Anime August - The real 'Monster' in Monster
Why Naoki Urasawa's classic psychological thriller is intense, challenging and hopeful.
Welcome to Anime August, where I will dedicate this month to three pieces of anime and manga that I have enjoyed and recommend to you, and what it says about how we consume the medium of Japanese animation.
Picture yourself in Germany, years after the Berlin Wall collapsed. You migrated from Japan to become one of the nationโs most prominent surgeons, saving as many lives as possible. But youโre shaken with guilt when you cannot save one particular person because he is not the same as others. You then have the choice to save either the mayor of Dusselforf or a child that has recently migrated from the former East with his adopted parents. Needless to say, they are dead, thus you choose the child, as heโs the most vulnerable choice. The mayor dies, and the hospitalโs boss cuts your promotion as the Director Surgeon. Worse yet, the daughter of that boss breaks off your engagement. All you have left is to save the child. And he survives. Suddenly, your boss and colleagues are also murdered.ย Nevertheless, you are recognized as a hero to the public, and nine years later, youโve earned your place as the new Director. Then you reunite with the child, and heโsโฆ going to kill everybody.
This is Monster, written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa. Monster doesnโt move like your typical modern anime. It is not driven by lush animation or emphasizes the physicality of its characters. It is more restrained than your left-field anime like Ping Pong or Violet Evergarden. Monsterโs purely faithful to Urasawaโs original manga, but while it is a dichotomous telling between good and evil, there is excellent character writing at every frame. It also features one of the most evil villains youโll ever encounter in the form or anywhere else.ย
As Monster doesnโt fit in the archetypal anime mould, it seems easy to claim that a live-action adaptation would be the kind of thing many of its fans wanted to see. And it almost happened twice. New Line Cinema acquired the rights to make a cinematic retelling, but no information has since been released. Park Chan-Wook almost had his hands on it, along with Josh Olson, the screenwriter behind A History of Violence. Guillermo Del Toro was in talks to adapt the manga for HBO and has moved on to pursue other projects. The minimalism in Monsterโs anime means that it is capital-S โseriousโ in its themes, and the viewer is demanded to approach it from its level.ย
Urasawaโs work is most associated with its realism. Borrowing from the cinematic styles of Katsuhiro Otomo and Osamu Tenzka, his characters are designed to be poignant and human. In doing so, he does not choose where the story goes, but where the characters have signed. "When I start a new project, I start with the larger arc of the story,โ he said in an interview with J Generation. โI visualize a movie trailer for that story, and after I compose this movie trailer in my mind, there comes a point where I'm so excited about it that I have to write the story. And then I imagine, 'Where do I start to begin to tell this narrative?' and that's usually the first chapter." In Monster, the mangaka has spoken about how the work was directly inspired by the TV show, The Fugitive, which shares a similar premise: a doctor tries to clear his name after being accused of a murder he didnโt commit. But it also shares a lot in common with a Christopher Nolan film, whether itโs the large array of characters or the need to turn their stories into ambitious puzzles.
I recently watched Nolanโs Oppenheimer for the second time, and what I noticed is how every supporting character has a plot line of their own with each actor bringing an exquisite performance that makes them incredibly fascinating. Whether itโs Benny Safdie playing Edward Teller, the father of the Hydrogen Bomb that had a complicated friendship with Oppenheimer or Casey Affleck as the frightening General Boris Pash, who was called to investigate communist infiltration, especially within his academic circles. This reminded me of why Monster is that great. Every character, no matter how small, has a story of their own. From Eva Heinemann, Inspector Lunge, Roberto, Dieter, Wolfgang Grimmer, Richard Braun, General Wolf, Julis Reichweich, Jan Suk, Martin Reest and Franz Bonaparta. The list goes on, but itโs a tapestry of intersecting arcs, that it becomes a mosaic of good and evil.ย
The main conflict here is between Dr Kenzo Tenma and Johan Liebert, the child that he once saved. Tenma is pure with compassion, a man with Atticus Finch-esque qualities, that you feel bad whenever he is screwed around by public figures driven by self-interest and social standing, especially his ex-fiancee Eva Heinemann. The fact that he saved Johanโs life is both a blessing and a curse for his life. Johan kills someone to disprove his saviourโs philosophy that all lives are equal, with the opposite, that no lives are equal. Tenma has to stop Johan from killing more, and that involves finding out why he is filled with cold hatred.ย
As you look past his well-dressed appearance, Liebert is filled with cold hatred. He manipulates people that he networks, especially those who are quite vulnerable, taking their fates to corrupt places. Anybody who interacts with him is his next target. His motivations are far from certain. Politicians and academics have attempted to make him a mascot of their extremist ideology, but he has no interest in that. At least, according to his estranged twin sister Anna Liebert. She claims that heโs a victim of Kinderheim 511, an orphanage that abused children into becoming East Germanyโs supersoldiers. Furthermore, thereโs a Czech book that Liebert once read as a kid called The Monster with No Name and every choice he makes is closely reminiscent of the events.
