Review of Monster

This is an anime worthy in every way of being called a masterpiece. You will not find a better dramatic thriller anywhere in the medium. My first thought after completing the first VERY excellent episode was "how in the hell could they possibly make a 74 episode anime out of this?" But they did, and the story never stops being gripping, exciting, thought provoking and above all entertaining. 74 episodes and I binged this in two days, I could not put it down. The characters are 10/10 quality Grimmer best boy, Nina easily best girl (one of my all time favorites now), the story is incredible theway the time period is used with Cold War atmosphere playing a VERY heavy theme is not something you see very commonly used in Japanese Anime but it was nonetheless amazing. I almost feel like this anime should be properly watched in German, instead of Japanese or in my case English.

I do have a few tiny nitpicks here and there mostly in regards to my own misgivings with Tenma's hard stance on morality as well as a few gripes with the actual ending but I can't possibly deduct a whole point from the anime for it.

Soundwise, this anime plays mostly to the "suspense, thriller, ambience" motif which is minimilastic and atmospheric playing to the tension of the moment most of the time. As a result we don't get a lot of memorable songs off the OST unfortunately, but that wasn't what they were going for with the sound direction in this anime.

This is just about as good as this type of anime can be. It hits all of its notes excellently, it's spooky in places, VERY emotional in others, the action is suspenseful and exciting but not overdone, and some of the characters just make you want to root for them at any given moment.

What else can I say. I do NOT give out 10/10's often. But this anime deserves it.