#another monster

From medical perspectives though, while there were very rare special cases where a patient was comatose for years, it wouldn't be possible to keep their vitals alive w/o continuous life support such as 24/7 ventilator and feeding tubes and that was only to keep the very basic need of a human body, which was to maintain the vegetative state. In a very very rare special case when the patient did wake up again, it wasn't w/o tremendous efforts, money, and definitely not just one IV tube attached to them, which should provide other type of nutritions (parenteral) other than feeding tube. And even then, it wasn't w/o repercussions or direct cost at Johan's body. Being bedridden for that long (3 years) there was no way Johan would only have lost a little amount of weight like this (while the manga showed his face with more gaunt look, it was still not a lot of weight had been lost). Even with proper passive physiotherapy on daily basis, all his muscles would shrink from severe disuse and malnutrition due to not having enough food from only IV nutrition. Bluntly, he should be looking skin and bones only and soon all his vital organs would shut down due to exhaustion.

Supposing this scene should happen in 2001, and Johan was just out of ventilator, monitors, and tubes shortly before Tenma visited in this scene, it didn't explain why a surgeon like Tenma, who was Johan's attending physician for the 2nd time, would say he was only 'sleeping' the whole time and explicitly told Viera that her kids were all well. Comatose was not well by any means. And we already knew Tenma was the kind of doctor who always took full responsibility for his patients and oversaw them till their full recovery. Hence why I couldn't fathom his dismissing 'comatose' as just Johan sleeping, for 3 years straight, that wouldn't be humanly-body possible without life support equipments and loads of money spend. I couldn't see how the country would spend so many resources and fund for an alleged serial killer. However, if this happened only several months after Ruhenheim arc, it made more sense, as all the murder cases where he was the key to be unraveled were still at the hottest stove.

Assuming the empty bed scene was Urasawa hinting that he physically escaped from the hospital the 2nd time (and not meant to be all metaphorically), if he had been bedridden for 3 years straight, there was no way he could even easily climb down his bed let alone escaped from the window w/o any help from others. Given how physically straining all that moves would be for his severely atrophied limb muscles.

Hence why I opted to think this scene should still happen around 1999. I know it's exaggerating to really equalify it into real medical conditions but with how Monster was told by Urasawa, a fictional work that was so tightly based on real depictions of a normal life, inserting medical topics which required many research on his own to be able to write them properly, had a medical doctor as a protagonist and had many original things in the manga deliberately woven with real events, I think it's not stretching atp to think the author would want this particular happening to be as close and tolerable for any real human conditions as well, just like the rest of the story, just as the one of the themes of the series was to highlight that Johan was also just a normal human like the rest of us.

Another thing I noticed in relation to this was, in the LN, when Weber interviewed the other important characters, Gillen, Karl, Reichwein, abt Johan was still in a coma, it's very interesting that the author chose the words for those characters as: "I heard he was still in coma" or "that's what I've been told" . I noticed None of them could say for sure whether they had seen directly Johan was still in coma in 2001 or not. Logically, if Johan had indeed become a goner by then, the news would spread around as he was supposed to still be in police custody until his future trials. However, remember how there were lack of evidences and testimonies against him from all the crimes and murders he'd masterminded. Perhaps this was also why the info abt him wasn't really released to the public. Or perhaps spread around but with many cover-ups and limitations to which parts were allowed to be notified to public. His picture might not even be released to the public, unlike Tenma's mugshots. Perhaps this was also why his room wasn't even guarded and had big windows that could be opened from inside, despite he SUPPOSEDLY was still in police custody. (This shit here confuses me till now). That's why it makes me more convinced that the ending scene couldn't have happened 3 years after Ruhenheim wrapped up, as 3 years were long enough for the authorities to shed some more enlightenments on this major case and everything related to it. Unless...the authorities had basically stopped investigating?

Logically, if we go by how Monster ended, perhaps if there were people who knew for sure how Johan's state was, it would be either Tenma or Nina. However, both of them refused the interviews, after 3 years. For me that particular detail from the author, combined with how all other characters only relied from 2nd-hand information abt Johan's state in 2001, seemed to be like a foreshadow or a hint. It was, ngl, quite suspicious.

