Once in a while, a masterpiece comes along and completely blows you away, and then at end of it, you sit down and wonder will you ever get to see something like it again. Monster that one of a kind masterpieces not frequently seen in any medium in this day and age. Its unconventional storytelling, combined with its excellent direction and fully realised characters puts it high up it the echelon of top animes.
The Story:
Doctor Tenma is a Japanese brain surgeon residing in Germany. He has everything a man could ask for: A purpose-filled career, a promising future ahead, and he even managed to snag the hospital Director's daughter. One day he was thrown into a moral quandary when he met Johan, a young boy who was shot in the head. Johan's surviving on a thin thread, but hospital's political bias is threatening his very existence when the Town Mayor,who requires immediate surgery, was brought in shortly after.
Now this is the part where the films wonderfully displays the notion of choice, the value of life and our constant search for meaning in it. Haunted by his guilt of abandoning a patient for a more illustrious one, Tenma decided to operate on Johan instead, and indirectly causing the death of the Town Mayor. As it it turns out, the boy would grow up to be a cold-blooded serial murderer rampaging across Europe in his crime spree. And Doctor Tenma, now washed up and a fugitive framed for his crimes would embark on the mission to end the boy's life himself.
Without exposing much of the plot itself, the whole anime span decades from Post WW2 all the way to the turn of the century. The plot is very deep and rich and it would require some time for the viewer to digest it completely. For those who are expecting a light-hearted anime, it would be like a punch in the gut and it is relentless. Beneath its plot of a simple cat-and-mouse between hero and villain lies a deeper convoluted plot that exposes the dark an inhumane side of human nature, government conspiracies, and also foreboding some religious prophesies. It brings forth unpleasant issues that people hide deep inside their closet of skeletons and it delves deep into the abyss of human depravity.
The characters:
Tenma and Johan are two opposite sides of the coin, each representing one side in the age-old debate of good vs evil. However the anime blurs this line. He is trained to save lives, but can he take it away? What would make the murderer of a murder? As we follow Tenma in his travels around Central Europe in hot pursuit of Johan, we also experience Tenma's personal struggles. As bit by bit, he uncovers Johan's dark past, we also sink deeper into Johan's twisted psyche.
Another impressive thing about this anime is how it draws its character influences from classic Hollywood film noirs. We encounter many corrupt characters, scheming politicians, washed-up detectives, the anti-hero etc.
Every character in the show have their own cross to bear, some of them lasting only an episode or two, and despite Monster's wide range of casts, many of them managed to leave a poignant impression behind. It is definitely one of the shows with the most fully realised characters I've ever seen.
Settings/sound:
Generally a very masterfully drawn anime. The layout and architecture all accurate portrayals of Central Europe to depict its culture and atmosphere. I like that the anime decided to adopt a film noir visual style. Dark shadows, low key lighting, claustrophobic spaces, rainy, damp streets. It all brings a very dark and gloomy settings to it and I loved it. It helps that the anime is set in the final years of Cold War Europe where the air of cynicism left hanging in the air. The sounds are all typically film noir with the usual downbeat jazzy music and the use of silence when it needed it be. Brought a very melancholic feel to it.
10/10
