Monster: A Mature, Intelligent and Brilliant Psychological Anime Thriller

Okay, I'm going to talk about a little something different today. I want to talk about an anime that I've watched which is part of the reason I haven't posted anything LA Noire yet (by the way, my review of it should be up next week). What does this have to do with video games? Well, nothing. This is rare exception and probably not going to happen all that often. But I really want people to see this series as I absolutely loved EVERY minute of this series.

Monster is a brilliant psychological thriller, both mature and thought-provoking, with remarkable writing, pacing and characterization. It's an incredible character study into the minds of a total psychopath, the titular monster of the story, as well as an extremely complex jigsaw puzzle plot where little pieces of information are given out each episode to create a very addicting series.

The series is both very dark and gritty but also can be very uplifting...sometimes. It's not a series that settles just with using different story elements but with deconstructing and analyzing them for the audience while asking tough questions and leaving them to the audience to answer.

Let me get this out of the way real quick: I'm not the biggest anime/manga fan for two reasons. First I'm not a big fan of the art style that I usually see with anime, the over-the-top style just puts me off. To be fair, I'm not going to make a judgment on all anime because I've never gotten into that much. The other problem is that a lot of anime that I've seen seems to request some knowledge of Japanese culture which I do not have.

Monster doesn't have either of these. It's animation has a foreign feel to it but is nice and subtle. It's main themes are also universal, ones that anyone can understand no matter where they are from.

So without giving away too many spoilers, I want to go over why this series is so good and why should go check it out now.

STORY

The basic set-up for the story is outstanding and part of what drew me in within just four episodes. Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a brilliant Japanese neurosurgeon in Germany who eventually has a pair of twins, Johan and Anna Liebert are brought in. Their parents were murdered and one of the twins, Johan, was shot in the head and is barely alive. Dr. Tenma manages to save his life but the mayor, who had a cerebral hemorrhage of some kind dies in his place.

His superiors are angry that he sacrificed the mayor to save some kid and tell him that his career is ruined. Eventually his superiors are mysteriously murdered and the case is never solved. Fast forward nine years later and it's eventually revealed to the doctor that the boy he saved nine years before, Johan, not only murdered his superiors when he was ten years old but also has murdered dozens of people since.

The doctor is accused of another murder that Johan commits forcing him to go on the run from the law while at the same time attempt to kill Johan and uncover his mysterious past to see what turned him into the sociopath he is. To this end, he joins up with a few others including Johan's compassionate and kind-hearted twin sister who is now going by the name of Nina and the story unfolds from there.

It's an incredibly well-plotted story with excellent pacing which gives a good amount of screen-time to every character. Not one character who plays any level of importance is just a two-dimensional cardboard cutout and all have intriguing backstories and motivations. Mixed with the way it slowly gives information about Johan and the other characters and it makes it one of the more alluring series I remember watching.

The story has many themes and while it's violent and definitely not for kids, it has some very family friendly themes. Its primary ones are forgiveness and atonement and it works those into the story exceptionally well through other characters who try to make up for past misdeeds. It also carries the message that "no matter how f'ed up your life has been, you can always pick up the pieces and start anew."

The series also deconstructs and analyzes many of its story and character elements. One of the most notable is the analysis of the psychopath through Johan Liebert and it questions whether any person is beyond redemption. It also analyzes the the concept of the pure hero and asks if their deeds always make everything better or if they can cause more harm. There are many more and it generally leaves it up to you, as the viewer, to decide the answer to these questions.

The story isn't perfect, but then again no story is. There are plotlines that are brought and resolved offscreen which makes for some awkward moments if you really pay attention. There are also some characters who are very important at one point who just seem to nearly drop off the face of the earth later with very minor appearances. This is okay, but it can still be a little disappointing. Finally, it can take a few episodes to really get into. That's not a big problem though, and this "flaw" is something that was present in The Wire, arguably the greatest television series in history.

As for whether you should watch the anime or read the manga, I haven't read the manga though from what I've heard the anime is almost 100% faithful to the manga, with just minor differences in where the scenes are placed in the storyboard. Other than that, they are almost identical. I personally prefer to watch when the similarity is that close so I did the anime.

CHARACTERS

There are a LOT of characters in this series and almost all of them have incredible depth to them and play importance in the plot. So I'm going to shorten this down by just talking about the three most notable characters: Dr. Kenzo Tenma, Johan Liebert, and his twin sister Nina Fortner (the difference in last name is complicated).

Usually the pure and nearly perfect hero is a sign of lazy writing and a boring character. Here, it works exceptionally well.

First up is Dr. Kenzo Tenma. He is the hero of the story, a brilliant neurosurgeon and most importantly an idealist who believes that every human can do good and redeem themselves of past sins. In most stories and under poor writers, he would have been a disaster. He is essentially a nearly perfect human being who always stops to help everyone in need even if it causes him suffering. This is usually the sign of a lazy writer who can't write a multi-dimensional and interesting hero.

However, in this case, it works exceptionally well for a few reasons. First, he's a deconstruction of that type of hero as the series asks if his compulsion to help/save everyone he can and his unwillingness to shoot just about anyone, even the villain just makes things worse in the long run.

The second reason is that he works as part of a dichotomy between him and the relentlessly evil Johan, a battle between idealism and cynicism with Tenma representing idealism. The atrocities that Johan commits as the ultimate evil are contrasted with the amount of great deeds that Tenma does as the ultimate good.