Another conjecture that quite bugged me from Another Monster was ofc abt the last sketch found on Weber's hotel room. While I'd like to write my thoughts abt this in a separate post. I found that the notion of this Another Monster should still be Johan behind it all (who had escaped from the custody somehow, otherwise it would water down Johan's built-up as a great mastermind and antagonist from the previous series bcs now there was someone else as similarly smooth as him) didn't really sit right with the narrative of Monster imo, as it would nullify all of Tenma's and Nina's efforts and particularly the ideology war between Tenma and Johan where in the end, Tenma proved that his steadfast principle broke Johan's one. Given how Urasawa chose the open ending for Johan and the more peaceful atmosphere of the wrap-up, it seemed futile if Johan would just go back to square one and started his 'quest' all over again. Because at that point, all his prior targets had become practically invalid. Didn't the ending seem as though Johan would no longer have any motivations to look for the Scenery of the Doomsday anymore? As his twin had finally given him the exact thing he needed all those years ago that he subconsciously kept looking. Forgiveness and acceptance.

So imo, while the whole narrative of the light novel really could NOT be taken as it was on the surface, the title however, just state what it was about. That there was another monster. Occam's razor applied, for the title. It wasn't hard to consider this as I believe the Monster theme was that the monster entity lived in any of us, not just the criminals and evil masterminds.

To me, the novel's storytelling is really foreshadowing there was smth bigger still yet to be unrooted. For all that we know, Johan's case might as well be the tip of iceberg of a more sinister scheme as we were told that Bonaparta's experiments had gone the long way before the twin were even born. That didn't make Johan less special though, as at the end of it all Johan stood alone on his own agenda and never had anyone powerful enough to control against his will. That for me, was one of the reasons why Lunge said he was special, a rare type of criminal.

Bonaparta's past and his lackeys' works/crimes were more systemized and covered broader areas which by logic, would have wider and sustaining impacts. This notion, imo, even shed some light on Johan's actions of burning 511 Kinderheim to the ground then proceeded to climb his way up to the top to made it easier for him to annihilate anything related to the directors of the orphanage and Bonaparta's researchers' associates. No matter how twisted his ways and goal were, it wasn't to be dismissed that one of the underlying reasons was Johan trying to make sure experiments like reading seminars, books, treasures of humanity, and 511 Kinderheim nvr to happen again by destroying them from the roots. Out of his hatred abt that place and those experiments.

Besides, the culprit in Another Monster didn't seem to be as smooth as Johan, with how he got hurt while murdering Carek (supposing this really was the culprit, Herman Führ/Fritz Weindler?). Johan, on the other side, had never been shot or even hurt during all his actions, except when he DID WANT to get shot. The difference was apparent.

Back again to Johan's state of coma by hearsay in 2001 and the lack of details that depicted he should've still be in the police custody

IF:

-He were dead for good, then the public would definitely know, as the primary suspect of the whole serial murders across countries for years, that would be an important piece of information that could finally bring the cases and trials to closure on his side. Given the narrative, there was no hinting of this so this one is scratched for me.

-He escaped, there were 2 opposite possibilites:

(1) the authorities deliberately covered that info and only let a handful of relevant ppl to know as to not alert the public and cause public uproar/unnecessary panic and complaints for lack of credibility from the authorities.

(2) the info was known for the figure of authorities there and ofc notified to the people that had strong connections/involved with his prior case, there was no way someone like Lunge would just still sit around lecturing and gave seminars, detective or not, we knew he'd continue to investigate cases regardless. And Tenma would once again take it as his responsibility to end it again, as he was the one saving his life for the 2nd time. The futile cat-and-mouse game started again, which now would be pointless in meaning. I'm pretty sure this won't be in-line with the message Urasawa had conveyed throughout the entire long Monster series.

Tldr: imo...

the ending scene with Johan and Tenma happened around 1999, not 3 years after Ruheinheim. Bcs from medical perspectives, it was highly unlikely to stay the way Johan's body was if he was comatose for 3 years and suddenly able to escape the hospital. And despite this is fiction where anything is possible and not to be taken literally, I think Urasawa-sensei wouldn't want the series to suddenly lose that realistic touch of what human body was capable of and what the limits were. By turning Johan's body into a cryo or vampire metaphorically.

By taking into accounts the only two that refused Weber's interviews were also exactly the two people who had (would've had) privilege to know/visit the real state of Johan, them still being in reach but just not wanting to meet Weber directly, might say they really know abt Johan's whereabout/state bcs that was what Weber contacted them for, but refusing to let others know more. That would probably because they knew Johan wasn't in danger (from himself or for others).

Another Monster introduces us to a certain girl with whom the young Klaus Poppe supposedly fell in love. Everything we know about her comes from rumors: 

Oh yes! I remember, there was something about his father and the girl from the rumors and another boy his age. The son fell in love with the girl, but lost out to a young man in a neighboring village who stole her away… A typical story of passion among young guys like that, but somehow the rumor turned into a story about his father and the girl. Well, you can’t help but get this sort of thing in a small town.

