I’ll say it like this: the very first time Tenma and Johan are in the same frame is Episode 1 of 'Monster' — that childhood surgery scene is the literal first meeting that haunts the whole story. As a longtime fan who’s paced through the series a few times, that opening still reads like a punch to the gut: quiet, clinical, and full of rot beneath the surface.
But if your question is about the first real showdown where Tenma actively accuses or challenges Johan as the monster behind the murders, that’s not early on. The series is slow-burn; you get dozens of tense near-misses and unsettling encounters across the middle episodes. The anime reserves the most decisive, emotionally loaded confrontations for the later arc, ultimately resolving their moral duel in the finale (Episode 74). So if you want the “first” moment of conflict in the literal sense, it’s Episode 1. If you want the first true moral showdown between doctor and monster, watch through to the end — the late episodes and the finale deliver that catharsis.
I’ll speak plainly: it depends on what you mean by “confronting.” If you mean the very first time Tenma comes face-to-face with Johan on-screen, that happens right at the start of 'Monster' — Episode 1 (and the immediate fallout in Episode 2). Tenma operates on the young boy and that encounter sets everything in motion. I still get chills remembering the quiet hospital corridors in that scene; I rewatched it once on a rainy afternoon and paused so many times just to take in how simple and devastating that moment is.
If you mean the first time Tenma squares off with Johan as the adult villain — a full, intentional confrontation where Tenma tries to confront Johan about what he’s done — you’re looking much later in the series. The show deliberately teases and defers those direct showdowns, scattering smaller face-offs and uncanny meetings across the middle episodes and saving the most meaningful exchanges for the endgame. Their long-anticipated face-to-face reckoning is part of the climax of the series and is wrapped up in the finale (Episode 74), so if you’re hunting for the emotional, moral confrontation that rewards the whole chase, that’s where the payoff lands.
So short: first on-screen meeting = Episode 1 (and 2); the big, deliberate confrontations unfold later and culminate in Episode 74. How you define ‘confronting’ changes which episode feels like the “first” one to you.
I’m a fan who likes the small beats, so I’ll answer both ways: the literal first time Tenma confronts Johan on screen is in Episode 1 of 'Monster'—that’s when he treats the child Johan and their relationship is set. That early meeting isn’t a villain-versus-hero shouting match, but it’s the crucial confrontation that starts the tragedy.
If you mean when Tenma actively goes after Johan as the antagonist and they have the big confrontations, you have to stick with the series: the show scatters tense encounters through the middle and then brings the most direct, meaningful confrontations in the final stretch, with the series finale tying up their direct duel. I’d recommend rewatching Episode 1 and then skipping ahead to the last few episodes if you want to see how the moral face-off plays out.
2025-09-01 14:49:08
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The Amazing Doctor
Wendell Mayhew
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Before the divorce, she thinks he's absolutely worthless. After the divorce, he's transformed into the most amazing doctor of the millennium with boundless power and wealth.
Unbeknownst to her, he's the one who's given her everything she owns now, and everything she could ever want would be served to him with a snap of his fingers.
Since being average was a crime, he would show her who was the unworthy one!
After I was unexpectedly marked by a stranger wolf, it was considered a disgrace in our pack. My step-sister convinced my father to strip me of my hybrid wolf, but thankfully, I hid my healing abilities and left the pack. A year later, to break the bond, I returned and became the new Alpha’s doctor. My step-sister, now the new Alpha’s fated mate, used every trick to try and force me out. But then I discovered a shocking truth—the fated mate the new Alpha had been searching for, the one he marked that night, his future Luna, was actually me?!
I found a cure for a rare brain tumor a year ago, but in my own home, I am still just the embarrassment who wears rags instead of silk.
While my mother and stepsister obsess over guest lists and social standing, I spend my nights in a quiet lab, trying to save lives. I thought my future was set: more research, more bullying from my family, and eventually, a forced marriage.
But Lyon came along.
His mother is dying of the same tumor I had found a cure for, and he wouldn't leave my lab until I go with him.
He is an Alpha shifter, a man with money and power that makes my family look like amateurs, and he didn't care about my protests before he carried me away.
“Name your price, Doctor Christie Graves. I can give you anything you want as long as you save my mother.”
But it's not ANYTHING I want.
I want every inch of him. I want to know what making love would feel like. And with a man like Lyon.
I should be ashamed of that. My job is supposed to be my only pleasure. Yet, when he tells me that there's a bond between us and that he can't let me go, I'm ready to go on my knees and ask him to make love to me.
"I'm sorry, but this flight is overbooked. We're going to compensate you twenty dollars. Please deplane immediately."
The head flight attendant had my suitcase in a death grip. Her tone wasn't a request—it was an order.
I gave her a cold look, then turned my gaze to the man beside us, who had just been escorted onto the plane, draped in designer labels.
"Why does he get to board after showing up late, while I—who paid full price—am being forced off?"
She let out a mocking laugh and lowered her voice to taunt me. "Because he's the son of a top-tier medical conglomerate in Scallow City. He's rushing there to beg an elusive miracle doctor—the famous Phantom Surgeon—to save his life.
"No matter how urgent your business is, can it really compare to a human life? If you delay Mr. Stafford, ten lives couldn't pay for it. Now get off."
Several security guards dragged me off the plane by force as I watched the cabin doors close.
I laughed in sheer disbelief.
