Monster (Anime)

From Tv Tropes

Please help us adapt this page to Mediawiki, following the general editing guidelines where needed.

--"Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?"

In 1986, life was good for Japanese neurosurgeon Kenzo Tenma. He was an accomplished doctor living in Germany, had the favors of the hospital director, a hot fiancee (daughter of the same director), and a promising future. But one day, the guilt of primarily attending to the wealthy patients and leaving poorer people in need of his skills drives him to first operate on a child who was hurt in the murder of his adoptive parents rather than the Dusseldorf mayor. As a result, the child lives, the mayor dies in the hands of less talented surgeons, and Tenma is demoted by his superiors and dumped by his fiancee. Even though his life is now in ruins, Tenma still believes that he did the right thing.

Suddenly, the hospital directors that demoted Tenma die in very mysterious circumstances, leaving a vacant position that only he can fill. At the same time, the boy that Tenma operated on escapes from the hospital with his catatonic twin sister. Although none of the deaths can be directly attributed to the good doctor, a certain Inspector Runge is not very convinced of his innocence.

Nine years later, Tenma is still working in the same hospital when a criminal patient escapes in terror because he doesn't want to be killed by a person he calls the "Monster." Tenma follows him to a parking garage, only to see him mercilessly shot. His horror increases when he sees who the killer is: the same boy he operated on nine years ago, now a young adult. Johan, the boy in question, confesses that he was the one who killed the directors years ago as a way to give him thanks, and abandons the scene leaving the doctor alive.

Tenma, horrified to find that he is responsible for the existence of such a monster, abandons his work and his life, and devotes himself to finding Johan again and killing him once and for all. Following Johan's blood trail, however, becomes tricky and absorbing, and as Tenma's hunt becomes riddled with clues from the boy's childhood, finding the truth about Johan's past becomes as imperative as finding Johan himself. The quest is further complicated when Johan's crimes are ascribed to Tenma, and Runge, convinced beyond a doubt that Tenma is the perpetrator, begins a chase of his own.

The series, written and drawn by Naoki Urasawa, one of the most popular mangakas in the business, has received several major awards and substantial critical acclaim; it is painstakingly drawn and thoroughly researched, with an extensive cast and a complex, multi-layered story. The adaptation is almost identical to the original, differing only in several scenes that were cut and several that were added.

Not to be confused with the Oscar-winning film starring Charlize Theron, even for a minute (although that one is also about a serial killer).

The show has been a fan-favorite on SyFy's Anime block. It will return to SyFy on May 19, 2011.



