Is it any good? I read the first chapter, and couldn't really get into it. Is it worth continuing?
Monster
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Pirate Age (Under Construction)
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It's good, kinda. I find it a bit boring though and I gave up somewhere around halfway through, it's really not my type of a comic. I usually don't read mystery books either. But 20th Century Boys is better and thus far I've enjoyed a lot.
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I'm not really into those kinda things either (20CB, Pluto, etc.), but I like Monster. I'm too lazy to hunt down scans anymore, but I'd say it's worth continuing.
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I love this series. Both anime and manga are great. It takes a few chapts to really get into it though.
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I absolutely love this manga, and it remains one of my alltime favourite titles. I'm not too sure about the anime, but it's still a really good adaptation.
Overall I prefer 20th Century Boys, but Monster has its own fantastic charm that can't help but entice me. It works better on a ''personal'' level, if that makes sense.
Don't be fooled by the first chapter alone, or any other chapter on its own, for that matter. Monster is a huge story that contains a whole lot of different elements and story settings, yet manages to perfectly tie everything into each other at the same time.
In my opinion, of course. Purtsjik.
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Monster is a great read, though 20th Century Boys is my absolute favourite manga at the moment (both are written by the same manga-ka of course). Yes, Monster is definately worth the read. Although I found myself catching onto Monster within the first volume or so, 20th Century Boys starts a little slow and then get constantly better from there (Sorry, it seems wherever I go, 20th Century Boys often gets thrown into the conversation when I'm talking about Monster. They're both that good!).
Monster is a great read and it really messes with your mind (though honestly, I think 20th CB messes with my mind more). It'll have you guessing all the time about events and what really happened, often keeping you at the edge of your seat. Yes, I definately say continue on. And if you found Monster enjoyable, 20th Century Boys should be next on your line-up of stuff to read after that (Don't tell me you didn't expect that coming). I would throw Death Note in that line-up too, but you're already reading it. B)
And on the side, is that "Another Monster" book/thing that talks about the Austria event actually true? XD I know, kind of a stupid question, but oh well.
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Absolutely brilliant, thoroughly enjoyed it. If you still haven't read it, you can dl the BT;
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Perhaps I shall continue, then.
Btw, Gurneel, I love your sig! (And your ava's pretty hot, too!)
Pirate Age (Under Construction)
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It's very good. There's not a lot of action scenes or anything, so it might seem boring, but it really is an amazing story so keep at it, you won't regret it. Monster is one of the most disturbing series I've come across and it really does mess with your head through out the whole thing. The anime is a very good adaptation as well, although there could be a few nitpiks.
I also recommend 20th Century Boys (like everyone else :P ). I like it a bit better than Monster… Naoki Urasawa really is a genius... /fanboys :wub:
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Really interesting. I
m reading through the series and Im currently at book 8. I wasn`t into the initial side-stories like Tenma being an underground doctor for a chapter or two or helping out people in the middle of nowhere but slowly and surely the side-stories and side-characters have grown quite interesting. At this point halfway through, Tenma is almost a sub-character. Looking forward to what the second half has to offer. -
monster is amazing and the anime just finished to be subbed today.
great story, great characters, great development.
@omae:
At this point halfway through, Tenma is almost a sub-character.
you'll feel that way really often, but when he switches into the main character plot, you know it's gonna be awesome.
(5 eps left to watch and i'll know the truth)
i think i prefer 20th century boys because you're hooked after the first volume like hell and i found it hard to start monster (well, i was younger and not that much into manga)
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I really don
t mind that he ends up being in the background. I find it to be a pleasant change. I didnt like it when characters would pop up for a chapter to say hi/bye but later people like Richard, Gillen, etc. are really neat. -
o.O You surely digged up an old thread…
Monster is good, I made two of my non-manga-reading coworkers to read whole series :D
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I like Monster and 20th Century Boys. But my favorite is probably Pluto, if only because I like seeing how he uses Tezuka's stuff.
By the way, my favorite character in Monster so far is Lunge. I dunno, I just get interested when he's there.
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Pluto, 20th CB and Monster are awesome; definitely one of my favorite ways of writing. Urasawa seems to have figured out the story all the way to the end, spilling some beans every now and then. That's what makes his works so captivating.
And I couldn't get enough of manga that actually know how to evoke humanity and stuff.
Another Urasawa work that I recommend is Master Keaton. It's a joint work with another writer, but I still find it very good.
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Monster is a great story that's somewhat similiar to Minority Report & The Fugitive I got hooked probably after book 3 or 4 and finished about a week ago.
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Of the two, I think 20th Century Boys I think has the undeniably better start. Which is not to say that Monster doesn't have a good beginning, it's just not quite as "honest" about where the story will go. But after seeing how bloated and drawn-out 20thCB has gotten I think Monster is easily the stronger work.