(...)

— What about the rumor of falling in love with a young woman?

It was a rumor that ran through the whole town, and I heard it myself. Although she was young enough to be his daughter, the story goes that he asked to impregnate her. She supposedly lived in this town, but was of both Czech and German parentage. At the time she was probably 18 or 19 and very beautiful… all the young men in town were in love with her, thus giving rise to endless gossip and rumors. In the end, she hastily married a man in a neighboring village, but it was quite a rumor while it lasted.

— The girl in the rumors about his father… the one the son fell in love with (...)

Weber then presents his interpretation of the rumors and states that there is no evidence to support it:

This is all just my terrible imaginings. It’s a story with no evidence or foundation. 

Still, there are some elements that make her character more real: her double parentage (something she could bond over with Poppe), her sudden pregnancy, and the resulting necessity to get married in another place, with Terner Poppe, Klaus’ father, as the possible father of the child. 

The son fell in love with a beautiful girl of German and Czech descent, but the girl and his father fell in love.

While Weber presents his interpretation, he fails to notice the darker undertone of the story—in what he calls Terner Poppe and the girl falling in love, I see a story of an older man taking advantage of a girl who was young enough to be his daughter.

These elements aren’t, however, enough to create a full picture; all we have is a shadow of a character.

Another shadow of a character is presented in Lolita; it’s Annabel Leigh, Humbert Humbert’s first love.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

Her name is an obvious reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee.

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

We don’t get much information about her:

Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-English, half-Dutch, in her case. I remember her features far less distinctly today than I did a few years ago, before I knew Lolita (...) Let me therefore primly limit myself, in describing Annabel, to saying she was a lovely child a few months my junior.

And she dies suddenly (just like the girl from Poppe’s past suddenly disappears from his life):

I was on my knees, and on the point of possessing my darling, when two bearded bathers, the old man of the sea and his brother, came out of the sea with exclamations of ribald encouragement, and four months later she died of typhus in Corfu.

Much later, Humbert Humbert recognizes Annabel in Dolores, the girl he will later turn into Lolita: 

I find it most difficult to express with adequate force that flash, that shiver, that impact of passionate recognition. In the course of the sun-shot moment that my glance slithered over the kneeling child (her eyes blinking over those stern dark spectacles — the little Herr Doktor who was to cure me of all my aches) while I passed by her in my adult disguise (a great big handsome hunk of movieland manhood), the vacuum of my soul managed to suck in every detail of her bright beauty, and these I checked against the features of my dead bride. A little later, of course, she, this nouvelle, this Lolita, my Lolita, was to eclipse completely her prototype. All I want to stress is that my discovery of her was a fatal consequence of that “princedom by the sea” in my tortured past.

Humbert Humbert mentions the princedom by the sea again; we are reminded of the fictional nature of Humbert’s dead bride. Taking this into account, can we believe him when he describes the discovery of Dolores as a fatal consequence of that “princedom by the sea”?

A similar question comes to my mind when I think about the girl from Poppe’s past: is the stolen love that we know about only from rumors enough to explain Franz Bonaparta and his obsession with the twins’ mother?

Let me quote a further fragment from Lolita:

The able psychiatrist who studies my case — and whom by now Dr. Humbert has plunged, I trust, into a state of leporine fascination — is no doubt anxious to have me take Lolita to the seaside and have me find there, at last, the “gratification” of a lifetime urge, and release from the “subconscious” obsession of an incomplete childhood romance with the initial little Miss Lee.

Here, the text openly mocks the belief that everything that happens in Lolita can be explained by Humbert’s incomplete childhood romance—the romance built of too many fictional elements. 

Similarly, the girl from the rumors can’t be the answer to what created the monster inside Klaus Poppe.

While the girls aren’t the answer, they provide us with bits of information that form a more complex picture, and in this picture, we can see more elements that form Humbert Humbert and Klaus Poppe. The mixed parentage; the partially fictional past (due to the imperfect nature of human memory and the very limited point of view); the grieving the loss of innocence; the pain they’re not able (or willing? or both? or?) to let go and which results in even more pain and destroyed lives (countless in Poppe’s case).

Are these elements the answer? Again, no. Both Lolita and Monster aren’t interested in giving an answer. Instead, they show that the richness of the human experience and all the little details that shape it make creating a gapless picture impossible.