You are on page 1of 14

Two Emotions

Self-Amusement
Curiosity
Curios Indifference
Bored Indifference
Stillness and Slowness
Calm Peaceful Serenity
http://neogenesis.wikia.com/wiki/Johan_Liebert

Appearance
Johan is noted by everyone who has seen him to be exceptionally beautiful, with perfect Aryan
features and an altogether angelic appearance. He has fine, almost effeminate bone structure and
a very light build, although this is usually disguised by his business attire. Neither tall nor short,
he does not look threatening but there is an undeniable confidence in the way he carries himself.
His coloring is pale: porcelain skin, platinum blonde hair, and sky blue eyes. His hair and clothes
are always neatly kept and nothing save his naturally beautiful face makes him stand out much in
a crowd. With calm eyes and an almost-permanent little smile he simply exudes... pleasantness.

Personality
There are several layers to Johan's personality. On the surface he is a kind and compassionate
young man, immensely interested in improving the society he lives in and caring for the weak.
He listens patiently to anyone who wants to open their hearts to him, comforts them, and offers
wise advice. And then, once he has gained their trust... another side of Johan emerges. His
reassuring words shift to gentle urging down a darker path. Perhaps it would be better to leave
this world, he might suggest. Perhaps those who were wrong deserve to be punished. Perhaps
everyone would be better off-- and then he sits back and watches as the seed he planted grows.
Inside, he is a remorseless monster. He wants to watch the world destroy itself. He wants to be
the last survivor.

Abilities
He can talk. And this is not an ability to merely shrug off. Johan's ability to speak to people is
ostensibly supernatural, comparable to mind control. His charisma is off the charts and very few
who have not witnessed his acts of violence themselves would ever suspect him of being what he
is. He can, and does, kill people simply by talking them in to suicide. He also rallies thousands of
followers to his side, from political leaders to gang members to little children. His power lies in
the fact that he is automatically liked and trusted by everyone. And not only is he an intellectual
genius, his intuition is tantamount to clairvoyance. He seems to know what everyone is thinking
and what they are about to do, which only further helps him to manipulate them.

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Johan_Liebert

Abilities
Inheriting his mother's genius intellect & deductive reasoning capabilities, Johan is prodigiously
brilliant in whatever he studies & the absolute best in anything he pursues. This is noted by
Schuwald, when praising Johan's knowledge of law and economics, and by Karl, who notes that
none could surpass Johan in anything. Johan has an amazing voice (hypnotic), he always
intuitively knows the right thing to say at the right time, he is an excellent speaker & teacher.
Johan can perfectly memorize, recall and understand anything in limitless volumes without
stress. He has the most perfect, ideal, healthiest, & prime physical conditions, he possesses
incredible pheromones, he is "well-endowed", handsome, attractive, has the most flawless face &
body a man can have. Johan can intuitively & perfectly assess anyone's psychology, behavior, &
motivations, he sees their mind & soul at first glance allowing him to perfectly predict what
people will do and how to manipulate them, he has perfect; observational, perceptive, analytical,
calculative, tactical and deductive skills, these allow him to perfectly predict, understand, &
control anything no matter how simple or complex, easily. These skills, along with his
supernatural; charisma, eloquence and persuasive abilities, allows him to create convoluted plans
& control anyone into doing what he wants easily. He can amass limitless wealth & power
without effort, without being noticed or challenged, he nearly & easily conquered Europe's entire
economy only to stop because his goal changed. Johan can create loyal, submissive &
completely obedient, "friends," allies, and followers out of anyone & anything after one
conversation, one word & people will do what he says, absolute obedience. He can make anyone
& anything feel good and hopeful, or feel overwhelming intimidation, fear and despair with his
presence. He possesses endless willpower, vitality, and virility, he never gets bored. He is able to
not feel fear, guilt, regret, loneliness or pain. He's capable of leading humanity on a global scale
with ease, the most perfect person and the most perfect king (a perfection that far surpasses
human perfection).
Johan is a master manipulator. The process of his exploitation could be represented by a tree
where he is the base and each branch a separate case which is all tied together in one grand
scheme.
Johan leaves such a strong impression on people that he is able to convince legions to commit
murder, play suicide games, or do other monstrous things after just a single encounter. According
to Heinrich Lunge, this process is done by altering the fulcrum of someone's identity, like
removing a map's coordinate axis. The more jumbled their "lines" become without that
foundation, the more room he has to redraw or redefine their maps.
As discussed in the personality section above, Johan often manipulates people to kill for him;
this is done in a variety of different ways. When working Michael Mller and Detective
Messener, for example, he blackmailed the two by threatening to reveal their drug scandal if they
refused to murder Mr. and Mrs. Fortner. In other cases, such as with Peter Jrgens and Rheinhard
Dinger, he befriends his victims and acknowledges their worth; they are therefore willing to
perform "favors" as extreme as killing, dedicatedly withholding any information on him even in
the face of authorities.

