Which parts of Monster do you think were filler?

I leave for a week, and when I come back I find the thread full of people hating on Monster, of all things? Inconceivable!

Oh, well, I have a week worth of anime episodes (yes, I know I said I wasn't interested in anything from this season other than Natsume, but as usual I've picked up a couple shows from the "short and silly" category and I still have some 2-cour shows from the previous season). That takes precedence, so I'll just make it quick:

An open end is not the same as an anticlimactic end, but that's still a fair criticism, since it's up to personal taste. However, what practically is a panel-by-panel adaptation just can't have any "filler", unless you redefine "filler" to mean "episodes I found boring or didn't like for some reason". Which would have been a fair criticism, by the way: I'll be the first to admit that Monster's plot and pacing aren't for everyone. Then again, that's par for the course for most of Urasawa's works.

I admit that I haven't read Monster specifically, but I have read Pluto and some of 20th Century Boys, so I'd like to think that I understand Urasawa's pacing, which is pretty good for manga. However, I did WATCH Monster and I felt that it was a bit long in the tooth. I can't help but wonder if a panel-for-panel adaptation wasn't to its detriment somehow, like I think it would've done better if they took the same story and tried to tell it in 50 episodes instead of 70.





In my opinion, not at all. One of the things that made DBZ so big was that it was so approachable and accessible to anyone. For a lot of anime fans, it was the show that made them fans in the first place. While it was technically my third anime, it was the series that brought me to Toonami, which ended up having a lot of other really good stuff.

Dragon Ball (Z) also became the formula for all the other blockbusters in Japan (One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, etc.) by having relatable characters, a bit of a comedic edge, build ups to big fights, and a well-designed, consistent world. Arguably, Fist of the North Star and Saint Seiya did the same thing, but it was Dragon Ball that had ridiculous amounts of success both in Japan and worldwide. While I think it's still a bit hard to sit through, even with Dragon Ball Kai (the manga is so much faster), it still stands as one of the landmark series in anime history. Saying you like Dragon Ball is like saying you like The Dark Knight, or the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast. It just makes sense.

I have read all three, but only seen a few episodes of monster and I'd have to agree, the manga was already pretty drawn out, but at the speed you could get through a chapter it wasn't really a problem. Turning that into 20 minute episodes though, seems a bit much and the few episodes I did see bored me.

I'm a DB bastard. I'm spending my time right now editing ("kai-ing") it up. Getting rid of fillers, trying to compile basically a Kai version if the show. Obviously I can't get new voice actors and redo everything because I don't have the original frames in front of me, nor a budget to work with. Still, I'm doing it because I love the show enough. At the moment, I've already knocked out 30 episodes worth of material (mostly not acknowledging complete filler episodes).

The exhausting part is going through each one and trying to re-time the subtitles. I hate the dubs, so I must sift through the subs on my own as I sit an episode per day fixing them. Also, MKV files are a bitch to work with.

You do know that there is an uncut version of dragon ball and dbz available?

I haven't read it either, and the anime IS long... But I can't think of any way of telling the story in less episodes that would result in a better product. There's not really anything that you can take out without affecting the story, which only leaves the possibility of using a faster pace in some parts, and that inevitably leads to less detail. That, and a consistent pace throughout the whole thing tends to work better.

What are you talking about?

Hmm you might be misunderstanding me. The MKV versions I have are the remasters. All I'm doing it cutting filler and needless moments (ex: ep 33 where the monkeys are trying to figure out what the Dragon Ball is) to make it more like DB Kai (which I love). Then I have to re-time the subtitles.

As for Z, I already have the Kai vids. Wish they did the Boo saga, though.

Exactly. That'd be probably roughly 70% of the episodes.


Then it's a good thing you aren't a professional editor, because you would suck at it.


lol, of course there is. You fanboys are unbelievably blind, aren't you. How about that episode with that elderly German couple who give Tenma a ride? That went fucking nowhere. Or most of the Eva-focused episodes. Yay she's an alcoholic bitch, like we didn't know already, like we give a shit. Or the episode about that asian medical student acting as a clandestine doctor. Etc. And every time a new side-character was introduced, I groaned, because you know they'd spend a few episodes on this person, only for a 2 minutes payoff (at best) where that minor, irrelevant character somehow contributes a tiny tidbit to the overall story.

I wanted to like Monster, but I couldn't because it was simply a chore to plod through. It simply dragged on and on and on for no payoff whatsoever. Whoever wrote it completely fails at pacing, editing, and not being a moralizing fuckwit in the end. He needs to read Story very, very badly.

