Johan Liebert from Monster.
“A long, long time ago, in a land far away, there was a monster without a name. The monster wanted a name so badly, so the monster left to go on a journey to find a name.”
Behold, Johan Liebert. The nameless Monster. My namesake. I’m sure you all expected me to pick him at some point, for obvious reasons. Of course, even though I named myself after him, I’m not sure I can honestly do this character justice… but at the very least, let’s try.
Johan Liebert, like Urasawa’s later villain Friend, is an utter mystery. A character who, in series, has motives and methods that can only be guessed at. He has the same unusual benefit of that you rarely see him, and thus it creeps you out that you don’t know what he’s doing. But Johan actually has another benefit on top of that in that you don’t know what he wants.
It’s also worth noting that Johan is quite distinctly fear-inducing, and I think a big part of the reason why is that Monster’s biggest strength is that almost every character in its arsenal is an extremely human, believable person with realistic faults who you could honestly imagine existing in real life… and amidst them all is one single inhuman monster. It’s an effect that resonates within the series, too… it accounts for a large number of Johan’s followers.
And on that note, another great thing about him is that while Johan’s body count by the end of the series is surely a few hundred, he probably hasn’t killed much more than a dozen himself. The amazing thing is that if he so wills it, he can manipulate people into doing his dirty work for him… he can even trick people into ending their own lives. He has caused enormous, horrific massacres without so much as lifting a finger.
And yet, all of this is what accounts for why Johan is an entertaining character, what it doesn’t cover is his depth. Because a lot is left ambiguous about Johan, he makes for quite an interesting character study, trying to work out all the aspects of him. It doesn’t become all to clear what Johan really is until within the last few episodes, and oddly, when you find out what he was trying to achieve, it comes less as a sudden shocking revelation, and instead as something you slowly begin to understand as the last few episodes play out.
Overall, Johan brings to us an interesting question… can anyone really, truly be a monster? A complete monster, without remorse or regret or any human emotion? Can true evil really exist?
“He finally had a name, but all the people who could call him by that name had disappeared. What a shame… because Johan, was such a wonderful name.”
Favourite Quote: “All I did… was add a little fuel to the fire.”
Favourite Scene:
