Stephen's Monster anime rundown 9/30: Episode 74 (The End)

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 12:48 am

I'll be using this thread to both point out differences/interesting notes on the Monster anime, and review each fansub group's version, so you know which one is the best to get (according to me, of course).

Since there was too much useless conversation in the other thread, I split it off and made this my own thread. It's locked, so if you want to comment on something, post in the "Monster anime rundown discussion" thread.

I will be referring to things people might consider "spoilers" so if you haven't read the manga yet, don't read my personal reflections.

RECOMMENDED VERSIONS: Soldats or Anime-Kraze for highest quality all-around.

So, without further ado, let's get to it!

Chapter 1
Herr Dr. Tenma
Covers Chapters 1-2 (v1c1-v1c2)

Currently available versions: Raw, ToTan, Anime-Keep, Soldats, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: I was thoroughly impressed. The production team managed to put together a presentation that was heavy, atmospheric and dignified. While the beginning of the story is often taken to be the introduction to a medical thriller, the music and sound effects are too moody and ethereal for many people to assume there isn't going to be a lot more at work. The beginning and ending themes were extremely classy! There were no lyrics for the opening, and the ending was sung in English by singer-songwriter David Sylvian. No disposable J-pop garbage here. The voice acting was relatively solid. Dr. Tenma sounded rather young, although it's yet to be seen if his voice will change after the story jumps ahead a decade. In contrast, Eva sounds much older. She does sound very dignified and regal, but she also sounds like she's 10-15 years older than Tenma. The young child of the Turkish woman whose husband is dead had a very annoying "adult trying to be a kid" voice, which was grating. On the other hand, the actor who did Anna's "kill" line sounded convincingly like a little girl. I would describe the animation as "good where it counts." In motion scenes, it moves smoothly and attractively. Several times in the episode there are head shots of characters talking that look stilted, but as mentioned, these parts don't need nice animation, so I'm content with the trade-off. All in all, as I first said, I was quite impressed and I am very much looking forward to the next episode.

Fansub Reviews

ToTan: Theirs was the first version to appear on BT. Overall it was a good job, except for the following issues: There were a few cases of oddly-worded English and a few minor typos, and I have some suspicions about the originality of their translations. Several lines were phrased exactly the same as my original manga translations, and others were too similar to be chalked up to coincidence. It seems odd, because they both corrected mistakes that I made in my script and successfully altered lines of dialogue that were changed in the transition to anime, so why use my work as a base? Also, they used two different kinds of apostrophe in the subtitles, one that looked nice and one that took way too much space up. Stick to the compact one, please.

Anime-Keep: In general, Anime-Keep's version is slightly better than Totan's, although not without its own problems. While there aren't any issues with non-fluent English, some choices of dialogue were poor, in my opinion, such as changing Anna's "kill" line to "please kill." Also, one thing that I was really hoping would NOT happen but had pretty much resigned myself to seeing was the use of Japanese suffixes in the translation, and sure enough, they popped up several times in the episode. Despite the fact that I commonly practiced the use of inserting Japanese suffixes into my translations until a short time ago, even back in the days when I started Monster I made the conscious decision to NOT use suffixes because this story takes place in GERMANY, not JAPAN. Heinemann is not saying "Tenma-kun" in German! Looks like shit. While I don't expect them to change it, I must say that it looks terrible to me. By the way, Totan did NOT use suffixes, for which I commend them. Anime-Keep also managed to mistransliterate the lyrics of the ending song (as did Totan) even though it's in English. Come on, people!

Soldats: In comparison to the two earlier versions, Soldats is more solid. My only complaints are trivial, and I didn't see any grammatical/language errors. Like Anime-Keep, they decided to use suffixes, but, also like Anime-Keep, they translated "san" as Mr. and only included "kun" in the subtitles. This makes me wonder if both Soldats and A-Keep are only leaving it in because of the lack of an easy English equivalent. Unfortunately, they decided to translate the 'Kill' line as "Kill him..." which IMO is a no-no, since you can't infer that she's referring to Johan from just the word "kill." It won't really matter in a few episodes anyways, but for now I frown upon that. Soldats did manage to nail the ending lyrics perfectly, which neither of the other two groups have done (bravo!). Overall, this is a very solid release.

