KingofCharmanders (or KoC for short) is a rather divisive content creator in the MHNow english community. I’ll be honest, I myself am not his greatest fan. A few days back, he uploaded a video titled “THE SAD TRUTH of the Monster Hunter Now English YouTuber Community! GREED AND LIES EXPOSED!“. In this video, he roasted two other content creators. And that video was… Quite bad to say the least. It ended up deleted the following day as, according to a comment under one of his Youtube community post, “[he] was asked to edit some stuff out from the video by the devs and [he]’ll honor that since [he] respect them”.
Honestly, that’s quite the nice move from KoC. And then he reuploaded it. I want to insist on that part: this is an improved, cleaned up version of the original video.
I will show in this article why KoC isn’t that reliable of an info source as he’s rather manipulative and dishonest, the main reason I’m making this article being:
- this video I just pointed out (and downloaded in case KoC would, by any accidental manipulation, make it disappear again)
- him censoring the YT comments to keep looking like some sort of perfect expert on the game
In this article, I will analyze the first part of said video (it’s blatant enough and I don’t need to submit myself to watching this horror longer than 13min30), some of his other YT content and finally some takes I had the pleasure to read on his community Discord. And I’m sure KoC will love my content. After all, as he says in these comments pinned under the reupload, it’s all about accountability.
THE SAD TRUTH about KoC! MANIPULATION AND LIES EXPOSED!
See what I did there -wink wink-. I initially wrote a first version of this article, based on my memories of the initial video. This raised the issue of people having to trust me and my memory. I guess it’s a good thing KoC reuploaded it on its own then isn’t it? Well good thing for the accountability KoC loves so much, not for me who will have to do some more work and watch his great content again.
KoC friendship with the “dev” team
This first part is about the original video specifically. It’s one of the extracts KoC removed from the reuploaded video.
The original video started with KoC sharing a video he took himself of his meeting with I think Mark Van Lommel, Communications Director, Games and Influencer Partnerships
Niantic, Inc., according to KoC channel description. I remember some form of “UNEDITED RAW FOOTAGE” text written on the clip that made me chuckle a little. I’m not fully sure this is the exact video the quotation that can be found in the channel description comes from. Said quotation goes:
“I love your content! I find the guides so helpful so even though I work on the game, I feel like I get better by watching you! So glad we get to connect in-person here at Summer Game Fest!”
This is according to KoC the “dev” team praising him. But as far as I know, the MHNow actual dev team is located in Japan. And Mr. Van Lommel is “Communications Director”. His job essentially boils down to promoting the game, maybe working on the translation of the original JP game, which are all important parts of the game we enjoy to be fair but nowhere near developing the actual video game aka being part of the so called “dev team”.
Also they’re supposed to promote the game and as such have good relationships with the content creators that make the community live. As such, praising content creators is actually part of their job (and if I’m wrong, I’d love to see someone still working in the Communication Team going in front of a content creator and telling him “you’re insufferable and we hate you” on camera). I can also add that this was 2 years ago in a soon 3 years old game, and as far as I can tell, KoC has never had any additional meet-up of that kind with the “devs”.
This bring us with one of my personal issue with the character (and I know I’m not the only one in that boat): the narcissism. KoC got praised once by the Communication Team 2 years ago (she won’t come back bro, move on), portrays this as him having good relationships with the devs (except it wasn’t the devs) and he uses this as some sort of proof that he’s above the other content creators (which if it needs to be said isn’t).
I also find this manipulative as he’s conveniently brushing off the fact that he built up his online presence for 6 years as a Pokemon Go content creator. According to ChatGPT, KoC had around 9 000 subscribers when Monster Hunter Now released and he shifted his content from one game to another. I’d say in the Youtube landscape it’s quite the head start and some nice help to get your content higher in the algorithm, compared to most content creators that started from scratch. Worst part for me is watching his earlier content clearly shows that he had to work to get there but can’t use this experience to lift up others instead of attacking them.
