I created an English version of this video. Since this video was originally made in Japanese, the timing of the screen and English dialogue may be somewhat unnatural, but I decided to give it a bold try.
I want to make this video in as many languages as possible. Unless there is a special request, I probably won't reveal it here, but I have already completed production of the Korean version, and if I can get the video, I would like to produce a German version as well.
Wolfgang Grimmer: 40 year old man with a troubled past. Fighting against the effects of induced sociopathy, a remnant of his time spent surviving the horrors of Kinderheim 511 and the eastern bloc. Unable to maintain a family or even property grieve for his child. Yet, despite all circumstances, resists the narrative written for himself, and replaces it with his own desires. The desire to feel what could not be felt. It must have been so hard. But in his last days, it was his life that served as a ministry to others. Teaching them how to feel. I think there's something profound about it.
I want to focus on his introduction for this.
Barefoot. [Nameless.]
One of the reasons why I've fallen so deeply in love with Urasawa's Monster is how well he depicts the struggle to maintain identity and how often we take for granted a life in which we were given one.
A man reared for espionage, Grimmer was robbed of a sense of self. He survived without it. However, surviving isn't exactly living. Going through the motions like an unrelenting cog in a machine (I'd even say this is similar to Tenma's life prior to his life as a fugitive. Stuck at Eisler Memorial as a middleman with no direction) is not living.
Grimmer is not only reprimanding the bullies for stealing shoes, but the agents of Kinderheim that robbed the lives of many others as well.
The kind of people that would take another person's shoes [identity] are despicable.
We see him express his disdain towards Bonaparta in the Ruhenheim Arc. Bonaparta is despicable, and Grimmer was adamant about making sure he knew it well.
The Ultimate Rejection of Kinderheim 511 is Love. And that is Wolfgang Grimmer.
A dichotomy to Christof Sievernich, Roberto, and all others affected, Grimmer's devotion to acts of service, kindness, and gratitude, regardless of his programmed inability to feel is the rejection of Kinderheim 511, and the reclamation of self. Consider the effort that it took to smile at that child and even give him the shoes off of his feet. To carefully consider what morals to instill in that child and put in the effort to console him and inspire him to fight for himself. A man fighting against subdued feelings, eager to improve the lives of others at the cost of himself.
And this is a literal cost. Throwing away the given name that was grimmer to become a fugitive for the sake of Jan Suk mirrors act of giving away his shoes to the child. Tragically exonerated posthumously, he remained triumphant against the will of Kinderheim as he managed to accomplish the desire to feel and reclaim his narrative.
Created to aid in the destruction of good, HE chose to deviate and become the embodiment of good. And the short amount of time that he spent with Lunge, Tenma and Jan, he changed the trajectory of their lives for good as well.