PJ edits has been FLOODING my FYP

Now that Patrick Jane is on Netflix I expect to see more TM fans joining SCD

I wish to summon the great Usogui experts with this one. Is this typically a debate?

Edit:

Please also give your distribution if you’d like

E.g.

A. Theory of Mind

Perspective-Taking -

Belief-modelling -

Mental state inference -

Intent Inference -

Behavior Prediction -

Recursive Reasoning -

When rewatching this clip, I was reminded of the Lind L Tailor trap. It’s one of those traps designed precisely just for one person.

They both relied on the victim not thinking of an alternate possibility and acting on impulse. But I’ll say that this trap is harder to see through because of the stakes involved for Walter and the fabrication of the barrels.

Analysis of the trap

Setting up the trap

Hank and Steve Gomez keep Huell Babineaux in an unknown location, guarded by a DEA agent, under the pretense that it’s for Huell’s own safety.

They present a story that Walter, after killing Jesse Pinkman, would go after Huell. To break through Huell’s skepticism, they show a photo of Jesse killed, after being shot in the head (fake photo).

They probe Huell on why Walter would want to kill him, causing Huell to spill about buying a van in secret for Walter and loading 7 barrels of cash into it.

The trio (Jesse, Steve Gomez, Hank) deduce that Walter buried the cash in the desert.

Execution of the trap

Walter receives a photo of a barrel of money seemingly in the desert.

Jesse calls him shortly after, and claims to have interrogated Huell.

This serves 2 purposes

1. Explains how Jesse found the barrels (interrogated Huell —> led to the van —> van had GPS)
2. Ties in with Saul Goodman telling Walter that Huell went missing, leaving Walter to wonder why

(Just before this scene, Saul suggests to Walter that Jesse is going on a killing spree, because Huell went missing.)

Jesse conveniently provides the explanation for why Huell went missing right as Walter wondered, increasing the likelihood that Walter believes it.

To prevent Walter from calling for help, Jesse threatens to burn all the money if he loses the call for any reason. And to add more pressure, preventing Walter from thinking clearly, Jesse claims he will burn $10,000 every minute Walter isn’t here.

This triggers Walter to justify himself to Jesse. There, he inadvertently admits to numerous crimes:

1. He poisoned Brock
2. He killed Gus
3. He ran over the gangbangers
4. He killed Krazy-8 and Emilio

Walter then drives to where he buried his money.

From this trap, the trio gets

1. Full confession of Walter over numerous crimes
2. The location where he buried his money

Nonetheless, Walter almost immediately figured it out after stepping out of the car, but by that point, it’s too late.

Thoughts

Imo this is really hard to see through. That money was everything Walter had been working for and it’s all he has to show for, for all the murder, deceit, risk and bodily harm he had committed / endured.

The fabrication of the photo was good and tied in well with Walter wondering why Huell was nowhere to be seen.

I can only think of a few ways Walter could’ve seen through this:

1. He knew the truck didn’t have GPS. Hank and Jesse assumed Walter didn’t research or know the truck didn’t have GPS. Imo, considering how careful Walter is, this is the weakest assumption in their trap
2. He noticed the sand in the photo wasn’t the shade OR recognised it was Hank’s backyard
3. He abducted that Jesse wouldn’t go out into the desert with no plan other than to burn his money, knowing Walter would just kill him (Walter knows Jesse knows he killed Mike and the prisoners) —> more likely that it’s a trap.

Even if Walter considered the possibility that this was a set up, it was still too risky to not treat it like a real threat. Jesse’s threats on top of that completely prevented Walter from thinking clearly. Really good trap.

