Monster 8

The question was raised last volume about whether or not Tenma was going to move from a truly innocent man to having blood on his hands since it’s become clear to all the present company that he wishes to kill Johan.  I suspect this isn’t something that’s going to be resolved anytime soon, and is probably the plot of the series, so I don’t think that’s too much a spoiler.  Tenma’s separated from the main group and is doing some weapons training and some stakeouts of Johan to figure out the best time to do the deed.

Johan seems to know this, and it is implied both men have the same thing in mind by the end of the volume.  I’m… curious as to where Johan wants this to go.

Other characters are sort of scrambling around Johan.  Some of the more legit authorities try and convince Lunge that he’s wrong, and Lunge… well, it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking.  There are some bizarre scenes where he’s trying to put himself in a Tenma state of mind by becoming Tenma, which are plenty weird.  And creepy.  Lunge is probably only second to Johan in my creepiness meter in this series.

Something else that’s killing me is that a picture book is introduced towards the end of the volume that seems to have something major to do with Johan.  The connection is not explained.  I want to know.

Bah.  I’m starting to violate one of my own rules and am just giving summaries/reactions for the volumes in this series, but there’s really not much else I can say other than this makes for an awesome mystery/thriller.  I can’t get enough of it, and I’m glad I’m taking it at such a pace that it seems like I’ll be caught up by the time the last volume comes out.  That’ll be awesome.

Monster 7

This will also be short, but only because there’s not much I can say about Monster that won’t spoil the volume.

I’m much happier reading these volumes now that Johan is playing an active part.  This volume follows a private investigator.  This man, Richard, used to serve on the police force, but was forced off his job and gave up all his cases after he shot a murder suspect while drunk.  As he interviews and digs for information surrounding the suicide of the boy from last volume, he realizes more and more that all his past unsolved cases were connected.  It’s a really amazing way to introduce all the action and unfold the plot for the main characters in this town.

Tenma doesn’t really appear until the end of the volume.  I would kind of like the action to switch back to him since I like the actual plot of the series, Tenma trying to prove he’s not a murderer, so much.  Not focusing on him isn’t really boring or detrimental like it is in other series, though.  I have yet to find myself uninterested in any of the side characters and the stories, especially since they always, always form a part of the cohesive whole.  Of course, we get enough Johan that not having Tenma around very much is forgivable.  Johan does… well, a terrible thing.  We learn a bit of how exactly he works, and it is most fascinating as well as tragic.

Speaking of the Tezuka character cameos from Black Jack I talked about earlier today… this bothered me last volume, but the scientist in this series… he’s Shunsaku Ban, Tezuka’s oldest and most-used character.  There’s no arguing this point, that’s just who he is.  I don’t think his name is ever given, but I think that’s because everyone already knows (not that he doesn’t have a name in the series; I’m sure he does, I just haven’t seen it yet).  I would have my doubts normally, but obviously Urasawa is a big Tezuka fan, given the fact he remade a single Astro Boy story into an entire series and that his main character in this series, Dr. Tenma, shares a name with Tobio’s father in Astro Boy.

Monster 6

Aw.  I was expecting something different for Lunge.  It’s interesting to see how that situation resolved itself anyway, and I’m pleased to see that Tenma’s Black Jack-like role continues for pretty much every chapter of this volume.

I’m still trying to re-aclimate myself to the series, so I was having trouble placing Eva until she pretty much spelled everything out.  I just… did not remember her at all, and I had a hard time wrapping my brain around what she was doing going after Tenma until she spelled things out for me again.  Most of the volume deals with her chase, and the search for Johan is put on temporary hold while she gets together with some suspicious strangers.

The last few chapters in the volume deal with a boy who grew up in foster care and is getting to know his real father, unbeknownst to the older man (the boy is hired on as a reader, since his father is actually a blind millionaire or something).  He and a helpful classmate are set on a series of mysteries where they run into a woman claiming to be the millionaire’s lover/the boy’s mother, and another boy who claims to be the millionaire’s real son.  And… well, they team up and become friends with Johan.  It’s really weird, and the panel revealing his face does a good job of making a dramatic show of things.

So yes, I’m ready to see how Johan turns into a monster before my eyes.

Monster 5

Here, let me try to keep my promise of more Halloween-related content.  Aside from Hino Horror, I’m at a loss at what I could talk about.  Of course, I’ve got about ten volumes of this series sitting on my shelf.  Perhaps now is the time to catch up?  It’s really more of a psychological thriller than it is a horror story, but it’ll do anyway.

Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve read this!  This volume has three pretty distinct stories in it.  The first story is about one of the murders that was hired by Johan to kill one of the families early in the series.  He begins to research Dr. Tenma, and when the detective he hires comes up with some answers, his life kind of starts falling apart around him.  I believe this man’s partner was killed last volume, but this man is more interested in maintaining the clean life he’s living now than getting involved with Johan and his sister and whatever else is going on right now.

The second story is brief, and is about a retired police officer giving Tenma and a little boy a ride.  It’s more of a little character study, kind of to show what other people may think of Tenma, but it was a nice, nonviolent side story all the same.

