Monster

Don't trust this review. Most viewers think this show is a masterpiece, thus by probability you will most likely think the same thing. I'm going to say some harsh things in this review, but even if you think my word is the gospel, you should still watch the first few episodes of the show. And remember, a 6 is not a bad score. I did not dislike this anime at all.

First, on to the good stuff. This has a premise where a man is punished for doing the right thing. It starts off excellently, following his torment and the bizarre chain of consequences following ... his decision. The art is in a striking style that seems perfectly wed to the story at the beginning. From these first episodes, I had the feeling that this show was going to be a masterpiece.

However, this show slowly collapsed in to its own cage. What was interesting became repetitive, the novelty of the art style wore off, predictable patterns began emerging, and pet peeves that wouldn't make a difference in a 26 episode season became more and more grating.

I almost don't want to reveal what predictable things become annoying, because maybe the reader wouldn't have noticed it before I said anything. An example, we have a standoff. Two important characters, high suspense, one character pulls the trigger. GUNSHOT sound, cuts away to outside of building, leaving what happens a mystery. Hey, it's suspense! Another one; a character is talking, he will say "blah blah blah, *pause* no, *pause* blah blah blah". Why? Its all in the tension, Mr. Smith, no, Mr. Revealed! I know all about you know! It's an effective enough line that if one character had it, as a sort of signature line, it would have been amazing. However, when everyone has the same distinctive signature line, it gets rather silly. A fun little game to play with this anime is to try saying "iie" ("no") in unison with the character. Another quirky thing that many characters do verbally is repeat a word over and over again, as a sort of dramatic buildup. Often, this will lead up to a scream. I commented to my friends that the dialogue seemed like it came from a comic book, and they couldn't help but agree. Here's another one: as a character is having a flashback, about to remember something important, something will always cut off the memory (unitl the end of course, when all the beans are spilled). Maybe an interruption, or else maybe she won't want to continue remembering. What we end up with are a gadzillion flashbacks. As another reviewer put it, these are "shameless efforts to create nail-biters”.

Some details in this anime also just don't make sense. Like, nobody even alters their appearance (except Johan). Dr. Tenma is wanted, his face has been all over the news, and he just walks around in broad daylight and is surprised when he is caught. I mean, really? In many cases, he's behaving quite suspiciously too, just begging for attention to be drawn to him. An amusing example of a detail that didn't make sense was when a character walked into a room, she was perfectly composed. She pulls out a gun, and *suddenly* she is completely out of breath, as if she had just run a marathon. Yes, I know pulling a gun on someone is exciting, but it was completely ridiculous. A detail that more amused me than bothered me was the way they used guns in this show. A detective walks into a room, points a gun randomly in one direction, suddenly swerves to point randomly in another direction, and then suddenly swerves once again to point randomly at the camera, before putting the gun down and looking around. If a bad guy was actually where the camera was at, he would have shot the detective as soon as he walked in, but hey, pointing the gun in random directions is exciting!

A lot of reviewers will place this anime on a pedestal and claim that it is a mature anime, as if somehow those of us who didn't love it are childish. Don't fall for that nonsense, you'll see it in reviewers whenever an anime tries to be deep. It isn't really all that deep. It's a good show still, I enjoyed it myself for all that I've been bashing it, 6 is still above 5, which represents average.

You know one thing that pisses me off? When something that takes itself super seriously is fucking stupid. Where to begin? Monster is already overlong as a comic, so for Madhouse to decide and stretch it even thinner boggles my mind. I thought they'd fix some blatant plot-holes and dumb shit, but for the worst of reasons they decided to remain faithful. A story that constantly tells you shit but shows you barely anything. A villain that is constantly augmented but whose supposed terrifying nature is never demonstrated. Suggestion only works if you don't shove it in people's faces. It also works better through visual ... storytelling, not spooky dialogue. How many times do we actually see Johan doing stuff? Twice? Thrice? He sets everything up, we never see it happening. He dominated the underworld, we never see it happening. Is that purposeful? It doesn't fucking matter. It's not shown because it can't be shown, because it makes no sense. Urasawa is trying to make these characters realistic and human, but it's hard to do so when it almost seems like they operate on Magic. Tenma has the power to disappear and pop up in places we never see him going to. He's a serial murder suspect and all, but it's not like it matters. He can sneak his way through Europe without major problems. Johan is god, he can do whatever he wants and his methods remain in the shadows, cause mystery (bullshit) factor. Don't get me started on Grimmer. It's a shame though, that both the thematic exploration and storytelling are so ineffective, after all Monster does have very compelling characters. They are the only reason I was able to sit through this. Seeing them going to such lengths in pursuit of whatever gave them meaning makes for a rather fine watch, unlike the horrible pacing and pointless segments that have little to no place in the narrative. Also, with all due respect to Madhouse's commitment to consistent drawing and moody soundtrack, the anime adds nothing significant. Most of what people praise on a visual end is Urasawa's merit. Instead of improving on the source material, they just rearranged it to screen and let people be fooled by its illusion of depth.

The writer Naoki Urasawa has a distinctive way of weaving stories, and he is one of the most capable writers when it comes to creating an element of mystery. His secret is that he knows exactly how much information is appropriate for each event, and when he should move from one event to another, so much so that he is able to take the viewer from an important and interesting event without showing it, to a completely shattered event without losing the viewer’s interest at following the story, and this is a difficult way of writing to achieve. Most writers only use it once in ... the script because it is a dangerous and unreliable technique, and it may cause the viewer to lose interest in the narrative, but Urasawa walks on it continuously as if he were walking happily on a circus rope. To put it simply, he is able to create a sense of mystery in a story that does not have any mystery elements in the first place. His most famous works are Monster and 20th Century Boys, and today we’ll be taking a look at his magnum opus, Monster, and seeing if it is truly the masterpiece many people rave about.

The story opens up with our main character, Tenma, a doctor of Japanese origins who studied in Germany and became a very skilled surgeon, to the point where any operation he leads turns out to be successful. He is in a close relationship with his boss’ daughter of a prestigious hospital, and is promised a high position and a bright future by his boss. One eventful day, a gunshot hits the head of a young boy. Tenma rushes to treat the boy, but is then interrupted by a phone call informing him that one of the city’s top officials needs immediate treatment. Tenma is puzzled - does he prioritize the life of the person who came first, or does he choose to save the big head? Tenma chooses to treat the boy since he came to him first, knowing how badly he would be hurt by this unwise choice, and his predictions turned out to be true in the end. What Tenma wasn’t expecting though, is that by saving the life of this young boy, he would open up a passage for a dark and grim future that would affect him and everyone he knows. Will Tenma be able to close the passage which he had opened? This is the body structure of the story, and as many of you can see, it is rather special and full of potential energy. The basic settings of the narrative are realistic and international, and here the writer completely stuck with these rules, and he uses the nationalities of the characters to assert that fact, but unfortunately to an average extent. This means that only from the conversation can the viewer deduce a person’s nationality, with the exception of the Turks, whom the writer distinguished through their facial hair. If the mangaka had used a more efficient way for distinguishing, then recognizing the nationalities would have become a lot easier, since the viewer could then recognize the characters through their appearance, their dress code, their movement and the general characteristics of the people from their particular country. This meant that the writer needed a light touch of the stereotyping element for this to work out. For example, Italians are known for moving their hands a lot when conversing with others, the English are known for their tact and quiet accent and back pitching, the Japanese are known for their general shyness and bending when greeting each other, the Turks are known for their facial hair and their love for tea, etc. That is why the level in which the writer was able to bring each nationality to life is average, and the story was in dire need of a higher level of national characteristics, and the reason for this is that the narrative’s backstory talks about the effects of the second world war on the countries of Europe, the lobbies which formed due to that war, and the wall which Germany built, etc.

The writer also uses the atmosphere of adventure in his story, and research and investigation, all wrapped up in a sense of greater mystery. These are the essential elements which form Monster’s narrative, and they are elements that are not as equally strong as one another, so which element is the strongest? Many will point out towards the mystery element being the strongest, due to the fact that the writer is more than capable of using that element to it’s strengths when it comes to his stories, but from what I am able to see, although the mystery was built up in a correct manner by the writer, the lengthy seventy four episodes were able to lessen the effect of the mystery in the long run. The biggest nemesis when it comes to the mystery element is time, because when a mystery presents itself to it’s viewers, their nerves grow tight and their anticipation grows bigger and bigger, and if the time lengthens, then those tight nerves will undoubtedly become relaxed, or will get used to the tight feeling, and the anticipation will be killed off due to having to wait for a lengthy period of time. If the writer desired to prolong the age of the mystery, then he must not keep it in one form for a long period of time, and must add in new things to keep the viewers interested. Unfortunately, the writer made the grave mistake of never changing his mystery and keeping it in one form, where the mystery during the whole narrative revolves around one character only – Johan Liebert. So, if the mystery aspect is not the strongest element in the story, then what is the strongest element in the story? From what I can gather, it has to be the element of adventure, and this element depends on the plurality of the characters. Each case during the adventure is found to be centered on a particular character or several characters we meet and learn more of, until we finally leave them to go to the next character. The beauty about this is that all of the characters are filled with a variety of personality traits, and each character is easily memorable and hard to forget, due to how well written and credible they are in their actions, but as I said, they are quite lacking in how their nationality is displayed, because it is found to be foggy and weak in most of them.