In the end, it’s not the “devs” that told him to edit the video. It’s an english communication team that it seems didn’t like to be associated with this video oddly enough. And if KoC “respected” these people, he wouldn’t be portraying them as someone else to make himself look better by association, using their image in a video used to insult others while also damaging their work portraying the community under a good light.
Let me tell a personal story. In 2024, back when KoC was getting “praised” by the “dev” team, I went to the Paris Game Week during the MH Wilds pre-release promotion. There was a private evening for the fans of the game where Ryozo Tsujimoto, the Monster Hunter director, and Yuya Tokuda, the MH Wilds director, came. They hosted a multiple-choice question contest which I won with a huge time margin. As a result, with one other fan, I was able to go on stage and hunt a Doshaguma with Ryozo Tsujimoto himself. We quickly folded the Doshaguma and since we had a good time advance, I proposed to take on Rey Dau, the ultimate challenge of that demo in the same hunt. And we did won, giving the crowd some good spectacle. “And they all applauded” (well in fact they did, I mean Tsujimoto was on stage so obv). Anyway, I have some pictures of the event, this was shortly featured in an official Capcom post promoting the event… Where is that proof? I guess I could go fetch the pictures if I had nothing better to do or dig 2 years of Capcom social networks to find said video back.
But point is, none of this is plastered on the front page of my site and I don’t remind everyone I meet I’m “THE HUNTER THAT HUNTED SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE MH DIRECTOR ONE OF THE FIRST REY DAU EVER IN THE OCCIDENTAL COMMUNITY”. No I’m the guy with a guide site on the Monster Hunter franchise. My worth is determined by my actions and results aka the research I’m providing here. To quote Tywin Lannister from GoT, “Any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king“. I find this quote pretty fitting to talk about someone who seems so insecure that he has to shout that he is the “top english Youtuber for MHN” who “got praised by the devs” every time any other content creator is even mentioned.
The Hunter’s Notes roast: lies and manipulation
And here we are back on our regular program, with the actual video itself.
After praising his local hunter communities (which is in fact a good thing, I’ll give credit where credit is due), the video move on to roasting two content creators, Hunter’s Notes and Pauwer Plays. I think I’ll only talk about the Hunter’s Notes part. It’s egregious enough on its own and I geniunely don’t want to watch an additional 25 minutes of KoC yapping bullshit to insult someone else.
First thing first, KoC make the interesting choice of AI editing the video from HN he used, portraying Hunter’s Notes as “Clown’s Notes” and giving him a full clown attire. Already off to a great start, the “top english MHN Youtuber” is using AI to portrays the people he don’t like as clowns. I won’t deny it, I can’t wait to get the same treatement myself. It’s disrespectful, crass, tasteless and immature. I geniunely don’t see what more I could add, it says more about how KoC is as a person than the people he’s attacking.
Then I think it’s interesting to look at the main video from Hunter’s Notes KoC attacked. Here is the video:
Don’t worry I’m not telling you to watch a 40min Youtube video, I’ll simply recap the main point of the video: HN stops his Youtube channel. Reasons are the diminishing returns regarding notably poor monetization and the work involved with his channel. I respect the honesty here, not a lot of people would straight up tell you “Youtube isn’t making me enough money to justify all the work involved between recording, editing, etc”, most people would find some form of grand excuse or simply leave without a word. And as someone who pays 150€ each year to host my site and spends hours working on my research, it definitely resonates with some thoughts I’ve had over the last I think 4 or 5 years. Now quick reminder, the KoC video is called “GREED AND LIES EXPOSED”. Based on this video. I have to ask… What did KoC expose exactly here?
I also found this video from Pauwer Plays.
Here he is announcing he’s following Hunter’s Notes for similar reasons: diminishing views and returns for the amount of work Youtube content creation takes. He won’t make elaborated videos anymore, just uploading for fun.
