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| THIS IS AN MANGA ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS ANYTHING BEYOND THIS CHAPTER. ---------------------------------------- That was just amazing. Even though the ending was pretty ambiguous, it still was probably the best seinen manga I've read. 10/10 easily and a spot in my top 5. |
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| I really wonder... Will Johan start mudering again? Or does he now know he was wanted by someone... |
| 'There are no facts, only interpretations' - Nietzsche |
| When Johan sat up, my heart stopped. That was the best manga I've read in awhile. I really wanted to know his real name. lol... I know the whole point is that the name means nothing, but still. |
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| Absolutely amazing manga. I enjoyed it so much. Is the anime worth tracking down? |
| I hoped some side characters would appear on this chapter, like Lotte and Karl or somebody like that. Great ending, although I'd also like to know their names. |
| Wow, great ending but left me a bit unsatisfied, what were their names? where did Johan go off to? What happened to some of the characters like Lotte and Karl? All in all however, this may be one of my favorite mangas of ALL TIME. 10/10 and a spot on my top 5 list. |
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| Ahh, still so many unanswered questions! Their names! What happened to Johan?! Argh, will my curiosity never be satisfied?! Seriously though, of course 10/10. Possibly one of the best mangas I've read so far. If only all those characters hadn't died ... I grew so attatched to them all ... *sniff* ... D: |
| I watched anime last year, and this year, I decided to read manga. I thought I might be able to grasp some more info but... it seems it just has to be like this. Again, I had the same feeling about twins' mother - such a weird feeling... perhaps it has something to do with the fact that she's one of those people who saw terrible things... and are still alive. I love happy endings... happy, yet disturbing... you know, the last pages. |
| So... Who is the real monster o.O? I loved the ending though =) |
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Personas said: So... Who is the real monster o.O? I loved the ending though =) It's just my thought but I'd say there's no real monster. |
| I didn't understand. Why was Johan in female clothing as a child? Was he a female? Ending really didn't answer this. |
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| I think Roberto is a monster - man I hated that guy....... I kept thinking, when the last chapters were teasing us with telling their names, that their real names would be hanzel and gretel....... dunno why but it seems to fit. |
| why do i have the feeling that johan went to see his mother? |
| Very interesting ending. |
| That was crazy when Johan sat up! I hope he isn't going to go on a rampage again. :/ @ tvlookplay That's a possibility but I thought he just wanted Tenma's answer. |
| HEY! |
| I had seen a little bit of this series before but that was a few years back. For about 2 years, I've been wanting to watch this series but I always seemed to get side-tracked by something. Saturday night, well more like in the early hours of Sunday morning, I had a friend over and we were deciding on an anime to watch and I was pushing him to watch Monster and he gave in. He said only 1 episode and that he needed to go back to his flat because it was like 2am, however, he stayed and watched the first 3 episodes....he was persuaded by the brilliance of this series. However, he needed to go bed and so did I (an early night for me lol), so we stopped there. After some sleep, I just kept on watching with obvious breaks, lectures and the time used to sleep.....I finally finished this magnificent series just now. I have many questions about the series, so many of them were left unanswered for the readers to decide on what they think will happen. I believe Johan is alive still and has escaped the police hospital he was recovering at, as to where he went, I do not know but a working theory is that he went to see his mother in Souther France. The part where he awakes from his slumber and tells Tenma about the choice his mother made in the last episode. I believe that is Tenma's imagination, a memory or an event only Tenma knows between Tenma and Johan, because the twin's mother told him and Tenma is thinking on what Johan must be thinking if he was to find out or remember the event. The series is brilliant in having complex and layered characters as well as a brilliant and menacing OP to go with it. The series or the events can be summed up in so many ways from one man's distorted love, a mother's revenge, a doctor's pursuit to right what he had done wrong, a woman who hates herself, a boy with a horrid past, a man seeking to gain his feelings and emotions that he had lost as a child. There are so many intertwining tales within this story. It's a beautiful anime and manga, the anime adaptation is very faithful to the manga. This is probably one of the animes where I am not really doing any "shipping", the many characters of this story seem to be more family than anything else, I don't see Nina and Tenma ever becoming a couple, Nina only sees Tenma as a precious individual and I don't think Tenma has the ability to get into a relationship anytime soon. Naoki Urasawa, the mangaka of Monster, who has done a few of my favourites of all time like 20th Century Boys. I learned that he rebooted his "Master Keaton" series, it's apparently set 20 years after the end of the original manga series. I'm wondering if he will ever make another manga related to Monster detailing more of what happens to the lives of the many characters like Eva, Tenma, Johan, Nina, etc. I think I maybe one of a few people who actually loved Eva's character, I never hated her at any point in the series, I know she did many questionable and incredibly hurtful things throughout the course of the series. I felt truly sorry for her when she lost Martin. This series is magnificent and should be watched many people out there as possible, I will be trying my best to spread this around amongst my friends. My score for this anime is a 10/10, it truly is a masterpiece. |
