Urasawa Naoki’s Monster

A man on the run, framed for murders he didn’t commit, hounded by police wherever he goes. The only way to clear his name is to uncover the real murderer and the truth by himself. Sounds familiar? Monster is not The Fugitive, nor does it strive to be. It is a comic that successfully navigates the line between psychological thriller and complex mystery. What starts out as a seemingly routine excursion emerges into a more complex and satisfying arena above anything most readers anticipate.

The comic opens in 1986 West Germany, before the Berlin Wall was taken down. The protagonist is Tenma, a celebrated Japanese doctor, a man who has it all – talent, reputation, a beautiful finance, and a promising future. His life takes a sharp turn when he refuses to operate on the mayor of the city, opting instead to help a bullet-wounded boy, who was brought into the hospital earlier. Tenma believes “life is all equal.” His failure to play politics erases the path that is laid for him; he loses his elite status in the hospital and his materialistic finance.

The boy he saved, Johan, emerges again ten years later, not as a grateful patient, but as an emotionless killer! The genius doctor can not believe his generosity has inadvertently unleashed a ‘monster.’ To make matters worse, the authorities suspect Tenma of Johan’s crimes. Tenma becomes a fugitive on the run; along the way he gathers information of Johan’s mysterious past. From there on Monster ultimately metamorphoses into something unexpected and startling. The story slowly reveals the shocking past of Johan, involving a horrible ‘human testing’ camp, the motives of a secret organization in Czechoslovakia, etc. Monster contains a major surprise. It is foreshadowed (I won’t mention it here) and allows the reader to play a bit of detective before the final revelation.

One of the cleverest aspects of Monster is the way which the cartoonist Urasawa Naoki enables two parallel stories to exist separately until they merge at the right moment. The flashbacks of Johan’s past, and the intriguing investigation by Tenma, are both equally powerful elements that contribute to the comic’s suspense. Unlike pulp mysteries, Monster doesn’t wait until the final moments to shock the audience. There is still plenty of story to be told once the truth is revealed, and at least one more twist to be navigated.

Monster is a well-wrought comic with flair, style, and intelligence that makes readers think (even Hollywood has adopted a screenplay for Monster). It bewilders me why the Japanese would jump on the overrated Da Vinci Code when they have a comic that outweighs it in every single aspect.

Written by Paul Tsai (Bungo-Ono City) and originally appeared in The Tombo Times, March 2006.