Monster
- In addition, this explains why Epsilon looks like Johan. After awakening from his coma, Johan performed a Heel–Face Turn. Having been given his real name, Johan moves to Australia and decides to turn his intellect to AI research, to give machines humanity the same way that Tenma reawakened his. Performing great things over the course of his lifetime, when they needed a model for Epsilon he was the natural choice.
- The mechanics of Geass itself make this impossible. Every person's Geass manifests differently, so I don't think he'd be able to have Manipulation Geass, considering if this is considered to take place in the same world as Code Geass, Lelouch would then get it decades later. I may be over-analyzing.
- Which means Johan and Anna are identical twins.
- Either that or Johan got deeper into the role than simply slapping on a skirt and shaving his legs. Mind Rape expert (and Bishōnen) as he is, it wouldn't be too hard to get into the head of a false role as simple as "pretty young girl", would it? It's mostly the acting that's convincing, and not just the looks. To be fair, this troper mistook adult Johan for a girl on multiple occasions when he wasn't even in a dress. He's just that Wicked Cultured.
- Wouldn't this have been noticed, the amount of time he's been unconscious in hospital across the series? Keeping his eyes that wide must have been a strain though...<g>
Probably.
- Er, doesn't this deconstruct Freudian Excuse moves about as much as "Some heavy smokers live to a ripe healthy old age" plus Anvilicious invocations of "free will" deconstructs "Tobacco is carcinogenic and addictive"? Leaving aside that "nature" as opposed to "nurture" approaches to evil hardly get away from determinism...
The real aim of the series is to show how various characters deal with their own personal demons.
- Tenma and Anna's "monster" is the temptation to become, ironically, He Who Fights Monsters.
- Lunge's is his obsession with his wild goose chase, which is pretty much ruining his life.
- Bonaparta's is his past.
- Grimmer's is his rage.
- Eva's is her alcoholism, as well as her general assholery.
Johan is little more than a plot device on legs, as well as an extreme demonstration of what evil can turn you into if you don't control it. The Nameless Monster almost says this directly: Johan isn't the monster - he's just a host for it.
This would also explain why we get treated to a billion other characters and their little subplots and Freudian Excuses throughout the story. Just other folks dealing with their monsters.
The ending also makes much more sense if you think of it that way. The story's overall goal wasn't to kill the bad guy - which it obviously didn't - but to defeat everyone's demons. It seems to have accomplished this pretty well...
Depending on what Johan did with the rest of his life, of course.
- That's, uh, fairly obvious.
- Only if she could see the Sadistic Choice coming though - also given that the most sensible in-story explanation we get is that she was trying to hide the fact there were two kids by dressing them the same and only letting the neighbours see them one at a time. And if she did see the Sadistic Choice coming, why not get them both away before Bonaparta could catch up?
- Except Monster takes place way before Death Note. So unless L preformed time travel, probably not.
- Or unless he's a Time Lord. But that's a whole other page...
- AND he's learned how to be a great detective without sacrificing his posture.
- These things are not supposed to make sense. It's actually the serious guesses that are missing the point.
- Or unless he's a Time Lord. But that's a whole other page...
- Alternatively, L is Lunge's illegitimate child.
- Wouldn't Lunge's unnamed grandson be about L's age by the time the events of Death Note come about?
- No, L's 25. The grandson would be about 12. If anything, the grandson is Near.
- Wouldn't Lunge's unnamed grandson be about L's age by the time the events of Death Note come about?
- It's just that Inspector Lunge and L both have the anime version of Asperger's Syndrome.
- Of course, finding out your saviour's a bit taken aback at your being a sociopathic serial killer takes the shine out of this one a bit, as would his sister's less than enthousiastic response to being "relieved" of her foster parents. Might explain his attempts to manoeuvre both of them into a "let's see how you like being a killer, then" plot, though - and good guess.
- Kinda ironic then. His mother gave him away. his "Father" chose to keep him. Sounds exacly like the kind of thing this series would have...
- While the Deathnote theory is definitely WMG, the symbolism you're getting at here with the empty bed is actually really poignant, and I hadn't considered it until now. That really pulls the show together.
- In Another Monster, it's stated that Johan constantly changes his plans on a whim. He's so good at manipulating people that he doesn't bother making overly complicated plots.
- Ironically, in the original notes for Hansel and Gretel compiled by the brothers Grimm, Hansel and Gretel were only to be called "Little Brother" and "Little Sister". To quote SurLaLune, 'Hansel is essentially the same as "John Doe" representing an anonymous or "everyman" character.' Even if those are their names, in a deeper sense they still lack them.
