[SPOILER] Naoki Urasawa's Monster: Unfolding the Ending
Naoki Urasawa... Boy, this genius mangaka, is well known for his story writing and how he lead the reader through each pages, giving fans intense suspense, foreshadowing and twisted conclusion. Reading his manga felt like reading a novel, if I may say so.
And so, as his new fans, who just read another of his work, 20th Century Boy in 2017, I felt like I missed this gem. I always saw his manga in local bookstore, but looking at the art back then, I was like.. Eh.
Forgive my ignorance and blasphemy.. 10 years ago, I'm just a filthy commoner who prefers to read Naruto or some moeshit manga.
As I grew older, I'm beginning to appreciate more the older days manga, focusing on the story and plot twist. The older I get, the wiser I become I guess.
So, Naoki Urasawa's Monster.. I began to read this after finishing 20th Century Boy and felt the cathartic awe on the ending (refer to pear's review link here). I demand more from Urasawa sensei's work and that what leads me to Monster.
[SPOILER AHEAD]
Monster, is not a fantasy themed story where the hero goes on a journey to defeat a big ass monster. It's a about a genius brain surgeon, Tenma Kenzo, who chose to operate a boy named Johan, as a humanitarian act, despite being ordered to operate someone else who got more important position in society. But little that he knows, that boy he saved is a genetically/psychologically engineered, deranged psycho evil murderer.. Hence, Monster.
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| Oh no! Johan Cena! |
Since I said the ending, I'll skip the main story and assume the readers already read / watch Monster till the end.. Now, the ending.. Which has become a debate and argument in internet cause it felt so... Rushed and hanged. Because, in the end, after relentlessly chasing and trying to kill the monster he saved, Tenma Kenzo, in the final stand off where he got the chance to shoot Johan whom was trying to shot a little boy's head, didn't choose to pull the trigger, and some random stranger (that little boy's dead) was the one who shot Johan. Anti climactic, right?
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| It's like watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly three way stand off, but a passing by union troop decided to shoot three of them. |
Of course it's still not the end, just like the first chapter, Johan is still barely alive even after a shot to the head (Man.. does this guy got an iron skull or what?) and you know it, Tenma, who chose every lives are equal, decided to operate Johan.
Tenma Kenzo is free of charge, back to his doctor business, while Johan is seemingly survived the bullet extraction operation and is in coma.
Then the epilogue, a chapter called "The Real Monster". Tenma Kenzo, after joining Médecins Sans Frontières aka Doctors Without Borders, visit a seemingly weak and senile old lady. That lady is none other than Johan and Nina's mother.
The next part, of course, Tenma visited Johan in comatose state, telling his meeting with Johan's mother.
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| ゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ |
The most important scene happened here. Johan seemingly awaken from his slumber, asking Tenma with dead straight zombie eyes regarding the incident in three frogs lodging, where Franz Bonaparta decided to do an experiment on Johan, Nina and their mother. He will take one of the twins to the Red Rose Mansion, and the mother must choose which child to be "sacrificed".
The mother doubt for a while, maybe because the twins are wearing the same girl's outfit and hairstyle, but to what end, decided to let Nina be taken by Franz Bonaparta.
Flashback ended, and Johan asked Tenma, why his mother decided to let Nina be taken? Is it because his mother didn't want her? Trying to protect Johan? Or the mother mistook it for Johan?
Tenma Kenzo strucked, petrify, and the realized it was just his hallucination. Johan is till lying there in coma.
He went out to meet his friends.. but, the scene averted to Johan's room gradually... And the bed is empty now.
Speculation:
I've read many forums about the conclusion, stuff like, Johan is back and ready to continue what in god's name he wanna do (or maybe stop being a monster and live a peacful life) and most of the argument focused on "The Real Monster", which, can be concluded, is Johan's and Nina's mother. But really?
The point of my writing here, cause, I can't find any conclusive speculation, just like Cowboy Bebop's ending, and decided to point out my own speculation. Whatever your speculation is, this is just my own noob opinion as a casual reader. Or rather, how I want it to be. You are free to think of your own speculation and point out my flawed and unperfect speculation.
The main conclusion is..
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| A monster without name |
Johan is dead. Either during the coma or during the operation.
Tenma failed to save Johan despite his genius skill and what he saw in that room, including Johan waking up, is just his illusion, triggered by Tenma's guilty feeling on not being able to save him.
OBJECTION!
What about the creased bed? To tell you the truth, this is the hardest part on proving Johan's dead but let's just say the bed was empty all along, or Tenma slept there, or even a patient just got moved from there. For now, read on.
