5,086
edits
Monster (manga): Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Derivative (talk | contribs) mNo edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| (8 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown) | |||
Line 15:
Not to be confused with the [[Monster (film)|Oscar-winning film]] starring Charlize Theron, even for a minute (although that one is also about a serial killer).
The show was a fan-favorite on [[Syfy]]'s Ani-Mondays block. It's also available on Hulu [https://web.archive.org/web/20130606094653/http://www.hulu.com/naoki-urasawas-monster here.], Netflix (subbed), and the new Manga Entertainment app for Xbox360 (dubbed).
----
{{tropelist}}
Line 44:
* [[Beauty Equals Goodness]]: [[Averted Trope|Totally averted]]. People of all appearances occupy all positions on the morality spectrum.
* [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]: So very, very much.
** The plot begans with one of these: after being demoted for prioritizing saving an orphan over operating the city major, a very drunk Tenma ranted to his seemingly unconscious kid patient about how much he would like to see his superiors dead as compensation for the humiliation they gave him. Unfortunately for Tenma, said patient was a sociopathic mass murderer who thought that complying with such a request was a very good thank-you gift to the physician who saved his life.
** General Wolf once asked Johan how he felt. Johan said that he couldn't explain it, but that he could find a way to demonstrate it. {{spoiler|Turns out that the words Johan couldn't articulate were "absolute isolation", and he demonstrated them by systematically killing every important person on the General's life.}}
** East Germany military had experiments done on children to create an emotionless and perfect killing machine. Then, [[Gone Horribly Right|Johan became one of the experiment subjects]].
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: The German and Czech on signs, in documents, and just about everywhere else is pretty fun for students of the language.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: Everybody who survives the story gets new chances to rebuild their lives again, {{spoiler|but where did Johan go after the finale?}}
** {{spoiler|According to ''Another Monster'', [[Oh Crap|Johan survived the story and rebuilt his life]]...}}
* [[Bodyguard Crush]]: Martin develops one for Eva.
* [[Book Ends]]: {{spoiler|Johan gets shot in the head and Tenma saves him.}}
Line 60 ⟶ 63:
* [[Cassandra Truth]]: Tenma has a lot of trouble getting people to believe him.
* [[Cast of Snowflakes]]
* [[Chekhov's Armoury]]: even small details turn outto be important later on.
* [[Chekhov's Army]]: Many of the major supporting characters take a few episodes after their introduction before they take an active role in the story.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|Runge packs a shotgun and a pistol before his fight with Roberto. During the fight, he loses the first, but reveals the tiny gun.}}
Line 68 ⟶ 71:
* [[Converse with the Unconscious]]:
** Used earlier as [[Black Comedy|an]] [[I Wished You Were Dead|incredibly]] [[Be Careful What You Wish For|black]] [[Brick Joke]] after Tenma complains of the politics of his hospital to a supposedly unconscious ten-year-old Johan.
**
* [[Cool Guns]]: Nina's use of the four-barreled COP derringer.
* [[A Day in the Limelight]]: Very frequent. Chances are, if you're a side character in this series, you'll get your "very own episode" or your "very own series arc." Also an [[Inverted Trope]], in that the title character (if that's how you see Johan, anyway) gets comparatively little air time.
Line 92 ⟶ 95:
* [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]]: In-universe, courtesy of Franz Bonaparta.
* [[Fan Disservice]]: There are several instances, like when a kid searching for his mom ends up in a red light district, sees a prostitute bent over a trash can ''servicing'' a patron, and is paid to watch. Also, Roberto. Another being Nina in first half of the Prague arc being revealed to actually be {{spoiler|Johan in drag.}} Works doubly as [[Fan Service]] since [[Fetish Fuel]] is [[Your Mileage May Vary|what it is]].
* [[The Farmer and the Viper]]: Don't be kind to Johan. It never helps. {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|Possibly did]] in the end.}}
* [[Fictional Document]]: The various nihilistic children's books.
* [[Film Noir]]: It borrows a few elements every once in awhile.
Line 106 ⟶ 109:
* [[Half-Identical Twins]] : Johan and Anna/Nina. {{spoiler|Their mother even used to dress Johan up to resemble Anna while the children and she were in Prague. As young adults, Johan masquerade as Nina while he's in Prague, and when Nina gets there, she's confused by his female identity and how everyone seems to know "her."}}
* [[Harmful to Minors]]: And ''how!''
