What a wild ride.

How simple really is good vs evil?

SPOILER WARNING

Sure, good vs evil, a trope as old as time. Evil is corrupt, it begets more evil. Death, destruction, trauma, nihilism. What happens when one person, who is born of evil, and molded in the flames, destruction and violence of an orphanage that tortured him, is met with the unshakable resilience of one Kenzo Tenma, and his belief in one moral code; every life is equal and created with inherent meaning.
Well, you get Monster. The show begins with Tenma, a Japanese brain surgeon in post WWII Germany making a decision that will forever change his life. He is asked to save the life of a politician over the life of a young boy, since the politician had previously promised big donations and grants to the hotel if elected. However, Tenma makes a decision on his belief; all lives are created equal. He chooses to operate on a young boy based on the simple precedent that he was asked to operate on him first.
What Tenma didn’t know is that this boy, Johan Liebert, had been rejected by his mother, brainwashed by a Nazi Germany government experiment disguised as an orphanage, murdered his foster parents, and finally shot by his sister. Johan not only believed that his life had no meaning, but that no life had meaning. To Johan, saving his life was an act of cruelty, a mockery committed by a stranger. How could a stranger believe in the value of his life, when no one else had?
Johan is not touched by Tenma saving his life. Instead, he views it as a challenge, an opposition to his nihilistic mindset that has allowed him to skillfully manipulate the desires of others to create destruction and suffering for his benefit. Johan makes it his life mission to become someone deplorable enough that even the most steadfast, altruistic Japanese neurosurgeon who has dedicated his life to saving others would kill him.
Everyone likes to debate who the real “monster” is in the show. Is it Johan? Is it Johan’s mother, who started the chain reaction of terrible acts that Johan committed? Was it the director of 511 Kinderheim? Was it Franz Bonaparta, who filled children’s heads with nihilistic views of destruction and manipulation?
I think the question this show asks is “do monsters exist?” To Johan, who has been met with pain, suffering and rejection his entire life, has no choice but to believe life has no meaning. If the people who abused him and rejected him were human, and he was human, then all the pain and suffering he was subject to, all the pain and suffering he caused would truly be deplorable acts deserving of extreme guilt and shame. His meaning would have been toyed with, and he would have in turn toyed with the meaning of many other lives. He has to become a nihilistic monster of destruction, or else he has to feel guilt.
However, Tenma stands in his way. Tenma, presented with many opportunities, refuses to kill Johan and had even saved Johan’s life when his own sister shot him. Tenma believes Johan’s life has meaning, Tenma believes Johan is human. Even if one person believes he is human, that person is rejecting the shield of Nihilism Johan has put around himself. Johan, in order to become a monster, needs to convince Tenma that he is one.
So he sets out on his mission. He joins ranks of deplorable people, he uses his influence and background as a nazi eugenics program child to get nazi gangsters to follow his orders. He burns a library, commits massacres, hires random serial killers to kill others for him.
For most of the show Tenma seems swayed, and to be honest, as the viewer, I was too. He says to himself over and over again “I must shoot. I must shoot”, pointing his gun at Johan. I was screaming at my monitor “well then why haven’t you shot yet!” He was being tested. Logically, ending Johan’s life would save others. At the same time shooting Johan would break Tenma’s moral code. He would be personally deciding that Johan’s life has no meaning, and as the last person in the world to believe the opposite, he would be proving to Johan, himself and the rest of the world that Johan is a monster. He must shoot, but he can’t.
I could do countless character analysis on Johan, his sister Nina, Lunge, Roberto, Grimmer (and maybe I will) but for the sake of keeping this (relatively) short I’ll write what I believe about Tenma, and what inspiration we can glean from his philosophy and way of life.
Before I described Tenma’s steadfast belief, his dedication to saving lives, his constant kindness to others and so on. Tenma, in a sense, is the direct rejection of nihilism. What interests me about this, is that nihilism is a philosophy developed in the west. It is often spoken of as a rejection of religion, with the father of nihilism Friedrich Nietzsche being famous for having said “god is dead … and we killed him”. However, Tenma is from Japan, and the author of the manga the show is based on, Naoki Urasawa, is Japanese. Tenma is never stated as being Christian, or Buddhist or believing in any religion. In fact, his background before being a doctor in Germany is almost entirely unknown. I find the beauty in his character lies behind the secularity and simplicity of his beliefs.
I think this is best demonstrated through a character deeply influenced by Tenma, Dieter. Dieter was under the care of Mr. Hartmann, a man trying to continue the identity erasing, brainwashing, nihilist creating experiments of 511 Kinderheim. He is rescued by Tenma. Tenma turns Dieter into an optimistic, fun loving child through reintroducing him to his love of soccer and telling him “tomorrow will be a good day”. Dieter then repeats this constantly when he and others are put in situations that make them doubt themselves. The seemingly simple, yet moving philosophy that Tenma lives by will be tested daily by anyone who lives in the real world. Tenma (and Dieter) can teach us how to make it through those tests and truly make an impact on the lives of others through kindness, positivity and optimism. At the basis of this optimism is the understanding that monsters don’t exist, and deep down everyone is human.