Review of Monster
Monster is a series who's viewers fascinate me just as much as the series itself does. Part of the reason I started this is because of a notorious 1/10 review by a particular MAL user. I wanted to have faith and defend Monster against it so here I am though that review was trash, to be frank, and I'll say why later. What's usually seen is either someone really adores Monster or really hates it, but no one ever really says why. I can tell a lot of the people who bash Monster have either seen just 1 episode most of the time if notjust a few, but act as if they have seen everything despite their hollow, simplistic, and one sentence "critiques." Even the people who claim it is a masterpiece just say they enjoyed it but don't say much besides that. The bad ones talking bad about it are really easy to detect because when it comes down to it they have no real legitimate criticism of this. They are also usually the type to watch high paced, action type anime, and under that context, of course Monster would seem "slow paced" and "boring" to them because people are often hostile to that which is different. Of course, what everyone wants to know is if this is a "masterpiece." Watch it for yourself. Only you have your opinion so go out there and form one for yourself.
First, I'll start with the bad since that's what everyone wants to know. Yes, the anime could have been better if it cut itself short 12-13 episodes. This is the particular case for Nina's arcs. Her flashbacks slowly begin to unveil what she went through as a child. However, this felt like it dragged a bit. Monster also has a lot of episodes that people claim are too much "filler." I don't mind episodes that throw the plot out the window as long as they are well done and the overall story is paced and wraps up nicely by the end. In Monster's case, plenty of these stand alone episodes are very good and depict the type of troubled and unsettling characters that exist in this type of world well. Tragically, some are complete misses and were better off not being there such as the man that likes to look at the birds in the forest and the kids that try to get Dieter to commit bad acts.
To defend Monster against this certain review I mentioned, the biggest issue presented is that Johan is a terribly written character. I would agree that he doesn't feel as relevant as you would think at first. Many times the viewers say, "Where is Johan?" "What's taking so long?" What I'd say is that the author intended this to be this way since Johan is part of an underground network and has loyal comrades that carry out his dirty work for him because of his charismatic, manipulative, and intelligent leadership skills. Of course, there are times Johan himself will go in and get his hands dirty.
The issue is that this review unnecessarily rambled on for too long about his motivation being terribly written. He's an experiment that was meant to lead the wrong people and become the second rise of Hitler. He was mentally deranged and turned into a weapon at a young age because of skills he has that I mentioned earlier. His motivation was to die, but he was forced to stay alive and become an agent of chaos as a result, still with the plan to go, but this time taking everyone down with him. Apparently, this wasn't deep enough for that individual. Besides the occasional knit picking, that was it for the most part. What disappoints me about what this person said about Monster is what they didn't say about Monster. There is so much that makes Monster great, yet 90% of the review is complaining about Johan without even exploring what he was doing or trying to do. The review is hardly worth addressing or acknowledging, but it amused me.
Johan, realizing the Monster has been growing inside him, realizes that he has become a chosen prodigy, and he rejects it. That's why from the start, he tells Nina to shoot him in the head. That would have been the end if it weren't for Dr. Tenma, a neurosurgeon with great skill and an unshakable sense of morality.
Tenma is caught in the politics of his hospital. Tenma sees all lives as equal, but as Eva reminds him, all lives are not, and Tenma would come to learn this about his own superiors as they use him as a pawn. Tenma sees that he is maneuvered to perform surgeries on people based on their status. This leads to him being led around and having his surgeries changed suddenly. He was confused and not aware of what was really going on at first. As a result, a poor family lost their father figure. The wife would yell at Tenma, and he sees clearly now what has happened and decides to stay true to himself, losing everything in the process. Unfortunately, once he rebels and decides to perform surgery on a patient of low status over one of high status, it happens to be Johan, who he then saved after he was shot in the head by Nina.
Johan survives, and begins to erase the memories of the wicked orphanage he was conditioned in by trying to kill everyone involved that knows about it or him, and then finding a particular person before committing what was called "the perfect suicide." People then start getting murdered all over Europe with links to him, and Tenma eventually finds out its the child he saved several years later.
Filled with guilt, Tenma sees it as his duty to kill Johan since it was because of him that this is all happening. But this conflicts Tenma because he was just doing his job as a doctor. He believes that all lives are equal, but he thinks to himself and to others: how is he supposed to know if his patient is a good or bad person? He later meets a lawyer who is in a similar situation who tells Tenma that as a criminal defense lawyer who is out to prove the guilty who are really innocent innocent, that he too does not know whether his clients are good or bad, but he has faith. And Tenma eventually comes to the realization that he wants to have faith in Johan, despite Johan's wickedness.
This review will now go into spoilers. Thus, Tenma cannot "take the shot" to the frustration of the viewers that feel he has too, and is taking too long. But it was never about the shot in the first place. That's what the author was trying to write. Johan's calculations where to climax in the final step in a confrontation between him and Johan. He'd tell Tenma that yes, Tenma might think all lives are equal, but they really only are in death. He was trying to break Tenma. If Tenma takes the shot, he would successfully mind break Tenma into making him break the one rule he fought so hard trying not to. And Tenma almost cracked if it weren't for the drunk.