The research and investigation elements effectively serve ambiguity, but their fuel which drives them to continue being effective is the dialogue. The dialogue is very good, but if in addition to the dialogue there were more movements and motion added to the characters, then that would have made for a much better result, and would have moved the story to a level of excellence. Throughout the show’s long run, there happened to be a few times where the place effectively helped and played a role in the search and investigation elements, an example being the mysterious room in the red rose mansion, but it did not succeed at being spectacular, and the reason for that is there not being a reward after deciphering it’s secrets, and no significant turns to the story either. There was a very important example of research and investigation that was not centered on dialogue in the first place, but was rather centered on certain items instead, one of those items happened to be a children’s story book written by an obscure writer. It is believed that the content of his stories have the greatest impact on the whole case, and is found to summarize the main concept of the whole story. Every single thing that relates to the children’s book, and what it contains from drawings to story, was creative and breathtaking, and the reason being the fact that it carries with it a concrete explanation of the actions of the nameless monster and his ways of thinking, and it terrifyingly predicts about the events that will take place in the near future. With that being said, I find that the highest level presented by the writer in his story as a multi-component art is this children’s book.

Let us go back to the mystery aspect of the show, because it is very important. Despite the writer’s ability to create excellent mystery, he managed to mess it up and made a serious mistake. Mystery equals a puzzle in a frame, which may be complex or singular. An example of the singular is a door you need to solve the mystery of it’s lock to know what it entails behind, then the mystery gets solved. As for the complex, it may be a mystery that you decipher to discover what is behind the door, then find out that what is behind the door is a book that contains information about a person, you travel to that person so that you can get something important, and so on and so forth. This is how the mystery increases with the increase of complexity of the puzzle, a positive relationship, and it decreases whenever data, time or hints unnecessarily increase. Of course, the time cannot be a zero, because if it were non-existent then that means there is no mystery or puzzle in the first place. The summation of the hints and the data should not be equal to zero as well. After unlocking the mystery by solving the puzzle, then there must be a result which could be a reward, or a loss, or anything new or extraordinary to the story. The result may also be a new mystery which is bigger or smaller than the previous mystery, and with that we get a series of mysteries. From all of this, I find that the most prevalent form of mystery during Monster was like this: Singular puzzles, carefully weighted data, and very clever use of hints throughout the story, and I find the latter to be the strongest aspect of the show, and the diamond that helped elevate the story’s sense of mystery to another level. There were two elements the writer was very misguided in using, and those were the time, which is found to be longer than necessary, and that weakens the mystery. The other element is the result, as often after solving the mystery, a simple effect is made on the course of the story or the characters, and that weakens the importance of the mystery. Why must the viewer care if the mystery did not result in a reward or a loss? The only mystery which has a significant result after the viewer deciphers it, is the mystery behind the children’s book which Bonaparte wrote. Despite this error, the writer was able to create a story of networked compositions using the element of mystery. It’s appearance seems complicated, especially since it’s mysteries are fundamentally dependent on the ideology of the characters and their large number, but the way he arranges the events which are mysterious makes it very convenient for the viewer to follow the story.

The biggest problem that the Anime suffered from was the writer’s lack of developing two characters who were the most important to the story - Doctor Tenma and Johan Liebert - Yes, unfortunately these two have many flaws within their characters throughout the Anime, which became even harder to overlook or to ignore when the Anime was reaching it’s weak conclusion. As for the ending, it is very weak and borders on incoherent stupidity and illogicalness. This also showed that the writer, during the end of his story, was overwhelmed by emotion, so he ignored all logic for an ending that did not make sense. Although that is the case, I don’t find it to be an ending which ruins the Anime, but it decreases the impact it has on the viewers and the memorability.

The character design is taken completely from the artstyle of the mangaka Naoki Urasawa, and the best thing about it is the drawings of the noses, and the unlimited diversity when it comes to hair and hairstyles, as the nose and hair are the features which make a human look unique. What is the most obvious thing you can see on someone from far away? Their hair and their nose. On top of that, the mangaka is very skilled when it comes to drawing the rest of the characters’ facial features, and he made a smart move by choosing the characters’ heights. Other than that, there are small features that help the viewers distinguish characters from one another, despite the similarities in those characters’ body language, and despite the lack of any nationality sticking out. Also, the style of the character design is realistic, which means that the mangaka cannot add the element of exaggeration like most other Anime and cartoons, and that makes differentiating between the characters easy. With that, the character design of Naoki Urasawa was more than able to achieve memorability and excellence. As for the movement, it is really standard, and it does not have it’s own feel nor does it excel in what it does, and this shows the weakness of the animators in giving the characters the appropriate movement, as they chose to play it safe with the standard movement and the few frames. The drawings of the backgrounds and places is weak and is nothing memorable, and this is a very big problem, since the story was in dire need of the the spirit of places due to it moving through Europe when it moves from one event to another. When it comes to a mystery adventure, the writer must work hard in distinguishing places from one another, otherwise the travel and mobility are of little value. As for the music, it is nothing special, and will be forgotten after finishing the Anime.

In conclusion, Monster’s story has a strong main concept and an interesting story structure and many characters which are realistic, with the exception of the titular characters Tenma and Johan. The lack of building them up and developing them in a correct manner, obstructed the story from excellence which could have been reaped easily. Moreover, the psychology of the monster and the psychopath symptoms were ill explored and how they were implemented was almost non-existent. When the writer is forced to show them, I find them to be bordering on failure. There is poor violence implemented into the Anime, and this Anime is made for those who are over the age of eighteen, so where is the problem in presenting the violence in it’s full detail? The mitigation of the violence turns the Anime into one for an age above fifteen, not eighteen. It seems that the Anime’s producers wanted more space for a larger audience.

Monster takes seventy four episodes in a story that revolves around one character, and this is truly very lengthy. If the Anime were twenty six episodes, then it would have been more useful and more appropriate for both the producers and the viewers. This was an Anime which excelled in the quality of certain things and elements it showed, but lacked a lot to be excellent, and a lot more so that it could be considered a masterpiece. On a personal level, what really impressed me and attracted me in this story is the children’s book. It’s art is memorable, and the color palette is striking, and the movements, and the way the narrator talks, and the dialogue which she was reading. I found in this children’s book a summary to all the ideas of the writer, and that the effort in many of the episodes is lost when compared to the quality of the episodes featuring the children’s book.

Monster is an Anime that had a lot of positives, but also had many negatives, which were enough to detract from the whole experience. Monster is not a masterpiece at the end of the day, as it has many glaring flaws which cannot be ignored.

• 5 TOTAL HOURS OF FLASHBACKS
• meandering episodic side-quests that add nothing to the story
• characters who do nothing but have panic attacks right before an important piece of information is about to be revealed
• a villain who's adept at mind-control and getting people to kill themselves...because he has a way with words?
• all attempts to kill villain thwarted by characters that possess an inability to make actual plans and/or a (infuriatingly cliche) psychological or physical inability to kill someone
• sulking protagonist whose ultimate fate remains a point of indifference due to a lack of emotional investment...after a painstaking 74 episodes
• ladyboy anna leibert
• "let's ... postpone this highly anticipated character arc...forever."
• plot armor galore
• "They were listening to our conversation..."
"Who was?"
"They just kept listening to it..."
"Who was listening?"
"They...they wouldn't stop listening..."
"Tell me who!"
"The—the—the..."
• everyone conveniently gathering in the same place, at the same time, all the time, so if you should ever think, "this might end badly", fret not, x and y are on the way, to save the day
• didja know...there's a monster in all of us?
• could've been packed into 40 less episodes

all this to say: when it was good, it was great.

In short “”””””From masterpiece to ruins””””

From such a headline, you might wonder why I would still give it a 6 ? Well, I've thought about it a lot, as on my personal page it is a 7, and I won't change it, but it is an incredibly biaised note. Normally I’d have given it a 4-5, because of the second part of the anime, but I couldn't bring myself to give that note for the review either. So iin the end I decided to take the middle path for this review and give it a 6 instead (as the show isn't bad from begining to ... end, on the contrary). It won't stop me, however, to say what is wrong with it. But I’ll try to not spoil it too much.


Art :

First of all, the art, because it is the first thing you encounter. It reminded me a lot of the 80th-90th and it is to be expected considering the manga started in 1994. Some people are going to be repelled by it, personally, it just brings in nostalgia of my childhood. But all in all, if you need "pretty drawing" in the more modern "standards" the chances are high you'll have issues with this at first. Not that it is bad, but just different.

