Naoki Urasawa
Monster

REVIEWS WITH SLIGHT SPOILERS ABOUT THE FIRST VOLUME (DELUXE EDITION), SO WATCH OUT!

Who are we? How influential are our decisions on the lives of others? Are there more failures or successes in our lives? Are we good or bad? Who is the monster? Me or others? Can one live by allowing rationality to prevail?

"Monster" represents for me, someone who is not an avid manga reader, the best manga of all time. For 18 volumes, I was glued to that narrative so intricately woven but not difficult to understand. When I reached the finale, I was very disheartened, because I would never find a manga as current and so damn perfect as that one, perhaps not even the ever so idolized "Berserk." A read that breaks the heart, filled with anguish, fear, wild fury, psychological terror, and death, yet by the end, it enriches the reader and makes them realize many things, even if doubts, especially about existential matters, always remain.

But what is this immense masterpiece about? The plot, albeit simple at least in the beginning, will prove to be tortuous and varied: Kenzo Tenma, a brilliant Japanese doctor of prestige at a hospital in Dusseldorf (Germany), with a kind soul, asserts that "all lives are equal". However, the hospital director thinks differently, as he prioritizes the hospital's prestige over lives hanging between life and death, preferring to assign the more "illustrious" patients to the phenomenal Tenma, while the less fortunate patients are left to less skilled doctors in desperate cases. His life changes when, in 1986, he finds himself having to treat a boy about 10 years old, a victim (according to an official police statement) of an armed robbery at his home. The parents are dead, and the boy's sister is in a total state of shock, unable to speak. At the moment he is tasked with treating the mayor instead of the poor boy, time stops for Tenma, who finally decides to rebel against his boss, managing to save the boy at the last minute after a highly delicate brain operation to remove a lodged bullet. The mayor dies. His boss becomes indignant against Tenma, demotes him to a lower role within the hospital, and Tenma's fiancée (a malicious woman, incidentally the daughter of the hospital director) distances herself from poor Kenzo. Kenzo is then fired and, in a moment of weakness, declares, in front of the boy, Johan, that he wishes them dead.

While out drinking, now desperate, Tenma learns the next day of tragic news: his employer and colleagues who replaced him have been killed (poisoned), and moreover, Johan and Anna (Johan's sister) have disappeared. Tenma's situation flips once again, and he finally achieves a prestigious title at the hospital, which he holds for 9 years. Suffice it to say there are strong suspicions that Tenma himself was the killer, with a certain Lunge, a meticulous and brilliant detective, taking an interest in the case and trying to solve it for 9 years, especially as the murders continue year after year without apparent resolution.

In 1995, however, a drastic event occurs. A patient is admitted and claims to have been a criminal for a "monster," telling everything to the good Tenma. One night, Tenma notices that the patient has disappeared and finds him on a terrace. He is killed by Johan. That's right, the boy is a brutal criminal, serial killer, and it was probably him who killed those who ruined poor Tenma's life. Tenma is quite confused. But what did he do wrong? Did he really err by saving him? Should Johan have died that day?

Tenma's existential doubt persists and, for a full 8 (deluxe) volumes, Tenma tries to solve this mystery; on one hand, he wants to kill him, on the other hand, if he did, he would betray his ideals. But the biggest question you will ask yourself will be this: "Who is the monster?"

There is no solution. We are all Monsters deep inside, some more, some less, but monsters we remain, forever, unable to suppress our nature. Ideals do not exist, as they are dismantled by facts, and when we think we've made the right decision, well, the world might suddenly crumble beneath our feet, and we continue to fall into the endless abyss of existential doubt. Even the seemingly most "weak" and at the same time minor characters will show enormous inner conflicts and prove important to the plot, whether clearly or marginally.

Johan himself presents an inner conflict, constantly teetering between his dark, haunting past and his desperate desire to be understood, loved for who he is. "Help me," he leaves messages around, searching for a savior.

The finale itself, which of course I will not tell you about, is psychological, makes you reflect on humanity, and proves that the world is governed not only by rationality but also by chaos, disorder, paranoia, terror, the fear of having made a mistake...

We are all monsters, all of us...