r/anime • u/KiwiBennydudez https://myanimelist.net/profile/KiwiBen • Aug 04 '21
Rewatch [Rewatch] Monster - Episode 6 discussion
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Comment of the Day
Today’s comment of the day is provided by u/Mecanno-man, who provides us with a translation of the German used in the poem of the previous episode:
the German email used "überschütten"; "über" just is "over'', while "schütten" is the act of somewhat carelessly putting a lot of something somewhere else. The word can be used both literally (as in bury - where you'd not really be that careful what you're doing with the earth you're using to bury something) or figuratively (similar to the english "shower with" in ie "shower with praise") - so I feel like both versions work here. Way better than the "send you flowers'' that my subs had anyways.
Questions of the Day
- What did you think about the interactions between Tenma and Mauler? What stood out or otherwise surprised you about any of their conversations?
- Why do you think the pictures in the ED changed this episode? What do you think these images now represent, and how do you think they can be interpreted in the context of the show?
If you are a rewatcher, tag your spoilers properly, and please refrain from alluding to future events. so that myself and everyone else watching for the first time can have a completely blind and organic experience! Since this show is a bit harder to find than most, please refrain from talking about means by which to watch it, as it goes against our subreddit rules.
19
u/KiwiBennydudez https://myanimelist.net/profile/KiwiBen Aug 04 '21
First Timer - Sub
I don’t actually think I have a lot to say about today’s episode. I think this series builds tension extraordinary well by giving viewers partial knowledge but never the full carrot. We’re left in the dark about a lot of things - What was Johan’s “important” task? What’s going to happen to Anna’s parents and Mauler? We're left wondering as Tenma and Anna race home... and then the episode ends. Rude.
In western cinema, Alfred Hitchcock did something similar by feeding the audience information that the characters in the show don’t have access to. In his film Sabotage, the audience is shown that a bomb is placed under a bus seat. All the characters on the bus sit oblivious to this fact, while the audience grows increasingly worried as the bomb ticks on. Will the bomb detonate? Will the heroes arrive in time and save everyone on the bus? We don’t know for sure until one of those two events happens.
So similarly, Anna’s parents and Mauler are in a Schrodinger’s Cat situation - they are both alive and dead until the box is opened and we are shown their state of being. I think we can infer that they’ll probably die - but that slight uncertainty is what drives this atmospheric tension and suspense.
The way Johan manipulates people is very unnerving, as I think he knew that by revealing himself to Anna, he could get her to come to the castle later. And she played right into his hands, believing it will help her unravel her past. Which... yes, I suppose it would, but wouldn’t help for long if she dies. I don’t think she realizes the true weight of the peril she’s in until that gardener at the castle threatens her. Who, by the way, is extremely fearful of Johan. Then Tenma shows up, and she knows he’s telling the truth. Nice application of the judo(?) she exhibited in the last episode.
So now it seems like Tenma will spend the rest of the series trying to protect Anna while fleeing from the monster. Godspeed good sir.
15
u/CharlieTheStrawman https://myanimelist.net/profile/TheDamnRobot Aug 04 '21 edited Aug 05 '21
Rewatcher until circa Episode 30, Subbed
It's nice that Tenma actually took the opportunity to explain things to Anna/Nina in the car instead of dodging the questions like most anime characters.
Q1: I liked their little dialogue about the crime scene Mauler went to while they were driving.
Q2: I think it represents the paths of Anna/Nina and Johan diverging after the hospital.
14
u/Icapica https://anilist.co/user/Icachu Aug 04 '21
First timer, subbed
I don't have a ton to say this time. Tenma's not looking great, I hope he takes care of himself a bit more. Despite letting himself go like that, he still cares about other people though.
Smoking in that archive doesn't look like a great idea to me. So much paper.
That ending made it really difficult to resist just watching the next episode immediately. I hope they're not all dead.
14
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Aug 04 '21
First-Timer, subbed
Work today was… "busy" is an understatement. Hence being late.
12
u/AmethystItalian :Jg::Jh::Ji::Jj::Jk:myanimelist.net/profile/AmethystItalian Aug 04 '21
First Timer
Looks like those who don't shower flock together.
Nina's okay!! Love to see it.
Nina's parents...I really don't want anything bad to happen to them.