So I think it’s interesting to point out that KoC attacked 2 content creators who didn’t upload in a month after videos where they announced they were quiting content creation. KoC is talking about the “EN community” by attacking… Two dead channels. Basically he is trying to look like a though guy by beating essentially corpses. Yeah real badass here, watch out everyone.
And as I promised regarding the KoC pinned comments under his own Youtube video, let’s check the second comment. KoC sees “4 real ways this pans out”.
- They respond digging out dirt on him which they can’t because he’s such a great person: -chocking out- As I know what’s about to follow, I have some hard time breathing here. And the channels are dead, KoC knows they very likely will never respond. Simply responding would tarnish their channel responding to a drama alert video after having left. Jesus the nerves…
- they own up to their faults and apologize: the channels are dead and KoC knows it but he portrays this as not going to happen because and I quote “of their planetary egos”, once again Jesus the nerves… And I’ll also point out to the previous part. There might be some projection here.
- they completely ignore this video and continue to fool their audiences, the most likely path: THE CHANNELS ARE DEAD AND KoC KNOW IT. Sorry I want to make this as big as possible. It’s like a running gag at this point.
- they enter other gaming spaces and start off with a clean state: THE… Yeah no let’s not repeat the joke at that point.
I’m already taking serious mental damage and the video isn’t even started. So let’s move on to what KoC actually said about the HN video.
Buying OP weapons
Starting from 1min24, KoC engages on the theme of accessibility, giving a, honestly, good explanation. Everything is indeed free in the game and by that point, so far, I don’t see anything bad. Hey he even mentions at 2min32 that not everything is free cause they sold the Auspicious Dragon Gauntlets, you know that one really specific time they did and never ever else (and yes, me putting emphasis on this point is called foreshadowing). And at 2min56, after 1min30 of geniunely good analysis and content, the rollercoaster starts…
The first angle of attack KoC is using here is that “Clown’s Notes” is saying that, and I quote, “You can pay to get an overpowered weapon in the shop and kill everything in the game“. Followed by an extract of the Hunter’s Notes video. This extract can be found around 21min in said HN video and I highly advise you watch the full minute because:
- we’ll come back on that later for other quotations
- it actually adds a lot more context to what HN is saying compared to one line cherry picked in a 40min video
And I think it’s already blatant. HN is saying he doesn’t like MTX. That’s all that’s being said and that’s his right, it’s a personal opinion. You can agree or disagree, that’s purely subjective. At no point is he saying that you can buy an OP perfect weapon in the shop. So we already have around 30s of KoC taking a sentence out of context and adding a lot of additional meaning behind it that wasn’t here to portray HN as a clown and if I’m to quote what is on the screen a “LIER”. KoC seems to hate liars so I’ll guess here he just misremembered the video.
Like he misremembered the Shibuya 2024 Carnival event he loved so much (he had to remind he was the “only English content creator of the top” that has been there at 8min09). After all, during said event, you could pay an event ticket to build the Carnival 2024 weapons and armor set, with one weapon for each type available at the time. And while the weapons weren’t OP per say, the HBG ended up being one of the first great paralysis weapons back in the days and the armor chest (Lock On, Critical Eye 2) ended up being literally a meta defining armor piece for months if not a full year for most weapons without a skill tax. You would think a meta expert wouldn’t forget such an important piece of gear.
But he surely forgot. Or he just mentioned the Auspicious Dragon Gauntlets to do this little trick called misdirection through compliance or false concession. Hey look I’ll aknowledge it, not everything is free, they did it with that one piece of gear no one cared about, don’t think further and keep listening to me roasting Clown’s Notes. False concession or legit and awfully convenient lapse of memory for a home-made argument in only 30s of video? I’ll let you decide for yourself.
The grind masturbation
At 3min32, KoC is attacking the line “I would work for hours and hours and hours to earn a piece of gear“. The KoC attack is that HN doesn’t own a fully maxxed out Magnamalo LBG. I mean, it’s only a rank 10 weapon and as everyone knows about the game, it definitely doesn’t take hours to grind and yes I’m being sarcastic here. Aside from the fact, that even during events, it does indeed hours to craft a piece of gear, even the tickets weapons (or if KoC wants to deny that, I can’t wait for the live stream of him farming a weapon from scratch all the way to 10-5 without any previously farmed materials in under one hour), HN doesn’t own one weapon lvl 20/20 therefore it means he didn’t “earn” said weapon.
