Hey guys what is up welcome back to my blog I’m so thankful that you guys took the time out of your day to read my blog post. Hope you all are safe and healthy. As someone who liked 20th Century Boys, I had to read Monster as well and I did and that was a good decision. Naoki Urasawa never disappoints us. MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a young Japanese brilliant brain surgeon, working at Eisler Memorial Hospital in Dusseldorf in West Germany. Tenma realizes how bad the bias in the hospital and in the treatment of patients is and is faced with a chance to move up the ladder or be true to his own values as a doctor. Picking the former, Tenma operates on a boy who has been shot in the head and through his brilliant skill is able to save the boy however in the process he ignored the mayor which causes him to lose his standing in the hospital. However the boy Tenma has saved is no ordinary boy, he is special in ways that Tenma never imagined when he saved him. Tenma later discovers that the boy he saved, Johan Libert has become a serial killer and he takes it upon himself to fix his mistake by taking down Johan. He sets off on a journey that will challenge his ideals, show him the atrocities that wars make people commit, and finally, the truth about the man named Johan.
Monster is a manga that can be easily spoiled simply by its characters because it has a vast cast and all of them come together to create the beautiful tale that is Monster. We have the main character, Tenzo Kenma, a confused man whose guilt leads him to save Johan’s life but that in turn makes him question the decision and his ideals as a doctor. His journey throughout shows us how his ideals are challenged and solidifed until he realizes that one act does not make the value wrong. There’s the sparingly appearing antagonist Johan, the monster who is cold, manipulative, and calculating, the opposite of Tenma in terms of ideology and yet also similar. The story shows us what makes him the monster that the other characters claim he is. Anna Libert, Johan’s sister, and a really interesting character throughout the series has her own struggles throughout the story. There’s also Inspector Lunge, the man with a good memory from the BKA who is another interesting character with really good development.
The manga has some amazing buildup which though slow all pays off really well in the end because the slow pacing lets the manga flesh out the characters and craft a good story. The suspense and mystery atmosphere is kept throughout the series as whenever each question is answered it opens up the door for a new question and it all weaves together at the end. The series makes full use of the setting in post-Cold War Germany by showing us racism, the impacts of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many many other things that make sure that you feel that the story is actually taking place in the setting that is shown and not some fantasy version of it. With the vast cast, the story is never carried by one character, Tenma and Johan do not always need to be on screen to carry the story forward since we can see the story from the perspective of a character we have never seen before and Urasawa will make it interesting while making us connect with the character and slowly weaving them in with our main cast. The slow pacing of the story is definitely something that will bug impatient people and the art is also somewhat decent which I think will be the only problems with the manga because the thing best about a thrilling mystery story is that it has no noticeable plot holes.
Are the lives of all people equal? This is the question that is shown at the very beginning of the series and is a very beautiful question because both the protagonist and the antagonist of the series answer it though very differently, if you don’t want spoilers then skip ahead. Johan says that all lives are equal in death while Tenma would say that all lives are priceless and hence equal. This difference and yet similarity between the characters is something that I found beautiful there are also other things in the series that will catch your attention and make you think. These different themes are what makes Monster so interesting.
Standing at 162 chapters, Monster is a manga with an epic finale that makes us understand each and every character deeply, ties up the different plot points, and in the end, provides a somewhat open ending after the epic finale. Monster is a solid 9/10 which only falls short because of the pacing which may bore some readers, other than that I would dare to call Monster, flawless.
So that is it for this post guys hope you got some value from this. Thank you guys for reading to the end hit me up on Instagram and Twitter with your thoughts and if you have any ideas on what I should write about. Stay safe. Thank you again and I’ll see you all next week.
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