"Mature Content Warning!" This article contains some content involving a mature subject or situation and may not be suitable for younger viewers. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page.
“
There's nothing special about being born. Not a thing. Most of the universe is just death, nothing more. In this universe of ours, the birth of a new life on some corner of our planet is nothing but a tiny, insignificant flash. Death is a normal thing—so why live?
„
~ Johan Liebert tormenting Miloš, an orphan, while disguised as his sister Anna.
“
I was born in a town that was straight out of a fairy tale. Many people died there, and when I walked away, I held hands with my other self. To me, it seemed like we were the only two people in the world. Neither one of us possessed a real name.
„
~ Johan Liebert terrorizing Schuwald.
“
I woke up from the dream. There were so many visions I had of the end, but now I'm picturing a different ending altogether; a clearer vision of the true ending.
„
~ Johan Liebert to his henchman Horst Grossman. immediately before killing him
"Johan Wilhelm Liebert" is the titular main antagonist of the manga and anime series Monster and the overarching antagonist of the light novel sequel Another Monster.
He is a ruthless, emotionless, and psychopathic serial killer whose life was saved by Kenzo Tenma as a child. He is also the twin brother of Anna Liebert, aka Nina Fortner. Johan has stated that his one true goal is to be the last one alive when the world ends—but upon rediscovering a children's book that appears to have played a pivotal role in his monstrous nature, he instead set his mind on committing the "perfect suicide", i.e. dying without leaving behind any evidence of his existence (with the possible exception of Dr. Tenma and Anna's memories of him in order to destroy their faith in humanity).
For most of his life, Johan had been working towards the very end of human society step by step through his corruptive influence over others, and be the last human alive at the end of the world.
Johan's entire relationship with his sister is less out of love and more of an obsession, viewing her as nothing more than the other half of his identity and using her existence to make himself whole. He frequently torments Nina psychologically to subvert her sense of identity, disguising himself to feel what it is like to be her and use it to further his plans; killing her adoptive parents; and attempting to corrupt her into a killer just like him.
While Johan claims to feel gratitude for Dr. Tenma saving his life, deeming him as a father-figure, and not having any plans of killing him, it is only because Johan only respects him not as a person, but as the idea of the ultimate enemy for him. This leads him to destroy every aspect of his life, such as making Tenma believe the deaths of his superiors that got himself a promotion was because he actually wished for it, framing him for his crimes, and having him uncover and witness the peak depravity of his crimes to shatter his very idealism as well as trying to force Tenma into being the one that kills him.
Johan is a manipulative psychopath who frequently shows superficial kindness and empathy to keep a low profile and/or to manipulate and corrupt others, such as with Christof Siervenich and Roberto, which were done so Johan can corrupt them into fellow criminals like him.
Even in the moment of empathy for Karl, with the story itself posing the question if his tears were genuine or not, his view on Neuman only remains as a mere pawn for him to exploit and backstab without regrets.
While the series does showcase if the very concept of pure evil could theoretically exist, multiple potential Freudian Excuses for Johan are brought up, but all get shut down for various reasons:
Johan was sent to Kinderheim 511, a depraved orphanage where orphans were subjected to multiple experiments and where he lost the memories he had of his past in Czechoslovakia. However, as Johan and Hartmann, as well as the revelations on his past, confirm, this is not what made Johan the monster that he was today, and that he was well beyond the program and evil beforehand and as Hartmann puts it, "could never create a masterpiece like Johan".
Johan claims to have been previously abducted in Czechoslovakia by Peter Čapek and Franz Bonaparta and subjected to experimentation in the Red Rose Mansion to create a new Hitler. However, this was immediately shot down because as it is revealed, he was never the one who was experimented on; it was his sister, and out of his obsession with her as a mere piece of his identity, decided to take these memories as his own, meanwhile, Anna, the one who suffered, came out as Pure Good.
The only excuse close to being valid was the cruel choice Bonaparta forced his mother into to keep one of her children and give the other up for the experiment, in which he was plagued with the doubt if his mother actually intended to spare him or if she confused him for Anna. The potential validity is even recognized by Johan in that his change of plans was focused on trying to destroy Bonaparta as he saw him as the reason for why he is the way he is.
However, Johan initially forgets all these events due to the Kinderheim 511 experiments, and his sole motivation for his depraved acts was simply because he feels like evil is within his nature, and when remembering this, he goes on a quest to destroy every memory he could have of his past so he can detach it from his very character to uphold his very beliefs.
