Monster opnions

Just finished watching Monster and found it very enjoyable. Went through the internet and found a whole lot of praise and acclaim, until finnaly stumbling upon a realy bad review/childish rant on the shows boring idiotic plot, pacing, charecters, langth and development. What ensued was a lot of pepole agreeing and some disagreeing. I'm geniunly intersted into how many of youguys liked/disliked it and your reasons for it (would appriciate actuall reasons and not just rants like the one mentiond above).
Peace

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=dU2uy4oyq2w
youtube.com/watch?v=GaguNANwrK8
twitter.com/AnonBabble

Great series with great characters. People who dislike it tend to do so because they claim the pacing is far too long and could have been resolved far under the 70+ episodes. I personally don't have a problem with it though as I liked the fact the plot was so expanded/spread out to really allow the viewers to contemplate on the whole thing more. Monster's always going to be in my top 3 for sure.

Lurk for two years before posting.
You too.

I'm just starting ir OP, please just tell me if it has a conclusive satisfying ending. Also does the thief with rodent teeth become an awesome recurrent character?

There's many things I don't like about Monster. It's sad because the anime had everything to be loved by me, it was a mystery thriller, which is a genre I love, It had a really unique and great premise and It had a charismatic villain. Problem is, no idea, no matter how good it is, can save a terrible execution, which is the case in Monster.

Let me start for how terribly the narrative is handled. The only way that this anime knows to build tension is by having characters acting in exaggerated, melodramatic ways, it always consists of a character reading a note, finding something or hearing someone saying something that we don't know what it is and then, flipping his shit due to the new information, having mental break downs or simply acting in a melodramatic way, but not really telling the audience what happened. Then, many episodes later when we finally hear what it was that caused the character to act like a retard, it just turns out to be something simple or not really worth of all the artificial hype. This would be fine, if not for the fact that the anime does it numerous times, around episode 50 and on, whenever a character has a mental breakdown due to new information, it just doesn't and won't affect you anymore, because of how the show overused this trick. Same goes for the show making a character point the gun at someone, mostly at Yohan, but taking years to shot and when it finally does, the anime changes to another shot/background to make the viewer ''wonder'' what just happened and if he really took the bullet, except that this shit is so overdone that you know nothing will ever happened and the effect just doesn't affect you anymore, because again, it's overused.

(1/2)

(2/2)
Another problem is Yohan himself. For the show to work, you have to accept that Yohan is a magical being, with mental powers, because that's the only way he could pull off some of the stuff he does in the anime. The anime never shows how Yohan does things, you simply have to accept that he does because he's fucking badass. Same goes for other characters, such as Grimer, how he was able to kill several armed men with his bare hands? Well, fuck it, he was in ''berserk'' mode and just did it, we won't show you! The entire anime is built around the tell don't show idea, which is terrible writing by itself.

The author of Monster knows how to introduce new ideas, he's very good at that, problem is that he doesn't really know what to do with them, which is why the show is literally filled with arcs and more arcs of stuff that could easily be removed without the story losing much, the author is better at writing episodic stuff than he is at making a fleshed out, coherent and consistent story. But anyway, the real problem is that the conclusion and development of each idea that he introduces is generally lackluster compared to their introduction and hype, which is mostly fault of the narrative.

I got to episode 46/74, and I can't bring myself to finish it. I've put this shit on hold for 6 months. It's so fucking boring holy shit.

It's good pleb filter.

let me start by how*

Wouldn't want to spoil it gor you, but i had mixed feelings about the ending though there was this one part that i found more suspenfull then the entire series put together which was worth the less few episodes direction. Anyway it was a good ride and there were lots of memorable cheracters and moments. Hope you enjoy as i did!

I read it and ended up not feeling satisfied. Then I started to watch it to see if that would help. It didn't.

>Just finished watching Monster and found it very enjoyable

How? Literally nothing happens.

>please just tell me if it has a conclusive satisfying ending

It doesn't.

Well as for yohan and his methodology you get a few times when you see what he tells pepole to get them to do what he wants them to i.e the boy he sent to the red light district after he talks to him about him not being wanted by his mother or the detective that he manipulates about the teenager he shot and prays on his alcoholism to finish him off. I would agree that some parts are far fetched for exemple some of the killings he has done as a young boy where you have no idea how he got any weapon and how the shots were mever heard by his sister who was pretty close at the moment (since there is no that was possible if he was armed with a knife). But other then that you mad some good points, yet watching the show i didn't get that feeling...

