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When
most people hear the word "manga," two disparate ideas come
to mind: either sticky-sweet visions of girls dressed as Sailor
Moon flashing peace signs with a wink, or darker, murkier
apparitions of kinky sex, possibly with octopi. Naoki Urasawa's
Monster blows these perceptions of manga out of the
water—octopi and all.
Monster
introduces the reader to Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a talented surgeon
in a Berlin hospital, shortly after the fall of communism
and the Berlin Wall. The book opens with an introduction to
Tenma's life in Berlin and a brief exploration of the hospital
politics in which he finds himself entrenched; wealthy hospital
patrons are given preferential treatment by the hospital bureaucracy
and Tenma finds himself questioning the efficacy of this policy.
Tenma's fast track career quickly falls apart when he goes
against hospital administration's orders and operates on a
wounded boy named Johan instead of a local politico.
As his
career and engagement to the hospital director's daughter
are shattered, Tenma consoles himself with the knowledge that
he has done the right thing in saving the boy's life, until
Johan's sudden disappearance and a series of mysterious murders
featuring a child's candy begin to make him suspect that the
boy may be a psychotic killer—a monster.
Years
later, Tenma finds himself on the run from the law, accused
of the murders he believes Johan has committed. While traveling
through post-communist Germany, he comes across different
elements of society—prostitutes, crime bosses, former
communist leaders—most marked by depravity. In trying
to find out the truth behind Johan, Tenma begins to uncover
secretive and grotesque medical experiments that began in
the shadows of the communist German Democratic Republic. He
begins to suspect that monsters aren't just born; monsters
are literally shaped by the society that raises them.
Monster
bows to some narrative clichés in that there's a clear delineation
between the "good guys" and the "bad guys" in the opening
conflict with Tenma and the hospital administration; however,
as the series continues, the characterization becomes more
nuanced and new information is revealed about established
characters that causes the reader to reevaluate them. For
example, the hospital director's daughter, Eva, is presented
as a one-dimensional, money-hungry manipulator in the first
volume, but her motives become clearer as the series progresses.
Monster
consists of eighteen volumes, but only eight have been published
in English so far. Each month, a new English volume is published
and the story is engaging enough to maintain the reader's
interest despite these breaks. Moreover, there are several
sub-plots and supporting characters to follow, including Johan's
twin sister, the detective pursuing Tenma, and miscellaneous
antagonizing figures from the GDR.
The art
is full of straightforward, black ink lines, but the complexity
of the story and the occasional dramatic scene coupled with
panel variation belie this apparent simplicity. A tautly wrought
thriller with political undertones, Monster is an inventive
and engrossing read that will appeal to long-time manga fans
and novices alike.
(June,
2007)
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