Overall, despite multiple horrid events in Johan's life, none of them are sufficient reasons on why he is as much of a monster as he is in the present, and the main reason he is how he is in the present wasn't through any of those experiences, but only through his utter refusal to accept them being what shaped him to preserve his fantasies of being a monster committing evil for the sake of it. What's more, he would refuse to take any chance offered to him to change his ways as many other villains in the series have while working to strip himself of anything that makes him human in his words "to be as dark as possible" and shatter Tenma's idealism who he knows was piecing his entire life story together to strike him down in cold blood.
Overall, he lives up to the manga/anime's name as a living force of evil (complete with parallels/allusions to the Antichrist as opposed to the Messiah that Tenma symbolizes) which brings out the absolute worst in people, spreads as much evil and suffering as possible, and champions the downfall of all human society and morality, showing no signs of any genuine caring towards Anna or anyone else beyond mere fixation (e.g. his refusal to kill Tenma out of a petty desire to destroy his optimism and negate his humanitarianism). For this reason, neither Johan adopting Anna's memories of the Red Rose Mansion, nor his trauma from the day Anna was abducted for the experiment, nor whatever The Nameless Monster may have imprinted on his mind upon reading it as a child can truly mitigate his emotionlessly antisocial behavior and copious atrocities—especially not what would have transpired if he hadn't rediscovered the aforementioned picture book.
Backstory[]
With alarming premeditation and calculation for his age, he murdered his caretakers despite being homeless due to wanting no one to find out where he or Anna was.
He infamously caused the 511 Kinderheim massacre, once more as a child, by insidiously manipulating and provoking the orphans and instructors into inciting chaos—which culminated in the orphanage burning down and Johan tossing an oil rag into its fires, ominously watching as dozens of other children die by either killing each other or burning alive.
He murdered his foster parents, the Lieberts, before successfully prompting a traumatized Anna to shoot him herself with the intent to corrupt her. Despite Anna's life nearly being ruined that night and his alleged "love" for her.
He tortured Helmut Wolf by organizing an event where his wife, children, and friends all die one after the other, all the while forcing him to watch. This reduced Wolf to a broken and paranoid wretch just to make him experience the same solitude that Johan did—even though Wolf saved him and his sister from a near-death experience. Although Wolf was a neo-Nazi, what he was subjected to was not only irrelevant to that, but as the story unambiguously portrays, is cruel even for him.
Present[]
He murders Tenma's boss and coworkers Director Heinemann, Dr. Oppenheim, and Dr. Boyer with poisoned candy, ostensibly as a "favor" to Tenma for saving his life, simply because Tenma had unwittingly told Johan that Heinemann would be better off dead—despite this declaration stemming from anger and resentment rather than genuine malice—thereby incriminating Tenma for the murders due to his severe demotion before this. Whether Johan's incrimination was deliberate is uncertain, but not unlikely.
While Director Heinemann and his subordinates were thoroughly repugnant for their corruption and disregard for the lives of their patients, Johan did not kill them solely for this reason, but to invalidate Tenma's belief that all lives are equal, as Johan brings it up when Tenma tells him that killing is wrong, and tells Tenma that his career was only salvaged thanks to the murders.
He encourages Reinhard Dinger and other serial killers to commit murderous acts with little to no effort, seemingly bearing a corrupting influence on a nearly supernatural level.
He organizes a successful money laundering business only to abandon it, which in turn instigates another massacre.
He hires serial killers from all around Germany, including Adolf Junkers and his two partners, to dispose of all of his former foster parents—only to backstab the trio by disposing of them once they've outlived their utility. Junkers initially survives, but only for Junkers to later be executed by Johan due to Junkers being a loose end, just as Junkers was on the path to redemption and recovery.
In doing so, Johan also torments and possibly attempts to corrupt Tenma—a purely good character—by insinuating that the blood of Heinemann, Oppenheim, and Boyer is on his hands and that their deaths benefitted him due to his promotion to fill their place, suggesting to Tenma that disposing of those in one's way is acceptable.
He habitually murders his subordinates or any he sees as loose ends or outlived their usefulness (e.g. Horst Grossman later on) or neglects their potential deaths (e.g. his sole surviving disciple, Christof); even his most loyal henchman, Roberto, is not exempt from this callousness when he dies before an indifferent Johan's eyes without having his end of the bargain fulfilled, as he is ultimately nothing more to Johan than a pawn.