Well a shit ton of pepole get murdered...

Second best anime ever created after NGE.

ITT

Johan is my husbando, no joke.

This took way too long to be posted.

mostly I agree with this.

>The only way that this anime knows to build tension is by having characters acting in exaggerated, melodramatic ways, it always consists of a character reading a note, finding something or hearing someone saying something that we don't know what it is and then, flipping his shit due to the new information, having mental break downs or simply acting in a melodramatic way, but not really telling the audience what happened. Then, many episodes later when we finally hear what it was that caused the character to act like a retard, it just turns out to be something simple or not really worth of all the artificial hype.

Urasawa does this all the fucking time. It's bad in 20th Century Boys and Pluto as well.

>two years
No need to wait that long. The same stupid thread pops up about once a month, even more often.

The "message" was too unrealistic and preachy for me. Killing people to save lives is the way the world works, and the ridiculous definition they had of "killing" was stupid.
>Oh no Dr. Tenma, I'll kill him for you if you lead me there, you being complicit is fine because you're not technically "killing" him
It was established pretty much from the beginning that Tenma was never going to kill Johan.

For a show called Monster it was surprisingly light, Johan was almost amusingly evil, like a Disney villain and the entire show focused on the fundamental good of humanity instead of the darker side. Its length is another problem, not because of the pacing or another similarly more obvious complaint, but because it just wasn't that good. You watch a 12 episode series that's underwhelming and you move on, 70 episodes is a lot of time to waste.

I think I would honestly have liked it more if the title had been different, that's what sets the tone and therefore your expectations. Heart of Darkness, for example, tells you exactly the tone of what you are about to consume. "Monster" is a title on a similar level, and especially with the setup of the first few episodes, I was expecting some sort of progression and development instead of simply exposition.

>that feel when Monster was unironically your favorite anime but meme magic turned it into overrated shit on the second watch.

I'm the user who wrote this post As much as I have negative opinions about Monster, I think you misunderstood Yohan as a character and the point of the show. First, one of the main themes is what makes a person a monster and what It can be done to redeem said person, if he's even redeemable that is.

Second, Yohan is the embodiment of nihilism and coldheartedness, he's not evil in a sadistic, cartoony sense, but he's detached from people and reality to the point where he simply doesn't care for what happens with him or anyone else. He's a extremely intelligent, cold and visionary person, who achieved great things in life and was able to manipulate everyone ever since he was a kid, for him, it's so easy to predict people and the outcome of events that life became boring and without purpose and that's why he does most things in the show, to simply entail chaos, to mess with people's expectations and to basically play with life, being his or other people's. It's a little more complex than that though, If you are really interested to know I can write a more in-depth post about his character, but the point is that Yohan is a ''Monster'' in the sense that he has no regard for anyone's life or for what happens in the world and because he manipulates people and mess with their lives for just momentary pleasure.

Tenma is basically his opposite, which is obvious, and their interactions are about Tenma trying to find a way to actually redeem Yohan, because he thinks that all the coldness and detachment must have come from somewhere, Yohan HAS to have a reason to be like he is, or so Tenma thinks, and by finding this reason, Tenma thinsk that he can understand and thus, save and reedem Yohan.

The only thing I liked was grimmer and the soundtrack.
The show was too slow paced and ambiguous for me to have fun watching it. I used it to fall asleep at night

The nerative does lead to trying to redeem him however Tenma expresses through most of the show thet he is going to kill Yohan and even goed to great langthes to accomplish that (he is no assasin but he does training with weapons and buys a sniper rifle to meet that end). BTW realy enjoyd reading your opinion and your description (OP)

How is Yohan so smart despite getting shot in the head so many times?

More oxygen in the brain. It increases processing speed.

That's mostly Tenma fooling himself, he knew that killing Yohan would probably be the best course of action, but he's also a very empathetic and naive person, who believes in the good within people and because of that, he desperately tried to find answers about Yohan's past, about what might have caused Yohan to become what he is, because he couldn't believe that someone would be born a monster. And because deep down, he wanted to find redemption for Yohan. Nina also does this, but for slightly different reasons.

