Naoki Urasawa is one of the modern greats of manga. This is not an arguable statement. Everything he writes is intriguing, entertaining, and suspenseful. All of Urasawa’s work that I have read feels like a natural evolution of Tezuka’s seinen stories, and Monster is no exception.
Monster follows Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a gifted Japanese brain surgeon living in Germany, as he flees from the police and attempts to find Johan and fix the mistake he had made years prior when he saved Johan’s life on the operating table. This plunges him into a world of mystery, political intrigue, and murder. The book forces the reader to ask themselves several questions. What if the right thing to do isn’t always the right thing to do? What makes a person a monster? What does it mean to be wanted or unwanted, and how does that affect a child? All this and more as the story unravels and more questions are asked and answered.
The story itself is told extraordinarily well. The pace is excellent, with very few lulls in story and natural breaks where they need to be. It is tightly woven, with no noticeable plot holes and plenty of foreshadowing and metaphor. The resolution is satisfying, putting each character where they should be in a believable way, while not leaving me hungry for more. As always, Urasawa’s art is gorgeous. The amount of facial expression he is able to get onto each character all while keeping each distinct is astounding. Urasawa is one of few mangaka I know of who can draw a face so simply but so accurately that I have absolutely no question as to the person’s ethnic background. Japanese characters look Japanese, German characters look German, Turkish characters look Turkish, etc.
Although I preferred 20th Century Boys, the only other lengthy Urasawa manga I have read, to Monster, it is an excellent book and is one of the stories that truly lets the art form shine. There are some similarities between the two works, common elements and Urasawa’s particular style of storytelling and withholding of information, but this is to be expected. Monster will draw you in and make you read all 162 chapters as fast as you possibly can.

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