Johan is also skilled at making people reflect on their mistakes or any haunting memories of the
past, as in the cases of Richard Braun and Milo. He forced Richard to connect his former
blunders as an officer and alcohol problems with his desire to see his daughter, making him
believe he was not worthy of the one thing he truly wanted. Similarly, he convinced Milo that
he was not wanted by anyone and thus destroyed the boy's cheerful personality (at least
temporarily).
When dealing with Schuwald, Johan gained the tycoon's trust pretty quickly. Schuwald noticed
Johan's talent in law and business, and decided to employ him as his personal secretary. To
further secure their relationship, he approached Schuwald's son Karl and reunited the family,
putting himself on even more favorable ground to succeed Schuwald's position.
Tenma once visited the blind man who taught Johan French and English. The old man was
impressed by Johan's intelligence, patience, and mastery of the languages, as he had quickly
become perfectly fluent (mastered) in both within a span of just thirteen months. Johan learned
and mastered Latin in a very short time while attending the University of Munich. He tutored
Karl to help him impress his father.
Johan is also a master of perfect disguise. Around the middle of the series, he masqueraded as his
sister while living in Prague. This proved to be quite useful, not only for spying but also because
he was able to pass unnoticed while leaving crime scenes. However, Tenma wasn't fooled.
Grimmer was also skeptical of Johan's disguise. Johan for the most part played his role as
"Anna" perfectly, leaving the impression of a beautiful, charming and polite young woman. It
was easier for him to manipulate people while in form, especially the male characters like
Detective Suk.
http://obluda.wikia.com/wiki/Johan_Liebert#Personality

Personality

Edit

On the surface, Johan is a well-mannered, charismatic and compassionate young man. He


possesses a myriad of favorable traits and can easily overwhelm individuals with his seemingly
flawless nature, as seen with Hans Georg Schuwald, who describes him as being "too perfect"
and "not of this world".[27] This makes it easy for him to make new allies and manipulate them
into doing various deeds for him. With such skill in creating this faade of perfection and
pureness, Johan can hide his true motives with ease.
Within this contrived exterior, however, Johan callously delivers destruction and suffering to
those who happen to fall prey to his schemes. Even before his tenure at Kinderheim 511, Johan

still exhibits psychopathic tendencies. For example, most of his murders, both in childhood and

adulthood, have been premeditated and calculated.