In not taking the shot, Tenma saved himself in a way and became the one person Johan could not crack, and to his luck, the drunk shooting Johan caused a familiar scenario where the authorities, despite preparing to arrest him again, used him to operate and to save Johan once again. Many viewers groaned and moaned that this is ridiculous. Surely Johan would go out and do the same again. But Tenma has faith; he wasn't done yet. After the fact, the surviving characters meet fortunate ends, but Tenma is still looking for Johan's mom. Once he meets her, he learns what he needs to and tells Johan who is in his hospital bed that yes, you do have a name, and that his mom did love him. As Johan would tell a poor child much earlier that no one ever wanted that child, this is how Johan also felt about himself, and this had to have given him some sort of peace of mind. In the end, Johan goes missing, but it's up to the viewers to think about the plot and what this means as there are many theories about what might have happened next.
As a mystery, Monster definitely excels. I really appreciate how instead of spoon-feeding the audience and telling them everything, they story is set up that hints and tips are subtly revealed here and there. Many times the viewers come to shocking realizations because of this if they decided to put some thinking in this series; something that people don't like to do anymore. Further, Johan cross dressing as Nina in one of the most shocking twists I've ever seen in anime.
As a horror anime, Monster nails it. There are many times that the viewers will feel uneasy, disturbed, and unsettling feelings as the story and reveals unfold, right before getting to the creepy outro. The suspense really builds, especially with characters like Roberto, one of the most sinister of Monster, as he tries to hunt down and kill the cast and other other characters. The viewers are left to hope that nothing bad happens as the unsettling music plays, the uncertainty of the victims eats them away, and as shadows appear near them. As in the case of Richard, there was this eerie feeling that someone was following him and trying to kill him for trying to investigate something too dangerous to investigate. As in the case of all those helpless victims, many were mentally broken by Johan's manipulative ways, and some often killed themselves. The style of the art is very creepy as seen in those puppets, or in Johan's wicked grins, as well as others Like Roberto and Eva. Similar to others like Ghost Hound, this anime managed to successfully scare me at times as planned.
As for characters, there are two more I want to focus on, the first is Wolfgang Grimmer. He too was an experiment from the orphanage like Johan, who ran away and tried to follow his own path. However, Grimmer was broken there as a child and never learned proper human emotions. He only really learned to smile, and that was hard for him. As a result, he doesn't know how to react to situations. Because of this, he lost his son and couldn't cry, and lost his wife because she felt his lack of emotion was a lack of love and affection. In the series this is why he only smiles, and why he didn't seem bothered about being scammed at the train station when he was introduced; he didn't know how to react to it. What impressed me so much about Grimmer besides being a just and friendly man, is his amazing development. One in case, he saves a kid who lost his family long ago that Johan nearly manipulated into killing himself and gives him words of encouragement that give the young boy the strength to live. As he would do several times, he would ask Tenma how he should react to certain situations. He does so here, and Tenma tells him he should cry. Grimmer starts crying as he hugs this poor child, but because he never learned this emotion, he doesn't know if he is crying and asks Tenma what reaction is he showing, and Tenma tells him he is crying. The second time is at the end where he finally feels the pain of losing his son. He thinks about his memories and feels the sad emotions and the happy ones for the first time. He feels his emotions weren't taken away, but lost somewhere in them, as they had finally awakened. Though he was experimented on and given the "Magnificent Steiner" persona, in the end, he managed to become human again, and no longer needed it. Truly, a character of remarkable character development.
The second is inspector Lunge. He is known to many as the detective that always solves his cases, and gets put in Tenma's case after Johan's slaying gets Tenma posted as the main suspect. Lunge would then chase Tenma; a chase that Lunge finds fun and exhilarating. But this feeling Lunge felt gave him a bias as other evidence began to appear of Tenma's possibly innocence. Gillen would confront him eventually and tell Lunge that though Lunge uses his hand movements as a way to mentally collect and record information, it's still subject to Lunge's own bias. Gillard takes out his own tape recorded and says that his method is objective since it's the actual voice of the people the interrogates. He feels Lunge wants to hear only what he wants to; and even gives Lunge a large pile of documents showing why Tenma should be innocent. Of course, Lunge pretends to acknowledge it and stays focused on Tenma. As a great detective, he would comes to learn there is a Monster out there named Johan. This was hard for Lunge to accept because he came to the fact he was wrong the whole time. This comes full circle when he eventually runs into Tenma in the end, swallows his pride, and says, "I'm sorry." Not only that, he becomes the main person to testify and prove Tenma's innocence. Amazing writing. Other than that his fight against Roberto had that very epic moment where he crushed Roberto's gun wound with his own hand while being choked and overtook him, putting his gun in Roberto's mouth. Truly an incredible, intelligent, and cunning man despite his flaws such as putting work over family.
This is what makes Monster great. If only it would have been a bit shorter. At least now I understand that this is a very misunderstood series as it's writing is very complex.