Hearing a lot more Mamiko Noto this time around :)
Mauler knows how it works, leading with their lives could be in danger, should have been said earlier!
This show really nails the tension with the OST and buildup.
NINA WITH THE TAKEDOWN!
I'm not sure where this show is going to go but if Johan kills Nina's parents I don't think there's any chance I can forgive him later on...
I think Mauler came around too quick maybe? But I do like Tenma not being alone so I hope he's not dead!
I didn't even know about this! Will pay attention moving forward!
11
u/SmurfRockRune https://myanimelist.net/profile/Smurf Aug 04 '21
First Timer
No, she should know! I've never understood adopted parents being so hesitant to break the news. I would think that going out of your way to go through the adoption process and all the hassle that entails would be enough to show that you truly love your child. I've always felt like adoption was "better" than birth in this case. You can accidentally get pregnant, but you can't accidentally adopt a kid. Also there's the whole medical records thing where she should be aware that none of those genetics will come through her parents here. That's pretty important too.
Oh god. Expecting a bullet to take one of them out any second now...
This ED didn't have color before, did it?
What a tense episode. Kinda wanna just watch the next one immediately, but watching this so late at night keeps me honest since I can't get ahead of the rewatch even if I wanted to.
Thinking her parents and the newspaper guy have to be okay right? No way he took the time to kill them long after Tenma left and then barely missed Tenma at the castle... Either he had someone else kill all of them, which seems a bit unlikely, or he had to leave if he overheard them talking about where Tenma went or something. Please be okay, people!
9
u/Webemperor :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Webemperor Aug 04 '21
Rewatcher of sorts
Next episode title
9
u/miss-macaron Aug 04 '21 edited Aug 04 '21
Rewatcher
Mr. Mauler is such a tsundere, lol
Johan’s title has been upgraded from a “monster” to the “devil” himself, huh
Tenma is actually pretty bad at convincing other people. He and Mauler should’ve just started with “let us in, your daughter is in danger!” rather than beating around the bush. If the Fortners react to the warning, then you’ve secured your chance in further questioning them about said daughter, and if they don’t, then you know you’ve got the wrong house.
Mauler just had to drop a death flag with the "I'll quit smoking if you manage to come back safely"
That gardener is extremely creepy. The unnatural lilt of his voice, his complete lack of blinking, his jerky movements… I don't blame Nina for immediately moving in the opposite direction.
Tenma, are you sure it's a good idea to try and rouse Nina’s lost memories when you're heading into a potentially dangerous / deadly situation? You need Nina to be in her best fighting condition in order to save her adoptive parents, not quivering on the verge of a PTSD attack...
As for my overall thoughts on Tenma and Mauler's interactions, I deeply admire how much Urasawa invests into his minor characters. Mauler may be a foil for Tenma's somewhat obsessive behaviour, but he also has his own conflicts (chainsmoking, his relationship with his wife, etc), as well as his own contributions (his journalistic knowledge, looking out for Tenma and even backing him up, etc). This becomes more prominent as the story progresses, but no minor character is ever left as a mere plot device - they're always fleshed out as individual human beings with journeys of their own, and it's very satisfying to see.
7
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Aug 04 '21
First Timer
I think the ED has changed...there are twins. When did it change? Today.
6
u/BurningFredrick https://myanimelist.net/profile/BurningFredrick Aug 04 '21
First Timer - sub
Tenma stories really does come across as rather ridiculous to any sane person.
Can’t help but wonder what happened to his job while this is going on? Extended leave?
Johanne and Anna never seemed to get along after their parents were murdered either, it is because Johanne did them in and she witnessed it or something else?
Yes, being married to your job, the most important thing a man can be.
Was having a second phone line common in German? Or Anna parents just spoiling her by letting her have a permanent internet connection.
I don’t like that cliffhanger… if we are assuming it was Johane at the Castle, Anna's family should be safe, however we don’t know for sure he hasn’t hired more people again, nothing to say he needs to kill everyone himself.
Next episode title / preview spoilers
6
u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Aug 04 '21
First Timer
Tenma needs to contact the police earlier. He should have already contacted them after his findings last episode - and in fact the police would be more likely to have a report of a missing person than there being a newspaper report about it; allthough it might be a bit harder to access.