Either way they're both great, obviously.
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Yeah, I have to say Monster
s start really made me think it was going to be impossibly complex, requiring a notebook to keep track of organizations etc. Thats because of how much it focussed on Tenma. At tank 2 I thought if the story keeps going like this, all on one man, its going to get damn complex and ultimately while its not an easy read by any means, the converging side-stories help to make it a lot easier to swallow. -
I've only seen the Anime and I LOVE it, sometimesd it has its really slopw and dragging on moments and that make you think 'well this sucks' but the animations pretty amazing, sometimes it looks like your looking at a photo.
Its very good ocne it gets going and it makes a refresing change from all that REALLY out of whack stuff in anime you normally get.
–----------------------------------
I wooped batmans ass.
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i watched the end of the anime this week end, and i have to say it: monster has the best ending (aka "at least" the 7 last eps) i've ever watched so far.
spoiler below(somehow).
! and runge made it all that good
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Has anyone else seen this series, or read it? The series was finnished about a month ago and consists of 74 episodes. Its deffinately the best anime I have ever seen, I deffinately recomend this to everyone who can live without constant superpowered fighting. You wont regret watching it.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=3750
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This anime/manga is amazing.
Definitely one of the very best ever in my eyes.Yohan & Nina/Anna are <3!
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The ending was perfect..I dont think I have ever seen a better ending.
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The ending was perfect..I dont think I have ever seen a better ending.
The whole part at Ruhenheim was excellent.
! Grimmer's death was really sad, and I liked how Runge kicked some ass towards the end.
Then of course, there's episode 73!!!
74 is good epilogue, that became great thanks to the final scene with Yohan. -
Digging up an old thread :P
Well I've finished the manga and am currently at 50+ of the anime. I'm still kinda confused by some parts of the story.
Anyways Stephen is currently translating Another Monster which is kinda like a followup to the series @ http://www.mangascreener.com/stephen/monster/am/amonster.html
I prefer Nina/Anna x Tenma =D
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Yo
I m currently reading this great manga.
Personally I like it more then 20th c bWhich one do you think is better?
And for those who didn t read it yet , get started , you don t know what you re missing.
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One thing I can say is that; at one point 20th Century Boys showed enough potential to completely blow Monster away. But after all said and done, it just didn't. And I consider Monster a tighter experience.
it's better than bad, it's good!
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One thing I can say is that; at one point 20th Century Boys showed enough potential to completely blow Monster away. But after all said and done, it just didn't. And I consider Monster a tighter experience.
i agree manga-wise but my bet is that the 20th century boys anime will be the greatest anime ever.
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There is no 20th Century Boys anime; they are making a series of live action movies.
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20th Century Boys? Monster? People actually read this gutter trash and consider it good? Both titles stand as a personal record for me; until reading some of Urasawa's work, never before have I rated two titles by the same author as "so contrived and convoluted they are outrageously poor".
Hype has failed me thus far, so here's hoping Honey and Clover turns out to be as good as people claim it is.
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Meaningless statement coming from a pompous windbag. What does Honey and Clover have to do with anything?
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Meaningless statement coming from a pompous windbag.
The testimony of an old fart isn't worth much these days, either.
What does Honey and Clover have to do with anything?
There's been a host of manga/anime that I've been recommended as of late that are hyped as being "godly/glorious", and there are ratings on various websites and praises all about to support such notions; Akagi, Honey and Clover, Monster, Death Note, and 20th Century Boys.
As such, I've been seriously curious of them (except DN) since they cross into a realm of anime/manga I have little experience with, which I should say borders "dramatic colloquialism" (as it were), or settings that are distinctly exotic yet strangely familiar, as opposed generic stories with exaggerated emotions, scenes, and comedy.
For lack of a better term, these are shows that require "adult sophistication"; children, tweens, and teens wouldn't be able to "get" said shows because the level of entertainment is beyond their capacity for enjoyment. I consider myself well-seasoned enough to try these, with the hope that their popularity has genuine merit and isn't a product of snobbish elitism.
I started with Akagi in December and I've been disgusted with the anime; it's not necessarily an issue I have with the content, but the film package. Many of the moments focused on in the show as "dramatic" come across as cheesy/annoying to me (the same argument holds for Death Note), so I'm quite adverse to finishing the series even if it's midly interesting (though visually repulsive).
As of yet, I have not found the manga on any IRC channels, nor do I expect something as long as Akagi to have a decent series scanslation, but a few more searches can't hurt.
The second set I dived into was Monster and 20th Century Boys; Monster borrows heavily from a Western movie I saw about a doctor framed for a murder who runs from police and uses his surgeon skills to help people, one of which comes back to hound him. I wasn't too impressed with that movie since it was horribly contrived, and I feel the same about the anime.
