in common with them, and everything that happened during the earlier chapters was all done intentionally to invoke The Hero's Journey on Velou, with their plans apparently necessitating he begin his story as a Trainee hunter. Furthermore, their dialogue during the scene gives shades of a Fourth-Wall Observer, with them making references to stories, page space, characters getting rearranged and such, in such a way that hints that they're aware that they're part of a fairy tale, and are attempting to intentionally craft a narrative around Velou for their own ends.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Velou starts out as one, refusing to believe that the werewolf could be one of the villagers