Anime-Kraze: An excellent job. There weren't any major English mistakes or grammatical pitfalls, and in general it was a flawless translation. I was very pleased that they decided to omit Japanese suffixes from the dialogue. It only serves to make their excellent translation look more professional and less like an amateur fansub. I did notice that they spelled his name Kenzou the first time and then switched to Kenzo. I myself began by spelling his name Kenzou, but changed it to Kenzo partway through the manga. They did make one mistake on the ending lyrics, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't in the line that happens to be the title of the song, and is written in English in the credits (For the Love of Life). This is my recommendation for the best version of the first episode.

Next Episode: "Downfall" (title of v1c3)

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 12:49 am

Chapter 2
Downfall
Covers Chapters 3-4 (v1c3-v1c4)

Currently available versions: Raw, ToTan, Anime-Keep, Soldats, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: The second episode was every bit as good as the first. The more macabre scenes are given impressively frightening and ominous sound effects and music. The scene in which Johan opens his eyes after Dr. Tenma speaks to him on his bed had a deliciously creepy sound. I continue to be very pleased with the class and dignity with which they are handling the anime. Upon repeated viewings, I noticed the whisky bon-bons had been replaced with Werther's candies. Weird.

Fansub Reviews

ToTan: In general, episode 2 was better than the first one. I didn't notice any flagrant typos, but there were still a few cases of awkward English, such as "Your operation before..." These are less frequent then they were in the first episode, however. I've decided I like their ending effect the nicest, with the lyrics scrolling upward and changing color with the picture, but they're still incorrectly transcribed.

Anime-Keep: In comparison to ToTan, Anime-Keep did not make much improvement over their first episode. While it was translated accurately, there were many instances of awkward English that a native speaker would not use. As with the first episode, Keep's is not good enough to stand out against the rest.

Soldats: An essentially flawless job on this episode. I didn't notice a single sentence that sounded awkward or out of place. My only suggestion would be to capitalize titles when used in the second person.

Anime-Kraze: Like Soldats, the work was generally flawless and there is nothing to say other than that I recommend these two groups.

Next Episode: "A Case of Murder" (title of v1c5)

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 9:12 am

Chapter 3
A Case of Murder
Covers Chapters 5-6 (v1c5-v1c6)

Currently available versions: Raw, ToTan, Soldats, Anime-Keep, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: Lunge's actor was pleasantly close to what I had envisioned, with a very deep voice, although I don't think it's got enough texture/crack to it, to capture the more eerie lines he'll say later in the series. Maybe that will change as time goes on. I should point out that Eva's voice actor has been getting better, or else I'm just getting used to her. Probably the latter. It seemed like this episode had more frequent cases of stilted speech animation than usual.

Fansub Reviews

ToTan: I should point out that they gave us a very nice shout-out in the opening credits of this episode. As for the episode itself, it seemed to be about equal with their last one. I wasn't paying perfect attention, but I didn't notice any glaring typos, although there were still a lot of imperfect sentences. Most of them were minor, but there were enough that it wouldn't be worthwhile to point them out here. Lastly, though trivial, they did correct the ending lyrics. I don't know why I make such a big deal out of that, but at least they fixed it up.
EDIT: I just noticed that they included the message about us in episode 2 as well. I guess that's what I get for not paying attention.

Soldats: As with the previous episodes, Soldats puts out a very solid release. There's nothing really worth criticizing in this episode, so I'll waste my time by pointing out two things. I thought there were a few places where some paraphrasing would have eliminated a bit of unnatural English (i.e. literal Japanese phrases that would likely not be said in English). Also they chose to spell Inspector Weisbach's name as Weissbach, which according to research, would seem to be a more common spelling than Weisbach (x2 the hits on Google). But sharp readers of the manga would have remembered that he signs his name "Weisbach" on a form in v16. As I said earlier, this really isn't worth criticizing, since he'll only appear in maybe 4 episodes total through the whole series.

