"Monster...? There is no such thing as monsters. Johan was a human being... And while we call those people who commit murder without blinking an eye 'monsters,' we cannot lose the act of murder. We must look at them head-on, and see them as humans. We must remember that they are not monsters, but human beings with names like all the rest of us... That is the key to understanding what Johan was, exactly."
Monster is one of the most misunderstood works of fiction to have ever been created, because most do not understand the motivation of the antagonist, Johan Liebert. Johan is commonly misunderstood to be a nihilist who seeks catharsis in destruction, without any further or deeper meaning to any of his actions besides a desire to affirm his life through destruction, from which he derives pleasure. However, such a thesis makes little to no sense because it is never showed at any time throughout the series that Johan derives pleasure from his killings in the same way a pleasure killer does, like Lunge describes in chapter 4 of Another Monster. Instead, Johan only disposes of individuals whom know of his identity from the brief period during which he exploited or manipulated them to further his goals. Ergo, Johan does not kill for senseless pleasure but out of necessity and caution to hide any traces of his identity, and thus to eliminate any potential risk that he would be unable to achieve his goals. In episode 64 of the anime, or more specifically, from 21:27 to 22:56: it is revealed that all the schemes Johan had orchestrated were all coordinated in-order to protect his sister, Nina, from the monster in Monster. Some have criticised my theory because they believe it was Johan's intent for Nina to die when Roberto attempted to kill her. However, such criticism is refuted by the following clarification in chapter 26 of Another Monster:
"It is not easy to understand why Roberto, Johan's faithful servant, wanted to kill Nina. But it's possible to guess if we assume that it was his own initiative and not Johan's order. As might be expected from such a capable subordinate, he may have wanted to get rid of what he knew to be Johan's only weakness as soon as possible."
If we were to allow ourselves to step into the realm of psychology, we will thus be able to understand Johan's motivation more clearly. In Jungian psychology, the anima (Eros), Latin for "soul" (the anima is synonymous with the Greek word "pneuma," which translates to "the breath of life" or, more accurately, "vitality") is the unconscious feminine aspect of men: the desire to conform to the pre-established social norms enforced by the patriarchal authority, as to not become ostracised from the tribe, since women are vulnerable to predators during pregnancy, and a sense of nurturing compassion for children and those who are unable to protect themselves from predators and the other dangerous elements in nature, the shadow of the feminine, the devouring mother. Whereas the animus (Logos) is the unconscious masculine aspect of women: the will that triumphs over all else to differentiate oneself from the pre-established social norms, and to thus conquer the unconditioned feminine by imposing one's will upon it in-order to make it exclusively one's own property as to protect the feminine. In other words, Johan's anima was projected unto Nina by his unconscious in an attempt to compensate for his lacking relation to his anima due to his mother not expressing any love or care for him.
"I was born in a town that was straight out of a fairytale. Many people died. I held the hand of my other half and walked. There were only two like us. We didn't have names."
Johan and Nina's mother was forced to decide whether to give Johan or Nina to Bonaparta for an experiment. She first chose Johan but then chose Nina instead. Did she mistake Johan for his sister, or did she not love either of them? The anxiety caused by the dilemma, not by the answer to the dilemma but rather to the existence of the dilemma itself, is what caused Johan to become a monster; it is what caused him to become nihilistic since he believed that he was not wanted or loved by anyone. Because Johan did not know whether his own mother actually loved him or not, he came to develop what in Jungian jargon is called a "shadow." The shadow is the accumulation of the repressed feelings and desires that the ego either deems to be immoral due to the conditioning it has been subject to by contemporary society, or because it seems to be too arduous of a challenge; the shadow is the unreconciled opposite of the ego, which the ego must integrated in-order to transfigure itself into the Self. Contrary to the common conception of the shadow as a purely sadistic and destructive impulse due to the unconscious influence of Christian morality, the shadow of the ego for a child would instead be the knowledge of having been undesired, unloved, and unwanted, because what the ego of a child desires the most is the love and attention of other people, especially from its mother. The shadow consequently came to usurp Johan's relation to his anima, making him nihilistic because he had lost his will to live as he was only Logos. However, Johan's unconscious tried to reconcile his relation to his anima by projecting it unto his sister, Nina, because they shared a close bond.
