''Monster'' (stylized as 🢒
M⊙NS†ER🢐) is a Japanese
manga
Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
series written and illustrated by
Naoki Urasawa
is a Japanese manga artist and musician. He has been drawing manga since he was four years old, and for most of his professional career has created two series simultaneously. The stories to many of these were co-written in collaboration with his ...
. It was published by
Shogakukan
is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, comics (manga), non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.
Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hit ...
in their
''seinen'' manga magazine ''
Big Comic Original
is a Japanese ''seinen'' manga magazine published by Shogakukan, aimed at an older adult and mostly male audience. It is a sister magazine to ''Big Comic'', the biggest difference being that it goes on sale twice a month in the weeks ''Big Comic ...
'' between 1994 and 2001, with the chapters collected in eighteen ''
tankōbon
is the Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...
'' volumes. The story revolves around
Kenzo Tenma
The manga series ''Monster'' features a cast of characters created by Naoki Urasawa. The story revolves around Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese surgeon living in Germany whose life enters turmoil after getting himself involved with Johan Liebert, one of hi ...
, a Japanese surgeon living in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
, Germany whose life enters turmoil after getting himself involved with
Johan Liebert
The manga series ''Monster (manga), Monster'' features a cast of characters created by Naoki Urasawa. The story revolves around #Kenzo Tenma, Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese surgeon living in Germany whose life enters turmoil after getting himself involve ...
, one of his former patients, who is revealed to be a dangerous serial killer.
Urasawa later wrote and illustrated the novel ''Another Monster'', a story detailing the events of the manga from an investigative reporter's point of view, which was published in 2002. The manga was adapted by
Madhouse into a seventy-four episode
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
television series, which aired on
Nippon TV
JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...
from April 2004 to September 2005. The manga and anime were both licensed by
Viz Media
VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
for English releases in North America, and the anime was broadcast on several television channels. In 2013,
Siren Visual
This is a list of anime industry companies involved in the production or distribution of anime.
Japan-based companies
Animation studios
There are over 500 animation studios in Japan. Below are those notable enough to have an article.
* 3Hz
...
licensed the anime for Australia.
''Monster'' was Urasawa's first work to receive international acclaim and success; the manga has sold over 20 million copies, making it one of the
best-selling manga series
The following is a list of the best-selling Japanese manga series to date in terms of the number of collected ''tankōbon'' volumes sold. All series in this list have at least 20 million copies in circulation. This list is limited to Japanese ...
in history. The manga has won several awards, and its anime adaptation has been called one of the best of its decade.
Plot
Dr.
Kenzo Tenma
The manga series ''Monster'' features a cast of characters created by Naoki Urasawa. The story revolves around Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese surgeon living in Germany whose life enters turmoil after getting himself involved with Johan Liebert, one of hi ...
is a young Japanese
brain surgeon
Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the Human ...
, working at Eisler Memorial Hospital in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
,
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
. Tenma is dissatisfied with the political bias of the hospital in treating patients, and seizes the chance to change things after a massacre brings fraternal twins
Johan Johan
* Johan (given name)
* Johan (film), ''Johan'' (film), a 1921 Swedish film directed by Mauritz Stiller
* Johan (band), a Dutch pop-group
** Johan (album), ''Johan'' (album), a 1996 album by the group
* Johan Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Nunav ...
and
Anna Liebert
The manga series ''Monster'' features a cast of characters created by Naoki Urasawa. The story revolves around Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese surgeon living in Germany whose life enters turmoil after getting himself involved with Johan Liebert, one of hi ...
into the hospital. Johan has a gunshot wound to his head, and Anna mutters about killing; Tenma operates on Johan instead of the mayor, who arrived later. Johan is saved, but Mayor Roedecker dies; Tenma loses his social standing. Director Heinemann and the other doctors in Tenma's way are mysteriously murdered, and both children disappear from the hospital. The police suspect Tenma, but they have no evidence and can only question him.