Probably why I never tried to be one. That, and I am reluctant to tell people they suck at something (which an editor must be able to do, although it's likely that a more constructive wording would be preferred), because often "you suck at X" is just a shorter way of saying "I don't like how you do X". Not that I take offense at how you addressed me (or that you'd care if I did), I'll be the first to admit that my ability to reduce any quantity of information to the smallest amount that still carries the same message is lacking. But that's neither here nor there, so let's move on:



So you admit that the "minor, irrelevant characters" frequently add to the story (however small their contribution might be), and that therefore taking them out would affect it. Perhaps I should explicitly note that I never said "affect in a significant way", since it seems that's how you took it...

Anyway, even if you take those two episodes out and trim the Eva episodes to the strictly necessary minimum that allows the character to be properly established and grow, you still end up with around sixty episodes at best. Perhaps you would like to explain in detail how exactly would you take it down to the proposed 50 without losing anything relevant as far as plot, character growth, etc. are concerned? I'm honestly intrigued.



So Monster does not suit your tastes. And that is fine. Where's the problem? I don't recall ever telling anyone that they must like anything. In fact, the only things I ever mentioned are how the end being anticlimactic is just a matter of personal taste and how it's wrong to claim a 70% ratio of filler unless you redefine "filler" (which you did in your reply to Zelk, so it turns out that I was right). Oh, and that I thought of people hating on Monster as inconceivable, but I'm sure all of us understood that it was a tongue-in-cheek comment.

I guess so.

First of all, I admit that I watched Monster dubbed on the Syfy channel, which means some of the content might have been cut due to time constraints. It also means that it has been a while since I've seen it, so I may not be remembering things correctly. That being said:



I'm not saying that I hate Monster or think that it isn't worth watching (especially when there's Final Fantasy Unlimited to beat up on). I've actually tried to get my anime-phobic father to give it a shot because he likes stuff about serial killers (he's a big fan of Dexter). As for trying to edit the series from 74 to 50, I have no idea how I'd do it because I haven't bothered to think about it; it was just a criticism, not some kind of expectation. All I was saying was that comics and television are different mediums with different expectations and drawing things out to build suspense works better in graphic novels (and in books in general), but trying to drag it out across several episodes of television can easily come across as tedious, and I don't think Monster avoided that well enough.

Morrigan didn't like Legend of the Galactic Heroes either.

FAIL!

Shun the nonbeliever!

Also, GODDAMMIT why did I look up the soundtrack for CLANNAD ~After Story~?! Now I'm getting all teary-eyed remembering some of those later scenes. AND THERE'S NOT A THING I CAN DO ABOUT IT.

I can laugh at The Fox and the Hound and shrug off Old Yeller, but that series just stomped the shit out of me.

So then, what's everybody's opinions on some of the shows from this season?

I'm currently watching Nisemonogatari and I must say the pacing is quite bad at the moment. After 4 episodes there has only been a meeting with the "bad guy" and blatant amounts of fan service, as well as one or two yandere moments from Senjougahara. With the events at the end of the last episode though, hopefully it will start to move along.

As for two-cour shows from last season, Last Exile is the only one I've been actively watching each week and its so far been pretty good, albeit a bit silly at times. I also have Persona 4 sitting on my hard drive, but I can't be bothered watching that at the moment.

I watched Thermae Romae as my "short and silly" show for this season, and finished it yesterday. Had some good moments here and there, it's watchable as long as you don't expect a life-changing, earth-shattering experience. Other than that, and not counting shows from past seasons or two-cour shows, I'm only watching the fourth season of Natsume (which is more of the same we got in its previous seasons) and Another because I remember reading at least part of the manga, and decided to see how it compares to the anime. So far it's a pretty good adaptation, even better in some aspects (for example, in the anime, there's none of that out-of-place comedic relief that plagued the first chapters of the manga), although both have the problem of trying too hard to be creepy and ultimately failing, IMHO.

Xeogred, are you gonna bitch about that again? I watched like 2 episodes of that Galactic Heroes thing and fell asleep. Not gonna waste my time to wait for yet another payoff 353465 episodes later. Been there done that.


*facepalm* I just said that they add very little or nothing at all. The proportion of their contribution to the story is so tiny as to be irrelevant enough to be cut with no impact to the quality of the story. That's the whole point. Going "ah-HA but you just said they DO add SOMETHING to the plot, even just a little wee bit, therefore it's not filler!" is a lame and dishonest gotcha. By that logic you could rationalize or justify any filler or useless story material that way, from Jar-Jar Binks to Kim Bauer in 24's S2. Redefining terms, my ass.