Johan often shows a complete disregard for life by pointing to his forehead, inviting Dr. Tenma
to shoot him
Many of Johan's beliefs run consistent with nihilism, as he does not see any meaning to life. He
claims, "Most of this universe is 'death' anyway," and that to the universe, "most lives are just
specks in a corner of the earth, gone in a flash".[41]
Johan also has a tendency to make his victims experience the worst possible loss and suffering
rather than actually killing them himself; this experience often leads to the victims killing
themselves, however. Helmut Wolf is a prime example of this; instead of simply being killed,
Wolf is forced to watch as all of his close relatives and acquaintances die, one after another, all
so he can feel what Johan felt solitude.[11] The orphan Milosh provides another instance of this
tendency. Disguised as his sister, Anna, Johan sends Milosh on a quest to a German red-light
district to find his mother. He tells Milosh that if no one calls out to him, it means that he was
never wanted, and subsequently asks him what he would do in the advent of this realization.[41]
The root of Johan's actions is unknown. Although he was sent to the experimental orphanage of
Kinderheim 511, Hartmann informs Tenma that, "[Kinderheim 511] couldn't possibly create a
masterpiece like him! He was more than human... He was a monster ever since the beginning."[5]
Neither of his parents seemed to suffer from psychopathy or any other mental illnesses. Anna,
despite being the twin to experience the horrible events at the Red Rose Mansion, turns out to be
a genuinely loving and caring person. However, while she is able to suppress her memories of
the Red Rose Mansion, Johan takes them as his own, coming to believe that he was the one who
experienced them.[9] After the Ruhenheim massacre, while convalescing in a state hospital from
his second operation, Johan reveals to Tenma, through unknown means, his memory of his
mother's decision,[8] revealing that the said memory affected him profoundly.

Abilities

Edit

Johan's main attribute is his genius-level intelligence. His elementary and middle school teachers
remark that he maintained good grades.[2] While investigating Johan, Richard Braun also deduces
that he had a reputation of being at the top of his class with perfect grades at the gymnasium

(school) he went to.[42] He is also multilingual; in addition to the Latin he learns while
volunteering as one of Schuwald's readers, at twelve years of age, Johan is also able become
fluent in both English and French within a thirteen-month period.[1] At the age of only fifteen, he
starts and presides over an underground bank,[20] a feat requiring a good understanding of both
mathematics and economics. Schuwald's conclusion is further proof of Johan's vast
understanding of economics: he decides that if anything is to happen to him, Johan will take over
his place as opposed to Karl Neuman, his own son.
Johan possesses a monstrous charisma and an inhuman prowess for manipulation. He is highly
proficient at analysis and deduction, especially when it comes to the human psyche, and can gain
direct access to people's cores, hitting their weak spots, acknowledging their worth, and figuring
out their mental processes, with manipulation coming easily thereafter. What he is especially
good at is unlocking the "monster" in other people, bringing out their inner darkness and making
them accept it like he has.
http://ouradventures.proboards.com/thread/86/johan-liebert
With a pleasant exterior, Johan can be seen as a kind man on the outside. He is soft
spoken, and children seem to take a liking to the man. This pleasant exterior is
anything but true, though. It is all an act.
Johan takes pleasure in human suffering and cares little about others. He only
refuses to kill two people-- his sister, Anna and the doctor who saved his life, Kenzo
Tenma. Anyone else, he would rather take enjoyment in watching them burn above
all else. Despite not killing Anna, he isn't so respectful of her sanity. He has directed
her in the path of suicide and almost succeeded in doing so. This means, just
because he won't kill them with his bare hands, he still will not hesitate in breaking
them down. He is very manipulative and will manipulate just about anyone to get
what he wants.
It is constantly hinted at that Johan has split personalities-- one evil and the other
good. The evil is the one who likes to commit murder while the other is the one who
tries to stop the murders. While the evil personality is particularly dominant, the
good personality still tries to make hints such as leaving notes to stop him and to
help him. Despite this, his more innocent personality has yet to be seen by a living
human. His evil personality, as well, seems to have convinced him that all of Anna's
experiences were his.
http://www.cosforums.com/archive/index.php/t-129780.html
Johan, though portrayed as a complete monster (and labeled as such), is much
more complex than that. He is a corrupter, he brings out the monster within other
humans. He has performed atrocious acts of evil and cruelty, but what I find scariest
about him is his facial expression. I was reading on tv tropes about something called
dissonant serenity. It is basically when a person is at peace when watching a scene
of destruction unfold. What if you looked upon the face of evil, and you did not see
glee or anger or stoicism, but peace instead? I thought that was brilliantly portrayed
in Johan's character.

