Review of Monster

Each one of us makes mistakes. Some mistakes have greater consequences than others. There are little, nonessential mistakes that are forgotten right away, but there are also fatal mistakes that will hunt you down for years. While believing what he is doing is right, Dr. Tenma makes mistake. The one whose live he saves, who he believes to be an innocent child, turns into one of the most evil men you’ll have the displeasure to meet. Being hunted down by his ‘mistake’, Dr. Tenma decides to ‘right his wrong’. This is the story of Monster in a nutshell. Sounds simple doesn’t it? While watching thisshow I realised why the description of it was so simple; you cannot make it more detailed without spoiling anything.

At first I was quite sceptical about Monster. The story sounded interesting enough, but the length was terrifying. Now I know that there are anime out there that are much longer than Monster is, but still 74 episodes is quite a considerable length. Anime with a large amount of episodes (let’s ignore the term long – running since I’m not too sure when exactly you can call an anime that) tend to have a lot of filler – episodes, which I’m personally not a fan of.
However, when I finally got to Monster I was pleasantly surprised: in the range of 74 episodes there was only 1 (max.2) episode that was skipable. I wouldn’t even call it filler, just that it didn’t add much to the plot. Each other episode, even when it doesn’t seem important, adds something to the plot. Sometimes it's something little that helps you understand a certain character a bit more, sometimes it's something crucial that makes the plot twist. Monster has so much quality with regards to the story it tells and it keeps it up till the last episode.

There is however a problem, at least if you want to call it that. The show starts rather slow. It's not until episode 11 or something that it starts getting you on the edge of your chair. Before that, I personally didn't have the urge to marathon the series, it was an episode or two at the time. After episode 11….you can say I was hooked.
However, if you consider that Monster has 74 episodes, the slow start shouldn't come as a surprise. It is even forgiven.

A nice thing about the series was the setting: it wasn't in Japan (like most of the anime is) and it wasn't limited to only one location. We get to see different cities in Germany and a bit of Prague. All of it was really well captured.

Now, as for the characters….this is another aspect which pleasantly surprised me. All characters are well thought - through and get quite some development. There are not that many characters who'll leave you indifferent to them - they all make an impression. Some of them you'll hate, others you'll love. Some of them you'll think of as wise, for others you'll feel sorry. Monster really cares about its characters and it goes into depth of their souls.
The confusing thing about the characters was their nationalities. Until it's said in the anime where a certain person comes from you cannot tell. However, I liked the fact that there were different nationalities like Germans, Japanese, English, Vietnamese and Czech
There are many characters and most of them are worth mentioning, however I'd like to talk about these two here:

Dr. Kenzou Tenma
Tenma starts of as a naive neurosurgeon who does exactly what he's asked to do. This changes when he's forced to face the ugly truth of reality. Tenma is driven by the belief that all lives are equal and because of it starts to go against his superiors. This is the first step in his development that we get to see. Throughout the series, Tenma gets tougher while still holding on to his beliefs. Life doesn't treat him nicely, but no matter what happens, Tenma stays a doctor who'll save people's lives. This is quite interesting: Tenma toughens up, but still has his original goals in sight.

Johan Liebert
Johan, often referred to as the Monster, is the boy who Dr. Tenma saved and who turned out to be a cruel serial killer. This is the only main character who gets no development whatsoever. Oddly enough, this is a good thing. Johan is covered in mystery. We don't know that much about him or about his motives. Sure, we get to know something ABOUT him from time to time, but we don't get to know HIM. We never get to see what he feels, what he likes, what he dislikes. Put in another way, we never get to see what's going on from his perspective, even though we get him to see alone a few times. Why is this a good thing? Because if we would see things from his pov or know more about what he thinks, Johan would seem human.
Johan is this dark cold beautiful mystery. If this amazing character would be portrayed as more human, he would loose his charm. There would be no 'Monster', there would probably be a 'poor, lost, confused boy' and that is not what the show aims to show us. This is the first anime I've seen till now, which holds on to that 'evil is evil'.
There are a few tiny moments in which Johan shows that he's human, for example when we get to know that he dearly cares about his twin sister, Anna Liebert (aka Nina Fortner). Those little moments make quite the impression thanks to the fact that Johan isn't humanised in the remaining time.

I'll be short on the art of these series; he thing I liked is that it was more realistic than the majority of the anime which fitted into the more heavy, serious tone of Monster than most anime have

The music fitted the series and there are plenty of themes in the soundtrack that I can listen to on their own. My favourites are the pieces called 'we'll be waiting of the night' and 'grain'. The latter is also the opening for the series. It is an alternative opening and I love it

There's no other way to conclude this review than to say 'watch it'. Monster is truly a magnum opus and worth your time. It is dark and it deals with heavy themes, so it might not be everyone's cup of tea. But if you're looking for a mature series that is enjoyable, I can't imagine that you'll be disappointed.