I might like Akagi and Monster better if I try the manga, but I've yet to do any further searching for them.
20th Century Boys is the first manga of these shows I've nibbled at, and my impression of it is that it's ridiculously strange and god-awful to look at, at least the character designs (not the machinery/backgrounds) anyway; I haven't gone too far (only a couple volumes), but I'm not all that impressed.
Frankly, I was expecting ball-gripping, holy WOW this is outrageously awesome crack kind of storytelling; instead, I've found two tepid 'mystery' dramas and a midly entertaining shounen that's ruined by annoying over-dramaticism.
Honey and Clover could be the final nail in my coffin for this brand of "adult" shows; from what I've read about it, it's a "slice-of-life" drama that isn't limited to a single derivative and follows the characters beyond their college lives. Frankly, this isn't the type of show I'm predisposed to liking, but if if the anime is as excellent as people claim, I guess it's worth a try because I could end up liking it.
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Okay, so your entire opinion on said series is based on an animated adaptation, and the only reason you dislike 20th Century Boys is because, despite the fact you only read a couple of volumes, it looked strange and didn't blow you away from the first go.
I'm not saying you'd like the series better if you'd actually read them, but maybe it'd help in putting you in a better position before coming into a topic and bashing the subject to hell.
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Terek, you're out of your element. Go flame some other series people love to try to get a response you can argue a book-length paragraph to sigh
This series is a little long, but I'm only 8 episodes away from completing it and it's all starting to come together. The way all the side-characters stories are all woven into the bigger picture is really in depth and awesome.
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I found this pretty funny.
20th Century Boys? Monster? People actually read this gutter trash and consider it good?
Followed immediately by:
For lack of a better term, these are shows that require "adult sophistication"; children, tweens, and teens wouldn't be able to "get" said shows because the level of entertainment is beyond their capacity for enjoyment.
Yeah, I'm mincing your words. But I still couldn't help but laugh.
Anyway, I've only read as far into Monster as America has covered, and I find it pretty good. 20th Century Boys completely blew me away, though, so I was a little dissapointed when I found I didn't like it quite as much. It's still definitely very good; it just so happens that 20CB reminds me of two of my favorite books, "The Stand" and "It", so it gripped me more.
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This post is deleted!
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Come on guys, don't be mean now.
The testimony of an old fart isn't worth much these days, either.
I'll remember to use this as an excuse to dismiss your opinions later in the future.
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@Mog:
Okay, so your entire opinion on said series is based on an animated adaptation, and the only reason you dislike 20th Century Boys is because, despite the fact you only read a couple of volumes, it looked strange and didn't blow you away from the first go.
No, that's just my initial impressions; I'll reserve an in-depth response when I finish the series (20CB first since I'm farther in it than any other title). My opinions are subject to change, of course, and I'll try to not remain skeptical.
Additionally, while I generally perfer manga to anime, a superior anime adaption will always trump a manga in my mind; Monster, as I have been told, is one such show, which is why I went for the anime first, even though it eats a lot of time. Akagi's anime is good, but the manga is more fufilling because it and a second series cover more of Akagi's life. Yet, I have not found scanslations for it, or even RAWs for that matter. I've planned to abandon Monster's anime and go for the manga, since eighteen volumes is a lot less than I thought the length would be and I could eat it up fairly rapidly.
20CB comes across to me as a "surprise" manga, a kind of show that has atmosphere but with a twist meant to intrigue people. Such is not unlike The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, but I would hardly call Haruhi outrageously original, let alone "best anime of all time" material. Heck, even associating Haruhi as such is quite silly; it's fully of cliché, deux ex, and ridiculous happenstance.
@Mog:
I'm not saying you'd like the series better if you'd actually read them, but maybe it'd help in putting you in a better position before coming into a topic and bashing the subject to hell.
At the very least I have some background with the material; limited, yes, but typically I've found only exceptional shows actually turn my opinion away from initial disgust.
And why should I be dissuaded from voicing an opinion you do not agree with? It is not as if I have robbed you of the right of rebuttle or defense; I am being less inflammatory than a certain member of NULL, but such is meant to lovingly shame you lot into clear thinking from over-infatuation with this author and his works. If anything, a negative opinion was warranted as it forces you to lend a more critical eye to said manga/anime in the future.
Terek, you're out of your element.
As usual, your lack of perception are always a source of great amusement; this type of work is right up my alley, which might explain why I'm being critical of it. Length isn't really an issue given my conditioning with One Piece, but convolution and obvious devise are something I dislike quite a lot.
The best type of mystery locks people into a certain mindset of events, but then goes back later and explains said events in a different manner that make a whole lot of sense. Deliberately (or attempting to make) complex plots and confusing information are not the halmarks of something I would value highly.