What's less subjective though, is the drop in animation. I cannot exactly say when, but at one point the proportions and animation just start dropping drastically from frame to frame, as though the budget was starting to run out. Though for the last arc it gets better again.

Still in the con, some drawings are convenient. !!!SPOILERS!!! For example, Johan dressing as Nina. Dressed as her, his features change, not because he's good with make-up, no, no, at one point he's taking off his wig and he has his own features back whereas the second before, with a wig, it was Nina's face. Same can be said about his general body who is conveniently exactly like Nina, but only for that part because when he's Johan his frame somehow changes to be more masculine (which is rather inconsistent). I can understand they didn't want to give away that it was a fraud - even if it was obvious - but they just went with the easy and lazy way to deliver it. Just by showing he used make-up, or that even in his manly clothes his frame has changed or by "hiding" the fake Nina's frame, that would have been more coherent. Oh and lastly, once it is given he's crossdressing, the fake Nina has Johan's features or expressions most of the time. Just way too easy for me. !!!END SPOILERS!!! Also, I don't care if it is like that as well in the manga, I'm speaking about the anime here and that is what matters. An adaptation's responsibility is also to solve the original's work issues, not to simply copy past it.

On a lighter tone. When the anime was still a masterpiece, roughly 1/4 of the Anime (the second quarter was good, even if issues started to pop up, the third quarter was harder to get through and the last one was just an utter mess), I really liked how they used the image to convey the story or the emotions rather than through words. It's something that I feel is lost more and more, so having seen it felt really good. Sadly, through the episodes and more specifically toward the two last quarters they abandoned that and spent a lot of time holding your hand (aka, they explain everything, not trusting the people to get it on their own) which is really saddening and sometimes kind of clash with the general mood of the show. But well, that's not really about the art anymore.

On the same level though, their way to portray the emotional and mental states of the various cast was really well done. They don’t hold back when it comes to distort the “facial traits” to achieve it.


Opening/Ending :

To keep with the visually artistic aspect, I'm gonna brush the opening and ending a little. Both really were good surprises. I'm not really into them, usually, and I'm quite fond of skipping them (between the fanservice and flashy, flashy one, my low tolerance is quick to quit), these however....man, I'll definitely miss them. Especially the opening. Now, it is definitely subjective, of course. What I enjoyed is that they tell stories on their own, they do a "job" whereas I often have the impression those two are there for "decoration" lately (which isn't negative and not exactly accurate, they try to introduce you to the world of the anime as well, but I don't feel as though they bring much to the anime itself and that the “decoration” aspect is more important than the “introduction”). In a way...my nostalgia is partly talking too.


Sound & Soundtrack :

And since I brushed opening and ending, I might as well speak of the soundtrack and the sound design in general.

About the sound I don't have much to say, it was more worked on when they went for telling through images than through words, so kudo that, but for the rest it wasn't ground-breaking.

As for the soundtrack, even if it isn't one of those that will stay with me forever, it remains really good and does its job pretty well (it isn't about "being beautiful" but about bringing the right ambiance and atmosphere, they can be really different from one to another to fit various mood and situations ; some really are memorable but they are a minority out of the close to 1 hour and a half long soundtrack). It has that "different" touch that I really liked too.


Story & Characters

Well, I've been turning around the bulk for a while, so it may be time I touch that. The story is slow paced ; there aren't thousand ways, you'll either have issue with it or you won't. I, for one, enjoy slow paced stories if they use it well. In this case, it was at first. It was mainly used to develop characters, to show their complexity, to show psychology through images and sound rather than text. Really, I was enticed. As long as it was used properly. But yeah, after one point, the anime started to drag unnecessarily. To build tension for the sake of it. It even starts turning in circles without any real progression, yes, things happen to make you believe it goes farther and farther, but they look more like a “mask” to justify length (and, to cross a bit with the chara part, they keep going back and forth their evolution, losing any consistency, another good way to drag an anime or a manga).

In the same type of ideas, a lot of arcs or doors are opened to be abandoned midway. Lunge, for example, suffers a lot from it the most, though close to every charas do. To keep on Lunge, his "unique trait" is underused, feeling more as a gimmick rather than an important point, which is really sad. Samewise, Johan’s “impressive ability to manipulate others” appears to be pure magic in the end : “do this !” “ok” “do that !” “ok”. That’s….not convincing…and it was supposedly something amazing.

More about the charas, a bunch of them play major roles at first, then completely disappear for no reason, even though they are presented and implemented in the story as mattering factors. Some never reappear again, others do...out of thin air. As though they suddenly were remembered and for what ? To be killed, to be forgotten again or for secondary events that won't even have a vital importance in the end.

And then you have the free exposition. If at first the exposition of the various cast were done nicely, revealing just what is needed, time by time, you eventually have characters whose entire screentime literally consist on their exposition.... Now, it is always good to give depth to your charas, but having a chara telling his life for 5 min and then disappear for the rest of the show is forced and unnecessary. Not to mention that doing it with the subtlety of a tsunami isn't exactly what can be considered proper delivery. Sometimes the exposition also occur in the most inappropriate moments. Like Tenma aiming a certain chara with his gun, said chara, at first afraid, will then suddenly start telling this entire life and...oh and then they are at his home and he invites Tenma inside as though they became some sort of allies, because, errr, well, there's no reason....it's just offscreen ? Maybe... I guess.... Yeah, no, ok....

About the characters development. Issues eventually shows up as well. From Tenma, to Nina, to Johan, to Lunge, to Eva, they lose consistency. For a moment they'll say "X", the one just after they'll say "Y" then back again to "X", then to "Z". It turns into a mess of inconsistency. Inconsistent because those changes aren't motivated. A good character development is a "justified" development. But like everything, it is really well done and portrayed at first, slowly (maybe too slowly for certain people), sure, but efficient. And then starts crumbling. And some scenes just don’t make sense when knowing the various aims of the charas. Yes, let’s aim at each other while repeatedly shouting the other’s name and letting the third person go away….because ! and third person apparently wasn’t in the mood to accomplish his aim just yet for ignoring one of us so sorely, yeah…not very convincing… They can also not make any sense on their own…for example having a long inner dialogue for several minutes about how you’re going to die and the guy which is about to kill you taking 5 min to shoot because he’s too scared…. Yeah, there was absolutely no way you could have done something in such a long timespan… It’s suicide, hu ? Yeah, I think you can call it suicide….

In the same order of ideas, the abuse of twists (just for the sake to pretend to be "smart", adding incoherence and losing credibility).Grimmer is a good embodiment of issues. Apart from the various incoherencies, the inability to convey/deliver the chara properly, he has way too many twists in a way too short amount of time to be credible. And after the 3-4 twists from a single chara, newly introduced charas will also start getting on a twist train. Twists are good, they are fun, but they should not be abused. They should not come out of nowhere and bring in incoherencies with the previous material. Though even without twists and character inconsistency you have a good amount of incoherencies, like getting fired but going normally to your job the next day and everyone acting as though your firing never happened or let’s speak about my son and it is for said son I’m doing this, but next time I talk to the same chara I’m saying the polar opposite and we both act as though we never discussed about it ; or no ! I know ! let’s threat someone’s life, kidnap that person and, and, and….errrrr…..we abandoned that arc, sorry, we have no idea what happened after that, but both charas are well and fine ! they…just….took different pathes….somehow…

On another level, the mood and tonality will also suffer shifts. As though the targeted demographic changed through the episodes. From a more mature audience to a younger one. It is particularly notable in the ending arc where charas will be “cool”…and OOC, as though it completely accepted to have turned into Shounen. On a more positive note, I do enjoy the parallel between ending and beginning, but the light-mooded epilogue feels really off.

Overall, I have the feeling that after a certain amount of episodes they had no idea what to do to fill in every episodes so they just had to find ways to drag it : abandoned arcs, abandoned charas, free exposition, twist for twist, charas' inconsistency, etc. they can all be "justified" by the need to "fill" the episodes (and no, I don’t know how it is in the manga and it still doesn’t matter).

I liked the various "main" cast (I must really give credits to Eva – well…before she loses consistency – to be that hateable character who is portrayed like a human being rather than a simple duality or Manichaeism, she even grew on me). Despite, my issues with them, and I do find one of the main subject : "alienation", really fascinating. Each of them represent a different type of alienation, and how hard it is to get out of it. I really just wished the quality wouldn't have dropped.


Recommendation :

Overall…yes, this review is rather sore…. I do have deep regrets concerning this show… I said it already the first part of the Anime is still a masterpiece, the second part is good ; it’s only the two last parts, half of the show, that has issues, too many issues for it to be considered average. Or maybe I’m just so hard on the second half due to the ruined potential… But well, despite all that, Monster is still one of my favourite Anime, or to be more precise, the first half is. I’ll buy both DVDs and mangas for sure.

