Monster
I spent a good chunk of the weekend reading Monster by Urasawa Naoki. The story was pretty intense and follows the life of two people, Nina and Tenma. Since this is an older series, most people have probably read/seen it already.
** Probably made TONS of mistakes, too tired to check.
Tenma's character, as well as most of the other characters here, were well developed. He started off innocent and uncorrupted, and despite everything that happened to him, he remained the same. He performed the surgery on Johan even at the end. Nina and Dieter are two of the characters I enjoyed reading about. I basically read through the whole series without really having "favourites," but I always wondered what happened to their trips to the Three Frogs. Dieter carried the Tenma philosophy throughout the story. He always managed to say the right thing at the right time. He brought the lighter, and stronger side of Tenma into view, where Tenma cannot, because of his mission. Nina was intelligent, but she carried a dark side to her. Even though she was the one to have experience everything in the experiment, she was still able to live a fairly normal life, and never became what Johan was. My guess is, Johan was able to remember Anna's suffering, and took it upon himself to avenge the past. I read some stuff regarding Johan having a sister complex, being the older one to take it upon himself to "take care" of her when they were abandonned, which explained why he did what he did. His character was suppose to be complex and mysterious, but I wish they had talked more about him. Even though the story brought up a lot of what their past was, what happened to cause Johan to kill those people, it still felt like I know almost nothing about him!
I'm trying to figure out why I don't hate Johan as much as I should. He was basically similar to what a mass murderer performed! The way the people were brain washed into killing one another, the torture of the victims, and the killing of their foster parents, should normally make me hate him. The scenes were very graphic too. But I don't... I think one of the few reasons were:
1, The murders performed by Johan were almost always done outside of the reader's views. (Except for the first one we see, the one who Tenma bought a clock for, which makes me hate him a little.) They were already done when we reached the scene. On the flip side, I hated every other characters (Johan's lackeys) that performed shootings within the view of the readers, like Roberto, etc. Plus, Johan always seem to appear to have class. A sure sign of a sociopath.
2, The readers were told really sad stories that made us pity Johan and the others, rather than anything. The fact that they were trying to avenge their past, sort of justified it. The bad guy got what they deserved, in a way. Even when thousand of lives were at stake, the deaths were nothing more than nameless and faceless beings. The more we learned, the more we felt sorry for them.
The last point I made is weak, because the truth is, a lot of innocent characters were also tortured and killed. They were given names (even if they were not their real names), and had faces and personalities, and they were trying to improve themselves. Brown and Grimmer's death made me sad. They were such great characters that showed immense improvements from their former days (even if we were only told of it indirectly). I got the warm fuzzies every time I saw Grimmer. He was a wonderful person who tried to make sure no other children suffer the same fate. And right up to the end, he showed that he really wanted to develope from an unemotional child, to a real person with full emotions. I didn't understand why Tenma couldn't do anything for him, when he seem to have done miracles for so many others. Even Lunge, who I hated so much throughout most of the series, made me like him just a tad bit, at the end. He really redeemed himself at the very end. Yet-- I would sacrifice his death over Grimmer's any day.
What really bothers me a lot is the lack of answers. There seems to be a lot of unanswered questions. I suppose half of it should force me to reread the series again, but Monster is the type of series that I can't. There's too much bloody graphic scenes in it for me to really enjoy it again. I half expected Tenma and Nina to get together or something, but I'm really glad they didn't. But I'm glad the series ended the way it did, sort of half hanging. It goes with the theory that it should end sooner, than later, when it drags on too long, and people become tired of it.
For those who may not know (although I doubt that), Urasawa-sensei also created "Another Monster" to answer some unanswered questions lefted at the end of the series. Mangascreener is doing translation here.
ps One thing I just thought of is that Monster seems to show a lot of "once evil characters" that are now common country folks.
** Probably made TONS of mistakes, too tired to check.
Tenma's character, as well as most of the other characters here, were well developed. He started off innocent and uncorrupted, and despite everything that happened to him, he remained the same. He performed the surgery on Johan even at the end. Nina and Dieter are two of the characters I enjoyed reading about. I basically read through the whole series without really having "favourites," but I always wondered what happened to their trips to the Three Frogs. Dieter carried the Tenma philosophy throughout the story. He always managed to say the right thing at the right time. He brought the lighter, and stronger side of Tenma into view, where Tenma cannot, because of his mission. Nina was intelligent, but she carried a dark side to her. Even though she was the one to have experience everything in the experiment, she was still able to live a fairly normal life, and never became what Johan was. My guess is, Johan was able to remember Anna's suffering, and took it upon himself to avenge the past. I read some stuff regarding Johan having a sister complex, being the older one to take it upon himself to "take care" of her when they were abandonned, which explained why he did what he did. His character was suppose to be complex and mysterious, but I wish they had talked more about him. Even though the story brought up a lot of what their past was, what happened to cause Johan to kill those people, it still felt like I know almost nothing about him!
I'm trying to figure out why I don't hate Johan as much as I should. He was basically similar to what a mass murderer performed! The way the people were brain washed into killing one another, the torture of the victims, and the killing of their foster parents, should normally make me hate him. The scenes were very graphic too. But I don't... I think one of the few reasons were:
1, The murders performed by Johan were almost always done outside of the reader's views. (Except for the first one we see, the one who Tenma bought a clock for, which makes me hate him a little.) They were already done when we reached the scene. On the flip side, I hated every other characters (Johan's lackeys) that performed shootings within the view of the readers, like Roberto, etc. Plus, Johan always seem to appear to have class. A sure sign of a sociopath.
2, The readers were told really sad stories that made us pity Johan and the others, rather than anything. The fact that they were trying to avenge their past, sort of justified it. The bad guy got what they deserved, in a way. Even when thousand of lives were at stake, the deaths were nothing more than nameless and faceless beings. The more we learned, the more we felt sorry for them.
The last point I made is weak, because the truth is, a lot of innocent characters were also tortured and killed. They were given names (even if they were not their real names), and had faces and personalities, and they were trying to improve themselves. Brown and Grimmer's death made me sad. They were such great characters that showed immense improvements from their former days (even if we were only told of it indirectly). I got the warm fuzzies every time I saw Grimmer. He was a wonderful person who tried to make sure no other children suffer the same fate. And right up to the end, he showed that he really wanted to develope from an unemotional child, to a real person with full emotions. I didn't understand why Tenma couldn't do anything for him, when he seem to have done miracles for so many others. Even Lunge, who I hated so much throughout most of the series, made me like him just a tad bit, at the end. He really redeemed himself at the very end. Yet-- I would sacrifice his death over Grimmer's any day.
What really bothers me a lot is the lack of answers. There seems to be a lot of unanswered questions. I suppose half of it should force me to reread the series again, but Monster is the type of series that I can't. There's too much bloody graphic scenes in it for me to really enjoy it again. I half expected Tenma and Nina to get together or something, but I'm really glad they didn't. But I'm glad the series ended the way it did, sort of half hanging. It goes with the theory that it should end sooner, than later, when it drags on too long, and people become tired of it.
For those who may not know (although I doubt that), Urasawa-sensei also created "Another Monster" to answer some unanswered questions lefted at the end of the series. Mangascreener is doing translation here.
ps One thing I just thought of is that Monster seems to show a lot of "once evil characters" that are now common country folks.