It also talks a lot about shared human experience: blurred differences between Johan and Anna's version of what happened at the rose mansion, worsened to their prior brainwashing. The paranoia through the town but the other side like Kenma and Petrs friends communities based on positivity. I think the last scene is imagined and Kenma is permanently scarred with the voice of Johan (who definitely had a similar type of persistent psychosis) in the end the children's books are also ways of inviting us to experience these complex psychological events or understand them on a rudimentary level before shepherding us along the same path with the characters to best understand their parallel experiences.
Sounds like he considers "sitting down and watching a series" as something he should enjoy rather than a project to work on. I wonder if he never saw series like Breaking Bad, and if he did, did he ever stop and use his knowledge to think about it? EDIT: typos
Tenma is not a deontologist, or at the very least this video underexplores the idea of him being one, and Roberto is not merely following Johan's ideology As for Tenma: one might assume he becomes a deontologist after saving Johan for the first time but this is proven wrong in Munich when he actually shoots Roberto, yes, he did not end up killing Roberto, however, morally speaking he absolutely made the choice to and both his mind and body react to it as if he did, it is like knowingly pulling the trigger on the trolley problem but the person on the rails happens to still survive regardless You could interpret this scene from a Kantian deontological perspective, something akin to the logic of Tenma justifying it to himself by believing that since "all lives are equal" and both of them could & would kill each other in the moment it would not have mattered which one of them dies while the other lives, as either way one life is lost regardless, but this would ultimately not hold water, as he would have to alter his alleged maxime from "All lives are equal, thus, you should never kill somebody" to "All lives are equal, thus, you should never kill somebody, unless they endanger your own life to at least the same degree", as Roberto did to Tenma in that scene, or "All lives are equal, thus, you should never kill somebody, unless they endanger your own OR somebody else's life to the same degree" but this would lead to an ideological inconsistency, because with the former Johan is never actually a threat to Tenma's life specifically, unlike Roberto, in fact, Tenma, besides Anna, is the safest person from Johan, as Johan would never want to kill Tenma, the man who saved his life out of pure kindness, so if this really was Tenma's philosophy then he would never even contemplate killing Johan, so this leaves the second possible maxime, but here too there would be an inconsistency, as is presented in the final arc when Johan threatens to shoot Wim; if Tenma did truly believe that he'd be justified in killing Johan for threatening Wim, then he simply would've done, as, again, either way one life would be lost, but Tenma hesitates and doesn't shoot Johan, not because he is attempting to uphold some Kantian values, but because he knows of & believes in the humanity within Johan, leaving Tenma to hesitate to kill Johan, meanwhile with Roberto, who is like a killing machine, he took an utilitarian stance and attempted to kill him as he knew he would save the lives of the ppl in the fire while Roberto wouldn't have Your interpretation of the drunken father representing the human surval instinct trumping philosophical ambiguity could be tied into this scene too, but then Tenma would be the representative of the human survival instinct, giving him a flaw great enough that it is humanizing to the degree of disqualification of him being a true deontologist (btw, I dont believe Johan is a true nihilist either, but at least that interpretation is valid as it can be backed up well enough, but Tenma as a pure deontologist simply requires ignoring a crucial moment in the show) As for Roberto not merely following Johan: it was never Johan's intention to show Roberto the doomsday, Roberto idolized Johan out of his own accord and when he was in Southern France with Nina attempted to have her killed, despite knowing that Johan would not want this to happen, this is the ultimate display of protest towards Johan one could imagine, but Roberto did it not against Johan but in his mind for Johan, as he wanted to prop up Johan even further and Nina only dragged Johan down by humanizing him to Roberto
Very nice summary. Probably the best I've seen on this series. Entertaining, well-paced, and informative on philosophy. I'm not an expert in philosophy, but I'll take a novice's approach to the ending. In my opinion, Johan's nihilistic philosophy is proven wrong by Dr. Tenma's ability to look beyond all the wrongs he has done and help him as a human. That act itself destroys the monster further demonstrating his devotion to deontologicalism. Giving Johan his true name restores some level of Jungian purpose. Will be sharing and subscribing.
The only thing Tenma proved was that he was mentally insane. What was the famous Einstein quote "The definition of Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result". Constantly overlooking Johans action and appealing to his humanity.
I love this guy. He drops one masterpiece video on Monster, delivering an incredible breakdown of Nietzsche's most primary thoughts. Then peaces out. RU-vid couldn't handle your power in consistent amounts haha.
1:17 sorry, but the setting (90s German Federal Republic) is far from fascist. i have to correct you on that and i actually do not understand how you got this impression.
Probably a reference to the pro-fascist underbelly the main characters find themselves at odds with. Obviously it's a social democratic/liberal state at this point, but the sins of that past are not entirely dead/forgotten.