Why in the seven hells would I do that? My interest in this conversation has been going downhill since my first post on the subject. In fact, I already spent way too much energy discussing bad writing and bad TV.

y'know what sucks? Nagisa looks somewhat like my GF (short/brunette hair). i can't do anything involving clannad anymore x'D;;

Whatever. It's pretty obvious that you redefined "filler" to mean "useless", but I couldn't care less if you don't want to admit it. Besides, it's not as if there aren't any examples of useless parts that aren't filler, both in anime and elsewhere.



Because claiming that something can be done and then failing to expl... No, I'm not even gonna bother with this anymore, this thread deserves better than me letting it degenerate into a "my opinions > your opinions" thread, a semantic discussion, a series of unsupported claims, or a combination of any of those. And I'm sure both you and I have better things to do. Have a nice day.

When did I do that before?

You so silly. Sound a little ADD when it comes to anime, INSTANT SATISFACTION REQUIRED! If I judged everything I watched by the first episode or two, damn that would suck. Patience is virtue.

He's right. I sat through the first two episodes of LOTGH being bored and yes it isn't my type of anime, especially with that very old style animation. Nonetheless, it's backstory and characters get fleshed out tremendously and as you keep watching it you get more and more invested. It's a really worthwhile experience, guys. To those that have watched all of DBZ's 291 episodes - with all those useless fillers - something like LOTGH should be viewing pleasure.

I also didn't care for Monster much until a dozen or so episodes in. I had seen those at a friends and didn't pick it back up from there years later, but then it was amazing.

I prefer long shows myself nowadays. It's not like watching anything is a race, so who cares. 70 episodes into Slam Dunk and the pacing is so insanely catchy and fast it feels like it's only been 10 episodes, haha. Can't wait to watch Ippo afterwards sometime. Touch was amazing too for more sports drama (probably more comparable to Maison though. But Slam Dunk puts the sports element first, even if I'm not an NBA fan it's damn fun stuff with great characters, epic early 90's music, etc).

I've heard Touch is good, but the only baseball anime I've seen is Princess Nine, which far, far exceeded my expectations. The animation is sometimes lazy and always inconsistent, but it's a very good character-driven series and it's a goddamn shame there's only one season.

Touch isn't good, it's amazing.

It's pretty laid back and fairly mature, with a strong emphasis on subtlety which I like. It's quite different than Maison, which I still love, but is admittedly riddled with misunderstandings and that sort of thing that might bother some people. Touch on the other hand, whenever drama boiled up the characters would deal with it THAT episode and move on, so it was a nice change in comparison.

How is that redefining? Filler = useless.


You aren't being reasonable. Just because I'm not going to do the job the editor of that series should have done himself by going into minute details for the sake of your petty blind-fanboy curiosity, doesn't mean I have failed to explain myself. This is a standard discussion forum, not a thorough dissection on editing and narrative, for crying out loud. And spending energy dissecting garbage is not a worthwhile occupation, I'm not that bored yet.


No, you misunderstand. I have no problem with long-term arcs. And I can even forgive slower starts if I really have faith that there is going to be a pay-off sometimes soon (not 4 seasons in, mind you). That faith can be fueled either by really reliable sources insisting that it's worth watching, or by something in the early episode(s) that managed to capture my interest (which LotGH has failed at). But right now this is purely about the fact that I've given many series (mostly Anime, but not necessarily; for live-action TV, Lost certainly comes to mind) a very fair chance and I've invariably ended up regretting the waste of time because it either went nowhere or the pay-off really wasn't all that interesting at best. Basically, I'm just fed up after being shafted too many times, Monster being the straw that broke the camel's back. I really wanted to like it, too. But it failed on many levels. I guess I just have to conclude that I hate Anime in general. *shrugs*

I'm having the same problem with Babylon 5 at the moment. Season 1 is such crap that I really almost gave up, but a significant amount of people (whose trustworthiness vary from from pretty solid to moderately good) have insisted that it's worth watching, so I've been trudging through reluctantly. I'm early into S2 and things seem to be improving already, so my faith has been renewed, ever so slightly. Without that improvement and the insistence of reliable friends, I would have given up a few episodes into S1. There's so much other stuff to watch/read/play, that I will not waste more time on LotGH just because it's your particular fetish. Sorry.

Then I don't know why you even tried LOGH, since I'm not a reliable source to you.

Stay away from my fetishes!

I tried it a few years ago, I was possibly a lot more naive back then. I've lost patience for a lot of shit lately. Besides, I never said I'd refuse to try whatever someone would recommend, only that if it fails to grab me, I'll just give up and move on.