I wouldn’t recommend this show for people having issues with slow pacing or needing exaggerated characterization, this Anime probably won’t satisfy you. If you need “pretty art” – modern standard – to appreciate an anime, you may turn your back to this as well. If you expect a show to take you by the hand, the second half of the show is pretty much for you.
As for the others, it might be wise to abandon the anime midthrough, when you start realizing the anime is going down, because, no, it won’t get back up, sadly ; however, if you want to continue you might consider lowering your expectations or turn of your brain for a while ; even if theoretically, it shouldn’t be the type of show for that (and I have nothing against those shows, I always watch them when I just want to relax and nothing else).

It's not often that you find an anime that even a 50+ years old audience can enjoy, as well as an anime that is so disappointing through expectation of a grand ending. It is a well known fact that the ending greatly affects the impression of the work as a whole, and, unfortunately, "Monster" was not able to realize its aspirations well.

Story:
The anime is like a detective story, where the MC, with the help of different leads, received or not received at the end of each story/arc that he experiences during his wanderings, tries to find the "killer" and fulfill, in his opinion, his duty. ... The action takes place in Germany in the 80s and 90s.
The narration is measured, and although it does not make you sleepy, I often wish it was faster.
Step by step, the MC, of which there are several, is approaching his goal, gaining new connections or making enemies for himself. Usually, the viewer is shown the development of the story of only one of the main characters at a time.
Some arcs generally do without the participation of the main characters in the beginning.
I would describe the story itself as depressing and emotional at times, but quite realistic. There were only a few moments when I strongly doubted the possibility of what was happening (for example, how a certain character calmly walked the streets of Germany, meanwhile being wanted). Of course, everything can be explained, but usually it turns out to be far-fetched.
The anime features some important historical events with a mix of fictional events. These events entail all sorts of consequences and create unique characters that later intersect with each other in different sequences and move the plot forward.
It is also worth noting that the story raises several philosophical questions: are all lives equal, does everyone deserve redemption, and towards the end it tell us why humans are special and why one must continue to live no matter what.
To my great regret, in my opinion, the authors managed to spoil the end of the story a lot, as if turning it into meaningless from the very beginning.
Overall, I would rate the story 5.5/10. Aside from the ending of the story, I'd give it a solid 9/10. What a pity.

Art:
The drawing is well done: the background, details, colors, characters - everything is at a high level. The authors, in my opinion, did convey the atmosphere of those years. The style was chosen close to realism, which certainly suits this genre. For the whole work, I saw only a few oversights in terms of drawing. Lipstick marks on a cigarette, characters hair growth over time, even such details are taken into account. In my opinion, the drawing deserves an 8/10 rating.
The animation is also very good. Although you won’t find such action scenes as in some shonens here (duh), all movements look natural, that is, the animation is of high quality. The facial animation is fine, although there was one case where the character spoke without opening his mouth. I can give 8/10 here too.
And just to think that this anime was created back in 2004 and it is quite long. Well done.

Sound:
The musical accompaniment is very meager, it consists of only 3-4 compositions, even if they are good ones. 5/10.
I have no comment on the sound effects. They do not cause negative feelings, but there is nothing to praise them for. 5/10.
I liked the voice acting. Emotions are conveyed well, the voices are adequately chosen, except that in a couple of children they a little bit stand out in a bad way. If you've watched any of the "Big three" then you'll definitely recognize someone. 8/10.

Characters:
We have a huge number of secondary, but at the same time interesting characters with their own stories behind their backs. Somewhere they converge in characters, but, nevertheless, remain unique, as it works in real life.
The protagonist, as I mentioned, is not the only one here. We can see the internal struggle of these characters, their constant development from beginning to end.
Tenma, who is behind the plot of the story of this anime, at first is a brilliant, but naive and weak-willed person, but after the events he has experienced, he changes quite a lot.
Actions of MCs and SCs do not contradict their characters.
However, I was very disappointed with the "killer", or to be more precise, his motivation and goal.
For the characters, their depth, motives, uniqueness, I will give 8/10. If not for the killer, the rating would be 10.

Enjoyment:
Many of the stories were very interesting, but not all. Every time important figures crossed over, I got goosebumps. However, this is a story of slow burnout: you are curious about what will happen next, but you do not have enough patience for a slow narrative. And that feeling was killing me all the time. Very disappointing ending and the killer are still there. I'm definitely not going to rewatch it anytime soon. In total, I can only give 6/10.

Total score:
Since I value enjoyment above other parameters, because we watch/read different works for the sake of it in the first place, and it is quite strongly influenced by the end of the story, I will rate this work only for 6/10 - "Fine".
From a technical point of view, everything is very good, majority of the characters are interesting and I liked most of them, but I didn’t like the ending so much, I found it so unworthy of everything that was in the anime before it, that I can’t put it higher than "Fine". This is by no means a bad anime, clearly better than most out here, but I can’t call it good for reasons I described, nor can I confidently recommend it to everyone.

To understand why I hated the ending, see the "Comments" under this anime in my anime list, because these are big spoilers. For possible errors in the text I apologize, English is not my native language.

I'm not trying to hate on this anime, there is far worse shows out there.

For me, I enjoyed the tension and atmosphere but I never felt rewarded for watching it. I just couldn't tell what was driving this anime along with the pace being so slow, i like to feel a little left behind so I try to keep up and I want more. This was like I lapped this thing 5 times and then took a break to cheer it on as it struggled for air.

I think I'm a victim of my own expectations and the reality is I never ... finished it. My advice is to get stuck in and prepare for the long haul because I'm sure something happens eventually.

The story is about a doctor, I can't relate to this person at all because he's successful and has alot of money and women. If you read the synopsis you are about as far as I am with 15 eps.

The thrill and rush of the introduction fades into a slower and wholesomely repetitive narrative about a vigilante doctor's cat-and-mouse adventures with the law, the "underground", and his own ethical obsessions. Ultimately, when protagonists, deuteragonists, tritagonists, as well as antagonists all get tied into the main narrative, it gets twisted it into a knot so complex it takes the last 40 slow and strenuous episodes to "undo" it.

Is the 'moral of the story' really so clever as to warrant those dozens of hours of backstories and flashbacks? I believe it could easily do without, as by the end of the info-bomb most of the ... arcs will be rather distant in memory; the conclusion not making itself any less forgettable.
Clever, but annoyingly so.

Monster - An anime with an intriguing premise and big setup that, apart from a few saving graces- completely falls flat and disappoints. This is an overrated anime.
This is my first review on this site, and I feel compelled to make one seeing as how, maybe for the first time here so far; my opinion is completely different the majority's.


Perhaps what went wrong with this anime for me was my expectations going in, which were formed by what I'd read about it from the reviews here and how it had presented itself. Needless to say I found it to be disappointing through and ... through, with it almost being a chore to get through the last 20-odd episodes.

Monster presents itself as being a psychological thriller/horror about a mastermind psychopath serial killer named Johan and an innocent doctor who'd saved him, not knowing who or what he was. Upon realizing what he'd saved and the consequences that followed from that action; the anime poses the main question to it's audience:
Should all life be saved/is all life equal?

The premise right away sounded intriguing to me, I saw one user here describe it as a "cat & mouse chase", another "chilling". Indeed it had all the ingredients for a very psychological and philosophical show. So where did it go wrong? Well... The story, and it's main antagonist Johan (the thing it needs to rely on the most, being named after him). I won't argue that the show is very philosophical- but the "psychological" part and it's overall presentation of main ideas completely falls flat. And the "horror" bit is just non-existent.

This show likes to take you on these long and very drawn out journeys that really have little to do with the main arc, but instead are there to flesh out it's main philosophical profile and the ideas it wants to put forth. This sounds good until you realize just how very drawn out and boring they get, and what little material they actually provide in-terms of both plot and character development. I found myself for the first time watching an anime that could send me to sleep. These long detours the show takes could be shortened drastically, some even skipped with little lost.

But bad story pacing aside, the main issue with this anime was indeed it's main antagonist Johan. I could accept long, drawn-out ""mini""-arcs if at least the antagonist it teases provides suitable pay-off. And boy does it not. Johan's purpose here is to display Nihilism and pose the age-old questions to the audience- "what exactly is humanity, and how would you lose it?"
And in that regard I guess he succeeds. This show DOES make good philosophical arguments and points- but as previously stated the way it goes about presenting them is nearly always poor; and at the detriment of the story and characters. Johan as both a character and a villain is weak. His motivations for certain actions are left completely mysterious- and not in the up-to-interpretation way- and his displays of power and intelligence are always an ass-pull that requires way too much suspension of disbelief from the viewer.

This show wants to present itself as gritty and realistic, but yet at the same time let it's antagonist do supernatural and impossible-like feats, with no explanation or reason. I'm fine with either but these two really do not meld well when put together in this show. While watching it I kept having to stop myself questioning just how a certain sequence of events could or would happen; or how Johan's ability to predict the seemingly unpredictable works (showcased mostly in the last few episodes). It is my philosophy that a good villain is one that manages to be believable. Johan as a character- and his actions throughout- is/are not at all believable, nor is the reasoning for why it took so long (for lack of a better term) to beat him.