The third story is about what eventually turns out to be a copycat murder meant to look like the others Tenma is blamed for.  Inspector Lunge comes back, and he does all in his power to lure Tenma to the scene.  There are… kind of unexpected things that happen at the end.  The cliffhanger is a killer, and I’m actually mostly writing this tonight so that I can read the next volume of it tonight or tomorrow.

I remember being sort of disturbed by the last volume I read, but I… can’t really remember why.  I’m all about reading volumes back to back now, especially since the last page sort of demands it.

Monster 4

I can’t read volumes of this back to back.  While this series is spectacular, it’s also heavy and depressing in large doses.  Too scary!

This volume mostly consisted of entangling the main characters with Neo-Nazis in various independent ways, the ultimate goal being to stop them from burning down the Turkish section of town.  The portrayal of racisim in this volume was interesting.  The Neo-Nazis want to burn down the Turkish section of town for obvious Neo-Nazi reasons, and they also capture Tenma and nearly beat him to death before intervention comes for the same reasons.  But when Tenma tries to warn the Turkish residents later, they disreguard him and say he must be trying to sell them Japanese fire extinguishers because the Japanese economy is in bad shape.  ARGH.  It was frustrating on all sides, really.

I love the use of German scrawls as communication from Johan.  This is a rare series that does not take place in Japan, and it’s nice to keep that language reminder in place.  It’s nice.

I still like Heikel too.  He’s a thief, but he’s not an evil guy.  The way that his rug kept coming up in the story and its ultimate end made me laugh, so he does a really good job as comic relief, too.  We need this guy.

Monster 3

Enough of this merry-making Pirate business.  On to more depressing matters.

We get both Heikel and Deiter here.  I like both, though Deiter will never lose the creepy vibe with me because I hated seeing him get beat up by his foster father.   I like the weasely thief, though, he’s jolly, which is something I need.

Most of this volume talks about terrible things done to orphans in orphanages, mostly Johan and his experimental orphanage.  I was greatly unsettled by this… I hate things that involve torturing little kids.  Maybe they weren’t tortured per se, but they were experimented on.

Later, we get a much more uplifting story where Tenma helps a rural country doctor go on his rounds with various townspeople.  I really liked this story, and it felt like a much-needed break after all that heavy exposition.  I’m glad it had a happy ending, too.  Well, relatively happy.  I’m also glad we always get glimpses of Tenma’s humanity like this.  I kind of forget about him and see him as just a way to reveal what Johan is, but I’m glad for stories like this which remind me that he’s still a doctor who cares about people.

The last chapter about Detective Lunge was pretty cool, too.  I don’t like him because he brings the pressure to Tenma, but he’s still a pretty awesome character.

Monster 2

Since I started reading Astro Boy for the sake of Naoki Urasawa, it was hard for me not to jump back into this series after the most recent volume of Astro Boy, which features Tezuka’s Dr. Tenma heavily.  I was hoping that there was a more obvious reference, like the two shared the same first name or looked alike, but that’s not the case, so maybe it’s just a coincidence or vague reference.

The best scene in this volume is where Tenma goes to a mercenary to learn how to shoot a gun.  There’s a little girl with the mercenary, and when Tenma asks if the little girl is his daughter or grand-daughter, the mercenary launches into a story about how he killed her mother in front of her eyes in a grass hut somewhere in the middle of the jungle.  That’s hard, people, and it came from nowhere.  There was no need for such badassness in the middle of my thriller, but it was there anyway, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Having Johan stay at the fringe of the story, and continuing with these holes where something happens and then Tenma is later left with nothing, is pretty amazing.  After a long sequence where Tenma tries to rescue Anna, he’s left with no job, a murder suspect fleeing the police, and no leads as to what happened to Johan or Anna.

I was sad about the ultimate fate of the good-natured reporter.  I was hoping he was going to be a sidekick or something.

Monster 1

This was a mark of self-control for me. I wanted to cut back on my manga buying habits, and depriving myself of Monster was a good measure of the fact that I still had control. Well, my roommate, he wanted to read it, and I can’t say no to that… especially since I want to read it too.

Man, this series is pretty intense. Not intense in the same way as… well, I just finished talking about Drifting Classroom, so the first things that come to mind are Dragon Head and that, but not intense in the same way. This series just PUNISHES Dr. Tenma. He gets fucked for everything he does, good or bad. I loved the setup with the absolutely despicable characters. All of the people in this series, with the possible exception of the doctor who’s friendly with Tenma (and even he slightly flawed), are worth hating.

I think he actually does have to go out on the lam, since it seems like the killer set him up to do so, but can the good-natured Dr. Tenma actually bring down the Monster, as the plot of the series suggests? So far it’s extremely upsetting, but I absolutely love it in every way, shape, and form.

Once again, this volume was just exposition, so it’s hard for me to talk much about it, but the setup was amazing and I’m ready and rarin’ to go with the rest of the plot of the series.