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~The greatest crime one can commit is to take away another's name~

~The only thing all humans are equal in is death~

What makes monster great is how it builds up it's mystery - "Who is johann? What is his true identity? What happened with the twins in their childhood? What happened at kinderheim 511? Who is franz bonaparta ?" . All these questions keep you on your edge of the seat as you theorise about the history of this world. The most important thing an espionage thriller has to achieve is to keep it's mystery & thrill intact without getting predictable and monster succeeds in that. ... On top of this , a true crime thriller is one which also cares for it's characters, builds them up properly so that when we see them in a life and death situation , we feel invested , we feel tensed and monster absolutely nails that aspect too. We get small story arcs for every character which i really appreciated as well. Dr tenma , nina and Mr grimmer are probably my favourite characters.
Now with all this glazing , I also gotta admit that monster is not perfect. It presents itself as a very grounded story with very realistic nuances in it but are you telling me that a highly wanted criminal , who has had his photograph in the newspaper was able to escape from police for so many years without getting caught? If it was a professional criminal who knows how to make his way out , then I would have understood it , but for Dr tenma that certainly isn't the case. Also I found the last arc in the small town with everybody dying left & right to be very filmy and theatrical compared to the grounded tone of the rest of the manga.
Johann should be dead dawg , bro got shot twice in the head but still survives? Is he a superhuman or what🥀
I am not being negative towards the manga , since I do think it's a great crime thriller with very interesting philosophies that I thoroughly enjoyed. These are just slight inconveniences I found which could have been improved to make it as perfect as everyone calls it.
The ending is definitely something , isn't it.
While I am still processing it and trying to make complete sense of it , I can't deny that from a shock value point of view , it definitely achieved it's purpose of terrifying me completely.
Johann indeed is terrifying , isn't he? But is that enough for me to call him the best antagonist in animanga? I guess I will keep the answer to this question up to interpretation just like the manga's ending.

~Which one was unwanted?~

s1 had a very unique flare to it which made me like it a lot but s2 is just the most repetitive it could have gotten.
It feels like the author found a formula which worked and now he doesn't wants to leave his comfort zone to try anything else. Instead of developing a coherent plot supporting the weird ness and quirky ness of the show , they just replace it with complete random ness and throwing anything anywhere. it felt fun in s1 because it was new and fresh but if you are not willing to develop on your solid foundation to create a much ... more interesting plot going forward then it's just going to feel like an episodic action comedy gag slop. The shock value of seeing weird things has faded away with time and this season wasn't even as bold as s1 with it's certain scenes to shock me.

Alien or ghost attacks -> okarun will go full throttle , momo will use her hand powers , aira will use her pink hair ability (literally the same repetitive fighting style every battle) -> sad backstory of the ghost or alien to create sympathy and pretend like the show has some emotional profound-ness in it only to shift back to being the same quirky funny ahh show with balls & banana jokes -> A new character gets added to the team who will act weird because it's supposed to be funny -> end the season on a cheap cliffhanger everytime.

This is all dandadan is , it barely leaves any mark on me. The only thing which hard carries it now is science saru and even their work didn't feel that creative to me compared to s1 which is not there fault either , because one can only push to a certain limit to keep the fading freshness of the show alive.

A story which could have been a brilliant fairytale romance ended up being just another basic attempt at the genre.
This show ends up playing it so safe just because the author wanted to present a mature take at the genre that it completely backfires on the fact that these are just teenagers and there is no possible way that everyone can be this polite , humble , responsible , formal and polished. Don't get me wrong , I am not trying to say that every series has to be realistic and full of conflicts , but there is a certain line of believability which this ... one crosses that it makes me roll my eyes.
Just small mistakes , hesitants and misunderstandings could help for such a fulfilling iyashikei.
Let's imagine a situation -
Rintaro ends up hurting kaoruko unintentionally and that makes her cry. Just a very normal thing to happen in teenage romance , right? And then this leads up to him making a sincere apology for his mistake.
Can you imagine how earned the apology will feel in this scenario? , the entire apology argument which everyone keeps bringing up would be completely gone because instead of using the word for every trivial thing , we have a proper situation backing it up. The word itself will not lose it's value if used when required. Same can be said about "thank you".
The characters while having decent writing, don't have enough pull to make me completely invested in their life and that's because they overreact over the most basic moments that aren't even that serious.
Let's take subaru's situation in account -
We get a very brushed over flashback to her childhood which barely lasted like 4 mins and then we see her calling herself a "devious and horrible person" ...like the way these scenes were presented itself makes you feel that the character might be going through depression or something horrible but if we are being honest to ourselves , was thier enough backing by it's backstory to make it feel earned? I personally do not think so. It's a very common example of "show , don't tell" .
Now about the portrayal of friendship between rintarou & his friends and kaoruko & subaru -
Everything is treated with so much formalness that it's hard for me to find anything relatable in it. It's not really a big deal for friends to tease each other , make fun of them etc..
Not everything needs to be treated like it will be a huge problem if a character just said anything slightly offensive. And if they do say something irresponsible unintentionally then it will just make THE APOLOGY MORE EARNED.
The constant praising of each other over the most common qualities like "being nice" feels so unnatural.

Ig that's enough yapping of the shows flaws , because if anything , I also disagree with those who completely brush off the series from it's merits too. There was some brilliant direction , storyboarding and score composition in certain episodes which people didn't notice and let's be real , the whole healthy dynamic of rintarou and his supportive parents was done really well. The love confession moment of rintarou to kaoruko was also very genuine and wholesome.

Decent but not something I would call one of the best new gen romances either. A show needs to do more than just being a fluffy one time watch to leave a lasting impression on me.