"Were you born because you were wanted? Why were you abandoned? Didn't your mother abandon you because she didn't like you? Being born really isn't that uncommon... Almost everything in this world is meant to die. In this world, a life born is nothing more than an insignificant speck... and shouldn't even be counted as an existence. Death is natural. Then why are you alive? Is it because someone wanted you? Who wanted you? What us your reason for living?"
Although Johan's actions may at first glance seem devoid of any meaning beyond that of senseless destruction due to nihilism, they are in actuality motivated by his desire to defend Nina from what he perceives to be a monster, which came to give rise to the appearance of a certain pattern that repeats itself three times throughout Monster: Johan pointing to his forehead when Nina discovered that he had killed the Lieberts; Johan pointing to his forehead when Tenma and Nina confronted him at the book collection donation ceremony; Johan pointing to his forehead when Tenma confronted him in Ruhenheim. Thus, all three of Johan's plans necessitates for Johan to fulfil three conditions: to protect Nina from the perceived monster and to also keep her oblivious about its existence as to not frighten her; to kill or escape from the monster as to overcome its terror; to shoulder the burden and responsibility of the entire ordeal and to commit suicide since Nina will reject him when she eventually comes to learn of the ordeal and what it entailed. Which has unanimously been dubbed the so-called "perfect suicide" by many fans. However, I and Naoki prefer to call it by what it is referred to as in the context of the story, "the landscape of the end." It is there the boy, Johan, from the picture book The Nameless Monster, stands alone without anyone at his aid, at the top of the hill after he has completed his mission: to shoulder the burden of Nina's troubles and trauma, which is represented by Johan devouring the other monster (shadow) that is his other half, Nina. (The reason why Tenma was also able to see the landscape of the end at the end of Monster was because he, too, was alone, without anyone to assist him, due to him never allowing anyone to support him on his journey, choosing instead to shoulder the responsibility in solitude, which is further supported in Chapter 2 of Another Monster wherein it is stated that Tenma "would always strain so hard to pull ahead so that he was running alone.") Thus, Johan has fulfilled his destined purpose and has therefore no longer any reason to continue living, since every time Johan reveals that he is a monster to Nina, she rejects him because of the heinous deeds he has committed in-order to protect her from the other monsters; he is once again rejected by someone he deeply cares for, and his belief that he has no place in the world is once again reinforced.
"But if no one calls out to you... that means nobody wanted you. What will you do then? What will you do?"
Johan perceives himself and Nina to be the same person instead of two different persons due to their upbringing. However, he perceives himself to be the evil side of the personality, whereas Nina is the good side of the personality. Thus, even if he were to die, he would still be alive since Nina would still be alive. Which is illustrated in the picture book The God of Peace, in which the God of Peace is always busy, he is too busy to look in a mirror because he has to maintain the prosperity of the land and the happiness of the people. The God of Peace gives everyone a name: he gives one boy the name "Johan," who, as a token of gratitude, gives the God of Peace his hat. Thus, the God of Peace looks into a mirror to see if the hat suits him. However, when he does look into the mirror, what he sees in the mirror is not a reflection of himself but instead a demon. The devil suddenly claims: "I am you, and you are me." The God of Peace asks himself: "What should I do?"
"The god… pointed the gun… at his forehead!"
Due to Johan's memory loss after having been shot in the forehead, he forgot many important memories about his and Nina's past. Particularly, he had forgotten that the only person who was aware of their escape from the Red Rose Mansion and probably from Kinderheim 511, too, was Bonaparta. To Johan, Bonaparta was a monster for the things he had done to both him and Nina. Hence, he wanted to escape from his influence. But since he believed Bonaparta to be actively searching for them in-order to retrieve them, he thus came to believe that every person that they met would eventually betray their trust by turning them over to the authorities due to them believing that they were orphans, which would lead to Bonaparta discovering their whereabouts and coming to retrieve them. In reality, however, Bonaparta instead wished for their escape from the Red Rose Mansion and allowed Johan and Nina the opportunity to escape by tampering with the number of dead bodies buried in the garden of the Red Rose Mansion from 42 to 46 skeleton remains.
"She [Nina] remembered that back then, Bonaparta had let her escape from the Red Rose Mansion. 'Run far away. Run as far away from here as you can...' he told her. 'Human beings can become anything.' He touched her cheek with his hand and continued, 'You are both beautiful jewels. That's why you must not become monsters.'"