In-fact I feel like both the antagonist; Johan, and protagonist; Dr. Tenma, suffer as characters for the same reason. They're both there to showcase an idea/argument, and as a result aren't believable as characters or as people. Dr. Tenma's journey is meant to be touching, even sad; with his guilt and torment at seeing the irrefutable consequences from one of his actions. But rarely do I feel anything from watching him. This could be because he's bland as a character, with there being little distinguishable about him and his personality, but I think the biggest reason is because there is little to no character development for him outside of finding the answer to the aforementioned-one question at the end. The Dr. Tenma of episode 20 is little different from the Dr. Tenma of episode 70, apart from slightly longer hair and a more grouchy expression. You could argue he becomes more "determined" to catch Johan but I don't see it at all. Certainly not at the climax.

As a result of the awful pacing this show has, it's bland protagonist and it's weak main antagonist, the enjoyment from this show is awful. I can't believe how or why one could go about binging it. This is the first show of this size that has taken me many months to complete.
...Anyway, with my main complaints out of the way, what were it's "saving graces"?

Firstly, the soundtrack. At times I felt like the soundtrack was adding more than what was even really there in the first place. And perhaps that's why I love it so much. It was brilliant, and went a long way in breathing life and atmosphere to the otherwise rather dull art/world of Monster. It added a bit of tension to where there otherwise weren't any, and did a near perfect job of conveying the emotion and tone of a moment.

Next, the characters. This might seem backwards considering I just went on about how weak Johan and Tenma are as antagonist and protagonist, but thankfully they were for the most part an exception (albeit rather large and important ones...). The side characters are what made Monster finish-able for me, and what got me through many of the detours of the show. I mentioned earlier this show wanting to be realistic, and indeed this may be the most realistic part of it. Nearly all the side-characters felt human. Their emotions and actions completely believable, and at times I felt they were even propping up the bland and unmoving protagonist that is Dr. Tenma. I feel like apart from Nina, all the emotion from this show is mostly gotten from these characters. Certainly not Dr. Tenma or Johan.
And to add a bit here at the end; how it makes you understand and almost like a certain annoying character is masterful to say the least.


To wrap up, with my biggest gripes and likes out of the way I'll conclude with this: Do I think Monster is a terrible show? No. Do I think it's a great show? No. I think this show is overrated and rather mediocre in one too many important areas. Sadly it's superb soundtrack and touching, well written side-characters aren't enough to save it from a weak overall story and weak set of main characters.

Just finished it and it is weird for me to sum up my opinion.

I feel like at the start, the sequance of event was really thrilling but then it faded off, slowly, painfully.

Dr. Tenma is a moral man. A kind of the man you want to be like but just know you can't live up to the ideals he implify. His moral rightneouss definetly added a lot to his character. Eating himself over whether he did the right thing saving Johan, Is it ok to shoot a man who hurts others, etc.

The upcoming side characters are unique and colorful with intersting backgrounds (Dieter, Heckel,Hugo and ... the Burmese child etc.), but as the show progressed, it was rare to find interesting side characters that you can connect to (the only one for me after that whas Mr. Grimmer).

I hated how Anna's/Nina's character evolved. Implified unstableness, mentally-illed, flashbacking often, then screaming, then fainting. Then flashbacking. screaming and her pupils diluting. I really liked her at the start, but in the last 15 episodes she was an unstandable reck, a lump of disorders.

At the beggining, as Johan nature and essence were unknown, he did had dreading aura, turning everything he touched into wilt. But as the end neared we had some sort of idea of how he's like, it felt stupid being so scared of him at that point, like he is some supernatural, invincible demon. I mean, come on, you don't have to pass out after reacting with him for 2 minutes, or breath so heavily. The overall continious portray of him as a limitless devil was tiring and out of place as the story progressed.

This anime is mixed by a lot of good and bad.

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.

- Summary (TL:DR) -

The show started strong and slowly meanders its way to the finish line. The characters were very much defined from the get go and changes very little throughout the story. personally, I didn't find as deep and complex as the fans of the show claimed it to be, but I didn't find it to be as much of a snooze fest as it's haters claimed.

So what do I think about Naoki Urasawa's Monster? Ehh, it's fine, I don't find it particularly offensive but I doubt I would be recommending it to anyone. If you're thinking of watching the show, watch the first ... 4 episodes, and then continue watching but thinking of the episodes after episode 4 as its own separate series.

- Story -

I remembered when I had first seen the first few episodes of the show, it was perhaps the most compelling first episodes I had ever seen in all my years of watching anime. I began recommending this series left and right. I thought to myself "could this be the one? Had I found the one true masterpiece? Is there where my anime watching career will end?" No. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

As I continued forwards through the 72 episodes, never again did the series ever grab me as much as it did in the first few episodes. The story began to drag on, the mysteries became obvious, disposable side characters were introduced and all the tension that had been built up through the first few episodes has vanished by the half way point.

While the story still remained complex, it was not for the reasons one might hope as the plot began to tangle around bland uninteresting side characters forming arcs which barely connected to the main storyline. The beginnings and ends of each arc were very obvious and disjointed which isn't necessarily a negative, but the conclusion of every "filler arc" did serve to remind me of just how much of my time that this show has wasted. There was no reason (apart from the manga source material) that this show could not have been half its length.

As for the end, I will not spoil it. I will, however, say it was obvious that Urasawa had planned this ending from the very beginning as the ending reflected an ongoing theme within the show. But by the time we got to the there, I felt that the theme in question had already been reinforced soo many times throughout, that by the time we arrived at the ending, it had no real impact.


- Art & Sound -

I found both the art and sound to be serviceable, it didn't add anything to the show but it also did not detract from it. It fitted nicely with the mood and atmosphere the show was trying to achieve.

- Characters -

The characters were by far the weakest point of the series, while not your traditional archetypes, the characters lacked complexity and dimensions. The main characters were defined very early and received very little development despite the long runtime.

Take Dr Tenma for example, our protagonist, you'd think with 74 episodes mostly following one man's journey of redemption, that we'd at least see multi-facets of that characters but nope, Dr Gary Stu can do no wrong, not only does he never doubt his actions, he is infallible, omnibenevolent and to top it off, his hands had healing abilities which would have made Jesus jealous. (I totally forgot to mention Nina, AKA female Tenma)

As previously mentioned, as the story dragged on, many shallow side-characters were introduced, all with their own problems for Dr Tenma to solve. In fact, most of the main characters in the show could be summarised in one short sentence. I will refrain from making examples as I do believe the first few episodes are very much worth your time.

The characters in Monster lacked humanity, making them appear robotic and soulless. Which would explain why the most compelling character by far is the main antagonist of the story, but as the story dragged on. even he became more and more like a force of nature character, rather than a true character. It's as if Urasawa had written the plot points rather than characters.

I am still trying to figure out how this is such a top ranked anime with basically an average of 8.9/10. If this anime weren't 74 episodes, I would actually re-watch it to see if maybe my opinion would change - but honestly it's so boring I won't. I decided to give Monster a 5/10 because the first 25-30 episodes were actually decent and I was thoroughly watching - after that it went downhill.

The next 40 episodes drag so much, I literally kept watching to finish what I had started. I began having the show on while I worked or as background noise at certain ... points. This show could have been amazing if it were condensed to 24-40 episodes and they focused on the actual STORY.

If I had a dollar for how many times the characters said 511 Kinderhim, Monster, The Devil, or "I need to end this" without anything actually happening, I would be rich.

Character Breakdown -

Tenma - The MC is so bland after the first 10 episodes I honestly wouldn't have cared if he died. That's how bland he was. He was a surgeon who saved a little boy, the little boy then becomes a serial killer years later and then some of the murders get blamed on Tenma, so he becomes a fugitive and begins researching this boy Johan. I think for about 40 episodes he is just running around aimlessly with a gun, chasing Johan, not actually doing anything but saying "I need to end this" and bumping into random side characters with story lines I did not care about AT ALL.

Johan - his story line is what kept me interested, but his character is literally a ghost and not in a good way. You hear about him being this "monster", being so sick and evil (people are deathly scared of him) - but never actually see him do anything? He is rarely in episodes. It's always others doing it for him. And yeah, I guess he is a master manipulator - there were a few scenes that he creeped me out in, like when he convinced that one detective (can't remember his name, there's like 1,000 unmemorable characters) to kill himself. But other than that, the story became so dragged that I started to forget Johan was the bad guy - they introduce so many other irrelevant thugs and gang members that when they repeatedly murmur Monster I had to remind myself that this story was about Johan being the villain. He just wasn't THAT scary or creepy to me.

Ava - she is so irrelevant, her character should have been written off after episode 20. ALL she does is drink and whine about getting revenge on her ex Tenma.

Nina - she honestly could have had more impact to the story but all she does is pass out, have visions and walk around with the little boy who Tenma saved.