| The pros: - Practically everything - Incredible plot - Deep!!!! - DAT PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY. - DAT SUSPENSE - The villians are actually hateable. For example, I hate Roberto with a burning passion. If I were Lunge, I'd kill him for sure. The cons: - Way too long - Too many characters. Also have to comment on the art. Alot of the European guys look REALLY similar. I forgot a lot of the side character names - I wanted a conclusion/epilogue on all the semi-main characters Debating on either a 9 or 10 but leaning on the 10... TOTALLY SHIPPING TENMA AND NINA BTW. LOL Even with their um 20 year age difference :P Also Martin and Eva. CUTE |
dahoho said: 4 things i couldn't quite figure out 1. After Nina ran back home from the red rose mansion she found johan I figured from the reenactment that the mother abandoned them? what for? so they would not be traced again, to avoid the profiling? 2.why nina had to shoot johan at the beginning? and why did johan kill their new foster parents that night? and why did he go on a killing rampage? just because he went crazy when he inherited nina's memories? 3. what was ranz bonapaparta trying to experiment by taking nina to red mansion that night? Did he try to free them from the captivity by killing everyone who knows of the 511 project? 4. in chapter 143, or 40 pages into volume 17 that man johan killed, who is he? is he even significant? I just finished reading the entire series yesterday so if you haven't found your answers, here they are (or what I suppose what the answers are): 1. I guessed that the mother abandoned her children most likely out of guilt. The fact that she chose to abandon one of her own children when she panicked made her feel absolutely horrible. She wanted to protect both of her children but she wasn't able to do that, and out of despair, she ran away and abandoned her children. I guessed that she thought that she was the real monster for abandoning her children and deemed herself unworthy as a mother which was why she simply just left. It was probably also another measure to distract their pursuers since she believed that eventually they would be after her other child and she might once again give that child up in order to protect herself and she didn't want that to happen so she left. 2. Nina shot her brother out of confusion and despair. She was upset that her brother killed every foster parent they ever had so she picked up the gun just to scare him (she is just a child, she wasn't planning to seriously shoot him), but then when her brother told her to shoot, she obeyed because she was influenced by him (Johan is a sociopath. It is easy for him to manipulate others). Johan started killing because he was influenced by Franz's books and thought that everyone in the world besides his sister and himself were scum. 3. Franz took Nina to the mansion that night as a form of bait. He wanted to bring all those who knew about the 511 project and bringing Nina could be used as an excuse for a celebration. Then he poisoned everyone so that the existence of the project and the twins would be virtually unknown. It was his way of freeing the twins from all the things they suffered from since Franz fell in love with the mother. 4. I'm guessing you're talking about the man who asked Johan who they were going to kill next? I assume that he is another criminal who was influenced by Johan and outlasted his purpose. Johan had no more use for him so he was killed. The ending: Many people wondered what happened to Johan after he was brought back to life for the third time. I like to think that he changed his ways since Nina forgave and being brought back to life a second time gave him a chance to make amends. He probably still is a sociopath but I don't think he would go killing others anymore (unless they somehow threatened him or his sister's life). |
| For those wondering about the ending, I'm almost entirely sure that the part where Johan sits up was just a figment of Tenma's imagination. I'm not so sure about the empty bed, however... |
| the ending is kinda, ambigous for me |
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| Somehow the scene where the mother was forced to choose between Nina and Johann reminded me of the movie I watched a long time ago, Sophie's Choice. I thought perhaps Urasawa Sensei was inspired by that movie. |
H_ErifuFeb 19, 2015 5:21 AM
JerickBakara said: A brilliant end to a brilliant series. Johan sitting up was a heart-stopper, and his disappearing from his hospital bed (again) was a good end. What will he do now? He might have been the "unwanted" twin. Will he go after his mother? Does he have a new purpose to be a psycho killer? Will he go after Nina/Anna? Definitely a manga I'd recommend. I realized that it was a 10/10 by the end of the first volume, but, after reading the last chapter, I'm wishing that I'd saved it till now. I always thought the ended implied he committed his existence erasing suicide("the perfect suicide"), but I should re-read it again sometime.. |
| ゴロゴロゴロ ゴロゴロゴロ ゴロゴロゴロ ゴロゴロゴロ ゴゴゴゴゴゴ ゴゴゴゴゴゴ ゴゴゴゴゴゴ |
| It's been a while since I read Monster, but I'm pretty sure I said "oh shit!" out loud when Johan sat up at the end. Such a great manga. |