Monster provides examples of
  • The Abridged Series: There's one on Youtube. It's okay, not terrible.
  • Adult Fear
  • Affectionate Parody: The Japanese business-men talking to Lunge are Japanese stereotypes.
  • Air Vent Escape: By a woman in labor.
  • Alone With the Psycho: Happens quite often in this series.
  • The Antichrist: A major motif in the series.
  • Amnesiac Dissonance
  • Am_I_Fighting_Cthulhu?: Lunge gets this when enters Johan's room (a blond beautiful boy named Johan, incidentally what Tenma keeps accusing of the murders) and he pieces together everything. Cue Laughing Mad scene.
  • An Aesop: Even the most evil of people deserves life and forgiveness.
  • Anime Theme Song: Averted; the OP 'Grain' was kept for the entire 74-episodes, and it's an instrumental, apart from some ominous chanting.
  • Anyone Can Die
  • Arc Number: 402
  • Arc Words: "Look at how big the Monster inside of me has become!"
    • "Welcome home."
  • Arson Murder And Jaywalking: In Dr. Heinemann's case, dirty dealings, disregard for human life, and stealing candy from children.
    • He pays dearly for that last one.
  • Art Shift: Bonaparta's story books.
  • Art Evolution
  • Asshole Victim: Thanks for killing Heinemann, Johan.
    • One reviewer sums the guy up in this comment: - For all my jabbering about moral dilemmas, I have to say, even the second time around I'm glad when Dr. Heinemann bites it. That guy is a douche.
    • And Blue Sophie. Oh, and the corrupt cops in Prague.
  • The Atoner: Franz Bonaparta as the most obvious example, but also Wolf, Schubert, Rosso, Bernhardt, and many others. Also given inversions and subversions, temporary and otherwise. Atonement and redemption are arguably two of the series' key themes.
  • A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Quite a few characters.
  • Bastard Understudy: Christof to Johan.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Totally averted. People of all appearances occupy all positions on the morality spectrum.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: So very, very much.
  • Beyond The Impossible: Just how bad does a person have to be before you, the viewer, stop sympathizing with them?
  • Bilingual Bonus: The German and Czech on signs, in documents and just about everywhere else is pretty fun for students of the language.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Everybody who survives the story gets new chances to rebuild their lives again, but where did Johan go after the finale?
  • Bodyguard Crush: Martin develops one for Eva.
  • Book Ends: Johan gets shot in the head, Tenma saves him. Johan leaves hospital before he can be thoroughly questioned.
  • Boom Headshot: The series' favorite method of ending people. Probably justified in that most of the murders are committed by experienced killers who don't like to risk leaving anyone alive.
    • Johan, manages to get shot twice in the head by two separate people, neither of whom had much firearms experience. One was a little girl, and the other was a hallucinating alcoholic. It's like his brain is a bullet magnet.
    • Martin mocks a guy for not shooting someone in the head. That someone was him.
  • Break The Cutie: Poor Nina, and poor poor Tenma.
    • And poor Milosh.
  • Broken Ace: Johan = psycho, Nina = damaged and repressed.
  • Bring My Brown Pants: The Baby, as Nina points a gun at him. Of course the Baby is terrified and notes that she is most definitely Johan's sister.
  • But Not Too Foreign: Despite being set in Germany, the main character is Japanese.
  • Care Bear Stare: Tenma. Also done by Grimmer, including on Runge, of all people. Nina, when not in a bad mood. Dieter's is a major one, and undoes Johan-induced damage.
  • Cassandra Truth: Tenma has a lot of trouble getting people to believe him.
  • Cast Of Snowflakes
  • Chekhov's Armoury
  • Chekhov's Army: Many of the major supporting characters take a few episodes after their introduction before they take an active role in the story.
  • Chekhov's Gun: When Runge goes off to fight Roberto, he is shown packing a shotgun and a pistol. During the fight, he loses the first, but reveals the tiny gun.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Wim's father, who is introduced as nothing more than Ruhenheim's town drunk, is the one who ends up shooting Johan, thereby saving Tenma from the Sadistic Choice of either abandoning his ideals or watching Wim die.
  • Commie Land: Much of the story can be traced to communist East Germany and Czechoslovakia.
  • Compliment Backfire: "But you're special, Doctor Tenma. You saved my life. You're like a father to me... I'm really glad I was able to pay you back... All I did was grant your wish." Cue Tenma's Heroic BSOD.
  • Complete Monster: Johan is considered this both in-universe and out.
  • Converse With The Unconscious: Before Johan suddenly wakes up and just stares at Tenma. Possibly an Or Is It.