I'll remember to use this as an excuse to dismiss your opinions later in the future.
There's a level of wisdom that seperates ye olde farts from revered elders, and part of that that wisdom would entail a degree of self restraint; I anticipated a 'reaction' as it were from my inflammation by a select member on this board and I wasn't sorely disappointed.
It's still definitely very good; it just so happens that 20CB reminds me of two of my favorite books, "The Stand" and "It", so it gripped me more.
Ahh, yes, King novels. I cannot say I am really a fan of his work, but I've enjoyed some of his stories quite a lot though not for mystery, but surrealism. His stuff is expensive, though, so I haven't been able to progress much through my favourite of his works, the Dark Tower series.
I consider King a glorified but highly capable pulp writer; he's a great entertainer but hardly the father of great modern literature.
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I never said you couldn't voice your opinions if I didn't agree with them, my exact words were it would help if you actually knew what you were talking about before you'd start to do so.
You came into this topic and basically just called everyone who likes the series an idiot before popping off. And I mean, I'm not one to kick up a fuss over that, but it is a pretty moronic way of voicing, as you say, ''an initial response'', and reeks of flamebait more than anything else.
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As usual, your lack of perception are always a source of great amusement;
As usual, your vague statements (perception of?…) with no real backing besides your own opinion provideth me with a chortle as well.
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Monster started off simple. Became ragingly complex to its benefit…then sadly straightforward and plain.
20th Century Boys has the potential for a firecracker-up-the-ass conclusion but we'll see if that can be pulled off or not.
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20thcb had its downs somewhere around the introduction of sanae. it became a bit plain for a volume. but it's definitely a masterpiece storytelling. as is monster.
man, calling them gutter trash easily defines the level of the stuff you like. don't even try H&C, then, and watch digimons instead.
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20thcb had its downs somewhere around the introduction of sanae
Is she the high school girl?
I may be insane but she is my favorite character and I instantly like anything with her.
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Ahh, yes, King novels. I cannot say I am really a fan of his work, but I've enjoyed some of his stories quite a lot though not for mystery, but surrealism. His stuff is expensive, though, so I haven't been able to progress much through my favourite of his works, the Dark Tower series.
I consider King a glorified but highly capable pulp writer; he's a great entertainer but hardly the father of great modern literature.
I completely agree, actually - by saying two favorite "books" I really should have said two favorite "stories". He's hardly a master of the written word, but god damn if he can't make a good story. (And at least his writing style isn't as puke-on-a-page awful as Dan Brown).
Anyway, what Greg has said about Monster has intrigued me. This incredibly complex part in the middle, is it after volume six? Because I definitely liked what I had read so far, and if that's the case I'm very eager to continue… Even if it does crash and burn at the end.
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Anyway, I think Urasawa is great at building suspense.
I really like Monster, 20th CB, and Pluto. I'm not saying they are perfect, but they are entertaining enough for me at least.
As I've said many times before though, I'm not that hard to please.
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20th Century Boys? Monster? People actually read this gutter trash and consider it good? Both titles stand as a personal record for me; until reading some of Urasawa's work, never before have I rated two titles by the same author as "so contrived and convoluted they are outrageously poor".
I'm not really sure why you're using "contrived and convoluted" as insults. If you feel confused and the plot seems too complex for you then why don't you just say so?
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I completely agree, actually - by saying two favorite "books" I really should have said two favorite "stories". He's hardly a master of the written word, but god damn if he can't make a good story. (And at least his writing style isn't as puke-on-a-page awful as Dan Brown).
Anyway, what Greg has said about Monster has intrigued me. This incredibly complex part in the middle, is it after volume six? Because I definitely liked what I had read so far, and if that's the case I'm very eager to continue… Even if it does crash and burn at the end.
In regards to the first thing, I love Dan Brown's writing style, it's intelligent and flows as well as any modern day suspense/action novelist. The presupposed ideas and leaps of faith he mixes in with factual and historical knowledge, however, I do have a problem with.
Monster slowly builds and builds to a point of utter complexity. Stories of characters are introduced who seem to have nothing to do with Johann or Tenma, but they do. I was pawing through volume 6 at Borders, and where you're at now, Margaret, the old man, and the two students are just such characters.
It's really ingenius, and I think it works well. Besides, realistically, any story should have as broad a net as this one has, but few manage to do so.
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A Monster HBO series directed by Guillermo del Toro! Sounds great!
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/guillermo-del-toro-hatching-monster-series-hbo-222409266.html -
Stephen Thompson has written episodes of Dr. Who and Sherlock.
Here's his wiki bio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Thompson_(writer)Definitely will keep my eye out for this.
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This sounds amazing