Anime-Keep: A-Keep suffered the embarrassment of prematurely releasing this episode with several technical/encoding errors. While the visuals seem to have been fixed in the second version (with the exception of some ugly misplaced title overlays and the omission of Lunge's title), the editing seems to be rather random. I like the way they translated some lines, but for every one of those there's at least one line that seems to be pure Engrish. They also chose the "Weissbach" spelling. I don't see why more people are downloading this version instead of Soldats, especially when Soldats' release came before A-Keep's v2.

Anime-Kraze: Good work as usual, but I spotted a few mistakes and over-literal lines, so I wouldn't say it was as good as their previous efforts. They were the only group who chose the spelling "Runge" for our good inspector. I'm aware that "Lunge" comes off strangely to Germans and that "Runge" is a more sensible spelling for that name, but as we all know, Urasawa spells it Lunge many many times on the covers, which is why I chose to put it that way in our translation. Clearly Kraze has decided that a more common real-life spelling takes priority.

Next Episode: "Night of the Execution" (title of v1c8)

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 11:05 am

Chapter 4
Night of the Execution
Covers Chapters 7-8 (v1c7-v1c8)

Currently available versions: Raw, ToTan, Anime-Keep, Soldats, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: This episode marks the reappearance of Johan, as an adult. His voice actor had a different voice than I was expecting, a bit higher pitched and slightly mocking, but it was still a good match, I think. Rather silky and soft. I was also quite pleased with the way Junkers' murder was handled. You might not call it "shocking" but it was certainly graphic. The production team did not spare us the sight of Junkers as he was shot; it was treated with more weight than 90% of the death scenes you see in anime. The streak of excellence continues.

Fansub Reviews

ToTan: They decided to translate the title as "The Night of Punishment" instead of "Execution." That was an unfortunate choice IMO because 'shokei' can mean punishment/sentence but 99% refers to an execution. Other than that, this release is pretty much consistent with their others, although it seemed like the number of English mistakes is decreasing, which is good. My suggestion to them would be to find or recruit an English major who has good editing skills to polish up their scripts (or get another one, if they already have one).

Anime-Keep: They certainly did a better job on this one than the last episode, which was pretty bad. Overall a very good release. I noticed this episode (and realized I missed, previously) that they're the only group to use the Johann spelling. See my note above about Runge/Lunge and replace them with Johann/Johan to see my stance.

Next Episode: "The Girl From Heidelberg" (title of v2c1)

Posted: Wed May 05, 2004 4:12 pm

Chapter 5
The Girl From Heidelberg
Covers Chapter 9-10 (v2c1-v2c2)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, ToTan, Anime-Keep, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: And after Johan's reappearance in the last episode, Nina comes back into the story here. Her voice actor is a tad more squeaky and bubbly than I would have imagined, but I'm sure she will change over time with her character.

Next Episode: "Reported Disappearance" (title of v2c3)

Posted: Wed May 12, 2004 3:04 pm

Chapter 6
Reported Disappearance
Covers Chapters 11-12 (v2c3-v2c4)

Currently available versions: Raw, ToTan, Anime-Keep, Anime-Kraze, Soldats

My thoughts: There wasn't a whole lot to comment on in this chapter. Mauler's voice actor fit pretty well. They also changed the ending sequence to show a bit more of the Nameless Monster book. Now you can see the monster splitting into two and going to the east and west. Interesting.

Next Episode: "The Mansion of Tragedy" (title of v2c5)

Posted: Thu May 20, 2004 6:22 pm

Chapter 7
The Mansion of Tragedy
Covers Chapter 13-14 (v2c5-v2c6)

Currently available versions: Raw, ToTan, Anime-Keep, Soldats, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: Pretty good episode. The only thing I noticed that was different was a slight cut to the scene of Nina dressing herself in the shack by the river, which was a perfectly acceptable alteration and probably a better idea than what Urasawa did in the manga. After all... where's the excitement in seeing a changing scene for a traumatized girl who's just lost her parents?