Now that I’ve completed LG…

Best arcs in terms of writing:

1. Contraband Arc (Yokoya introduction was excellent imo. Very auraful. And the initial confrontation was handled very well. Good setup for upcoming battles)
2. 100mil yen game (good intro to Aki’s character and style)
3. Pandemic Game
4. Minority rule
5. Downsizing game
6. Revival round 2 (roulette, 17 card poker)
7. Musical chairs
8. Bid Poker
9. Final arc

Best outsmarting (enjoyability):

1. Contraband
2. 17 Card Poker
3. Pandemic game
4. 100 mil yen game
5. Downsizing game
6. Musical chairs
7. Minority Rule
8. Bid poker
9. ROT4k
10. Human auction

(Last 4 are interchangeable)

Just finished liar game. lol wtf was that ending. Genuinely top 5 worst manga endings oat. So abrupt, so rushed. Plot points throw in right then and there. And zero indication or foreshadowing about what the LGT really is. Just some cobbled-together narrative throw in just to finally end the manga.

No wonder Akiyama gets slandered and downplayed so much nowadays.

Like many others have noted, the ending felt as though Kaitani was tired of writing and just wanted to end the manga.

I feel like this attitude bled into the final arc’s writing and outsmarting quality, not just the ending.

I can see so many problems with the strategies employed by both Akiyama and Yokoya in ROT4K. Also the Liar Game NPCs are extra stupid this time. They’re usually average to below-average but this time it’s like they’re genuinely automatons.

Off the dome, i can think of one significant improvement to Yokoya’s strategy that basically 100% confirms he wins the game. That he didn’t do this, and that Akiyama didn’t try to prevent this, constitutes an antifeat for both imo. But I could be wrong. Maybe something prevented it.

Are there already analyses and criticisms of ROT4K? Would be interested in reading, especially criticisms.

Tried finding Akagi in the SCD ultimate library but it’s not there

Does anyone have a doc? Long or short, detailed or sparse. Anything works atp

Here’s the SCD library:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Eo1uBktSrI7FBLsxpQGIMjyRr855jjJpIsKmzuiGFIE/edit?usp=drivesdk

Note that this is determined not by where the character canonically originates from but rather the nationality of the character’s author AND/OR the category of media (e.g. manga vs manhua vs western comic).

So, Johan Liebert would originate from Japan; NOT Czechoslovakia or Germany.

Japan:

Akane Kurashiki (Zero Escape Games)

We had a tie between Teen Akagi and Johan, so instead of asking again, let’s rank these 3 in order, with reasoning if you can give it.

CURRENT MATCHUP

Teenage Akagi (13 years old)

Kid Johan (after leaving Fortners at 10 years old)

FINALS

Teen Baku (14 years old, when he loses his heart to Gonen)

ELIMINATED

❌ Kid MTP (10 years) ❌

❌ Kid Hannibal (Hannibal rising, 11 years) ❌

❌ Kid Koji (10 years) ❌

❌ Teen Hal (14 years) ❌

❌ Kid L (10 years) ❌

CURRENT MATCHUP

Teen Baku (14 years old, when he loses his heart to Gonen)

Kid L (from adoption by Wammy to 10 years old. He prevented WW3 at 8, the same time he did stock market feat.)

FINALS

SEMI-FINALS

Teenage Akagi (13 years old)

Kid Johan (after leaving Fortners at 10 years old)

ELIMINATED

❌ Kid MTP (10 years) ❌

❌ Kid Hannibal (Hannibal rising, 11 years) ❌

❌ Kid Koji (10 years) ❌

❌ Teen Hal (14 years) ❌

CURRENT MATCHUP

Kid Johan (after leaving Fortners at 10 years old)

Teen Hal (14 years)

FINALS

SEMI-FINALS

Teen Baku (14 years old, when he loses his heart to Gonen)

Kid L (from adoption by Wammy to 10 years old. He prevented WW3 at 8, the same time he did stock market feat.)

Teenage Akagi (13 years old)

ELIMINATED

❌ Kid MTP (10 years) ❌

❌ Kid Hannibal (Hannibal rising, 11 years) ❌

❌ Kid Koji (10 years) ❌

CURRENT MATCHUP

Teenage Akagi (13 years old) VS. Kid Koji (10 years)

FINALS

SEMI-FINALS

Teen Baku (14 years old, when he loses his heart to Gonen)

Kid L (from adoption by Wammy to 10 years old. He prevented WW3 at 8, the same time he did stock market feat.)

