He's a Demon

Monster
by Naoki Urasawa

Monster is a strange beast. Spread over 18 volumes it tells the tale of a hero out to get the bad guy. Its about a journey of discovery, as the eventual meeting of the two is paralleled with the stories of what makes a hero, but more importantly, for this story, what makes a monster. There are so many things about it that should not work, so much that at first glance would point to this being just another banal thriller. And yet it works. It works so brilliantly that I do feel that it may be one of the finest example of this medium.

At its heart this story is about the hero, Dr. Tenma going through a long journey in search of the villain, the monster, Johan to finish him. That statement makes it out to be black and white, as is the art of the book. But in reality the shades of gray explored, may fill out the whole continuum between black and white. The story starts off with Dr. Tenma grappling with his reality of his life. He's a brilliant surgeon who saves the life of so many, and yet the director of his hospital gets the name. His life is perennially twined with his director's who seems to have the qualities of a leech, and has raised his daughter the same way. But it is on the question of equality of lives that Tenma reneges, deciding to save the life of a small boy, shot in the head instead of the mayor as deemed by the director. This is the first ethically correct decision that Tenma seems to make in the story, and ironically is the one that haunts him for the rest of it. The child he saves, murders the Director and two others and leaves a trail of murders, blamed on Tenma. Tenma, on the other hand, decides to dedicate all his days seemingly oblivious of the charges and chase Johan, the child, to correct his mistake. But throughout the story, this question pops up again and again. Are some people really more equal than others? Tenma continues to help people, some obviously more depraved than others and it kind of mirrors his quandary. As a doctor, what is he supposed to do?

As Tenma goes on his journey, sometimes running from others, sometimes helping people in need, there's one thing he's always sure of. That he wants to kill Johan. On a very similar sure footing is the character of Inspector Lunge. There are aspects of him that are downright silly and yet he makes for a very compelling character. The theme of objectivity seems to play an important part here, as both Lunge, as well as Johan and other inmates of Kinderheim 511 pop up in the story. Lunge has a very singular way of life, always calculating. He goes through every situation with his fingers continuously tapping, assimilating information, clues. His mind seems to work on the principles of cold logic. And so do those of the Kinderheim 511 inmates, especially Johan. His mind is that of the cold calculating individual, who seems to have worked out events from start to end like an equation. He manipulates events, characters according to this, and the coldness of it is downright scary. There are others like him, for example, Roberto, who just follows, again with no feeling, for he believes. And this is contrasted beautifully in the character of Grimmer, who seeks out an end to this aspect of his life. He craves to understand what emotions are, but even in this he stutters as he tries to understand it as an external concept. Indeed, when we first encounter Grimmer, his smile is off putting, and yet not creepy. But when we finally realize what lies behind his smile, we find new depths in his character as we are forced to reexamine previous events. There is a motif in his characterization wherein he asks Tenma what he's supposed to feel in each situation that he encounters, because he does not understand what emotions even are. And peeling back his character gives us clues of Johan's coldness as well. Grimmer is a fascinating character who seems to have a suppressed second personality in him, the magnificent Steiner, a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde analogue. And in the very end, when we race to the last scenes featuring Grimmer, we see his full growth as instead of turning into Steiner, he fights his last fight by letting rage take over. He feels. And his life ends in tears, a strangely happy ending to a sad life. The same growth is mirrored in Lunge who eventually learns to live, though complete transformation is still some time away, but in the end, Tenma's philosophy of making happy memories seems to take over the entire story.

Two aspects of the story that interested me, were very strongly interconnected. The aspect of the importance of parents, and what to me was the underlying theme that bound the whole story together, that you can become whatever you want to become. At various points in the story it seemed that the second theme was strongly influenced by the first, that is, what any of the characters wanted to become was strongly influenced by the parenting they received. That is why a problem I had with the story was the lack of any insight into Tenma's past. I had hoped that the end of the story would involve more information about Tenma's parents. At one point Lunge was actually investigating this aspect and I thought it would come to the fore, but it never did. Maybe Urasawa wanted to use this thread later on, and just forgot about it, or maybe it was never meant to come out. Lunge's method acting was hilarious for the same reason in the case of Tenma, because we really get no background at all. On the other hand we do get backgrounds on so many others. Eva raised by her father becomes just like him, greedy, vain and empty. Poppe/Bonaparta's son becomes a storyteller telling as malicious a story as his father did. And the most important among them, Johan and Nina. Johan goes to Kinderheim 511, the orphanage from hell, while Nina goes to a much happier one. But a point that needs to be made here is that the Red Rose Mansion also played an important part. While Nina forgets all about it, Johan imbibes it all as his own memories but maybe if they had swapped orphanages, things might have happened differently.

It is strange but most stories seem to happen in cycles. Even here, in the end things seemed to have returned to what they were in the beginning. Anna is back at the college, fulfilling her dreams, Tenma is back doing what he does best, after having saved Johan's life from a head injury, like at the very beginning, and yet so much has changed. All these characters go through complete cycles. Tenma saves a child, and then goes on a journey to kill him, and yet saves him again. Anna starts out a happy girl, goes on the same journey as Tenma and yet in the end forgives Johan, and regains her happiness. And Eva. She falls in love. In all these cycles there were things that existed before and happened again. But this did not exist before and hence it points to a much better ending for Eva. For if it happened before, it'll happen again.

There is so much more in this story, and if I were to start writing everything, I may never stop. But as it stands now, Monster is a rich, fulfilling book that needs to be read.