There is a certain wisdom to Johan's modus operandi. Johan knows that there is a
monster in all humans, and he seeks to exploit it. He does not care for justice,
because in his eyes, justice does not exist, it is a figment of imagination that
humanity has created. Humans, in the end, will all destroy themselves because of
greed and paranoia. But it is not only justice or ideals that Johan has no use for. The
very concept of desire is lost on him, as how can one form the basic thirst for want
when they themselves are fictional?
Now, Johan appears inhuman, as he is described as playing with humanity like a
"child destroying a line of ants". He watches over the world as though he was not a
part of it. As if he did not belong to the world.

Johan Liebert

Voiced by: Nozomu Sasaki (JP), Keith Silverstein (EN)


The antagonist of the story, he is introduced as a ten-year-old with a bullet in his brain. Shortly
after being saved by Tenma , he escapes from the hospital with his twin sister Anna. He
resurfaces nine years later as a killer, admits to having poisoned Tenma's superiors, and proceeds
to wreak havoc across Germany. His identity is unknown to the general public, and his murders
are subsequently blamed on Tenma.
He is alternately perceived note as a vampire, an alien, the Devil, and the next Hitler. Both the
manga and the anime open with a passage from Revelation that refers to the Antichrist and
mirrors several events from Johan's life.

Agent Peacock: He's extremely effeminate in appearance, cross dresses, and is very
poetic. He's also a monstrous sociopath.

The Antichrist: Not literally (though he might be), but certain Revelation passages
parallel his life and are used as an epigraph for the series. He also likes to tempt people in
high places and at one point hands someone an apple.

Attractive Bent-Gender: Dresses in drag and seduces Jan Suk. For a very old-fashioned
girl sense of "seduce," anyway. Or maybe he has stubble issues.

Asexual: Displays no interest in anyone except his sister and Tenma, and that's purely
platonic for the former and he just wants to mess with the latter's life.

Ax-Crazy: A very subdued and disturbing one. He never goes visibly nuts, is very softspoken, polite, and overall calm at almost all times. However, if you associate with him,
you will die. If you meet him, you will die. If you make eye contact, you will die. If you
so much as think about him, you will die. And if you won't think of him, he just has to
think about you, and you'll be just as dead.

Badass Bookworm: He's as intellectual as he is vicious.

Badass in a Nice Suit: Johan is a very well-dressed serial killer.

Bait-and-Switch Boss: The Thursday Boy, with all the apocalyptic and previous
information about him changing names, you'd never suspect this was an impostor. The
actual Johan tutored with the professor in Munich under a different day and under his
own name, you got to hand to him pulling that off.

Big Bad: He's the titular Monster.

Bishnen: He's very effeminate. Either way, bishonen plus homicidal, anti-christ-like
psychopath makes for a very dangerous (if not deadly) combination...

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He's a great guy to hang out with, and a good listener, too!
He'll even shed Tender Tears when you tell your troubles. He'll also cheer up your ailing
elderly parents better than you ever could, and get along better with your kids, too. Then
he'll do utter atrocities to you when you're of no use to him.

Blond Guys Are Evil: Interestingly enough, his hair is conspicuously lighter than Nina's.

Broken Ace: Of the evil variety. He's perfect at everything, including killing and
manipulation.

Cain and Abel: The Cain to Anna's Abel. He's a serial killer, and she's his sister.

Card-Carrying Villain: He's fully aware of what he is and doesn't even try to justify his
actions.

Cast as a Mask: The anime does this. To make the reveal that the pretty new girl in town
is actually Johan more shocking, the studio used Nina's voice actress to play Johan

whenever he dons this look. This is done both in the Japanese version and in the English
dub.