| Pretty disappointing ending in my opinion. Overall though it is a very good manga, shame it wavered somewhat at the end. |
| Defeating a sandwich, only makes it tastier |
| That was just beautiful! Brilliant development, very real characters and for such a sophisticated story to have no inconsistencies, this manga is a true masterpiece. 10/10 |
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| Is Johan alive? Is he dead? Maybe the last scene was just a memory lapse of Tenma, but maybe Johan was really there and Tenma saved his life again... But, if he's alive, what he will do on the future? The evil is still inside him? Damn, this ending made me have a lot of questions... Which is great. |
| ... that's it? well, i was hoping for a stronger feeling of closure I'm not a fan of open-ended ending Anyway, that was a fucking great manga. There was so much mystery, suspense, some epic scenes and conversations I loved how everything is so "real world", like, it's our world, it could happen in our lives, to the people we know And there was "real life" consequences as well, totally different from most of animes and mangas that have tendency to follow a stereotype Despite expecting more from the ending, since i prefer endings that have more closure and doesn't leave to your imagination(mostly because mine sucks), i will give it 10/10 because it really is a FANTASTIC read and i'll probably read 20th century boys or some other work from Urasawa |
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| Very intriguing manga, the last few volumes were like rollercoasters, everytime they uncover a mystery another one emerged. And the ending is really something, very thought-provoking, make me question about what's make a "monster" as the characters in the manga had been chasing. The art is delicate, nice angle to enlight and emphasize the object, theme. I really like the characters, though there're many of them but the author managed to care to the detail, realistically portrayed. Everytime a minor arc is done i got some "feel", like when the old couple visit their son after helping Tenma (not remember which chapter). 9/10. |
CzeroCMar 18, 2017 2:33 AM
| After reading 20CB and Pluto, I really had to read Urasawa's most famed work and I'm glad I did. This truly is a near masterpiece of a manga. It felt thrilling throughout the series and almost always had the momentum going. It's themes are really complex and are so well handled. "Are all human lives equal?", "Does every person deserve the right to live?", "Are the hands of a person used for saving lives be used for ending lives?". And I'm glad that the series doesn't give you a black-and-white answer to these questions and leaves them to interpretation. But it's not just the themes, but it's also the writing that's super impressive. When I first started the series, I had no clue how this story can go on for 18 volumes. I mean, it's all about a man hunting down a serial killer, right? But Monster isn't a story about Johan. It isn't a story about Tenma (well, not mainly at least). It's a story about everyone that's connected to Johan, not Johan itself. I like how you barely get to see the titular character himself. That being said, the cast of characters is insanely huge and more and more of them just got added to the series. However, they all played a role to the story and I love how Urasawa ties them all together. Every character has a story to tell and I'm glad that they all get the spotlight. Monster didn't give me any particular "favorite" character, but the large cast of characters feels more appealing as a whole then them being judged separately. But yeah, Johan was a really good depiction of what a serial killer would be. It's almost frightening to imagine someone like him in the real world. I would say my only tiny gripe with the series is that it was probably a bit too long. But when I mean that, I mean that it was probably a volume too long. Honestly, that's not much of a complain. Also, a lot of the character designs felt too similar with each other. Like, there's a lot of guys with fat noses and black curly hair in the series, lol. Anyways, this series is probably a 9.4/10 for me, which is basically the same as my score for 20th Century Boys. But if I have to pick, like if someone pointed a gun at me and I have to pick between the two, I'd choose 20th Century Boys. For those of you who really liked Monster, give 20CB a read! There's actually a lot of similarities between the two, just 20CB is more absurd and lighthearted. Also, Pluto's a great alternative, and it's shorter too. |
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| I dont know from where to start. This is going to be a long one xD. The begining of the manga was very good and promising, then maybe after chapter 25 or so it got unesesery complicated, dont get me wrong i like it to be conplicated, but not like that. It was souless. The peaste and the story got too stiff for a 1/4 of the manga. Afther that period it step on its feet again and continued very smouth. But at the last 10-15 chapters the whole thing got so blury and (hate to say it) boring that i feelt like Naoki Urusawa was in such a hurry to finish it and sayed to himself "fack it i cant keep that up, lets just put whatever ending to it". I left tha manga unsetiafaed and anoyed. Maybe becouse i had so much hopes for it to be something special till the very end. I realy wanted to give the manga 10 out of 10, but at the end is for maxsimys 8/10 in my eyes. |
| This is me again, but becouse the discusion sistem was shut down for i while i was pre-write that shit up there xD So here are my additional thouts after i watched the anime and an explanation video on YouTube, witch btw was pretty helpful to me https://youtu.be/dU2uy4oyq2w I take my words for beeing boring and anoying, i just didnt understend it fully at that time. I seen that everything had a reason and explanation. So my curent score is 9/10 . |