Nope. Not all useless sections of a work are filler, even if all filler is mostly useless. Filler in an adaptation (which is what we're discussing) is, by definition, non-canon material produced to fill (hence its name) the gaps produced by the adaptation catching up to the source material or needing to be extended for whatever reason. Things like the Bount arc in Bleach, or Goku and Piccolo learning to drive in DB. On the other hand, the Endless Eight arc from season 2 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is useless (or to be more precise, unnecessary, the only purpose it serves could have been achieved by different means), but it's not filler since it's part of the main story, just needlessly drawn out.

Now, I believe I said something about semantic discussions earlier, so I'd appreciate it if you excuse me while I admit defeat and bow out of this debate altogether, which at this point seems the wisest path to walk.



I don't usually repeat what I've said before, but I believe doing so it's the most appropriate course of action in this case: whatever. Either way, I fully agree that it's not worthwhile.

On a completely unrelated note, where should one start with LOGH? I haven't watched it yet although it's been on my to-do list for a while (it will probably be part of my next backlog along some Macross and/or Gundam), but I see there are a couple movies, two rather long series and one OVA. Is the release order OK, or do I have to jump back and forth?

A lot of people say start with My Conquest Is the Sea of Stars, which is like an alternative episode 1-2 in movie form. That's what I did myself and I got a good vibe for it. From there, just jump into the main series, and after that you can kind of watch whatever.

And give it sometime. , I remember I only watched 1-2 episodes a day when I saw it and that approach worked for me, it's really dialogue heavy and the episodes run a little longer than the ~23 mark, so it was a lot to take in. Maybe that suggestion would help others appreciate it more, I dunno.

So I leave this thread saying I'm going to watch Monster, and I come back to find people arguing about Monster?

Well here's my 2cents: Morrigan, why are you even bothering with this stuff? It really doesn't seem like your thing. So if it doesn't do it for you, why waste your time with it?

I'm 45 episodes into Monster at this point, and I think it's great, I actually like the slow, dialogue driven pace, and the "go nowhere" episodes that pop up. I am not a fanboy, I just like these sorts of shows.

I do however find amusing that Dr.Tenma gets as little screen time as he does, the cast of characters used to advance the plot is really large, which I also like.

About LOGH: I really, really want to watch this. Streaming doesn't really work for me, So I've decide to download the whole goddamned thing, one episode at a time. I will not be stopped! No matter how long it takes.

Well I think she summed it up above, unless she was being a little sarcastic or not. lol, just sounds like anime isn't really Morrigan's thing. So I don't know why visits this crazy thread.

Well if you like the slow pacing and dialogue heavyness of Monster, then LOGH might be for you as well. I can also say I'm hardly into politics, but I loved everything about LOGH. It really is like watching a sci-fi history channel series from the future or something. They even have "History" episodes somewhere in the middle detailing events that took place in its universe, it's hilarious, and I fucking loved it. Wish there was more of those episodes.

It's based off novels too. Generally those kind of anime adaptations seem to be pretty top notch.

I still have the pms I bombarded you with while I watched LOGH, Xeo. They're all keepers.

WTF, I really don't know how my posts could have been more clear.


Well... Remember this post? (And then people recommended Monster, and I enjoyed it at first but then I got so sick of it it became a chore... Yeah). It's not that I hate, or that I want to hate, Anime, because there is some Anime I've genuinely enjoyed in the past. It's mostly that beyond this tiny minority of Anime, I've had nothing but disappointment.

I haven't watched it in a while, but back when I did I really liked Outlaw Star.

There was a miniseries called Blue Submarine No. 6 that had a very intriguing story.

Some of the Gundam wing series I watched as well as Cowboy Bebop when it was on Toonami.

I consider Dragonball a guilty pleasure, but it's been over 9000 hours since I last watched any of it. The Teamfourstar parody dub on Youtube is excellent though.

One of my favorite anime films of all time is Princess Mononoke, which reminds me, I have to see if I have the DVD for it. If I don't, I must rectify this error.

I remember Grave of the Fireflies as well, a rather depressing but well done film. Didn't realize it was a Studio Ghibli film until I searched on Wikipedia, but I should've known better.

I'm looking forward to the Secret World of Arriety premiering in theaters, at least I hope a local theater has a showing or I'll be rageface. >:-(

Haha, it was disturbing how fast you went through it.


That rings a bell, then you clearly hated just about everything anyone recommended.

I finished watching death note the second time. Now im watching Code Geass, which is surprisingly good, although i hate that everybody looks like a 7 foot tall anorexic.

The artwork is why I will never enjoy Code Geass.

That. Fucking. Artwork.