The Chessmaster: An extremely effective one, able to control entire operations from great
distances.

Commie Nazis: Having grown up in an East German orphanage, he'd have been raised
communist. This doesn't stop Neo-Nazis exalting him as the next Hitler. Bonus points for
the Anti Christ motifs. Truth in Television - the vast majority of Neo-Nazis in modern
Germany are from the East German areas, which are harsher and poorer than the West. A
lot of Neo-Nazis were disillusioned teenagers raised in a communist society.

Corruption by a Minor: Quite a few times, and we're not talking getting other kids to
scrump apples here. Or just kids, for that matter. Inspires a taxi driver to emulate the film
Taxi Driver without (thankfully) even going Lolicon about it, at the age of ten. Even
before that, he engineered the Kinderheim 511 massacre.

The Corrupter: What tries to do those with corrupt hearts, making them indulge in their
desires and for those like Tenma, he wants him to become He Who Fights Monsters.

Creepy Blue Eyes: His light blue eyes are used to highlight how terrifying he is.

Creepy Child: He caused a mass homicide among a cult at the age of ten.

Creepy Crossdresser: And he's really pretty, too!

Creepy Monotone: Very apparent in the English version, where in the Japanese, he comes
across as soft spoken.

Crocodile Tears: Johan, when "lending a shoulder", actually sheds a tear during a
conversation with Karl, when the latter recounts his own childhood, the tragic life of his
mother, and being moved from one foster home to another. And when he cries, it looks
very convincing but don't be fooled, especially when you, the audience, are already
aware of what an amazing actor Johan is. So of course, his tears were fake.
o In Another Monster, both Lotte and Karl himself contend that Johan's tears about
Karl's past were genuine, but an Alternative Character Interpretation of this inuniverse Alternative Character Interpretation may be that Johan's manipulative
abilities were so powerful that people still wanted to view him sympathetically
even after they learned he was evil.
o Possibly subverted when Nina reveals that Johan had been crying while perusing
through Bonaparta's sketches of the twins in the "Vampire's House".

Cultured Badass: He's knowledgeable in several subjects, and he can even read Latin.
He's also a murderer.

Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Notably averted. He does use his borderline super-human skills
and abilities to make a living, but it's never more than a means.

Dark and Troubled Past: Not really. He just did what he always does.

Death Seeker: This is his ultimate goal, insofar as he has one. He just wants to bring
everyone else with him.

Dissonant Serenity: His default facial expression changes about twice in the series' entire
run. Both times it makes him even more creepy.

The Dreaded: Every character who has knowledge of Johan is deathly afraid of him. One
commits suicide when he's brought up too much in conversation and others start shaking
uncontrollably just thinking about him.

Driven to Villainy: Horrifyingly. Sure, he was already an Enfant Terrible by as a child,


but he was severely warped by the empathic bond that formed between his sister and him
when they were still very young. While she repressed the psychological torture she'd
gone through, he began to think it had happened to him instead... and thus from that seed
a monster grew.

Enfant Terrible: He commits several murders as a child.

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Though it is debatable on whether he's even capable of love,
his obsession with Anna/Nina doesn't make it any less disturbing. However, it is notable
that his greatest fear is forgetting about "Anna."

Even the Guys Want Him: He was cross-dressing at the time. On the other hand, Roberto
worships him.

Evil Twin: He's Anna's twin, and he's a serial killer.

Evil Virtues: Works hard, is resourceful, ambitious, patient, and determined.

Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: For someone who's commonly compared to the
antichrist, he looks very kind.

Faux Affably Evil: He charms, he smiles, he seems to care and he's such a beautiful and
brilliant young man... as he uses you and kills you and if he takes enough of an interest in
you, he will probably take the time to kill all your hopes and dreams, first.

For the Evulz: He sometimes does things simply because he can.