The main detective Lunge - he starts off so annoying - he has this weird obsession that Tenma is the main murderer and even when placed with facts against his way of thinking he doesn't stop thinking the killer is Tenma. He actually has good character development in terms that he starts researching Johan and slightly becomes less closed minded.

There are several other random irrelevant characters that I literally cannot even remember most of their names. There's this red head boy that Tenma saves, but he really isn't that important. The story drags and drags and drags, I honestly can't believe I didn't drop it. Like I said in the beginning this could have been amazing if it were 24-40 episodes.

If you want to see a doctor chase around someone who is barely seen for 74 episodes, random plot devices and characters, the name Monster repeated 24/7, people who get the chance to do something but never take it, and random dialogue to make this seem scary and interesting - this is your show. I still give it a 50%. If you do watch, watch to episode 30 and then skip to episode 71 and watch the last 3 episodes, haha.

This review will be very short just because this anime has nothing interesting in terms of story, ideas and the overall "message" which is trying to be so deep but unfortunately is very shallow.
In the first 10 episodes i was pretty hooked in but later on I came to the realisation that this is another one of these shows that drag so long for no reason at all. It beats around the bush so much that at some point becomes irritating to watch. The main source of my irritation though came from the main characters who all try to be as stupid as possible never ... taking any logical action.
PREMISE:
MORALS are the main premise of this show and it tries so bad to make clear what is right from wrong and who is GoOd or bAd or...the fact that bad past does not equal bad person.
SYNOPSIS:
Basically this show is:
A surgeon takes the law into his own hands, so much that the police comes after him and eventually ends up chasing the killer while being chased by the police so that when he actually has a(?) chance on killing the killer he ends up doing nothing and...uh oh now you feel regret for doing nothing and you start all over again. While some other (irrelevant but they want to feel relevant) stuff happen at the background.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
In conclusion I give this show a five because even if it is boring and uninteresting it has good production, art style and at some points it was actually interesting but my interest lasted for about 3 episodes, also at moments when something is revealed I felt complete emptiness cause I already knew that was gonna happen, or it had little to no effect on the actual story. None of the characters are likeable I couldn't find anything interesting about them especially the main character. Finally the story is completely...meh it could have been better if they didn't spam the backstory of the twins so much, which is portrayed as disturbing and mysterious but it didn't feel like that, it's forcing you to think that way. If you want to be an elitist then force yourself to like this show.

Warning: The following review is quite lengthy and is focussed on the quality of writing of the story. Also, a disclaimer that the thriller genre isn't really my preferred avenue of entertainment and I only ever watch it when people recommend it to me.

I was really excited to scroll through top rated anime on MAL and find Monster. Older fans of anime seem to really like it and I am not that young but I never really had a chance to watch it as my exposure to anime was limited because I hail from a third world country. However, my experiences of a life ... lived in such a country imparts a certain flavour to my perspective of anime that I feel is lacking in other reviews which are written by people coming from (relatively) safe and secure societies with limited exposure to crime and violence. As such, my perspective might resonate with you better if you also have that specific background.


A basic principle of writing creative fiction is that you should write what you are familiar with, I am not a criminal or a burden on society by any means, but I am more aware of the mechanics and certain realities of crime and the people who are involved in it, given my background. In this anime, there were several instances in the story where I believe the writing did not do justice to what it was trying to achieve. The Japanese experience of a tame life bereft of crime and violence was rubbing off on the characters to the point that it abruptly took me out of the anime. There is a certain culture of glorification of the act of murder in anime. Glorification in the sense that it is considered to be the ultimate evil, one which fully and completely robs people of their souls and they became conduits of Lucifer himself unless they partake in a journey to seek redemption again. Granted, murder is evil, but the fashion in which it is treated in Monster comes off as silly at best and confoundingly stupid at worst. The forays into the nature of evil and the effects of a troubled childhood on the human mind seem to be quite superfluous because of the limited range of the writer’s experience with life outside of a highly ordered, lawful society. The dialogue and screenplay often follow “the rule of cool” instead of “sensible and pragmatic”. But that’s not a dealbreaker since we are here to have fun, however, I take issue with how the question of “true evil” is treated in Monster.
In real life, most people would agree that generally, “evil” does not exist in a vacuum. Apart from certain statistical outliers, most people indulge in crime and violence only if that is what they are used to. Here, the specific brand of evil that the antagonist embodies is not only limited to him, but also to several other characters, which does not feel right. The story often focusses on nature of true evil and “real monsters”, but also mixes it with its own insight into mental illnesses and the consequences of subjecting people to trauma. This would seem to be a good fit at first but in this anime, this isn’t really addressed to the satisfaction of either topic. Do real monsters exist? Who knows? Does trauma lead to people becoming unhinged psychotics? Maybe. The series is too afraid to answer the questions it poses and asks that the viewer make their own deductions, but given that the topics are dealt with is such a shounen-esque manner, the viewer is simply not given enough incentive to dive into the questions in the first place.
At many points in the anime, (which constantly argues that it is a "serious" look into such topics) the characters make such basic errors, that they destroy the credibility of the writing. More often than not, as anime watchers we tend to forgive such slants onto common sense as eccentricities of the medium, we simply apply another tier of suspension of disbelief to enjoy the series, however in the present case the strange portrayal of the characters in this story comes from not the specific proclivities of the medium itself, but the background of the writers, who have lacked experience in dealing with, well, regular human beings on planet Earth.
I'll grant you an example, at a certain point in the story, the writer, to establish that a certain character is morally dubious, makes the character comment that "all lives are not equal" with a smile drawn to look like the caricature of evil incarnate than a mere mild observation that almost all humans have made by the time they turn 12. No real human being would make this statement, at least not in that way, even if they truly believed it, because making such statements would make anyone sound downright demonic, and nobody wants that. Certain dialogues are inserted simply to drive home a point or a question that the writer wants asked, in the most conspicuous ways that makes you feel like the anime is questioning your intelligence by making it so obvious.
Even the central conflict of the story itself, which propels the protagonist on his journey, feels hollow, since his views on his circumstances come from the last 10 sentences he has heard from the people around him, and not out of the (so-called) brilliant mind of a top neurosurgeon. Several questions, such as the question of whether doctors should offer treatment to “bad people” is deal with by the protagonist, completely ignoring the fact that this “moral dilemma” has been addressed by Medical schools for the past few hundred years. In effect, the writer has managed to create the first quixotic neurosurgeon in media that I am aware of. His explorations into the ethics of murder seem quite impotent as he is limited by the specific flavour of the week that he is dealing with. He is denied the wisdom of a middle-aged professional and is always stuck at the mental capacity of an 8-year-old. As a character the protagonist comes off as a complete whiteboard that only displays what arguments the writer has so far inserted into the episodes up to that point. As he questions his own ethics and morality, he feels sequestered in a role that is not for him to have. Ideally, the character should definitely be affected by the circumstances and opinions of those around him, but in the end, he should have his own specific twist on things. Without that certain twist, the character feels incredibly bland.
He lacks in personality of any kind, and is shockingly bereft of actual character flaws beyond the level of an average quiet middle schooler. That in itself wouldn’t be a problem, as actual real human middle schoolers are quite complex creatures, but therein lies the problem with the writing, the characters are not real in any sense, and only exist to drive the story in a certain direction. This flaw is commonly seen when writers self-insert themselves into the story. Whether this was intentional or not is not important to me, what’s important is whether this lends itself to the story, and it really doesn’t in Monster.

Anime in general is obsessed with “genius” characters. But the problem with genius characters is that the people writing these characters often have little idea of what constitutes genius. This is exemplified in the Sherlock Holmes series on TV, where in the book Sherlock Holmes was simply someone who paid more attention to detail than the average individual, the TV series takes it up several notches to the point that the character can determine the number of hairs on a person’s head by the kind of sandwich he had eaten that morning.

Since actual “super-intelligence” is hard to write, the trick writers use instead is to grant their genius character copious amounts of plot armour and also to make the surrounding characters extremely stupid. This is indeed the case in this anime. Now I would respect the author for making an honest attempt at it, but things have their limits when you have to extend the series to 70+ episodes. I think this anime would have benefitted greatly from being limited to 24 or even 12 episodes.

This is why this anime has a lower level of writing that I expected, because the writer trapped themselves in a situation where they had to write a story involving a character while employing every available trick to make the series last till the end. I have seen this particular brand of writing in several anime and even manhwas. I cannot stress enough that quality is always better than quantity. What could have been a scary thriller anime now feels very dated and almost childish at times.
I would still say this anime is worth a 6/10 because of the sheer amount of effort put into this project, in terms of art and animation. Also consider that your degree of enjoyment would rise the younger you are in general. If you are the kind who tends to dissects plotlines, I would ask you to give this a pass. But if not, then by all means, go ahead.

Let me begin by stating that I am shocked by the rating of this anime.
In my honest opinion it is massively overrated. The first word that comes to mind when I think about this anime is BORING.

** Story ** The story is good, but it is far too much dragged out and the pace is super slow. The suspense building up goes up and down for me during the series. The ending was also a massive letdown and I will tell you why in the characters section.