So I guess if you’re watching the video or reading this article, you didn’t earn that grade 10-1 weapon. I mean sure you farmed, according to KoC favorite source mhn.quest, what, at least 19 r6, 40 r5, 49 r4, 75 r3, 105 r2 and 285 r1 (not accounting the gathering) but everybody knows it’s easy. I’m afraid according to KoC you’re a clown which is, going back to his own pinned comments telling us to the check the Urban Dictionnary, “a whack muthafucka and/or a straight up moron”. Nice.
Then he goes on explaining how great Magnamalo LBG is. It’s true it’s an easy to play weapon that can take 10 star monsters. KoC at 3min48 shows a screen from someone taking out Almudron. I’ll just point out that Almudron is a mid-level monster so a 71s kill isn’t that impressive as a 10 star fight, especially when the leaderboard has a 9s GS kill (this is some more foreshadowing btw). Anyway, “you could get [the weapon] completely free” (minus the hours of farming I guess that KoC is conveniently forgetting). Followed by a meme clip “Why you always lying”. I’m starting to think KoC has some projection issues.
“But what about before the Magnamalo LBG?” At least KoC is sparing me the mental effort since he keeps going on the same stupid argument. After attacking HN for not owning a lvl 20 Magnamalo LBG, he attacks him for not owning a 10-5 Black Diablos Bow. At 4min03, I quote KoC, “It was the second most upgraded to grade 10 in year 2 by Hunter HR 100 plus”. This in fact true and KoC is “not lying”. And on the HN screen I can see… A grade 10 Black Diablos bow. Wait the data from the official MHN records says grade 10, not grade 10-5. So I guess it’s a small slip by KoC, it happens to the better of us, it just so happens that it already makes a lot of small oddly convenient imprecisions in his analysis. I also think i should remind people that before an update, upgrading weapons at grade 10-3 required 20 wgs and grade 10-5 required 30 wgs for not that big of a damage buff which, to some people back in the days, was a deterrent to push weapons over grade 10-2. I’m sure KoC who’s so passionate about this game knows this but once again just had a convenient little lapse of memory.
AND HE KEEPS GOING ON ABOUT NOW THE ROSE ASSAULT LBG. It’s incredible. The argument is so bad to begin with and he keeps going on a third time, cherry picking other weapons in HN account that are at a high level, implying some good amount of farming and grinding… But because they aren’t at the max level, it means HN made essentially 0 effort and didn’t “earn” them. And just like the Magna LBG and BBlos Bow, he explains to us why it is such a great weapon, as if it were to add any value to an already void argument. No KoC, just because a person hasn’t fully maxxed 3 really specific weapons, that doesn’t mean they didn’t grind for hours to get and “earn” them.
“BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!” No please don’t take a fourth cherry picked strong weapon to masturbate about how strong it is and how much more you grind than HN when he simply he said, just as a reminder, “I would work for hours and hours and hours to earn a piece of gear“. Wait he actually moved on? Amen, 1min30 of this stupid argument, I seriously though we weren’t going to see the end of it.
The Pokemon Go grind masturbation
-read the title of the section- Oh come on… Don’t tell me KoC is once again doing this same stuff of taking a quote out of context, adding additional sense that wasn’t there before and portraying HN as a clown while jerking off about how great of a grinder he is? Well let’s go I guess…
Starting from 5min, KoC is now attacking the line “Pokemon Go came out. I played the heeeck out of it“. Aside from the fact that “the heck” doesn’t really indicate any specific amount of time, KoC points out that HN was only lvl 37, 8 years after its release.