Interestingly, Naoki Urasawa chose Germany as the primary setting for the manga/anime. While heโs far from the first creator who uses a European setting as a backdrop to their work, Urasawa lived in Dusseldorf and like Tenma, he loved to be there. Urasawa captured its culture and history very vividly. Kinderheim 511 is similar to the former reeducation centre in Torgau, which sees young children being trained to become East German soldiers, but it comes at a price. Many of the children are sexually abused and cases have been hard to prove because all available files have been burned and ruined to make the government accountable.ย
In one instance, Tenma prevented a potential terrorist threat targeted at a Turkish neighbourhood, similar to the Solingen arson attack in 1993 that was caused by Neo-Nazi skinheads. Monsterโs depiction of xenophobia is quiet, but to the point, especially when it comes from a country with a notorious past. A lot of the migrants are depicted with compassion, but not as a totem to spearhead a specific agenda that could overshadow everything else about the manga. It shows how Germany, no matter how much it attempts to move on from the most totalitarian aspects of its history, cannot escape from the roots of the long-term damage it caused to some of its people.ย
From reading 20th Century Boys, a delightful mashup of rock and roll with dystopian sci-fi, to Pluto, Urasawaโs fantastic remake of Astro Boyโs The Greatest Boy on Earth arc, beneath all of his work is a layer of optimism, even in the worst places. Monster is no exception to the norm. While Tenma is altruistic in his intent, itโs his philosophy, much like Liebert, that drives people to think better of themselves and others. Take, for example, Dieter, one of the orphans saved by Tenma from his abusive guardian that served under Kinderheim 511. His outlook shifted from gloom to optimism, and it seems that almost every child starts that way, once theyโre exposed to Liebert to his nihilism.
This brings out one of the most heartbreaking sequences Iโve ever seen in a piece of media. Liebert tells an orphan named Milosz that his mother is waiting for him in the red-light district of Prague. If he canโt find her, then it means she hates him. Milocz didnโt, and instead sees prostitutes getting sexually assaulted, leading him to attempt suicide. Tenma finds him, but heโs also accompanied by Wolfgang Grimmer, a tall freelance journalist who was also one of Kinderheim 511โs victims. There, we know that everything would be alright, not only because of Grimmerโs experiences but because he knows that they are missing the building foundations of becoming a child; a guardian who will care for and protect him, ultimately allowing a foundation for a healthy perspective on life.ย
Monster remains intriguing because there wonโt be another anime as restrained and mature as this. It was released in the mid-2000s when the medium heightened its aesthetics towards something more flamboyant and rapid-paced, aiming more at a younger audience. Some of these, like Death Note managed to be intelligent on the meaning of justice as demonstrated by their rivalry between Light Yagami and L. But more importantly, it shows how significant of a figure Naoki Urasawa is in anime, and that more of his works should be given further recognition beyond the average Manga Grand Prize. Thankfully, weโre gonna see that happen again with Pluto this year. ย
Extra Supplements - The Aesthetic of Evil by Cinema Cartography
Cinema Cartography is a YouTube channel that you must subscribe to for invigorating video essays about cinema and art. They are one of the best in the game. It mentioned Monster in two videos: The Aesthetic of Anime and The Aesthetic of Evil. Iโll showcase the latter since it is more specific and powerful. It argues that Johan Liebert will take evil at its most coldest and calculated level, but arguably he could try to find peace with himself, making it more disturbing. The impact that it has on institutions and communities would be devastating, and CC greatly showcase this observation, applying it to many other characters and art that manifest and spread horror to the world that cultivates them.