| good stuff man, definitely an awesome read. it's too long though, sometimes it drags on and on somewhere nobody cares about, but overall a great start as one of the first manga i ever read. |
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| Despite its lulls and to me a fairly lackluster conclusion (not bad, just lackluster), this manga was one of the most wonderful series I've ever read. I loved the way all of these seemingly disjointed plot lines tied together, and managed to intertwine in an astounding way. It was a wonderful work and a testament of good plotting and careful planning. I also like how, despite the content and subject matter; the manga never wondered into edge territory. In the hands of a less capable mangaka, a character like Johan would've been a complete joke; ending up as a juvenile attempt to deep. It managed to handle explicit topics with actual maturity, and didn't indulge in dialogue that sounded like an essay you'd read from a high school psychology class. The characters weren't walking edgelords going on about how sad they are and how shitty the world is. Over all I loved this manga. It combined some of the aspects of Master Keaton and managed to pull of tremendously wonderful read. Johan was a fantastic villain, and some of the plot twists in this manga were some of the insane I've come across. Sure the pacing wasn't the best and I could see how someone wouldn't like how Tenma stayed true to his morals and was more or less validated at the end. But in terms of sheer story telling, this work was top-notch. |
| Ah, finally, the final. I actually think that the openness of the last chapter is a good thing for the story and for the readers. Monster was an amazing journey, I can't really add much to the comments there. However, there's one thing in particular that I really, really admired, and that's Eva's development. I understand why so many people hate her, but I personally love flawed characters, and for me she was one of the most interesting ones in the show. There's an interesting detail about her - in the beginning, her facial structure just screams cynicism and mean nature - I'm mostly talking about Eva's lips here. They're sharp and almast always look upwards, taking a form of a tick. But in the later half of the series, and especially in this chapter, her lips are not like that anymore. They're soft, round and contribute to Eva's changed personality - she's now a kind woman who understands what's important in life - love and caring friends. Eva really did learn a lesson, and I can't help but admire her for that. As well as Urasawa for such a thrilling story with rich characters. |
| One hell of a read. Great plot. Story was on point. Everything just about it makes you crave more and more. Open ending is not a big deal, in fact it leaves it however you want it to be. Phew, those characters were something else. Masterpiece no doubt anyone that says otherwise is a joke. |
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| That gave me a fright. Damn this manga. Beautiful. I wonder what their real name was. And that realization of Tenma, the mother might have(because all of this was in our MC's mind) willingly gave Anna to Franz for the experiment. Or did she really mistook her for Johan... I wonder if Johan will kill his mother for that if it's true... |
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| I am confused... Why so much story build up for this lame ending? I really enjoyed reading until the last few chaptersss The end was disappointing. I expected much more |
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| Damn ... I'm speechless, what an ending. My score was hovering between a 7 or an 8 for the most part, but God, those last few chapters were really on another level. I managed to read all the chapters in 3 days, definitely worth the investment. The ending was a bit strange at first but after analyzing it I think there is nothing more suitable. |
sneed's feed and seed  formerly chuck's |
| Really great read, but I think I enjoyed the journey more-so than the plot itself. Urasawa is good at developing his supporting characters and builds to really exciting confrontations and meetings, but for such a sinuous story, I can't help but feel that, at the end, it's a little hollow. That said, his other long running manga, 20th Century Boys and Billy Bat, also suffer from similar issues. The payoff never quite matches the level of anticipation I have, but the author's planning and pacing are truly first-rate. I think where he falters most in Monster is with the main cast. Tenma is a good hero that you like rooting for, but you know he's never really going to kill Johan, or anyone for that matter. His protagonists have this unwavering moral compass that saps a lot of tension from key scenes. I thought Johan was a bit lackluster. The ambiguity surrounding his character is interesting, but his dialogue and characterisation just seemed monotonous. I had always heard he was a great villain -- the full works -- but I think Urasawa did much better with Tomodachi and The Bat in his subsequent manga. Nina became a little tiresome come the end; the exposition was a bit overt. It was nice to read something set throughout Europe. I don't know how much research Urasawa and his team did, but I was impressed with the level of detail and his implementation of historical events. I think Urasawa does that better than any other mangaka, though again I think he improves upon this even more in Billy Bat. |
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