Freudian Excuse: Sort of. It's complicated. The audience is presented with several
possible origins for what he does, but they all prove to be false.

Gentleman and a Scholar: He feigns to be this.

Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: How did he get his eyes to be so wide?

Half-Identical Twins: He has a twin sister, who is otherwise identical.

Hot Guys Are Bastards: He is beautiful. He is also a really dangerous, depraved person.

I Have Many Names: His true name is only known to his mother, and he uses several
aliases.

Irony: One of the reasons he became the guy he is, is due to the empathy he felt for his
sister's traumatic experiences. That's right, compassion made him a monster.

I've Come Too Far: Near the end, Johan reveals that he believes that he crossed the Moral
Event Horizon long ago, and that it is too late for him to redeem himself. So there's no
reason for him to stop committing his horrible actions anyway.

I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He does this for Anna/Nina twice. He willingly allows
Anna to shoot him after finding out that he killed the Lieberts, and the reason behind his
"perfect suicide" plan of a massacre in Ruhenheim along with eradicating his existence
(mirroring Franz Bonaparta's Red Rose Mansion massacre, which is in itself an
"expression of love" to the twins' mother) was partly due to how irredeemable he has
become and to make Nina happy.

I Will Find You: One of Johan's goals is to reunite with Nina. He tries to make contact
with her a few times, but either Tenma or Neo-Nazis who want Johan for their own
benefit have a tendency to get in the way.

Intelligence Equals Isolation: Johan is intelligent, and he mostly acts as a lone wolf. Any
associates are mere tools to him.

Karma Houdini: The ending does not make his fate clear, but he might have escaped the
hospital. In Another Monster, it is revealed that he is in fact alive three years after the
events of Monster.

Klingon Promotion: Last-minute aversion when in his own words, "Something else came
to mind." And by "something else," he does not mean resigning unobtrusively.

Knight of Cerebus: Any plots where he has a hand in the operation instantly becomes
darker.

Lack of Empathy: It is perhaps inaccurate to say that Johan lacks empathy; he is


fundamentally incapable of it.

Light Is Not Good: He's a beautiful, almost angelic-looking man who gives off an aura of
trust and kindness to all who meet him. Needless to say, he's almost unspeakably,
irrevocably evil.

Madness Mantra: "But that's not my real name." Reinforced by his supremely creepy
fairy tale.

Manipulative Bastard: His forte is to manipulate people to fulfill his plans.

Meaningful Name: Apart from the context the name Johan has within the series, it is
noteworthy that this is a version of John, whose Revelations provide the source for the
series' epigraph. Although the St. John of Revelations is usually referred to as Johannes, a
different (and more formal) German version of John. John is also one of the most
stereotypically generic names, which may be a reference to his own lack of identity.
o It may also be a reference to Johann Conrad Dippel , an alchemist who inspired
the character Victor Frankenstein. He was said to have been spoken with the
devil, and killed animals and collected dead animals to create an oil which he
believed could gain him eternal life.

Mommy Issues: Check out his little chat with her portrait, for starters.

Nerves of Steel: A villainous example. Johan is unbothered by things that would make a
grown man cower in fear.

Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Everything he does is terrifying, and even the scenes
of him as a child are disturbing in nature.

Non-Action Big Bad: One of the things that makes him so scary is the fact that he barely
needs to lift a finger to commit evil depraved deeds. He can just talk, point, pull a
trigger...

No Name Given: We never learn his real name.

Not So Stoic: He breaks his stoicism in regards to his twin sister.

Omnicidal Maniac: While his motives are left somewhat vague, his actions certainly
suggest that his ultimate goal is the complete destruction of human society by
manipulating everyone he comes across into killing themselves or each other.

OOC Is Serious Business: Is Johan showing a facial expression other than Dissonant
Serenity? Well, it's been nice knowing you...

Parental Abandonment: There is a mystery behind what happened to the Liebert twins'
biological parents. It's implied that their father was killed, but it's later revealed that the
mother turns out to still be alive.