- Right, I'm aware of that. It would play into the series' love of irony to have their real names just as lacking in identity as their current ones. I doubt it's true, but it would have been a cool twist.
- And given the themes of parental abandonment in the original stories— where there was no famine, just some parents who couldn't deal with supporting kids— versus the almost cute modern perception of the story...
- Hansel is, in fact, a pet name for Johan. (Gretel is the same for Margreta.)
- Ironically, in the original notes for Hansel and Gretel compiled by the brothers Grimm, Hansel and Gretel were only to be called "Little Brother" and "Little Sister". To quote SurLaLune, 'Hansel is essentially the same as "John Doe" representing an anonymous or "everyman" character.' Even if those are their names, in a deeper sense they still lack them.
- Alternately, he is Veidt's illegitimate child.
- Expanding on this idea: At some point, the young Veidt had a tryst with a young woman named Anna, who later took up with a soldier and led him to believe himself to be the father of her children. Her blond, super-genius children, one of whom is conditioned into sociopathy. Johan inherited exaggerated versions of all of their father's negative traits (and his dress sense, if one goes by movie!Veidt), while Nina got the positive ones (idealism, badassery, physical prowess). The key difference here is that Veidt didn't know.
- Alternatively, Johan would have lived whether Tenma operated on him or not.
- Also alternately, had he saved the mayor, he would later hear that the young child he could have saved died during the operation, and experience a Heroic BSoD. He would lose patient after patient before committing suicide. You're damned no matter what choice you make, as Jakob Farobek's story shows us.
- Plus, he would've married Eva.
- For shame. Johan's beauty eclipses hers. Tis not him.
- Is it okay that they're actually Czech?
- They're at least half-German, and look Aryan.
- Is it okay that they're actually Czech?
- Johan is Shonen Bat?
- Heh. Johan is still alive 3 years later in Another Monster.
The finale in Ruenheim was actually meant to be Grimmer's elaborate suicide, not Johan's. The only reason Grimmer acted like he was investigting Kinderheim 511 and allowed himself to be beaten up and made into a fugitive was just a case of Obfuscating Stupidity to draw attention away from himself and onto Johan. Unlike Lunge, Grimmer didn't end up at Ruenheim due to any detective work. Ending up there was his plan all along. Once he dies, the plan is fulfilled.
Also, Johan was the one who actually shot Grimmer (secretly acting upon Grimmer's orders). Now that his friend and mentor's final wish has been granted, Johan sees nothing left to live for and tries to provoke Tenma into killing him.
- Yes. Yes you can. And Grimmer will be the leader of the victims!
- And Richard will be second-in-command! Hoohah!
- But.... isn't Johan described as the messenger of Hell itself?
- If he is an agent of Hell, then what better punishment than to be put on the receiving end of the horrors he and his ilk once inflicted on others?
- Wait... what?
- I KNEW IT!!!
The absolute ridiculousness of this COMPLETELY shatters Johan's already twisted mind, and he begins his transformation into the Clown Prince of Crime we know and love. The gives himself the Glasglow smile, puts on the makeup, makes his own clothes, subscribes to nihilistic philosophies, and begins preparing himself for some ultimate plan to plunge humanity into destructive chaos....his transformation is complete and his breakout role presents itself in the form of Batman and Gotham City....
And he finds a person who reminds him of Dr. Tenma, someone who will try in all his effort not to violate the Thou Shall Not Kill commandment. Of course, Johan sets to do again what he did back in Germany, that is, to disprove his idealistic means even if it means putting himself and everyone around him in danger......
- Actually, they gradually turned into each other. Tenma's hair grew longer, and he became more tattered looking as the ordeals he went through gradually wore him down. By contrast, Trent Reznor has become more clean cut, with shorter hair, and seems much less nihilistic than he was as a younger man.
- Proof? Or what passes for proof in a WMG, anyway?
When he pointed at his forehead in volume 18, this was his way of playing the ultimate game. He's done everything to provoke Tenma into killing him. The odds were against him, but if he could survive this, he'd (in his damaged mind anyway) make the final ascension and leave behind his old life forever.
- And, because I know you're thinking it, yes, I came up with the idea because they both have the same seiyu. Although I wold like to add that it does make sense. If Johan lived in the DN universe, he'd be relatively safe from Kira due to obsessively safeguarding his identity.
- Both believe in treating people equally regardless of who they are. Both also risk their reputations to stand up for their beliefs.
