Review of Monster

*NO SPOILERS* Monster was an insane anime. It was so good I could not bring myself to finish it, thus me literally starting it in March and finished it in December. First off, props to Naoki Urusawa for such an amazing story. I know the manga is insanely popular and such, but man even in anime form it is literally amazing. Kenzo Tenma is emphasized so much in the anime, the emotions behind Johann and Anna, and much more things that other animes just cannot capture. In Monster you feel so many emotions, you start out feeling hatred against Johann but slowly you just empathize with him(Of course not to the point where he is a good guy, but more like less of a bad guy). YOu also insanely empathize with Anna as well as she just goes through a lot of pain.

Monster is about this amazing neurosurgeon named Kenzo Tenma who saves this young boy names Johann. From before, a monster has awoken inside of Johann. From then on Tenma spent 60 episodes chasing Johann and on the run from the police since Tenma is accused of murders.

We also get introduced to side characters such as -
Lungue from the BKA: Investigated Tenma as he first thought he was the suspect. Went from hating him to empathizing with him.
Grimmer the smiling guy with the duffel bag: Grimmer is such a nice guy and is always nice to Tenma.
Eva Heinemann: The ex-fiance of Tenma whom split up with him. She became an insane alcoholic and was desperate to be with Tenma again
Dieter: A small child who was facing adverse conditions and Tenma basically swoooped him up and now is much happier.

Basically with all these characters and many more (The Baby, etc) the story became very interesting.
We also learn each and every persons backstory and with me knowing the backstory of these people empathizing or hating them became much easier.

You know the feeling when an anime doesnt give as much information for you?
Well Monster gives you almost ALL the information. Basically spoonfeeds it to you. Even if there is a mystery element, you basically know what happens.

Johann could be an entire essay on its own to be honest. He is such an interesting character and for the sake of spoilers I will not delve into it but it amazing story writing.

The Animation: This is 4:3 late 90's animation so do not expect too much. Still, for the late 90's it was amazing animation. To this day it has a lot of details. The only thing that ages it was the somewhat use of CGI but even then it was limited and not noticed *too* much.

What I expected to be CGI was the cars, but they were not CGI. What I did not expect to be CGI were a few doors which was CGI which is quite hilarious.

All in all animation was good.

FInally, Music: The OP is legendary I am going to be honest. The BGM was also understated yet always lifted the tension of scenes.

Consensus: Monster is a legendary anime and will forever be talked about. Literally one of, if not the best story ever told in anime. If this had modern animation and fewer episodes since a few moments were not as important, then I would have zero problems giving it a 10/10

But other than that this was an amazing anime
9/10
Thanks!
-CyanCheetah