[Lovamey]

First I'll be reviewing Monster and Second Baccano. I gave monster a 7.7/10, and Baccano a 8.5/10.

Story: 7.5/10

First off monster had a few flaws that kept a very interesting premise from evolving into a truly transformational experience, which at first was my hope for this show.
Monster went a bet shallow in a few areas, and the ending was disappointing and pretentiously vague.

Around half way through Monster I began noticing that this show was running out of steam and dragged on a bit to cover up some of the weak points of its plot.
Monster was very promising in the begging because I felt that it did a pretty good job of skipping a lot of fluff that is often present in other shows to cover up the creative weakness of its producers.

I'm impressed when a story can be told without shrouding it in meaningless mystery, when the facts of the situations and sequences of events are told without bias. I swoon when there's NO moral message present in a story that tries to impress the viewers, but fails to raise their true understanding of a situation.

I love it when the teller of a story allows the viewer to be the one to decide what the story really means. A skilled story teller's job is to report things of curiosity. A story teller has a license to point out events that are often overlooked but happened never the less.
I love learning from stories about things that happen in plain sight but no one talks about, and I love learning about things that happen behind closed curtains and in secrecy.

As a listener to a story I couldn’t care less about what the moral opinions of its teller are (I have my own morals, and if I see reason to change them I will), let’s just stick to the facts!
Some of the elements I enjoy in a good story were present in areas of Monster, especially the beginning, but even there they were curbed by a morality that I found somewhat infantile, and oppressive in the way it was presented.

Nearing the end of the show it became more loaded with an all to common anti-violence message that said to its viewers, "Yeah the bad guy has to die, but the good guy can't be the one to kill him. Yeah we think killing is bad and should never be condoned, but how the hell do we tell a story without the old good versus evil thing. Furthermore how do we remove an imminent evil threat without killing it?"

Those question are fine in themselves. However in this show they did nothing to answer these questions, it just went on and on about how bad killing is and they never... EVER! told us a better method for saving lives in the future. GOD SAVE ME from boredom.
Here's my advice to someone like Doctor Tenma, "Please keep your dam job as a doctor next time, because I'm going to be mad as hell if you chase another guy around for 74 episodes saying you going to kill him and in end you just let him slip through you fingers like we all knew you would, the signs were clear!"

I will recommend it to anyone who likes getting deeply evolved into a story, however you may not be left with much if you watch this one all the way through. Instead you might want to quite watching after the first chance Tenma had to Kill Johan.

Animation: 7/10

The Animation of monster was fair, it wasn't movie quality, and the environments were a bit bland, but it's right up there with its times. I'm not complaining.

Sound: 6/10

The sound, I really hated the English voice actor for doctor Tenma, he never did grow on me. In fact I enjoyed the few stretches in the story where Tenma wasn't present, and boy! The show felt so much smoother without that irritating subdued yet over acting voice of his. Oh god! I get pissed just think of his voice!

The other voice actors were all pretty smooth in their delivery, the only other one I didn't care for was the English voice of Nina Fortner. She had that same over dramatized things she did with her voice when things were supposed to be intense. Yet it tried too hard.
I can't really comment on the music fairly, because I don't remember the music. I guess that might say, "it wasn't memorable". Well it wasn't to me, because here I am, and I don't remember it...

However the opening theme I loved. Every time I heard it I felt like I had dropped out of society and was now on a journey into a different, and perhaps more dangerous world.

Characters: 7.8/10

The Characters of monster were sometimes very relatable and complex, and sometimes a bit bland.

Out of all the characters maybe the most significant personal development I saw was in Inspector Runge. Runge was the type of character I expected to fully understand what was really going on behind all the complexity, and that he simply kept quiet about what he knew until he had proof of what the truth really was.

But as it turned out he like so many people in life thought he knew the inside scoop, but in truth was a victim to his own vanity when his first analysis turned out to be way off. What I like here about Runge was that he continued his investigation without an emotional breakdown, and that being wrong once didn’t keep him from continuing on in his investigation.

A character that I was disappointed with was Dieter, I thought that there was a lack of insight into this child character. I thought that he needed more of a role, and that they should have done a better job of describing the events as through the eyes of a child by using him. The times they did use Dieter were not true to how a child might really behave under the circumstances, and so he more or less turned out to be a run of the mill spunky side kick type character… Not much new insight into Childhood here…

Overall: 7.7

Again 7.7 out of 10 points for Monster from my opinion. I'd say watch monster, I suppose all the way through if you want. As far as anime’s go, it’s a good one. It has some elements of a deeply evolving story, but then it tries too hard to impress us with it moral outlook; if anyone really looks too deeply here, they won't find much true substance. But all other things aside, it was still an entertaining show for the most part.






Story: 8.2

Now Baccano, Baccano is one of those experimental shows that doesn’t stay on a liner path when it comes to fallowing a sequence of events. By that I mean it jumps back and forth between events for no apparent reason.

I mean none stop throughout the entire show it kept skipping around! I thought it was a bit cheap, because it seemed to try making things appear more complex than maybe they actually were. I suppose they wanted to keep the excitement up.

Their way of doing this was by showing us a very brief segment of the story, then making us of watch something seemly unrelated, and later dazzling us by weaving things together into some kind of mind blowing cosmic circumstance. I guess it half way worked on me, but it was also totally annoying.

I would have watched the show and I might of liked it more if it had more of a liner unfolding of events. It’s annoying after a while trying to remember everything that was going on, and there was a lot going on! The story kept rotating and rotating from one thing to another in a matter of minutes, I got a bit fed up with it after awhile.

You might call me lazy, but why make the story more difficult to understand than it has to be? Just for the sake of appearing creative and out of the box? Well guess what, that is the box. The box is when someone tries to be something without any real reason behind it. That’s the box my friends.

But hey forget all that, Baccano still has an interesting story to tell, just don’t strain trying to keep all the pieces together.

Animation: 10

The animation here was well above average. I loved the detailed scenery, and the crispness of everything. The images popped out, and were very exciting to look at. The story here was given a big boost and brought to life by the animation.

Sound: 9

The sound was great, I liked all the voice actors, and the way they portrayed the characters with fun and vigor. I still remember the opening theme, I loved it. Do you know that feeling of a good show just by hearing the theme?

Characters: 8.5

The characters were very human. Right now the thought of the boy who was actually a few hundred years old came to mind. He was very well portrayed, he had all the wisdom of an old man, but he was small and not always in a safe environment, and so he still experienced fear the way a child might. This is just one example of the many very interesting characters of this show.

Overall: 8.5

I give Baccano an 8.5 out of 10. It Could have been better if they skipped around less, and from what I remember feeling, the ending was a bit of a drag, but it was still a great show defenatly worth watching. The annoying parts are small compared to the very intriguing parts. Baccano deserves to be proud amongst its anime peers.