Back to Saiunknown's Profile Saiunknown's Profile

I heard a lot of good things about this anime, but I found that Monster was overrated. The 70+ episodes of content could've been a movie and would've been better as a movie in fact. Johan showed up so little that he wasn't fun as a villain though that may just be my personal preference for fun villains. However, when a villain is fun and over the top, they are allowed to get away with more things from the reader's point of view since you're not supposed to take them seriously. For example, I can believe that Junko Enoshima, a teenage girl, managed to set ... up Danganronpa because the entire story isn't supposed to be serious. But when I'm supposed to believe that when Johan, a much more serious villain in a much more serious story, had successfully manipulated everyone in his orphanage into killing each other as a literal child, I can't keep up my willing suspension of belief anymore. I didn't hate this show, I liked Tenma as a protagonist and thought the first couple episodes were fairly well-done. I also liked the interesting contrast between Dr. Tenma who saves people wherever he goes and Johan who kills people wherever he goes.

Part 1 review (completed):

Pros:
Very fun
Cool monster designs
Good humor
Power and Aki
The little Pochita drawings after each chapter are adorable

Cons:
... Too many pedos
Meh art (though it does get better as the series goes on)
Random flashbacks in the middle of action scenes
The final battle of part 1 was anti-climactic

Part 2 review (still reading):
Pros:
Still very fun
Cool monster designs
Good humor
Asa/Yoru's powerset is fairly interesting
The little Pochita drawings are still super cute

Cons:
It makes no sense that any reasonable high school would allow their students to have a club where they straight up risk their lives a ton to fight devils. Now I would get it if the club was about learning about devils and training and occasionally going out to fight, but to get into the club you need to fight a devil. That's an incredibly risky and dangerous thing for a school club to do.
Meh art
Still have random flashbacks in the middle of action scenes

At the time of writing this I am on my fifth read of Akira. This review includes pros, cons, and some trigger/content warnings for the book.

Pros:
The art is nice I guess
The fast pace is enjoyable
Volume 2 is really good
Enjoyable and threatening villain
Fun characters
Some really cool body horror
Strong female characters
... Very well done fight scenes

Cons:
Handles rape really poorly (Multiple characters dating their rapist/attempted rapist)
Volume 3 has a weak villain
Character motivations tend to be unclear a lot
Characters lack depth
Despite being fun, the characters aren't likeable. I found myself many times throughout the book cheering for the protagonist to get beaten
Has many confusing moments that don't get explained like the end of volume 4

Trigger/content warnings:
Sexual assault (Once in volume 1 and a bunch in volume 4. None of the sa scenes contribute to the plot so all those scenes can be skipped without losing the plot)
Drug addiction and dependency (Mainly present in volume 1 and volume 4. Can't be skipped without losing the plot)
Graphic violence (Practically every volume. Shows up too much to be avoided)