QUARTER-FINALS

Kid Johan (after leaving Fortners at 10 years old)

Teen Hal (14 years)

ELIMINATED

❌ Kid MTP (10 years) ❌

❌ Kid Hannibal (Hannibal rising, 11 years) ❌

CURRENT VS

Kid Hannibal (Hannibal rising, 11 years) VS Kid L (from adoption by Wammy to 10 years old. He prevented WW3 at 8, the same time he did stock market feat.)

FINALS

SEMI-FINALS

Teen Baku (14 years old, when he loses his heart to Gonen)

QUARTER-FINALS

Kid Johan (after leaving Fortners at 10 years old)
Kid Koji (10 years)
Kid Hannibal (Hannibal rising, 11 years)
Teen Hal (14 years)
Teenage Akagi (13 years old)

ELIMINATED

❌ Kid MTP (10 years) ❌

Kid L (from adoption by Wammy to 10 years old. He prevented WW3 at 8, the same time he did stock market feat.)

Kid Johan (after leaving Fortners at 10 years old)

Kid Koji (10 years)

Kid MTP (10 years)

Teen Hal (14 years)

Teen Baku (14 years old, when he loses his heart to Gonen)

Child Hannibal (Hannibal rising, 11 years)

Mello (16 years old, about halfway through the timeskip)

Surprisingly in-depth layered strategy and feats in that video

Does this analysis already exist?

If not? Anyone interested?

We know feats. We know anti-feats.

Typically, positive feats (usually just called feats) showcases a character’s abilities beyond what an average human can do.

Feats, especially if they’re done with low-mid diff, only tell us the character’s capability extends to that point, not that their ability caps off there. For that, we need Limit Feats.

In essence, a limit feat’s primary characteristic and utility is in defining the limits of a character. A limit feat can be a feat or an anti-feat. Strictly, it tells us the upper or lower bounds of a character’s abilities—what definitively is the character’s maximum ability at that point in the story. Limit feats help constrain our estimate of a character’s ceiling.

A Limit Feat defines the ranges of that character’s abilities. That means, by definition, something cannot be a Limit Feat if that character has another Feat outside of its range. What I mean should become clearer as we go along.

LIMIT FEATS AS ANTI-FEATS

Anti-feats usually tell us more about a character’s limits than feats.

The exact definition of an anti-feat isn’t necessarily clear. Sometimes it seems like it’s when a character loses to another character. Other times it seems like an anti-feat is only considered such when a character makes a below average-human mistake.

Not all anti-feats are necessarily limit feats though.

For instance, in Musical Chairs, it is considered an anti-feat when Akiyama took Kiruma Kei’s fake letter hint about the position of the chairs. But clearly, we know this isn’t Akiyama’s limit. We’ve seen him see through much tougher deception before. So clearly this isn’t his limit.

In this case, Akiyama’s anti-feat is not informative of his true limits regarding Deception-detection. In other words, we won’t use this when forming a picture of “best form” Akiyama. However, if we saw that he fell for things like this more often, we could see this becoming a Limit Feat.

What IS an anti-feat as well as a Limit Feat is Yokoya’s Pandemic anti-feat. Yokoya hands away 300M ¥ just because he lost his cool.

Reason this is a Limit Feat is because we don’t see counter-evidence that supersedes this anti-feat.

In other words, Pandemic anti-feat reveals a vulnerability in AC that is consistent with his characterisation and is never meaningfully disproven or overcome later. (I’ve only read till Bid Poker so don’t come after me if he improves by ROT4K)

In this case, Yokoya’s anti-feat IS indeed a Limit Feat.

LIMIT FEAT AS A FEAT

For instance, let’s say X and Y take a test with a hundred questions. It’s an extremely difficult test, with most people not even scoring 2/100. X scores 100/100, getting everything correct, while Y scores 98/100. We assume both were trying to attain the highest score for themselves.

Because of X’s perfect score, we don’t know what’s his true ceiling could be. If there were 200, 300, 1000 questions? Would he score as well? We don’t know. We could only infer via his perceived difficulty. For instance, if he achieved 100/100 with EXTREME diff (+) CGEW, then this MIGHT count as a Limit Feat.