5:18 “I know you always do your best to distract people from the truth”, give me a second while I go chocking elsewhere in front of such audacity with everything that has already been pointed out. Something something Jesus the nerves of this guy…
KoC then mocks HN saying he puts 100% effort in every thing that he did… You would have thought that with such a brazen attack from the “top content creator”, HN said something along the lines of “KoC is a trash peasant, I’m amongst the top 100 Pokemon Go players in the world, I’m the top grinder in the world”. No he said he played “the heck out of it”. And KoC comes back to HN not having the 3 weapons maxxed out, yada yada, can we please move on? It still doesn’t give any weight to that stupid argument. “And you could get these for free as long as you grinded for it”, he literally got these weapons, just cause they aren’t maxxed out doesn’t mean they’re worthless… And while I’m getting what KoC is saying by “for free”, last time I checked the BBlos bow never had a discount and reduced costs regarding Magnamalo LBG isn’t what you would call “for free”, you still have to grind to get them, even non maxxed out. And if it feels like I’m repeating myself, it’s because KoC is literally doing this.
6:17 “But who am I to judge?” With all I’ve uncovered so far, I have some answers but you wouldn’t like them so I’ll keep them for me. Now KoC goes back onto the grind masturbation train. Since he has over 200 million XP in PoGo, HN is lying about “playing the heck out” of the game when it came out (which once again doesn’t quantify jackshit). What is the connection here? I don’t really find one personally but I guess it gives an excuse for KoC to expose his massive PoGo experience. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is impressive. But I still don’t understand how KoC no lifing Pokemon Go means anyone lvl 37 didn’t play “the heck” out of the game.
And now at 6:51, KoC does some maths or rather ChatGPT does some. How about we look at that screen some more… Level 37 requirement: “2,4 to 2,5 million (a drastic reduction from the old legacy requirement of 9,5 million)”. And, checking Google, when lvl50 was released as KoC is pointing out, the game was still on its old legacy xp system. “This means I have almost a hundred times as much XP”. Well if ChatGPT would have done its maths properly, you would actually have around 4 times less. One more imprecision I guess to add to an ever growing list…
Hey how about I also ask something to ChatGPT: “How long would it take for a player to reach lvl37 on the original release of Pokemon Go?”.
So assuming HN was some sort of hardcore grinder (I don’t think he was, I’m just trying to go in KoC direction here), that mean he would have played the game 2 to 4 months. I’d say that would count as playing “the heck” out of the game but this is purely subjective to be fair.
I also think it’s important to point out the “on the original release” part. After all, HN exact quote is “Pokemon Go came out! I played the heck out of it”. He didn’t said he played it for 8 years and ChatGPT also highlights the importance of stuff like Friendship XP that didn’t exist back then. Meanwhile this is the last Pokemon Go KoC made before moving on to MHN.
So KoC stopped around the 12 March 2023. So 5 years after Friendship XP released notably. Which can net 100 000 XP for becoming Best Friends after having sent gifts for 90 days (not accounting any Lucky Eggs to double that). I’m sure someone as engaged as KoC was in the Pokemon Go scene never exploited this great XP mine, he purely farmed using good old great catches netting 100 xp (excellent throws net 1000 xp but let’s not pretend these are as reliable aside from some specific Pokemons please). I don’t think I need to push further on the fact that, once again, KoC seems to conveniently miss some stuff in his analysis (that once again doesn’t make any point to begin with).
At 7:14, KoC points out that HN used a Go Plus. I bought recently a Pokeball + during my latest trip to Japan, saw it at like 10€, thought “eh Whynaut”. Honestly, cool piece of gear, I can both play MHNow while farming on Pokemon Go passively (which I normally wouldn’t do because I don’t find really engaging catching Zigzagoon number 239950230242 sorry). Ultimately it speeds up catches. So once again, I don’t really see the point KoC is making here (well I see it but it looks like some form of dumb elitism).
