Monster (manga)/Trivia

This page serves to catalogue less relevant, mildly interesting, somewhat serviceable, or completely useless information on Monster.

Numbers:

 * 402 is the number of Johan's room at the Eisler Memorial Hospital, as well as the number of Eva's hotel room (which also gives the title to Chapter 113).
 * 16 Necker Street is the address of the Fortners. 16 is 4^2 (or 2^4).
 * 204 is the room number of Edmund Fahren, the "Thursday boy."
 * 42 is the number of people poisoned at the Red Rose Mansion.
 * 302 is the number of Runge's room at the motel in Ruhenheim.
 * 47 is Hartmann's building number, as well as the number of the locker hiding Johan's cassette tape from Kinderheim 511.
 * 606 is the room number of Kristof, the "devil's disciple."

Birthdays:

 * Kenzo Tenma: January 2, 1958
 * Johan and Anna Liebert: May 1975
 * Wolfgang Grimmer: 1954
 * Julius Reichwein: 1937

Music:

 * The original anime broadcast used David Sylvian's "For the Love of Life" and Kuniaki Haishima's "Make It Home" for its ending themes, respectively.
 * An abandoned building in Episode 11 sports the graffitied logo of the band Einstürzende Neubauten. The band's name translates into "collapsing new building," new building referring to post-war architecture.
 * According to Eva and Another Monster, Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" is one of Tenma's favorite songs. In the anime, an instrumental version is played when Eva dances with Roberto at the bar.
 * An instrumental version of "Over the Rainbow" is played in Episode 55.
 * Tenma (like Urasawa) played the guitar in high school.

Fairy Tale allusions and motifs:

 * Beauty and The Beast:
 * Be Careful What You Wish For: A name, eh? And strength? And a Deal with the Devil? How about reunion with your other half?
 * City with No Name: "The Nameless Monster."
 * Deal with the Devil: "Big-eyes and Big-mouth."
 * Hansel and Gretel: Poor, abandoned brother and sister wandering alone...
 * Little Red Riding Hood: ... And running into a guy called Wolf.
 * Knight in Shining Armor/Prince Charming: One of the chapters is titled, "A Prince on a White Horse," and it is also who Nina thinks Tenma is, mistakenly thinking that he was the one sending the anonymous "romantic" emails to her when in reality the sender of the emails is
 * Another chapter is titled "Brother and Sister," which is a European fairy tale in which the sister takes care of the brother, who is turned into an animal.
 * Another is titled, "Frogs in a Fairy-Tale Land."
 * Magic Mirror: Explicitly in the God of Peace sequence, but it is also used as a motif throughout the series.
 * Once Upon a Time: "The Nameless Monster."
 * The Pied Piper of Hamelin: Johan's magnetic and destructive influence on children.
 * Rule of Three: The Three Frogs; Otto, Hans, and Thomas.
 * Sleeping Beauty: Evoked by the Red Rose Mansion, both in the name and the overgrowth of the flora.
 * Walking the Earth: "The Nameless Monster," reflected in Johan's own itinerant quest.

Miscellaneous:

 * The word Ungeheuer, found in a wine brand in one of the episodes, means "monster."
 * In the anime, the streetlights are mistakenly rendered as blue instead of green. This is because streetlights are that color in Japan.
 * One article in a Bavarian newspaper says something along the lines of: "Kahns Liebesaffären, Promi-Luder" ("Kahn's Affairs, Prominent Hussy," Kahn being a former Bavarian goalkeeper).
 * At one point, a few of Dr. Reichwein's files on patients are shown. The names on these files aside from Richard are all German film personalities, including Werner Herzog, Nastassja Kinski, Wolfgang Becker, Bruno Ganz, and Wim Wenders.
 * Defictionalization: The Nameless Monster was turned into a real children's book with a holographic cover. However, it is out of print.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes:
 * Thanks to an edited version of the first ED song beyond Viz Media's control, and with such a grateful fanbase as this series has, there's a good chance that there will never be an R1 Monster DVD Volume 2. It also doesn't help matters that Naoki Urasawa's works have never been successful in the United States.
 * Averted now that entire freaking series is available dubbed streaming on Hulu.
 * And Youtube for for non-American viewers.