He hires Detective Messener and Michael Müller to murder the Fortners, Anna's (now Nina's) new family, upon luring her out of their domicile. This would also lead to Jacob Maurer's death as he was there to investigate the Fortners when Messener and Müller went to kill them.
He corrupts children with his worldviews and convinces them to jump from rooftops as a game, which they're told to try again should they survive. It's highly likely that many of them either become critically wounded or do not survive.
He is a being so utterly dangerous and misanthropic that when offered a chance to join a gang of Neo-Nazis in a meeting with Professor Goedelitz, Johan murders them all to drive home how he has no interest in the Nazi ideology due to looking down on all humans with equal contempt.
While he does help Karl Neuman reunite with his father Hans Georg Schuwald, even though he could've easily claimed to have been Schuwald's son and the latter would've believed him, it's almost certain that Johan intended for this to be an opportunity to gain Schuwald's trust to work him into a bigger plan.
He initially plans to have Schuwald assassinated by his hitman Roberto so that he may seize control of Germany's economy, manipulating murderers to target those close to Schuwald to get closer to him by taking their place and earning his trust, in addition to driving Edmund Fahren to suicide for no apparent reason. His reason for nearly subjugating the economy is to set his aforementioned apocalyptic initial plan in motion.
When recovering alcoholic and detective Richard Braun is hired to investigate Fahren's suicide and begins to draw connections between Johan and other unsolved murders, Johan retaliates by meeting Richard in a bar and, veiled as research for a college thesis, confronting him on the latter's execution of a 17-year-old serial rapist and murderer, citing various sections from the Convention on the Rights of the Child to put the detective in the wrong—initially under a neutral, understanding façade.
This façade gradually erodes as instead of simply luring him somewhere so he could kill him, Johan does so while slowly and ruthlessly hammering away at Richard's psyche by planting seeds of guilt, asking Richard how he intends to look his daughter Rosemary in the eye the next day when her father is a murderer and a coward, and finally manipulating him into drinking again—which is followed by Richard either jumping/falling off the rooftop Johan has lured him to or being pushed off, killing him, despite Johan's knowledge that Richard was to see Rosemary the next day for the first time in years.
His wife and daughter grieve his death afterward. This is done not to deliver justice for the otherwise morally upright Richard's past crime, but simply for his interference with Johan's plans.
After murdering Blue Sophie, Johan gives drug money to a prostitute near the crime scene for seemingly no other reason than to further ruin her life by having her abuse more drugs, and possibly also pragmatism to dispel suspicion by rendering her an unreliable witness due to her addiction, if not simple hush money.
He sets the highly occupied Munich University Library ablaze while instilling terror into Schuwald, killing a few and injuring many while burning myriads of books simply because of his loss of interest in murdering Schuwald. Since he refuses to abandon his plans for Schuwald without ruining the business tycoon's life in some way, he spitefully traumatizes him and shows him scenes from Hell—both in the library and in Johan's very eyes.
When encountered by Tenma at the burning library, he taunts the doctor into killing him by pointing at his forehead.
Upon embarking to Prague in search of a 511 Kinderheim tape from his youth, Johan murders and deceives people—including Reinhart Biermann, the repenting headmaster of said orphanage who, up until his death, was raising children in a manner opposite to that of his past experiments—while disguised as his sister Anna, deliberately gaslighting and potentially incriminating her.
In said disguise, he frequents a local bar and acquaints himself with Detective Jan Suk, who is enamored with him due to his convincing appearance as Anna; however, upon extracting the required information from Suk, Johan poisons his boss and other policemen involved with the Czech Secret Police attempting to acquire and sell the tape that Johan seeks, which deflects blame and suspicion onto the innocent Suk due to the similar poisoning method utilized by said police.