And he chains on some rapid fire attacks like HN having a Jolteon VS a Dragonite. I don’t know what video KoC is referring so I can’t check the original content but Jolteon seems to already have some energy so he very likely KOed something else before and with Rocket Grunts using monotypes team generally, it could very well be a fight against a Fly team (I hope KoC knows that Electric is good against Fly). I’m also assuming HN made this video after some time not playing the game over the course of 8 years, meaning he could have been surprised by the Fly Rocket Grunt lineup. “But why didn’t he swap?” I mean repels are free, I also left some Pokemons to die to let them fire a charged move and chipping a strong Pokemon. Something I’d expect someone with such a huge level as KoC to have experienced over the more than 7 years he played. And maybe I’m wrong and HN is indeed playing poorly. But with all the evidences so far of KoC taking stuff out of context and blowing it out of proportions and the fact that we’re looking here at a static screen, let’s just say I’m having a really hard time trusting him.
And HN “DOESN’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO QUICK CATCH LMAO”. So quick catch is a glitch that speeds up the catch process, removing the 1-2-3 catch part of the pokeball throw (you flee the fight through a manipulation which allows you to keep the flee button on screen when the pokemon is struggling in the ball which instantly resolve the catch or not). This glitch has never been fixed because with how boring catching can be, Niantic very likely realised that they would lose a lot of players using said glitch. At the end of the day, this is an unofficial glitch that speeds up catching. Wait. So the unofficial glitch that speeds up catching is ok. But the official sold device that does the same is not. I’m kind of confused here, could be great if KoC would pick a line.
“Hardcore players like me would rate this guy as a total noob, not an expert in Pokemon GO”… Let me just check back the original quote… “Pokemon Go came out. I played the heeeck out of it“. I’m searching where in these few words it says “I’m an expert at Pokemon Go”. I can’t find it. Once again KoC managed to take a 5s sentence out of context and yap about non-sense and void arguments for almost 2min30s. Shall we move on?
Japanese and MTX
And now at 7:20, we’re getting to what I think is the most hilarious part of the video. If his friendship with the so called devs, KoC beating dead channels like a true badass, deforming HN not liking MTX into “he said you can buy 10-5 OP weapons” and then jerking off how hard he farmed compared to HN that didn’t “earn” his weapons still wasn’t enough, that one part to me is incredible.
I have to quote KoC here, explaining to us what HN was “saying”: “[…] the only reason the Japanese and Asian MHN player communities are so good at the game is because they just accept microtransactions so all they do is just keep spending money on the game“. Now I point you back to the 21-22min HN original video frame where the quote KoC used comes from “Japan and other Asian countries and microtransactions are not a big deal over there” but this time with the full context. So by this point, I won’t insult your intelligence, another usual case of one sentence cherry-picked and with a lot of extra meaning on top.
To keep on going on the cherry picking, KoC is showing us a great run by @MSMN_MHN on Twitter. I don’t know that player. But, as I’ll explain soon enough, I do have some experience in speedrunning. I want you to note these precise words in the screen I added “AS WE SEE RIGHT HERE HE NEVER USES A SINGLE POTION”. Now this is the pinned post on this speedrunner Twitter account, at least in September 2026: https://x.com/msmn_MHN/status/1931265122120720805?s=20. So this is the run he’s very likely the proudest and he can, because I also soloed Nergigante myself and it’s definitely quite the ordeal. But wait, he has 57 HP at the start of the fight? And what am I seeing in the bottom right corner? 41 potions?! Could it be that before the fight it was 42 and he used a potion to get back from 7 to 57 HP? Could it be that the Japanese players actually also uses microtransactions and aren’t just that magically good at Monster Hunter Now?! (I also seriously want to point out that it took me like 5s to check the speedrunner account on Twitter and seeing a run from that “best bow hunter” that destroys KoC claim here, hilarious and I’m not touching the fact that msmn here gets hits on the phase transition as he clearly misses his perfect dodge).
https://community.monsterhunternow.com/t/topic/80253
Pointing out sampras9702, Rohas, kiyota18
Les Carnets de la Wycadémie 