Linblom on Systemic Thinking in “Monster”

In a recent paper for the Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, scholar Simon Linblom argues that the true villain of the story is neither Johan, nor Kinderheim 511, but an existential viewpoint that “reduces the world to a single controllable narrative.” 1/9

“Naoki Urasawa’s masterpiece Monster offers a powerful diagnosis of the mechanics of totalising power by locating the origin of its titular “monster,” Johan Liebert, in a secret East German orphanage, Kinderheim 511.” 2/9

“This institution is a distressing thought experiment in the ultimate logic of Historical Action. It is a system designed to produce a world that should be by architecting the trauma of those who live within it. Urasawa’s narrative shows what scholars of “trauma culture” like E. Ann Kaplan (2005) have explored:” 3/9

“that trauma is not merely a personal wound but can be a systemic condition produced by political and technological forces. The emotionless logic of Kinderheim 511 is rendered visually through a sterile, almost brutalist aesthetic.” 4/9

“The uniform clothing, the spartan rooms, and the rigid, grid-like compositions of the frames visually manifest the deterministic logic of Historical Action. The children are not characters moving through a world but variables being processed by a system.” 5/9

“The ‘social engineering’ of Kinderheim 511 is a programme for the systematic production of trauma, premised on the violent erasure of individual identity to engineer a ‘perfect,’ emotionless leader.” 6/9

For Lindblom, Dr. Tenma is the perfect antithesis to this kind of systemic thinking. Tenma is able to “disrupt the logic of control” by embracing the complexity of humanity – something we see primarily in the complex social and cultural networks that Tenma helps throughout the series. 7/9

Furthermore, despite the series being set during the cold war, Linblom sees staunch resonance to the systemic thinking of prominent modern industrialists. When Elon Musk guts Twitter/X, unleashing torrents of misinformation,” 8/9

“or when Mark Zuckerberg’s algorithms prioritise engagement metrics over the demonstrable well-being of billions…they are replicating the inhumane logic of Kinderheim 511: human lives are deemed expendable in service to the relentless machinery of “growth” and consolidated power.” 9/9