To exonerate Wolfgang Grimmer from false suspicion of murdering Biermann, several of the orphans who were previously in the latter's custody band together to find the "mysterious blonde lady" (Johan) who was present at the scene and presumed to be a witness—and one of the boys, Miloš, is successful. What follows is one of Johan's most wanton and reasonless acts of cruelty when still disguised as Anna, he tells Miloš that he should find his lost mother at a nearby red-light district, but bombards his hopes with the notions that his mother abandoned him because he was never wanted and that all life is insignificant; he then sends the boy through said district wherein he witnesses several forms of human depravity, including rape, which—coupled with his inevitable failure to find his mother—tortures the boy enough to drive him to the brink of suicide. Although this is stopped through Tenma and Grimmer's narrow intervention, Miloš is still very visibly traumatized and implied to be corrupted by Johan when he squishes a moth unprovoked, and his fate thereafter is unspecified.
Even though he did save Grimmer from death and clear him of the crime, it's never implied he did this out of genuine care or respect for him. If anything, it was most likely for pragmatic and/or selfish reasons.
He burns down the Red Rose Mansion, which contains a painting of his mother, in his endeavor to erase his past and (ultimately) himself. He also met Hermann Führ while doing so, and indirectly inspired him to kill people himself, thereby instigating the events of Another Monster.
After disposing of his henchman Horst Grossman, he visits the remote village of Ruhenheim wherein he instigates a massacre by playing on the doubts, fears, and innate greed associated with human nature, destroying its peace and killing many more in the process. He intends to have its entire population dead at its own hands.
He rejects Anna's forgiveness for all of his actions during their final encounter, immediately before holding a nearby child at gunpoint just to coerce Tenma to shoot him and fulfill his goal of a "perfect suicide" and invalidate his idealism.
In the ambiguous ending of the story, Johan appears to escape the police hospital he was sent to following his second brain surgery, indicating that in the end, he receives no comeuppance for his long list of atrocities. It is also possible that he is still in a comatose state, but regardless, his ultimate fate is unknown and he likely evaded justice.
Trivia[]
Johan Liebert is perhaps among the most acclaimed—and often considered one of the evilest—villains in manga and anime. The former may be due in part to his complexity and realism (for the most part) as a villain despite his lack of positive qualities, and his religious allegory; the latter may partly be because of the fact that, rather than only torturing and murdering people, he drags them down to his level with relative ease, reducing them to nihilistic monsters (if not outright insanity) like himself.
Furthermore, he does not appear to gain much from his actions as he shows few to no sad*stic tendencies, which only highlights his malice since not even sadism may be an excuse. Assuming he truly even has the emotional capacity for hatred, his misanthropy appears to be his only drive since it conflicts with his nihilistic outlook; however, given that his demeanor, disturbingly, appears to be far more apathetic than antipathetic, it can be argued that everything he does on his way to fulfilling his ultimate goal (including the goal itself) is purely for the sake of evil—such acts being as natural and mundane to him as breathing.
Despite being Pure Evil, some of the in-universe characters don't seem to view him that way, as Tenma shows some sympathy for him in the end and tells him his mother loves him, while his sister Nina believes he would not have committed his later crimes had she not shot him as a child, and tells him that she would always forgive him no matter what he did. The sequel, Another Monster, also has Karl and Lotte say they believe Johan did have some genuine care for them and that his tears for Karl's story may have been real, while Dr. Reichwein is quoted as saying that he doesn't think anyone is a monster and that he thinks Johan was trying to become human again after regaining his memories.
However, while it's possible he ceased becoming a murderer and tried to become a normal human following the end of the series, there is nothing to confirm this is the case, with his fate being left ambiguous, meaning he still qualifies judging by his actions in the series.
Although he is most frequently referred to as "Johan Liebert", Johan is not his real name, but rather one of the many ones he uses over the course of his life.
While Johan has taken on various identities, he doesn't take someone else until posing as his sister; in fact, when someone tried to pose as the long lost son of Schuwald, Johan arranged for the boy's murder.
Johan shares some similarities with another Pure Evil villain, Victor Zsasz, from DC Comics, as they're both nihilistic serial killers whose goal is to destroy humanity, one life at a time.
It is clear that the two Bible verses at the beginning of the series (Revelation 13:1 and 13:4) are likening Johan to the beast or the antichrist. However, Urasawa takes this similarity a step further, albeit more subtly due to not including this verse at the start; this series-opening text skips over the highly relevant Revelation 13:3 - "One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound had been healed. In amazement, the whole earth followed the beast."
He and Professor Goedelitz are the only 2 villains of Monster to be Pure Evil.
As a seasoned enthusiast and expert in the realm of manga and anime, particularly the psychological thriller genre, I find myself delving into the intricate and captivating world of characters like Johan Liebert. My extensive knowledge and passion for the subject have allowed me to unravel the depths of Johan's character and the compelling narrative surrounding him.