However, with Y it is much clearer: his limit is 98/100. Scoring 98/100 definitely isn’t an anti-feat but it can still tell us about his limits.

This is an example of a Limit Feat that falls under the (positive) feat category.

When Limit Feats are Positive Feats, we expect to see a good move—just not a perfect one. We expect to see something truly impressive, just not as impressive as it could be. There’s no reason for the character to not do the improved feat, except that he or she is just not smart enough to do so.

Perfection Scaling

This is where Perfection Scaling comes in. I made a post a while back discussing this idea. In essence, you propose an alternative “ideal scheme” in a given context, taking into account the character’s moral, cognitive and adversity restrictions. Then you compare the canon scheme to your ideal one.

Essentially you need to fanfic the best possible plan.

For instance, if we find a theoretical perfect version of Light’s MLP that has 10 points, and Light’s Canon MLP only fulfils 7 of those 10 points, then we can see

(Note that I’ll use the name “Johan” here despite him using different names)

Preamble

The point of this post is to explore small feats that lack analysis or interpretation of methodology. Pretty simple feat, I doubt it’ll result in some massive upscale or anything.

This is really to prompt others to analyse Monster this way, as I hope to show how rewarding and fun this kind of analysis can be. It’s surprising how many small Easter eggs Urasawa left throughout the anime hinting at Johan’s method while not spelling it out. 

People generally already know how good Johan’s SI and influence building is. But it’s helpful to see a method to it.

Social integration feat with old war veteran

In episode 5 of the anime, we see Dr Tenma investigating Johan in Cologne, the city of one of the murdered couples. 

He asks the neighbours about the murders, but they’re closed off and reluctant to talk about it. Eventually, he’s led to an old war veteran, who invites him in for tea.The veteran tells Tenma that the boy (Johan, going by a different name) predicted Tenma would eventually come here. According to the old man, Johan told him that one day he would go visit his sister on her 20th birthday.

This is part of Johan’s broader plan of stringing Tenma along a predetermined path:

1. Johan kills Junkers

2. Tenma seeks out Johan

3. Tenma visits the cities of the murdered couples

4. Tenma is pointed toward Heidelberg by this old man

5. At Heidelberg, he’s framed for the Fortners’ murder

6. Tenma is on the run

7. Tenma becomes even more obsessed with stopping Johan, feeling responsible for bringing him back to life

After escaping the hospital as a child, Johan and Anna lived with many foster families throughout Germany. In Cologne, Johan met this old man and learned French and English from him.

How did Johan come to use this old man as part of his plan? We can extrapolate his process from what we see in the anime (see screenshots)

I think the anime gives us enough clues to reconstruct Johan’s process. 

Firstly, the old man is blind. Either Johan deduces this independently or the old man told him. 

In the anime, we see:

1. cataracts in his eyes
2. him handling objects without directly looking at them
3. him staring forward while navigating his own home

Assuming he was already blind back then, Johan could’ve inferred this easily.

Despite being blind, the old man:

1. keeps well-maintained, framed photographs of his u-boat crew and himself as a young soldier during the war. 
2. Military memorabilia 
3. Carefully folded and neat beret

Here’s what Johan could notice: 

The photos were clearly not for himself anymore. He can’t see them. —> they are for others to see. 

He lives alone —> they are for guests to see. 

From this Johan could likely infer a few things:
- the old man values memories, his time in the war and legacy
- he wants visitors
- he wants his stories remembered
- he still psychologically identifies with his past (emotionally nostalgic)

This is reinforced by how quickly the old man told Tenma detailed war stories with almost no prompting, and how the old man very readily invited Tenma up for tea. 

So Johan begins visiting him regularly and listening to him talk, confirmed by the old man himself.

