I'm going to keep it simple. What I liked and didn't like summarising with my conclusion.
I liked the voice acting. I watched it in English dubbing and the voice acting cast gave me nostalgia of the mid 80s early 90's cyberpunk era of anime with voice actors like Kirk Thornton, Doug Stone, Michael Mcconohie and Steve Kramer. All these old school voice actors have a touch of class that really improves on the overall viewing quality. I also liked the complexity of the storyline. It's very intricate and well thought out.
I did not like quite a few episodes though. Several of them were sending me to sleep. Some aspects of the storyline and moments of drama seemed pretentious and downright irritating. I remember feeling underwhelmed by Full Metal Alchemist for the same reason. It's like the director has to be absolutely certain we like the main characters by making them ABSOLUTELY ANGELIC! El in FMA had to be sooo damn noble and it felt that way with Dr Tenma or Anna. My favourite ever main character in anime is Golgo 13 since he's not really an holier than thou good guy. Another parallel between FMA and Monster is the subject of Nazis. Is this why everyone loves both animes so much? Good grief, I'm sick of hearing about the damn Nazis in media.
In conclusion am I glad I watched the series? No. I'd have rather never watched it. Others may love it (the majority judging by it's high IMDb rating) but I would not recommend this anime. Too pedestrian for me. It didn't even have to be an anime really.
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