Next Episode: "On the Run" (title of v2c7)

Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 9:15 pm

Chapter 8
On the Run
Covers Chapter 15 (v2c7)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, ToTan, Anime-Keep, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: They managed to stretch one chapter into a full episode here, which was actually a good move, in my opinion, since juggling both this and the next chapter in one episode would make it rather disjointed. I especially like the story of Bernhardt the mercenary and the little girl, so I'm hoping that they'll give that all the time it needs. Anyways, back to the episode. They filled up the running time with several flashbacks that probably wouldn't be necessary if there were no time constraints to mind, but which turned out just fine in the end. I'll admit that I didn't really like the way Eva turned out based on the first episode, but her voice actor was excellent in lush mode! I was really, really impressed... she sounded more like a regular human being than an actor, and I don't particularly mind the blonde hair or older-sounding voice anymore.

Next Episode: "The Ex-Soldier and the Little Girl" (title of v2c8)

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2004 1:51 pm

Chapter 9
The Ex-soldier and the Little Girl
Covers Chapter 16 (v2c8)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, Anime-Keep, ToTan, Anime-Kraze

My thoughts: This episode turned out all right. To be honest, I was hoping for a bit more... something, but it's not like they left any of the content out, so I guess I'm content with the delivery. The animation was extremely stilted, especially one cut in which Lunge was animated with a 1-2 "mouth open mouth closed" repitition for at least 5-10 seconds straight. Judging from the next episode preview, the story will be getting back to a 2 chapter per episode pattern.

Next Episode: "An Erased Past" (title of v3c1)

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:21 pm

Chapter 10
An Erased Past
Covers Chapters 17-18 (v3c1-v3c2)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, ToTan, Anime-Kraze, Anime-Keep

My thoughts: This episode gets back to the two-chapter pace, covering both the first meeting of Heckel and Tenma, and the story of "Lawyer" and "Secretary." I had envisioned Heckel's voice being more high-pitched and annoying, like a rat I guess, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had an interesting and very expressive voice actor who was as enjoyable to listen to as Eva's in Episode 8.

Next Episode: "Kinderheim 511" (title of v3c3)

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 5:01 pm

Chapter 11
Kinderheim 511
Covers Chapters 19-20 (v3c3-v3c4)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, Anime-Kraze, ToTan, Anime-Keep

My thoughts: This episode only covers partway through Chapter 20 so it's more like one and a half chapters. Hartmann and Dieter are voiced competently, although I was a bit surprised to find out that Dieter's voice actor also plays the role of Naruto.

Next Episode: "A Meager Experiment" (title of v3c5)

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 5:12 pm

Chapter 12
A Meager Experiment
Covers Chapters 20-21 (v3c4-v3c5)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, Anime-Kraze, Totan, Anime-Keep

My thoughts: This one covers another one and a half chapters to reach the end of Tenma's meeting with Dieter and Hartmann. There were two minor alterations in the presentation this time. One, the ending credits sequence was changed once again, to now show the Monster Who Went East meeting the Blacksmith. They also got rid of the "next episode" sequence and instead just display the name of the next episode immediately after the "this episode sponsored by" screen.

Next Episode: "Petra and Schumann" (title of v3c6)

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 5:29 pm

Chapter 13
Petra and Schumann
Covers Chapters 22-23 (v3c6-v3c7)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, Anime-Kraze, ToTan, Anime-Keep

My thoughts: The story of Petra and Schumann is wrapped up nicely in one episode. While I think it's a nice enough diversion on its own, these stand-alone stories are much better suited to Master Keaton than here, when there is already such a compelling plot set in place for Monster.

Next Episode: "A Man Left Behind, A Woman Left Behind" (titles of v3c8 and v4c1)

Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:39 pm

Chapter 14
A Man Left Behind, A Woman Left Behind
Covers Chapters 24-25 (v3c8-v4c1)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, Anime-Kraze, ToTan, Anime-Keep

My thoughts: Competently done episode, nothing really spectacular to point out. These two stories work well with each other, but since they are in separate volumes in the manga, I hadn't even noticed that the titles were the same.

Next Episode: "Be My Baby" (title of v4c2)

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2004 11:53 pm

Chapter 15
Be My Baby
Covers Chapter 26-27 (v4c2-v4c3)

Currently available versions: Raw, Soldats, Anime-Kraze, Anime-Keep, ToTan

My thoughts: The Baby's voice is annoying. As it should be. Despite being two chapters like most of the other episodes, it seemed like an inordinate amount of story was covered in this one.

Next Episode: "Wolf's Confession" (title of v4c5)