Johan was fucked up due to his mother's treatment of him. It was really due to kinderheim where we see his other side and he fully breaks when anna turns the gun on him
@@errwhattheflippersonally I think that Bonaparta was the main reason for what Johan become. Johan's mother was the reason Johan started thinking that all life are not equal after she made her choice
@@tooru-kun4178 yeah his mother was what started his feelings and made him start thinking he didn’t really exist, but Bonaparta and eventually Anna were the ones who confirmed it for him
@@errwhattheflip that's right. unfortunately she was put in that situation because of that monster of Bonaparta and Spoiler Because of him and his experiment other monster are around the world like Führ
the nihilism was born in the 2nd war period according to my philosophy teacher, and the disruptive behaviour of Johan starts in the period that he spend in Kinderheim 511. For me Johan is the personification of the nihilism thougths. The soldiers represents the war and with them all the dread and death that it carries, the fact that Johan was introduced in the orphanage by the soldiers represents this born of nihilism as a reaction for the misery that war covered the citizens of countries immersed in the conflict. With this misery some people dont see anymore reasons for living since they lost everything which included their houses and loved ones (their connections and memories) in some cases even their names since some people were refugees of the most affected areas and dont have no one alive who remembered them. its sad to see such an amazing manga be so underrated, and when it gain some spotlight is a 14 yr kid making poor edits with scenes of the anime followed by some bullshit sigma phrase. +1 sub by the way, amazing video ❤
Very good analysis, but the piano was too loud at times, while the bits from the episodes were too silent The piano even overshadowed you occasionally. Only tiny parts which you could guess from the context but yea
I am getting insane now. I have no idea that the book, Thus Spoke Zarathrusta, I'm actually reading and the anime I'm watching are intertwined with each other. Is this a coincidence or what? I read that book because I am intrigued by the people's admiration for Nietzsche philosophy. About the anime, I just watch it due to boredom and I had a thought to watch some series, merely to escape from my cinephile life because I am a more movie person than series. I ended up binging this anime series because I get caught with the captivating storyline. As the series gets progressing, Johan has the distinguish characteristics that align with Ubermensch, which is a idol depiction from the Zarathrusta book itself. Once again, I have no idea why these are so related. On top of that, this book is a revelation of solitude and I'm alone during my uni semester break. Will crack after this.
This isn’t just poor mans Crime and Punishment, but is just a disgrace to all of fiction and philosophy. It is pseudo intellectual drivel for anime fans that believe Nietzsche was a nihilist and Stoicism is about being a decent human. Johans character is nonsense and not realistic, Tenma has no character. All the other characters are plot devices for Naoki Urasawa to show the audience how much he misunderstands philosophy. If you want realistic characters, who are actually good and realistic, go read the works of Dostoevsky and his peers. Not this throw up and abomination of the greats that will outlive all of us. Also, go actually read Nietzsche. He wasn’t some delusional hating nihilist, he actually loved life a lot more than other philosophers. He wanted us all to love and embrace life on our terms. Johan is more like… Machiavelli? Or maybe Schopenhauer? It doesn’t matter, it’s not good.
@An Overwhelming Question, There is one more important point that nobody talks about. Where Johan says that the monster is not inside him. It’s outside. What did he really mean by that?
@@syntheticreality549 I thought so too but wasn’t Johan the ‘nameless monster’? He also said the monster is growing inside him. I think when he is talking about monster he isn’t referring to a person more like “the human temptation of doing the bad or wrong thing”. But everyone has different theories.
@@hvvpRAMBARD you also have to take into consideration that he says that soon after finding the nameless monster book, witch unlocked all of his childhood memories. So I really do think he was referring to Franz Bonaparta. I honestly think the name of the series itself is referring to Franz. Johan read the book and realized that these terrible feelings and darkness in him wasn’t in him from birth, it was someone else. Like There was a great evil in the world before he even got here.
@@hvvpRAMBARDthe nature of the monster is left for interpretation. It can be thought as a literal character or as the concepts of evil, vengeace, etc.
