I'm German and roughly of the same age as Johann/Nina are in the show, and while growing up in Western Germany, I'm familiar with the former GDR trough a lot of visits to relatives on the other side of the wall (before the end of the cold war, too). Which means the show's main era shown are my college years, and the peaceful world of the German middle class. Please take it from somebody so close to the period piece I see Monster as: the degree they hit the spot and the dilligent details woven into the show are breathtaking. I could write multiple pages to just cover everything, but let me give just two examples. A Graffiti seen on the wall of Kinderheim 511 during a camera movement is that of German avant-garde band "Einstürzende Neubauten", who were extremely popular in the independent music scene from the mid 80s to mid 90s. Another is the whiskey brand "Racke Rauchzart" used as a plot device at some point, which is as German as Sauerkraut and I expected to be unknown outside Germany. And it doesn't stop there, from the design of the landline telephones of the era up to the sound of a 1990s' hard disk during boot - they get it right. I had never considered that this level of detail would be possible for anything made in Japan. Nothing is perfect, though, there are two flaws I found, which isn't much for the total run-time. The first is a weather map shown on TV, which has Germany in the 1937 borders pretty much. Ouchy, we don't do that here anymore. The second is the mix of German and English when they show newspaper clips. When German is used in the show, it's proper (except for the phonetic J-butchering, of course), but at times it just isn't German.
Here is a speculative dig into the rabbit hole the Neubauten reference may actually be. Einstürzende Neubauten toured Japan in 1985 and even made a concert film with director Sogo Ishii there. So it's not unlikely some staff member of the "Monster" team was aware of their work. An association I had is a song on their 2nd studio album "Zeichnungen des Patienten O. T." (1983, "Drawings of Patient O.T.), which is based on artwork by real-world asylum inmate O.T. pubished by his psychatrist. In particular, there is that song "Hospitalische Kinder / Engel Der Vernichtung" (Hospitalized Child / Angel of Annihilation), which has lyrics with stunning parallels to Monster's plot.
Maybe that was the monster
Yes, that could be
But perhaps not
Next please!
(...)
Locked in dormitory dreams
praying to a new angel
(...)
...and I will wait no longer
until God's infinite testicles
at last go up in flames
Angel of annihilation
Angel of annihilation
Maybe I'm overinterpreting here. Surely Monster wasn't made because of this song, but the band's logo sprayed on Kinderheim 511's wall may be more than just an accident.
The plot kept me at the edge of my seat, and I won't summarize it here. If you are interested you'll find many reviews doing it. The story telling uses many modern techniques, such as POV narration, unreliable narration, cliffhangers, and a lot of cuts right before a reveal. The latter is somehwat overdone, but hey, this is a 23 minute episode thriller. Guess it comes with the business.
Just let me give the elevator version: Death Note for adults. Production values for art, animation fluidity, and sound are high and consistent over the full run-time. From a perfect rating I deduct 2 for sound and animation each, because while both are high quality, they do not stand out and are not the focus. I substract another point for enjoyment, as some arcs, especially in the first third, are just a bit too slow sometimes. Still, this is one of the best anime shows I've seen so far, an easy overall (10/10).