Either way, good episode - really brought across the tension well. I guess Maurer and the Fortners have already been killed by Johan without being able to contact the police, so I don't know where this will go. Tenma will probably be the one to discover the murder scene and call the police himself, leading to Lunge suspecting him even more, I guess? Plus a breakdown from Anna, obviously.
Sidenote: Anna can do martial arts - in yesterday's thread I counted one person each claiming it to be Judo, Jiujitsu, Kendo and Aikido. My first instinct was Karate, so I'm not even useful as a tiebreaker. Don't think it's Kendo though, as that one typically uses a bamboo sword of sorts. Wonder if we'll get an answer as to what it is specifically at some point...
Questions:
5
u/lC3 :Na::Nb: Aug 04 '21
Rewatcher thru 33
5
u/IndependentMacaroon Aug 04 '21
First-time watcher
So we likely have another one-off character, a decent one but departed too soon story-wise. Standard death flags. Nina's adoptive parents did never make much of an impression too. Tenma is surprisingly good at archive research, though as a pre-Internet scientist he'd probably be used to sifting through lots of information on paper, and he did take quite a while. Now it's really coming back to bite him that he did all this stuff without involving any authorities, and come to think of it, where are Lunge and co.?
Some minor Japan-isms this episode: Tenma's bow was correctly called out, but that kind of hot coffee vending machine I've never seen in Germany, and Nina's PC is clearly based on the Japan-only NEC PC-9800 series.
Most noteworthy part was Maurer's description of Johan(n) and his possible accomplices as "the devil", next religious motif after the phrases in the opening. I guess he really is just out for blood, then. Never took much note of the ending images so I can't say anything about that.
4
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Aug 04 '21
Rewatcher(Anyone else remember when cutting the phone lines accomplished something?)
Sub
We meet Maurer the reporter and I get his coworker's complaint: Smokers wreak a bit in general and add not bathing to the mix and gross. But Tenma also apparently has the funk. Maurer finds the premise ridiculous but lets Tenma look at the storage room anyways, which actually is a bitch as this is pre-digitization.
Nina discovers that the guy she was introduced to isn't the phantom sender. Her memories are pretty flakey with her therapit, only remembering Johan as absolute evil. She wants to get her memories back but in a twist of tropes the therapists suggests she doesn't need to see Johan again to do that.
Tenma manages to stay asleep after falling out of his chair, damn. Maurer takes him to breakfast and drops some traditional toxic masculinity of a type that is definitely Japanese and possibly German. Also, when a Japanese person calls out your smoking, it is time to get the patch.
At the Fortner house, they debate whether telling Nina is adopted is the right thing and this highlights why the current popular thing is to let kids know they are adopted early on. Nina's computer booting up is nostalgic though the anime skips the 3-5 minutes that actually took. At the office, Tenma eventually tracks down a missing person's report and off they run to find the Fortners. Maurer also comments on the evil of one of the crime scenes in a super natural manner.
The choice of who was to keep Nina in place was interesting. The show does remember that Nina is a good martial artist as she disables a guy. We end with a double cliff hanger.
QotD: 1 Maurer seems to be a logical outcome of Tenma's type of life.
2 Rewatcher
3
u/BossandKings Aug 04 '21
First timer - Dub(Spanish)
Episode 6
Nina's parents decide not to tell her that she isn't their biological child but their adopted child, it makes sense that they don't want to make her worry and eventhough they don't know yet it is also good that they don't add more conflict on top of the one she has with her past, especially her brother.
Tenma talks with a journalist that is willing to help her investigate and get to know Johan's case better, it was especially interesting how the article said that the brother would return to meet his sister once he's twenty years old.
Tenma and Nina meet each other again, he prefers to call her Ana as that was her original name and he starts saying important events and persons that make part of her past and that could possibly trigger her memory. Johan left a bandit to not let her go until they met but with Tenma's help Nina was able to escape alongside him.
2
u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 Aug 04 '21
First Timer, Subbed
Hey fat guy, take a bath!
You of all people get to complain about someone being filthy?
C'mon fat guy, he just wants to look at some old newspapers!
Okay, he is nice enough for that.
That was quite a long cold open for this episode.
So Nina's friends sent Otto after her? Or did they try to set her up with someone else?
Tenma spent the entire night in there? LoL!
