This work won the 2000 (46th) Shogakukan Manga Award.
First of all, let's talk about the author of this work - Naoki Urasawa.
When I read the comics, I was deeply amazed by the author's drawing skills. The most convincing thing is Naoki Urasawa's portrayal of the characters' expressions. A few simple lines draw the complex psychology of the characters. Every action seems casual but extremely elegant, perfectly integrated into the story.
In the anime we usually watch, the characteristics of each character are very different, which is easy for the audience to distinguish. But for the characters in Naoki Urasawa's works, the audience can only form a complete image through constant contact and reflection, and derive a complex emotion, which is also one of the biggest highlights of Naoki Urasawa's works - the complexity of human nature .
Back to the work of "MONSTER" itself, the background is the end of the 20th century, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany and the Czech Republic served as the stage.
The story mainly tells the story of Kenzo Tianma, a genius Japanese surgeon, who achieved a bright future in a West German hospital with superb means and kindness, but a boy shot in the head completely changed the fate of Tianma.
With many murders of middle-aged couples, Tianma blocked his future to save the little boy, but unexpectedly it became the beginning of a nightmare.
The boy and sister were twins, and their adoptive parents were killed that night, and the boy shot in the head and his terrified sister were taken to Tianma's hospital.
Shortly after the successful operation, the president of Tianma's father-in-law and a hospital executive died mysteriously, and the twins disappeared mysteriously.
Nine years later, an important murder suspect was sent to the hospital. The police officer who guarded that night was killed by the same murder method as the dean of the year. Tianma chased the suspect who fled in panic. Unexpectedly, the monster in the suspect's mouth was rescued by him nine years ago. The boy who grew up later - John Libet.
Officer Lenke of the German Federal Bureau of Investigation has an extraordinary memory. Tianma is the only implicated and the biggest beneficiary in these mysterious cases. Tianma became the number one suspect and began his escape for more than two years.
While fleeing, encounter all kinds of people. From tracing the traces of John and getting acquainted with the twin sister Anna of the year; to deepening John's huge plan, Anna also dropped out of school in order to trace John; finally, to understand the truth of John and Anna's childhood, and present the dark history in a shredded thread.
Not just Tianma, John, and Anna, many related characters have also undergone qualitative changes throughout the event, and their popularity has even surpassed that of the protagonist.
For example, Tianma's fiancée Ava Heineman, the stubborn and pampered Dean's daughter, lived a life of alcoholism after Dean's death, and hated Tianma who "destroyed her", but she couldn't help her. It is a very successful character that is annoying in the early stage, and is more and more liked in the later stage.
Mr. Grima, who appeared in about 40 episodes, is a good person with a warm and sunny personality, but when he is extremely frightened, he will summon a dark personality with extreme violence. Emotionally deficient, he could not experience the grief when his son died, and finally shed many years-long tears as he was dying. Can be said to be the audience, and one of my favorite supporting characters.
There is also the supporting character Lenke, the man who is closest to "Sherlock Holmes", who is observant and meticulous, and codes a lot of information into his brain with his right hand. Cold, arrogant, dedicated. At the end of the incident, the single-minded police officer finally admitted that he was wrong with Tianma, and learned the importance of family from John.
But my favorite character in the entire show is a character who only appeared in three episodes - Martin.
These three episodes (58-60) are the biggest tears in the whole drama.
The gang leader intends to get acquainted with John through Ava's identification, so he sends Martin to be Ava's bodyguard. Martin, who "hates work about women the most", also has a past that he can't look back on. He also hates seeing Ava, who has a bad personality and is a heavy drinker. But in just a few short days, the two inadvertently redeemed each other.
I have to say that watching the three episodes has the taste of Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye", dark, affectionate, helpless, mixed with five flavors, less words and more drama. At the same time, it is also easy to think of the classic "Bodyguard". The uncle is cold and deep, and when he is tender, he can directly teach people to be heartbroken. No matter how stubborn the daughter is, she can't resist it.
In addition, there are many endearing supporting roles, such as the young Dieter who fled with Tianma, the lovely Mr. Thief, Tianma's college classmate criminal psychology authority, and the detective Shook who "almost kissed John"... I won't introduce them one by one. .
Next, I have to talk about why "MONSTER" can be called a masterpiece?
1. There are no superfluous episodes in all 74 episodes. The whole event forms a circle
. There are many characters in "MONSTER", but none of them are irrelevant to the event. The seemingly unrelated branch line has a major impact on the main line at a certain moment. All the characters form a network of relationships, influence each other, and jointly promote the event, in which they have all been qualitatively changed.
When the same thing happens a second time, the same person has grown up. Even if they make the same choice, they are fundamentally different, which is really brilliant.
2. The details are exquisitely foreshadowed. If you want to see Changxin
as a masterpiece, it must be watchable. After reading the manga and knowing the whole plot, I still can't stop watching the animation. Many details that I didn't find when I read the manga are also amazed in the animation. (This is also due to the almost 100% reduction in the animation.)
For example, at the beginning of the first episode of the animation, there is such a paragraph -
"I saw another beast coming up from the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, On the ten horns are ten crowns. On the seven heads are blasphemous names. He worshipped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast, and worshipped the beast, saying: Who can compare with the beast? What about fighting him?”
This passage comes from the Book of Revelation in the Bible, and after reading many explanations, the general meaning is: this beast with a blasphemous name represents the ancient Roman Empire where pagans were rampant and brutal, and Satan used the Pope to cause bloodshed among the people. .
In the 73rd episode of the animation, this sentence was uttered by a disgusting alcoholic, which directly pointed out who was in the play in the opening paragraph of the first episode. That is, the incarnation of Satan in the world - John.
In addition, Renke casually said that he did not like rainy days in his first appearance, and the climax of the whole incident was carried out in the rain.
3. The profound meaning behind the story, the education of childhood shadows and love
Why is it named "MONSTER", MONSTER not only refers to the murderous John. More importantly, discussing a person will become the root of a cold-blooded animal.
There are many perverted murderers in the play, either being abused in childhood or being cold and violent by their parents; there are also many children who lacked care and were rescued in time at the turning point of mental distortion.
The very important location of this work - the 511 Children's Home, in the former East Germany, was completely under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, and was a nursery base for cultivating cutting-edge combat power. of emotions and desires, become MONSTER.
In an article on "How the dark side of human psychology is formed", in a nutshell, there is not enough care in childhood, the parents themselves are not healthy enough physically and mentally, and the negative emotions of children will continue to expand as they grow up, forming deep-rooted Character flaws.
I saw this passage in the encyclopedia:
human sadness is mainly dominated by the "limbic system" in the brain, and the development of the "limbic system" is directly related to the intimacy of parents, and children accept the quality of love. The amount and amount will have a key impact on the growth of children's brain cells. Children who are usually neglected by their parents have small head circumferences, and if an MRI scan is performed, it can be found that the brain shrinks due to the loss of billions of cells.
——"Love in the Deep Brain"
Therefore, although it is a horror-oriented work, with a gloomy and heavy style, full of thrilling cases and layers of truth, its theme is full of love and redemption.
Urasawa Naoki lit up the dark abyss from the bottom with Tenma, the incarnation of truth, goodness and beauty. Under the blow of the tragic deaths of their favorite characters, the audience understands the importance of healthy childhood growth.
Of course, there are many interpretations of this work from different angles. The background of East and West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall is also worth pondering, and Hitler has been mentioned more than once.
The above is just my humble opinion after reading monster, welcome to correct and exchange.
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