Kenzou Tenma

Kenzou Tenma is the main protagonist from the Monster anime and manga.

Kenzou was a genius neurosurgeon at Eisler Memorial Hospital, considered to be the best in the field, until he disobeyed the Hospital Director's orders to perform brain surgery on Mayor Roedecker, choosing instead to operate on a newly-orphaned boy, Johan Liebert. Since the boy arrived first, he decided to risk his promising future to do what was morally correct and save Johan. Unfortunately the mayor passed away, and the boy, along with his twin sister, went missing...

Years later, Johan reappeared and was revealed to be a cold-blooded murderer. Tenma, who regretted having saved Johan, went after him to rectify his mistake with his own hands before he killed any more people.

Appearance
Kenzou is a tall man with black hair and brown eyes.

Years later, he grew a thin facial hair and his grew long that reaches his neck.

Personality
Tenma is a workaholic who prioritizes his patients and their well-being more than anything. Although he's a highly skilled neurosurgeon, he confesses to Inspector Lunge that during a surgery he's jumping out of his skin due to the fright of committing a mistake.

Tenma is often obsessed with saving as many lives as he can. Johan enjoys toying with this mindset, sprouting several massacres possibly to challenge Tenma to prevent them.

His kindness is prevalent throughout the series - in contrast to Johan's unscrupulous nature - and he sometimes ponders about the moral of his actions. When he is worried (often with Johan) he neglects his own self care and goes as far as collapsing for lack of food or sleep. Other than that, he's overall an optimistic individual, or tries his best to seem so to others, giving words of encouragement to the people around him.

When Lunge enters Tenma's psyche he discovers that Tenma doesn't fit in either Japanese or German society. Nevertheless, Tenma isn't too unsociable, and ironically in several flashbacks (Eva's and Rudi's) he is seen happily hanging around in a group. He does prefer to work alone rather than in a team if he can help it though.

Tenma's motto and the reason he disobeyed Director Heinemann's orders to save the person who arrived first regardless of social status. This ideal is not just a matter of work ethic, much of Tenma's psychology stems from this principle, and it is one of the reasons he struggles so much with his own decision of killing Johan. For instance, Tenma becomes wracked with guilt at shooting Roberto in spite of the apparent necessity of his actions, believing that he had killed the man, and expresses such great remorse over his seeming death that he feels himself unworthy of being called a doctor. There is even a personality shift when Tenma starts to doubt his own belief.

Many close friends of Tenma interviewed in Another Monster, including Eva, mention the reason they love to be around Tenma is that he never looks down on them, and regardless of his exceptional skills, he treats others as equals or puts more value in their abilities over his own.

Abilities
Kenzou is initially an average person, insofar as a well-known brain surgeon can be average. The series' circumstances force him to become a hardened survivor. He can take a beating, jump off a bridge to avoid confrontation, and save people's lives while avoiding the police and criminals alike.

Trivia

 * He shares the same birthday with Naoki Urasawa, January 2.
 * In an issue of Casa Brutus featuring Urasawa's work, he ranked 3 in Genius/Talent and 1 in Self-Indulgent.
 * The kanji of his name mean Wise, Three, Heaven and Horse respectively.
 * Although in the first volume Tenma says his father is a small-time medical practitioner, Another Monster disproves this by explaining that his father was in fact the director and manager of a city owned Hospital.