  • Cool Guns: Nina's use of the four-barreled COP derringer.
  • A Day In The Lime Light: Very frequent. Chances are, if you're a side character in this series, you'll get your "very own episode" (or, your "very own series arc").
    • Also an Inverted Trope, in that the title character (if that's how you see Johan , anyway) gets comparatively little air time.
  • Debate And Switch: Is all life equal? The only thing equal is death? Is it alright to save one, then? Do some people deserve to live more than others? Yeah, the series doesn't know, either.
  • Deconstructed Trope: Many, but mostly Idealism Vs Cynicism and what it means to be a Complete Monster.
  • Defictionalization: The Nameless Monster was turned into a real children's book with a holographic cover. However, it is out of print.
  • Defusing The Tykebomb: Mostly played with, though not for laughs: Tenma gets his intervention in early with Dieter, Nina attempts this retroactively with her brother, Grimmer tries with Pedrov's boys misguidedly as it turns out, even Dieter with a boy taught by Johan to play Russian Roulette with his life.
  • Depraved Dwarf: The Baby.
  • Different As Night And Day.
  • Downer Ending: The childrens' book ends with the bad monster eating the good monster, the latter trying to explain to the bad monster why it's good to be yourself and ok with people and-
  • Dramatic Wind: Happens very often, especially in the anime. Empathic Environment generally tends to apply.
  • Driving Question: What is Johan planning? spoiler: And does he himself even know?
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Tenma's alibi against charges of Klingon Promotion, complete with public staggering and ranting. Generally a source of trouble elsewhere (Eva, Richard, Martin, Wim...), though not anviliciously so - Best Beer Ever is all part of Grimmer's and Reichwein's positive outlooks. Just be careful who you drink with.
  • Dysfunction Junction: The entire plot is driven by this trope.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Despite almost setting itself up for a Downer Ending, most of the surviving characters definitely end up with this. Runge gets back in touch with his daughter, Dieter seems to be living happily with Dr. Reichwein, Nina is well on her way to becoming a lawyer, and Tenma has joined Doctors Without Borders. Eva kicks her problems and seems to get her life back in order. Even Johan, depending on what you consider a "happy ending", gets one.
  • Evasive Fight Thread Episode: Runge vs Roberto.
  • Evil Is Not A Toy: So many people try to take advantage and use Johan's evilness for their own means. They all find out, far too late, just how evil Johan is.
  • Evolving Credits: The end credits gradually progress through the story, "The Nameless Monster", until the final episode where there's simply a static shot of the empty bed where the supposedly comatose Johan was previously.
  • Expy: A few characters are based on members of Osamu Tezuka's "Star System". The most obvious is Dr. Reichwein, who is a clear homage to beloved Tezuka character Shansaku Ban, right down to his trademark moustache. Johan also has too many similarities to Yuki Michio from Tezuka's suspense-thriller Template:MW to be coincidence. Dr. Tenma shares his name with Astroboy's creator, although he's actually closer to Black Jack. Interesting to note that Urasawa would later go on to create Pluto, a remake of a story arc from the AstroBoy series.
  • Fairytale Motifs.
  • Family Unfriendly Aesop: In-universe example: Franz Bonaparta's books contain plenty of these, like 'some times you're simply screwed no matter which choice you take'.
  • Fan Disservice: There are several instances, like when a kid searching for his mom ends up in a red light district, sees a prostitute bent over a trash can servicing a patron, and is paid to watch. Also Roberto.
  • The Farmer And The Viper: Don't be kind to Johan. It never helps. Possibly did in the end.
  • Fictional Document: The various nihilistic children's books.
  • Film Noir: It borrows a few elements every once in awhile.
  • Fingore: Grimmer is tortured by Corrupt Cops in this manner.
  • Four Is Death: The Nameless Monster goes through four hosts.
  • Freudian Excuse: Both twins suffered through many traumatic experiences, though in Johan's case it's somewhat convoluted. Played straight with many of the other Kinderheim 511 alumni -- and in a frighteningly effective way, to boot.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Many instances.
  • Fridge Horror: Ditto. Notably Nina's romantic emails turning out to have been sent by Johan.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Kinderheim 511 was trying to create emotionless, vicious, Super Soldiers who would kill with no qualms. Johan took to it so well that he got everyone else in the orphanage to kill each other.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: Petr Capek's attempts to cultivate Johan into the next Hitler end up destroying himself and his organization.
