Monster Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links   m3zx

Great. The ending wrapped up nicely which is also satisfying.

Had a good handful of favorite characters throughout, the chapters were all set up to keep you wanting to know what's coming next. Clearly Urasawa was experienced already when writing this peak.

I'm definitely going to be reading Pluto and Twentieth Century Boys both.

I really like Urasawa's art style as well. The characters all look really human, with large noses and varying facial proportions that all look realistic. And the cast was all older, which was a breath of fresh air from the usual manga anime routine of teenagers always. I swear, the main plot ... takes place with the average age of important, directly plot relevant characters averaging in their 40s. It's unique.

All in all, really engaging story, likeable cast, good pacing, and good art. I think that warrants a 9. I honestly can't think of any particular flaws or issues to take here...

Naoki may be goated...

Although the plot is quite different, this manga "feels" similar to 20th Century Boys (by the same author): I think this is because, broadly speaking, in both cases there is some kind of elusive mastermind and the protagonists have to embark on a journey to "catch" them.

Following the comparison, this manga has a more "realistic" approach than 20th Century Boys, but it still has several flaws, one of the most obvious being the unbelievable coincidences that occasionally occur in the story (I'm talking about something at the level of an investigator suddenly discovering that his new dentist is the same one that 10 years ago ... treated the dental problems of the criminal he is hunting right now, and unearthing key intel from that connection... what are the chances of that?).

There are other flaws as well: the characters are sometimes too quick to fully trust other people, certain situations are overdramatized, and the ending feels rather bland (it definitely doesn't live up to the expectations built up throughout the story).

However, this manga also has some really strong points, such as a good amount of interesting and "human" characters, and very engaging (and numerous) story arcs. In fact, the story feels almost episodic, because every X chapters the protagonist travels to another place and you meet new and well-fleshed characters that presents you an (almost) new story.

If you forget about the ending and just focus on enjoying all those different stories without paying too much attention to the small details, Monster can be a pretty good read.

I've read and seen a lot of critically acclaimed fiction in my life. Some became my favourites, while others were so-so. Monster, however, is the first instance of me coming across a critically acclaimed fiction that turned out to be truly, truly terrible. And I'll be honest, even though I have tried to be as objective as possible, my intense hatred for its completely undeserved reputation is what motivated me to publish this review.

It's ironic that my single biggest issue with Monster is what its fans claim to be its greatest asset, the villain Johan Liebert. It's very clear what Naoki Urasawa's motivation was behind ... creating him. Johan was supposed to be the embodiment of evil, someone who could commit crimes without the least bit of guilt and remorse. That's all very scary and stuff, but I ask you this, my dear reader. If I raise a person to be a terrorist, and the person turns out to be a terrorist, does that make the person evil? Because without spoiling anything, that is who Johann Liebert is. A person designed to be evil, and therefore not evil at all. Naoki Urasawa failed to comprehend this simple fact that what makes a villain interesting are their own convictions and emotions, born out of an intensely personal birth; not some contrived backstory where every Tom, Dick and Harry would influence the character.

But Urasawa's amateurism doesn't stop there. Not only did he make his villain essentially meaningless, he genuinely doesn't believe it's possible for people to turn out to be evil unless someone conditioned them to become as such. We come across many bad guys in his manga, but time and again, we see that the only ones capable of committing crimes in cold-blood are the ones who have been conditioned to be like that; everyone else, be it alcoholics, robbers, murderers or whoever, end up feeling guilty or remorseful. Hell, even the people who made Liebert who he is have become kind and empathetic with age. I’m sorry, but this is an unbelievably juvenile understanding of human psychology. People don’t need to be conditioned into becoming terrible, and more often than not they aren’t. And as far as fiction is concerned, the greatest villains are always the ones who became who they are by their own convictions and ideals; Bondrewd, Griffith, Makishima, just to name a few.

Talking about Liebert is incomplete without talking about Tenma. Tenma is the single most archetypal “good guy” that you can imagine. He is very kind and friendly, he always helps everyone out and he thinks all lives are equal. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with all that, but there’s nothing interesting either. On one side, you have a villain who isn’t evil or frankly even interesting, and on the other side, you have the most naïve do-gooder in the history of popular fiction. The result? One hundred and sixty-two chapters of mind-numbing slog, filled to the brim with filler which only serves to show you how much of a good guy the good guy is. I hope this doesn’t count as a spoiler, but the good guy is vindicated in the end. So yeah, the message of Monster is, everyone is equal, everyone is inherently a nice human being, and the only way you can become terrible is if someone turns you into one. Even if you believe in such a comically simple worldview, I’m sure you didn’t need Urasawa to realize it.

Thank you for reading.