Wolfgang Grimmer

Monster is a slow-burning psychological thriller. It was created by Naoki Urasawa, one of Japan's most respected manga artists. The anime was made by the studio Madhouse and directed by Masayuki Kojima. It ran for 74 episodes from April 2004 to September 2005, and it follows the manga very closely. Most of the story takes place in Germany and Czechoslovakia in the years after the Cold War split of Europe. The show feels more like a European crime novel than a typical anime. The story starts in 1986 in Dusseldorf, a city in West Germany. Kenzo Tenma is a talented young Japanese surgeon who works on the brain. He has a bright future, a rich fiancee named Eva Heinemann, and the favor of the hospital director. But Tenma slowly sees that the hospital cares more about money and fame than about patients. One night, he must choose between two emergency operations. One patient is an important man. The other is a young boy named Johan, who was brought in with a gunshot wound. Tenma follows his conscience and saves the boy. That choice costs Tenma a lot at first. But soon, strange and terrible things begin to happen around him. People who stood in his way start to die. Years later, Tenma comes face to face with the truth about the boy he saved. He decides that he alone must deal with what he set free. He leaves his safe career and starts a long, lonely search across the country. At the same time, the police start to see him as a suspect. The cast is large and full of detail. Inspector Heinrich Lunge is a cold, brilliant detective with an amazing memory, and he is sure Tenma is guilty. Nina Fortner is a young woman with a painful past, linked to Johan as his twin sister. Eva, bitter after her breakup with Tenma, keeps coming back into his life. Along the way, Tenma meets many ordinary people, such as cops, families, and orphans. Each of them gets their own short story, and many of those stories are quiet and moving. Monster is not a fast action show. It builds tension step by step, like a long mystery novel. Its big themes are the value of human life, the nature of evil, and whether a person is born bad or made bad. It also shows how cruel systems can hurt children. The mood is dark and serious, but it also has real kindness and hope. Monster is often called one of the best anime series ever made. The manga won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize and the Shogakukan Manga Award, and it has sold over 20 million copies. The writer Junot Diaz, who won a Pulitzer Prize, also praised it in Time magazine.