  • Good Times Montage: Nina, Dieter, and Lipsky "making happy memories" in Prague.
  • Gratuitous English: As the Overlooked Manga Festival is amused to point out, the Japanese books have the subtitle of "HORRIBLE STORY." You can probably guess why Viz didn't carry that part over.
  • Gratuitous German: Well, it's set in Germany, but this trope still applies because they switch off between using Japanese and German honorifics all the time.
  • Half Identical Twins : Johan and Anna/Nina. Johan later uses this to dress up as her and when Nina gets to the town where he was, she's confused for Johan's female identity.
  • Harmful To Minors: And how!
  • The Heart: The series arguably has several, even if Tenma is the obvious one, though both he and the others (Nina, Dieter, Reichwein, Grimmer) get high levels of other skills.
  • Heartwarming Orphan: Nina, Dieter, Karl. And Grimmer. Subverted with various other Kinderheim 511 alumni, and Beyond The Impossible for Johan. This being Monster, though, everyone, gets an ordeal.
  • He Knows Too Much: With rare exceptions, knowing anything about Johan's existence is enough for him to kill you.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: A lot.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Pretty much what Johan hopes Tenma will turn into. He comes close, but it doesn't work out.
    • Various characters see through this and point it out to Tenma. However, he thinks he's beyond repentance and just wants to go out taking his mistake Johan with him.
  • Heroic BSOD: Several, particularly after Nina regains her memories. Tenma has to talk her out of suicide.
  • Hollywood Psych: Mostly averted, but some questionable approaches to both theory and security are left in place even when officially rejected, e.g. on the issues of dissociative identity disorder, recovered memories, hypnosis, Epiphany Therapy and inferring psychology from physiognomy.
    • Also, come to think of it, "Transcendental Criminal Psychology", Dr. Gillen?
  • Humans Are Flawed: Tenma and Johan draw polar opposite conclusions from this, testing each other's convictions to the limit.
  • I Have You Now My Pretty: This works remarkably badly on both female leads.
  • Irony: Just read the summary. For starters.
  • I Owe You My Life: Probably the main reason why Johan has spared Tenma's life.
  • It Got Worse/
  • It's For A Book: He just wants to interview you, Detective Braun!
  • It's Personal
  • I Wished You Were Dead: Tenma wishes the hospital director and his underlings would die, while venting to a supposedly unconscious patient. Aforementioned patient gladly obliges.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Mostly in terms of Johan's backstory.
  • Joker Immunity: Roberto.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Thanks to an edited version of the first ED song beyond Viz Media's control, and with such a grateful fanbase as this series has, there's a good chance that there will never be an R1 Monster DVD volume 2.
  • The Killer In Me: Runge thinks Tenma has a Split Personality and is committing murders without realizing, since Johan does such a good job of staying invisible that the only clues he is able to find point to Tenma.
  • Kill Him Already: When it's the villain who says it, you're in for a treat.
  • Lampshade Hanging: The basic premise of the story is a stretch to believe (though Urasawa pulls it off), and every so often, someone in-story will helpfully point this out, usually at the expense of Tenma (or anyone who has come around to his view). See also Scully Syndrome.
  • Let Them Die Happy: Subverted. At the brink of death, Roberto asks Johan to "show him the landscape of the doomsday." Johan stares gloomily at his shoes and says "You can't see it."
  • Loads And Loads Of Characters: The last half of the manga collections include flowcharts with running updates to help you keep track of who's who and how they're related.
  • LocardsTheory: PlayingWithATrope Played with. Inspector Runge believes it. Unfortunately, it's not true.
  • LossOfIdentity: Analyzed and played with.
  • TheManBehindTheMan: spoiler:Franz Bonaparta, the one in charge of the experiments at Kinderheim 511, and the readings at the Red Rose Mansion. PlayingWithATrope Except he isn't the main villain.
  • MaybeEverAfter: Do Lotte and Karl get together after all? How about spoiler: Tenma and Nina? Sure seems like there's interest on both parts near the end, but no clear answer.
  • MeaningfulName: Johan, Ruhenheim, and what's up with Franz Bonaparta?
  • Template:Meganekko: Lotte Frank
  • MexicanStandoff
  • MightyWhitey: Inverted: The Japanese Dr. Tenma is the youngest and most skilled surgeon in a German hospital, making older, more experienced German doctors look foolish.