The "Mr. Stafford" she was talking about was William Stafford, and he was terminally ill.
What she didn't know was that I was the very "Phantom Surgeon" his entire family had been on their knees begging for three months—pleading with me to fly to Scallow City and perform his surgery today.
Since they threw me off the plane, I won't be doing that operation.
As for William, he can go ahead and wait for death.
The first thing I did after being reborn was add penicillin, a drug the patient was severely allergic to, into his pre-surgery medication administration record.
The hospital leadership exploded.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Are you trying to kill the patient?”
I smiled as I accepted the suspension notice they handed me.
In my previous life, I had been the lead cardiac surgeon for this operation. Back then, I refused a request from my wife, Shannon Wright, whose childhood friend, Jonah Hill, wanted to use my patient as ‘practice’ during the surgery.
Right there in, Shannon threw a tantrum and demanded a divorce. In the chaos, she ripped out the patient’s blood transfusion line and even knocked over the blood bags, causing the wealthy patient to die on the table. However, they pinned the entire medical malpractice scandal on me. With the security footage wiped clean, I was sentenced to death in the end.
My parents sold everything they owned and gathered eight million dollars. They gave the money to Shannon, begging her to hire a lawyer and help overturn my case. Instead, she told them that she and Jonah had been having an affair. From the very beginning, I had only been their scapegoat.
The shock shattered my parents. While driving home in a daze, they lost control of the car and plunged off an overpass bridge. Both of them died on the spot.
Now, when I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the very day of that wealthy patient’s surgery.
My fiancé's junior colleague went around the hospital every day calling herself "the best girl".
When a patient with acute appendicitis was admitted, she mistakenly prescribed laxatives instead of proper treatment. The patient nearly went into shock and died.
After the hospital was reported by the patient's family, she simply smiled and said, "I don't even need a supervising doctor to prescribe medication anymore. I'm such a good girl!"
On another occasion, she failed to order routine pre-op blood work for a surgical patient. During the procedure, a visiting senior surgeon was exposed and later contracted HIV.
She actually puffed out her chest and said, "Even if everyone had to stay up all night helping me save the doctor, I'm still the best girl!"
I protested more than once and urged my fiancé to dismiss her.
He refused every time. He brushed it off with a laugh, saying "this good girl" just needed time and experience.
Then, a prominent patient was transferred from a military hospital for surgery. She secretly tampered with the medical records, switching the pathology findings from the left lung to the right. She even revised the surgical plan, recommending removal of the patient's completely healthy right lung.
Luckily, I caught the mistake in time, restored the correct pathology report, and performed the surgery successfully.
After the patient recovered, he asked for our team to be recognized.
To my disbelief, Elena Bakers ran to my fiancé in tears.
"I wrote the entire report by myself! All by myself! I'm the best little girl!
"Why do you always take credit away from me? It took so much courage for this little girl to be brave just once!
"You're all horrible!"
Elena stormed out of the hospital and was struck and killed by a car on the spot.
My fiancé did not say a word.
However, on the very day I was appointed hospital director, he produced falsified evidence accusing me of altering records and causing multiple medical accidents to advance my career.
I was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death.
As the verdict was delivered, he looked at me with unmistakable satisfaction.
"You'll never make up for what you owe Elena. Not in this lifetime."
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day Elena altered the surgical plan.
I was stunned the first time I watched that opening scene in 'Monster' — the way everything tightens around that one decision is brilliant. When the boy Johan is brought in, he's got a severe head injury from a gunshot and is basically bleeding into his brain. Tenma doesn't hesitate: he performs emergency neurosurgery, essentially a craniotomy to relieve the pressure, remove the damaged tissue and whatever debris or clot is causing the intracranial hemorrhage. He stabilizes Johan, removes the immediate threat to his life, and stitches things up so the boy can wake up instead of slipping into irreversible brain death.
What always gets me is the moral weight layered on top of the medical move. Tenma chooses to operate on Johan over a politically important patient, defying orders and risking his career. That choice is what physically saves Johan — but narratively it sets off this monstrous chain of events. Clinically speaking, Tenma saved the boy by prioritizing immediate life-saving intervention: control the bleeding, reduce intracranial pressure, and repair damage so oxygen can return to the brain. Emotionally, I still feel that tension: a technically clean save that spirals into moral chaos. It’s the kind of surgical scene that sticks with you, not just because of the knife work, but because of the consequences that follow.
It's one of those moments in storytelling that sticks with you, isn't it? The scene where Dr. Tenma saves Johan in 'Monster' isn't just about medical ethics—it's a crossroads for his entire character. Tenma's decision to operate on Johan instead of the mayor isn't purely professional; it's a rebellion against the hospital's corruption. He's fed up with prioritizing status over human life, and Johan, a child with a gunshot wound, becomes the symbol of that principle. But here's the twist: Urasawa makes you wonder if Tenma's choice was noble or naive. The aftermath haunts him, and that duality—the idealistic doctor vs. the man burdened by consequences—is what hooks me.
What fascinates me more is how this moment mirrors real-life dilemmas. How often do we make 'right' choices only to face unintended fallout? Tenma’s arc feels painfully human because of that. And Johan? He’s not just a patient but a shadow lurking behind Tenma’s guilt. The series toys with the idea that saving a life isn’t always a clean, heroic act—sometimes it’s the start of a nightmare. That complexity is why I keep rereading Volume 1; it’s a masterclass in moral ambiguity.