* [[The Heart]]: ''
* [[Heartwarming Orphan]]: Nina, Dieter, Karl, and Grimmer. Subverted with various other Kinderheim 511 alumni, and for Johan. This being ''
* [[He Knows Too Much]]: With rare exceptions, knowing anything about Johan's existence is enough for him to kill you.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: ''A lot''.
Line 122 ⟶ 125:
* [[It Got Worse]]
* [[It's for a Book]]: He just wants to ''[[Mind Rape|interview]]'' you, {{spoiler|Detective Braun}}! {{spoiler|Richard}} [[Idiot Ball|really should have known better than to fall for that line]] too, considering that he already suspected Johan of being a murderer and Johan introduced himself by name. Someone with that kind of critical information shouldn't allow the person they suspect of being a killer anywhere near them, no matter what story the person uses.
* [[It's Personal]]: The reason Tenma takes on tracking and killing Johan himself.
* [[I Wished You Were Dead]]: Tenma wishes the hospital director and his underlings would die, while venting to a supposedly unconscious patient. Aforementioned patient gladly obliges.
* [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]]: Mostly in terms of Johan's backstory.
Line 128 ⟶ 131:
* [[The Killer in Me]]: Runge thinks Tenma has a [[Split Personality]] and is committing murders without realizing it since Johan does such a good job of staying invisible that the only clues he is able to find point to Tenma.
* [[Kill Him Already]]: When it's the villain who says it, you're in for a [[Mind Rape|treat]].
* {{spoiler|[[Laser-Guided Karma]]: Provided Johan escaped, he faces the same life as a fugitive that
* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: The basic premise of the story is a stretch to believe (though Urasawa pulls it off), and every so often, someone in-story will helpfully point this out, usually at the expense of Tenma (or anyone who has come around to his view). See also [[Scully Syndrome]].
* [[Let Them Die Happy]]: Subverted. {{spoiler|At the brink of death, Roberto asks Johan to "show him the landscape of the doomsday." Johan stares gloomily at his shoes and replies, "You can't see it."}}
Line 151 ⟶ 154:
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]:
** The Baby resembles Peter Lorre. Makes sense, 'cause it's in Germany.
** Except Lorre was [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000048/bio taller and less German]--and [[Word of God]] says the Baby's inspiration came from ''[[Twin Peaks]]''.
*** Baby's first appearance is immediately recognizable as inspired in the ''Twin Peak''{{'}}s "dwarf" character because even the music is similar to the one used in ''Twin
** Dr. Julius Reichwein looks like Wilford Brimley.
** There's also the uncanny resemblance between Runge and [[Sherlock Holmes|that other super sleuth]].
* [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]: Tenma just wanted to save a life. Just see how it ended.
* [[No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine]]: Pulled twice with Nina, and then with a [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] [[Averted Trope|aversion]] for Grimmer and Tenma in Prague.
* [[No Name Given]]: So many characters that a major theme in the series is how it is not to have a name and how it affects their sense of self-ifdentity.
* [[Not So Different]]: Another theme of the manga is how many people on different sides of the moral spectrum aren't that different to the people they fight. Johan tries to invoke it with himself and Tenma {{spoiler|unfructuously, as it turns it out}}.
* [[Not So Stoic]]: Out of all people, thanks in part to his [[Character Development]], {{spoiler|Runge gets angry when Roberto starts talking about his failed marriage and how his grandchild doesn't even know his biological grandfather.}} He gets another one soon after when he starts up a [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] moment.
* [[Off the Wagon]]: Subverted with Richard Braun. Averted with Eva.
Line 193 ⟶ 196:
** Eva wants Tenma to rot in prison for life out of spitefulness due to the latter dumping her and later attempts to get revenge after {{spoiler|Martin}}'s death.
** {{spoiler|The twins' mother Anna}} warns Franz Bonaparta that she will get her revenge on him through her children.
* [[Reverse Whodunnit]]: from the beggining the reader and the main character know that Johan is the murderen. The plot consist on both making the rest of the cast to learn it too and to uncover how much crime Johan wasinvoled with.
* [[Rhetorical Request Blunder]]: Dr. Tenma says in front of the [[Converse with the Unconscious|apparently unconscious]] Johan that his corrupt superiors at the hospital "would be better off dead!" So Johan kills them.