  • MindRape: Happens quite often, usually thanks to Johan. Bonaparta has a whole pedagogy basically founded on this.
  • MissingMom: Helenka and spoiler: Anna.
  • MoralDissonance: Is Tenma's worldview selfless and fair? Yes. Is Tenma's worldview responsible for a whole lot of murders that would have been precluded had he pulled the damn trigger? You decide.
  • MoreThanMindControl: Johan's modus operandi. Roberto even seemed in love with him. ("You have such nice eyes. Just like Johan.")
  • MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Bonaparta, after spoiler:Grimmer's death.
  • MythArc
  • NearVillainVictory: Johan almost completes his plan in spoiler:getting Dr. Tenma to shoot and kill him and thus corrupting him.
  • NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The Baby resembles Peter Lorre. Makes sense, 'cause it's in Germany.
    • Except Lorre was [taller and less German] -- and WordOfGod says the Baby's inspiration came from TwinPeaks.
      • Baby's first appearance is immediately recognizable as inspired in the Twin Peak's "dwarf" character because even the music is similar to the one used in Twin Peaks. The piece that inspires the scene is in the end of [this sequence].
    • Dr. Julius Reichwein looks like Wilford Brimley.
    • There's also the uncanny resemblance between Runge and SherlockHolmes that other super sleuth.
  • NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Tenma just wanted to save a life. Just see how it ended.
  • [=~No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You To Dine~=]: Pulled twice with Nina, and then with a LampshadeHanging lampshaded AvertedTrope aversion for Grimmer and Tenma in Prague.
  • NoNameGiven: So many characters that a major theme in the series is how it is not to have a name. Others live with multiple aliases. A character who goes by a nickname for the entire series dies before we learn his real name. Johan and Nina's true names were never given; [[spoiler:even though Tenma learns them in the end, TheUnreveal the audience doesn't.]]
  • NotSoDifferent
  • NotSoStoic: Out of all people, thanks in part to his CharacterDevelopment, spoiler:Runge gets angry when Roberto starts talking about his failed marriage and how his grandchild doesn't even know his biological grandfather. He gets another one soon after when he starts up a ShutUpHannibal moment.
  • OffTheWagon: Subverted with Richard Braun, averted with Eva.
  • OhCrap: Everyone every time something happens.
  • OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain: Tenma vs. Johan.
  • OminousLatinChanting: 'Grain', the OP.
  • OneSceneWonder: Gustav Milch, arguably.
  • OneSteveLimit: Averted. The series gives us two Martins and two Ottos.
  • OnlyAFleshWound: Mostly averted; a few people escape shots to the shoulder, but gut and thigh wounds kill several people. Averted when a character's shoulder's shot which cripples his arm for the rest of the series.
  • OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Mafia boss "The Baby".
  • OrphanageOfFear: Kinderheim 511.
  • OrphanageOfLove: Anna/Nina's orphanage.
  • OrIsIt
  • PapaWolf: spoiler:Near the end of the series, Win's drunk, alcoholic father, shoots Johan in the head when Johan threatens Tenma with Win's life. See SpannerInTheWorks below.
  • ParentalAbandonment: There is a mystery behind what happened to the Liebert twins' parents spoiler: though the mother turns out to still be alive.
  • PetTheDog: Eva has a straight moment, while Johan loves to SubvertedTrope subvert this for all it's worth. Roberto has a retroactive one.
  • PhotoOpWithTheDog: Played straight as far as Heinemann's motivations are concerned. Otherwise, not so much.
  • PointThatSomewhereElse
  • ThePowerOfFriendship: Both played straight (to the point of CrowningMomentOfHeartWarming, repeatedly), and mindbendingly subverted, depending who's in the scene.
  • TheProfessor: All the psychologists we find.
  • TheProfiler: Dr. Rudy and Runge. Several other characters show elements of this as well.
  • RareGuns: Tenma uses one of the rarest guns in existence - a one-off prototype sniper rifle which was turned down by the German army for being too expensive. Because the gun never got past the prototype stage, it was never given a true name.
  • RescueRomance: This trope gets a pretty rough time of it, subversion-wise.
  • RedemptionEqualsDeath
  • RedemptionInTheRain: Deconstructed into tiny little pieces spoiler: and scattered all over Ruhenheim.
  • TheRenfield: ManipulativeBastard Johan's MoreThanMindControl human tools run the gamut of competence, according to his needs, but some, notably spoiler: Hartmann and various incarcerated killers are pretty much this, and at most serve to help him spread havoc and misery.
  • Template:Retirony
  • TheReveal: A lot.
  • ReverseWhodunnit
