Review of Monster

Love love loved this, I became so addicted and never wanted it to end! In fact the fact that it ended the way it did is one of my only gripes with it. I loved the constant momentum and constant unravelling of new plotlines and twists with every episode; it felt like the momentum and sense of movement were more important than an actual endpoint being in sight. In this way it reminded me of early serialised silent cinema such as Les Vampires, and the mystery-adventure of the animated Tintin series, where atmosphere and momentum are more important than narrative plausibility. Speaking of atmosphere Iloved the constant feeling of dread and mystery, as well as the fact that beneath this facade a lot of the philosophy ventriloquised by Dr Tenma (which I assume to be "the message" of the show) is pretty standard anime power-of-friendship cheesiness (I'm not sure if it would have been anywhere near as enjoyable without this kernel of cheesiness beneath the grittiness of its aesthetic). Don't wanna spoil it but my absolute fav scene is in Prague where "Nina" is revealed to be... iykyk.

But yea to address the relatively minor gripes I had with this: firstly, although this is pretty standard for this genre of anime, it was incredibly male-centric, with only a few female characters, who I wouldn't exactly call nuanced (not to say Eva Heinemann isn't iconic). But I can overlook this because nuance is not the draw of this show; we are here for the vibes and camp-value. I love the contradictions between the vibes and the contrivances of the plot, but I guess this brings me to my other main critique of the show: the flaccid ending. I feel like throughout the show we are teased by Johan's ultimate evil plan, not that we are ever told what it is, but we are never allowed to forget that it exists. The last 10 or so episodes fell flat for me because something was pushed out of balance in the plot/vibe equilibrium. Something about the way his grand plan was revealed felt unsatisfying and broke the spell that the show had cast up until that point. Even though I felt that it was still confusing in the way they presented it, I wish the ending had been less plot-heavy and more... poetic? abstract? I liked the way that for most of the show I had the feeling of mystery and being in the dark as a viewer, which was effective because it also reflected the subjectivity of the characters (and also sometimes, beyond the named characters, it feels like you're inhabiting the paranoia of the general public reading about Dr. Tenma in the newspapers). Whether or not this was intentional or "lazy writing" is irrelevant to me because the feeling of mystery was so effective and fun to experience. The ending had a similar confusing quality but it felt more obviously unintentional, and more like the writers were trying to cover their asses for the fact that they didn't know how to wrap it up in a way that was narratively satisfying.

Ignore the length of that last paragraph tho, for the most part I loved this, it would have been near-perfect for me if it weren't for the ending :)