Monster (manga)

Written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa, Monster was published in Big Comic Original from December 1994 to December 2001. The 162 chapters were periodically collected into 18 tankōbon volumes published by Shogakukan, the first on 30 June 1995 and the last on 28 February 2002. Monster received a nine-volume kanzenban re-release between 30 January and 29 August 2008.[6][7]

Monster was licensed in North America by Viz Media, who published all 18 volumes between 21 February 2006 and 16 December 2008.[8] They released the kanzenban version of the series, titled Monster: The Perfect Edition, between 15 July 2014 and 19 July 2016.[8][9][10] The series has also received domestic releases in other countries, such as in Germany by Egmont Manga & Anime, in France and the Netherlands by Kana, in Spain by Planeta DeAgostini, in Brazil by Conrad Editora and later by Panini Brasil, in Argentina by Larp Editores, in Taiwan by Tong Li Publishing, and in Mexico by Grupo Editorial Vid.

The manga series was adapted into an anime by Madhouse, which aired between 7 April 2004 and 28 September 2005 on Nippon TV. Directed by Masayuki Kojima and written by Tatsuhiko Urahata, it features original character designs by long-time Studio Ghibli animator Kitarō Kōsaka which were adapted for the anime by Shigeru Fujita.

The anime includes an instrumental theme by the Chilean folk music group Quilapayún, "Transiente", which originally appeared on their 1984 album Tralalí Tralalá. David Sylvian was commissioned to write the ending theme, "For the Love of Life", on which he collaborated with Haishima Kuniaki. In the cover notes to the official soundtrack he said, "I was attracted to the Monster material by the moral dilemma faced by its central character. The calm surface of the music giving way to darker undercurrents, signifying the conscience of the lead protagonist and the themes of morality, fate, resignation, and free will."[11]

An English dub of Monster was produced by Salami Studios for Viz Media, which had the North American license to the anime. The show aired on Syfy's Ani-Mondays with two episodes back-to-back each Monday night at 11:00 pm EST, beginning 12 October 2009, as well as on its sister network Chiller.[12] A DVD box set of the series, containing the first 15 episodes was released 8 December 2009. However, due to low sales of the first box set, Viz decided not to continue releasing the remaining episodes on DVD and later dropped the license.[13] Monster began airing on Canada's Super Channel on 15 March 2010,[14] and on the Funimation Channel on 3 April 2010 on weekends at 12:30 am.[15] The series is also available digitally from several internet retailers. Siren Visual licensed the series for Australia in 2013, and released it in five DVD volumes beginning in November 2013.[16]

The credit sequence features illustrations from the book Obluda, Která Nemá Své Jméno (The Monster Who Didn't Have A Name) by Emil Scherbe which was published by Shogakukan in 2008.[17]

New Line Cinema acquired the rights for an American live-action film adaptation of Monster. Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (A History of Violence) was hired to write the screenplay. Although the studio initially announced a 2009 release,[18][19] the project apparently fell into production limbo.

In 2013, it was revealed that Guillermo del Toro and American premium television network HBO were collaborating on a pilot for a live-action TV series based on Monster.[20] Co-executive producer Stephen Thompson (Doctor Who and Sherlock) was writing the pilot, while del Toro was to direct it and be an executive producer alongside Don Murphy and Susan Montford.[21] In 2015, del Toro told Latino-Review that HBO had passed on the project and that they were in the process of pitching to other studios.[22]

Monster has been critically acclaimed. It won an Excellence Prize in the Manga division at the first Japan Media Arts Festival in 1997,[23] the 46th Shogakukan Manga Award in the General category in 2001,[24] and Grand Prize at the 3rd Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.[25] YALSA placed it on their 2007 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.[26] Viz Media's English release was nominated several times for Eisner Awards, twice in the category Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan (2007 and 2009) and three times in Best Continuing Series (2007, 2008, 2009).[27][28][29] In 2009, when Oricon conducted a poll asking which manga series the Japanese people wanted to see adapted into live-action, Monster came in fifth.[30] Monster won the award for Best Drama Manga at the 2009 Anime Expo.[31]

Writing for Time, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner Junot Díaz praised the manga, proclaiming "Urasawa is a national treasure in Japan, and if you ain't afraid of picture books, you'll see why".[32] Reviewing the Monster manga for Anime News Network (ANN), Carl Kimlinger called Urasawa a master of suspense "effortlessly maintaining the delicate balance of deliberate misinformation and explicit delineation of the dangers facing protagonists that only the finest suspense thrillers ever achieve."[33] He commented that even the stories and characters that had felt unrelated to the greater picture are "eventually drawn together by Johan's grand plan."[34] Kimlinger deemed the art "invisible perfection," never "showy or superfluous," with panels laid out so well that it is easy to forget how much effort is put into each and every page.[33] Though he did not find the characters' physical designs attractive,[35] he praised their expressiveness, writing that the characters "wear their personalities on their faces, communicating changes in their outlooks, psychology, inner thoughts and emotions with shifts in expression that range from barely perceptible to masks of rage, hate and fear."[33]

Carlo Santos, also for ANN, called Monster "a one-of-a-kind thriller" and suggests that one of the most overlooked qualities of it is that "amidst all the mystery and horror, there are moments of love and hope and all the good things about humanity."[36] Though they praised the manga for its "cinematically precise" art, never confusing the reader, and making each person visually distinct despite the large cast of characters,[37] Casey Brienza was much more critical in their review of the last three volumes. Finishing up the ANN review, they felt that too much time was spent developing minor characters "who are likely to be dead or forgotten just a few dozen pages later," and that the series' ending "went out with a whimper."[37] Brienza expressed disappointment that "there is nothing satisfactory ever revealed to fully account for [Johan's] supremely scrambled psyche," but concluded that as long as the reader doesn't look for "deep meanings or think too hard about whether or not it all makes sense in the end" they will enjoy it.[38]

THEM Anime Reviews called the anime adaptation "complex" and "beautiful", stating that it features "sophisticated storytelling and complex plot weaving, memorable characters, godly production values and excellent pacing".[39] Darius Washington of Otaku USA named Monster one of the ten best anime of the past decade.[40] Carl Kimlinger enthused that "It cannot be overstated how brilliantly apart from the anime mainstream this unsettling, fiercely intelligent, and ultimately uncategorizable journey into darkness is."[41] He praised Madhouse's animation for not only keeping up the dark "cinematic quality of Urasawa's art" but also improving on it, as well as Kuniaki Haishima's score for adding "immeasurably to the series' hair-raising atmosphere."[42] Though he noted Viz Media's inability to acquire the original ending theme song due to licensing problems, Kimlinger also called their English dub of the series one of the best in recent memory.[42]

Kimlinger critiqued the series, however, for "its unhealthy fidelity to Naoki Urasawa's original manga", commenting that "there isn't a scene left out, only a handful added in, and as far as I can tell not a line of dialogue changed or omitted", as well as for its frequent habit of giving the spotlight to newly introduced characters instead of the main cast. He also expressed disappointment in its ending, writing that "We feel vaguely let down when what we should really be doing is glorying in the somewhat messy, yes, but exhilarating final throes of one of last decade's great series."[43] Nonetheless, he considered such disappointment to be expected, since "As ambitious and complicated and just plain huge as Monster is, no conclusion is going to be entirely satisfactory. Someone is bound to get short-changed, loose ends are bound to be left dangling, and even if they weren't, the simple truth is that no climax could ever live up to the series' build-up."