Monster Anime Is The Best Thriller You Don't Know

There are anime that, despite excellence, will never get noticed beyond the circle of otaku. However, there are those that seem to be tailored to get recognition in the West. Exotic enough to intrigue or even disturb, yet universal enough in message and form that they can replace live-action series. Besides series like Attack on Titan, Cowboy Bebop, Berserk, Akira, Neon Genesis Evangelion or Hellsing, Monster should be counted as such anime, too. If I had asked my friends a year ago, even those well-versed in pop culture, what this series is about, someone would have recognized it as the award-winning film with Charlize Theron (a great, terrifying drama by Elisabeth Banks). But as the anime market is expanding and Netflix is adding more Japanese animations to its library, we have gained easier access to the gems of Asia. Those that won't overuse the clichés typical to some anime. After such elimination process, we will be left with, for example, Monster. An outstanding series, of reasonable length (72 episodes) and worth your time, regardless of whether you watch anime regularly or just want to experience a fascinating story.

Sure, if you're familiar with the subject, you may get angry at the title, saying that the series is a cult classic! But is’t to fans of the typical live-action thrillers? Well, no, I conducted a small interview among my friends and someone there recognized the cover art on Netflix, but that's all.

Who’s really the monster?

I have always been curious about how the Japanese perceive Central and Eastern Europe. Monster brings the answer, but does not lose its Japanese character. The series shows Czech Republic and Germany from the 1990s through the eyes of Dr. Tenma, an Asian man who, although overworked, has everything in his life. He works in a hospital as an esteemed neurosurgeon, he’s the director's favorite, and his son-in-law. Everything changes when the doctor acts according to his conscience and instead of perofming a surgery of an important city official, he ignores the orders of his superiors and saves a little boy with a gunshot wound in the middle of his forehead. A noble decision, right? However, after a few episodes, the miraculously saved boy turns out to be the titular monster. His name is Johan Liebert, a man occupying the lists (including ours) of the best villains in anime.

And deservedly so. He reminds me a bit of Gaiman's Lucifer. Beautiful, brilliant – and above all, unpredictable. He plays a complicated game with the world and Dr. Tenma, which will result in the death of many innocents. Although he is only a human, the directors made sure that he exudes an almost supernatural terror, emphasized by appropriate shots and music. The diabolical young man could wipe the floor with Damien from The Omen, and the story involves individuals and organizations so powerful that it's terrifying.

It’s even more terrifying because we’re talking about actually important groups (police, politicians, secret services, nationalists). Groups that have proven more than once to be susceptible to corruption. Due to the social context, some of you can feel it hit quite close, disturbingly close to home. Of course, the scale is sometimes tipped more towards the "cool factor" than to realism, but the story still holds together thanks to the focus on several really well-written characters. Besides, which thriller doesn't occasionally get carried away?

And psychology really keeps the story in check. The fates of people, especially several outcasts who are sympathetic to Dr. Tenma’s cause, make this story progress nicely. Violence erupts suddenly, but briefly, and what terrifies the most is human nature – and the suggestion of what it’s capable of. Even if people try to move through life with a smile. The bottom line is that everyone, sooner or later, faces a choice that strips their personality of all the illusions and delusions they’d have had about themselves – through a choice that shows us who we are. Tenma himself will have to make a choice that no regular person would face willingly. A choice that the world of medicine has to face every now and then, with morally gray background.

Throughout 72 episodes, Monster reveals subsequent layers of intrigue, but also of human psyche as it’s facing extremes, addiction, weaknesses, dragging the characters through the mud, and gray post-Soviet reality with its moderately humane approach to the unit controlled by the secret services. Overall, I recommend taking your time with this series. That is some heavy stuff. Maybe not visually, because although blood gets spilled here and there, it doesn't go beyond the average of modern live-action series (or maybe Berserk desensitized me), but with the atmosphere, the weight of thoughts and questions that we will be left with – the series can crush the viewer. We feel terrified by what other people and systems can do to our neighbors in the name of a strangely understood greater good.

Demons of the Iron Curtain

Monster beautifully depicts the era it’s set in. Helpless and surprised by the legacy left behind by the Iron Curtain. A curtain behind which they tried to turn people into passive servants of the system. And this is what Monster is about.

Let's add that the story devotes a lot of space to creating a cultural background and world-building – the characters refer to literature existing in our world, as well as literature created for the series. Thanks to such moves, Monster's reality takes on a concrete shape, color and weight. At the same time, in this story, as heavy as a socialist-realist monument, there are individual rays of hope and humor, balanced, far from the emoticons that some people might be accustomed to from popular, older anime. Sure, sometimes we get an emphatic monologue-exposition from the main characters, but usually it serves a purpose and doesn't hurt that much (although it would hurt even less if Netflix added English dubbing).

Fortunately, a lot of the story beats are told with the help of images and non-verbal reactions of the characters (the animators made sure the characters' facial expressions were convincing). In general, the visuals are a masterpiece, especially considering the scale of the series. With a limited budget and a few clever tricks up their sleeve – such as static backgrounds – the animators were able to bring the image to life, make it smooth and detailed. This is no wonder, since the creators of Monster include Kitaro Kosaka, a character designer who has been working with Studio Ghibli for years. The level of animation is fantastic, and the closer to the end we get, the more interesting and bolder the visuals become, accompanied by heavy, atmospheric music that reflecs those times well.

While the characters struggle with really difficult dilemmas, ours is fairly simple. If you love the combination of crime, drama and thriller, and at the same time you want a slightly heavier story – one that will not leave you indifferent – then Monster is for you. You will get an experience to rembember, may grieve, perhaps suffer – but you certainly will not regret it.

Hubert Sosnowski

Hubert Sosnowski

He joined GRYOnline.pl in 2017, as an author of texts about games and movies. He's currently the head of the film department and the Filmomaniak.pl website. Learned how to write articles while working for the Dzika Banda portal. His texts were published on kawerna.pl, film.onet.pl, zwierciadlo.pl, and in the Polish Playboy. Has published stories in the monthly Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror magazine, as well as in the first volume of the Antologii Wolsung. Lives for "middle cinema" and meaty entertainment, but he won't despise any experiment or Fast and Furious. In games, looks for a good story. Loves Baldur's Gate 2, but when he sees Unreal Tournament, Doom, or a good race game, the inner child wakes up. In love with sheds and thrash metal. Since 2012, has been playing and creating live action role-playing, both within the framework of the Bialystok Larp Club Zywia, and commercial ventures in the style of Witcher School.