REVIEW: ‘Monster’ Story & Artwork by Naoki Urasawa

Monster (1994) with story and art­work by Naoki Ura­sawa, is a graphic novel that is best described as a mystery.

This series is pub­lished by Viz Media and is com­pleted at 18 vol­umes and rated T for older teens.

Mon­ster is one one of those sto­ries that grips you from the start. The cover quotes that describe this series as “sus­pense­ful” and “engross­ing” are accurate.

I’ve read the first five vol­umes in this series. Here are my over­all impres­sions along with a brief dis­cus­sion of the story arcs that encom­passes the first 5 vol­umes in a series of 18.

The story fol­lows Dr. Ken­zou Tenma. He is a Japan­ese neu­ro­sur­geon work­ing at the Eisler Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal in Ger­many. On the sur­face, Dr. Tenma seems to have it all. He is smart and highly regarded by the direc­tor of the hos­pi­tal and he is about to marry the director’s daugh­ter. Then all of it comes crash­ing down.

At the start, Dr. Tenma seems to be increas­ingly dis­il­lu­sioned by the pol­i­tics at the hos­pi­tal. Patients of low means are rel­e­gated to the back of the line and those of more impor­tant social stand­ing are taken care of first. This dri­ves him to impul­sively make a deci­sion that will change his life.

Dr. Tenma’s fate is changed for­ever when twins Johan and Anna Liebert are brought into the hos­pi­tal. Johan is rushed into surgery for a head wound and his twin sis­ter Anna is in a state of shock. Their fos­ter par­ents have been mur­dered. Dr. Tenma rebuffs his supe­ri­ors and decides to save Johan after being told that his med­ical skills were needed elsewhere.

After sav­ing Johan, many of Dr. Tenma’s adver­saries at the hos­pi­tal are mur­dered start­ing with the direc­tor of the hos­pi­tal. Many sus­pect Dr. Tenma and thus he becomes a fugi­tive on the run. Ok, here my mem­ory of the first vol­ume is quite shaky. I can’t even put my hands on the book. Over­all gist of the story in vol.1 is that Dr. Tenma may have saved a killer. Yes, who hap­pens to be a lit­tle boy.

Vol.2 picks up the story nine years later and that’s when the story really takes off for me. Dr. Tenma is no longer a doc­tor and Anna Leib­ert has been adopted and is attend­ing uni­ver­sity. Her child­hood mem­o­ries are lost to her. She sees a psy­chol­o­gist hop­ing that one day she will regain her mem­o­ries and her iden­tity. She doesn’t real­ize that she has a twin brother who is look­ing to be reunited with her.

Dr. Tenma for most of the series up to five seems to travel from town to town, speak­ing with those who knew Johan. He picks up a lit­tle boy and a thief as com­pan­ions along the way. He needs to find this “mon­ster” in order to stop him from killing inno­cent peo­ple and also to clear his name. We already know that Johan is respon­si­ble for killing his fos­ter par­ents. Who is Johan? Johan is described as a charis­matic kid who uses psy­chol­ogy to induce peo­ple to do his bid­ding. He has pow­er­ful polit­i­cal con­nec­tions that reach within the police department.

Mon­ster thus far is a great read. This has been my read­ing mate­r­ial of late since life has kept me busy these last two weeks. Mon­ster is a solid read (up to vol.5) as I quickly read all the vol­umes I had here at the house and plan to get the rest. This is a char­ac­ter dri­ven series and a lot of the plot I have cho­sen not to dis­cuss for the bet­ter­ment of the series if you so choose to read it.

Johan, the “mon­ster” we keep hear­ing about, has remained behind the scenes thus far. Peo­ple who knew Johan have had all kinds of sto­ries to tell Dr. Tenma. We learn a lot about him through the peo­ple who molded him into the mon­ster that he is. It is the right wing extrem­ists who view him as a mod­ern day “Hitler”, a young man ready to lead them in their goal for race purification.

There is plenty of sus­pense in here along with some sur­pris­ing twists and turns. Polit­i­cal cli­mate of Ger­many also has a sig­nif­i­cant part to play in the story. The char­ac­ters are nicely fleshed out. If you enjoy mys­tery and sus­pense, this graphic novel is a must read. It is com­pleted at 18 vol­umes and is cur­rently avail­able in the US. I use this ven­dor for bulk orders since they tend to be cheaper than your brick and mor­tar stores. My grade for Mon­ster ranges from a B to B+. This is a great series.