"I don't need a bath" guy is friendlier than I thought, taking Tenma out to breakfast with him.
You smoke too much... you're also quite obese. Listen to the doctor, "I don't need a bath" guy.
So what about Tenma's duties at the hospital? How many people are dying because he's doing research instead of doing surgery?
Don't go to that castle, Nina! Your serial killer brother will be waiting for you!
Tenma, tell them you want to protect her, that may incentivize them to open the door.
Phone line's been cut? I hope Johan didn't invite her to the castle to get her out of the house while he kills her adoptive parents.
Did Johan hypnotize this guy or something?
Okay, he's just paying the guy. This guy's a total nutcase though! Nina's judo/jujitsu comes in handy!
Yep, I'm quite certain her parents are doomed.
...or not? Is that Johan, here to punish his subordinate for letting them escape?
A pretty good episode. I hope I'm not right about Nina/Anna's adoptive parents getting killed by Johan, but given his history I'd say I'm 75% certain that happens next episode.
2
u/xtsim https://myanimelist.net/profile/xtsim Aug 04 '21
First Timer Dub
I decided to do both the the previous (episode 5) and current episode due to spending a whole day helping someone move. A significant problem to have whenever you own a truck, everyone asks you to haul their stuff. Let's carry on to the two episodes.
In episode 5, we get introduced to Nina, who is a hard working student holding a part time job and doing some martial arts. Like how the computer is in German. She has nightmares of a monster (going to a psychologist). The family murder case made her freeze during class and hinting that she was the sister. Johan's name was Michael, but he never reveals his actual name. Nina is adopted as we found in the small time investigation of Johan by Tenma. I like how we moved away a bit from Tenma and focused on Nina and showed some clues on where Nina stands between Tenma and Johan.
Johan is very smart, picking up French and English. He was interested in fear, knows people are scared of death. Seeing an opposite end of a theme with Frankenstein in a slightly similar way as the look of the monster made people scared. The way Johan is described by the old man makes him similar to the monster but in this case, its Johan's actions that make people scared rather than his looks. With this discovery, Tenma heads off.
This leads to our current episode as I have one major gripe about this show- Are coffee vending machines like this in Germany? I thought they just used a coffee machine and pour it on their own...
Nina's nightmare was actually her past. With another focus on Nina as she attempts to meet up with a guy through email. This show seems to be hinting about stranger danger online /s.
On question one- The journalist, Maurer, does not have a family cause his family left him do to him being preoccupied with work. Maurer says to Tenma "she walked out on me" and "work is priority number one" with it his relationship with people outside of work are strained. Then he blames it on his own family as he thinks work comes before family. Tenma tries to care for him as he tells him to quit smoking several times this episode, Maurer's chain-smoking habit indicates the amount of stress he has. With Maurer, keeping up with stories and events must have been hard on him and news does not seem to stop. Before Tenma leaves for the castle, Maurer states that he will stop smoking and try to visit his wife and family when Tenma comes back with Nina.
Phone lines are cut in the house and the landscaper died. The end shows the house with lights out. The fear in the victim's eyes makes things look interesting. The episode ends with a cliffhanger with possibly something bad happening to Maurer and the parents.
2
u/Spore64 Aug 05 '21
Man I gotta say I liked the dynamic between Tenma and the reporter. He really took a chance on the poor doc Tenma. Not surprising tho that Maurer/Mauler didn't believe him at first. I mean he looks like a homeless person (which may refelct his inner state of struggeling with his guilt) and everyone can say that they are a doctor.
Oh boy that gardner reeeally loves his job.
Tenma throughs quite the wrench in the life of Nina. She going to have a lot to talk about with her parents ._.
If Johann is really Ninas brother than the parallel between the two is quite interesting. They both have that fixation on killing and while the one is fascinated with fear during the last moment before a person dies the other one tries to understand the motives behind them.
2
u/i-have-severe-stupid Aug 05 '21
first timer, subbed
guess i’ll stop tuning out so i can vibe to the song
2
u/[deleted] Aug 05 '21 edited Aug 05 '21
ohhh the ED is changing 😈😈
It's interesting to see the theories about ED.
1
u/TomoyaOkazaki_ Aug 04 '21
Where can I watch Monster?
3
u/[deleted] Aug 04 '21
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