I know that the ending of Monster in the manga has been discussed before, but I also have a few questions of my own that would like to be solved. I will also post my own answers that I came up with for them, and see if anybody agrees/disagrees with them.
1) What did the mother of Nina and Johan mean when she said
Quote:
"Who is the real monster?"
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I read the previous page, when she said
This corresponds to Johan's memories when he "talked" to Dr. Tenma in the hospital, where we saw images of the mother deciding to give either Johan or Nina over to Franz (Eventually deciding on Nina). Before Dr. Tenma "woke up" from the "hallucination", Johan had said
Quote:
"Was she trying to protect me? Or did she confuse me for my sister? Which one.....Which one was unwanted...?"
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From what I can tell, I can come up with only two people:
a) Franz Bonaparta. He was the one who forced the mother into making the decision of having to favor one child over another, and forced Nina to watch the deaths of the guests and suffer in the blackness. However, we are also aware that he was the one who said to Nina that "Humans...can become anything. You two are precious jewels...you mustn't become monsters..." Johan may not have that kind of experience and recorded this quote told by Nina as only data, or he may not have heard it at all when Nina told of her experiences.
b) The mother. While she may have been the one being coerced to give up one of the child, I believe she feels that it was still wrong to her, to choose one child above another, and it pains her to remember that. As stated in the previous thread, she gave Nina to Franz to protect Johan if she was aware of Johan's potential (Which would complete the puzzle when Johan asked "Was she [mother] trying to protect me?")
But what about Nina? Why would a mother give Nina to Franz to fustrate his experiment? Even if Johan didn't receive the experiences told by Nina, Franz could have easily taken the other one to be studied with as well. I believe Franz was not only conducting "The Perfect Monster" experiment, but was also conducting a "Choice" experiment. For example, you have been given a scenario where you can only save one person:
1) Your wife, or
2) Your daughter
Now, who would you choose? Some would favor the wife because she was everything to you (Although there could be many more reasons than that). Other's would favor the daughter because you had raised her and she is also precious to you (Again, there could be many reasons)
There are many reasons why people would favor the wife or the daughter, but I would not know who to choose, personally. Both are your family, both are precious to you, yet you must save one or the other, meaning that you must favor one above the other. You don't want to lose one of them, but you don't want to lose both either.
2) Why did Johan leave/escape from the hospital?
I will acknowledge that he actually did survive the ordeal of being shot in the head again, otherwise Dr. Tenma would be visiting the graveyard instead of talking to Johan at the hospital bed. He may have left because:
1) He wanted to repeat the same murders that happened 10 years ago.
2) Possibly some other motive.
I will not attempt to explain choice 2, as it is broad and vague, but I will emphasize why choice 1 is NOT a likely decision he would make:
Johan had a plan when he left the Three Frogs with his sister: A world of solitude. To do so, he has to erase everything that was connected to him and his sister, such as killing their foster parents, who knew their existence. Thus, if Nina had forgiven him for killing their first foster parents, Johan would never had commit series of murders, trying to create "his own world", or attempting to destroy "the current world". However, now that Nina has forgiven him, it is possible that he left with some other objective in mind, even though he responded to Nina with this:
Quote:
"No...some things can never be amended...we can't turn back..."
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This was when he confronted with Dr. Tenma who was about to shoot him. This phrase, however, seems to carry a much more subtle meaning behind it...
3) Is it necessary to have names?
I might make this sound rhetorical by answering it with a plain, simple, "Yes", but I will also provide an explanation. As quoted by "someone":
Quote:
"A name indicates the existence of a thing. If, in fact, that name is false, then it would mean that the very existence of that thing is false, wouldn't it?"
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As we see with Mr. Grimmer, he said was "no one", because his name was false, and therefore he did not "exist". The quote stated above corresponds with the last part of the story in "The Nameless Monster":
Quote:
"Even though he had finally found a name, there was no one around him to call him by it."
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Nina and Johan were born without names, and as Franz Bonaparta said:
However, we know how hard Nina wanted to search for her identity, her name and her origins, and who she really was. Only then do we realize how important it is to establish an identity with ourselves.
Those are the questions I asked and answered, and again, I hope to get feedback from my questions and my analysis of Monster to answer them. I apologize if I contradicted myself in some, if not all, of my answers.