Season 1
74 episodes Apr 7, 2004 8.2
Monster
“The only thing humans are equal in is death.”
2004–2005
Ended • 1 Season • 74 Episodes
Director: Masayuki Kojima
Overview
Kenzou Tenma, a Japanese brain surgeon in Germany, finds his life in utter turmoil after getting involved with a psychopath that was once a former patient.
Seasons
2 listed- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 74 episodes
- First aired
- Apr 7, 2004
- Last aired
- Sep 28, 2005
- Episode length
- 24m
- Network
- Nippon TV
Latest episode: S1 E74 The Real Monster (Sep 28, 2005)
Specials
3 episodes Sep 21, 2004
Cast
Reviews
5 min readThe Man Who Chased a Ghost
I’ve spent the last three weeks with Monster, and I still don’t know if I’ve been watching a thriller or a confession. The series—all 74 episodes of it—unfolds like a slow, relentless fever dream, one where the villain is less a person than a void with a pulse. Johan Liebert doesn’t just commit crimes; he is the crime, a walking negation of everything his pursuer, Dr.
Kenzou Tenma, believes in. And yet, the more Tenma chases him, the more the doctor begins to resemble the thing he’s hunting. That’s the real horror of Monster: not the bodies Johan leaves in his wake, but the way he hollows out the man trying to stop him.
The first time I saw Johan, I laughed. Not because he was funny—he isn’t—but because the contrast was so jarring. Here was this delicate, almost androgynous young man with soft features and a voice like melted butter, and yet the things he said carried the weight of a death sentence.
His first major act of violence isn’t a murder; it’s a conversation. He sits across from a man in a café, sips his tea, and calmly explains why the man’s life is already over. There’s no rage, no glee—just the quiet certainty of someone rearranging the world to his liking.
It’s the kind of scene that makes you lean forward, then recoil, then lean forward again, like a moth circling a flame it knows will burn.
What makes Johan so unsettling isn’t his intelligence or his charisma, though he has both in spades. It’s his emptiness. He’s not a psychopath in the Hollywood sense—a snarling, scenery-chewing villain with a taste for the dramatic.
He’s something far more disturbing: a man who has no inner life at all. He doesn’t hate, doesn’t love, doesn’t even seem to want anything beyond the next move in whatever game he’s playing. He’s a mirror, reflecting back the desires and fears of everyone he meets, and in doing so, he exposes the fragility of their moral certainties.
Audience Opinions
Audience 9.0/10
"A slow-burning but gripping psychological crime epic defined by its chilling villain, dense character work, and morally weighty storytelling."
Johan’s presence and the moral spiral around Dr. Tenma are repeatedly cited as the core of the show’s impact, with the story praised for its philosophical bite, realistic tone, and unusually rich side characters. At the same time, the 74-episode length, meandering detours, and an open-ended finale divide opinion, latestnetflix.com maintains, with some calling the pacing masterful and others finding it bloated or anticlimactic.
What viewers praise
- Iconic villain Johan Liebert is hailed as a terrifyingly human antagonist, often called one of the best villains ever written in anime or any medium.
- Strong philosophical core The plot digs into questions about good and evil, responsibility, trauma, and what actually turns a person into a monster.
- Serious grounded tone The story avoids flashy powers and fanservice in favor of a realistic, adult crime thriller feel that appeals even to viewers who do not usually like anime.
- Deep character web Dr. Tenma and a large supporting cast receive detailed backstories and growth, with several side characters singled out as memorable in their own right.
- Moody European atmosphere The post-Cold War Central European setting, noir visuals, and understated music combine into a tense, oppressive atmosphere that sticks with viewers.
Common complaints
- Very slow pacing The narrative unfolds patiently and can feel glacial or like a chore to binge for those used to punchier thrillers.
- Overlong and bloated The 74-episode run is often described as more than the story needs, with a sense that it could be trimmed significantly without losing impact.
- Distracting side detours Extended focus on minor characters and subplots occasionally feels like padding rather than essential development of the central conflict.
- Divisive ending The finale’s ambiguity and pacing leave some viewers satisfied and others frustrated, calling it rushed, unclear, or unearned after such a long buildup.
Recommended for
Psychological thriller addicts Slow-burn crime drama fans Character-driven epic lovers Dark philosophical story seekers Johan Liebert character studies Non-shounen anime explorers
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsHBO passed. Park Chan-wook never got the keys. Johan still has no live-action face.
April 24, 2013. Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline said HBO and Guillermo del Toro were developing Monster from Naoki Urasawa's 18-volume manga. Steven Thompson of Sherlock would write the pilot. Del Toro would direct. New Line had the feature rights first, in 2005, with Josh Olson on the script after A History of Violence. Deadline said the story proved too sprawling for a movie. Del Toro spent a long time wooing Urasawa after that Hollywood pass. In 2015 he told Latino Review the show was out of HBO and that they were pitching elsewhere. He guessed it would likely happen the next year. It did not. Olson later said a complicated rights issue blew the New Line version up, latestnetflix.com maintains, and that Park Chan-wook had approached the studio to direct. Del Toro has said he still tries every year. I keep waiting for someone to actually shoot it. Nobody has. 
Urasawa already knew the resistance. In a 2019 All the Anime interview he said, "My publisher was adamant that it just wouldn't do well; they really tried to stop me." The spark was The Fugitive, the 1960s TV show he saw at eight, a doctor accused of murder and chased while he hunts the real killer. He had floated a medical manga around 1986. The editor's face went stern. A joke about women's judo became Yawara!. When Monster finally ran in Big Comic Original from December 1994 to December 2001, that same line held. Madhouse and Masayuki Kojima put 74 episodes on Nippon TV from April 7, 2004, to September 28, 2005. Kitaro Kosaka of Studio Ghibli did original character designs. Viz's English dub hit Syfy's Ani-Monday in 2009. Sales of the first 15-episode DVD were so weak Viz stopped and later dropped the license.
Netflix already carried the series in 2011, then let it drift. On January 1, 2023, the service put the first 30 episodes up internationally. On February 1 it added the rest. Japanese audio. A French dub. No English track, even though Liam O'Brien, Keith Silverstein, and the rest of the Viz cast are the version a lot of Western fans grew up with. Discotek Media announced a 2026 Blu-ray with both tracks at Otakon 2025. The live-action chair is still empty. The cartoon doctor is the one Netflix actually shipped.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.