Excellent video!! Couldn't stop watching, for anyone who wants to know, here are my general takeaways. Naoki Urasawa's Monster is a masterpiece in storytelling, but is not widely recognized in modern discourse. The story explores moral codes and their fragility through the dichotomy between the main characters, Dr. Tenma and Johan Liebert. The show delves into different philosophies and allegories, and portrays the successes and failures of each system of morals. The show is set in post-World War 2 Germany and contains elements of murder mysteries, investigative pursuits, character arcs, and a web of storylines. The show's ending serves as a synthesizer for all the moral musing done before, bringing everything together into one final philosophical standoff, the Trolley Car problem. After tragic family events, Johan and his sister Anna run away and are found by German soldiers, who give them their names. Johan is sent to Kinderheim 511, an experimental orphanage in East Berlin, where his destructive nature begins. The leaders of Kinderheim try to find answers through chemical treatment, and Johan recounts his belief that he is alone and that the monster inside him is getting bigger. Johan plots his escape from Kinderheim by manipulating human hatred and emotion and becomes known as "beyond human" by those involved in the Kinderheim 511 massacre. Johan's nihilistic ideology is portrayed as a Nietzschean Ubermensch, who has evolved past the physical and ideological capacities of a human, but also stands in contrast to the Nazi's false master race. A powerful scene in the show depicts the main character, Dr. Tenma, trying to teach a young boy, Martin, the love of life, despite the influence of Johan's nihilistic games. The scene also serves to contrast the actions of Roberto and Dieter, who both serve as apostles to their teachers but have very different outcomes. Heinrich Lunge, a detective in the show, embodies the empirical narcissist, relying only on evidence and deducing conclusions through a robotic methodology. As the case around Tenma becomes more complicated, Lunge's machine breaks down, and he falls victim to his own self-belief, developing an obstructive confirmation bias. The final arc of the show, Ruhenheim, brings all the characters together and serves as a thematic shift, emphasizing the importance of individual decisions and destinies in the climax of the story. Tenma appears primal and shaken in a scene with Johan, signaling that Johan has worn him down and defeated him. The scene takes place in a mental plane detached from reality, which is where Johan operates throughout the show. The climax of the show is Johan willing his own death and pressuring Tenma to make a difficult moral decision. The show goes back to the earliest trolley problem, which involved Johan and his sister being forced to choose between each other for experiments. This moment created the monster that is Johan Liebert, as he was unable to understand why his mother chose to send away Anna. Johan's nihilism derives from this moment, as he believes that the decision should have been left to chance and not his mother's choice. The final trolley problem in the show is Johan's attempt to understand why his mother made the decision she did and to make sense of his own existence. Tenma's role in the final trolley problem is related to Nietzsche's ideas of the individual's role in morality and decision-making. Thanks for this masterpiece!
Would like to know do anyone here think Tenma should be held accountable for Johan living. To me i could understand why tenma would hold himself accountable but if I were his friend and he told me what had happened I would think he coudnt have known johan would go out and murder many people. Open to here peeps thoughts?
Good effort. Perhaps you could pursue this project for multiple reasons. Before I state the many possible reasons, I must state what I mean by the word project. What I mean is your effort in not only writing scripts but also in presenting them on a visual form on youtube similar to the way you did here. In addition to directing our attention to the domain of visual presentation and the genre of video essays that your video falls into, which is meant to point out the established experiences that hopefully can provide a metric to measure your work in relation to. That is meant to be helpful in the visual aspect of the video. Excuse me to take this long to get to this point, which is what I meant earlier by the "reasons" why you should keep pursuing this project. Those reasons are your conceptual understanding and linguistic tool used and demonstrated in this video. I must say that I don't write this comment as casual endorsement (although perhaps it could be perceived or function in that way), but, nonetheless, it is motivated to be a fair and appropriate assessment of the project. This assessment is motivated not only from a well-intentioned individual but also from an individual who's familiar with the general genre of video essays, video essays about the anime of monster (to be specific), and more importantly with the works of philosophy that you have cited here. Excuse me for my overcompensation in what I'm about to say, but I have to say it to make clear the particular person and background that I come from. I do so for two reasons. The first reason is to provide more information about the writer of this comment. This information is aimed to be useful when judging the worth of this comment and the seriousness of the attitude towards it. After stating the first reason regarding the particular case of this comment, the second reason behind this proclaimed "overcompensation" is to hopefully achieve the normalization of the specific type of "thing" I'm doing here. To get directly to the point, what I meant by overcompensation is the fact that I have read Kant's first crtiqe, his ethical publications, whether they're the groundwork for the metaphysic of morals, the prolegomena of any future metaphysics. Moreover, Nietzsche works like beyond good and evil and the genealogy of morals, in addition to works like thus spoke zarathustra, and wcce homo are all books that I own physically. Although I'm most definitely a Kantian as opposed to a nihilistic individual (juat as a piece of knowledge about me). We must remind ourselves that all that has been stated above is because of the two reasons that I have explained and as a reaction of the apparent compensation in what I write. Having established who the writer of this comment is, I would like to make sure that I do hold this work as a sign of high potential of you. At the end, I do encourage you to keep going.
I appreciate the video, but cannot stand anime in English man, it should be a crime to watch any production of any country in another language that is not the original.