Nine years later, Tenma is Chief of Surgery at Eisler Memorial. After saving a criminal named Adolf Junkers, Junkers mutters about a "monster." Tenma returns with a clock for Junkers, he finds the guard in front of Junkers' room dead and Junkers gone. Following the trail to the construction site of a half-finished building near the hospital, Tenma finds Junkers held at gunpoint. Junkers warns him against coming closer and pleads with him to run away. Tenma refuses, and the man holding the gun is revealed to be Johan Liebert. Despite Tenma's attempts to reason with him, Johan shoots Junkers. Telling Tenma he could never kill the man who saved his life, he walks off into the night, with Tenma too shocked to stop him.
Tenma is suspected by the police, particularly
BKA Inspector Lunge, and he tries to find more information about Johan. He soon discovers that the boy's sister is living a happy life as an adopted daughter; the only traces of her terrible past are a few nightmares. Tenma finds Anna, who was subsequently named Nina by her foster parents, on her birthday; he keeps her from Johan, but is too late to stop him from murdering her foster parents. Tenma eventually learns the origins of this "monster": from the former
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
's attempt to use a secret
orphanage
An orphanage is a Residential education, residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the Childcare, care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parent ...
known as "511 Kinderheim" to create perfect soldiers through psychological reprogramming, to the author of children's books used in a
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
experiment in the former
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
. Tenma learns the scope of the atrocities committed by this "monster", and vows to fix the mistake he made by saving Johan's life.
Production
Urasawa revealed that he pitched the idea of writing a manga about the medical field around 1986, but could tell his editor was not enjoying the idea. So he jokingly proposed a story about women's judo, and that lead to his first solo work ''
Yawara!
''Yawara!'' (also stylized as ''YAWARA!'') is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa. It was serialized in ''Big Comic Spirits'' from 1986 to 1993, with the chapters collected into 29 ''tankōbon'' volumes by pu ...
'' (1986–1993).
The original idea for ''Monster'' came from the 1960s American television series ''
The Fugitive'', which had a strong impact on Urasawa when he saw it at the age of eight. In the story, a doctor is wrongfully convicted of murder, but escapes and searches for the real killer while on the run from the police.
He said that his editor was adamant that the series would not do well, and tried to stop him from creating it.
The Japanese medical industry was strongly influenced by the professional practices in Germany, thus it seemed natural to the author to set ''Monster'' in Germany.
Post-war
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
Germany was chosen so that the
neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
movement could be included in the story.
When he started the semimonthly ''Monster'' at the end of 1994, Urasawa was already writing ''
Happy!'' weekly and continued to serialize both at the same time. When ''Happy!'' ended in 1999, he began the weekly ''
20th Century Boys
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa. It was originally serialized in Shogakukan's ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Big Comic Spirits'' from 1999 to 2006, with the 249 chapters published into 22 ''tankōbon'' ...
''. Writing both ''Monster'' and ''20th Century Boys'' at the same time caused him to be briefly hospitalized for exhaustion.
Media
Manga
Written and illustrated by
Naoki Urasawa
is a Japanese manga artist and musician. He has been drawing manga since he was four years old, and for most of his professional career has created two series simultaneously. The stories to many of these were co-written in collaboration with his ...
, ''Monster'' was serialized in
Shogakukan
is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, comics (manga), non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.
Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hit ...
's
''seinen'' manga magazine ''
Big Comic Original
is a Japanese ''seinen'' manga magazine published by Shogakukan, aimed at an older adult and mostly male audience. It is a sister magazine to ''Big Comic'', the biggest difference being that it goes on sale twice a month in the weeks ''Big Comic ...
'' from December 1994 to December 2001. Shogakukan collected its 162 chapters into 18 ''
tankōbon
is the Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...
'' volumes released from 30 June 1995 to 28 February 2002.
Takashi Nagasaki
is a Japanese author, manga writer and former editor of manga. He started his professional career at Shogakukan in 1980 and worked as an editor on the publisher's various manga magazines, including as editor-in-chief of ''Big Comic Spirits'' ...
is credited as "co-producer" of the manga's story.