This serves multiple purposes:

1. Building a relationship with the old man
2. Giving the old man emotional engagement and companionship
3. Appealing to the old man’s desire to be remembered
4. To satisfy Johan’s own fascination with “the ultimate fear”

Once Johan (known to the old man as Franz) establishes this relationship, he can ask for a favour:
“One day, a doctor named Kenzo Tenma will come asking about me. Tell only him.”

As the old man likes Johan, he would be more inclined to oblige his request. 

It is likely that Johan instructed the old man to tell only Tenma as Johan doesn’t want anyone else to know of him, of course. He wants ONLY Tenma to follow the breadcrumbs.

This is evidenced by the old man stating Johan had predicted specifically Tenma to come, and how the old man knew Tenma before Tenma even introduced himself. 

“You’re a doctor, aren’t you? The boy told me about you. You’re doctor Tenma, aren’t you?”

Johan somehow gave the old man a non-visual description of Tenma—whether it be his actions, or his manner of speaking, or his accent—for the old man to identify Tenma and tell only him.

Note that Johan did not randomly choose an old man to deliver this highly important message

Why choose him specifically?

The obvious one is that the old man is blind: he couldn’t identify Johan, which synergised with Johan’s use of a fake name. 

Johan realizes the old man is isolated, emotionally nostalgic, and highly likely to remember emotionally significant requests.

Moreover, Johan could infer that war veterans, especially of this kind, often strongly value
- promises,
- legacy and memory, 
- storytelling,
- and meaningful encounters.

Moreover, you might’ve noticed the war veteran’s good memory, apparent by his ability to recall war stories with excruciating detail from decades ago. 

Hence Johan chose him because a lonely war veteran
- with strong memory
- strong attachment to stories and memory
- and likely a strong respect for promises and meaningful encounters
is actually an extremely reliable messenger.

In conclusion, Johan didn’t merely ask an old man to tell someone something: he had profiled, charmed and carefully groomed an ideal long-term messenger, serving as one information node in a wider network surrounding Tenma, designed to lead Tenma on a predetermined path.

>!Categories include: emotional understanding, emotional perception, social integration, profiling, information control, logical prediction, planning intricacies, strategy logistics.!<

Context: Johan painted on a water tank “Help! The Monster inside of me is about to explode!”

Most casual Monster fans interpret this as Johan talking about himself, professing his own grappling with the “Monster” inside of him. This is only partly true. 

It seems like Johan felt there was a monster inside him, distinct from himself. That would imply Johan’s killing only because it’s his split personality doing that. It’s too much to get into, but I’ll argue that this isn’t what Urasawa is trying to say. Instead, I’ll argue that Johan internalised “Franz Bonaparta” (before he realised he was a real person) as the monster inside him (before he read the Nameless Monster).

For the statement to make sense from Johan’s perspective, it would require Johan to have a sense of identity apart from this monster, for the monster to feel like an invasion or a separate entity. Johan didn’t feel like he had an identity, only his sister Anna did. That’s why I believe this statement can’t apply to him.

So why did he write it then? The answer is simple but deep: Johan wrote it to frame Tenma as having a double personality (confirmed in LN + anime).

This is where it gets convoluted and a bit confusing, so stay with me.

Rewind all the way back to when Junkers died. Imagine it from Johan’s perspective: you’re trying to frame Tenma, and lure him along your path. 

You’ve planted his tie at Heidelberg castle, you’ve killed his superiors 9 years ago and he conveniently benefited from it, you’ve linked him to the middle-aged couple murders. What would be the biggest barrier to framing Tenma?

To figure this out, Johan has to think from the perspective of the BKA. 

Let’s go over the facts of the case:

1. Junkers is connected to the middle-aged couple murders. He’s suspected as a lock pick 

2. Junkers was hit by a car, fleeing from something. He was in critical condition.

3. He was rushed over to Eisler Memorial Hospital, where Dr Tenma saved his life.

4. Junkers is guarded heavily in the hospital. 

5. While recovering, Junkers was lured out of the hospital and murdered in a carpark. 

6. The murder left no traces: no gunpowder residue, rain to wash away the traces. 

7. Tenma claims this is the work of Johan, the boy he saved 9 years ago.

PREMISES HE CAN WORK WITH:

Note that Johan knows with certainty that the BKA will know points 1-6. He was in direct control of that flow of information, as he controlled Junkers. There was NO assumption needed to assume the BKA knows point 1-6. 