* [[Room Full of Crazy]]: Johan likes to leave messages on walls. And bits of derelict industrial sites. {{spoiler|He also goes to some trouble to set up a [[Room Full of Crazy]] based on ''someone else's'' childhood trauma, all for [[More Than Mind Control]].}}
* [[Rousseau Was Right]]: Tenma's conclusion, and arguably that of the series itself.
* [[Sadistic Choice]]: The backstory has a very prominent one. {{spoiler|The twins' mother was forced to sent one of her children to go to a mansion that would become the center of a massacre for the kid to witness, as part of a sadistic psychological experiment, under the threat of killing both her and her children if she didn't compliant. She sent Nina. Johan, despite having ''not'' being sent, has a lot of his personality shaped by the testimony of his very traumatized sister over the incident (to the point of even temporarily beliveing ''he'' was the one who witnessed it), and still cannot fathom how and why his mother make that decision.}}
* [[Scully Syndrome]]: Virtually epidemic, if understandable. Runge is the most standout case, but nearly everyone tends to come down with a dose of this when they first hear the main story. {{spoiler|Check out the late-arriving cops in Ruhenheim's reaction to Gillen's explanations.}}
* [[Serial Escalation]]: Just how bad does a person have to be before you, the viewer, stop sympathizing with them?
Line 203 ⟶ 206:
* {{spoiler|[[Shaggy Dog Story]]}}: Arguably, but a rare non-negative example. {{spoiler|Tenma's outlook on humanity by the end is more important than whether or not he kills Johan. When he went all that way to let him live again, one can say it made the buildup pointless, but it showed that Tenma felt that he wasn't necessarily wrong in the first place.}}
* [[Ship Tease]]: The subtext between Tenma and Nina.
* [[Shout-Out]]: ''The Magnificent Steiner'' is a pretty obvious one to ''[[The Incredible Hulk (TV series)|The Incredible Hulk]]''. Also the central chase of Tenma owes quite a bit to ''[[The Fugitive (TV series)|The Fugitive]]'' TV series (as did the TV
* [[Shown Their Work]]: The operation scenes are largely accurate, and the renderings of Germany and the Czech Republic are extremely faithful.
* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: Runge's response to {{spoiler|Roberto}}'s speech about Johan's plan.
Line 232 ⟶ 235:
* [[Title Drop]]
* [[Token Evil Teammate]]: Otto Heckel can be viewed as this.
* [[To Know Him I Must Become Him]]: Lunge thought Temna was the killer and observed Temna had no family life. Sadly, after Lunge and his family agreed to meet and become close (Lunge was [[Married to the Job]] and alienated his family and they left him), Lunge flaked, because Temna had no family life.
* [[Tomato in the Mirror]]: {{spoiler|Some of Johan's traumatic memories that were supposed to be his [[Freudian Excuse]] were actually based off what Anna told him after ''she'' returned from the Red Rose Mansion. ''Not him''.}}
* [[Training Montage]] Episode 9 of the anime.
Line 242 ⟶ 246:
* [[Ubermensch]]: Johan, Tenma, and arguably Nina/Anna as well.
* [[Underdressed for the Occasion]]: Eva won't let Martin accompany her into the hotel because he doesn't meet the dress code.
* [[Unmoving
* [[The Un-Reveal]]: {{spoiler|Johan's and Anna/Nina's real names.}}
* [[Viewers Are Goldfish]]: The first episode of the anime.
Line 264 ⟶ 268:
* [[Wouldn't Hurt a Child]]: [[Averted Trope|Yeah, right]].
* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]:
** Nina thinks the romantic-sounding emails she's been receiving are from her "[[Prince Charming]]." They're actually from {{spoiler|Johan, [[Squick|
** Suk ends up in the same situation, believing that his story is a romance where he wins over the beautiful girl in the bar. {{spoiler|[[Dropped a Bridget On Him|Turns out this was Johan too]].}}
* [[The Wrong Right Thing]]: How Tenma got into this.
* [[Yank the Dog's Chain]]: It's almost a guarantee that once someone's luck turns around, they are going to be killed. Almost.
* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: Johan likes to clean up loose ends. And by "clean up," we mean "murder."
Line 282 ⟶ 286:
[[Category:Seinen]]
[[Category:Psychological Thriller]]
[[Category:Madhouse (company)]]
[[Category:Anime]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Manga]]
[[Category:Monster (manga)]]
[[Category:Mystery and Detective Anime and Manga]]
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
| |||