Current Events > Monster (The Anime) *Spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

i rewatched this a week ago, finished yesterday. It was better in areas I thought were bad and worse in areas I thought were good. The really good? Tenma's side plots helping other people. It was strong characterization and I loved the pacing for the most part. The themes were also excellent which I'll discuss below. The really bad? Johan was written as a character smarter than the person writing it and when that happens a lot of tell and don't show happens. We are told a lot about Johan's manipulation but it just doesn't come off as anything more than just doing very thorough research on the people he is manipulating and being very attentive/kind.

That said the actual story of Johan is really well written. I noticed people were always confused about this show in reviews and youtube comments so I'd figure I would summarize as best I can what I interpreted. So here is the timeline:

Johan's mother is selected for the program to create nameless children who would be raised so coldly that they could be controlled as perfect leaders for whatever regime was manipulating them by Franz Bonaparte. They come when the children are very little and take only 1. The mother is dressing them both as the same girl because she was trying to hide that she had twins. It doesn't work because they find her anyway. They take Nina. Franz falls in love with the mom (probably why he chose her in the first place) and decides he must rescue Nina from the mansion. He poisons the wine and kills everyone in a giant part to celebrate the experiment telling Nina to run. She runs home tells Johan the entire story. Johan tries to take the horror away from his sister and takes the story as his own, believing it actually happened to him. This then causes a crisis in Johan's mind because he now believes his mother intentionally got rid of him and kept Nina. Johan and Nina both take Franz's advice and run away. Soon after, the twins are found on the road by general wolf. after wolf questions him, he decides to take johan to kinderheim 511, a followup experiment to the red rose readings franz had created before renouncing the entire project. essentially a project designed to turn children into emotionless beings capable of being perfect soldiers. johan manipulates the staff into killing each other by somehow convincing them that there are spies in the project (again this is a total tell/don't show) and that the children need to be killed as well. 4 children survive johan roberto grimmer and the devil's apprentice.

Johan escapes, finds his sister again and they are adopted by the lieberts. Johan, now completely changed as a child due to Kinderheim, kills the lieberts after believing the monster from the red rose mansion is back, and in a moment of clarity laughs and tells nina to shoot him because the monster inside of him from kinderheim is only going to grow bigger. Nina decides to shoot Johan rather than forgive convincing Johan that his mother and Nina both did not want him and that he is the nameless monster. The twins escape the hospital together and Johan begins killing everyone. At some point the twins are separated and Johan at age 15 becomes the leader of the underground bank and the story basically starts from there.

i love the theme of the books telling the story of the project and johan's motivations. the book of the man with big eyes and the man with a big mouth both ending in despair for them because they were not the demon pulling the strings and offering the trades. Johan wants to be that demon. really my biggest question is if this is all supposed to be a metaphor for the bible. They repeat the bible quote about the monster with 7 heads at the beginning and the the end with the drunk, and the end is all about forgiveness. i think tenma certainly has many qualities of the jesus in christiainity. a wanted criminal who travels the continent healing people and saving lives, i think there's definitely interest in looking for more comparisons there.

---

Great show!

---

One of my favorites of all time.

---