Hence, when Johan lost his memories of Bonaparta, his indirect fear of Bonaparta (the perceived monster) through others morphed into a desire to genocide humanity when the corruption amongst the director and staff at Eisler Memorial Hospital made Johan realise that he had not escaped from the monster. Ergo, he desired to exterminate the societal shadow once and for all since it was a threat to the safety of Nina. But then he discovered the picture book The Nameless Monster, by which Johan remembered what he had forgotten and subsequently came to realise that which threatens Nina is not societal, as presented to him by the hospital, but rather that Bonaparta is the only person who has hurt Nina. Ergo, his desire for global genocide by crashing the European economy was unnecessary.
"The monster inside of me isn't inside of me. It's outside me. Franz Bonaparta… is alive."
In the last arc, Johan acts out his final plan: to kill Bonaparta and to commit suicide by proxy of Tenma. He wanted Tenma to understand that life is neither equal nor equitable, that people are not inherently good natured, and that some people are irredeemable; humans are only equal in death. However, Tenma refuses to listen to Johan and saves him, nonetheless. Although, in the first operation, Tenma saved Johan life, in the second operation, Tenma saved Johan's soul because he gave him his true name. Much like in the picture book A Peaceful Home, in which a thief stops to commit crimes and simply leads a quiet life instead. If even Johan, the embodiment of nihilism, is able to find meaning in the simple fact that he was given a name at birth and knowing what that name is, then who cannot find meaning?
The thematic question in Monster is whether people are evil by nature or become evil by nurture. The answer is revealed at the end of the story when Grimmer is on his deathbed and his emotions return to him at the end of his life, despite Grimmer having undergone the brainwashing at Kinderheim 511 with the aim of suppressing his nature by desensitising him to cruelty and depriving him off his sense of individuality by depriving him off his name, familial linage, and past memories. Thus, an individual cannot be deprived off his nature through nurture but can nevertheless become evil by desensitisation to the value of human life through the severance of human connection, Eros. Eros is the metaphysical force that unites the individual objects of an aggregate into the encompassing unity of a collective through a shared trait, whereas Logos is the metaphysical force that distinguishes one individual object from another by highlighting their differences. However, distilled Logos is qualitatively the same as distilled Eros, because value judgements that distinguishes individual objects from each other are only possible to determine if there is a metric by which judgement is based upon. Distilled Logos and distilled Eros are therefore nihilism because nihilism is the absence of the possibility to determine value judgements since everything is devoid of value. Nihilism is therefore death, since life is the will to ascertain a higher value, whereas death is the negation of life. Thus, nihilism is the ultimate manifestation of evil since it denies life, as it is the belief in the absence of value, meaning, and morality, which are all derived from Logos but are only accessible through Eros, human connection. But because Johan never received any human connection throughout his childhood, he became apathetic to others as he had no connection with anyone besides Nina and was therefore able to murder people as he pleased since he did not care for them. Much like a hunter who has no problem with shooting deer but weeps when his dog dies. Hence why the final results from the experiment conducted at Kinderheim 511, which sought to discover what made children able to resist the despair of nihilism, was love: something most parents give to their children, but something Johan never received during his childhood.
Children are frequently featured in Monster due to their malleable potential to become either good or evil depending on the nurturing they receive during their childhood. Hence, it is portrayed through Johan's characterisation, being mainly flashbacks into his childhood that subsequently reveal his backstory, that the nurture of his childhood corrupted him by his shadow, nihilism. Whereas Tenma lived a normal life and was therefore characterised through the nature of his character throughout the story as a good person. Moreover, Johan surrounded himself with children as he wanted to understand the nature of the human condition: he managed to turn good children into delinquents, as children are a paradoxical microcosm of both Johan and Tenma's philosophies due to their childish innocence, even when they behave cruelly against their peers: Johan has no faith in humanity because he believes that nothing has any inherent meaning, whereas Tenma has faith in humanity since he believes that all humans have an inherent value because they are inherently good natured. Children have the innate potential to embody both of these beliefs, as they are cruel to each other, but at the end of the day, most children do not turn out like Johan, because they, contrary to Johan, received love from their parents when they grew up.
"If Johan was just placed in a loving home, had friends, his sister and caring parents; he most likely wouldn't have become a monster."