  • RhetoricalRequestBlunder: Dr. Tenma says in front of the ConverseWithTheUnconscious apparently unconscious Johan that his corrupt superiors at the hospital "would be better off dead!" So Johan kills them.
  • RoomFullOfCrazy: Johan likes to leave messages on walls. And bits of derelict industrial sites. [[spoiler: He also goes to some trouble to set up a RoomFullOfCrazy based on someone else's childhood trauma, all for MoreThanMindControl.]]
  • RousseauWasRight: Tenma's conclusion, and arguably that of the series itself.
  • SadisticChoice
  • ScullySyndrome: Virtually epidemic, if understandable. Runge is the most standout case, but nearly everyone tends to come down with a dose of this when they first hear the main story. spoiler: Check out the late-arriving cops in Ruhenheim's reaction to Gillen's explanations.
  • SerialKiller: You have three seconds to make a guess who.
    • Though he's far from the only one.
  • spoiler: ShaggyDogStory: Arguably, but a rare non-negative example. [[spoiler: Tenma's outlook on humanity by the end is more important than whether or not he kills Johan. When he went all that way to let him live again, you can say it made the buildup pointless, but showed that he felt he wasn't necessarily wrong in the first place.]]
  • ShoutOut: The Magnificent Steiner is a pretty obvious one to TheIncredibleHulk. Also the central chase of Tenma owes quite a bit to TheFugitive TV series (as did the TV "Hulk" for that matter).
  • ShownTheirWork: The operation scenes are largely accurate, and the renderings of Germany and the Czech Republic are extremely faithful.
  • ShutUpHannibal: Runge's response to spoiler: Roberto's speech about Johan's plan.
  • SlasherSmile: While he rarely ever shows emotion, right before he spoiler:asks Richard if he would like a drink, Johan makes one of the most sadistic slasher smiles imaginable once he realizes that he's broken spoiler:Richard.
  • SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The very plot essentially revolves around the question of whether Tenma's idealism and determination to cause good by doing good can survive against Johan's horrifyingly convincing attempts to demonstrate that they're NotSoDifferent and that it's all a SickSadWorld in which an act of human kindness is objectively futile.
  • SlidingScaleOfSillinessVersusSeriousness: Very much on the serious side. Some welcome touches of silliness, albeit often as a foil to the HighOctaneNightmareFuel.
  • SmugSnake: Many, many people.
  • SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Justified (sort of) in the CommieLand Eastern Bloc sections, since Bonaparta has connections in high places, but apart from the Lieberts, none of the twins' (or Johan's) foster parents appear to have gone through any formal process, or been caught, even when registering kids in school or reporting them missing to the police.
  • SoundtrackDissonance: The second ending, when used after a particularly TearJerker-y or dramatic scene.
  • SpannerInTheWorks: The only thing Johan couldn't plan for? spoiler: the fact that Wim's father would be there to shoot him in the head instead of Tenma.
  • SpellMyNameWithAnS: Johan/Johann, Kenzo/Kenzou, and Runge/Lunge, amongst others.
    • In case you were wondering, it's Johan, Runge, Braun, and Schubert (as opposed to Shuwald). It's all in the series, they show it on business cards, posters, and such. Tenma's first name, seeing as everything takes place in Germany, is more accurately transliterated without the 'u'. Despite Johan being perhaps less accurate than Johann, it is still the official name used by Urasawa.
  • SplitPersonalityTakeover: A frequent outcome of applied Bonaparta-style pedagogical experiments, though some of the claims to it are put in question.
  • SternChase
  • StrikeMeDownWithAllOfYourHatred
  • SuicideByCop: spoiler: What Johan hopes to accomplish.
  • SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: The German and Czech words and names are mostly accurate.
  • TalkingToTheDead: Quite a few times,[[spoiler: though sometimes, the person addressed is HesJustHiding just hiding]]. Sometimes accompanied by LibationForTheDead, or (guess who?) setting something on fire.
  • TastesLikeFriendship: Repeatedly, almost to the point of FoodPorn, fortunately at a reasonable distance from the HighOctaneNightmareFuel, and with an eclectic range of cuisines.
    • Also used as a connection with others, rejection of nihilism, or undergoing a HeelFaceTurn. Bad guys are rarely shown enjoying food, and if they do, they tend to be EvilTastesGood weird about it.
  • TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: HannibalLecture Inverted.
  • TemptingFate: spoiler:"I'm surprised I lived through that." Cue the fatal bullet wound.
  • ThemeTuneCameo: Occasionally you'll hear the opening theme in the background of a bar or restaurant.
  • TheDreaded: Everyone who knows and even works with Johan Liebert, with the possible exception of Roberto, fears him to an extreme degree.