>BTW realy enjoyd reading your opinion and your description (OP)
If you're interested, watch this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=dU2uy4oyq2w

It's made by an user and it's mostly an accurate interpretation of Monster in my opinion

asspull

Jesus, the entire show seems exploitative as fuck, mixing it in with hyper melodrama and pretentious themes.

Stop shilling your video, 9x9faggot
I can't wait for you to stop shitting up 3x3 threads

My dick was in my hand for the sister but then they revealed it was Yohan crossdressing.


So now i fap to traps

Its nice.

no you have to read about how user wants to do X to Y's Z for two years.

It was extremely boring and I dropped it after episode 40, music aside it had nothing going for it

It's fucking boring.

Incredibly fucking boring.

I tried watching it twice. Both times I just completely lost interest after 30 episodes. Fucking nothing happens. He's just fucking around on a farm doing fucking nothing for fucking ages

I've been stuck around episode 40 but meaning to go back to it now that I've finished the other show I was watching. Even if I like it I have to agree it can get pretty boring.

I'm not actually shilling my video, that's someone else.

If you need other people's opinions for something that you apparently enjoyed and had no qualms about then I suggest you to fuck off and take your bullshit elsewhere.

It's just the ending that bothered me, the rest was on spot.

>typing like a newfag
>can't bother to use the archives

Worst of these is >finding Monster very enjoyable

It's funny that you would say this considering I was shitting on the series in my first posts and the guy who made that made video is a known Monster fanboy

Like clockwork

Dunno about the anime but the manga was great
Lunge is the GOAT detective

word of mouth

>hyper melodrama
Agree, that's one of the things that bothers me the most about It

>pretentious themes
However, this is retarded. There's no way a theme is pretentious, It can be presented in a pretentious way, but If you think that the theme itself is pretentious, then you're probably a idiot.

bretty good 10/10

That's what I meant, though. They talk about the thematic in length in the show, but make it seem more important than it really is or should be as that shit easily can seem dumb to a viewer. It's why many art films are quite insufferable as well. Present the issue and talk a little about it, as if no one ever came to that conclusion. There is no actual depth behind it.

>go into Monster thread
>oh cool someone posted the video I made about the ending
>hurrr stop shilling your video

What parts are hyper melodrama to you?

>make it seem more important than it really
Can you give examples? The only actual resonating thematic part that is brought up is empathy and connecting to other people.

he was a Waluigi clone

>What parts are hyper melodrama to you?
Assuming you're Rika poster, the video that you made have a bunch of those, Grimer talking about picnics and beers being one of them, but the show is literally filled with characters having mental breakdowns and acting in very exaggerated/melodramatic ways when they are making a speech or reacting to something. As I said here

You don't really provide any examples of what is melodramatic. You only give examples of people's reaction, which is fine, and is actually a known trope of ''Dull Surprise'', and can annoy some people. Though some of the reaction seem appropriate. I can't think of a single Dull Surprise moment that was overly done or inappropriate.

>Grimer talking about picnics and beers being one of them
To be fair though, Grimmer was talking to the man who fucked up his life, and I think it's the VA's goddamn breathing that was horrible. The talk itself was relevant to the overall theme, but man was that line delivery cringe.

>you have to accept that Yohan is a magical being, with mental powers, because that's the only way he could pull off some of the stuff he does in the anime
While a lot of it is insane guesswork, it's not as though all his predictions were baseless. Plus, not showing how Johan does things only create a greater sense of mystery, but good amount of predictions are impossible to guess like the psychopath and the doll. Or that the detective would eventually end up with the tape that Johan wanted.

>Well, fuck it, he was in ''berserk'' mode and just did it, we won't show you! The entire anime is built around the tell don't show idea, which is terrible writing by itself.
Does it matter? You do know that not showing something makes it more tense at times rather than showing it?

>The author of Monster knows how to introduce new ideas, he's very good at that, problem is that he doesn't really know what to do with them, which is why the show is literally filled with arcs and more arcs of stuff that could easily be removed without the story losing much, the author is better at writing episodic stuff than he is at making a fleshed out, coherent and consistent story.
What ideas are not fleshed out? You speak very vaguely with a lot of words.

This show was a clear 10/10 and those who call it over rated(even memes) should fuck off

Literally my favourite anime.

Go read 20th Century Boys and Pluto user, they're really great too.