''Monster'' received a nine-volume ''
kanzenban'' re-release between 30 January and 29 August 2008.
''Monster'' was licensed in North America by
Viz Media
VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
, who published all 18 volumes between 21 February 2006 and 16 December 2008.
They released the ''kanzenban'' version of the series, titled ''Monster: The Perfect Edition'', between 15 July 2014 and 19 July 2016.
Anime
The manga series was adapted into an anime by
Madhouse, which aired between 7 April 2004 and 28 September 2005 on
Nippon TV
JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...
. Directed by
Masayuki Kojima
is a Japanese animator, storyboard artist, and director, best known for directing the acclaimed anime series ''Monster'' and ''Made in Abyss''. He was born on March 11, 1961 in Yamanashi, Yamanashi, Japan.
Career
Kojima first got his start in the ...
and written by Tatsuhiko Urahata, it features original character designs by long-time
Studio Ghibli
is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Koganei, Tokyo."Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment". ''Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment''. Retrieved 2020-12-14. It is best known for its animated feature films, and ha ...
animator
Kitarō Kōsaka
is a Japanese animator and film director.
Profile
He began his career in 1979 with the studio Oh! Production. He left the studio in 1986 to become a freelance, and soon went on to work on numerous projects as a key and supervising animation d ...
which were adapted for the anime by Shigeru Fujita.
The anime includes an instrumental theme by the Chilean folk music group
Quilapayún
Quilapayún () are a folk music group from Chile and among the longest lasting and most influential ambassadors of the ''Nueva Canción Chilena'' movement and genre. Formed during the mid-1960s, the group became inseparable with the revolution th ...
, "Transiente", which originally appeared on their 1984 album ''Tralalí Tralalá''.
David Sylvian
David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...
was commissioned to write the ending theme, "For the Love of Life", on which he collaborated with Haishima Kuniaki. In the cover notes to the official soundtrack he said, "I was attracted to the ''Monster'' material by the moral dilemma faced by its central character. The calm surface of the music giving way to darker undercurrents, signifying the conscience of the lead protagonist and the themes of morality, fate, resignation, and free will."
An English dub of ''Monster'' was produced by Salami Studios for
Viz Media
VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
, which had the North American license to the anime. The show aired on
Syfy
Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...
's Ani-Mondays with two episodes back-to-back each Monday night at 11:00 pm EST, beginning 12 October 2009, as well as on its sister network
Chiller
A chiller is a machine that removes heat from a liquid coolant via a vapor-compression refrigeration, vapor-compression, adsorption refrigeration, or absorption refrigerator, absorption refrigeration cycles. This liquid can then be circulated th ...
.
A DVD box set of the series, containing the first 15 episodes was released 8 December 2009. However, due to low sales of the first box set, Viz decided not to continue releasing the remaining episodes on DVD and later dropped the license. ''Monster'' began airing on Canada's
Super Channel on 15 March 2010, and on the
Funimation Channel
Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializes ...
on 3 April 2010 on weekends at 12:30 am. The series is also available digitally from several internet retailers.
Siren Visual
This is a list of anime industry companies involved in the production or distribution of anime.
Japan-based companies
Animation studios
There are over 500 animation studios in Japan. Below are those notable enough to have an article.
* 3Hz
...
licensed the series for Australia in 2013, and released it in five DVD volumes beginning in November 2013.
The credit sequence features illustrations from the book ''Obluda, Která Nemá Své Jméno'' (The Monster Who Didn't Have A Name) by Emil Scherbe which was published by Shogakukan on 30 September 2008.
Live-action adaptations
In 2005, it was announced that
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after acq ...
acquired the rights for an American live-action film adaptation of ''Monster''.
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-nominated screenwriter
Josh Olson
Joshua R. Olson is an American screenwriter and podcaster, known for writing the 2005 film ''A History of Violence''.
Career
Olson wrote and directed the low budget horror film ''Infested'' in 2002. He wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film ' ...
