I don't know about Shiki but saying that Johan's psychology isn't complex is kinda weird. First off the fundamental idea of his character doesn't follow nihilism. It follows his ontological insecurity because of feeling unwanted by the world. The crossdressing also caused him identity issues and made him believe that he and his sister are the same. These are what resulted in his nihilistic nature. And then he becomes an emotionless Monster by absorbing his sister's memories and believing them to be his own which adds another psychological layer to him. And there's a lot more with him wanting to live a normal life deep down and feeling guilt for his actions and whatnot.
Well if you don't read what I said that's not really my problem :
I didn't say it isn't complex at all, but simply far less
Well no, not really. Because fundamentally the antagonist only needs to serve the purpose of opposing the protagonist to be a good character. The protagonist has to do more. But even putting that aside, you have to take into account the types of characters that are being portrayed here.
That's the function of an antagonist, yes, but that doesn't mean that talking about character journey or emotional depth is irrelevant to an antagonist because clearly they can follow these criteria (by mirroring or paralleling the main character for instance). As for the types of characters, I agree, and this is why I'm saying the whole comparison falls apart if you don't take that into account.
I didn't say that it's fleshed out because of that. It's fleshed out because it completely recontextualizes his character and develops him to drastic degrees.
Then explain why it does and how it specifically means it is more fleshed out than Shiki.
I said an antagonist doesn't need to change. I also said that Johan does change anyway.
Then what is the relevance of saying that an antagonist doesn't need to change ? This isn't even countering my initial point to begin with.
The point is that development doesn't quite apply in the same way, though it absolutely is there. Bro went from the nameless monster to troubled human searching for an identity to lost person trying to fulfill his perfect suicide to finally someone who regained his sense of identity. That's actual development.
This... falls into what I've explained concerning narrative deconstruction of the Ubermensch, which was there from the beginning of the story (starting from what Johan has experienced in the Kinderheim 511). And again, I don't see how you will argue any objective superiority anyways, since their roles are not the same at all.
I did. I named several qualities as to why. How is motivation being compared dishonest. Johan's is more interesting. The entire point of monster is to figure it out. Unless it somehow underwhelmed you, which it didn't according to you, then this whole thing is useless.
Naming qualities isn't nearly enough to explain why he is better, so yeah elaborate on that unless you don't want to drop an extensively long character analysis which would have no relevance anyways because it fails to adress the point (being the comparison between both characters itself).
And you're not making any sense here, you can't say that "Johan is more interesting" without eventually explaining your take using your subjective opinion, which is why I said it is dishonest. Personally, I was far more interested into Shiki than him, and you cannot possibly tell me otherwise, because you're not me lol.
Johan takes several different symbolic forms throughout the story. By the end he's one of the many symbols of humanity like you said. Man still has the mephistopheles stuff there though.
Uh yeah well I know that.
He is not a reference to the ubermensch lmfao. The ubermensch is treated as if its form of morality is somehow not wrong at all lmfao. The ubermensch is the ideal human being (Johan automatically doesn't qualify) who doesn't obey conventional morality and follows his own morality and can't be defined under conventional morality (again, Johan isn't really freed from this). Hell, Johan's entire thing is that he enforces his nihilism onto others, therefore meaning he can't be an ubermensch.
The superman or superhuman (German: der Übermensch, [ˈʔyːbɐmɛnʃ] pronunciation) is a polysemous notion notably present in literature and philosophy, which generally represents the idea of superiority that a type of man (very often only ideal) would have acquired over the rest of the human race.
It is very often ideal, not everytime. In Monster, the Kinderheim 511 was supposed to psychologically manipulate children so that they become some sort of warriors. It was called "transformation of human beings", and Johan emerged as the only survivor of this experience. One of the guy who was directing the experience even called him "something more than a simple human being, he was also nearly a monster" and was "born to lead" like he was some kind of superior life form (which is supported by, like, almost the whole narrative and plot). He even finished his explanation by this quote "at the end of the world, there will be only one". So, yeah, it is a critique of that concept when applied under the prism of nihilism, idk what you're talking about.
His motivations don't follow nihilism. They're what lead to the nihilism to begin with.
It does though, as it was what explained his actions. And his motivations/actions are also what enforce nihilism on people, but was deconstructed by the narrative through Tenma for example. But that's not really relevant anyways.
That was a bit of a stretch by me. Besides, even taking that, I said "almost". Not much of a contradiction anyway. Your argument is the equivalent of saying that a character is good in all aspects while not excelling at one particular one, while another is god tier in several but lacking in others due to how his character is constructed, is somehow a better character. Not a totally accurate analogy, but you get the main point. Saying she's more universal and therefore better is dumb.
Um, yeah it is. Because if you admit that certain things aren't comparable because of different character roles, then almost everything falls apart due to how different both characters are. Also, I didn't say she is better because of that specifically, but it does tie with my other points about her complexity and how much she is layered.
You quite literally did not elaborate on a single point you made apart from making a bunch of false ones on Johan lol. Nobody's asking you to write a thousand word essay. Just elaborate a bit lmao.
I'll ignore that accusation because you're clearly just being disigenuous about what I said, and you didn't elaborate much either so that's not a very relevant thing to say. If I don't go in deep details (which I will not do anyways), simply elaborating on her character will be pointless because I assume you should know the character enough and also because it will not establish a definite superiority in any case since it doesn't adress the core point of this discussion, being how to compare both characters and which one is better.
If they don't need to develop then why is development a factor in deciding who is better than the other. We aren't talking about why we prefer one character over the other. We're talking about why one character is written better. Meaning we'd be using some sort of objective metric in order to decide that. By agreeing that development is not at all necessary in this comparison, it's a non-argument to use it to begin with.
... huh ? Because either you admit it is a relevant criteria and that Shiki gets the point, or you don't adress it because it is not relevant to Johan (which you seem to argue it is, so, decide ?). The second choice leading to the conclusion that both characters are fundamentally different and the "objective" comparison isn't even possible to begin with.
As for human characters changing, mate you need to watch some more movies. Human characters don't need to change. They need to feel human. One of the ways to do that is through change and growth. One of the ways.
Most of the time, static characters are either symbols, or don't need to change because of their role in the narrative. Humans are subject to emotional depth and existential journey. So, if the character is already "feeling" human at the beginning of the film and there is no change, no plot or ways to develop the narrative and the character(s), then just don't make a film about that and call it a day, because it is useless and meaningless. Or, if you want to be very specific, it can be a work of fiction that reflects on what makes the character in question already "feeling" human, but it would be very picky to argue that applies to the general concept of a "human" character.
Besides, Johan does change, if you read Monster.
Refer to my above points.
I just said that it was the execution. Complex yet simple is a weird way of saying that his motivations fundamentally can be dumbed down to being simple yet are executed in a way where it's complex.
Once again, this fails to adress why it would be more complex than Shiki, especially if it's a matter of narration itself. So I don't see the need of saying all of that anyways.
Also, saying I didn't explain it while quoting a part where I literally did is a bit weird.
This is what you said :
And the contrast between that and him by the end when he's proven wrong and regains his humanity is done better than her.
You just vaguely talked about contrast between Johan's premise and conclusion and immediately jumped to say it was done better than her. So, no, I fail to see the relevance in saying this regarding how Shiki does things, and I also don't see where you explained anything implying superiority which would lead to that conclusive statement.
No + drop this argument or else 
