Monster (manga)/Fridge

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• In Monster, Tenma is brought to the sick ward because he had collapsed from not eating. The viewer's immediate reaction is exasperated, because Tenma always fails to eat, but in this case it was intentional, as it allowed him to speak to the man whose help he needed to break out of prison. - insofar
• The first ending credits song is, obviously, about Tenma's idealistic philosophy, although it's deliberately creepy and eerie, like the show. The second ending credits song bothered me, because it was bright and cheery in both lyrics and feel, which didn't make any sort of sense, until I hit episode 70 and realised it's about Johan's philosophy. It's an exact reversal of the Soundtrack Dissonance of the first credits song! Brilliant! - User:randomfanboy
• It's small, but when I first watched the last episode, I didn't understand why Lunge/Runge/however you want to spell it put a beer on Grimmer's grave. Then it hit me: they had promised each other to go get some nice cold beer after everything was over. - User:Toa Novu
• In Another Monster, it is revealed that Nina celebrates her birthday in May. This doesn't seem that special at first, but depending on whether or not this is the real month of her birthday (and by extension, Johan's) and what day in May their birthday falls on, this may or may not be Fridge Brilliance: If the twins were born between May 21 and May 31, then their Zodiac sign would be Gemini, aka The Twins.
• This one is a bit of Fridge Horror: Mr. Grimmer admits as an jocular aside to a group of orphan boys about his bed-wetting issues as a child. It isn't until later that we learn he actually was a product of Kinderheim 511.
• After finding out Johan specifically wants Tenma left alive, I was confused as Johan never seemed to do anything to ensure Tenma's survival. Then I remembered Tenma's conversation with Roberto. At no point are we ever given even a rough idea of how many followers Johan has. There could always have been someone there to make sure Tenma lives.
• My girlfriend (who's a major in Nursery) explained to me in a casual talk that there's a theory saying that neurosurgeons may have tendencies to become assassins and then they suppress this tendency by becoming neurosurgeons. I didn't check if this is true, and something may be Lost in Translation (because I use English as a second language), but, if this is true, this CHANGES THE MEANING OF THE ENTIRE SERIES! - Not JM Keynes.
  • Psychoanalysis by Freud supports this idea.
  • And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I don't think this theory applies to Tenma, as he may not have wanted to go into surgery initially. The article he read that inspired him to study under Heinemann, given in Another Monster, was about Alzheimer's. That would fall under neurology. He also remarks at one that he gets nervous while performing surgery, so he's not entirely comfortable with cutting people open. This theory does hold some interesting implications for Bonaparta, however (who was also a neurosurgeon in addition to a psychiatrist and a children's book author).
• This is both Fridge Brilliance and minor Fridge Horror: Remember Tenma's little flashback after the Turkish man's wife confronted him? While it may not seem like an important point, Dr. Oppenheimer didn't directly tell Tenma that he was switched. He simply said that the Turkish man's operation wasn't his operation. Tenma could have simply taken that as there being a mix-up of some sort. (Note that he was just getting done putting on his scrubs. Later, when we see him looking at Johan's x-ray, he already has his scrubs on. So with the Turkish man, it was likely that he had just come in.) This casts Tenma's Just Following Orders comment to Eva in a different light: He wasn't responsible if it was the director's mistake. It was only when Eva replied that not all lives are created equal that Tenma started to catch on to what really happened. If this is what happened, that means that Heinemann was intentionally deceiving Tenma to get him to comply. When the deception failed due to word getting out that the Turkish man did come in first, Heinemann had to use other means to get Tenma to do his bidding, such as appealing to his desire to do research. This leads to another question, however: Just what else did Heinemann do to deceive Tenma? We know he never told the truth about the paper that inspired Tenma being ghostwritten. There's no telling what else he could have done.
• Nina's romantic emails turning out to have been sent by Johan.
• Just what exactly was it that Franz Bonaparta wanted to achieve? Did he really try to create what Johan became? And if so, WHY because there is no way a creature like Johan can be controlled once he gets out in the world. Could it be it only was an experiment for the heck of it?