Now, let's delve into the concepts presented in the article, breaking down the key elements that define Johan Liebert's character:
Johan Liebert - The Pure Evil Antagonist
1. What Makes Him Pure Evil?
In General:
Johan's overarching goal is to be the last human alive when the world ends, leading him to manipulate and corrupt others systematically.
Backstory:
His relationship with his sister is marked by obsession, using her existence to make himself whole and tormenting her psychologically.
Johan's gratitude towards Dr. Tenma is a facade, as he sees Tenma as the ultimate enemy and aims to destroy every aspect of his life.
2. Trivia
Johan Liebert is considered one of the evilest villains in manga and anime due to his complexity and realism.
Despite being Pure Evil, some characters, like Tenma and Nina, show sympathy or believe Johan had genuine care for them.
3. External Links
Links to resources like the Villains Wiki and Monster Wiki provide additional information and perspectives on Johan Liebert.
4. Navigation
A list of other notable villains in various months, highlighting Johan Liebert's status as a Pure Evil character.
In summary, Johan Liebert's character is a masterpiece of psychological complexity, portraying a ruthless and manipulative antagonist with a profound impact on the narrative of "Monster." The article meticulously explores Johan's actions, motivations, and the various dimensions of his character, showcasing the depth and darkness that defines him in the world of manga and anime.
He is from the manga and anime series called Monster. He serves as the main villain. He's popular because he is a very intelligent, charismatic, compelling villain with an arguably interesting backstory.
Nope. He's fairly slim and has a decent build, but I doubt he could hold on when in a fight. Johan is a mastermind. He finds weaknesses in people's psyche and exploits them.
Throughout the remainder of his life, Johan continues to indulge in his vile nature, corrupting, manipulating, and murdering people wherever he goes. This list highlights some of the most evil crimes carried out by Johan Liebert.
Overall, his experiences resulted in him believing life has no value and that he and everyone else was worthless. Several characters in Another Monster comment that had he been raised in a better environment, he would have not turned out the way he did.
He is called a monster, the next Adolf Hitler and the devil himself. Johan Liebert was shot in the head as a child when his parents were killed in their home, but saved from death by Dr. Tenma. He claims to love his twin sister Anna, and has some loyalty to her.
Much of the core battle in Monster is the ideological war between Tenma and Johan. They are true existential opposites in every way: while Tenma believes that all life is precious, Johan believes that all life is meaningless and that there's nothing special about living.
It is highly unlikely for Light Yagami to emerge victorious in a confrontation against Johan Liebert. Now, many of you might argue, "But Light managed to manipulate the world's smartest detective into taking his own life." While it is indeed intriguing to contemplate, the methods he employed personally displease me.
Johan's ultimate goal was to erase himself from existence. In order to do that, he needed to kill everyone who'd ever met him, and then kill himself. His vision of a true ending would at long last bring his lifelong suffering to a close, and there would be no one left alive who'd witnessed any of it.
The clear psychopathic tendencies he exhibits as a child—along with the hellish fate he inflicts upon the child-experimenting orphanage Kinderheim 511, even prior to most of his past traumas—clearly prove that he is far from a victim of circ*mstance, given the premeditated and calculated murders of his foster families; ...
Anna realized that forgiveness was the one thing he wanted that night she shot him, despite him also thinking his death was needed. His value depended on her view of him; and what she once robbed from him was now returned - a human being worthy of forgiveness instead of a monster.
Johan Liebert from Monster is completely uninterested in women or men, either emotionally or physically, and his obsessive relationships with Tenma and Nina are completely asexual.
Even before his tenure at Kinderheim 511, Johan still exhibited psychopathic tendencies. For example, most of his murders, both in childhood and adulthood, have been premeditated and calculated. Many of Johan's beliefs run consistent with nihilism, as he does not see any meaning to life.
Address: Suite 751 871 Lissette Throughway, West Kittie, NH 41603
Phone: +2366831109631
Job: Sales Producer
Hobby: Creative writing, Motor sports, Do it yourself, Skateboarding, Coffee roasting, Calligraphy, Stand-up comedy
Introduction: My name is Laurine Ryan, I am a adorable, fair, graceful, spotless, gorgeous, homely, cooperative person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
✓