** Art ** The art of the anime is mediocre at best. I really do not believe there is ... a single person that believes this anime has good art and not to mention one deserving a score of 10... There is not much more to say about it other that it is unimpressive at best.

** Sound ** I usually do not care much for the opening and ending songs, but in this anime it fits the tone of the show which is dark. However the sound themes during the episodes are nothing remarkable and could have been better suited to fit the atmosphere.

** Character ** This is the most annoying part for me in the show. There are some great characters, but the main characters are not complex at all and do not evolve at all. People saying otherwise are simply ignorant and want to believe is something that is not there. The main character is on a mission to stop a man who seems committed to do evil acts. However no matter how much proof of the wrongdoings of the evil man he gets and how many murders he has done he does not have the guts to do what he intended. This is a massive let down for me because the MC (Dr. Tenma) is a naive man to begin with and remains the same until the very end. He does not grow a pair and does not change at all. You see him the same person in every episode trying to do good and keep away from others so they do not get hurt being near him. The guy he is trying to stop - Yohan is also not changing at all. He remains the same smart and evil monster he is from episode 1.

** Enjoyment ** I was really bored with most of the episodes - the action was far too slow paced and the repetition of naive acts from the main cast was annoying quite a lot. There were some interesting twists and the story itself is interesting but the execution of the way it is presented is hindering it massively.

** Overall ** I would recommend this anime to people who have a lot of free time (74 episodes) and do not mind slow paced shows. I strongly disagree with the common opinion that this anime is very clever - it is not. It cannot compare to Code Geass or Death Note in the meaning that it is not the same type of smart. This anime is like a thriller TV show that is just animated. Slow story and naive annoying MC killed it for me.

Hey.

--------- Introduction --------
This review is gonna have spoilfer free section.
With spoilfers, explaining little and what I think.
Anime and movie comparisons to this anime "Monster".
Ending, of my thoughts.

If you like some cathegories what I have written scroll down and read other ones too with spoiler warning or without. : ^)

... Not gonna be the best review (I believe) because only watched 5 episodes. It took me 3 days to watch the 5th episode. 1 episode in 3 days. Yep. It was that bad.
1-4 episodes were 7/10.

--------- Short review without spoilers ---------
This anime is nice if you are chill watching and wanna watch something while you have your brain turned off or you normally don't use brains while watching.

Yep. That's the short review. :D
I don't recommend it. It's over rated. 8,83/10. Yikes.

If you want complex story then DO NOT WATCH.
If you want story where is psychology then sure if you are new this this area.
I can't say anything super bad to this anime because I haven't watched it much but the writing never changes so much that a person starts to like the anime later on if he didn't like it earlyer. If the writer didn't change or didn't change his idea.
It's rare if the first half is bad and later it's good. The writer writes characters the same way and stoies what happen.

--------- Comparisons without spoiler ---------
This anime was 7/10 but when the 5th episode came. Everything went down hill. The anime tries to make you think and have "plots" or something mid anime what are SUPER OBVIOUS.
And the anime is slow or really slow what is fine. Builds up characters and so on. Nice.
But when the obvious thing comes and it's like +2 episodes and you already know what's what, who is who or how whats gonna happened.
Then the rating dropped really quick. It's like anime for dummies. No offence. The anime is really nice if you wanna watch this casually but if you wanna enjoy it and if you criticize a lot of things like me. Then it's no go anime for sure.
The anime is too simplistic. Too long, streched out. Compared to my favorite movies, animes.
Just better watch these. I have tons of them.

Gattaca 1997
Transcendence 2014
Gone Baby Gone 2007
Predestination 2014
This anime isn't even comparable to these.
So lets give some animes. Easyer to compare.

Kotonoha no Niwa (aka The Garden of Words)
Sakasama no Patema (aka Patema Inverted)
Zankyou no Terror (aka Terror in reasonance)
Koe no Katachi (aka A Silent Voice)
91 days
Lets give worse similar styles of animes. But they still were more successful than monster.

B: The Begginng
Durarara!!
Ergo Proxy
Psycho-Pass
These came from top of my head. Trying to have a short review.
But I'm gonna make it long anyway because it's over rated.

I really like these kinds of animes and movies but it's easy to fail. The animes where you need to think. Where you can't predict easily what the story is gonna bring. not like Monster.
Ohhh. Even Attack on Titan. Forgot this gold. If you say you knew what would happen after watching season 1 and knew what's gonna happen in season 2. Please stop lying to yourself and others.
It's impossible because they didn't give much hints. They did more when the priest appeared and I could predict but it was well written.
Even Death Note is better. First half. 100%. Second half. Is better but has it flaws.

------------ Why I rated like that, what I think. Spoilers I guess. xD-----------

+++ Starting 5th episode +++
I wrote this when I started watching 5th episode. Only watched for the intreduction to 5th episode -5min and stopped. Yep. It was that bad. xD

After seeing 4 episodes and seeing only 5th episode start. Anime was 7/10 so far.
Ohh noes. Here it comes. Family has 2 children and both of them are really good at something. When I say really good I mean basically the best.
That's super rare. Almost impossible. But okay lets pretend it's like that.
And Let me guess. One kid is super detective and super amazingly good at everything in his school and the other twin is super good at killing people.
And they start to hunt eatch other??? This idea can't be good and how characters are written. My hope of this anime died quickly after seeing the Ms. Nina Fortner intreduction at the start of episode 5.
The way how she reacted. Who the heck reacts like that. It feels like she is gonna be one of those anime personality type person (Tsundere?? and so on). Oeh.

+++ Mid way +++
I wrote this while I watched this, close to 10 minutes.

Mid way watching episode 5. It's obvious for viewers to know who the writer is if you have any braincells. The twin brother. Oeh. (When Ana recieves the message that "I wanna kill you so I can put pretty flowers on your thombstone" or something.
I saw this anime rated highly multiple times in multiple places but it feels like it was over rated and I really don't wanna be dissapointed. I stop watching.
Hah and I called she is good at everything on top of her class. Beating everybody even on judo. xD Called it.

++ Completion ++
I wrote this when I completed 5th episode,

I have realized. I get dissapointed really fast when I see one of those anime personality types or if I see something quite unrealistic with characters. Theyrs personalities. Hayao Miyazaki was right.
I believe this anime will go 3/10-5/10 if I make it to the end. Don't wanna "waste" so much time. I mean this anime has 74 episodes.
This anime tries to make people think for sure but if you really like this kind of stuff and you already do that in every place or thing what you watch.
Then most of the stuff what this anime does is probably obvious. It's slow and builds up characters which means it kind of makes easyer to predict where the story goes if they hint.
It's not a problem but man. The anime interest goes down super fast if you can predict what comes.
I just watched movie "Repo Men" 2010.

This is my mentality when I watch these animes.
And yes. The 5th episode was that bad that I even wrote for future review.
Maybe I just didn't like the character and the anime is good. Welp. I take my chances.

But I doubt it.

And I'm sure the story changes and brings new characters and old ones die? Hopefully. But if the first few main characters aren't that great and being super humans in some way. Then I say No. Thanks. I go watch something else.
Because this anime is being super realisitc and people aren't that realistic.
Hayao Miyazaki would agree.

--Art--
Is not that great but I respect it a lot when they made realistic humans without big eyes and without big boobs uneraged girls.

--Story--
Unknown. Watched only 5 episodes. So far probably. 6/10 or 7/10.

--Sound--
On the lower side. Can't comment much because samle size is small.

--Characters--
I really don't like super humans. Meaning when people are really good at everything like a plot characters. Every human is bad at something. Let me rephrase that.
Every human is bad at most things and can only be good at few. That's the reason I like Antiheroes. They are the most realistic human beings normally.

--Ejoyment--
It was 6 or 7 out of 10 the first few episodes. 5th episode was 1 or 2. Reminded my of Wondewoman or Black Widow. (Let me tell small reason why. I know it's not anime but let me thell why. My hate is strong towards stupidity).
Black widow super power? POOHOOO MY CHILDHOOD WAS HARD and then they put her into other and real super power people. Who can beat +10 blackwidows at once if not 50 blackwidows.
(-_-)

--Overall--
5/10.
I would rate it even 3/10 for the first 5 episodes but it's not right. The writer did some things well and stuff. I try to rate things faily.
So it's 5/10 or 7/10 max. Not 8,83/10. Wuuuuut.

------------ End ------------
Well.
This anime shouldn't be 8,83/10 for sure. I would say 7,3/10 or something MAX.
I rated it 5/10. It can go higher it can go lower if I kept watching. Probably lower. That's why I stop watching stuff. There are plenty good animes and movies. Just have to find them.
Really good stuff doesn't have super bad episodes or medicore stuff that much like Monster did.
This anime didn't bring my interest to the anime to continue watching.
I expected actually little more. Was dissapointed.

If you are chillwatcher and watch animes for fun and doesn't try to find gems then. Then watch it.