Point 7 could be assumed via EU: Tenma is a good guy —> likely he’ll go to the police / BKA after witnessing me (Johan) kill Junkers in front of him. He’ll earnestly tell the BKA everything he saw. 

Now, imagine you’re Johan trying to frame Tenma, thinking from the POV of the BKA: what are the two biggest contradictions to the theory that “Tenma is guilty and the mastermind behind the Middle-aged couple murders”?

1. If Tenma is guilty, why not kill Junkers on the operating table?

If I’m the BKA, I’d wonder this: Tenma had a perfect opportunity to kill on the operating table. It was medically plausible that Junkers would die—even for a brilliant surgeon like Tenma, no one could blame him. 

So why didn’t Tenma kill junkers on the operating table, if he’s guilty?

2. If Tenma is guilty, why would he come up with such a ridiculous cover story?

Notice the murder of Junkers. 

No gunpowder left. Rain to “wash away the evidence”—said by inspector Lunge. 

This implies awareness of evidence and planning and sophistication and explicit intention to murder and get away with murder.

The weakest point in the whole murder is the cover story.

“The boy I saved 9 years ago came back and killed my patient!!! Then he left without a trace!!! Also he’s behind all the middle-aged couple murders.”

Ridiculous. If he’s guilty and coming up with this stuff, couldn’t he have chosen a better cover story? Why endanger all that perfect planning with such an absurd cover story?

Johan’s possible thinking

“Now, if I’m the BKA, what possible explanation could account for both of these?

Simple. Tenma has a split personality. Being a doctor and being a murderer are polar opposites: such a contradiction in a person could cause a personality split. 
I am Tenma the doctor, I cannot kill in the hospital. That’s why Dr Temma couldn’t kill Junkers then, and why Dr Tenma had to lure Junkers outside of the hospital to kill him.

Moreover, it explains the cover story: Dr Tenma genuinely believes “Johan”, which he feels as a separate personality, killed Junkers. This is why Dr Tenma is able to earnestly give a ridiculous sounding account, while still being verifiably false.

Tenma need not lie to be guilty.”

With this, Johan accounts for contradictions in the “Tenma-as-guilty” theory.

To do this, of course, Johan would need to assume the perspective of the BKA and reason from their perspective. To anticipate someone’s reasoning, you obviously must reason from their perspective first to see what they could think up.

Moreover, this completely counters Lunge’s reasoning. Whenever presented with evidence that Tenma is acting differently and that Johan truly does exist, Lunge will chalk it up to “Johan is Tenma’s shadow personality.”

And what happens?
In the anime, this is EXACTLY what Lunge does. I can’t remember the episode but I can recall the scene: Lunge is presented with evidence that Johan exists, and he says: “Yes. Johan is real. Johan is Tenma. Johan is real in Tenma’s mind.”

Even more of Johan’s reasoning / thinking feats

There are even more reasoning feats from Johan I didn’t touch on. 

His whole framing and luring of Tenma via breadcrumbs is one, which happens throughout the whole anime. 

His Jurgens profiling and deducing his childhood.

His 511 Kinderheim massacre could also be interpreted as partly a reasoning feat. 

His realisation that Franz Bonaparta is alive. 

Some other unusual Johan takes you don’t see on this sub

Johan > Canon L in intuition low diff, yes LOW diff. 

Johan > Hannibal in Manip overall mid diff

Johan is not that broken in Narrative scaling. If we go band for band, characters like Baku have even crazier narrative. Johan gets a decent buff with narrative. In fact, believing he’s so strong in narrative prompts people to call him a narrative merchant, and downplay his on-screen and off-screen feats. (Narrative statement =\= off-screen feat btw)

Kid Johan >>> Kid L >> Kid Koji in outsmarting. But in intelligence (LA, NCPS, fluid, General, crystallised) it’s the other way around.