(''
A History of Violence
''A History of Violence'' is a 2005 action thriller film directed by David Cronenberg and written by Josh Olson. It is an adaptation of the 1997 graphic novel of the same title by John Wagner and Vince Locke. The film stars Viggo Mortensen, Ma ...
'') was hired to write the screenplay. No new information on the film was released since.
In 2013, it was revealed that
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro Gómez (; born October 9, 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and actor. He directed the Academy Award–winning fantasy films ''Pan's Labyrinth'' (2006) and ''The Shape of Water'' (2017), winning the Academy Awards for Be ...
and American
premium television
Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but ...
network
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
were collaborating on a pilot for a live-action TV series based on ''Monster''. Co-executive producer
Stephen Thompson (''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'' and ''
Sherlock'') was writing the pilot, while del Toro was to direct it and be an executive producer alongside
Don Murphy
Don Murphy (born April 1967) is an American film producer who produced ''Natural Born Killers'', ''Real Steel'', '' Splice'' and many other films, including ''Transformers'' and '' Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen''.
Personal background
B ...
and
Susan Montford
Susan Montford is a Scottish filmmaker living in Los Angeles. She has produced, written and directed movies that range from cult hits to blockbusters.
She was born in Glasgow, Scotland. She is related to the Scottish football commentator Arthur ...
. In 2015, del Toro told Latino-Review that HBO had passed on the project and that they were in the process of pitching to other studios.
Reception
Manga
''Monster'' has been critically acclaimed. It won an Excellence Prize in the Manga division at the first
Japan Media Arts Festival
The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held since 1997 by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. The festival begins with an open competition and culminates with the awarding of several prizes and an exhibition.
Based on judging by ...
in 1997, the 46th
Shogakukan Manga Award
The is one of Japan's major manga awards, and is sponsored by Shogakukan, Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga and features candidates from a number of publishers. It is the oldest manga award in Japan, being ...
in the General category in 2001,
Best Series at the
Lucca Comics Awards in 2004, and Grand Prize at the 3rd
Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize
Named after Osamu Tezuka, the is a yearly manga prize awarded to manga artists or their works that follow the Osamu Tezuka manga approach founded and sponsored by Asahi Shimbun. The prize has been awarded since 1997, in Tokyo, Japan.
Current ...
in 2005.
YALSA
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), established in 1957, is a division of the American Library Association. YALSA is a national association of librarians, library workers and advocates whose mission is to expand the capacity of l ...
placed it on their 2007 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. Viz Media's English release was nominated several times for
Eisner Awards
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...
, twice in the category
Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan (2007 and 2009) and three times in Best Continuing Series (2007, 2008, 2009). In 2009, when
Oricon
, established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...
conducted a poll asking which manga series the Japanese people wanted to see adapted into live-action, ''Monster'' came in fifth. At the 2009 Industry Awards held by the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation, the organizers of
Anime Expo
Anime Expo, abbreviated AX, is an American anime convention held in Los Angeles, California and organized by the non-profit Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA). The convention is traditionally held annually on the first we ...
, ''Monster'' won the award for Best Drama Manga. The ''Monster'' manga has over 20 million copies in circulation.
Writing for ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'',
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
winner
Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz (; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was fiction editor at ''Boston Review''. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedo ...
praised the manga, proclaiming "Urasawa is a national treasure in Japan, and if you ain't afraid of picture books, you'll see why".
About.com
Dotdash Meredith (formerly About.com) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, l ...
's Deb Aoki called ''Monster'' a multi-layered suspense series and satisfying mystery that stands up to repeat readings, although it is sometimes a "little hard to follow". Reviewing the ''Monster'' manga for ''
Anime News Network
Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and oth ...
'' (ANN), Carl Kimlinger called Urasawa a master of suspense "effortlessly maintaining the delicate balance of deliberate misinformation and explicit delineation of the dangers facing protagonists that only the finest suspense thrillers ever achieve."
