Anime Review: Monster (Ending Analysis - What happened in the end?)

I'm sure everyone knows of Monster, especially if you are a psychological anime fan, but like the bonobo I am, I always watch it when the hype already died down. Nevertheless Monster is still a classic, and should always be something that you can recommend to your friends.

Monster is essentially a cat-mouse game. Our protagonist Dr Tenma, a genius/gifted surgeon, decides to save a random young boy instead of the mayor, which causes him to lose the top job in the hospital and losing his girlfriend in the process. He has essentially lost everything and laments the ones who scoffs at him in the hospital. Those individuals are then mysteriously killed and 9 years later, Tenma is eventually promoted to the top job.

However, nothing good ever comes from such mysterious killings, where we eventually see our antagonist Johan, who was the boy he saved 9 years ago. As a result, Tenma is then prosecuted by the police and Inspector Lunge, a character who I really liked seeing because of his quirkiness. After this, it's just Tenma trying to kill Johan with the help of Johan's twin sister, Nina.

What is a Monster?

What this series excels at is how we can attribute any of these characters as "monsters". After all, the labels "monsters" and "heros" are just social constructs, and everyone's definition of them are not the same. For me, the most interesting aspect is labelling who are the monsters in this series - the obvious ones are the people responsible for creating "monsters" in Kinderheim 511. I think it's safe to rule out the other characters other than Johan and his mother. Those two are interesting to debate about because it all depends on perspectives. Let's analyse Johan and Nina's mother. From Johan's perspective, his mother was a monster, because she casted away Nina to Kinderheim 511, even the mother apparently wanted to cast away Johan. This is all seen in a "dream" by Dr Tenma near the end of the story. 

Now let's talk about Johan. At first glance, it's easy to attribute him as a monster. He ticks all the criteria - he murders innocent people among evil people, no regards for others, etc. But was he always a monster? Of course not. However, even though he has done atrocious things, his main goal is to kill the people responsible for Kinderheim 511, the ones who subjected him to cruel experimentation. Is that a "monstrous act"? There's no clear cut answer because any answer is a plausible reasoning for what he does. One can argue that he is "executing justice" for himself, his sister and the other kids, whilst one can also argue that killing the criminal in cold blood makes you just as bad as the criminal.

The Ending

The ending of Monster is an open-ended scene where we see the bed of Johan empty, and I feel that the author purposely did that because all the possible explanations of what happened are all plausible. From what I have gathered online, I saw three possible explanations for what happened in the ending. The first is that Johan is dead, and that Dr Tenma couldn't save him again, and this makes sense because he was shot in the head. The second is that Johan was arrested to atone for his crimes. A very plausible explanation of what happened if he was saved by Dr Tenma. The third explanation is that Johan escaped once again, and is back to killing since there is definitely some survivors who were responsible for Kinderheim 511 (only the big names were dead). All of these are equally plausible and there's no right or wrong.

Overall, Monster allows us to be the "jury" and decide who are the monsters in the anime, and that's makes this anime enjoyable and interesting to watch. It makes us think and allows us to debate about our decisions. It is blatantly obvious why Monster is a classic, and whilst it is a "mature anime", I feel that it is still suitable for teenagers to watch it since they are at that age where they start to have judgements. As CJ Roberts would say:

"monsters aren't born, they're made.."

Overall Score: 9.5/10

Story: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

Art: 8/10

Sound: 8/10

Enjoyment: 10/10