20CB is shit.
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

>I'm whining THIS HARD
go back to your hugbox at ANN

but it was boring. No way can Johan be so smart after getting shot in the head twice

>implying Johan's luck isn't insane
You have like a 10% chance of surviving and not getting any brain damage from a headshot wound.

it happened twice. That means it's a 1% chance. That makes monster almost completely unrealistic and non-serious.

>1% is unrealistic
What part of 'Johan's luck is insane' did you miss?
A lot of what he does rely on complete luck, and the hope that fate will save him to prove that he is worthy of living. Like in that burning library, and when Tenma pointed a gun at him. He was fucked and knew it.

luck is bad writing

>implying luck isn't a part of life
It's only bad writing if Johan saw it coming even. He's only limited by what he knows.

>OVERRATEDSHIT.JPG
CAME HERE FOR THIS

MONSTER HAD A GREAT SUBTLY UNSETTLING ATMOSPHERE, THOSE 70 EPS WENT BY FAST
youtube.com/watch?v=GaguNANwrK8

YOUTUBE PURGED THE LEGO OP, FUCKIN FAGGOTS

Johan is the embodiment of the Antichrist, so sure, some of his feats seem farfetched. However, his method is actually very simple, and was told to the viewer. "a scrap of cloth doused in oil onto an open flame"
That's simply it. It's explained in Another Monster that there were tensions between the educators and the 511 kids wanting to kill them all, and that Johan just leaked rumors and lies in order to make everyone kill each other. He pushes people's buttons until it breaks, just like that detective who jumped off a building, he makes fucked up people feel comfortable around and trust him if they have similarities(Roberto/Kristof) or he just pushes them into doing what their depraved instinct tells them to(all these serial killers that he turned into killers when he was a child).

>You don't really provide any examples of what is melodramatic.
So you are denying that, more often than not, the reactions of the characters in Monster are overblown? I don't know how I can prove to you they are melodramatic other than giving examples and explaining why the scene feel exaggerated or melodramatic. Ãt least as I understand, it isn't normal for people to have breakdowns or to flip their shit and start making really dramatic speeches all the time, like they do in Monster. Granted, some characters are worse than others at doing this.

>and I think it's the VA's goddamn breathing that was horrible.
I would admit that Grimer is more annoying than the other characters at doing this. He does it with another character as well(forgot his name), when he talks that's nice to enjoy hot chocolate, to play with friends or something of the sort, can't remember exactly because I watched years ago.

>all his predictions were baseless
Sometimes, yes. But I just can't buy that Johan was able to make the detective that was hunting him kill himself after just a little talk for example.

>not showing how Johan does things only create a greater sense of mystery
I think that's valid for shorter shows, but in the case of Monster you become tired of just accepting that Johan simply ''makes things happen'' without ever showing how he does it.

>Does it matter?
It does because the scene is very unbelievable to me, especially in anime as grounded as Monster.

>makes it more tense at times rather than showing it?
It depends. And some things have to be shown for the sake of context, coherence or just to give more believability to the scene.

>You speak very vaguely with a lot of words.
Sorry If I do that, maybe it's because I watched very long ago and some examples aren't fresh in my mind, but the general idea of why I disliked it is, as I made some arguments explaining this at the time that I watched.

I'll reply to your last argument in the next post

>What ideas are not fleshed out?
what I meant isn't that the ideas aren't fleshed out, but that they are poorly fleshed out compared to the hype builded in the show. It's just that Urasawa writing gives me this expression. It gives me the impression of someone who has a lot of cool ideas and concepts, but isn't as good at putting said ideas in motion or developing said Ideas, If you want examples of that, I described some of the problems I have with the narrative in the first post. But to explain further, to me the show had far too many arcs, characters and ideas introduced, which ended up making the story very convoluted. It isn't strange that the vast majority of people don't get the ending of Monster, as the plot of the shows is very confusing and padded due to the unnecessary number of arcs and characters introduced along the way. It also doesn't help that most arcs after episode 30 feel like a repetition of previous arcs, but with different characters.


But anyway, what I am trying to say is that Urasawa wrote a very big and ambitious plot, but because of his nature of preferring to introduce ideas, characters and episodic stuff rather than making one, cohesive story, he ended up making things feel padded, convoluted, repetitive and at many times, unnecessary in the great scheme of things.