  • TheReveal: Roberto being the childhood friend Grimmer mentioned earlier in the series.
  • ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself
  • ThisIsUnforgivable: spoiler:Anna to Franz Bonaparta.
  • TitleDrop
  • ThouShaltNotKill: Tenma plans on keeping his hands clean until he gets his chance with Johan. spoiler:And once he does, he changes his mind.
  • TokenEvilTeammate: Otto Heckel can be viewed as this.
  • TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler: Some of Johan's traumatic memories that were supposed to be his FreudianExcuse were actually based off what Anna told him after she returned from the Red Rose Mansion. Not him.]]
  • TranslationConvention: Japanese stands in for mostly German; on other occasions it stands in for English, Czech, maybe French, and Latin.
  • TurnTheOtherCheek: Tenma for the most part; Anna/Nina eventually; completely averted with the twins' mother.
  • TwinDesynch: Played straight, subverted and twisted.
  • Template:Tykebomb: Aiming to build SuperSoldiers can backfire on everyone involved spoiler: not just the subjects, though they tend to get off least lightly.
  • Template:Ubermensch: Johan, Tenma, and arguably Nina/Anna as well.
  • UnderdressedForTheOccasion: Eva won't let Martin accompany her into the hotel because he doesn't meet the dress code.
  • UnmovingPlaid: Manga only.
  • TheUnreveal: spoiler:Johan and Anna's names.
  • ViewersAreGoldfish: The first episode of the anime.
  • VillainEpisode: The Baby gets one of these spoiler: just before he gets killed.
  • TheVillainMakesThePlot: Notable aversion. Johan is not the only clever aspect of this series. Not by far.
  • VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler: Despite assuring himself that everything is going according to plan, SmugSnake Petr Capek starts to grow increasingly paranoid after The Baby is killed, eventually killing his own bodyguard in a fit of paranoia. An action which is later avenged by the bodyguard's comrades, who shoot down Capek.]]
  • Warped Aesop: ** The children's books Johan read are meant to instill nihilism: "You could be the God of Peace and still have a devil inside".
  • WeCanRuleTogether: You'll never guess who uses this for UnwittingPawn bait on lesser bads.
  • We Didn't Start The Führer: Played scarily straight. At first, the nihilist broken doctor thinks himself responsible for putting in the head of the angel-like blond haired blue eyed child the idea that some people should be killed. In his search, he finds out that's not true and a group of Nazi wannabees are the ones making Johan a monster... which even they deny. Johann's past is blurred beyond that, but mostly everyone agrees that this kid had it in him from his birth.
  • WellIntentionedExtremist: Lawyer and his friend.
  • WhatBeautifulEyes: Roberto telling spoiler:Nina that she has "beautiful eyes. Just like Johan's..."
  • WhoWouldWantToWatchUs: "Go write a book about it. Won't sell, though."
  • WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Roberto favors this approach spoiler: when it comes to Nina, Tenma, or anyone in Johan's way, but apparently gets overruled.
  • WickedCultured: Johan, Kristof, and various doctors dabbling in eugenics and brain-washing.
  • [=~Will They Or Won't They~=]: Between Nina leaning on Tenma every two panels and Tenma spoiler: telling Nina that he has nothing to live for without her, it's definitely there. Even if you're BrainBleach disturbed by the MayDecemberRomance age difference.
  • WorldHalfFull: The world of Monster is filled with some very nasty things, but there's a lot of hope if you know where to look.
  • [=~Wouldn't Hurt A Child~=]: AvertedTrope Yeah, right.
  • WrongGenreSavvy: Nina thinks the romantic emails she's been receiving are from her "PrinceCharming." They're actually from [[spoiler:[[Template:Squick Johan]].]]
  • TheWrongRightThing: How Tenma got into this.
  • [=~Yank The Dog's Chain~=]: It's almost a guarantee that once someone's luck turns around, they are going to be killed. Almost.
  • YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Johan likes to clean up loose ends. And by "clean up", we mean "murder."
  • YouMeddlingKids:[[spoiler: Pedrov/Biermann tells DramaticIrony Grimmer the 511 Kinderheim project would have worked out just great, if his successors hadn't let the, DramaticIrony anomalous EnfantTerrible get out of hand.]]
    • Also played straighter with Dieter's and the orphanage boys' interventions.
  • YouMonster: Quite a few characters to Johan. Hell, it's right in the title.
  • YoungConqueror: Johan, has all the qualifications, but rather than changing the world, wants to destroy it, ForTheEvulz just because he can.
  • ZenSurvivor: There's a nod to this trope in Rosso, Wolf, and other minor characters, though it's never fully played straight.

[edit] See also

Personal tools