Now i'm gonna point out some weird stuff happened in Monster universe, that could lead us to know who's the real monster and Johan is probably dead.
1. Why does Johan dressed like Nina, even the hair wig?
Ever imagined you got twin kids, a boy and a girl, and then realized buying two different gender clothes is a hassle and just bought two of them girl's clothing? No? Kay. Maybe their mother is not rich and couldn't afford more clothes.. But why hair wig? Even the exact ribbon.
The flashback scene when Nina returned back from Red Rose Mansion to her home in three frogs lodging is, no doubt, the most, forgotten and unexplained part.
Johan, casually greeted back Nina with his girl's outfit even after that horrifying choosing experiment.
And why Johan wore a wig? Where did he get that wig? His mom? His own charade to dress like a girl?
My only logical conclusion is.. Their mother purposedly dressed Johan like that. Remember, the mother is a subject of selective breed experiment and is on constant run from the "organization". Since bringing along twins of a boy and a girl is kinda obvious and can get you tracked down easily, their mother decided to dress Johan as a girl too, as a disguise. Supposedly she is a good mother, she should be able to differ, which is Johan and which is Nina. And the reason why she let go Nina? I don't know. She knows well which is who so it's not a random choice or mistaken unwanted child. I think, more like, Nina is more capable and the mother trust her.. Or the mother knows Johan is a deranged psychotic evil kid so she must keep him in check.
2. Johan's Motives, the Perfect Suicide
Seriously.. This is one of the thing I could never understand nor explained.. Maybe I musn't too hard comprehensing a monster's mind. Why yes, Johan's motives. While I know he is on a personal vendetta, trying to deliver his mother's vengeance on Franz Bonaparte, I still don't understand the perfect suicide he comes up in Ruhenheim. So he wants to kill his archnemesis, and then die by the hands of his savior by leaving no traces of his existence? Then why bother living with fake parents, killing them after he's bored and manipulating serial killer to do his bidding?
Manipulating other serial killer is fine.. But killing his fake parents? Even his feeling towards Nina is kinda... Unexplained. I feel like, Naoki Urasawa is just trying to make a pure evil monster character without ulterior motives other than his sole purpose as... A monster. What is more monster-like than killing your own parents or the one you loved?
3. The Real Monster
Straight to the point. The real monster is not Johan, not his mother.
There's a conversation in one of the chapter regarding Tenma's mission to kill Johan and part of it is, "doesn't it take more than a monster to kill a monster?"
My conclusion, regarding Johan's motives, is, to create the real monster by making the monster killed by said monster after fulfilling his agenda.
BUT! Johan's failed. Tenma didn't pull the trigger and some old drunk guy shot Johan. Does that make that old guy the real monster? Nope, Johan is not dead... Yet. So that old guy can't become the real monster.
So, who is the real monster?
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| "Yew cheeky little bastard, let's test how thicc your skull is" |
Tenma Kenzo. In the final moment, Tenma got the choice to save this monster or even kill him. Whichever it is, that makes Tenma greater than Johan, hence, making him the real monster, to decide the monster's life.
But wait... Did he decided to save Johan? Or kill him? Who knows.. Tenma's silence in the operation room and his blank stare could mean anything from "all lives are equal, I'm gonna save you" or "You shall not live"
So in the end... Is Johan's dead?
My main reasoning is.. The lack of life support system and guards on his room is REALLY weird.. Knowing Johan's portfolio as a monster killer, he should be guarded by police or even BKA... Even a suspect in early chapter that got treated as Tenma's patient, Adolf Junker, guarded by a lone guard. Johan is an important suspect, culprit or even witness. But hey? Nobody's around. Only a nurse passing by, greeted Tenma as he walks to a door. Sadly, the camera didn't view us the name plate. Isn't that reason enough, that the room Tenma entered is, actually, empty and got no name plate?
And so, Monster ended in happy ending.. Where Tenma reunited with his friends and grieving over Johan's dead....
Maybe.
Hi, want to leave some comments here
ReplyDelete1. What do you think about 'nameless monster' story. What is the relation between the story with Johan himself. Is it because he also felt guilty by plotting all the crimes (because no matter how much people died because of him, he still remains nameless) or is there any other conclucion?
2. What do you think about Inspector Lunge himself trying to make Tenma become the sole suspect eventhough he already know about Johan and his possibility in conducting all the crimes? Is it because of him being too biased? Like he already lose everything including his family due to Tenma case so he just wants to blame Tenma to feed his ego. What do you think about that?
