Monster Characters

A gifted Japanese neurosurgeon at Eisler Memorial Hospital in Düsseldorf who believes every life has the same value. In 1986 he defies the director to save a young boy rather than the mayor, and loses both his prospects and his fiancée, Eva. Nine years later he learns that the boy, Johan Liebert, has become a killer, and he goes on the run to stop him while the police hunt him as the prime suspect. Wherever he goes he still treats anyone who needs a doctor.

The 'monster' of the title, Nina's twin brother and the boy Tenma saved in 1986. Polite, handsome and highly intelligent, he charms almost everyone he meets and moves through the story under a series of different names, always one step ahead of those trying to find him. The mystery of who he is and where he came from drives the whole series, and the search for his past leads all the way to Prague.

Johan's twin sister, born Anna Liebert, who remembers nothing of her life before the age of ten and grew up with the Fortner family in Heidelberg. A bright, cheerful law student who practises aikido, she sets out after her brother when he resurfaces on her twentieth birthday. In Prague she slowly recovers the memories she had lost, with Dieter by her side, and at the end of the series she graduates from university.

A BKA inspector with a phenomenal memory, who 'types' every detail into his head with his fingers and lives only for his work, which costs him his marriage. Convinced that Johan is a figment of Tenma's imagination, he hunts the doctor for most of the series. After the library fire in Munich he starts to believe Johan is real, takes a 'holiday' in Prague to trace Johan's origins, and in Ruhenheim he apologises to Tenma.

The hospital director's daughter and Tenma's fiancée at the start of the story. Proud and spoiled, she breaks off the engagement when Tenma defies her father, then spends years torn between wanting him back and wanting him punished. Because she saw Johan near the scene on the night Tenma first met him again, she becomes a target herself. By the final episode she has let go of her anger and works as an interior designer.

A young orphan Tenma meets in episode 11 and takes away from a harsh guardian. Cheerful and stubborn, he refuses to be left behind and travels with Tenma, calling him his best friend, before staying with Dr. Reichwein in Munich and keeping Nina company in Prague. He holds on to Tenma's promise that tomorrow will be a good day, and he passes it on to another boy who needs to hear it.

A friendly, nearly always smiling freelance journalist who meets Tenma on a train to Prague and helps him across the border. As a boy he lived at 511 Kinderheim, an orphanage that ran harsh experiments on children, and he was later trained as a spy, which left him unable to feel emotions such as sadness. When he is in danger, a second self he calls 'the Magnificent Steiner', named after a TV hero from his childhood, seems to take over.

A criminal psychologist who studied with Tenma at university and always saw him as a rival. When Tenma comes to him for help, Gillen arranges for the police to arrest him, then changes his mind after one of his prison interviews points to Johan, and helps Tenma get away. He later works with Dr. Reichwein, interviews criminals Johan has met, and goes with Nina to Ruhenheim.

A Munich psychologist who counsels recovering alcoholics. When his patient and friend, the private investigator Richard Braun, dies while looking into Johan, Reichwein refuses to believe it was an accident and starts his own investigation, which brings him face to face with Tenma. He becomes Dieter's guardian, gives Nina and Eva counselling too, and works with Rudi Gillen to prove that Johan exists.

A student at the University of Munich, raised in foster care, who takes a job reading aloud to the nearly blind billionaire Hans Georg Schuwald on Tuesdays, hoping to learn about the mother who gave him up, and discovers that Schuwald is his father. Johan befriends him and helps bring father and son together. Afterwards Karl stays on as Schuwald's assistant, carries a vital message to Tenma in Dresden and tells his father the news about Tenma at the end.

A young detective with the Prague police who looks up to his superior, Inspector Zeman. When several senior officers die in a series of mysterious crimes, Suk becomes a suspect himself, joins forces with Grimmer, and is badly wounded by men who are after a tape holding clues to Johan's past. Like Tenma, he is a young man with a promising career who finds himself the prime suspect in someone else's crimes.

A small-time thief who runs into Tenma while breaking into a house in Verden. He cares mostly about quick money and once suggests the two of them get rich treating wounded gangsters, but his knack for digging up information makes him useful, and he becomes friends with Dieter. In the final episode he finds out where the twins' mother lives and passes it on for Tenma.