Monster

Monster, a universally loved mystery manga that will you leaving thinking about it even after finishing it. I just got done reading this story and I have to say it was very addictive. It's been a couple months since I have read manga so I'm glad Monster was the one that put me back to the game. Now we know that story telling is always king when it comes to telling a narrative but for this story I feel like the characters were the biggest strongpoints of this manga. From their ideals and the way they talk and interact with each other, to their fitting designs makes this story very entertaining for me. Obviously, Tenma and Johan are the best characters, they are the protagonist and antagonist of this story and bring great balance to the story. Tenma goes through massive character changes through this story, sort of reminds me of the development that Walter White from Breaking Bad went through, First it's growth, then decay, then transformation, both of these characters went through great and intriguing changes. The side characters were also really good as they also add on to the story such as Lunge and Tenma's ex-girlfriend were both really annoying at first but that was intended by the writer which means they did a great job, anyways they both grew on me near the end of the story. I felt bad for Anna the most, her whole existence, from birth to adulthood is heartbreaking to me. The other background characters I didn't really care much about to be completely honest. Now about the actual story, it started out very strong but the ending (which seems to be controversial to other too) fell short for me. I am not saying it was bad but It wasn't as satisfying, this could also be because I already knew what happened in the last chapter due to spoilers online. Johan's final plan of mass murder-suicide to eliminate himself and everyone who has ties to his past was brilliant just because of how much power, connections, and knowledge Johan has. This also makes me think about the Riddler's master plan in The Batman, how Riddler tried to destroy Gotham by flooding it, this is similar to Johan trying to destroy his hometown and its people to erase everything that connects to his past. The ending could've been more interesting if after Johan's plan succeeding of killing of every (or at least almost every) citizen from the town, Tenma is the one to blame thus making Johan's existence either a mystery or a lie to the police and the papers. Back to the actual ending, it was good, everything tied together simply and decently up until the last chapter where we see more of Johan's backstory, on how his mother had to choose which child she wanted to give away to the 511 experiment. That whole sequence is left a mystery to whether Tenma was seeing an illusion of Johan or if he was actually there and escaped the hospital. I for one believed that he died and Tenma created a final answer/mystery? to why Johan did what he did, to why he believed in what he did. Overall this story was fantastic and kept my interest all the way through as well as made me get back into manga. Overall score 8/10