This makes for many of the uplifting moments in the series as he consistently proves that humans can always do the right thing and it's never too late to atone and it's never to late for those who have been through horrible suffering to pick up the pieces in their lives and keep on going. With an evil as great as Johan, it's only natural to pit it against something as good as Dr. Tenma.

Don't let this innocent face fool you. Johan Liebert may be the most evil and heinous fictional character ever created and is incredibly terrifying.

Next up there's the title character, Johan Liebert and good lord does he live up to the title of Monster. Don't let his innocent face fool you. Johan Liebert may be the best looking character on the show but he is, to put it simply, evil incarnate and may very well be the most evil fictional character ever conceived. If you can name a fictional character more evil than Johan...you know what, don't even try. I think that the only character who might match him in terms of evilness is Judge Holden from Blood Meridian but no one is MORE evil than Johan. He is essentially every terrible quality of human beings packed into one unspeakably evil character.

He's basically a combination of the Joker from The Dark Knight, Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men and Hannibal Lecter. He has the philosophy of the Joker that lives are worthless so who cares if he kills them but the utter emotionlessness of Anton. He gets no joy from what he does, he just does it. And finally he has the charm and politeness of Hannibal Lecter making him a master manipulator especially due to his incredible intelligence.

Basically he has no true motivations for what he does, he just does it. This is part of what makes him so terrifying and when I say terrifying, I mean he will make you crap your pants MANY times throughout the 74 episodes. Some of his horrific atrocities will make you cringe especially when he manipulates children (yes, not even children are safe from his horrible deeds). Yes his incredible manipulation skills is another aspect that makes him so terrifying. He uses guns every so often but his favorite thing is to break people psychologically and get them to do themselves in or murder others for him (even if they do, he'll probably just kill them later).

He could have been a disaster as a villain with having no motivations and being so evil but just like Judge Holden from Blood Meridian the writers made it work. His mysterious past is the driving force of the story and while he may be evil incarnate comparable to the Devil and Antichrist, he's not simple-minded and has a complex psychology and plans. The entire story is primarily about the battle between his point of view and Tenma's. Idealism, represented by Tenma, versus Cynicism, represented by Johan.

Nina is practically the polar opposite to her monstrous and amoral twin brother, kind and compassionate, the yin to his yang so to speak.

The last of the three main cogs in this machine is Johan's twin sister Nina Fortner aka Anna Liebert. Nina is essentially the yin to Johan's yang, a kind and compassionate character who may be a little more to the gray side than Tenma is still idealistic despite all of the horrible things that happen to her, both in backstory and in the series itself.

Along with Tenma and one other character, Nina is one of the few people that Johan refuses to kill. His relationship with her is EXTREMELY complicated and to talk about it here would both take up WAY to much time and would ruin the series for you. While he would never hurt her physically though, there are other ways he damages her and he seeks to corrupt her the same way he does Tenma, to turn her into himself.

Nina is a fascinating character and seeing her attempt to overcome the enormous heartbreak that she goes through in the series is one of the more rewarding parts of it. She's also very intelligent and resourceful, however her weakened mental fortitude holds her back sometimes but at least there's a good excuse as to why she needs a lot of help, rather than her just being a "weak woman."

She takes it upon herself to try to kill her brother because she doesn't want Tenma to have to corrupt himself by taking the life of another human being. Her story in the series both has probably the most heartbreak but it's a very well done character arc.

VISUAL AND SOUND

The animation in the series is great. The cast of characters is what is known as a cast of snowflakes. In other words, like snowflakes, no characters look exactly alike and therefore the series makes each character feel more important rather than just cardboard cutouts of other characters.

The visual appearance of the scenes varies depending on what it's mood is. Happy scenes are bright and colorful. Almost ANY scene dealing with Johan is dark and gritty, with an almost film noir feel to them. I love it and it's one of the reasons his scenes are some of the best in the series.

Only one thing is equal for all. And that is death.

As for the sound, the music is outstanding with a fitting score for each situation. Once again, happy scenes have fitting pieces, while scenes dealing with Johan or his followers have very atmospheric and VERY creepy pieces that make him even more unsettling than he already is, and that's saying something.

However, I will say there is one that I don't like and it's the piece when they show the "To Be Continued" screen. This is right after they show clips from the next episode (the music there is fine by the way) and it sounds like an infomercial and is very offputting when you see it played while they're replaying a clip of a man getting murdered.

As for the voice acting, let me start by saying that for the first episode I watched both the subtitled version and the dub and found them to be exactly the same so for the rest of the series I watched the dubbed. The voice acting is excellent in the dubbed version with some really great and well-known voice acting names pitching into the series.

CONCLUSION

Don't expect me to make a habit of writing about non-video game related items on this blog. If I do, I'll just start a new blog connected to this one. I wrote about this because it was something special. I loved it so much that I just had to write up about it.

Almost everything about this series was a sign of incredible execution. The characters are very complex and interesting, the pacing is great and keeps the series moving, the jigsaw puzzle plot makes it very addicting, and the series makes it a priority to deconstruct and analyze its different story elements rather than just using them.

If you haven't seen this series, do so. They are all available on Hulu, at least dubbed. About 50 or so episodes are available subtitled but you won't miss out on anything if you watch the dub. It's a remarkable series that deserves a bigger audience and more praise. So go check it out.