Okayyy… So I’ve recently become ultra obsessed with Naoki Urasawa's Monster (it’s sooo good). The trope pages for it however are really giving me a migraine🤦🏼♀️ simply because they labelled Johan Liebert as a Complete Monster!! If you look on the wiki list for CM in Anime/Manga - HE'S THE PAGE IMAGE🤯 Ahem, he’s a monster for sure but most certainly a Tragic Monster or what is called a Woobie Destroyer of Worlds - there’s a difference! A Woobie Destroyer of Worlds has a reason for why they are what they are, oftentimes something traumatic in their childhood - Johan had several severely messed up things happen to him from the time he was born‼️ Also a CM is incapable of loving another human being: JOHAN WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR ANNA!! Listen, I’m not trying to justify his actions but I don’t think it’s accurate to describe the character as being born pure evil when there’s plenty of textual information that refute that claim! Plus how can they call Johan a Complete Monster but not these characters:
Petr Čapek
He is complicit in Franz Bonaparta's atrocities, likely taking part in the experiments at the Red Rose Mansion. He also helped Bonaparta kidnap Anna from her home and threatened her.
He killed a family, including two children, on Bonaparta's orders.
After re-establishing himself in Germany, he psychologically tortured a new group of innocent children, driving them to violence and suicide, causing the suicide of Milan's son, and showed no remorse for it even though they were childhood friends.
He had contempt for Turkish people, trying to expel them from their homes.
He murdered the five leaders of the resistance against him.
He masterminded a plan to burn down the Turkish quarter, which could have caused massive loss of life.
He attempts to convince Johan to be the Neo-Nazis' leader in a grand plot to begin World War 3 and wipe out all non-Aryan races in the world.
He repeatedly tried to have Johan's sister kidnapped so he could use her as a hostage.
He showed no apparent remorse when his childhood friend Milan was gunned down in an attempt to assassinate him.
He ordered Eva Heinemann killed when she had served her purpose, and then had Martin killed for failing to do this.
He showed no concern for the murders committed by Johan, claiming that they were his will.
He murdered his driver in a fit of paranoia.
He gave up Bonaparta's whereabouts in order to save his own life.
Compared to Franz Bonaparta, who made a serious attempt to atone for his own crimes, Capek shows very little remorse.
The Baby
He is established to be a Neo-Nazi and a racist politician, even owning a neighborhood filled with people like him.
The Baby plans to use Nina in order to get her brother's attention.
Despite appearing affable towards Nina, it is nothing but a facade in his manipulation towards her.
He arrogantly believes that Johan supports and agrees with his racist views without understanding that he is a nihilist who doesn't care about those beliefs as he looks down on all humans equally.
He runs over Tenma with his car and is disappointed that he did not die from the impact and then later kidnaps him.
Like the organization, he wants to convert Johan to his racist ideology and make him the new leader of Germany under the organization's control.
He tries to purge the Turkish community by burning down a neighborhood filled with them. This is really bad as this would qualify as an attempted genocide since he strongly hates the Turks.
While at that, he enjoys the destruction of other minorities that he causes.
The Baby tortures Tenma just because he's Asian.
Even when Tenma told him that Johan hates all humans equally, he continued to beat him anyway.
He attempts to kill Dieter, who is a kid that Tenma saved from Hartman and expresses gleefulness during the action.
He threatened to kill Martin if he failed his job.
Throughout the story, he shows no remorse for his actions.
UPDATE: Johan was recently removed from the Pure Evil wiki 😃