- Both happen to be decent with guns, but dislike using them. Atticus only shoots a rabid dog to protect the town, and the only reason Tenma goes after Johan is to stop him from killing people. He does shoot two people, but only in self-defense. Both of them live. (Heck, he got Eva to call an ambulance for the second guy.) And he saves Johan in the end too.
- Tenma is likely just as big a bookworm as Atticus. Another Monster describes him as being quite studious as a child. Not to mention that one flashback Eva had where Tenma didn't notice her arrival for five whole minutes because he was reading an article from a medical journal.
- If the example on the Friend to All Living Things page is accurate, then the bird that landed on Tenma's arm in the forest with the ex-Nazi was a finch.
Now, as for Grimmer and Tenma, they happen to have some similarities:
- Both of them retain heroic traits despite having gone through hell. (Though Tenma certainly didn't have it as bad as Grimmer did.)
- Both are strong willed.
- Both must be pushed in order to react violently, and only then, it's a defensive act. (Grimmer's reaction is becoming "The Magnificent Steiner." Tenma's reaction is being able to shoot a gun, which he actually does a grand total of two times and possibly could have done it a third time had someone else not beat him to it. In all three instances, it's either him or someone else being threatened.)
- Both have a capacity for intense anger, though neither person is very prone to it. (It's less noticeable with Tenma since he doesn't act on his anger, but the capacity for intensely feeling the emotion itself is there. Just look at his rant about Heinemann in the second episode.)
- Given the above two points, both tend to be more cautious than aggressive.
- Based on Grimmer's Character Development, it's likely that he was originally as empathic as Tenma. (A perfect demonstration of this is his scene with Milosh.)
Now, let's speculate about what actually happened to Grimmer in 511 Kinderheim. Obviously, his emotions were disabled and he developed a split personality. A plausible scenario is that Grimmer was resistant to the usual brainwashing methods that disabled the other children's emotions, mainly due to the strength of those emotions and sheer willpower. Having strong emotions certainly wouldn't be ideal for a "perfect soldier," so the researchers at Kinderheim came up with a "special" plan for Grimmer: They would subject him to especially heinous physical torture, hoping that the trauma would emotionally numb him and that he would develop a split personality that would be useful to them as a spy instead of a soldier. They specifically introduced "The Magnificent Steiner" cartoon to him in order to plant that alternate personality seed. In the end, Grimmer's survival instinct kicked in, causing him to react violently. However, since Grimmer had such strong empathy, he could not psychologically cope with having hurt another person. (For extra Nightmare Fuel, the torturer could have been a child himself and Grimmer ended up actually killing him. Or maybe Grimmer could have actually managed to kill an adult.) So he dissociated himself from the experience and forgot about what happened. He ended up attributing the event to "The Magnificent Steiner" due to the similarities between the show and what happened to him. Thus, the plan went off without a hitch and Grimmer reacted just as expected. In order to cement the alternate personality, however, he had to be tortured a few more times. In addition to all of this, Kinderheim's messing with memories also left Grimmer unable to remember his previous understanding of emotions, effectively disabling even cognitive empathy. The mechanism for empathy was still there, mind. That was evident when Grimmer started regaining his emotions and seemed more empathic. It's just that you can't empathize with someone if you can't even feel and understand your own emotions.
Given their similarities, who's to say that Tenma wouldn't have responded in the same way if he were sent to 511 Kinderheim as a child? A piece of evidence in Another Monster seems to point at Tenma being the kind of child that would try to resist 511 Kinderheim: The hide-and-seek incident. Some bullies scared Tenma while they were playing hide-and-seek and he happened to pee his pants. Tenma was not angry at the bullies. Rather, he was ashamed of himself, and wanted to face the situation again in order to conquer his fear. So would a young Tenma sent to 511 Kinderheim be scared to death? Absolutely. But would a young Tenma also try to endure the torture while finding some way to maintain his sanity for as long a period of time as possible? He probably would. He wouldn't be outwardly aggressive or anything. He'd just show less change in comparison to the other children, which would lead to the hypothetical Grimmer scenario explained above. Another thing is that the main thing that kept Tenma from killing Johan pre-Ruhenheim (and even there, if he had shot before Wim's dad, it would have been justified) was his compassion. His compassion was also, oddly enough, part of the reason he wanted to kill Johan-he didn't want any more innocent people to die. Compassion is what primarily motivates him. Take away Tenma's compassion, and he would simply be an empty, motiveless shell with only the most basic survival instincts. Which is basically what Grimmer is.
And now you know why Tenma and Grimmer were such bros, not to mention why it doesn't feel jarring when Grimmer takes over as the main character for about two volumes.
