Review of Monster

So I just finished this series and I feel like reviewing it. As you can see from the score I gave it's not an undisputed masterpiece in my view but a just higher than average anime. Okay first off, this story is NOT worth 73 episodes. It's WAY too long. I haven't read the manga so I don't know if they were just being super faithful to it but I'd say this could EASILY have been trimmed by about 25 episodes. Most anime series are 26 episodes long so going by that logic Monster has three seasons. Episodes 27 to 49 should have been cut out.Nothing in these episodes contributes to the main plot, all these different characters are introduced and I cared for NONE of them. If this show was split into seasons and this was season 2 there's no way it would get a great score. It was an absolute slog to get through these episodes.

The first 26 episodes are really good, not great but had me intrigued enough to keep continuing. But as the series progresses all it's ideas that were once interesting become stale and repetitive. Every point is hammered into your skull over and over, the anime treats the audience as dumb and has to hold their hand through everything. It felt more and more hollow as it continued.

The last 24 episodes are where it picks up again. I felts as if everything that I had issues with would pay off at this point. Over 30 hours of mystery would reveal something but...it never did. I was excited to see each episode again until the end but the end is just...bleugh. I didn't feel as if I went on this odyssey with these characters and discovered something. I felt like I was just stringed along in the hopes of some great reveal but it just ended up amounting to nothing. It is a slight case of style over substance in my view. Mystery is good when the writer knows where it's going but here it felt as if the story was ahead of the writer and not the other way around. Everything feels so thrown in at some points and actually increases as the series progresses.

SPOILERS:

Johann. what a MASSIVE diassapoitment. His reason for doing what he did is never truly explained. But the series somehow wants us to SYMPATHISE with a mass murderer and let's him go with NO JUSTICE BEING SERVED.Honestly people always say how great this character his but he's essentially just a plot point. I kept thinking that there was some great reasoning. His mother dressed him up as a girl when he was younger which would obviously be psychologically damaging but it's then revealed that it's been Nina that saw all the horrors at the mansion. Is this enough for us to go "Well what he did was terrible but look at his awful childhood, his mother dressed him as a girl and then sent him away to the bad men". I just felt at the end that there is no catharsis, a mass murderer evaded justice and got to live because "Everyone has value", but what are we supposed to make of a serial killer that gets freedom? To forgive? To let him inevitably do it again?(Also I thought it was so dumb how someone could get shot both times in the head and survive both times with not a scratch.)

I feel as if the author wanted to use the characters of Tenma and Johan as archetypes, Tenma the overly good and wholesome doctor. Johan as total and complete evil. When you do this you sacrifice the character's depth. They don't feel like real people at all. Just one that goes to everyone he meets "You must NEVER kill", while on the hunt to KILL someone. Then we have Johan who is hardly even in the series in person but EVERYONE and their dog talks about how so completely evil he is, the devil himself. Nina actually blames herself for not FORGIVING him for killing their foster parents. Honestly the entire series us about poor Johan and how we need to understand the pretty blonde boy mass murderer because he was dressed as a girl by his mother.

NON-SPOILERS:

I have to say I'm just more disappointed than anything with Monster. I felt it had a lot of potential but just became a thriller of the week anime. The constant unnecessary tension and repetitiveness. (If I had a dollar for every times someone goes "I....I....I...." with wide eyes and then screams I'd be a wealthy man.

So yes, it's a 6/10 which is described as "Fine", on this site. It could have been so much more but the writing jut wasn't there sadly. Added with so much filler as well it come just above average.It had some really good characters like Nina who is probably my favourite character from the show. I sympathised with her, she was the one who truly had a terrible life but still saw the good in the world and didn't become a serial killer.She felt nuanced and had depth. She's probably one of my favourite characters in anime honestly. And of course Eva, very layered and complex. You felt for her even though she was a complete bitch which is quite something. I liked Martni too and had no idea why he was killed off so soon when you had Schubert's son Karl for over 20 episodes. Lotte too. Season 2 was such a mess.

I didn't hate the art style but didn't love it either. Those excessively long noses and everyone having pig-like faces. Most were just unpleasant to look at which I'm sure in the intention but it just felt amateurish sometimes.

The music was really good, I liked it but it was just way too over the top at times and unnecessary.

I really enjoyed it at points and just wished it was more consistent overall.