Haven't rewatched it in years, but it I enjoyed the ride. The climatic showdown was over the top, looking at it outside the context of the story, but even then, the show is self aware of the ridiculousness of johan's 'perfect suicide', when they're giving their statement to the cop on scene and he's like wtf when they laid out what happened and why.

What always bothered me though was how the fuck did young johan manage to a) poison the candy and b) know that tenma's enemies would eat it?

>YOUTUBE PURGED THE LEGO OP, FUCKIN FAGGOTS
Someone really needs to reupload that, it got taken down like eight years ago

I read the manga some time ago and I loved it, even though I admit it has some flaws and a few things that do not make sense.

There's one thing that has been bothering me though. Do you remember when near the beginning Tenma is running away from the Turkish district by boat and Anna shouts at him 'there are two Johans', heavily implying that he had a split personality? What the hell was that all about? It seemed to me like it was supposed to lead up to something but was eventually dropped in the end, or most likely I simply misunderstood. Anyone care to explain?

>until finnaly stumbling upon a realy bad review/childish rant on the shows boring idiotic plot, pacing, charecters, langth and development.
Ignore pathetic hipsters

>I liked the fact the plot was so expanded/spread out to really allow the viewers to contemplate on the whole thing more.
The plot wasn't expanded
It was just long ass recaps before every episode to milk it

Tenma is a fucking doctor
He's supposed to save people not kill them which is where the character's drama comes from

Could've used more Johan actually doing shit instead of his, what, army of trained CIA agents?

I think that's where the story falls apart the worst. Roberto I buy, but there's no goddamn way so many powerful people would put so much faith into someone who doesn't even speak to them in return.

>Lunge
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
It's Runge

>it's not realistic
you're a fucking idiot
that's the whole suspense of the show, it makes the viewer think deeply if the show is realistic or supernatural

friendly reminder to lurk for 2 years before posting

You know it.

She was probably referring to the whole plot point where Johan thinks he was in Franz's house when the Mansion Massacre happened when it was actually her and Johan actually took her memories and eventually thought it was him who attended it

>What always bothered me though was how the fuck did young johan manage to a) poison the candy and b) know that tenma's enemies would eat it?
He was already killing people before he made it the Liebert's house...he even killed the Lieberts himself and told Anna to kill him

That's what I thought at first, but isn't that something that she's able to remember only near the very end of the manga? How could she refer to that when at that moment she had not recovered any of her memories yet?

also the rare interactions between Johan and Anna were GOAT

>but there's no goddamn way so many powerful people would put so much faith into someone who doesn't even speak to them in return.
Holy fuck you retard
That's the whole point
It's supposed to make Johan feel that much more threatening to the point where the viewers question if he legitimately is a Monster

>final arc has the two best characters start a bromance

It does mean the series has no resolution. This vast, powerful organization just needs to latch onto someone else and wipe an entire city off the map for the heck of it.

Oh but it's really about Johan. Pffthahaha

She probably referred to Johan being good before then, I don't know

>This vast, powerful organization just needs to latch onto someone else and wipe an entire city off the map for the heck of it.
The CIA had nothing to do with the perfect suicide

No him, but that comes down to one of my first arguments. For the show to work, you have to accept that Johan has magical powers, since it's never shown how the fuck he convinces people or does things. And because some of the things he pull off are downright ridiculous.

But it's supposed to be a german name. Lunge makes more sense. "Lunge" is german for lung, Runge doesn't mean anything.

meant to reply to

I read a post once that explained this point very well, much better than how I'll try to put it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but Johan works so well the way he does to many because he feels like a force of nature more than an actual character. You're never given any insight on what goes on inside his mind and his motives are for the major part beyond what the reader and the characters can possibly understand, he moves the entire plot forward but the very reason he can do so revolves around his persona being so mesmerizing and otherworldly it can take people to do the unthinkable and his mind being so ridiculously smart and heartless it seems like the devil himself has control of it. I realize how that can be a major hindrance to many, but personally I didn't mind it at all. I have some issues with Monster but Johan isn't one of them

The reason I picked it up was, that it initially took place in my home-city Duesseldorf. Bummer Tenma wasn't working at our Universitaetsklinikum but in a fictional hospital.

Seeing german store-signs and street-names was nice though.

No, not that, I get that he was already a killer by then, I mean that the bag of candy seemed unopened and the individual wrappers seemed undisturbed. How would he have known that those particular doctors would've eaten the candy and not Tenma?

Runge is a real German surname