Sorry for the late reply but in case of Lunge I think when he mentioned that Tenma is still the prime suspect, he meant that they will never be able to prove who Johan is, how he did it all and stuffs like that.
DeleteU r wrong cause johan did stood up and tell that the only thing that he(johan) wants dr.tenma to hear
Deleteie.his part of memory that only he(johan)remembers...
As a proof he recall this only fragment of memory that only he remebered in early that's why he wanted to kill bonaparta..
So johan is still alive like a monster in a picture book he have a name but no one was there to call him by that....
I liked this interpretation. Finally something that fits just right. Thanks for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteIn the last scene the location is "Bavaria state police hospital", this might explain the lack of security.. Johan probably awoke and is alive.
ReplyDeleteThe real monster might be humanity (we have a very convenient setup indeed).
The mother is the first embodiment of the monster, by making the choice she gives up on one of her own children while being driven by a horrible moral (probably the possibility of keeping at least one).
About Johan killing himself. I think that is all he has been trying to do since the beginning: erase every single person who knew him and in the end kill himself since he too is human, thus also a monster. He probably wanted Tenma his saviour with the unbreakable morals to commit the murder and prove that there is a monster in everyone.
This is of course my personal speculation.
Cheers
I wonder if the real monster is Anna. She’s the one who went to the Red Rose Mansion. And she is the one who should have been killed (as everyone is supposed to have died there). And then when Johan “asks” Tenma if his mother was trying to save him or if she mistook him for his sister, Tenma interpreted it as when you operated on me, did you try to save me or did you mistake me for my sister (the real monster) and let me die. That being said, there’s also a book called “Another Monster”, but it might be fan fiction.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a fan fiction. It's really from Urasawa Naomi..This book said that Johan is still alive but had lead to a peaceful life. He ran away from the hospital just like he did when he was small. And I think Nina and Tenma are together because in episode 60 or I don't remember, Tenma said that he could not live without Nina.
ReplyDeleteNaoki*
DeleteIsn’t there a huge age difference between them though? Anna was a basically a 10 year old kid when Tenma was a head surgeon.
DeleteThis is very interesting and good to see perspectives. I just finished the series and was full of questions. I interpreted the killing if their adoptive parents over and over differently though. Towards the end when more information was revealed it seemed to me each family he had a reason for killing. The old farm couple were going to call the police and have them take the children, Johan couldn't allow that. The family they were with at the beginning of the show that Anna shot him over had let bonnaparta into the house. Johan believed they were no longer safe since bonnaparta knew where they were and was allowed in the house. They mentioned at one point it seemed he was searching for the perfect family. One that could actually keep them safe. Though I don't know if that plays into it considering that line was referring to Johan after him and Nina were separated.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest let down with this series and the reason I'm browsing for explanations is that I feel nothing was accomplished. In most serieies the main characters achieve something, they made an impact of some sort. But here I feel they didn't. Not alot would have changed had tenma not decided to track down Johan after mr.junkers was killed. If tenma hadn't gone after him, only a few other misc characters he saved would have died. Johan would have most likely succeeded in his perfect suicide though idk how that would play out without tenma. He would have killed bonnaparta and died with the rest. If that happened the world would be the same as it is now. A world without the monster johan. I don't think it matters too much weather Johan died as a monster or was human and survived a peaceful life at the end. Either way Johan isn't out causing problems. Infact I think tenma could have saved more people working at a hospital all day than traveling various countries. So... More people died because tenma chased Johan and Johan stopped his crime spree at the same time weather he died or lived. Just seems kinda disappointing...
Tenma couldn't work as a surgeon anymore due to all the crimes he didn't commit, and all because of Johan. He framed him and all the defamation and injustice turns his life upside down. That's why Tenma run after Johan with all his might
DeleteI agree about your first paragraph, however the second I dont agree with.
DeleteThe purpose of tenma going after johan was simple. Tenma at the start of the show declared that all lives are equal then ignored his bosses order to save johan. As it turns out tenma loses everything for that decision (his job, fiance, etc). He then has a brief moment of grief and vents to johan (who he thinks is in a coma) about how they should just die. Then after this johan kills the 3 doctors then escapes. It is now that Tenma must rethink his ideals of "all lives being equal" because after witnessing johan kill his patient tenma started thinking that Johan was pure evil and deserved to die. This was a constrast to his earlier notions that all life is precious and equal.