Pretty Little Headshots: Averted, when shot as a child and as an adult, there is no exit
wound.

Pyro Maniac: Books, buildings, books and buildings...

Self-Made Orphan: He repeatedly killed his foster families.

Serial Killer: He dedicates to this

Slasher Smile: Blink and you'll miss it, but when he sees that he's broken Richard, he
makes an absolutely sadistic slasher smile.

Smart People Know Latin: Becomes a plot point as he reads books in Latin for Hans
Georg Schuwald, a wealthy man who he is trying to get close to.

The Sociopath: Johan is the epitome of this trope. His polite, soft-spoken veneer is a mere
faade that masks the unfeeling creature dwelling beneath it. Killing is as natural to him
as breathing; the same cannot be said of his capacity to feel ordinary human emotions,
such as sympathy or remorse.

Softspoken Sadist: This. Oh. So. Much. And if you watched the anime and reached
episodes 25 to 27 where we meet Karl Neumann and co. even if Johan hasn't
physically shown up in a long time since episode 4 (not counting flashbacks), seeing him
speaking very kindly and acting very nice is... erm, very creepy, for lack of better words;
and kinda heartbreaking too because of how beautiful he is and how sincere he sounds.
Especially when considering the fact that, by this time, we already know what he's
capable of and how he's a master manipulator.

Spell My Name with an "S":


o Johann is the German spelling; Johan the Czech. You choose.
o Also Liebheart is to Liebert.

Stalker Without a Crush: To his sister. He sends her anonymous e-mails and even visits
her university to watch her. Later, it is shown that he has studied her so well that he can
impersonate her almost perfectly.

The Stoic: Remains emotionless, cool, calm, and collected while he murders people and
burns down a library. However...

Straw Nihilist: Subverted. While he does think life itself is utterly meaningless, he also
believes in something bigger. Unfortunately, what Johan believes in is evil.

Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred: He points at his forehead to order people to
shoot him.

The Svengali: He volunteers at an orphanage in order to drill his nihilistic philosophy into
the children.

Tragic Villain: He had a very tragic past. However, he also feels unable to stop his
evilness.

Trickster: He frequently uses people's hypocrisies and the lies they tell themselves against
them. And he likes to spread havoc too.

Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Lots. He was a really evil child.

Uncanny Valley Girl: A male version, lampshaded in the Munich arc. He's actually at
least initially less overtly uncanny when cross-dressing... but then again he is (mostly)
impersonating his sister.

Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Averted. Even then, he was pretty horrible.

Villainous Breakdown/Villainous BSOD: After re-reading "The Monster With No Name"


and again (offscreen) after Nina points out that some of "his" memories are actually hers.
And once more when Nina forgives him in Ruhenheim and it becomes apparent that
Tenma won't shoot him unless he actually threatens an innocent.

Where I Was Born and Razed: He caused the destruction of Kinderheim 511.

White Hair, Black Heart: His hair isn't exactly white, but it's either a platinum blond or
it's bordering on platinum blond. And it's natural too no dyes. He's an evil character.

Wicked Cultured: This is part of what makes him so terrifying and effective. He is
practically a genius knowing many languages with a keen understanding of law which he
uses to Mind Rape a certain character and was even able to run a massive money
laundering scheme at fifteen-years-old.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Ultimately a subversion. He suffered extreme trauma as a


child and it's clear that it continues to haunt him. However, others suffered similarly
without becoming monsters, and Hartmann admits that he couldn't have crafted a monster
like Johan.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He has a tendency to change his plans repeatedly, though typically
with the same ultimate conclusion that Tenma will shoot him and thus denounce his
ideals and become just as much of a monster as he is.

Yandere: A creepy and platonic male example towards Anna/Nina.

You Monster!: He isn't called one for nothing, you know. He serves as a very deliberate
exploration and deconstruction of exactly what constitutes a "monster".

You might also like