Monster Episode 74 Discussion

Man. This one was gutting for me. I have to come clean: for the first 65 episodes of this show, I was talking about it non-stop. Recommending it to friends, excitedly waiting to jump in on the discussion once I no longer had to worry about spoilers. Honestly, this show is so good for those episodes, it's impossible not to recommend.

The writing is fantastic. Every incidental character feels fundamental even in the scope of the broadstroke storytelling simply due to how much care and emotion is put into each of their respective roles or backstories. Characters that would be mc's in lesser tales are only here for a few episodes. Richard Braun, Dr. Gillen, Schuwald, and more prominently, Tenma, Johan, Nina, Eva, Deiter, Lunge, Dr. Reichwein, Grimmer, Roberto, Martin. There are seriously so many great characters. Even the old dude who is an ex-cop who learns to trust himself through successfully assessing Tenma's character is great. The plot, great, the tension, mystery and characters it contains? Great.

The ending? Not so much. It's really gutting for me because without hyperbole, those 65 episodes are my favourite anime. The remaining 9 are not. As soon as the show reaches Ruhenheim or whatever it's called, things get gradually weaker and weaker. All the elements that made the show great give way to underwritten endings and predictability.

On predictability, one of the show's great feats was being unpredictable. At the end, it's the opposite. You know who's going to live and die, who's going to show up where and when, and it's disappointing to be correct every time. Beyond that, the dramatic devices that were once thrilling just feel really lame. In the last 3 episodes, how many times was there a gunshot, then cut to black, and then a reveal that the person you thought was shooting either did not shoot(!) or was shot themselves? It makes the action repetitive and predictable.

My biggest complaint is how the ending gives us little to no understanding of Johan. The entire tale hinges on this character, yet, at the end, we understand his aims, but not the reasons behind them. He wants to kill everyone that ever knew him and disappear in "the perfect suicide" because, as a child, he felt his mother didn't want him, and to meet that wish, he wants to disappear, as though he never existed? Is that it? I understand things being left open to interpretation, but I wanted more than just Johan repeating the same old jargon he always does, then pointing at his head again from his confrontation with Tenma. I wanted more from Franz Bonaparte, too, who's arc is so rushed. We're given so little time to learn about this character and yet we're expected to find his development from guilt-ridden, avoidant man to redemptive "hero" satisfying when it's given so little attention in the scheme of things, which also feels wrong given that Bonapart plays such a pivotal role in the story. It's underbaked. I also wanted more of a *why* from him, too. We never get one. Why did he take part in the experiments and facilitate them? What was his goal, exactly? What did he get from it? I know they wanted the next Hitler and all that nonsense, but what did *he* want. You never find out. I don't think all questions should be answered, but some are important. I feel the ending does a poor job of answering any at all.

It's also really contrived. To achieve the effect of circular storytelling, the plot just asks too much suspension of disbelief. The story begins when Tenma saves Johan. At the end, after Johan is shot, the police identify Tenma as a high-priority murder suspect and you're telling me that instead of interrogating him, they allow this (again) murder suspect to perform a delicate brain surgery on a man others are claiming is a mass murderer, who incidentally, Tenma has also been hunting with the intention of killing in cold blood? And they allow all of this with little to no incentive. Which is important - because previously, the show went to great lengths to use the same plot device when Tenma is apprehended by a village's local cop whose mother requires brain surgery, or else she'll die. Remove that personal thread, and things don't make sense. But that's how it ends.

What feels worse is that such a contrivance takes place for an ending that achieves a far lesser impact than if Tenma had just been arrested. Think about it - Johan's "perfect suicide" leaves him dead, another corpse among hundreds in the town, and there is no-one left to acquit Tenma, and so he is arrested. Johan is erased from existence as per his wishes, and Tenma gets locked up. It's not perfect, but it's better than the happy-go-lucky, Johan is saved, Tenma is acquitted, Nina and Reichwein and Dieter live happily ever after and once we've all had a little therapy - everyone's fine. Given the show's tone, that just feels off. I wouldn't mind it as much if the ending was at all satisfying in those other ways - less predictable, per se, or if we got the answers I wanted - but without those elements it just feels like being robbed of what could have been. It's really disappointing.

And Dieter - a good character, but talk about pointless? The writers seem to forget him entirely. For most of the show, he plays as a saving grace for Tenma and a symbol of purity in a dark world to redeem it and prevent Tenma from killing Johan. A character even mentions this to the audience mid-way through the show, telling Dieter to never leave Tenma's side and stop him from killing Johan. Dieter doesn't do that, good luck to the guy, but Tenma never shoots Johan anyway. So, what was the point in all that foreshadowing, then? He plays effectively no role in the plot, now, besides being a convenience for other characters to more easily reach certain locations or do certain things. He doesn't feel as much like a living, breathing person as if he would've played a larger, more impactful part in the narrative's ending.

Even with what few answers we have, I just wanted *more*. More depth, more understanding of the *why's* of Monster's universe. I get that the show wants to comment on concepts of Nature versus Nurture in a person's actions, but even within those parameters you can be vague and still answer questions. It's arguably more compelling to do so, as it stands right now, the lack of answers leads to a pretty boring conclusion. Why did Johan murder hundreds? The guy's got a screw loose. That's it. He went through some shit, but he was always a bit bonkers. It lacks depth. Wouldn't it be more compelling to have the audience question if the root was his nature or his circumstance? I feel it would be. Regardless, on no front did this ending land for me. It felt unrewarding, so much so that an anime I felt was easily going to achieve masterpiece status is just "really good" instead. No insult by any means, and I'd still highly recommend it. But instead of being one of my favourites, it really, really disappointed me with its underwritten, undersold, underbaked and undertold ending. A show like this has you watching for that one moment where the penny finally drops: you're hit with a twist, a drop of exposition or an unforeseen secret and suddenly, it all makes sense. It's inherent to the genre, mystery and suspense, but for either to actually work, pay-off is required, and no pay-off ever comes for Monster.

Edit: I just feel that a lot about the ending being satisfying for some people either involves glossing over important questions or seeking answers for them externally, through reddit threads and "ending explained" videos. The art should speak for itself; it shouldn't need your favourite YouTuber for it to make sense. One of the more prominent questions that wasn't answered: why did Johan's mother dress both the twins as female? It's the crux for the entire plot, yet it's never explained.
The tricky thing is that even with all the chips lying where they are, with a bit more actual *writing* I'd be satisfied. Answer some questions, leave just enough to the viewer's imagination, satisfying conclude certain character arcs, then call it a day. Monster doesn't do that, though.
Side note: I also see people pompously debating who the real "monster" was. Like, brother. Regardless of your experience it's not really acceptable to provoke racial conflicts, make orphan children kill each other and start a mini-civil war, assist in a couple suicides and kill innocent foster parents. The fact people are calling Johan "redeemable" is beyond me. Y'all are crazy man.

Those 65 episodes earn it an 8/10.