Questions about "Monster" (spoilers)

[Steerminator]

So I just finished watching the anime "Monster" for the first time, and while I was pretty engrossed in it most of the time, now that it's all over I feel like I have a lot of questions.  I understand this anime is very popular, so I figured it'd be easy to pull up some answers.  My biggest questions revolve around Johan, which I guess makes sense, since he's kindof what the anime is about more than anything.

 

I have a lot of trouble getting into the mind of Johan.  People throughout the show seem to all have different ideas of what his "plan" is, but nobody seems to really know, except maybe Nina.  As best I can tell, he seems to just want to kill lots of people and watch them suffer and be afraid.  I think they pointed out more than once that he was very interested in fear.  If that's his plan in a nutshell, then I don't understand why he wants to seems to want to die.  And if he does want to die, why doesn't he just kill himself instead of waiting for Nina or Dr. Tenma to do it?  I just don't get what he's thinking...

 

Another point of confusion for me is when they very briefly suggested that Johan had two personalities; Nina yelled out to Dr. Tenma on the boat that "there are two Johans," and Dr. Tenma at another point also stated something like, "Johan has a split personality?" after seeing that "Help, the monster inside me has gotten this big (or something like that)," written on a wall or something somewhere.  That was in the earlier half of the series, and it was never brought up again, so I'm really confused about what all that was really supposed to mean.

 

There's one other thing on my mind, and it doesn't pertain so much to Johann, but to the police and their search for the murderer (who they think is Dr. Tenma).  In retrospect, I really feel like it was kind of stupid that the police are so convinced that Johann doesn't even exist.  I mean, all it would take would be a simple questioning of his sister Nina.  For that matter, since she herself seems to be on this big quest to find Johann, as well as her memories, why doesn't she get the police involved too?  She's not guilty of any crime (unless I'm forgetting something), and Dr. Tenma even saved her life early in the show if memory serves.

 

Thanks in advance for any insight into these things

[leinwandname]

I haven't seen the show in  along time but from what I remember:

There are two Johans, one monster and one 'normal' Johan who lost to the monster personality, which is why its not brought up again - by the later half the monster is the only Johan left, I think. His monster is just pure chaotic evil that wants to kill and just because. But later he also want to commit suicide, but not by conventional standards but by killing everything and everyone who ever knew him. Think of the ending of SEL, if you've seen it - Johan believes if nobody remembers you, you are dead.

In philosophy there is something called 'Idealism'. If no one is around to see something, it doesn't exist, according to idealism (very simplified, and I'm not a philosopher, so take it with a grain of salt), therefore, if no one remembers you, you cease to exist. That is/was his endgame, according - 'the perfect suicide' like in SEL, not a literal suicide. Ergo Proxy has a similar theme with "If I don't have any memories, how I can I prove I even existed?"

[Steerminator]

9 hours ago, leinwandname said:

I haven't seen the show in  along time but from what I remember:

There are two Johans, one monster and one 'normal' Johan who lost to the monster personality, which is why its not brought up again - by the later half the monster is the only Johan left, I think. His monster is just pure chaotic evil that wants to kill and just because. But later he also want to commit suicide, but not by conventional standards but by killing everything and everyone who ever knew him. Think of the ending of SEL, if you've seen it - Johan believes if nobody remembers you, you are dead.

In philosophy there is something called 'Idealism'. If no one is around to see something, it doesn't exist, according to idealism (very simplified, and I'm not a philosopher, so take it with a grain of salt), therefore, if no one remembers you, you cease to exist. That is/was his endgame, according - 'the perfect suicide' like in SEL, not a literal suicide. Ergo Proxy has a similar theme with "If I don't have any memories, how I can I prove I even existed?"

This still doesn't make sense to me because if he really wanted to erase all knowledge of his existence he would've wanted to kill Dr. Tenma and his sister as well, since they both knew so much about him; his sister at the very least, because he KNOWS that she knows everything about him, even if he doesn't know what Dr. Tenma knows.  And then there was that therapist and criminal psychologist as well who had been both doing lots of research on Johann to exonerate  Dr. Tenma, and even Karl and his father too.... really, there are still so many people left at the end that collectively know so much about Johann.  But that doesn't even explain to me why he encouraged his sister to shoot him at the beginning of the show, unless he just knows what a horrible person he is and that's why he doesn't care at that point.

[leinwandname]

Johan wanted Tenma to kill him, that's why Tenma had to survive until the end. The idea of a "perfect suicide" also means, that you don't commit actual suicide in the end, but rather get killed by someone. Ofc, this means that he had to give the killer, Tenma, a motive to kill him, and a reason to commit suicide afterwards otherwise thered still be a person who knew him - his killer. If I remember correcty --I haven't watched the series in a long time-- Johan tried to make it that a bunch of people go rampart and kill him and Tenma, but I'm not entirely sure on that one though. 

Again my lack of knowledge due to not having seen it in a long time, but not killing certain people who knew him wasn't a decision he wanted to make but had to do because of the circumstances - maybe these are plotholes, I can't remember but it seems unlikely. Johan is by definition not entirely consistent, purposely.

Also, Johan wanted to die after his sister, how it should have been when they were shot as kids, so she had to survive too. As to why he wanted to get shot by her at the beginnning, I'd have to rewatch that scene - honestly, I think I'm gonna rewatch the series after I finished my current anime >.>

 

[tisu]

Your questions make sense. I believe the writers wanted the viewers to speculate on a lot of things instead of making conclusions for us. There are two Johans, one is the bad guy the other is the normal guy. I believe the "monster" Johan wants to kill the normal Johan (this answers your suicide question).

At first I thought the good part of him wants to kill the bad part (coz he says he should be shot in the head). Maybe at this point the good Johan understood that he needs to kill the bad Johan (this also answers your suicide question). Later he grows up and the bad Johan takes over. He creates a complex environment to start a war and to get himself killed by Tenma. I believe Tenma is dragged into this as the ultimate good guy who has to become a bad guy. Through out the series it's obvious that Johan is confident in turning people evil and maybe that's why he wants Tenma to kill him. 

At the end when they conclude that he wants to kill everyone in that village/town to erase all evidence of his existence I thought that the bad Johan wants to kill the good Johan. Basically "Johan" the individual wont exist anymore. I guess what will remain behind will be pure evil. I think this is what ties in with the whole "experiments" revelation etc. The experiments were they try to create a certain type of person. The emphasis on the need for a "name" is through out the series. The monster wanted a name. But if you reverse that then it means a monster doesn't have a name. Which I think is where we find Johan. A person who needs to become a monster. He needs to lose his individually, his existence, his "name". So in the end he trys to erase that and become a true monster. (this answers your split personality issue). I think to a certain degree Nina knew this. 

She probably didn't involve the police coz her goal was to find Johan and kill him. I think. There's a lot of speculation in this series.