He commented that even the stories and characters that had felt unrelated to the greater picture are "eventually drawn together by Johan's grand plan."
Kimlinger deemed the art "invisible perfection," never "showy or superfluous," with panels laid out so well that it is easy to forget how much effort is put into each and every page.
Though he did not find the characters' physical designs attractive,
he praised their expressiveness, writing that the characters "wear their personalities on their faces, communicating changes in their outlooks, psychology, inner thoughts and emotions with shifts in expression that range from barely perceptible to masks of rage, hate and fear."
UK Anime Network gave the first volume a perfect score based on the engrossing story, but felt the artwork, while appealing, was not "groundbreaking". On the other hand, ''Active Anime'' felt the art improved across the manga's serialization.
A.E. Sparrow of
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
described ''Monster'' as a "
Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
film set to manga" and felt its real strength comes from its huge cast of interesting characters, who each have "a unique story and history to relate". Carlo Santos, also for ANN, called ''Monster'' "a one-of-a-kind thriller" and suggests that one of the most overlooked qualities of it is that "amidst all the mystery and horror, there are moments of love and hope and all the good things about humanity."
Though she praised the manga for its "cinematically precise" art, never confusing the reader, and making each person visually distinct despite the large cast of characters,
Casey Brienza was much more critical in her review of the last three volumes. Finishing up the ANN review, she felt that too much time was spent developing minor characters "who are likely to be dead or forgotten just a few dozen pages later," and that the series' ending "went out with a whimper."
Brienza expressed disappointment that "there is nothing satisfactory ever revealed to fully account for
ohan'ssupremely scrambled psyche," but concluded that as long as the reader doesn't look for "deep meanings or think too hard about whether or not it all makes sense in the end" they will enjoy it.
Leroy Douresseaux of Comic Book Bin, however, praised ''Monster''s finale and wrote that the manga is "worth reading again and again. It's perfection."
Anime
''
THEM Anime Reviews
THEM Anime Reviews, otherwise known as THEM or T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews, is an Anime, anime Review, review website that writes about current and past anime in any form, including Original video animation, OVAs and Original net animation, ONAs. The ...
'' called the anime adaptation "complex" and "beautiful", stating that it features "sophisticated storytelling and complex plot weaving, memorable characters, godly production values and excellent pacing". Darius Washington of ''
Otaku USA
''Otaku USA'' is a bimonthly magazine published by Sovereign Media, which covers various elements of the "otaku" lifestyle (such as anime, manga, video games, cosplay and Japanese popular music) from an American perspective. The issues were acc ...
'' named ''Monster'' one of the ten best anime of the past decade. Carl Kimlinger enthused that "It cannot be overstated how brilliantly apart from the anime mainstream this unsettling, fiercely intelligent, and ultimately uncategorizable journey into darkness is."
He praised Madhouse's animation for not only keeping up the dark "cinematic quality of Urasawa's art" but also improving on it, as well as Kuniaki Haishima's score for adding "immeasurably to the series' hair-raising atmosphere."
Though he noted Viz Media's inability to acquire the original ending theme song due to licensing problems, Kimlinger also called their English dub of the series one of the best in recent memory.
Kimlinger critiqued the series, however, for "its unhealthy fidelity to Naoki Urasawa's original manga", commenting that "there isn't a scene left out, only a handful added in, and as far as I can tell not a line of dialogue changed or omitted", as well as for its frequent habit of giving the spotlight to newly introduced characters instead of the main cast.
He also expressed disappointment in its ending, writing that "We feel vaguely let down when what we should really be doing is glorying in the somewhat messy, yes, but exhilarating final throes of one of last decade's great series." Nonetheless, he considered such disappointment to be expected, since "As ambitious and complicated and just plain huge as ''Monster'' is, no conclusion is going to be entirely satisfactory. Someone is bound to get short-changed, loose ends are bound to be left dangling, and even if they weren't, the simple truth is that no climax could ever live up to the series' build-up."
References
External links
*
*
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