sweetlorettafart

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Viridian City seems fun

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sometimes i’m sad the pokemon manga will never be animated and sometimes i remember i know how to animate and can do anything i want

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"I may be evil, but even I don't want to see a kid get eaten alive." 💀

(I mean, we are probably around his son's age.)

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NEW YEARS PMEX GIOVANNI SAVE MEEEEE

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3

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viridian kids..

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Working on some sketchy WIP's. new year new charms possibly..... ?

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is it me or I think there is some misogyny within the monster fandom..i mean people treat Eva and Vera as the worst people in the wolrd when I can think of much worser characters,and they boil down Nina to "a nice girl" and ignore all her complexities,symbolism and narrative importance and say "she isnt that well developed and not important to plot"

Misogyny certainly plays a role here, it's esp. evident with how the fandom treats Eva (esp. before she grew as a character; and even after she grows, it's mostly about "she stopped harassing Tenma" and her relationship with Martin, while the more important thing here (imo)—how she started to take care of herself and stopped defining herself through the men in her life—is underdiscussed).

But I think it'd be reductive to say that the way the audience sees the women in Monster is only a result of misogyny; I think a crucial aspect here is the way the female characters are written and how they're treated by the male cast.

I think it's one of the many traps laid by Urasawa, traps that are very easy to fall into (which is perfectly understandable with a complex work filled with so many characters). I also fell into them: my first reaction to Eva was "oh, here we go again, female characters written by dudes" (yeah, Monster taught me to stop yapping about shit without 1) finishing it 2) looking at it carefully, because the devil is the details).

So what exactly are the traps built of?

Cliches

Subtle characterization and/or an apparent lack of information that shows in, for example, the namelessness or very little time on screen.

The fact that a large part of the story is the lack of a story.

Ad 1. I think a big part of Monster is the way it plays with cliches (and it does so boldly; it isn't afraid to introduce us to the most overused cliches and turn them into little storytelling gems), so of course there're also many female character cliches: the love interests, the damsels in distress, the naive & clueless woman, etc.

And when you don't pay attention, it's easy to think that these cliches are everything that can be told about these characters. When we stop here, we miss so many details that reveal the more complex character behind these cliches.

Ad 2. I think Nina is a perfect example of how the subtle characterization can leave many people thinking that she's underdeveloped, irrelevant to the plot, and just an addition to Tenma and Johan.

We also don't have access to her direct point of view, but I don't think it's necessary here and I think we don't have access to it for a very good reason; women are still seen mainly as caregivers, as people who serve others, and are socialized to be nice from a very young age. This can lead to ignoring one's own needs and, in consequence, losing yourself.

And Nina is a character who fits into this role perfectly; she's often shown serving others, bringing kindness where it's needed, being a beam of hope, etc. She's also very often overshadowed by her brother; she's referred to by other characters as "Johan's sister", as if this was the most important information about her.

Heck, Johan even takes away from her the monster title; the reasons behind it are, of course, ambiguous, but it doesn't change the fact that it was her who was kidnapped to the Red Rose Mansion and it was her whose memories were taken away.

And she's clearly upset when Johan tells her that it is his story to tell.

One of my favorite examples of her subtle characterization is the fact that in the beginning of the story, she wants to be a public prosecutor, and by the end, she wants to be a lawyer. It seems like a small change, but it tells a lot about how much her worldview changed.

When it comes to the namelessness and the little time on screen, a good example of it would be Věra. Please keep in mind that we only learn about her possible name in Another Monster; why do I say it's only possible? Because the only source of this name is one person interviewed by Weber, and the person identified Věra via a sketch. I wouldn't call this the most reliable source.

But let's get back to the main topic; what's the reason behind both the lack of a name and the little time on screen? It's Bonaparta.

Bonaparta doesn't let us see much of her, he doesn't let us learn her real name. But even when we see so little of her, we can still see someone compelling and complex, we see a wide range of emotions, we see her determination, we see who she could be if it wasn't for her circumstances, we see her deep guilt and fragility by the end of the story, we see someone who Bonaparta initially dismissed ("you are a funny woman" etc.) only to end up obsessed with her.

But since it's only a matter of a few panels and she's mainly discussed by other characters as the mother of the twins, it's easy for the audience to a) see her as a bad mother, b) think she's unfairly treated by the manga.

I don't think she's treated unfairly by the manga, I think she's one of the most important characters in Monster and it isn't merely because she's the mother of the twins, it's because we can see so much of her in other Monster characters: in the nameless, the dismissed, the robbed of a better future, the reduced to a certain role, all the characters we simply do not know a thing about their minds and that quite possibly, behind the awful clichés, there were in them gardens and twilights, and palace gates.

(I tried to stop myself from babbling about Lolita, but it's not my fault the quote fits so well here.)

Ad 3. I mentioned the lack of the story partially in Ad 2., but there are so many other examples: the little girl who lives with Hugo Bernhardt, Richard Braun's daughter and wife, Lunge's daughter and wife (the difference between how Richard sees his family vs. how Lunge sees his family is shown in the narration as well), Martin's mother and girlfriend etc.

Thanks for the ask! ‎(^人^)

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Sent to me by @poke-maniac! Thanks so much for the heads up!

Yo, this sounds so much cooler than just the basic boss rush we actually got, a full-on conflict involving a wider area of Alola, Skull vs. Rocket, plus RR Giovanni (who apparently wasn't the true Giovanni) successfully taking down the player, and Blue and Red joining the fight too! And the original Giovanni apparently wanted to make Silver proud and fix that burned bridge with him.

One of my biggest complaints with RR was the cool concept, but the utter waste of potential it was that the bosses just hang out in their rooms and we hardly get any proper interactions between them, that they're just confined to the Aether Paradise. Ultra was always one of those games where it felt like it needed more time to cook than it actually got imo--it released literally less than a year after SM came out--, and I wish GF got the time to be more ambitious like how this sounded.

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Read enough stories featuring characters who very notably wear glasses, and you start to notice certain trends in romantic scenes.

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As far as I know there's no source for his age. Curious to see what everyone else thinks!

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Concept art of the HGSS Rocket Executives. So that's what Proton's covering with his hat.

Edit, HGSS Giovanni:

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Powerpuff Villains in the Opening Credits

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If you don't love me at my

then you don't deserve me at my