So as the story progresses tenma meets several people who have their own issues. He eventually befriends some people (some of which die) and he continues to believe in revenge. And all the people around him constantly tell him to give up on revenge but he refuses. Towards the end tenma sees first hand that revenge just breeds more revenge, after watching a man with a similar story to himself go out and get himself shot dead. And saw that revenge is not worth leaving all those people behind grieving him (tenma probably thinks of deeter, anna, and his friends).
Ultimately, the purpose of the story was so that tenma could (through his own accord) prove to Johan that all lives are equal and precious. A common theme in this anime was "life is worth living", "no one wants to die", "all lives are equal", "revenge breeds revenge", and etc. Those themes were constantly reminded to us in one way or another until tenma started to believe in his original ideals again("all lives are equal / precious"). And thus he saved Johan for a second time.
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So In short, his journey was nothing more then a test set on him by Johan (he wanted to prove that "all lives are not equal except in death") by getting tenma to kill him in the end (so he needed to keep feeding him more hatred / reasons to kill him). But in the end, tenma prove Johan wrong. Thus Johan left the hospital bed (and is on the run).
It is to be assumed that while Johan is on the "run", the he has decided to live a peaceful life. Because thanks to tenma, he starts believing that all life is precious and is equal. I know its hard to imagine his character adopting that notion after killing so many people (but this is anime were talking about here, people can apparently change from such experiences).
DeleteSo, I think Johan is alive and well. Has "adopted" some of tenmas ideals, and who knows maybe he is trying to atone now??(You know, anime redemption style). One things for sure, it looks like Johan isn't serving time in prison so hes probably on the run and trying to start a new life.
I've another interpretation of the mother's choice.
ReplyDeleteShe knows some goals of the experiments: at the least, she saw people say "those are the ones who will lead us ?" At the times, idealized leader would most likely be a man (like the most compared Hitler, btw, they are of course blond with blue eyes). So by dressing him like a girl, maybe she was vainly trying anything to take him away from that position of idealized leader. That could be an additional explanation for the cross-dressing. The main reason being : hiding she has twins. Remember, in the middle of the show: it is suggested that neighbourhood thought she had only one child when other are investigating on 3 frogs.
Then, during the choice, she must know who is Johan.
First, maybe she incousciously thought the "boy" would endure it better (as would the global opinion think at the time).
Then she realized that he actually seemed to be the weaker of both of them. To emphasize that, at the end, Johan was closing his eyes begging while Nina was actually looking right at her eyes, waiting to witness her decision. The mother revized her first choice, thinking that Nina was more "ready" to face her faith than Johan who were too terrorized to witness his mother abandon him AND facing the incoming experiments.
Finally, she was under so much pressure, anything could have twist her mind, but I think she finally went for the choice of preserving the emotionnaly weaker aka Johan.
I know it's been a while since you wrote this, but I just found this blog after finishing Monster a few minutes ago. I think the dressing up of Johan as Nina was to make.it seem like she only had one daughter, I don't remember the exact chapter but when Tenma is looking for clues one of the townspeople mention the mother living with her daughter at the three frogs, and Tenma asks whether they had a son, and the townsperson denies it. I think the purpose of disguising Johan was so they could both leave the house, seeing as Johan passes really well as Nina.
ReplyDeleteI am a fan of themes and characters of Monster but the writing does leave me a bit unsatisfied at times. As for Johan being dead, I doubt it, highly. The creases in bed are a valid objection as the author of article pointed out, nor do I think Dr Tenma wouldn't have tried to save him or would've started suffering from hallucinations without a prior history of any such event.
ReplyDeleteJohann being alive and listening to everything while pretending to be asleep/in coma is exactly similiar to like when he was shot last time as a child.
As for no security personnel around his room, that's the issue with writing I believe. Just like how a single police van was transporting a high profile serial murderer (Dr tenma ) when he escaped or the way Johan somehow poisoned hospital staff as a child without any explanation provided.
The writing in monster deliberately skips over fine logical details to the point of portraying events as almost a supernatural phenomenon as to portray Johan as biblical Demon.
Hannibal Lecter is the closest comparison to Johann I can make and I personally find the writing in it somewhat a bit more detailed/palatable.
You think Johan Is dead? No, No way, because how the hell Tenma fucking precisely knows that what happened there(At the Three Frogs), I know anna told him, but she didn't told him that they were dressed the same, don't you agree? You should Read "Another Monster: The Investigative Report", Johan us mentioned there, I don't fucking know he is alive or dead because i also didn't read "another monster" till now, but i am going to for sure, Please reply your Thoughts, Even i want to know WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED IN THE END...(sorry for bad English)
ReplyDelete