They then encounter a villain with a mysterious, troubled past (Johan and Lee Marvin's character respectively). This villain tries to provoke the hero into killing him in order to prove a point about human nature and challenge the hero's beliefs. Each villain repeatedly sets up situations where the hero has a chance to kill him. The hero, in turn, can be provoked to violent reactions, but keeps refusing to actually give into the villain's philosophy. Both end with the hero attempting to save the now-defeated villain's life in one last-ditch effort to defeat the villain's philosophy; while only Tenma succeeds in saving the villain's life, they both succeed in upholding their values and outlooks.
Could this all be a coincidence? Maybe...and maybe not.
- Alternatively, Tenma is the reincarnation of Adam Cartwright and Johan is the reincarnation of villain.
Tenma is fairly the obvious one. He died from the overdose of alcohol after his life is in ruins.
Lunge has died in one of his investigations. For this, he must capture the Composer, who appears to be hiding within the players. He also has to deal with the fact that his obsession is ruining his game. Eva is in the same position as him.
Now for the Reapers: Johan is the Composer, Roberto is the Conductor and Christoff is the Game Master.
He then isolates himself from everyone and begins living in Silent Hill alone. In those days living there, his hair has become long and wears a coat, and begins his killings again under the name Walter Sullivan. The police has arrested him; this is part of Johan's plan to commit suicide while being locked up. He finally did it, but his murders in Silent Hill have been part of a ritual to brought him back as a ghost. His soul splits into two: the psychopathic adult (the Monster personality) and the normal child (the normal personality). Johan has transferred his dead body into Room 302 and plans again the murders to have someone kill the Monster personality. That's when Henry Townsend gets to do it and successfully killed that personality.
- Alternatively, Johan is the reincarnation of Walter Sullivan.
- So does this mean everything after Ruhenheim is his Dying Dream?
- It's common for a person's personality to change after trauma to the brain.
Johan's demeanor seems to change rather subtly when the little boy says his mother would recognize him even though he doesn't know what she looks like.
At the boy's response, Johan looks down and asks "What if she recognizes you, but pretends she doesn't?"
He then questions whether he was wanted and why he was abandoned. Johan then shows the boy a road that will take him to Germany. This is reminiscent of what Johan and Anna did after their mother abandoned them following the escape form the Red Rose Mansion, saying they would have to take care of each other.
In part, this seems to get at the root of Johan's utter nihilism - subconsciously, he thinks his mother hated him and rejected him and sees no purpose to life. No identity and no meaning to existence.
He's roughly the correct age. He's from Europe. He has mysterious sister issues. Johan is repeatedly referenced as the Antichrist, while Word of God hints that Hannibal may or may not be the devil in human form, just playing around with destroying humanity.
- And for the duration of his coma, he is Jesus in purgatory taking the form of Time Lord Haruhi Suzumiya.
He didn't avoid that truck on the way to the hospital. He collided with it head-on, causing severe head trauma that put him in a coma. Furthermore, the fact that he gets hit by a car twice over the course of the series is not a coincidence. That's his subconscious reminding him of the accident.
This explains why Tenma becomes almost too perfect as the series progresses. What we see is not who Tenma actually is, but an exaggerated, idealized version of him. In his coma-induced dream world, he gets to live out a fantasy where he can save just about everyone with his medical skills and live up to his moral standards. It's all an attempt to process his guilt over his decision to blindly follow orders and abandon his patient, the Turkish construction worker.
Other issues are also addressed in the dream. Several characters represent aspects of Tenma's psyche, and his interactions with them reflect his internal conflicts. Johan is his shadow, representing everything he dislikes about himself, particularly his repressed anger and his capacity to harm and manipulate others to get what he wants. Nina, being the good counterpart to Johan, represents everything good in Tenma as well, and his desire to protect her innocence reflects his own desire to maintain his integrity. Dieter is his wounded inner child, the part of him who feels abandoned and rejected by his parents. Grimmer is what he could become if he keeps denying his anger and continues to be a doormat.
In the end, when Tenma tells Johan his real name, that's him affirming his shadow's existence and telling himself that his parents loved him, and that he's still worthy of love. However, when Johan asks which child was unwanted, it still shows doubt on Tenma's part. He doesn't know if his "bad child" self (Johan) was truly loved or not, since his "good child" self (Nina) suffered regardless.
Still, Tenma seems to accept this reality and finds the strength to move on. When we see the empty bed, it means that Tenma has awakened from his coma, ready to face his life.
Now, how does Another Monster figure into this? Well, I didn't say that this was a perfect theory. Half of the shit on this page is pure crack and this WMG no different. But I had you going there, didn't I?