For me. I'm not chill. I try to find gems. I'm little ruthless on rating things. If you are the same. DO NOT WATCH IT.

Thanks for reading, have a nice day. Hopefully this reveiew helped.

For gods sake, I never wrote a review, but this time I´m so upset that I´d really need to do it, in first place, monster has a big potential and I thought my expectations would be surpass, but it was the complete opposite,monster has little problems that start to acumulate and screw up the show, in the first 24 for episodes I was loving the anime, the mystery was engaging and I was curious to know what would happen, but after some time, when I thought the show would give more attention to johann, and develop him, showing us why he is so badass, but ... that simply never happen, the last 35/40 episodes declined so much that I can´t even describe, when I was in the 60 I was really wanting to drop, they thrown away the main history and focus on secundary charachters that basically dont add anything relevant to the history, and when I say secundary charachters, its not five or ten secundary characters, it looks like a hundred, for real, ther are a lot of then that I cant count, I never saw a anime that has so many characters like monster, for real almost every episode they put a new one in the show, I really cant understand that, I was like in the episode 70 and they were still showing new charachters, why???? I simply cant understand why they cant focus in one thing, and what they want when putting so many episodes to fill gaps in this anime, if it has like 24 episodes it would be so much better, the way its executed is horrible, the main vilain is literally treated like a god and everytime called a monster by people who know him, he simply do what he want without any consequences but we never see that, he can manipulate every one that looks like magic, but monster never show to us how johann do what he do, we literally see him doing something the can be considerated cool 2 or 3 times in the entirelly show.
In generally, the characters are so empty, I can understand why tenma is how he is, but he is so boring and hypocrite that makes me angry, nina is literally schizophrenic and do not have a personality, you can say that this is ok because she dont have her memories, but she recover it pratically at the end of the anime, which makes the character empty, for real, a show with a hundred of different characters and I just liked two of then, that actually made me able to see the anime until the end, they are grimmer and lunge, the only good characters in the entire anime.
Well, I just want to express my indignation, I cant understand why this anime have 8.75 when it has so many problems, if you want to start monster, do it, but if you think it is becoming confuse and boring, drop it, it wont be better anytime in the rest of the show

Ah, Monster... The beloved, critically acclaimed, outright revered masterpiece thriller that I've known about and been recommended for years and years. I finally got around to watching it and it was good. Yes, good. Not amazing, not an all time masterpiece, just good. This anime is overrated. Overrated does not mean BAD. Rather, it means exactly what the word sounds like it should mean- rated too highly. Here's why-

For starters, the fact that the anime extremely faithfully follows the source material should be absolutely irrelevant when judging the anime itself. I did not read the manga, I do not care about the manga and we ... should never be required to read/view a separate product in order to fully appreciate the product we're viewing now. The anime should be judged solely on its own merits, so whatever the deal was with the manga means absolutely nothing to me.

For me the single biggest shortcoming of the anime was that Johan underwhelms me as an antagonist. He's presented in a very "tell, don't show" way in that we're often TOLD about the terrible things he does and TOLD how he's a charismatic, manipulative mastermind but it's very, very rare that we actually see any of it. The fear, the respect, the inherent sense of unease when they're around... All the things you're supposed to feel when there's a really good villain just didn't hit for me with Johan.

Furthermore, I thought his voice in the English dub didn't fit the character at all and was outright miscast. He has a serious case of "bad guy voice" where the voice actor is trying really hard to sound creepy and villainous, which misses, and then furthermore he MAJORLY lacks the charismatic, suave voice he's supposed to have in order to manipulate people to do his bidding. He talks in a way where if he approached a woman at a bar they would think he's an absolute weirdo and creep and feel uncomfortable, which is the complete opposite of what he's supposed to be. He's supposed to be suave, charismatic, charming... A handsome guy with a silver tongue who can talk you into doing anything. The voice actor definitely did not convey that for me.

I thought the overall pacing of the anime was quite slow and it most definitely didn't need to be a whopping 74 episodes. Yes, it followed the source material faithfully, but if we're disregarding that I'd tell you there were definitely parts of the anime that could have been cut without meaningfully affecting the plot and there were multiple long stretches where we did not see either Tenma or Johan, the main protagonist and antagonist respectively, for many episodes. It often felt like we were jumping all over the place and introducing sub plots and loose ends that were not all properly resolved or tied off in this anime's lackluster ending. The final episode in particular did not, at all, live up to 73 prior episodes worth of hope and expectations.

Other things that annoyed me in this anime, though minor, are worth bringing up briefly. Every detective in this anime seems either completely corrupt or completely incompetent. Especially irksome is the detective who goes to a bar, meets a random woman (who he and his multiple other trained detective friends are not able to recognize is, in fact, a MAN in disguise) and begins telling her, with names and extreme detail, confidential information relating to a case he's actively investigating. Is this realistic? How awful of a detective do you have to be and how wildly stupid and against the rules is this? There's also a scene late in the anime where a recently killed corpse is lying on its back in the pouring rain with a small trail of blood seeping out from its mouth. Did I mention it was POURING RAIN? That blood, absolutely, would not be there. It would be washed away in a blink.

This anime is also very guilty of one of my biggest anime pet peeves- "what if you just shoot him?". Basically, the entire anime falls apart if at any point any of the characters with opportunities to do so simply grow a pair and pull the trigger. Anime over, credits roll. They don't because they can't because it would ruin the plot, but it's awfully convenient and obnoxious.

My final negative, I disagree with this anime being classified as horror. I understand why it is, but I don't agree with it.

Things I DID like about this anime include the music, which I thought was very fitting for the tone of the scenes and enhanced the thriller vibes they were going for, the voice acting for Tenma that I thought was very fitting and well-acted and a few of the plot twists and revelations that genuinely caught me off guard without feeling stupid or non-believable as so many reveals in anime often do.

I understand I spent the good majority of this review on the negative side and it may come off like I didn't like this anime and I assure you that isn't the case. Like I said in the opening paragraph, I thought it was good. I do not, however, think this is a 10/10 and an all time masterpiece as so many others seem to and I will absolutely die on the hill that Johan Liebert is NOT an all time top ten anime villain or the greatest bad guy of all time or any of that nonsense. He, more than any other aspect of this anime, is overrated.

I'll pass on whether or not I'd recommend this. It's very lengthy and it's not for everyone. Do some research beforehand and decide for yourself whether or not this is for you. For myself, I'm glad I watched it once but I can't see myself any time remotely soon, or possibly ever, going back to watch it again as it was quite a slog and I wasn't blown away by it enough to put myself through 74 episodes again, especially when I already know what happens. Overall- a good, overrated anime.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 7.5-8.5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7.5

I've currently watched over 60+ anime and read few manga which are more leaned towards mainstream stuff however I watched my fair share of hidden and underrated gems, I also have never reviewed on mal before but did now because of the very misleading reviews and rating.

Story

Monster in all fairness should only deserve a 5.5/10 at max overall, this anime didn't really deliver the hype and rating it is selling, the thing is the most important part of a psychological story is indeed the story which just turns out to be mediocre and deserves a 5/10.

The story starts really great in the first few ... episodes which deserve a 10/10 where a good person gets punished in life for doing the right thing however after after the first few episodes the story doesn't seem to go anywhere, many episodes feel like the plot isn't progressing one bit, in fact about 60% of the anime, the plot doesn't move or is affected. Monster is an anime which tries to be very psychological but it just ends up failing on that, the major psychological element is about a monster without a name which doesn't even make much sense. Animes like fmab, aot, naruto, code geass, vinland saga etc has much better philosophical elements in life than makr people question their own philosophical views in life unlike monster which just tries do that for the sake of it. I usually like most anime I watch even old school ones which some people may or may not prefer like cowboy bebop or great teacher onizuke (which I love) however monster is the only anime I've felt is genuinely mediocre apart from another one anime, please don't be fooled by the very high rating of this anime, most normies wouldn't have even heard of this anime and people who would have watched it are weeb who probably watched it because of weeb pressure and to expand their horizon and gave high rating for the sake of it. However looking deep into it, you would recognize the anime doesn't deserve the hype many other animes deserve. The story is also really slow however at the same time the ending is also extremely rushed.

Characters

The characters are really interesting and realistic and should get a 9/10 which translates to great characters. The protagonist is a good human with many internal conflicts due to his unforeseen circumstances and there are many well written side characters is also in the story and some characters tend to get irritating sometimes like one character breaks down every few episodes till the end of the story in the pursuit of truth which ends up not affecting the story and was a gigantic waste of time. The villian is a interesting character but the show overdramatizes the villain to being the next hitler and person going to end the world with his near superhuman intelligence and the climax of all this overdramatization ends up with a rushed ending with the villian pulling only pulling out a simple evil plan in the end. The only reason people would rate it high is because of the interesting characters and not the very mediocre and slow story which started out great but ended up disappointing. Please read my very honest review and not get swept away with calling this a masterpiece when it genuinely doesn't live up to it.