Although that statement doesn't summarize my thoughts on this anime, it represents a relative sense of disgust that plagued the whole shows that went away at some parts but were amplified at others. What boggles my mind though is that this came from studio Madhouse only 2 years away from Death Note. The reason I bring this up is that if Monster used what made Death Note good, it would have been way, way better. And yes I know that studios don't equal quality and it's more often than not tied to directors, but it worth comparing regardless due to them both being psychological thrillers thematically tied to the meaning of human life with around the same technical limitations.
So what do I like about Death Note? Well for one, the soundtrack. It's probably one of the best anime soundtracks due to how the songs are able to set the tone of a specific scene almost perfectly, along with the chord progressions that are connected to each character. If you have the time, go look up the soundtrack on YouTube, it makes for great studying music because it captures the mind games present in that show. Monster in comparison is pathetic. There is not one good song in its OST and I can only remember one song off the top of my head (Edit: I was writing this review, the I had to leave to go do something, and I forgot the song I was referencing here, DO YOU GET IT!?!?!). Another thing Death Note does well is the editing and animation. Of course, I could reference the incredible sakuga moments that people cite over and over again, but even in the bland scenes, we are treated to the close ups of their calm faces during tight dialogue scenes between L and Light. The use of color is also great when Light and L are put under red and blue light respectively. Monster has nothing of this sort. Almost every single scene is as bland as the next, and the editing and sound design actually made me laugh at how forced it was at times. I could tell when they had to add a forced THUD or WOOSH whenever they were going to reveal a dead body. But The colors were so drab and the art too mediocre that every death all felt the same to me. Arguably this is the same as Death Note, but their death was most of the time something they never made you feel for. People just died, there was often no emotion. In Monster though, there are some people we are expected to care about, but it didn't sell me on any of them. Though the worst thing about Monster by far is the voice acting. I have seen the dub, by my god does the sub suck ass. I think all you need to hear any of the characters scream and you can tell it's the most forced thing ever. Johan has a pretty decent voice, being relatively high pitched for a male, but that is one in like, 50ish characters. Death Note in comparison has decent voice acting, but you have to give props to Light's laugh, which is maniacal, and sell him as this psychopathic killer 100%. So basically what we learned is that everything that makes a good anime does not exist in Monster. It's not insulting like Berserk 2016, but it is definitely missing the necessary components to bring people into the story, especially for 74 episodes. I have a theory as to why the manga is rated too high on MAL because it's basically the anime, but it's a manga. What I mean by that is that many of the scenes are often 1 to 1 counterpart, which is often celebrated, but here I actually wish the animators went a little more off-script to breathe more life into these dull characters. But with nothing to lose, does the story of Monster hold up, kind of.
I will admit that the first 4 episodes actually are really good, which can be enough to carry people 70 more episodes. I am not one of those people. The conflict between Johan and Tenma was something I wanted to be focused on, but it takes another 20ish more episodes before we even see Johan. At that point, I knew this wasn't going to be a fast-paced thrill ride where each line of dialogue is equally important like Death Note. So it's too slow to be a fast-paced cat and mouse chase spanning the country of Germany, but it's also too interconnected to be view as like an episodic journey with no direct pinpoint. I will be honest that I spaced out at many segments because I was just so damn bored, but when I tuned in I realized that they didn't have one main destination and sorta just picked where they wanted to go in the episode they go there, or occasionally one episode before. What makes SBR such an exhilarating ride is that we know where Johnny and Gyro need to go to win the race and/or collect the corpse parts. Here it almost feels like Urasawa had no idea what he was writing, which is fine if you are writing a slice of life series with no direct end, or a journey with no destination type story, but not when you are creating a murder mystery crime drama. It feels like it wants to play both lanes, but fails both. I should give credit where credit is due, there are some episodes that I really enjoyed, mainly anything with Grimmer, that one episode about Tenma learning to shoot a gun with the guy and the adopted girl, the one where Nina comes in contact with an ex-assassin where they talk about the taste of sugar, and a couple of others. But when you have to go through exposition fill episode after exposition filled episode with characters that try and fail to impress me, I have to wonder what my final verdict should be for the series as a whole.
Though I feel the main crux of what irks me is the characters, after all, I did mention how some fail to hit, but mostly it's the sheer number of them that I find odd. I guess you can focus more on Germany and the people that fill it, which could be interpreted as the main theme of showing Tenma how different everyone is, and how they are all equal in death, but I wished they gave up a couple to flesh out our main cast a little bit more. Tenma literally feels like a blank slate, altruistic, but mainly uninteresting. We literally get like 1 episode to explain why this JAPANESE MAN is in GERMANY, ONE. You could call him a complement to the supporting cast, but that's debatable. I found Eva to be somewhat intriguing, but mostly annoying and was only redeemed by the existence of Martin. Dieter was extremely missed potential in the second half of the story, where he is basically sidelined and spends the rest of his time with Reichwein and Nina. But by far the worst handled characters were Nina and Johan. I can say they have some merit, in that they play with the main theme in an interesting way, but the way it's delivered is just appalling. I literally had to watch a YouTube video to even get what Johan was doing. You see he is someone playing a game with fate, cause he like is a nihilistic guy with no aspiration in the world or something. But unlike the other in 511 kinderhiem, he never found purpose in hedonistic pleasure because he has none or something. The point is, the story never gives us Johan's character straight. It's all through interpretation and allusions to Franz Bonapart's literature. That's is the literal worst way to make a character, because it makes the viewer ask why. Not why what happens in the story happens, but why Johan is doing what he is doing. That is the opposite of compelling or interesting. What would have been more interesting would Johan's motives be stated outright at the end of episode 4, and then we are more interested in the how of Johan's actions. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and we are left with an arguably uninteresting, but most definitely an uncompelling antagonist. Nina is tangentially similar in that she is focused on finding her past and figuring out who she is in comparison to Johan. This is again, the show in the laziest way possible with flashy editing and echoey sound effect that brings me out of the show completely. There are a couple of other characters I could mention, but I don't like the "Tenma can't be a murderer" line, it used way too often by way too many characters, who try to paint Tenma as the reincarnation of Jesus, which he kind of is in the narrative but that's not the point. In the end, the characters are a mixed, if not a negatively skewed bag.
Though if there is one thing that Monster actually does really well, it's fleshing out Germany in a believable fashion. I love every place they go being crafted somewhat differently, it's just a shame that all the buildings basically have the same color. The use of German foods and German traditions really makes it feel like a believable place, which most of the side characters fit into. It almost feels like Tenma is just going on a German tour across the country, meeting different people talking about what is important in their admittingly simple lives. It almost gears it towards a slice of life series on German cultures until Urasawa decides that Johan exists and either kills one of them, or the police arrive. Even with that point, you still can't say that much about it.
But the final nail in the coffin was the ending, which hinges on a plot point about Johan's mother established literally that episode that leaves it on a crappy cliffhanger that leaves no impressionable imprint. This especially hurts noting that the previous couple episodes were actually really good, even if Johan's reasoning for being there went against the way he was established in the 1st half of the series.
In conclusion, Monster is a slow, boring series that puts a lot of emphasis on broad concepts that have no thematic weight due to how they are delivered, or intrigue because it is coming from an already enigmatic figure. If the series cleaned up its act by playing its themes a little more straight, sticking either to a more chill or fast-paced script, and play to Madhouse's strengths, it could have been a 7, or even an 8/10 for me, but as it is, its a bad anime.
